Archive for September 02, 2007 - September 08, 2007

A series of free online "webinars" called "Moving Forward With Technology" are designed to provide practitioners with tools and resources to differentiate instruction, enhance classroom work, and improve academic outcomes for students with disabilities and learning difficulties. The webinars are being presented by Don Johnston Incorporated and the Center for Implementing Technology in Education (CITEd).

The webinars run monthly September through May. The first, "Using Multimedia Materials to Engage and Challenge Learners," will be presented on September 19 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern time and on September 27 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern time. For further information, visit the CITED website.

Children from disadvantaged backgrounds need to do more than just attend a good school to boost their educational achievement, a new report by the British charity Joseph Rowntree Foundation says. School quality accounted for a fraction of variations in achievement, it said. Family disadvantage is passed on from one generation to the next in a cycle of underachievement, it added. The report, which summarizes the findings of eight earlier projects for the charity's education and poverty program, seeks to understand the well-known correlation between poverty and low educational performance. Read about the report at BBC News.

A self-proclaimed “book whisperer,” 6th grade language arts and social studies teacher Donalyn Miller says she has yet to meet a child she couldn’t turn into a reader. On average, her students at Trinity Meadow Intermediate School in Keller, Texas, read between 50 and 60 books a year; last year, one of them read 300.

Her methods have produced more than anecdotal results: Last year, her students received a 100 percent passing rate on the reading portion of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, with 90 percent receiving a “recommended” score.

In the first of a three-part series in Teacher Magazine, Miller reveals some of her secrets.

English teaching in Australia’s schools is in danger of losing its richness and emphasis on literature in its growing obsession with improving student test results, a group of education leaders believes. Early this month, a group of education leaders, some of whom helped shape the English teaching syllabus during the past 50 years, met to address what they see as an attack on the quality of the curriculum. Jacqueline Manuel, senior lecturer in English education at the University of Sydney, said the meeting was held to address concerns that the quality of the English curriculum was being compromised, with a growing emphasis on basic literacy test skills. Read more at The Sydney Morning Herald's website.

NCLB. AYP. ESEA, and so many more: They’re the alphabet soup of educational acronyms, and they’re intended to make it easier for people in the American education community to discuss complex topics. But what of the “outsiders” — those who do not speak and understand the language of educators? For some parents, these acronyms may seem excessive or even ridiculous. For others, they can actually impede communication, making what’s going on in public education that much harder to understand. Read more of this article at the Tennessean.com website

Aisha Al–Gilany remembers the struggle all too well. For four years she fought with her parents to allow her to attend university. “My sisters all went to grade five and then dropped out,” recalled the 23–year–old from Al–Fars Rajam village, two hours outside Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. Though her parents wanted their five daughters to be literate, female education was never deemed particularly important in her village. “Women in Yemen are supposed to stay at home and clean,” Aisha said. The government says the gender gap with regard to education is “considerable.” While national illiteracy rates stand at about 30% for men, they exceed 67% for women, it says. Read about the plight of women in Yemen at IRIN News.

The difficulty of a reading test used to judge students across New York State dropped by as many as six grade levels between 2004 and 2005, according to an internal study by the New York City teachers union.

The study, written in March 2006 by the United Federation of Teachers, found that passages in the 2005 test hovered around third- and fourth-grade reading levels, down from a ninth-grade level in 2004. It also found that the 2004 test was characterized by longer passages, smaller print, crammed text, and more complex questions, such as asking a student to make an inference. Despite this apparent drop in difficulty, however, the number of correct answers needed to pass — known as the “cut score” — was just slightly higher in 2005 than in 2004.

This article appears in The New York Sun.

A publication of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the Mini-Digest of Education Statistics 2006 is a pocket-sized compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of American education from kindergarten through graduate school. The statistical highlights are excerpts from the Digest of Education Statistics, 2006.

The digest is now available for free download at the
NCES website.

As the new school year begins September 10 in Afghanistan’s insurgency–hit southern provinces, there are concerns that hundreds of schools will remain closed due to insecurity. “At least 300 schools in Helmand, Kandahar, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces will not open because of insecurity,” Siddiq Patman, deputy minister of education, told IRIN in Kabul. In an effort to ensure safe education for all Afghan children, Ministry of Education officials have indirectly tried to persuade Taliban insurgents that attacks on schools are unjustifiable. Torn by decades of war, Afghanistan has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world, with over 90% of women and 60% of men considered illiterate, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development. Read more at IRIN news.

