AJC.com > Blogs > Get Schooled > Archives > 2006 > July
July 2006
Those Teacher Gift Cards
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here’s Mary MacDonald’s story about the teacher gift cards, which must be used during the sales-tax holiday weekend.
Teachers, have you picked up your card? What are you going to buy? Someone says their school ran out of gift cards. Anybody else have this experience?
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Teachers, How Much Do You Want To Know?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last year I visited a south Fulton school that won acclaim from the state board for high test scores among poor, minority children. I learned a lot from the young, energetic principal. I was impressed that he encouraged his teachers to have gym memberships or some other type of exercise regime, and to have a full life outside of school. He didn’t want them to burn out.
But something else he said really struck me. We were talking about pre-planning, and I asked if teachers were already familiar with their students through their records by the time the first day of school came around.
“Oh, no,” he said.
Teachers should not review their students’ records, because the information might give them preconceived notions of how a child will behave or score on tests, he said. He wanted the child to have a clean slate. He wanted the teacher to approach each child with the expectation that the child was going to have a successful year.
Teachers, do you review your students’ files before you meet them? Or do you take the clean slate approach? Parents, would you want your child’s new teacher to review your child’s file before the first day of class?
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Who was YOUR grammar teacher?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Most days I’m in no rush to check my snail-mail box. Leaden reports from education groups stunningly out of touch with school life. Invitations to fund-raising events. Church newsletters. (I used to be on the church beat. Really!)
But every once in a while, I get something thought-provoking. This time it came in a fancy envelope typically used to deliver a wedding invitation. No return address. Postmark: North Metro. Hmmmm…. Inside was a copy of a story I wrote on July 16. Some words toward the end of the story - “one” and “were” - were circled in black marker. Next to the story, the sender wrote: “Who was your grammar teacher?” The sender also wrote in the margin: “was not were.”
Busted! Or am I?
Here is the sentence: “Donna Scullin also sees no reason to transfer her sons out of Norcross High, even if one of the county’s less diverse and higher-performing schools were an option.”
Isn’t that the subjunctive tense? My senior English teacher Miss Bowes, a former nun who was known for her Vogue-worthy sense of style, taught me this, if memory serves. For example: If I were you.
A quick jog up to our library turned up a book called “Harbrace College Handbook,” and its authors seem to side with me. “Use the subjunctive to express wishes or a hypothetical, highly improbable or contrary-to-fact condition.” The example says… “Drive as if every other car on the road were out to get you.”
Dear sender, I am pleased that you found this matter worth the cost of a stamp. And I am thrilled that you read my story to the end and that you read the paper in its original format: the one involving ink and trees. Thank you for the food for thought, as it is never a waste of time for a journalist to ponder grammar. I’ve made many, many legitimate errors, which are sometimes pointed out in the form of a yellow postcard from a grammar society of some sort. But in this case, I’m thinking my public school education served me well.
I loved studying grammar in school. I loved diagramming sentences and strived to make them beautiful and perfect. I confess I don’t remember how to diagram the subjunctive tense. Anybody want to try?
Get Schooled readers, did you diagram sentences in your day? Do kids still do that? Is grammar instruction still alive? On life support?
Crossblogination: Over at the Snellville blog, folks are discussing trailer classrooms…
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Chaz Passed the CRCT!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Chaz Tate, the DeKalb County fifth-grader I wrote about in a recent story about kids facing a dreaded do-over on the CRCT, passed.
His mother got a call from the school principal yesterday. I love good news. She had been told her son was at risk of failing reading. Chaz ended up passing reading but not math, despite working on practice questions six nights a week. He threw himself into summer school, determined to pass the re-test so he could advance to sixth grade.
Parents with children who had to re-take the CRCT. Have you heard whether your child passed? Teachers, do you expect to be summoned to hear appeals from parents whose children did not pass the second attempt?
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Pregnant Teachers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’ve noticed several mentions recently of parents hoping their child’s teacher doesn’t go and get pregnant during the school year. Given that the education field is populated with women of child-bearing years… Is this realistic? It seems the principal should have plenty of time to get a full-time sub lined up, right?
I once wrote or read about a Gwinnett school with some huge number of pregnant teachers - 25 or more. Parents, kids and other teachers were celebrating with baby showers and the like, while the principal I presume holed up in her office and tried to work out the logistics. This school was in a fast-growing area, quite affluent, and it was the type of school teachers wanted to work in, so I imagine she was able to place quality subs in those classrooms.
