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June 6, 2008
SES/Choice switch is the right stepThe U.S. Department of Education announced yesterday that states can apply to switch the order of school choice and supplemental educational services (SES) offered at schools identified as in need of improvement under NCLB, see here.
NSBA welcomes the change, which is part of our legislative recommendations to improve NCLB. Currently, schools must offer school choice to all students in the first year of improvement and also SES to low-income students in the second year of improvement. The change would allow schools to offer SES in the first year of improvement. Here are the criteria states must meet to be eligible to participate in this pilot program.
However, NSBA believes this option should be available to all states and school districts and should not continue to be a pilot program available only to some. Technically, the Department can only make the change under the name of a pilot program because the current offering of school choice and SES is written in the law. This illustrates why reauthorization by Congress is so critical to fix the flaws in NCLB. The Department does not have the authority to change all that needs to be changed.
Posted at 3:03 PM | No Child Left Behind | Link to this story | Comments (0)
Fresh to frozen... the pressure continuesBack in May, BoardBuzz noted here the difficulty school districts faced in trying to prepare healthy meals for students as the price of food escalates. This week, an article found at MiamiHerald.com brought our concern back to the forefront.
These South Florida school districts are showing BoardBuzz that more and more schools are forced to make cuts in school lunches, which, unfortunately, reverses their efforts to enhance the nutritional value of their meals.
The biggest changes have included only offering fresh fruit twice a week at lunchtime, instead of every day for breakfast and lunch, and switching from whole grain to white bread. Students are noticing the difference and are asking for more healthy choices and fresher fruit.
Erik Peterson, a spokesman for the School Nutrition Association, addressed the transition from fresh to frozen fruits and veggies saying, ''Kids anecdotally, they'll say they like the taste better of fresh produce and are more likely to eat it. Purely looking at nutrition, they are equivalent.''
We're glad to know that lunchrooms are still coming up with ways to meet wellness policies, but are hoping that the situation improves for the next year to keep students and lunchroom staff happy and healthy.
Miami-Dade public schools agree, with Penny Parham, who is responsible for overseeing food and nutrition for the districts schools saying, "There is nothing wrong with baked apples, but we've worked hard to take school lunches to the next level."
How is your school district working within the confines of more expensive food, while still trying to keep meals healthy? Leave a comment and tell us about it.
Posted at 11:46 AM | Health & Wellness | Link to this story | Comments (0)
How far is too far?Schools across the country have asked themselves this question many times, when trying to figure out the most effective approach for educating students on alcohol awareness.
Drinking and driving awareness programs are common in most high schools in the nation. But an article from ABC News has BoardBuzz thinking about how school districts can effectively reach students and if some schools are going too far in their efforts.
El Camino High School in Oceanside, Calif. shocked students on a Monday morning by having a uniformed police officer enter several classrooms to inform students that some of their peers had been killed in a drunk driving accident. A brief eulogy was given and a rose placed on the students' desk. Emotional, tearful, and, understandably, hysterical reactions ensued.
Two hours later, the school’s juniors and seniors watched their "dead" classmates be pulled out from a wrecked car, streaked with blood. The charade ended and the students were told that the entire grief-creating incident was designed to teach them about the very real dangers of drinking and driving.
The graphic and almost too-real experience definitely has students and parents talking and as the article shows, feeling very divided over the program:
"It was outrageous," says one parent who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the situation. "My daughter came home a wreck -- she didn't get over it for days. She was more freaked out than educated about drunk driving."The school was divided over the program in the first few days.
"Some [of those] who were upset felt that they'd been duped & some were so caught up in feeling they were tricked that they didn't get the message," says Brittany Bennett, the editor of the school paper, who played one of the dead students.
"It was about half and half. I was nervous about going to school the next day -- I heard that people were angry."
But Bennett says that most students, including friends of hers who sent her frantic text messages when they heard about the "accident," got the message and said that it would stop them from drinking and driving.
"You need something this graphic to wake up to the fact that it's real, that this happens all the time."
So BoardBuzz asks, what's the answer? Do these scare-tactics programs have long term effects? Richard A. Yoast, director of the American Medical Association's Office of Alcohol and Other Drugs, says," They create awareness, but there is not much evidence that they change behaviors."
