September 2008
1 post
Less affordable colleges may get 'F,' land on Wall... →
Interesting take on calling out colleges with out of control costs. Not sure what impact it’ll have though.
Colleges beware: One more tuition hike and your name might just end up on a new federal Wall of Shame.
The College Opportunity and Affordability Act, signed Aug. 14 by President Bush, will require the Department of Education to post online the colleges and universities with the...
August 2008
4 posts
AP: Akron eyes sewage system deal for scholarships →
My hometown mayor is getting creative in an attempt to get local kids to stay and attend the University of Akron:
Mayor Don Plusquellic has proposed leasing the city-owned sewage system to a private contractor for up to $200 million and using the money to finance college scholarships for Akron’s public high school graduates.
It’s a novel idea, but the 100 city workers who run the...
Texas school district letting teachers carry guns →
Wow. Or perhaps why? That’s all I can say.
A tiny Texas district will allow teachers and staff members to carry concealed firearms to deter and protect against school shootings when classes begin this month, provided the gun-toting employees follow certain requirements.
The small community of Harrold in north Texas is a 30-minute drive from the Wilbarger County Sheriff’s Office,...
Beat Blogging: Blog readers lead to A1 story for... →
A reader’s tip about a new, lax grading policy led to a blog post that led to outrage among the Dallas teachers in the blog’s comments. That outrage led to a great A1 story about this:
Dallas public school students who flunk tests, blow off homework and miss assignment deadlines can make up the work without penalty, under new rules that have angered many teachers.
Read the story: DISD...
SF Asst. Principal Arrested For Pimping - News... →
Now, that’s an interesting side career for a school principa:
SAN JOSE — The assistant principal of a San Francisco high school has been arrested on pimping charges.
San Jose police say they arrested Gerald Courtney, the assistant principal at Galileo High School, and his accomplice Hsiu Hwa Chou for allegedly running two brothels in San Jose. Both are charged with felony pimping and...
July 2008
5 posts
Call for Chicago students to skip 1st school day -... →
CHICAGO (AP) — Community leaders on Monday called on students from poorer parts of Chicago to protest inequalities in school funding by skipping the first day of classes.
“Today we are back to two-tiered schools — white and affluent on one side, and black, brown and poor on the other,” said Meeks, who also is a minister on the city’s South Side. “That’s an injustice...
Study: IPS graduates just 19 percent of black... →
“INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A study shows Indianapolis Public Schools have the lowest graduation rate for black male students among 63 urban districts nationwide.
School leaders say they’re working to turn around the statistics. In the 2005-06 school year, just 19 percent of black males and 19 percent of while males graduated from IPS, according to the rankings compiled by the Schott...
Cleaner Classrooms Mean Fewer Sick Kids - New York... →
In some classrooms, teachers used disinfecting wipes on student desks, and students used hand sanitizers in the classroom before and after lunch. In other classrooms, students and teachers followed usual hand-washing and cleaning procedures but weren’t given specific products or instruction.
Over eight weeks, researchers tracked the frequency of absences and the reasons for missing school. Study...
“They were traumatized, but we wanted them to be traumatized,” said...”
– School uses bogus student crash deaths to dramatize drunken driving dangers - The Daily Breeze
The Columbus Dispatch : Ohio will try new system... →
Indiana is one of the other states picked for this. From the Dispatch’s story, note especially the last quote here because I’ve heard that from so many people:
Although it’s unclear how the change will affect districts — new test scores and yearly growth data will be released this summer — it’s clearer why the changes were made. Some suburban school districts...
June 2008
8 posts
Holding Back Young Students - Is Program a Gift or... →
IPS mulls cutting Wednesdays short | IndyStar.com... →
Indianapolis Public Schools students would get Wednesday afternoons off next school year so teachers could attend training sessions under a new district plan.
Superintendent Eugene White said teachers and administrators would use that extra 90 minutes to better learn fresh teaching methods and collaborate with colleagues.
“Teachers need a common time to plan each week,” White said. “We have...
AP: Schools experiment with paying kids →
WASHINGTON (AP) — Friday is payday at KIPP DC: KEY Academy, and some sixth-grade girls gather at the makeshift school store trying to decide how to spend their hard-earned money.
They received paychecks for behaving well, doing their homework or making academic gains. The money is pretend. But it can be used at the store for genuine items such as pens capped with fluffy feathers, pencil...
Full text of Obama's education speech - The Denver... →
Sen. Barack Obama’s speech, “What’s Possible for Our Children,” was delivered at Mapleton Expeditionary School of the Arts in Thornton on Wednesday…
PD: Cleveland teacher retires; his fight for... →
Now that he is retiring, Cleveland teacher Gene Tracy says he will be less diplomatic in criticizing the district.
That’s hard to imagine. Tracy, 57, has harangued school officials for nearly three decades. And if he ever exercised restraint, it wasn’t apparent.
