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BALLET AMID BULLETS IN IRAQ KEEPS CULTURE ALIVE
In an airy studio lined with mirrors, little girls in pink leotards
and boys in black shorts and white T-shirts pull themselves up as
straight as they can and push their toes out into first position,
reports Alexandra Zavis for the Los Angeles Times. In a city full of
bloodshed, the Baghdad School of Music and Ballet is an oasis that
instills a love of music and dance in its young charges. Still, most
of the ballet students drop out when they are 12 or 13 as they grow
fearful of Muslim extremists, who consider music sacrilegious and
kill for much less than dancing in public in a form-revealing tutu.
In fact, the school, which offers primary and secondary education,
hasn't graduated a ballet-major class since the mid-1990s. The
challenges are just as great for music students. Most leave their
instruments at school which cuts into practice time, to avoid
attracting the attention of religious militias. Until the 1990s,
Saddam Hussein’s government brought skilled professionals from
abroad to teach and also imported many supplies. The training was
rigorous and the school’s graduates are found in orchestras and
ballet schools around the world. However, the foreign teachers left
when Iraq invaded Kuwait and the supplies dried up as the economy
buckled under United Nations sanctions. And because of the school’s
association with Hussein, angry mobs descended on it after the
dictator’s fall. What they could not carry away, they smashed to
pieces -- even the grand piano was gashed with an ax. But the next
day, teachers were back, sweeping away debris so classes could begin
again. The school, which took its sign down two years ago, provides
a refuge and perhaps a glimpse toward a better future.
COLIN POWELL: TRUE DROP-OUT RATE A
CATASTROPHE
Seventeen of the nation’s 50 largest cities had high school
graduation rates lower that 50 percent for school year 2003-04,
reports Ken Thomas for the Associated Press. According to data
recently released by America’s Promise Alliance, many urban areas
showed a considerable gap between their inner-city schools and the
surrounding suburbs. "When more than one million students a year
drop out of high school, it’s more than a problem, it’s a
catastrophe," said former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. In
some cases, the findings provide glaringly different numbers than
those reported by districts and states. Currently, states are
allowed to calculate their own graduation rates using all sorts of
methods, many of which critics say are based on unreliable
information. New Mexico, for example, has defined its graduation
rate as the percentage of enrolled 12th graders who receive a
diploma, thereby ignoring all those that drop out before12th grade.
To help alleviate the tangle of inaccurate state data that have
obscured the severity of the nation’s high school dropout crisis,
U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings will require all
states to use the same federal formula. This requirement would be
one of the most far-reaching regulatory actions ever taken by the
federal government, reports Sam Dillon for the New York Times (link
below). Michael Cohen, president of Achieve, said the proposed
measure would be considerably more important than most U.S.
Department of Education regulations because "it will basically
affect every high school in the country."
Also:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/education/01child.html?ref=education
THE MORE EDUCATED YOU ARE, THE LESS
LIKELY YOU ARE TO SMOKE
Well over 90 percent of people in the United States know smoking is
a bad health choice, writes Jerry Adler for Newsweek. And although
smoking has declined steeply from its peak in the early 1950s, when
nearly half of all adults smoked (compared to 21 percent today),
smoking remains fairly prevalent at the bottom of the socioeconomic
ladder. As of 2006, 35 percent of Americans with a ninth- to
11th-grade education smoked, while only seven percent of Americans
with a graduate degree smoke. These figures elucidate a discouraging
phenomenon: increases in life expectancy in recent decades have been
concentrated almost entirely among better educated Americans.
Concretely, if you were 25 in 1990 and held a high school diploma or
less, your life expectancy was 74.6 years. Yet, if you attended
college at all, even without graduating, you could expect to live
more than five years longer. In 2000, a 25-year-old with any college
experience had a life expectancy of 81.6 years, an improvement of a
year and a half. Meanwhile the less educated group was stuck exactly
where it had been 10 years before. A psychological explanation of
this trend is that blue collar workers who smoke choose present
gratification over future benefits. Still, there is evidence that
attending college by itself encourages healthy behavior. For
example, when community colleges open in rural areas and enroll
local youths who otherwise would have gone into the workforce,
smoking rates go down.