It looks like BoardBuzz is still searching for an answer. What do you think? One thing's for sure -- we're glad that school districts are taking steps to educate students on the dangers of alcohol, but we hope they continue to research the most effective ways to do it.
Posted at 10:42 AM | Health & Wellness | School Safety | Students | Link to this story | Comments (0)
Talk about egg on your faceBoardBuzz had to chuckle when we saw this story that came to us via CNN.com:
A Cleveland-area principal says he's embarrassed his students got proof of their "educaiton" on their high school diplomas.Westlake High School officials misspelled "education" on the diplomas distributed last weekend. It's been the subject of mockery on local radio.
Principal Timothy Freeman says he sent back the diplomas once to correct another error. When the diplomas came back, no one bothered to check things they thought were right the first time.
The publisher has reprinted the diplomas a second time and sent them to the 330 graduates.
Posted at 8:31 AM | Miscellany | Link to this story | Comments (0)
June 5, 2008
House OKs school construction billThanks to NSBA’s advocacy and grassroots effort, Congress has finally acknowledged the tremendous infrastructure needs facing our nation’s public schools. NSBA is pleased about the House passage of a school construction bill yesterday, which would provide $6.4 billion in grants to states and school districts for school repairs and modernization. H.R. 3021 came at a time when total school facility and technology needs are estimated at well over $300 billion, see this letter from NSBA.
Although the timing of final passage and enactment of this legislation is uncertain, NSBA looks forward to working with the Senate to advance the issue and where there are two major school construction bills pending: Senator Jay Rockefeller’s (D-WV) S. 912, the America’s Better Classroom Act, and Senator Tom Harkin’s (D-IA) S.1942, the Public School Repair and Renovation Act. While not direct companion bills to H.R. 3021, both the America’s Better Classrooms Act and the Public School Repair and Renovation Act provide substantial legislative vehicles to advance school construction in the Senate.
Stay tuned to NSBA's legislative updates here.
Posted at 12:26 PM | Advocacy & Legislation | Link to this story | Comments (0)
The rise of EdupunkEdupunk is a new idea. In fact, the term was coined on May 25, 2008 by Jim Groom in his blog post, "The Glass Beads," and just a week later it appears in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
BoardBuzz was intrigued by this allusion to punk music as inspiration for an approach to teaching (and we've always wanted to sport a Mohawk). But what it all comes down to is a rejection of the role that capital plays in new technologies, especially the tendency of corporations to sell us back our ideas and innovations at a price. Edupunk embraces the DIY spirit (do it yourself). As Wikipedia states:
Edupunk is an ideology referring to educators and education strategies with a do it yourself (DIY) spirit. Most instructional uses of blogs, wikis, various mashups, and podcasting among many other uses of emerging technologies might be described as DIY education or Edupunk...Edupunk is also a rejection of efforts by government and corporate interests in using emerging technologies to exercise control over education, its processes, and its stakeholders, somewhat similar to punk ideologies. There is also an element of resistance to large and influential education businesses like Blackboard cooping emerging, collaborative, DIY technologies and techniques and repackaging them as their own product.
Just as punk rock was anti-establishment and rebelled against the predictable sound of pop music, Edupunk arose as a reaction against Blackboard's cookie-cutter tools and appropriation of Web 2.0 ideas. The fear is that the idea of Web 2.0 has itself become something less useful than a meme—a checklist of features.
But, not everyone objects to corporate embrace of Web 2.0 tools. Our old friend David Warlick, who has been a classroom teacher, district administrator, and staff consultant with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, and for the past 10 years has operated The Landmark Project, adds this to the discussion:
It is certainly one of the most interesting aspects of the read/write web that so much of it has come from very small, garage and dorm-room endeavors, and that the growing toolset lends itself to inventiveness among its users — emoting a do-it-yourself (DIY) spirit.As we continue to promote the use of a more participatory information landscape for learning environments, I think that we should be explicitly promoting this DIY aspect — a sense that the information can be shaped and controlled by professional educators, and that sharing this control with students can be an appropriate, information-abundant, learning pedagogy.
I do not have any real objection to corporate embrace of these tools. We’re all trying to make a living.
What worries me, though, is school officials hearing the buzz, and thinking that they can buy their way into the crowd, rather than learning their way in.