Tracy, whose last class was Wednesday, began staging dramatic displays of displeasure as a new teacher in 1981. He tossed a...
School super really isn’t into this whole Wicked... →
Is commencement address really the time to call blogging a “gimmick from a dying industry” ? I want to know the background of this comment.
Education | School's culture failed to stop abuser... →
In April, Seattle Public Schools settled a lawsuit filed on behalf of two of Hill’s victims for $3 million. Depositions, personnel files and other records from that lawsuit expose a school’s culture of fear and confusion, and they explain how Hill managed to remain a teacher for so long.
At least 30 times since the late 1980s, teachers and staff warned administrators at North...
Graduating high school seniors roll the dice with... →
The elite college wait-list turned acceptances aren’t having the predicted trickle down effect. But some kids are still holding out hope for their top choice.
May 2008
6 posts
Toughest Summer Job This Year Is Finding One -... →
Finding a summer job is even tougher for teens as trying economic times continue: As the forces of economic downturn ripple widely across the United States, the job market of 2008 is shaping up as the weakest in more than half a century for teenagers looking for summer work, according to labor economists, government data and companies that hire young people. This deterioration is jeopardizing...
Schools skittish on extra levies | The Journal... →
Interesting take on referendum funds for local schools and why so few schools take that route:Public school districts have the option of establishing an extra fund in their budgets and raising residents’ property taxes to collect money for it. Officials must ask the residents in their districts to vote on the matter at the ballot box as part of a referendum and the money is good for a maximum of...
AP: Teacher ousted for calling student's father a... →
MICHIGAN CITY - A high school teacher accused of calling the Muslim father of one of his students a terrorist will not be back next school year.
Social Promotion - Arizona Daily Star, Tucson AZ →
Why are some students promoted to the next grade even when they fail essential classes? The examination of this phenomenon - called social promotion - in eight Tucson-area school districts draws upon millions of records obtained by the Arizona Daily Star during the course of a 10-month investigation. It shows that in almost every school in the metro area, students are failing to meet basic...
DMRegister: Photos give glimpse into students'... →
This is such a simple and yet awesome school project. I can’t think of a class that wouldn’t benefit.
NYTimes: The Stress of College Applications →
As the frenzied admissions season winds to a close, many students finally know where they will be attending college in the fall. But there remains a troubling question: how much damage was done along the way?
April 2008
10 posts
Ohio.com: Many schools charge thousands for... →
Tallmadge, Ohio, near Akron apparently will charge $2,500 this year for kids to be in full-day kindergarten. I didn’t realize this was an issue in Ohio as in Indiana. But seriously, I hear plenty of moaning about $50/week or $1,800/yr for some districts. This is a lot more than that.
NYTimes: Education Secretary Offers Changes to ‘No... →
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings used her executive powers on Tuesday to propose a series of ninth-inning regulatory fixes to President Bush’s signature education law, No Child Left Behind, including requiring states to use a single federal formula to calculate and report high school graduation rates. Ms. Spellings also wants to require schools to notify parents of their right to...
Clueless in America - New York Times →
The nation’s future may depend on how well we educate the current and future generations, but (like the renovation of the nation’s infrastructure, or a serious search for better sources of energy) that can wait. At the moment, no one seems to have the will to engage any of the most serious challenges facing the U.S. An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. That’s more than a...
After a Facebook Scandal, Horace Mann Is Forced to... →
When students created Facebook pages that viciously attacked a teacher, and when their wealthy parents on the school’s board defended them, Horace Mann was forced to confront a series of questions: Is a Facebook page private, like a diary? Is big money distorting private-school education? And what values is a school supposed to teach?
School Board News: Newspapers give parents... →
The Atlantic: First, Kill All the School Boards →
Is local control better? Or is lack of educational autonomy crippling the U.S. education system and holding our kids back from competeing with other nations?
Schools Get A Lesson in Lunch Line Economics -... →
From the article: Sharp rises in the cost of milk, grain and fresh fruits and vegetables are hitting cafeterias across the country, forcing cash-strapped schools to raise prices or pinch pennies by serving more economical dishes. Some school officials on a mission to help fight childhood obesity say it’s becoming harder to fill students’ plates with healthy, low-fat foods.
The Schrammie: Hard to stretch $100k salaries →
At this seattle school district 93 of the administrators get $1,800 to purchase personal technology — for themselves. I wonder what if any similar financial perks your local schools are offering.
School computer wipes out grades | IndyStar.com |... →
Two thoughts on this one: That sucks. LOL.
Ed Week: Spellings: States Will Have to Follow... →
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings says there should — and will — be one standard for calculating graduation rates whether you’re up here in Indiana or across the county in California or down south in Florida. A formula isn’t set in stone, though it sounds similar to Indiana’s current system. But it will be interesting to watch here in Indiana, where 2006 was the first year...