SAVE MONEY, THE ENVIRONMENT AND MAKE
YOUR CAR SMELL LIKE FRIED FISH
An alternative energy research project has morphed into an ambitious
environmentally and economically friendly fuel production dream for
a Prince George (Va.) High School teacher and his students. Randy
Bullock, a manufacturing and production systems teacher, and his
pupils collect recycled cooking oil from the county’s cafeterias and
surrounding businesses. Then they process it into biodiesel fuel,
reports Juan Antonio Lizama for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. With
diesel prices hitting $4 a gallon, Bullock’s class could provide a
great relief for school budgets, because their diesel costs about $1
per gallon. Saving a few bucks and the environment is all well and
good, but what’s even better is that biodiesel fumes can be aromatic
depending on what has been cooked in the oil. "If it’s fried fish,
it smells like fish," Bullock said.
RAISE TEACHER STARTING SALARIES,
ATTRACT BETTER TEACHERS?
The United States lags behind other countries in teacher
compensation, which in turn adversely affects the ability to recruit
high-quality candidates. A recent study by McKinsey and Company
argues that good starting salaries are an essential ingredient for
getting the right people to become teachers, writes Joydeep Roy for
Economic Snapshots. Though people who enter teaching often cite a
number of reasons for doing so, surveys find that unless school
systems offer salaries commensurate with other career opportunities,
the teaching profession will not appeal to attractive candidates.
The McKinsey study shows that starting salaries in the United States
are much lower than in other Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD) countries. In fact, starting salaries for
teachers in the United States are only 81 percent of per capita
gross domestic product, while all other OECD countries pay their
teachers a significantly higher relative starting wage.
MINNESOTA SENATORS ARGUE TO REASSERT
LOCAL CONTROL OF SCHOOLS
Geoff Michel (R-Edina) and David Hann (R-Eden Prairie), state
senators from Minnesota, ask in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: who do
we want to run our schools? Don’t worry, they answer their own
question, and the answer is: not a federal government that is 1,200
miles away from their classrooms. Instead, the senators think
Minnesota needs to recommit to local control of schools and empower
parents, teachers and principals. To that end, the state’s Senate
Republicans are calling for a decisive end to their state’s
participation in No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and have drafted
legislation that would allow the state to opt out of the federal
mandate. In their opinion, the federal government should support
state education efforts, not drive them. Michel and Hann find that
federal intrusion hampers local decision-making, burdens Minnesota
teachers and prevents the state’s kids from achieving excellence.
KIDS ARE WRITING BETTER, BUT
ACHIEVEMENT GAPS REMAIN
Achievement in writing for the nation’s eighth- and 12th-graders is
up among many student subgroups, reports the Nation’s Report Card.
Since 2002, the percentage of students performing at or above the
"Basic" level of achievement has risen in both grades. However there
has been no change in the percentage of students reaching the
Proficient level at either grade since 2002. Meanwhile, gains for
African Americans and male students slightly narrowed achievement
gaps between African American and white students at eighth grade,
and male and female students at 12th grade. Nevertheless, gaps
remained unchanged elsewhere, as white students continued to
outperform African American and Hispanic students by large margins
at both grade levels, and females similarly outperform males.
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT, SCIENCE AND
ROBOTS, OH MY!
The For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology
(FIRST) Robotics competition, something many schools treat as a
varsity sport, brings together cheerleaders, mascots and throngs of
fans to cheer on teams of high school students. The teams compete to
make their robots complete the most laps around an arena and remove
and replace large rubber balls, reports Katie Merx for the Detroit
Free Press. While teams vie to see whose adult- sized robots can
finish assigned tasks fastest and most accurately, the biggest
awards are for teamwork, professional conduct and community
involvement. No worries, community involvement by the robots is not
required.