In another case, I once visited a humongous elementary school in south Florida, where the principal lamented how challenged she was to deal with all the pregnant teachers. Qualified long-term subs were not easy to come by given the challenges her school faced with its large Latino population.
Parents, what are your experiences with pregnant teachers? Did your child get a capable fill-in? Teachers, did you try to time your pregnancy over the summer? Did you try to get the sub up to speed? Were parents understanding?
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Choosy Mothers Choose the Teacher
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’m running late with no time for an extended post, but luckily my colleague Aileen Dodd offers plenty to chew over with her story on parents who detail to principals what they are looking for in a teacher.
Parents, do you get involved in the selection of your child’s teacher? Teachers, how do you feel about parent lobbying?
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You Be the Board Member
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last night the Atlanta school board had to consider a charter petition for Achieve Academy, which needs (or was required by the board to submit…this was one of the gray areas….) a new charter to continue now that they are no longer affiliated with the Knowledge is Power Program, or KIPP.
Achieve Academy, in southeast Atlanta, says it has turned students who were unmotivated at traditional schools into eager, hardworking students. The strategy is a longer school day, a requirement that kids earn privileges and an emphasis on goals. Achieve’s test scores were mixed, but in some areas impressive, especially in seventh grade. (The school had grades five through seven last school year) Overall, Achieve was better than several of the Atlanta middle schools the kids would have to return to. And the school made AYP every year. Achieve has strong, passionate parent support.
The Atlanta Public Schools’ administration took a different view. They saw a school that turned in a petition full of vague and conflicting information. Would the school follow the state curriculum? Did the Saturday program end at 12 or 12:30? In some places, the petition said it would have snack time, but in other places no snack time was mentioned, they complained. They weren’t satisfied with the financial statements or the relationship with management partner Imagine Schools, once a for-profit company and now a nonprofit that operates two other charter schools in metro Atlanta. They weren’t satisfied with the church Imagine planned to buy for the school to operate in. (In another confusing sidenote, the school was kicked out of a surplus Atlanta property, but it was unclear whether that facility would be used in the upcoming school year…) All in all, the administration gave Achieve a big thumbs down, recommended the petition be denied, a move that would shut Achieve down.
So…You’re a board member… How do you vote and why? Note: This is a called meeting, so not showing up is a third option. To find out how the Atlanta board voted, go here.
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Silence in the Hallways
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So many great questions came out in the earlier thread. I’m most fascinated by the debate over whether elementary- and middle-school students should be able to talk in the hallways when they change classes, go to lunch or to their “specials,” like art and music. (Yes, I know those “specials” are an endangered speces…)
Here’s what one teacher has to say in favor of “silent transitions”:
“I am a new teacher in an elementary school and my students will be getting silent lunch for talking in the hall. We will be traveling by classrooms where other students are learning, and I expect my students to be respectful of the teachers who are teaching and learners who are learning. I would expect the same from them as they come by my classroom. When I was in middle school, I witnessed terrible group fights in the hallway where my classmates were really injured. Our administrators resorted to having to lead us to every class in a quiet, straight line, even in the eighth grade. I am not surprised at all that administrators are calling for silent transitions. There is time for socializing during other parts of the day.”
Should kids be expected to be quiet at all times in the halls?
What Do Parents Want/Need to Know?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After the grind of last week’s AYP release, we’re focused this week on our back-to-school section. My colleague Mary MacDonald has been assigned to find out what questions parents have about schools and run down the answers.
I’ll get the ball rolling with some examples, and then we would love it if you guys would chime in with some good ones.
I think my child is gifted. What should I do? I am worried that my child isn’t reading. He is a rising first-grader. What should I do? Why do schools start lunch so early? My child has to eat at 10:45 a.m. I want my child to enjoy school, but she can’t even play outside. What’s up with that? My neighbors send their kids to private school and think the public school is terrible. This is just plain not true. What can I do to set the record straight? Why do schools allow boys to wear their pants hanging to their knees and girls to expose their navels?
Okay, you get the picture. Ask away…
Breaking out of the Low Group
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I was surprised to read on an earlier thread a parent lamenting that ability grouping doesn’t happen anymore. It doesn’t? Most elementary schools I visit are ability-grouping up a storm for reading and math. I often see a high group, a medium group and a low group.
In middle school, I’ve seen a case where bright kids had their own language arts and math class and I assume there were also classes for the low groups, leaving the middle kids to hang together somewhere else. In this school, all kids were put together for science and social studies. The girl I was shadowing was a genius, so the science and social studies classes were not remotely challenging for her. She often served as an assistant to the teacher, something I know fries parents but did not seem to bother her.