March 2008
11 posts
PBS/I, Cringely . The Pulpit: War of the Worlds:... →
An interesting thought about what technology could mean for schools/education on a large scale: Technology is beginning to assail the underlying concepts of our educational system - a system that’s huge and rich and so far fairly immune to economic influence. But the support structure for those hallowed and not so hallowed halls has always been parents willing to pay tuition and alumni...
“If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time,...”
– Edgar W. Howe
STL P-D: Retired city teacher now helps Jennings... →
Schools are calling on retired teachers more and more to help out and pitch in where needs go unfunded and unfulfilled.
AP: Conn. 8th-grader suspended for buying Skittles... →
Wow. This seems a bit ridiculous: Contraband candy has led to big trouble for an eighth-grade honors student in Connecticut. Michael Sheridan was stripped of his title as class vice president, barred from attending an honors student dinner and suspended for a day after buying a bag of Skittles from a classmate. School spokeswoman Catherine Sullivan-DeCarlo says the New Haven school system...
Az. Republic: Shrinking budgets mean fewer school... →
Doesn’t bode well for the wanna-be school librarians of the world. (Like my friend Melissa, who is an elem. librarian in NY this year and so far not next. She is a victim of this same problem.) Like most other states, Arizona has no dedicated funding for libraries and no law requiring school libraries to exist. The fate of the libraries and librarians is up to district officials. ...
Study: Mean Girls, Bullies = Popular School... →
Here’s part of this press release: The researchers surveyed nearly 600 boys and girls, starting in the 4th grade through the 12th grade, in a public school system in a working class community in the Northeast from 1995-2004. The study found that physical aggression helped popularity in the earlier grades but not as the children grew older. Membership in physically aggressive cliques tended...
AP: State reaches out to teenagers to avoid... →
I’m not necessarily disagreeing. But I do have to say I’m skeptical of any survey that finds more teens pack a weapon than are overweight… especially in Indiana, which has one of the highest obesity rates in the country. INDIANAPOLIS - The numbers were sobering: One in five Indiana high school students had packed a weapon. More than half had tried cigarettes, and nearly half had...
Newsvine - Investing Joins 3 R's at Unusual School →
This is an interesting curriculum addition: »The Ariel school is an experiment in financial literacy with real-life oomph: Each incoming first-grade class gets $20,000 that the children ultimately get to pick stocks for and manage. The goal is to add an I — investing — to the three R’s, according John Rogers Jr., chairman and chief executive of Ariel Capital Management, the...
NYTimes: At Charter School, Higher Teacher Pay →
A New York City charter school set to open in 2009 in Washington Heights will test one of the most fundamental questions in education: Whether significantly higher pay for teachers is the key to improving schools. The school, which will run from fifth to eighth grades, is promising to pay teachers $125,000, plus a potential bonus based on schoolwide performance. That is nearly twice as much as...
How Dangerous Is the Internet for Children? - New... →
Basically, David Pogue’s argument (which I agree with) is the hype around online predators is over-reported and sensationalized. I started getting online — and even *gasp* sharing personal information — when I was 10 years old. Twelve years later, I turned out just fine. But read his take, he’s more an expert than I am.
Slate: A depressing survey of what high-schoolers... →
When did Columbus set sail for the New World? Who wrote The Canterbury Tales? In the Bible, what is Job known for? Who was Adolf Hitler?These aren’t exactly brainteasers, but when the new education-advocacy group Common Core posed these and 30 similar questions about history and literature to 1,200 17-year-old high-school students (below on the following four pages), it discovered that...
February 2008
29 posts
Education Reporting Awards Contest Winners →
The 2008 winners. I’ll be perusing them. Some I’ve already read. All of them are good and will be helpful to learn from.
School suspends kindergarten student over Mohawk... →
Michelle Barile is defending her 6-year-old son’s right to have a Mohawk, even though the haircut got him suspended from a kindergarten class in Parma, Ohio. “I understand they have a dress code,” she tells The Plain-Dealer. “I understand he has a uniform. But this is total discrimination. They’re singling out my son. They can’t tell me how I can cut his...
NYTimes: Fewer Youths Jump Behind the Wheel at 16 →
DETROIT — For generations, driver’s licenses have been tickets to freedom for America’s 16-year-olds, prompting many to line up at motor vehicle offices the day they were eligible to apply. No longer. In the last decade, the proportion of 16-year-olds nationwide who hold driver’s licenses has dropped from nearly half to less than one-third, according to statistics from the Federal Highway...
AP: Georgia school system plans to separate boys... →
GREENSBORO, Ga. - Nearly four decades after this rural Georgia county stopped segregating its schools by race, it wants to divide students again - this time by sex. Greene County is set to become the first school district in the nation to go entirely single-sex, with boys and girls in separate classrooms - a move born of desperation over years of poor test scores, soaring dropout rates and high...