Updates and Information Provided by NEA
Some Object To Teachers Showing Obama Speech In Class.
The Salt Lake Tribune (9/3, Schencker, Stewart) reports, “Some Utah parents have already made up their minds about a speech President Barack Obama plans to give to students about the importance of education: They don’t want their children watching it.” The speech will be “broadcast live online at 10 a.m.” next Tuesday. In it, the President “will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning.” The U.S. Department of Education is urging “schools to join in the ‘historic’ event, even providing age-appropriate classroom activities.” Many conservatives, meanwhile, “in Utah and nationwide, say “they don’t want their kids “forced” to watch the speech, fearing it will eat up precious class time with political or policy messages.” Several Utah districts “are sending letters to principals saying that if they plan to broadcast the speech, they should warn parents and provide alternate activities for students who don’t want to watch it.”
The Houston Chronicle (9/3, Scharrer, Mellon) reports that “some Texas parents are asking school principals to excuse their children from listening to a speech that President Barack Obama will make to schools next week on the grounds that it smacks of political indoctrination.” In the Houston area, most “districts will let principals and teachers decide whether to show Obama’s speech. Some district leaders raised concerns about interrupting already scheduled lessons, while others said students need to hear the president’s expected message of personal responsibility for learning.” Texas Education Agency spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe said, “It is not uncommon for students to watch a presidential speech that is given during the school day.” However, she noted, “This situation is somewhat different in that this speech apparently will be directed to students. But each district can decide how best to handle it for their community.”
White House Revises Lesson Plans To Exclude Writing Prompt About How To “Help President.” The Washington Times (9/3, Mosk) reports that “President Obama’s plan to inspire the nation’s schoolchildren with a video address next week erupted into controversy Wednesday, forcing the White House to pull out its eraser and rewrite a government recommendation that teachers nationwide assign students a paper on how to ‘help the president.’” Many conservative and Republican groups claimed that the assignment was an attempt by the President “to politicize the education system.” Tuesday night, the White House confirmed that the lesson plan would be revised.” And “by Wednesday evening, the sentence asking children to think about how they can ‘help the president’ had been replaced.”
In the Classroom
“Mapping the World” Curriculum Teaches Students To Create World Map From Memory.
USA Today (9/3, Toppo) reports on Mapping the World geography curriculum developed by David J. Smith, a middle-school social studies teacher in Cambridge, MA. The curriculum “teaches students over the course of a school year to create a complete world map from memory.” USA Today notes that schools nationwide “have built entire geography units around it, and teachers in two schools have written original musicals, with 100 students shuffling across stage to represent villagers.”
Nearly One In 10 California Students Fail High School Exit Exam.
Seema Mehta wrote in a L.A. Now blog for the Los Angeles Times (9/2) that this year, nearly 1 in 10 California students “did not pass the state’s high school exit exam, which is required to receive a diploma. The results, which were released this morning, were nearly stagnant compared with the previous year.” Mehta adds that more than 45,000 students “in the class of 2009 have not yet passed the exam, and, as part of the state budget deal, school districts can now spend state funding earmarked for remediation on other needs.”
Turinitin.com Helps Teachers Detect Plagiarized Assignments.
The St. Petersburg Times (9/3, Solochek) reports that teachers at some high schools in Pasco County, FL, are using the “plagiarism-detecting Web site” turnitin.com “to review all student writing assignments.” At Wiregrass Ranch school, for instance, principal Ray Bonti has “decided to have all teachers at Wiregrass Ranch use the site to review all student writing assignments.” One Wiregrass teacher pointed out that “universities increasingly are using turnitin.com or similar programs, making it even more valuable for high school students to” learn early how to use the website. However, “some academics, however, question the value of these programs.” Teresa Fishman, director of the Center for Academic Integrity at Clemson University, for instance, says “that plagiarism detecting software should be used to investigate suspected cases of cheating only.”
On the Job
Teachers In Virginia Explore Ways To Incorporate Chesapeake Bay Into Lesson Plans.