Learn your way in. That's DIY in our book. If you're intrigued by all of this, BoardBuzz suggests registering for NSBA's T+L Conference. David Warlick is one of this year's keynote speakers!
Posted at 9:17 AM | Education Technology | Link to this story | Comments (0)
June 4, 2008
Hope for educationSamsung is holding an annual Hope for Education contest. The contest invites students from schools across the country to write a 100-word essay about how technology benefits and helps education. This year's question asks students: "How has technology educated you on helping the environment and how or why has it changed your behavior to be more environmentally friendly?"
Essays should focus on:
This year's top winner receives a grand prize of over $200,000 worth of Samsung technology, Microsoft software and cash grants from DIRECTV, as well as the School Choice® educational television programming package (BoardBuzz's imagination runs wild with what students could accomplish with that!). Entries are open now. The contest will run until August 31, 2008.
Posted at 11:44 AM | Announcements | Education Technology | Students | Link to this story | Comments (0)
June 3, 2008
The small schools movement could lead to great things... and great debate.The Small Schools Movement, or Small Schools Initiative, has been emerging onto to the U.S. education scene for the past few years, and as their pros and cons emerged in the national media again this week , BoardBuzz is taking the chance to see what is up with this development.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2003, joined New York City school officials in their commitment to experimenting with smaller schools as stronger learning communities for students.
Board Buzz wonders where that leaves New York today, and a recent Newsweek article lets us know where one school in the Bronx is at and where critics and supporters are standing today.
The Morris Academy for Collaborative Studies (MACS), led by Principal Charles Osewalt, is embracing the small high school community that focuses on academics while creating personal connections. For Osewalt and his 29 teachers and 430 students it isn't unnatural to be members of a close community where your principal will call you in the morning to make sure you show up on time...BoardBuzz has to ask, did that ever happened to you in high school?
These new schools were designed to improve low achievement scores and drop-out rates with the goal of keeping students from falling through the cracks. Newsweek reports that so far they have had mixed results. Attendance and graduation rates are up, but test scores have remained about the same. Still, advocates of small schools say that getting students there is half the battle.
Critics remain steadfast with their concerns of high start-up costs and fewer options with classes and extracurricular activities and their belief that size of the school is less important than the quality of the curriculum.
Small school supporters hope to keep making a meaningful difference in the lives of their students and their academics, and students there seem pretty happy. MACS student, Anthony Delarosa, said, "The teachers and administrators treat you like family. They know when to hug you and when to put the hammer down."
Research from our friends at the Center for Public Education confirms that size makes a difference when trying to keep students in school and on track toward graduation. Indeed, according to the Center, the adult-student relationships nurtured in small high schools plus a rigorous curriculum are the keys to effective drop out prevention.
BoardBuzz is curious to hear what you think. Can these smaller schools lead to higher student achievement? Be sure to check out the extended article at Newsweek.com to learn more about why some are finding smaller learning communities beneficial and how others don't see them as long-term solutions.
Posted at 10:06 AM | Miscellany | Link to this story | Comments (0)
June 2, 2008
Coming to a theatre near you?What's your favorite education-themed movie?
A) Mr. Holland's Opus
B) Stand and Deliver
C) Lean on Me
D) Dead Poet's Society
E) All of the Above
Now there's a new one to add to the list. The Class (Entre les murs), a French film, recently won the Palme d'Or (the top prize) at the Cannes Film Festival. Sean Penn called it an "an amazing, amazing film." But why should BoardBuzz (and you) care? The movie covers a year in the life of a Paris junior high school and grapples with many of the same issues American schools face. While urban districts are often used as punching bags by the media, there are good students and success stories that are often missed.
Reviewers say that The Class gets away from the stereotypical school movies and shows more of the human element of the students and their challenges. While a French film, it shows many of the same issues Americans face in urban districts. Let's hope that the film's critical acclaim is shared among the masses when it is released later this year (hopefully before election day) and perhaps the topic of education will be seriously discussed in the U.S., as well.
Don't believe us? Check out what our friends at Public School Insights had to say about this film.
Posted at 3:41 PM | Miscellany | No Child Left Behind | School Boards | School Safety | Students | Teachers | Link to this story | Comments (0)
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