AJC.com > Blogs > Get Schooled > Archives > 2005 > February
February 2005
Free Speech: An Urban School Dilemma
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Should children in urban schools be encouraged to speak “the queen’s English”? My colleague Paul Donsky wrote about the successof Atlanta’s Capitol View Elementary in Sunday’s paper. While at the school, he noticed teachers making an effort to correct students’ grammar and encouraging them to speak proper English.
The school’s curriculum emphasizes Greek and Roman mythology, Mozart and Beethoven. Donsky wrote: “This approach is in sharp contrast to many low-income city schools, which stress African and African-American themes in an effort to build student’s self esteem and make learning more relevant.”
What do you think?
Cobb Evolution Case Update
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A federal judge says the textbook evolution disclaimers must go at the end of the school year. The Cobb County school district wanted to leave them in place while the district appeals the case. Here’s the story.
I’m Feeling Smart Today
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I got the SAT Question of the Day correct and it was a hard one, according to the College Board. And a math one at that. Yes, it’s the little things that make me smile. This is the fourth consecutive question I’ve gotten right. I may get up the guts to take a full-length practice test after all.
I’m not going to post on another topic today. Excellent conversations are still in progress on the posts below.
Have a great day, and thanks for reading!
Writing: Are Kids Getting It?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I recently bumped into a friend who is teaching freshman composition at a metro Atlanta college. She said she’s surviving her first semester in the classroom, even enjoying it at times. But many of her students are struggling.
Several are taking this course - required of basically every college freshman on the planet - for the second time. They need a lot of help. “If only I could get them to come to class,” she lamented. Other students try hard but lack the foundation.
The thing about writing, it’s not something a teacher can demonstrate once then expect students to be able to do it. There is no foolproof way to teach writing (Or is there? Readers?), no ideal method for getting a student without a strong writing background up to speed quickly. Mainly, teachers like my friend just try to encourage their students to keep putting words on paper.
A Wall Street Journal story recently stated, without attribution, that high school teachers have a hard time getting students to do any writing these days, much less a term paper. The story said parents and students revolt when a teacher expects them to labor over a long writing assignment.
This does not match my observations in Georgia classrooms, where I see student writing posted on bulletin boards and hear from teachers that they are madly trying to prepare their students for the writing portion of the New SAT.
But I am concerned that the emphasis is too much on short writing assignments and less on longer, more in-depth ones, the type a student is likely to be assigned in college. My fear is that shorter assignments focus more on writing mechanics and not enough on content. The point of writing is to say something. If you fail to do that, it doesn’t matter whether you put the commas in the right places.
Thoughts?
More on Teachers, Qualifications and Pay…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
How do you get nationally certified teachers into the schools that would benefit most from their expertise?
A bill that’s part of Gov. Sonny Perdue’s education package is winding its way through the Legislature. It would provide a financial incentive to highly trained teachers willing to work at schools deemed as “Needs Improvement.”
Any teacher applying for National Board certification after July 2006 would be required to teach in an academically struggling school to collect the 10 percent raise that Georgia provides as reward for attaining national certification. The change would not affect teachers who already have the certification, or teachers who have started the rigorous process.
Georgia has 1,635 National Board certified teachers, but only 289 are teaching in schools identified by the state Department of Education as “needs improvement” under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
The bill would also allow so-called “master teachers,” a distinction based on criteria to be determined (see yesterday’s Get Schooled post), to qualify for stipends or bonuses if they agree to mentor less experienced colleagues.
My colleague Mary MacDonald is following education issues in the Legislature and will keep us informed. Meanwhile, does this one pass muster with the Get Schooled community?
Putting Teachers to the Test
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox mentioned during a recent visit to the AJC a bill she’s working on. It would assess teachers based on how well they teach, as measured by their students’ test scores.
How would it work? The key is value-added assessment, education jargon for “How much did this kid really learn during the school year?” To get such a reading, each child is tested at the beginning of the school year and again at the end. A testing tool measures how much each child learned during that one school year. The teacher is not responsible for a child’s low reading level when the child arrives in, say, third grade. Instead, the teacher’s competence is gauged based only on how much students learn while in his or her classroom.
Would this be fair? Should teacher salaries be tied to such a measure?
Does Class Size Matter?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox, accompanied by her curriculum director and three staff aides, visited the AJC’s editorial board this week. Also in tow was Chester E. Finn of the Fordham Foundation, a conservative group that gave Georgia’s new curriculum high marks. (The group gave Georgia’s now-reviled current curriculum a pretty good review in 2000. Finn said the organization’s standards have risen since then.)