COMPUTER EDUCATION IS MATH ON
PERFORMANCE ENHANCING DRUGS
Computing is essentially math on steroids, writes Steve Lohr for the
New York Times. So, at first glance, it should seem appropriate that
the National Mathematics Advisory Panel included computer-based
instruction among its recommendations to address the mediocre level
of math achievement in the United States. However, the champions of
computing in the classroom have hailed the math panel report as an
encouraging win instead of a commonplace recommendation. The panel’s
focus is so valuable because it suggests that computing should be
seen as a necessary tool in mainstream education along with math,
science, reading, etc. Even though the math panel advocates for
computer instruction as a way to nurture math fluency, the progress
of integration is likely to be gradual. Math and computing are still
viewed as separate entities at the K-12 level and curriculum reflect
this schism, as most of the instruction focuses solely on
application competency. In addition, a scarcity of resources
presents another major hurdle to massive implementation of computer
education.
THE Xs AND Ys OF GOOD MATH TEACHING
REMAIN A MYSTERY
The qualities of an effective math teacher remain frustratingly
elusive, reports Sean Cavanagh for Education Week. In fact,
available research does not show conclusively which professional
credentials demonstrate whether math teachers are effective in the
classroom. In addition, no research shows what college math content
and coursework are most essential for teachers, or what kinds of
pre-service, professional development or alternative programs best
prepare teachers. As a result, there needs to be far more research
into what improves the teaching of math, as research has not
provided "consistent or convincing" evidence that students of
certified math teachers benefit more than others. Similarly, only a
weak connection exists between teachers’ college math coursetaking
and the achievement of their students at the elementary level. When
it comes to the specific math content knowledge teachers need, the
available research is, you guessed it, sketchy at best.
INTERACTIVE TOUCH SCREENS PREPARE
STUDENTS FOR A FLAT WORLD
Lessons at David Livingston Elementary School in Vancouver, B.C.
(Canada) have become anything but traditional, reports Fiona Morrow
for the Globe and Mail. The school is the hub for SMART technology,
which includes touch sensitive interactive whiteboards connected to
computers and digital projectors in every classroom. The SMART
boards make chalkboards obsolete as they can be written on in the
same manner but at the flick of a switch, can be connected to a
computer. This makes the screens fully interactive and enables
teachers to pull up graphics and charts, search the Internet and
make use of streaming video. Students also can drag information
around the screen and complete projects at home and load it on a
memory stick, plug it in at school and give a presentation. Benefits
for students with learning disabilities are beginning to emerge as
well.
NEW DOCUMENTARY CHARTS SCHOOL-LEVEL
RESPONSE TO NCLB
A new documentary, Put to the Test, follows the students, teachers
and administrators of Western Guilford High School, located in
Greensboro, N.C., as they navigate the requirements of No Child Left
Behind (NCLB). In January 2002, President George W. Bush met Senator
Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) at a high school in Ohio. This meeting
commemorated a day of bipartisan celebration, as the Congress had
just passed NCLB. At that time, the legislation was hailed by
leaders from the right and left as the most significant education
law in a generation. Now, ask any teacher what they think of the
law, and they're likely to say schools are becoming so focused on
test results that education is being reduced to what can fit on a
multiple choice exam. However, ask the principal at Western Guilford
High School what he thinks, and he'll tell you the testing is
absolutely necessary.
CREATE YOUR OWN DR. SEUSS STORY, HELP
ENGLISH LEARNERS LEARN
A new website, The Dr. Seuss Story Maker, leads students through
several steps to create a dialogue between two Dr. Seuss characters.
This particular aspect of the site could be decidedly helpful for
English language learners in practicing English. In addition the
site includes a whole host of other fun activities. Or in its words:
"Here are lots of games for you to play/To keep you entertained all
day!/The greatest games you've ever seen/To play on your computer
screen./Plus some games you print out and then/You play them with
paper and pen."
STUDENTS WHO RECEIVE A BETTER
EDUCATION ARE MORE CIVICALLY ENGAGED
According to new research from the Center for Information & Research
on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE), 79 percent of young voters
on Super Tuesday attended college. This is so remarkable because
half of Americans ages 18 through 29 have never even enrolled in
higher education. This gap also is prevalent in youth turnout rates
as 25 percent of eligible young voters with college experience voted
on Super Tuesday, compared to one in 14 eligible young voters with
no college experience. Meanwhile, students in higher-income school
districts are about twice as likely as those from average-income
districts to learn how laws are made and how Congress works. Instead
of making things more equal, school systems have exacerbated the
political inequality by providing more opportunities to learn about
politics to higher income students, white students and academically
successful students.