Diego Garcia got butterflies in his stomach whenever he thought about his first day of school in Canada. Last week, the Colombian teenager’s fears were allayed when he walked into Toronto’s Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute and was greeted by his soon–to–be teachers, settlement workers and fellow students—and most importantly, surrounded by other new immigrants like him. The welcome came courtesy of Newcomer Orientation Week, a pilot program created to help newly arrived immigrant youth get a head start in high school. Read about the transitional program at thestar.com.

Forget all the talk about poor teaching standards or a “dumbing down”of the school curriculum and exams. The real reason why Britain’s schoolchildren are not making as much progress as they could is because their classrooms are too bright. A paper to be presented today (September 6) to the British Educational Research Association conference warns that classrooms that are too light can cause headaches for pupils, making it less easy to concentrate in class. The main offender, one researcher says, is the kind of fluorescent lighting installed in more than 80% of classrooms. Read the article at The Independent online.

Should education be a matter of quality or quantity? The Japanese Education, Science and Technology Ministry’s plan to increase school class hours for the first time in 30 years aims to increase emphasis on fundamentals and prevent the academic skills of primary and middle schoolers from declining any further. In the plan submitted last week to the Central Council for Education, class hours for main subjects will be increased 10%, while those for general studies classes, will be reduced. The ministry plans to revise school curriculum guidelines and implement the revision in fiscal 2011 at the earliest. Read the article at the Daily Yomiuri online.

  Education Secretary Margaret Spellings on Wednesday criticized a Congressional proposal to soften provisions of President’s Bush signature education law, saying it would severely weaken the federal effort to raise achievement among poor and minority children. Ms. Spellings complained that proposals to change various provisions of the law “could be a significant retreat from accountability.” Passing no bill at all this year, she added, would be preferable to passing one that dilutes the law’s power because the current version stays in force until Congress passes a new law. Read more of this article from The New York Times.

The United Nations agreed to a set of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000, with a view to tackling global poverty. They include improving living standards in key areas such as education, employment and health care by 2015. Now, halfway to that deadline, the UN has produced a report showing how progress in meeting the goals has varied between regions—although it argues that even in the poorest area, sub–Saharan Africa, some progress has been made. For a quick look at the goals and graphic representations of progress in meeting them, go to the BBC NEWS website.

The fishmonger, who specializes in Mgongo Wazi (fish bones remaining after filleting) at Kisumu’s Koginga Beach in Nyanza Province in Kenya, says she cannot afford to send her five children to school. “Employing adults is too costly. Besides, where do I get the money to buy school uniforms and for bus fare?” she asks. Scenes of children airing mosquito nets, used as fishing nets, in preparation for night fishing expeditions are common along the beaches of Lake Victoria. Many of them are from poverty–stricken homes headed by children or caregivers to bed–ridden parents living with AIDS. Although the government has spent more than US$500 million on free primary education, overcrowding and teacher shortages continue to impede enrollment, retention of students, and quality of education. Read about the situation at allAfrica.com.

As children across Ontario headed back to school Tuesday, Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory pledged to improve public education by initiating an urgent review to fix the provincial funding formula and increase annual funding by $2.44 billion over the next four years. Currently, one out of every four school boards in Ontario is facing financial crisis. Many have been forced to cut reading recovery programs, let basic maintenance slide, and raid reserves to balance their budgets. People for Education report that school boards are receiving over $180 million less than their actual costs in transportation and support staff. Read the news release at CNW Group.

More than 300,000 students in immigrant-rich Northern Virginia started the school year yesterday. As the number of children in the region who speak a language other than English at home is increasing, so, too, is the number learning a second language at school. The expansion of foreign language programs came amid other changes. Every Prince William County elementary school has full-day kindergarten for the first time, and Fairfax is adding all-day kindergarten in 21 schools, enabling the school system to reach 70 percent of county schools with a program many educators think is critical for building early literacy. Read more of this article from The Washington Post.

In his novel Fahrenheit 451, author Ray Bradbury claims that 451 degrees is the temperature at which book-paper catches fire and burns. Those at the DeKalb Public Library in Illinois are about to put his theory to the test. To kick off October’s Big Read initiative—being held to increase literacy and reading—the library will host a book bonfire. The motivation behind the event is this year’s Big Read book, Fahrenheit 451, a novel about a future in which books are illegal in the United States. Read more about this event, and the Big Read, in this article from the Daily Chronicle.