Lucky girl that I am, I got to sit in on the chat.
Asked about Cobb’s plans to outfit middle and high school students with laptops, Cox said she thinks the venture will succeed. “In Cobb County, this may be the key to making all middle schools great,” she said. She noted that Cobb hired away Kim Quinn, whom Cox brought to the Georgia Department of Education from laptops-in-schools-happy Maine. But Cox said she doesn’t favor giving laptop computers to all middle and high school students in Georgia. “Not at the cost, no, not at this juncture.”
Cox was not enthusiastic about class size being a big deal in terms of test scores. She said it’s more important to give teachers resources, often in the form of teacher assistants (parapros). For example, when she was a high school social studies teacher, she didn’t mind having 25 kids in each of her five classes until it came time to read and grade 125 essays. “I don’t think it’s a matter of a very strict standard where we have to put a lot of money into bricks and mortar,” she said. Finn agreed, saying: “We can’t show a meta correlation between smaller classes and better learning.” But he acknowledged there may be anecdotal evidence that smaller classes are better.
Do you think small classes make a difference in the quality of education?
Cox also shared her idea on how to reward teachers, but I’ll hold off on that until Monday. Have a great weekend!
A Weighty Issue
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I hear this proposal on including a child’s weight on his or her report card is as publicly popular as zero-carb chocolate chip cookies. Still, it’s worth discussing the issue of schools and childhood obesity.
What should the schools’ responsibility be, if any? And for teachers out there, is there room in the curriculum for some guidance on food choices and nutrition?
(Note: After an onslaught of feedback against this bill, Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield (D-Atlanta) dropped the notion. She said she will still address childhood obesity, but not with this bill.)
The SAT: A Lesson in Humility
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So I’ve been doing the SAT Question of the Day for the past week or so, and it’s humbling. Today’s was an easy one, a throwaway, a freebie, a gimme and, yes, I managed to miss it.
The New SAT makes its debut on March 12. The change is getting a huge amount of ink, perhaps leading to some unnecessary angst among students. After all, the goal in changing the test was to make it more relevant, not to make it harder. That said, the SAT is hard. Download a free practice test and see for yourself.
How are students, parents and teachers feeling about the New SAT? And how about the ACT? If you’re planning to take the ACT instead of or in addition to the SAT, what’s your reasoning?
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We’re 49th! We’re 49th!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia is again near the bottom of a report on the state of education.
A study released today by the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute puts the Georgia’s graduation rate at just 56 percent.
That’s 49th in the nation, based on 2002 data, one notch above our familiar foe South Carolina. (Georgia has swapped last-place dishonors with South Carolina in SAT scores in recent years.)
Our graduation rate for white students is 62 percent. For black students, it’s just 48 percent.
Nationally, the graduation rate is 72 percent for public-school students leaving high school with a regular diploma. New Jersey is #1 with 89 percent graduating. Iowa, Wisconsin and North Dakota give out diplomas to 85 percent of their students.
Graduation rates are hard to track, and previous statistics looking at dropout rates have been misleading. Educators have debated whether to code kids sent to prison as dropouts. After all, they have access to education on the inside. (There’s some glass-is-half-full reasoning!) Some kids go from high school to a GED program. Are they dropouts? (I say yes, but that’s just me.)
Anyway, the new thinking is to focus on graduation rates. Numbers crunchers simply ask: How many kids did you have in ninth grade and how many actually graduated?
The next question we need to ask in Georgia: So where are almost half our young people?
Are You a Helicopter Parent?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Time magazine story looks at well-intentioned parents who might be impeding their kids’ self-reliance with their efforts to make sure everything goes smoothly for them at school.
The Helicopter Parent is known for constant hovering. For example, such parents interfere too much in their kids’ discipline issues at school, challenging every reprimand. Or they jump in too quickly to dispute the grade a teacher gave their child on the paper. Such parents are always at school, which can be a blessing for teachers who feel like they can’t accomplish all that’s expected without such support. But when a child appears with a science project so perfect it’s clearly the creation of the beaming parent standing beside the child … parental involvement has gone too far.
Is it hard to know when to jump in and when to pull back at school? Do parents get a mixed message about how involved they should be in their child’s schooling?
(Thanks for DeKalb dad Ernest Brown for alerting me to this story, and for acknowledging that perhaps he just might share a few characteristics with such parents on occasion.)
As The Fulton County School District Turns
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The revolving door to Fulton County’s superintendent’s office is turning again. Michael Vanairsdale, promoted from in-house to replace the search firm-recruited John Haro of Minnesota, is leaving to work for an education consortium.
