Articles in the Teachers category

Teacher of the year finalist, also one of NSBA’s one to watch

Today the Council of Chief State School Officers announced the finalists of 2011 National Teacher of the Year Program. Besides the fact that three of the four individuals were high school teachers, one other thing stood out to me from the list: Paul Andersen.

Innovative teachers have a way of rising to the top, so it shouldn’t be any surprise that Andersen, a science teacher at Bozeman School District #7 in Montana was also named one of NSBA’s Technology Leadership Network’s “20 to Watch.”

And in Andersen’s case, he really is an individual to watch as the nearly 300,000 hits to his “Bozeman Biology” podcasts have shown. Watch him in action in this introduction to the subject.

Naomi Dillon|January 12th, 2011|Categories: Governance, Leading Source, Teachers|Tags: , , |

Teaching the Constitution

As the U.S. House of Representatives reads the Constitution today, BoardBuzz wanted to share with you some great resources to teach students about our Constitution:

Alexis Rice|January 6th, 2011|Categories: Boardbuzz, Curriculum, Student Achievement, Teachers|

Education headlines: New law allows interns to be labeled “highly qualified”

A new federal law allows states to classify teaching interns as “highly qualified,” nullifying a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that banned the practice after civil-rights advocates in California complained about poor and minority students being taught by inexperienced teachers. The legislation was passed during the lame-duck session of Congress and signed by President Obama last month, the Associated Press writes… A growing number of schools across the nation are embracing the iPad to teach subjects from history to math, the New York Times reports… And former D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty has joined the Washington Speakers Bureau and will be marketed as an advocate for public education and expert in reforming urban school systems, a Washington Post blog reports. Fenty’s hiring of controversial former Chancellor Michelle Rhee has been cited by many experts as a factor in his loss last year.


Joetta Sack-Min|January 5th, 2011|Categories: Announcements, School Board News, Teachers|

Video: Geoffrey Canada on The Colbert Report

President and CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone and leading education advocate, Geoffrey Canada, appeared on Tuesday’s The Colbert Report where he discussed his vision to improve education.

View the video:

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Geoffrey Canada
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog March to Keep Fear Alive
Alexis Rice|January 5th, 2011|Categories: Boardbuzz, Charter Schools, Multimedia and Webinars, Student Achievement, Teachers, Urban Schools|

Labor conference will discuss best practices for boards and unions

NSBA will participate in a conference sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education that’s designed to showcase model labor agreements and find ways to use labor-management relationships to improve student achievement.

Federal education leaders have invited school districts, labor leaders, and other groups to participate in the conference, to be held Feb. 15 and 16 in Denver. Some 2,000 school districts that received funding through the Race to the Top program or other competitive grants were invited on Jan. 3, according to the Education Department.

In order for a district’s leaders to attend, the Education Department is requiring the school board president, superintendent, and teachers union leader to agree to participate. Attendees must sign a pledge to collaboratively develop and implement policies in areas such as strategic planning and “aligning all labor-management work with this overarching focus, including ways to share responsibility and hold each other accountable for results; and more effectively supporting the work of teachers, leaders, and administrators in advancing student achievement by improving such systems and structures as organizing teaching and learning time and schedules, and processes for the hiring, retention, compensation, development, and evaluation of a highly effective workforce,” according to the Education Department.

Michael Resnick, NSBA’s Associate Director for Advocacy and Issues Management, said NSBA was working with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and other officials to help get the most useful information for local school board members.

“This is a constructive endeavor to look at how school boards and local unions can work collaboratively, both inside and outside the collective bargaining agreements, to find ways to improve student achievement,” he said. “We’re looking forward to working with the Education Department to identify promising arrangements and bring them to the attention of local school districts.”

Resnick noted that many of the issues that will be discussed are strictly local issues, but said the conference could help local school board members learn about new practices and ideas beyond traditional contractual agreements.

The two main teachers unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, also will participate, as will the American Association of School Administrators and the Council of Great City Schools. The Ford Foundation will fund the event.

Joetta Sack-Min|January 4th, 2011|Categories: Governance, School Board News, School Boards, Teachers|

New report concerning about teens contracting STDs

A new report in the medical journal Pediatrics about the sex habits of teens is very concerning.

More than ten percent of teens who said they were abstinent also tested positive for a sexually transmitted disease (STD).

The findings suggest that medical professionals should do more than just ask teens about their sexual activity to decide if STD testing is needed.

“Importantly, our findings reveal that if pediatricians and adolescent medicine physicians do not test all young people, there are likely a substantial number of missed cases of STDs that will go undiagnosed, untreated, and spread to future sex partners,” the researchers noted in their report.