As teachers head into the classroom for the new school year, there is one more item they can add to their back–to–school list: Thinkfinity.org. It’s free, and it makes life easier for teachers. Thinkfinity.org is for teachers looking for a quick and innovative way to find compelling lesson plans and interactive learning tools to engage students. Thinkfinity.org is the Verizon Foundation’s, comprehensive program and online portal to 55,000 educational resources, including standards–based, grade–specific, K–12 lesson plans and other student interactives provided in partnership with the International Reading Association and many other leading educational and literacy organizations. And, Thinkfinity.org requires no downloadable software.

On the first day of school when presented with an alien room, a stand–in parent and 20 unfamiliar cohorts, 5–year–olds react, some “clinging to parents’ knees and others blowing off their parents with a quick ‘Okay, Mom, bye-eeeee,’ ” says Kelly Williamson, a primary school teacher in Calgary, Canada. “It’s pretty chaotic.” While the majority of children soon overcome any initial fear of their new playpals, between 10 and 15% never do. These are the preschoolers hampered by what researchers call extreme shyness, a condition to which psychologists believe some children may even be genetically predisposed. Read more at theglobeandmail.com.

  Robert B. Cooter, Jr. and J. Helen Perkins, professors at The University of Memphis, are the new editors of The Reading Teacher. They are committed to providing teachers with better and more effective ways of teaching children to read, and are excited about exploring new directions for the journal. Some areas they will focus on are teaching English-language learners, increasing family involvement, assisting children living in poverty, improving classroom assessment, reading in the content areas, and using technology effectively. Learn more about The Reading Teacher and read Cooter’s and Perkins’ thoughts about their vision for the journal.

Feeling down today? OK, let’s talk about how you feel and start again. With this touchy–feely approach, the British government is hoping to bring about a revolution in the classroom. Ed Balls, the Education Secretary, will announce September 4 that lessons in happiness, wellbeing and good manners are to be introduced in all state secondary schools. The initiative follows an extensive pilot of a program called SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) in primary schools, which has been found to boost both academic performance and discipline by helping children to better understand their emotions. Read the article at the TimesOnline.

To kick off National Literacy Month, preschoolers can step into a world where words truly are the stars of the show. “WordWorld,” which debuted September 3 on PBS KIDS(R) (check local listings), is a 3–D animated series funded in part by the U.S. Department of Education, which encourages 3– to 5–year–old children to become friends with words. “WordWorld’s” humorous storylines focus on age–appropriate social–emotional lessons while introducing preschoolers to key literacy–based skills, such as letter recognition and phonological awareness. Read the news release about the show at prnewswire.com.

  The release last week of a preliminary proposal for reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act starts a busy fall in Congress, as both the House and the Senate try to revamp the NCLB accountability system and ramp up efforts to improve struggling schools. Read more about the preliminary proposal in this article from Education Week.

OMG! TXT MSG turns 15! Cellphone-accessorized teens may think that’s just GR8. But as the lexicon spawned by a 160-character message limit starts to spill off the cellphone screen into written work, some of their English teachers aren’t exactly ROFL. Nor does seeing text abbreviations crop up in essays bring a smiley face to college admission officers. Read how text-messaging is like wearing flip-flops in this article from USA Today.

In his first book, Daddy Needs a Drink, author Robert Wilder offered a comic, slightly R-rated memoir of parenting. In his new book, Tales From the Teachers' Lounge, Wilder, a longtime English teacher, reflects in similar fashion on his 18 years of teaching—most of them at Santa Fe Preparatory School, a private day school in New Mexico’s capital. Wilder talks about the pleasures of teaching in this interview from USA Today.

 Craig Probst, school principal in the village of Wales, population 135, is an academic jack-of-all-trades. The one school in the Inupiat Eskimo hunting and fishing community has 35 students of all ages and just four teachers. So Probst teaches reading, writing, math and social studies, full time. “We are generalists,” said Probst, who has worked in schools throughout rural Alaska for 17 years. “We have to cover all the subject areas.” But when it comes to statistics, their flexibility isn’t paying off. The federal No Child Left Behind Act docked points from the Wales/Kingikmiut School last year because most classes are taught by teachers who do not have a bachelor’s degree, a state license and proven competency in that subject. Read more of this article from the Daily Herald of Provo, Utah.