Virginia’s Daily Press (9/3, Williams) reports, “In their search to find new ways to bring the surrounding Chesapeake Bay into their classrooms, teachers from Poquoson (VA) Elementary School found themselves sloshing around in shorts, sneakers, Crocs and sunglasses Tuesday.” The staff development day was meant to show teachers how to incorporate “the watery surroundings even further into the lessons at the environmentally themed school and” to allow “bonding” between the teachers. Half of the day was spent “brainstorming ways” teachers could “incorporate the Chesapeake Bay into their classrooms and what type of field experiences they would like students to participate in.” In the second half, teachers paddled around the Owen’s Marina in Kayaks. According to Bill Portlock, senior bay educator with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, “studies show that environmental education has improved scores on standardized tests as well as student behavior, attendance and attitudes.”
Florida Agency Offers Grants To Teachers For Hands-On Lessons About Local Watersheds.
The St. Petersburg Times (9/3, Ritchie) reports, “The Southwest Florida Water Management District is offering teachers its Splash! Grants,” which “provide up to $5,000 per school.” The grants promote “hands-on lessons about local watersheds and the freshwater resources within them.” They “are for classroom projects that focus on water quality, natural systems, water conservation, alternative water sources, flood protection or watersheds.” The deadline to apply is Sept. 11.
Annual Report Card Gives Most New York City Schools As and Bs.
The New York Times (9/3, A23, Medina, Gebeloff) reports that a “whopping 97 percent of New York’s elementary and middle schools” earned an A or B “on the city’s annual report card.” However, Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein “was tempered in his praise, careful to say that the high marks did not necessarily mean that the city was filled with excellent schools.” According to the Times, last year, 38 percent of elementary and middle schools “got A’s and 41 percent B’s; in 2007, the first year that schools were graded, 23 percent earned an A and 38 percent a B.”
Law & Policy
Indiana Education Officials Seek To Revamp School Accountability Evaluations.
The AP (9/2, Smith) reported that the Indiana Department of Education “wants to change the way school accountability is evaluated, with more emphasis on how students improve over the years instead of focusing mostly on how schools perform on a yearly basis.” Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett “discussed in vague terms an outline of a model Wednesday before the Indiana Education Roundtable, an advisory group that includes lawmakers, educators and business leaders.” Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) “co-chaired the meeting, and said Indiana should adopt some major educational changes that were pushed through in Florida under former Gov. Jeb Bush,” which included a “new accountability system that places more emphasis on struggling students, more charter schools and requiring most third-graders to read before they can move to the fourth grade.”
The Louisville Courier-Journal (9/3, Weidenbener) reports, “Indiana’s education chief plans to seek changes in how the state holds school districts accountable for student achievement” State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett is currently considering policies that would give “schools letter grades like the ones used on report cards…rewarding schools where individual students’ test scores improve over time.” Bennett said that “the current system — which puts schools into categories such as ‘exemplary’ and ‘academic watch’ — isn’t clear enough for the public to understand.” The current system is “based largely on comparing the passing rates of students in specific grades with the passing rates of the same grades the year before.” Bennett “wants Indiana to focus for now on” making its school “accountability system more clear and understandable to the public. He said he hopes to have the new school grading system in place to categorize schools after this spring’s ISTEP-Plus testing.”
Safety & Security
Baltimore Schools Police Chief Works To Curb Violence Among Students.
The Baltimore Sun (9/2, Hermann) reported in the first of a two-part series on efforts by Baltimore schools Police Chief Marshall “Toby” Goodwin to prevent violence among students, noting that he “poured resources into the old William H. Lemmel Middle School complex for several reasons, not the least of it because of last year’s fatal stabbing of a 15-year-old student, allegedly by a 14-year-old classmate.” The school system “closed the troubled Lemmel school and also closed the nearby Homeland Security Academy at Walbrook. The Lemmel complex now has three separate high schools, including the Institute of Business Entrepreneurship.”
Firefighters Decontaminate High School In Denver After Student Spills Mercury In Cafeteria.
The Denver Post (9/3, Nicholson) reports that on Wednesday, “a student at Denver’s Lincoln High School brought mercury to school” and “had to be decontaminated by firefighters.” During lunch, “the student spilled a trace amount” of the mercury “inside the school.” Because “Mercury is a toxic metal” and “exposure to low levels can cause tremors and impaired cognitive skills,” the fire department’s hazardous-materials unit came to the school to clean up the spill “The school did not announce whether the student will face discipline as a result of the incident.”