He’s been on the job a little more than a year. Though the school board claims he’s simply taking another job, the press release notes that he’s on vacation until he starts his new job in March.
The school board has a history of not being honest with the public about why a superintendent leaves. Haro was paid to leave after just five months. The board claimed he abruptly quit for family reasons and that they wished him well. Katie Reeves, board chair at the time, insisted there was no friction between Haro and the board. Yet documents showed the board had clashed with Haro over his methods of communicating with them and his use of a district-owned car.
The board says it will conduct a national search for a new leader. Meanwhile, consultant and former Cobb County principal James Wilson will be in charge.
What gives? Parents, what do you think?
Cobb’s Laptop Extravaganza
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
What do you think about Cobb’s plan to give 63,000 students and teachers laptop computers (pricetag: $70 million)?
Curious about Harvard?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For Georgia students waiting to hear from Harvard, the competition is very stiff. “A record total of 22,717 students have applied for entrance next September,” according to Harvard’s Web site. That’s up 15 percent from last year. Last year, 2,094 applicants got in.
SAT scores were up slightly, with nearly 11,000 applicants having an SAT verbal score of 700 or above and more than 12,000 with a math score upwards of 700. Almost 2,100 had a perfect verbal score of 800, and nearly 3,100 got an 800 in math.
Harvard officials attribute the rise in applications in part to a new financial aid program that lets parents who earn $40,000 a year or less off the hook for tuition. (?!?!) Those who earn from $40,000 to $60,000 a year get a major break on tuition, which runs $27,500. (Other expenses such as room and board bring the annual cost to $40,000 a year.)
And if you ever wondered how the admission process works at the ivyed one:
“Admissions selection meetings stretch from Jan. 28 to March 22. Applications are read by as many as four admissions officers and faculty members prior to the meetings. Deliberations about individual applicants begin in subcommittee and can last for up to an hour before a majority vote is taken. Beginning in early March, the 35-person full committee convenes to make the final determination on every applicant. Those discussions about individual applications might also continue for an hour or more before a vote. Everything possible is done to ensure a thorough review for every candidate.”
Students find out if they got in on March 31.
(Thanks to my colleague Paul Donsky for forwarding me this interesting tidbit)
Redistricting: Sweet Liberty
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Parents at Liberty Elementary School in Cherokee County are singing the redistricting blues. Some families will likely be sent to another school when the board of education adopts new attendance boundaries next month.
Liberty opened just two years ago and is already full. And the kids keep coming, as many as 250 additional kids a year. Homebuilders haven’t even finished developing the subdivisions surrounding Liberty.
Even families who live in the Bridgemill subdivision right across the street from Liberty fear they will eventually be rezoned to a school further away.
The debate over who should stay at Liberty and who should go played out at a public hearing last night. More than 400 parents attended. The parents bristled at suggestions that they don’t want to relocate to the new school because it will include kids from Tippens Elementary, which serves many Hispanic families and has lower test scores. Parents insisted they aren’t worried about property values either. They simply want to stay at Liberty.
This scenario plays out all over metro Atlanta, a sure sign of a community where residents enjoy a high quality of life that includes good schools. Understandably, they don’t want to risk losing that. But with the number of homes going up in these communities, school crowding must be addressed.
Have you been redistricted? Was the school district’s process fair? How should districts deal with overcrowding and the inevitable need to build new schools and redraw attendance boundaries?
Special Education: An Especially Complex Issue
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I recently visited an East Point school, Brookview Elementary, where pass rates on the state curriculum test are excellent and a can-do attitude permeates the building. While I’m saving most of my observations for a story that’s scheduled to run a week from Thursday, I wanted to mention a brief interview I had with a special education teacher.
For one, there’s a severe shortage of special education teachers. And secondly, the No Child Left Behind law had a huge impact on special education, in that it requires most kids to take the same standardized tests as their non-special ed peers.
Eugenia Shorter has been teaching special education for 23 years. She teaches kids with learning disabilities, emotional and behavior problems, even autism. Here’s what she said:
“The first thing I do is assess where my kids are academically. When I find the gap, I work to close the gap so they can pass the test. I challege them, and I push them. Sometimes, they only need a push. Sometimes, I might need to lower the bar temporarily and let them feel some success.”
She said she believes the federal law pushing special education teachers to teach their kids the same curriculum as regular education students makes sense. She doesn’t want her students to have to settle for a special education diploma. “They need a regular diploma, because they have to make it in the real world.”
I asked her about burnout, and she said she is fortunate in that she has a tight bond with the other teachers and administrators at her school. She said her principal, Paul Brown, “gives us an avenue to vent, to relieve stress. He goes that extra mile to help us. He remembers when he was a teacher.”
