The following is a letter provided by the APEA Election Chair, Johnny Grasso. He has announce that the APEA elections will be taking place in March. The filing deadline is Thursday, February 12, 2009 by 2:00pm.
To my distinguished brothers and sisters of the APEA,

As Election Chair it is my privilege to inform you that elections for your Executive Committee and Representative Council are coming up this March. There will also be an APEA Constitutional Amendment placed on the ballot. The exact date and details of the election are to be announced shortly.
As you may already know, any active APEA member can run for any office. If you are interested in running, you must notify me in writing at the high school no later than Thursday, February 12th by 2pm. It is mandatory that you give your full name and the office in which you are running. If you fail to mention the office you will not be put on the ballot.
I look forward to seeing everyone on election day!

Johnny Grasso
Election Chair

Pc: Gena Proctor, Recording Secretary

Students With Interrupted Formal Education Face Great Pressure To Catch Up. The New York Times (1/26, A1, Medina) reports, “New York City classrooms have long been filled with children from all over the world.” And about 15,000 of the “nearly 150,000 students across the city still struggling to learn English…have had little or no formal schooling and are often illiterate in their native languages.” According to the Times, the largest portion “of these students,” classified in New York City schools as Students with Interrupted Formal Education, “come from rural areas of the Dominican Republic, where they did not attend school because it was too far away or because they were working to support their families.” The state does not provide any additional funding for Students with Interrupted Formal Education, and “educators who work with such students, and experts who study their problems, say that teenagers who arrive unable to read in any language face tremendous pressure to earn an independent living while racing to catch up on more than a decade of academic building blocks.”

In the Classroom
Some See Algebra II Graduation Requirement As Civil Rights Issue. The Washington Post (1/26, B1, Chandler) reports that “behind the surface similarities, experts say, there can be wide variations in what students learn in a course seen as critical to developing a math-savvy workforce for the digital age.” Several states and the District of Columbia “have made Algebra II, or an equivalent course, a must for a high school diploma.” And “some advocates of expanding access to higher math said that making Algebra II a uniform expectation is a civil rights issue because the course is widely considered an important bridge to college — a bridge that many poor or minority students miss.” Meanwhile, in Maryland and Virginia, educators say that “it is important for the course to remain challenging.” Currently in both states, “officials estimate that two-thirds of the students…take the course now.” The Post notes that of Virginia, Maryland, and the District, “only Virginia requires Algebra II students to take a standardized test to show they have learned the material.”

Some Florida Educators Fear NCLB’s Focus On Low-Performers Shortchanges Others.

To: APEA Membership

From: APEA Negotiations Team

Re: Negotiations Update

Date: January 23, 2009

The Negotiations Team sat down last Thursday evening to review each side’s proposal and give some preliminary comments on what was requested. The word of the evening was “No”. Both sides disagreed considerably with what was requested in the proposals. This is not unusual for a first negotiation session. The meeting lasted a little more than two hours. In our future meetings, we will begin to come to some agreements.

As stated in earlier updates, there will be a lot of heated discussions about the individual items that have been placed in the proposals. The team will be reviewing the comments from this meeting and will be preparing for the next meeting which is scheduled for February 3, 2009. A fair and equitable contract is all we will accept.

We will continue to keep everyone updated as we have information to present.

Students In “Post-Racial” Era Seen As Being Challenged By Some Historical Subjects. The Washington Post (1/21, B1, Shapira) reports that Advanced Placement English students at Cardozo High School in Northwest Washington were “among the first in the nation — perhaps the first — to study” the novel A Mercy by Toni Morrison. “With the nation’s first African American president set to take office and the term ‘post-racial’ moving into cultural currency, major questions hovered within the purple walls of Room 115: Would the teens connect with Morrison’s rendering of America’s racial past? Could the advanced class comprehend her complex style?” Based on the class discussion, the Post notes, “the book’s treatment of race was somewhat disconcerting for this generation of students, and its prose style was challenging.” According to Howard University Professor Eleanor Taylor, “young students tend to read Morrison from a less overtly racial perspective and might not be drawn instinctively to literature about historical subjects such as slavery or segregation.”