Sex education is an important responsibility that begins in the home and is shared by the community, including our public schools. School board members, have a key policy role in ensuring that young people receive accurate, age-appropriate information to help them make responsible decisions.

Check out these great  resources on STDs and sexuality education:

Alexis Rice|January 4th, 2011|Categories: Boardbuzz, School Boards, Student Achievement, Teachers, Wellness|

Take the challenge

BoardBuzz recommends you check out Challenge.gov, a U.S. Government website that empowers the public to bring their best ideas to address our nation’s most pressing challenges. The site has a section devoted to education challenges and some of these challenges have prize money involved!

Alexis Rice|December 29th, 2010|Categories: Announcements, Boardbuzz, Educational Technology, Federal Programs, Student Achievement, Teachers|

Improving the teaching profession

This March, the U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan along with the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development and Education International will host the International Summit on the Teaching Profession in New York City.

The Department of Education says that, “the summit will convene education ministers, national union leaders, education organization leaders and accomplished teachers from countries with high performing and rapidly improving educational systems to identify best practices worldwide that effectively strengthen the teaching profession in ways designed to enhance student achievement.”

“When it comes to teaching, talent matters tremendously,” said Duncan announcing the summit. “But great teachers are not just born that way — it takes a high-quality system for recruiting, training, retaining, and supporting teachers over the course of their careers to develop an effective teaching force. This summit is a tremendous opportunity to learn from one another the best methods worldwide to address our common challenges: supporting and strengthening teachers and boosting the student skills necessary for success in today’s knowledge economy.”

BoardBuzz thinks this is a great opportunity to advance the teaching profession.

Alexis Rice|December 27th, 2010|Categories: Boardbuzz, Federal Programs, Teachers|

The week in blogs

If you’re interested in statistics about your county, you can find a wealth of them in the American Community Survey, which was released this week by the U.S. Census.

Maureen Downey, of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, took a look and wasn’t pleased with what she saw:  Of the 62 counties where less than 10 percent of adults had a bachelor’s degree, 14 were in Georgia – the highest number in the nation.

“We lead in another category of under attainment in education in this country,” Downey wrote. “This is for all of you who maintain that Georgia does not need to send more kids to college.”

How do you send more kids to college? One way, of course, is to improve education at the K-12 level. But a report by the Fordham Foundation, “Are Bad Schools Immortal,” casts considerable doubt that some of the drastic turnaround strategies being proposed are effective. Read Fordham’s Mike Petrilli and ASBJ’s own Del Stover on this important topic.

Then you might want to read my September story on embattled Central Falls High School, in a little urban community near Providence, R.I. This is the school where the superintendent famously, or infamously, decided to fire all the staff before coming to a sort-of agreement with teachers.

This past week, Central Falls was in the news again. Several of the teachers and administrators I interviewed for my story were on NPR, and, well, it sounds like things may have gone from bad to worse.

OK. Something uplifting, or at least on a lighter note? Read Superintendent-blogger Mike Smith on the Graph of Snow Day Excitement. Guess who’s not so excited?

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor

Lawrence Hardy|December 17th, 2010|Categories: Assessment, Curriculum, Educational Research, Governance, Leading Source, Policy Formation, Student Achievement, Teachers, Urban Schools|

Focus on education leadership

We all hear a lot about leadership these days and there has been an increased focus on the special skills needed to lead in the challenging 21st century world. 

BoardBuzz was interested to see that renowned education author and speaker Douglas B. Reeves has a new book out that focuses on education leadership, Finding Your Leadership Focus: What Matters Most for Student Results.

According to the synopsis by Teachers College Press, this book takes a close look at one of the major challenges facing public schools today: the overload of programs and initiatives being implemented in districts across the country.  

According to Reeves, this overload taxes resources and hurts student performance. He identifies a very specific set of leadership practices that can lead the way to improved student achievement. With analysis of years of research data and the presentation of practical methods for implementing new strategies, this book seems like a timely addition to education reform discussion.

Reeves will be one of the featured speakers at the 2011 NSBA Annual Conference in San Francisco in the “Focus on Education” series.  In his topic, “Focus On…The Innovative Board: How Policymakers Nurture Learning, Teaching, and Leadership”, Reeves will share his insights on student achievement, teaching practices and leadership decisions with conference attendees on Monday, April 11.

Barbara Moody|December 15th, 2010|Categories: Boardbuzz, Conferences and Events, Student Achievement, Teachers|
Page 10 of 35« First...«89101112»2030...Last »