Principals have told me that grouping kids by ability is okay (read: way different from tracking) as long as kids are able to move up into a higher group.
So I was surprised recently when my friend who lives in north Fulton relayed a concern to me. She was told that once a child is put into a math group in first grade that is his group forever. What?!?! I told her that cannot be the case. But I did tell her it would be in the child’s best interest to be placed in the right group to start, because getting into a higher group once the school year gets going could prove sticky.
Parents, teachers: Do you see ability grouping in schools? Do kids seem appropriately placed? Do kids and parents whose kids are in the low group know that the goal is to move up? Do teachers encourage students in the low group to move up? Is all this ability-grouping talk just code for tracking? Would families flee public schools en masse if ability grouping did not happen?
Sorry, it’s a lot of questions. It’s a big topic!
Should Sandtown Join Atlanta Public Schools?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So some members of the Sandtown community in south Fulton want to defect to Atlanta, meaning their schools would fall under Atlanta Public Schools… Here’s Mary MacDonald’s story.
Residents say Fulton has not delivered on renovations and new schools. But would Atlanta be a better deal?
Teacher Wants Cellphone Relief
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Exasperated teacher Sandra Ray asks in her guest column: “Parents, will you be sending your child to school with a cellphone?”
Kids bring them to school, often with their parents’ blessing, and the darn things ring in class all day long. “As a teacher, the classroom cellphone disruptions I experienced last year were almost overwhelming,” Ray writes.
Teachers and parents, how is this addressed in your school? Does the teacher merely confiscate the ringing phone, or is there a more severe punishment?
(I confess I hate cellphones. I have never gotten used to mine, which is currently at home on the charger where I put it last night after three days with a dead battery. This is one technology I think I got along fine without…)
Don’t Say ‘Ain’t’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Earlier this week I wrote a story about the Atlanta charter school Achieve Academy facing closure. I wanted to talk about the comments I got from an eighth-grade student.
Zicuria Ussery told me she likes the charter school because students are not allowed to use slang. “We use standard English all the time.”
She said students get dinged using improper English, and that could keep them from earning privileges. She and other students became so aware of their speech that they started correcting parents at home, a parent told me, laughing. The parent then said African-American students often revert back to the slang when talking to neighborhood friends. But she said she was glad her children were learning the importance of standard English.
Zicuria wrapped up her interview by telling me she went to the charter school because, “I wanted to be around students who want to be a success in life.”
She sees a link between speaking proper English and success, which I found wise for a 12-year-old.
Teachers, do you correct your students’ speech? Are you afraid to for fear of getting into a debate with parents over why kids should learn the queen’s English? Do you feel like you don’t have time to be grammar police? Parents, do you think proper speech should be enforced at school? And obviously folks it’s not just African-American kids who speak poorly…
A Diversity Dilemma
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’m conflicted today about what to post on. There is a very good suggestion to talk about parent involvement, but it stems from post by a parent whose situation has already been discussed in extreme depth.
So I’m going to go with this, with promises to get back to parental involvement a bit later. The reality with No Child Left Behind is that it’s a way harder system to navigate and win at if your school is diverse. The law looks to examine schools not just on how well their kids do on the whole but how well certain groups of kids do. African-Americans. Latinos. Kids from poor families. Kids with disabilities. Kids who don’t speak English well. The more categories in which you have at least 40 kids, the more targets you have to hit.
Hence the diverse Lakeside High, acclaimed by Newsweek for its percent of kids in AP classes, didn’t make AYP. Neither did its feeder school, Henderson Middle.
Many parents want their kids to attend a diverse school. They say it resembles the real world and teaches their kids skills beyond fractions and five-paragraph essays. But there is a downside to diversity and that is the need to divvy up resources to teach kids with different needs.
Parents and teachers, tell us your experiences with diverse schools. And parents tell us if you chose a less diverse school over a diverse one because the overall test scores are higher and because you felt your child would get more attention.
Talk to me, and please keep it civil and on point…
AYP: Read It and Weep!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Finally, the state has put out the info on whether schools made Adequate Yearly Progress under No Child Left Behind. Here’s the ajc’s handy tool, courtesy of database editor David Milliron.
As usual it is a grand and glorious mixed bag. Sutton Middle School in Buckhead did not make it because of its Latino students, but King Middle School in Grant Park, where 47 percent of eighth-graders failed math, made AYP. (About a quarter of Sutton Middle School’s eighth-graders failed math.)