In the Classroom
Detroit School Sees Success With NCLB Tutoring. The Detroit Free Press (1/20, Walsh-Sarnecki) reported Detroit’s Harding Elementary School “was a dismally low-performing school” with Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) scores that “failed to beat the Detroit Public Schools average in every category. But just two years later, Harding’s MEAP scores exceeded the district’s average in everything but fifth-grade science and Harding would have made Adequate Yearly Progress if math scores for fourth-grade special-education students were higher.” Although, No Child Left Behind’s tutoring program is given partial credit for student’s progress, the Free Press adds that “Harding also goes beyond the federal requirements, giving parents their choice of five tutoring programs,” with all tutors being certified teachers, and “school staff members actively recruit students for tutoring.”

Students At Florida Elementary School Go On Field Trip To Bookstore.

Many Teachers In Wichita, Kansas Plan To Incorporate Inauguration Into Daily Lessons. The Wichita (KS) Eagle (1/15, Tobias) reports, “Most suburban districts are in session Tuesday, and many teachers say they plan to use the” inauguration of Barack Obama “in daily lessons.” Meanwhile, “Wichita teachers, including LaCosse, say they plan to talk about it when students return Wednesday.” The Wichita Eagle lists several suggestions by area teachers for making “Inauguration Day a teaching moment for youngsters.” Joel Schaefer, head of social studies at Andover High School, suggested that children “go online to find Martin Luther King Jr.’ s Letter from Birmingham Jail and Barack Obama’s speech on race, which he delivered in Philadelphia during the campaign last spring.” Schaefer said, “Reading those two, you can see connections between the promise of the civil rights movement and the progress we’ve made. … Talk about what’s been done and what more needs to be done,” he added. Other suggestions were to “talk about civil rights” and “discuss the oath of office.” The Wichita Eagle notes that the National Education Association (NEA) has “developed lesson plans and suggested reading lists related to Inauguration Day.”

Elementary School Counselor Teaches Character Through Book About President-Elect Obama. The De Soto (KS) Explorer (1/15, Kieler) reports, “The lesson Starside [Elementary School] students are learning as school counselor, Paula Henderson, read each class the book Barack is that character counts.” The book tells about the life of president-elect Barack Obama. “‘I’m using it for character education,’ Henderson said.

Los Angeles School District Will Send Out School Report Cards This Week. The Los Angeles Times (1/12, Blume) reports, “Parents in Los Angeles this week will receive a one-page report card that will provide a less varnished and more accessible picture of how well their child’s school is doing.” The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) “has been collecting information on individual students for about a decade,” but “in the past, the district leaned heavily toward” releasing only “data that demonstrated success or progress while downplaying or submerging difficult truths,” according to Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines. The high school report cards that will be released this week, however, “will provide more accurate dropout figures and display, for example, how many students are proficient in English and math — and whether that number is going up or down.” The Times points out that “One element missing from the report card is a summary score or grade for each school. Cortines said he is inclined to leave it that way.”

In the Classroom
Fifth-Grade Teacher Uses Athletic Themes To Keep Students Interested In Learning. The Burlington (NC) Times News (1/12, Wilder) reports that Michelle Thompson, a fifth-grade teacher at Pleasant Grove Elementary, uses athletic themes as part of her “strategy to keep her students interested in learning.” For instance, students can work “on their reading with a book about NBA player Tracy McGrady,” who “went into the NBA after going to high school at Mt.

California Governor Proposes Cutting Five Days From School Calendar. The Los Angeles Times (1/8, Mehta) reports that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s (R) proposal “to shorten the school year by five days is” estimated to the state about $1.1 billion. State Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said the proposal would be especially “devastating” for “‘low-income students and students of color’…because affluent districts are more likely to be able to pay for the five days themselves while poorer districts will be forced to eliminate those teaching days.” Many educators and parents also do not support the idea of eliminating instruction time. Teachers “say they barely have enough time to fit the state’s academic standards into the existing 180-day calendar.” Some parents, meanwhile, “said that it was an economic issue for them” because they would have to place their children in childcare for the eliminated five days.