School Finance
Recession Forcing School Districts Across US To Cut Sports Programs.
USA Today (9/3, Garcia) reports that high schools across the U.S. “are reporting that the recession has led to” cuts to extracurricular programs that are “particularly painful now, as fall sports seasons open. From Hawaii to Rhode Island, school systems are trimming compensation for coaches, eliminating transportation, adding or increasing athletic fees for students, holding fundraising drives, cutting back on night games to save electricity costs and dropping some sports and related events altogether.”
Also in the News
Nebraska High School Facing Widespread Swine Flu Outbreak.
ABC News (9/2, Selyukh) reported on its Web site that when nearly 17 percent “of the student body at Pius X, a Catholic high school” in Lincoln, NE had called in sick or had been sent home due to an apparent swine flu outbreak, Principal Tom Korta realized “this might be the biggest swine flu outbreak the state of Nebraska has seen so far,” and “immediately started making calls: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the county health department, the state epidemiologist.” According to ABC, Pius X administration “didn’t see the swine flu coming this fall and hadn’t really taken any extraordinary precautions, Korta said. The school didn’t even keep a nurse on staff daily.”
The Lincoln (NE) Star Journal (9/3) reports that on Wednesday, 20 percent of Pius X’s 1,065 students were “home sick. But Pius Principal Tom Korta said he has no plans to close school or cancel activities.” According to the Star Journal, school officials “will continue to follow federal guidelines and wait until the germ-ridden storm passes.” In an e-mail to parents Wednesday, Korta said the school “had at least 13 cases of confirmed H1N1. … On Tuesday, 180 Pius students had called in sick or were sent home.” KETV-TV Omaha, NE (9/2) also covered this story.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation To Research Best Indicators Of Excellent Teaching.
Education Week (9/2, Sawchuk) reported that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation “will embark this fall on an ambitious research effort to analyze-and provide some initial answers to-a perennially vexing question in education: What are the best indicators of excellent teaching?” The foundation’s “research partners intend to videotape and examine the teaching practices of 4,000 teachers in New York City, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C.,” and other districts aiming to “arrive at an understanding of the correlation between those practices and student learning.” Also, the foundation “will look at the relationship between student achievement and pupils’ perceptions of their instructors’ effectiveness.”
NEA in the News
NEA, Clorox Offering Teachers Free Disinfecting Wipes Until Sept. 5.
MyNC.com (9/3) reports, “The Clorox Company along with the National Education Association’s Health Network is giving away free disinfecting wipes to teachers.” Teachers can “redeem the offer, while supplies last” at www.cloroxclassrooms.com between Sept. 2 and Sept. 5.
White House Changes Obama Speech Lesson Plans Amid Criticism.
Education Week (9/3, Aarons) reported that the White House and ED officials “scrambled Thursday to reassure school leaders that President Barack Obama’s national speech to schoolchildren next week will touch on important educational goals,” despite criticism from some conservatives that speech aims to “indoctrinate” children with the President’s political views.
ABC News (9/4, Tapper, Travers) reports on its “Political Punch” blog, “White House officials seemed to be caught flat-footed by the response to what they say was a simple back to school address by President Obama to students across the nation — and has turned into a firestorm.” Now, officials admit “that one of the lesson plans surrounding the speech was written clumsily, subjecting it to misinterpretation, and had to be re-written.” The lesson called for students to “Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.” The new plans ask students to “Write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals.” However, ABC points out, the change “has not stopped concern and even outrage in some school districts across the country.” And “some school districts in Texas, Illinois, Virginia, Wisconsin, Missouri and Minnesota are even refusing to show the president’s address.” The Richmond Times Dispatch (9/3, Reid), the Minneapolis Star Tribune (9/4, Blanchette), and the Abilene (TX) Reporter-News (9/4, Bethel) report on how school districts in their respective areas plan to handle the President’s speech.