AYP matters to you if you are zoned for a school that has missed the target two or more years in a row. Your child would be eligible for a transfer and possibly free tutoring.
AYP also matters to you if your school made the cut, because then it could be a receiving school for children from schools that did not make it. (Talk to parents at Tucker Middle, Tucker High and Shamrock Middle about how much fun it is being in this position…)
AYP matters somewhat to all public school parents because all schools try very hard to make it. Some parents say this pushes too much attention and resources down to the weakest students, leaving bright students to twist in the wind.
Here’s a short story. And here’s a link to the reports.
Are you jazzed about AYP? Are you shocked that your school made it or didn’t?
How Many Discipline Incidents Are There?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Yes, yes, yes, we plan to publish school-by-school discipline data. Database editor David Milliron says he expects to get those records around the end of August.
Meanwhile, many of you are already chewing over the district figures and accompanying story. Bridget Gutierrez and I wrote about how the numbers for some districts are suspiciously low.
As the story says, DeKalb appears far more dangerous than other metro districts. Associate Superintendent Garry McGiboney says that his district reports the data honestly. He said he could not speak to whether other school systems do not report all their incidents, but he believes DeKalb schools are generally orderly and safe.
Parents…Are you worried about discipline? Is discipline more important than test scores in deciding whether you’ll send your child to the neighborhood school? Teachers, have you been pressured not to report a fight or threat?
Parents: What Do You Want?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of our frequent teacher contributers, Leia, requests the following excellent topic, piggybacking on the earlier thread on conflicts between teachers and parents.
She writes: “How about a blog about exactly what parents expect from teachers? I honestly would like to know if a parent expects a weekly progress report. If the parent makes this request known - I can accommodate it. If the parent doesn’t let me know what he/she wants, it’s very disheartening to find out at the end of a semester that the parent was expecting this service and felt disappointed. I am really good about accommodating parents to a certain extent. When they ask me to call everytime the student doesn’t do homework, or to call them after tennis practice at 9 p.m. - that’s where I draw the line! At the high school level, I have certain expectations from the students and believe that they should be responsible for communicating information to their parents. But, I think that if we knew exactly what the parents expected up front - there would be less ‘friction’ between the two groups.”
Okay, let’s talk!
Where’s a Frustrated Parent To Turn…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A regular blog participant and mother wants to know where a parent is supposed to turn when she disagrees with the school’s assessment of her child. In this case, the mother asked for help for her struggling child and was summoned to a Student Support Team meeting. At the SST, the parent was told her child was “borderline ADHD.”
This did not go over well with Mom, and she would like to hear from teachers about how a parent should proceed.
I know this Parent v. School happens all the time…Let’s hear some good suggestions…
Teach for America Coming to Fulton…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Atlanta district has had a good experience with Teach for America, the program that recruits motivated, recent college graduates and sends them into urban and rural classrooms with just a few weeks training. Now the Fulton district is giving TFA a try, according to this story by Julie Turkewitz.
On the plus side, TFA teachers are generally bursting with enthusiasm and creativity. They are young, energetic and want to make a difference. But some say these teachers just aren’t qualified.
Parents, teachers, have you worked with a TFA teacher? Have you had good experiences? Would you want your child to have a TFA teacher? Would you want to work with a TFA teacher?
About My Child’s Report Card…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A blog participant posted this on an earlier thread:
“Teachers are ‘on’ all of the time. I was at the mall with my family yesterday and was stopped by a parent to discuss her child and the report card, I taught 85 middle schoolers this past year (and at least that many or more the previous six years), and am expected to remember information about EACH child when I see the parent out somewhere.”
Teachers, does this happen to you? If so, does it make you want to run screaming down the escalator? Parents, ‘fess up, have you done this? Are teachers fair game when parents see them in public, and is it okay for a teacher to say, “I’m not on the clock”?
Are Schools as Nit-Picky as They Used To Be?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A mom on an earlier thread says her house is overrun with lice thanks to an outbreak at the end of the school year. Nice way to spend the summer, huh?
She says schools have lightened up on nit policies because of the attendance requirements of No Child Left Behind. I assume this means schools that used to turn kids away at the door for having the tell-tale eggs are now letting the kids stay??? I’m checking with school systems to see if they have official policies, but until I hear back …
Is your school nit-friendlier these days? Teachers … I’m sure you have some thoughts on this one… Parents, is it unreasonable to send kids home because of nits? Or is it unreasonable to let kids stay at school when they have nits? And finally, a little off the education topic, but let’s get right down to business… how do you get rid of nits and lice?
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