In the Classroom
Program Teaches Florida Students Scientific Methods Through Environmental Exploration. The St. Petersburg Times (1/8, Miller) reports that “the outdoor classroom offers a unique opportunity to learn — especially when it comes to subjects like science.” Chasco Middle School in Port Richey is piloting the Learning In Florida’s Environment (LIFE) “program that, depending on funding, will continue to be implemented for some Chasco Middle students over the next 3.5 years.” LIFE is “a collaboration between the Department of Environmental Protection and the Pasco County School District,” and is being administered in 12 “school districts throughout Florida.” It is geared toward “underprivileged or underserved schools.” Throughout the school year, students in the LIFE program attend “three field trips to conduct on-site experiments at Werner Boyce Park and the Pasco Schools’ Energy and Marine Center in Port Richey.” They “learn scientific methods and field skills while exploring.”

Educators Consider How Best To Teach Middle School-Aged Students.

Millennial Generation Seen As Increasingly Cursive Illiterate. The Barre Montpelier (VT) Times Argus (1/5, Nix) reports, “Over the past decade, teachers and secondary students across the country have reported a trend that their parents and grandparents could scarcely imagine: The millennial generation is increasingly cursive illiterate.” According to Elizabeth Wihtol, “who teaches third grade in California,” cursive is “almost being forced out” of the elementary school curriculum due to “the priorities of No Child Left Behind.” And “some cursive proponents say the problem is exacerbated by teacher credentialing programs that no longer train potential teachers on cursive instruction.” Other teachers point out that “while cursive fluency often makes elementary kids feel like grown-ups, this rite of passage often loses its currency once kids hit middle school.” At that point, “pupils mastering complex content may be more of a priority than perfectly formed cursive script.” Yet some “studies show that learning cursive helps children’s brain synapses to develop because it requires fluid movement, eye-hand coordination and fine motor skill development.”

In the Classroom
Florida District Partners With College Board To Provide Free SAT For Every Junior. The St. Petersburg Times (1/5, Stein) reports that the Hillsborough County [FL] School District “plans to offer one free [SAT] to every junior, saving families around $45.” The district is able to offer juniors one free SAT because of a partnership “with the organization that administers the SAT — the College Board — to redesign the academic experience in its middle and high schools…known as the EXCELerator model.” According to the St.

Chicago School Reform Model Could Provide National Template.
The Washington Post (12/30, A1, Glod) reports on its front page that Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan, “President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for education secretary,” has implemented a student “performance-pay plan and a host of other innovations to transform a school system once regarded as one of the country’s worst. As Duncan heads to Washington, the lessons of Chicago could provide a model for fixing America’s schools.” The Post adds, “With a 408,000-student system, smaller than only New York’s and Los Angeles’s public schools, Chicago has become a laboratory for reform in Duncan’s seven-year tenure. Officials here court new charter schools, teacher training is being reinvented, and some low-performing schools have been shuttered and reopened with new staff. … For the most part, the changes came with little organized opposition, except for some skirmishes with the teachers union.”

In the Classroom
Florida Schools Failing To Meet Federal Standards.
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel (12/30, Weber, Postal) reports, “More than 1,000 Florida public schools do not meet federal academic standards and are drifting toward failure. Although some of these schools earn A’s and B’s under the state grading system, they cannot show success on the long checklist required under the federal government’s controversial No Child Left Behind law.” According to the Sun-Sentinel, “More than 70 percent of Florida’s eligible schools are not on track to satisfy the 7-year-old law, which demands that campuses receiving federal money meet tough academic standards.”

Massachusetts Music Program Teaches Students How To Play For Audience.

I hope everyone had a restful and relaxing vacation. Our updates will continue to given by the NEA as soon as we receive them. Please also stay informed by visting this website daily.
More Schools Nationwide Sharing Space. The New York Times (12/20, A1, Gootman) reported on its front page that in New York City, 42 percent “of 1,577 traditional public and charter schools, with more than a quarter of the city’s 1 million-plus students, now cohabit with at least one other school, and as many as five. And throughout the country, as large failing high schools are replaced with small ones and independently run charters, the days when a school was defined by its building, with its principal as mayor, are starting to go the way of the slide rule and card catalog.” The Times noted that in Chicago, “under the leadership of Arne Duncan — President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee to be secretary of education — sharing space has gone from a rare phenomenon to now include 12 percent of schools, including charters. In Los Angeles, officials plan to break up many campuses with more than 1,000 students starting in 2010 — a task that will be eased by the fact that many consist of multiple buildings.”

In the Classroom
Schools Throughout Tampa Bay Signing Freshmen Up For AP Courses. The St.