The Salt Lake Tribune (9/4, Burr, Stewart) reports that “the White House pushed back Thursday against criticisms from conservatives and concerns from parents…about President Barack Obama’s planned address to students next week.” According to the Salt Lake Tribune, “Some of the more extreme critics have used words like ‘re-education’ and ‘indoctrination,’ to describe the speech, one that the conservative Drudge Report news site claimed was ‘unprecedented.’” But White House officials insist that the President’s “speech is not about healthcare reform nor any other item from the White House agenda…but will simply feature the president encouraging students to stay in school and work hard.” The Tribune points out that Obama’s speech “isn’t the first of its kind.” In 1991, “President George H.W. Bush in 1991 spoke to students across the nation in a teleconference that was part of a national space science symposium. He talked about importance of studying math and science.”
PolitiFact Rejects Claim That President Plans To Raise Healthcare, Tax Issues In Speech. In the St. Petersburg Times’ (9/3) PolitiFact blog, Angie Drobnic Holan attempted to debunk the claim by some critics that “schoolchildren across the nation ‘will be forced to watch the president justify his plans for government-run healthcare, banks, and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up” debt when President Obama makes his speech on Tuesday. Holan clarified, that the President’s “speech will be about ‘the importance of persisting and succeeding in school.’” She added that PolitiFact “looked at what Obama intends to talk about in greater detail and found no evidence that he intends to raise controversial policy issues.”
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In the Classroom
Number Of Michigan High Schools Making AYP Jumps Sharply.
The Detroit Free Press (9/4, Higgins) reports that school report cards released on Thursday by the Michigan Department of Education show that “fewer schools are failing to meet state and federal academic goals, more are earning As, and more are pulling themselves out of trouble.” This year, 3,147 schools throughout the state “met the academic goals,” up from “3,003 last year.” The report cards reflect both state and federal “accountability systems.” Although “the report card data” show “schools are making strong improvement in a number of key areas,” The Free Press points out that “the expectations will keep increasing, so schools barely avoiding sanctions this year will have a hard time eking by when they’re required to have greater numbers of students passing state exams next year.”
The AP (9/3, Hoffman) reported that on Thursday, Michigan Department of Education spokeswoman Janet Ellis said “that the improvement came in part because math scores improved among students in third grade through high school, especially among economically disadvantaged students and those with disabilities.” According to the AP, about 93 percent of elementary schools made AYP “in 2008-09, the same percentage as the year before. Ninety-five percent of middle schools did, an increase of 6 percentage points.” The Grand Rapids (MI) Press (9/4, Bickel) also reports the story.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (9/3, Smydo) reported that “results of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, released” Thursday show that “56.5 percent of students in grades three through five scored proficient or advanced in reading.” Although “the target was 63 percent…the district got credit for the goal under the new ‘growth model’ measuring tool created by the state.” In math, “67.8 percent of students in grades three through five scored advanced or proficient, way above the target of 56 percent.”
On the Job
Virginia District Offers Teachers Free Classroom Supplies From Community Donations.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch (9/3, Lizama) reported that the Chesterfield County (VA) school district’s free supply center “is important for teachers as every school budget in the county has been slashed by 20 percent for the 2009-10 school year.” This limits teachers’ spending on classroom supplies. The supply center “opened last week to new teachers and yesterday to all teachers. It will remain open Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons throughout the school year.” Teachers can pick up such items as “furniture, books, pencils, copiers, printers and computers” at the store, which “collects donations from businesses and people in the community. This summer, donations have doubled compared with last year.”
Judge Declares Washington District’s Teacher Strike “Illegal.”
The Seattle Times (9/4, Bartley) reports that on Thursday morning, King County Superior Court Judge Andrea Darvas “declared the Kent teachers’ strike illegal and ordered teachers to report to classrooms on Tuesday, Sept. 8, with classes to resume the next day.” The teachers had been on strike since August 27, “delaying Monday’s scheduled start of the new school year.” Their attorney, Jim Gasper, “had argued that while teachers were public employees they were not like police and fire fighters, subject to binding arbitration and unable to legally strike.” Judge Darvas, however, said, “No Washington court has ever held that teachers have the right to strike.” According to the Seattle Times, “a key question now is whether the district’s 1,700 teachers,” who are “represented by the Kent Education Association,” plan to “obey the judge’s order.”