I know special education is a loaded topic, but what have your experiences been? Are public schools properly serving students with special needs?
A Deal Too Good To Pass Up
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We all know students at some schools get more guidance on the college application process than others. And, we know some families shell out thousands for professional help.
On Sunday, anyone can get free advice from the most knowledgable folks in the business. All for the cost of a $3 parking fee. The Atlanta National College Fair will run from noon to 4 p.m. at the Georgia International Convention Center near Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. For directions, go here.
Financial aid. NCAA rules. Fine arts programs. The New SAT. College majors. These topics and more will be discussed in English and Spanish. Reps from more than 150 colleges, including many you haven’t heard of, will be there touting their programs.
Nancy Beane, a college counselor at the Westminster Schools, is president of the Southern Association of College Admission Counseling. She said there is a wealth of free information about college admissions on the Internet. All it takes is a serious time investment.
She encourages students to start thinking about where they might want to go to college in middle school, so they can take the right courses. Serious research should start in tenth grade, Beane said.
Those of you who have been through college admissions and lived to tell the tale, what advice do you have?
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What About Summer?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
What do you all think about the Legislature jumping in to require schools start between Aug. 29 and Sept. 7, a couple of weeks later than most systems currently bring the kids back from summer vacation?
School board members say they will fight the bill, and Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox has said she opposes a universal start date for public schools.
I know from writing about this issue that lots of parents passionately want traditional summers back. They think start dates around Aug. 9 are just too early.
School officials say they have tweaked the calendar over the years for the good of students, especially those who need remedial help. Some cite the tendency of weak students to regress over the summer. Others praise the shorter breaks in the fall and the spring that the new calendar often allows, saying it gives kids who are behind a chance to attend special programs and catch up. The most common reason given for the earlier start date is so high school students can take their final exams before the winter break. Then, when they return from the holidays, they start their spring semester. Before, high school students took final exams after the holidays. Again, officials say, weaker students may regress over the break.
Talk to me!
SAT Prep: Get It While It’s Free!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So what does everyone think about Gov. Perdue’s request for $1 million to fund three online practice SAT exams (and other “meaningful SAT preparation” according to Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox) for every high shool student in the state?
There’s no question Georgia’s average needs a lift. Even though it’s been rising steadily for the past decade, Georgia’s 987 average is only a nose higher than South Carolina’s, which is last in the nation. But is free SAT preparation going to address the root causes of Georgia’s low ranking?
I downloaded a free practice test over the winter break, and I was blown away by how hard the SAT is. Much, much harder than I remembered. Many students will need much more than test-taking skills to do well. They’ll need to have read some challenging literature and have a strong foundation in math.
The great news is, for kids who need or want SAT prep, it’s already available for the low, low price of free. It took me 15 minutes of Web surfing to find three free practice tests available: The Princeton Review, the College Board and Kaplan. Each offers one free practice test. Kaplan’s is at an actual testing center and appears to include some free pizza and a workshop on how to master the essay.
I’m sure there’s also a free sales pitch included, but these might be good options for kids looking for a cheap way to prepare for this test.
And the Winner Is…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Do you enjoy SSR? Do your kids? Do you know what SSR is? It has been around for eons, but it wins our Get Schooled contest for best edujargon, because it is just so unnecessary. The acronym stands for Sustained Silent Reading. How about we just call it reading?
Dunwoody dad Steve Barton hears his daughter and her friends “chirp about how much SSR they had or what happened during or around SSR… aarrgghh! It is reading, a reading period, reading time.”
The grand prize is headed Mr. Barton’s way. Thanks to all who entered. I’m glad I’m not alone in my frustration with vague, confounding and pretentious language swirling around in education. We encourage students to write and speak with clarity. Education leaders should do the same.
As a runner up we have this jewel: Data must be disaggregated to assure brain-compatible, assessment driven, child-centered, classroom based instruction. Cross-curricular planning of developmentally appropriate, differentiated lessons will address required competencies using a variety of methodologies in a collaborative setting.
Definition: Use the results of testing to plan lessons that meet the individual educational needs of each student. This works best when teachers from different subjects plan together and share ideas.
One reader suggested a new acronym as a companion to the annoying AYP or Adequate Yearly Progress: AYPP, Adequate Yearly Progress for Parents. She wrote: “Who controls the home environment? Who controls, to some extent, students’ attitudes toward learning? The parents.”
Should parents be part of No Child Left Behind’s complex system of punishments for those who fail to educate every child?
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