In a front-page story, the New York Times (10/30, A1, Gootman, Gebeloff) reports, “The number of children entering New York City public school gifted programs dropped by half this year from last under a new policy intended to equalize access, with 28 schools lacking enough students to open planned gifted classes, and 13 others proceeding with fewer than a dozen children.” In addition, the policy has not diversified gifted classes, “according to a New York Times analysis of new Education Department data. In a school system in which 17 percent of kindergartners and first graders are white, 48 percent of this year’s new gifted students are white, compared with 33 percent of elementary students admitted to the programs under previous entrance policies.” There are also more Asian gifted students that African American or Hispanic gifted students. “City officials said that in an effort to broaden next year’s gifted enrollment, they planned to create citywide programs based in Brooklyn and Queens…and begin all gifted programs in kindergarten.”

New from Janet Allen! More Tools for Teaching Content Literacy puts 25 new research-based strategies-from Expert Groups to Point-of-View Guides to Wordstorming-at your fingertips, with reproducible graphic organizers, models, and step-by-step instructions. 46 pp/spiral-bound flipchart; just $12.

The New York Times (10/27, A21, Hu) reports that Pelham Memorial High School in Westchester County is “redefining traditional notions of a college-preparatory education and allowing students to pursue specialized interests that once were relegated to after-school clubs and weekend hobbies.” Students can now take guitar lessons, “enact military battles, and…build solar-powered cars — all during school hours, and for credit.” Several “other high-performing school districts have [also] begun to expand their course catalogs with electives.” For instance, “in New Jersey, Ridgewood High School is bringing back woodworking and adding global economics, 3-D animation and seven other electives over the next two years to encourage students to cultivate interests beyond traditional subjects and to demonstrate the depth and seriousness of study that appeal to colleges.” According to Richard A. Flanary, senior director of an administrators’ union, “much of the demand for electives comes from parents and students who see them as a way to round out transcripts for entrance to elite colleges.”

The things that teachers say (and don’t say) have important consequences for the literate lives of their students. In Choice Words , Peter Johnston uses dozens of examples of words and phrases to illustrate how “instructional talk” shapes intellectual development. 120 pp/$12.

The Chicago Tribune (10/20, Malone) reports, “The percent of 17-year-olds who do not read for pleasure has doubled in the past 20 years, according to a recent study by the National Endowment for the Arts. Just 43 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds said they read literature in 2002, continuing a decline that began two decades earlier.” Meanwhile, “the drop in how much teens read outside of class has spurred changes in what they read inside it, teachers say.” For example, “many educators pair old novels with newer books or media” to keep students’ attention. Bookstore operator Becky Anderson has also joined the effort. Anderson’s bookshop “brings contemporary authors to schools and coordinates reading clubs in Naperville schools. In one of the programs, elementary age students read and react to manuscripts being considered by publisher HarperCollins.” Anderson said she hopes the program “will cultivate a love of reading before the teen years.”

AP (10/16, Hunter) reports, “Smaller school buses will have to be equipped with lap-and-shoulder seat belts for the first time under a government rule drafted following the deaths of four Alabama students on a school bus that nose-dived off an overpass.” The law, which takes effect in 2011, will require that seat belts be installed only “in new buses weighing five tons or less.” Additionally, “larger buses…will have higher seat backs under the new policy. … The design change is supposed to keep older, heavier students from being thrown over the seats in a collision.” According to U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, “she stopped short of requiring seat belts for larger buses because that could limit the number of children that can squeeze into seats, forcing some children to travel in ways that aren’t as safe as school buses.”

        “Public Citizen, a highway safety advocacy group, said the new rules don’t go far enough,” Bloomberg News (10/15, Keane) noted. In a statement, Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook said, “‘Our enthusiasm for those improvements is tempered’ by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration’s ‘inability to resolve the question of whether seat belts should be installed in large school buses.’”

        While government officials did encourage “a combination of lap and shoulder belts on large school buses, [they] did not require it,” in part because they said that “the cost of seat belts should not be imposed on school districts when school buses are already, for the most part, very safe,” noted ABC News (10/15, Barrett, Stark).

(Change of Venue from the Schedule)

The Lake House

Friday – October 17, 2008

Happy Hour Prices

 Starting at 3:00pm

Visit with old friends and meet new ones!

 Outdoor seating available – weather permitting!

Don’t forget to visit our website:www.asburyparkea.net and Sign in

Education Week (10/13, Sawchuck) reported that last week, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings “turned her attention to teacher quality in an Oct. 8 roundtable discussion with about a dozen performance-pay experts at the Department of Education’s headquarters.” The purpose of the meeting “was to gain feedback on the federal role in supporting performance pay,” but “much of the conversation focused on issues that are typically decided locally.” One of the issues discussed was how to structure performance-pay “programs to bridge traditional salary schedules, which base teachers’ pay on a combination of their experience and the credentials they hold, with schedules that differentiate pay based on student outcomes.” Spellings pointed out that “federal officials ‘have not played a role in salary structures, and some…do not want to play a role’ in altering those structures.” Nevertheless, “she expressed a desire to keep the ball moving on performance pay after she leaves office.”