Law & Policy
Duncan Viewed As Recasting The “Once Predictable Politics” Of Education Reform.
Time (9/4, Cruz) notes that the stimulus bill passed by Congress in February “included $100 billion in new education spending. Of that total,” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “has $5 billion in discretionary funding. That money alone makes him the most powerful Education Secretary ever.” Former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings is quoted saying, “I had very little–in the single-digit millions. … That’s millions, with an m.” Duncan’s “choices could have a transformative impact on America’s beleaguered public-education system..” Time adds that his approach to education reform has “scrambled the once predictable politics of educational reform. Republicans typically favor reform.” However, Duncan’s “top-down approach, with Washington telling states how to behave, makes some conservatives nervous.”
Proposal To Revamp Teacher Licensing Requirements In Indiana Wins Preliminary Approval.
The AP (9/3, Martin) reported that the Indiana Professional Standards Advisory Board “gave preliminary approval on Thursday to a proposal that would revamp Indiana’s teacher licensing requirements despite reservations from some board members about the changes.” Indiana schools Superintendent Tony Bennett “has said teachers need a deep understanding of the subject they teach, but current requirements are too focused on teaching methods.” Bennett “wants to change the way future teachers are trained and make it easier for people to become principals or superintendents.”
New York City DOE To Raise Standards In Response To High Marks For Most Schools This Year.
The New York Times (9/4, A18, Medina) reports that with the “vast majority of New York City schools receiving A’s and B’s on the progress reports released this week,” New York City Education Department officials “said Thursday that they expected to adjust the grading system, in effect ensuring that more schools would receive lower grades next year. In fact, school officials who helped create the system said they never meant it to be one that would have so many schools earning the highest marks.” The “huge increase in the number of top marks on the city report cards” was “driven by broad gains on state standardized tests in math and English.”
Congressional Black Caucus Members Critical Of Teacher Equity Mandates.
Stephen Sawchuk wrote in a “Teacher Beat” blog for Education Week (9/3) that nine Congressional Black Caucus members are taking Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “to task for what they say are oversights” in ED implementation of NCLB teacher equity provisions mandates through the stimulus bill. In a letter, the lawmakers “outline two areas of ‘serious concern.’ First, ED’s guidelines for Phase II of the state-stabilization funds only reference poor children, not poor and minority children.” Also, they say the regulations “only require states to distribute ‘highly qualified’ teachers and don’t mention the other two statutory indicators, teacher experience and field.”
Also in the News
Findings Of Probe Into Alleged Cheating On DC Standardized Test Inconclusive.
The Washington Post (9/4, Turque) reports that D.C. officials “revealed Thursday that they commissioned an investigation last summer into possible cheating at 26 public and public charter schools” where reading and math standardized test scores “increased markedly” in 2009. The probe “found ‘anomalies’ at some of the schools that administered the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System (DC-CAS) test.” However, officials called the investigation, “conducted by the test’s publisher, CTB McGraw-Hill, ‘ultimately inconclusive.’”
Preschool Teachers Sickened By Marijuana In Brownies.
The Los Angeles Times (9/4, Lin II) reports that, according to an article published Sept. 4 in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s MMWR, “a group of preschool teachers in Los Angeles was sickened by marijuana” on Apr. 7 “after unknowingly eating pot brownies purchased” from a street vendor “by a fellow instructor.” The CDC report said that “five teachers ate one brownie each,” while a “sixth teacher took a bite, but promptly spit it out, ‘complaining of an unusual taste.’” The brownies were then “left in a break room.” Shortly thereafter, “the preschool director and the administrator observed one instructor becoming sleepy and dizzy and suffering shortness of breath, with tingling and numbness in her face, forehead, and arms.”
The AP (9/4) reports that police are investigating the incident that took place “at an unidentified school,” and “the teacher who bought the brownies was not charged.” Fortunately, “the teachers recovered within hours.”
According to the Wall Street Journal (9/3, Goldstein) Health Blog, the CDC said “the findings ‘underscore the need to consider marijuana as a potential contaminant during foodborne illness investigations.’” USA Today (9/3, Winter) On Deadline blog also covered the story.