MAYBE THAT WHOLE BROODING TEENAGER THING WENT
OUT WITH FLANNEL
A new study conducted by Online Testing eXchange (OTX) and the
Intelligence Group finds that 81 percent of 13 to 17 year-olds say
they are at least somewhat happy. That age group also reports they
are happiest with their relationships with friends, their talents
and their school performance. When asked if they would rather get a
college degree or win American Idol, 90 percent selected a college
degree. Furthermore, three-quarters of respondents would rather have
friends than lots of money. Still, personal appearance remains
important, as 61 percent of teens said they worry about their looks
and 50 percent of teens said looks and physical appearance were very
important when it comes to being respected by others. Nevertheless,
appearance is considerably less important to being liked, getting
ahead in the workplace and making lots of money. |
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"LIVESTRONG
at School"
The Lance Armstrong Foundation is challenging educators to get
students involved in the fight against cancer. Participating classes
will have the opportunity to win a visit from champion cyclist and
cancer survivor Lance Armstrong. Through LIVESTRONG at School, the
foundation offers free online lessons to teach K-12 students about
cancer in an age-appropriate and empowering way. To enter the
LIVESTRONG at School contest, educators must complete a lesson from
the LIVESTRONG at School curriculum and answer the question with
their students, "What does LIVESTRONG mean to you?" Maximum Award:
visit from Lance Armstrong. Eligibility: classes in schools K-12.
Deadline: May 1, 2008.
"Awards
for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching"
National Science Foundation Presidential Awards for Excellence in
Mathematics and Science Teaching recognize outstanding mathematics
and science teachers. Awardees serve as models for their colleagues,
inspirations to their communities, and leaders in the improvement of
mathematics and science education. Maximum Award: $10,000.
Eligibility: Teachers K-12 with at least five years of mathematics
and/or science teaching experience prior to application, assigned to
teach mathematics and/or science during the current year at a public
or private school. Elementary (K-6) teachers must be assigned, at
least half time during the year, to classroom teaching of
mathematics or science or be grade K-6 teachers in self-contained
classrooms. Deadline: May 1, 2008.
"Mailman
Family Foundation Grants"
The A.L. Mailman Family Foundation supports organizations that are
national in scope or reach more than one state. The foundation’s
goal is to promote the building of sustainable systems that provide
access to high quality early learning experiences for all children
and also effect system-wide change by encouraging responsive public
policies. Maximum Award: $50,000. Eligibility: 501(c)3
organizations. Deadline: May 1, 2008.
"Scholarships
for High School Students in Financial Need"
The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Young Scholars Program selects
high-achieving youth in the Unites States with financial needs and
provides them, throughout their high school years, with
individualized educational services that enable them to develop
their talents and abilities. Award: funding and support services.
Eligibility: students entering the eighth grade in the fall of 2008
and planning to enter a U.S. high school, who also demonstrate
financial need. Deadline: May 5, 2008.
"Youth
Award for Outstanding Activism in Environmental and Social Justice"
The Earth Island Institute Brower Youth Award recognizes young
people for their outstanding activism and achievements in the fields
of environmental and social justice advocacy. Maximum Award: $3,000,
a trip to California for the awards ceremony and a wilderness
camping trip. Eligibility: youth ages 13 to 22. Deadline: May 15,
2008.
"International
Youth Foundation YouthActionNet Fellows"
YouthActionNet Fellows are social entrepreneurs who participate in a
week-long capacity-building workshop in Washington, D.C. A key focus
of the workshop is facilitating peer-to-peer learning and networking
opportunities. Participants develop a customized learning plan based
on individual leadership learning needs that is focused on six
dimensions of leadership (personal, visionary, political,
collaborative, organizational and societal). Eligibility: people
ages 18 to 29; applicants should be founders of existing
projects/organizations or leading a project within an organization.
Maximum Award: all-expenses-paid trip to Washington D.C., November
1-8, 2008. Deadline: May 15, 2008. |
