Articles in the Teachers category

Sex between teacher, student clearly crosses line, depending on district, state

296-1247241526wes9There are some things that should be so obvious when left up to a simple test of common sense that no formal law should be required to regulate them. One would assume that teachers having a sexual relationship with their students would fall under this category, but apparently some educators need a little more guidance to see the difference between right and wrong.

In the District of Columbia, the only thing that bars a teacher from sleeping with one of his or her students is the age of consent, which is 16 in the District.  That’s right, by current law, as long the student is 16 years or older, a teacher would not be committing a crime if they had sex with that student. Whether this seems like a gross ethical blunder by the teacher or a huge legal oversight by lawmakers, the problem is certainly not unique to D.C. schools.

Georgia state law also holds that those students over 16 are at the age of consent, and therefore a teacher cannot be arrested for being intimate with those students. A unanimous ruling last year in the state of Washington allowed for teachers to have a sexual relationship with students as long as they were over the age of 18.

D.C. Council member Kwame Brown is taking a step in the right direction by sponsoring emergency legislation that would require the firing of any teacher convicted of sleeping with a student, regardless of that student’s age. The bill would not yet allow the District to bring criminal charges against the teacher, but “Brown (D-At Large) and his legislative staff determined…he needed more time to draft that proposal. He instead decided to push for emergency legislation requiring that such teachers be fired, the Washington Post reported Monday.
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Naomi Dillon|March 16th, 2010|Categories: Governance, Leading Source, Policy Formation, Teachers|Tags: , |

The week in blogs

Photo courtesy of Stockvault,com-

Photo courtesy of Stockvault,com-

Stocks and consumer spending may be rising, but the economic recession is still ravaging school districts, as budget woes and school closures dominated the news this week.

In Kansas City, Mo., the school board narrowly voted to close nearly half of its schools for budget reasons.

Commenting on the dismal budget situation nationally, NSBA Executive Director Anne L. Bryant told MSNBC that school boards will likely face deeper cuts in the fall and that their funding problems show no sign of abating anytime soon.

“There is no silver lining, at least in the next 18 months,” she said.

Meanwhile, teachers across the nation were incensed at the firings of all 93 teachers at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island — and President Obama’s apparent endorsement of the move.

“I ripped the Obama sticker off my truck,” a Houston Federation of Teachers official said in a New York Times story. The quote was highlighted by Alexander Russo in his This Week in Education blog.

Employment prospects also weren’t looking up for New York’s embattled Gov. David Paterson, who announced recently that he will not seek re-election amid a series of investigations into his administration.

“Hubris is terminal,” Timothy G. Kremer, executive director of the New York State School Boards Association, said in his blog this week, quoting someone who should know: former Gov. Eliot Spitzer. After assessing Paterson’s chances of survival, Kremer turned to a more immediate concern: a state budget that cuts $1.1 billion out of the schools. For more on the possible impact of these cuts, and NYSSBA’s response, go to “Be the Change for Kids.”
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Lawrence Hardy|March 12th, 2010|Categories: Assessment, Curriculum, Leading Source, Policy Formation, Student Achievement, Teachers, Wellness|

Generation Y kids harder to reach, teach

1-1232525847nXGsIn his annual address to secondary school heads, John Dunford, the general secretary of the U.K.’s Association Of School and College Leaders, acknowledged yesterday that a culture of instant gratification has made the job of teaching today’s youth harder than its ever been.

“Success appears to come instantly and without any real effort,” Dunford told the conference audience. “It is difficult for teachers to compete. Success in learning just doesn’t come fast enough.” 

Well said, Mr. Dunford, but hardly revolutionary.

For years now, I’ve heard from teacher friends and seen from site visits how much teaching has become by necessity almost entertainment like; we must engage the students by making lessons fun and relevant.

One teacher told me recently that she has to convince high school students that learning basic math concepts like multiplication and  division are necessarily skills in life, even employing popular rap stars and their lyrics about money making within her arsenal.

That’s sad … but is it inevitable given how prolific and accessible technology and media are and make everything seem? Not only do we have 24/7 media, we have an endless supply of fame-seekers willing to broadcast their lives 24/7.
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Naomi Dillon|March 8th, 2010|Categories: Educational Research, Governance, Leading Source, Student Achievement, Teachers|Tags: , , |

Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds

In her recent TED talk, Temple Grandin, diagnosed with autism as a child, tells us how her mind works. She gives an overview of how people on the autism spectrum think and makes the case that the world needs those people: visual thinkers, pattern thinkers, verbal thinkers, and all kinds of smart geeky kids. She describes autism as “a continuum of traits. When does a nerd turn into Asperger’s, which is just mild autism? I mean Einstein and Mozart and Tesla, would all be probably diagnosed as autistic spectrum today.”

Grandin advocates that people on the autism spectrum need to be encouraged in school. The standardized testing scheme of the No Child Left Behind Act simply doesn’t work for neuroatypicals as she calls them. This is just one reason why the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is important to our education system. One-size-fits-all is not an educational policy that will work for neuroatypicals. Individualized Education Programs (IEP) can do wonders for such students. 

More importantly, Grandin is not arguing that autistic students need such flexibility for their own interests alone; she contends that we as a society need these kids. The wonders to be found in the neuroatypical mind could be key to solving future problems.

Grandin also speaks her mind on certain education reforms. She advocates the need for classroom teachers who can teach a subject well, but who don’t necessarily have education degrees:

 And this brings up mentors. You know, my science teacher was not an accredited teacher. He was a NASA space scientist. Now, some states now are getting it to where if you have a degree in biology, or a degree in chemistry, you can come into the school and teach biology or chemistry. We need to be doing that. Because what I’m observing is the good teachers, for a lot of these kids, are out in the community colleges.

Mentorship is certainly an idea BoardBuzz can get behind. There are undoubtedly many bright young minds that just need the right mentor to help them find their talent and develop that potential. Grandin called on the TED audience to think about mentoring and hiring those kids.

She also joked that Silicon Valley would not exist today if it weren’t for those geeky neuroatypical minds, which drew a big laugh from the techie crowd. And she suggested that this next generation of kids with autism, properly mentored and motivated, could solve the world’s energy problems.

“The world needs different kinds of minds to work together,” she said. Check out the Ted Talk below or at the link above.

Andrew Paulson|March 5th, 2010|Categories: Boardbuzz, Educational Legislation, Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Special Education, Student Achievement, Teachers|

What do teachers think? Survey asks them

Photo courtesy Gates Foundation

Photo courtesy Gates Foundation

Want to hold onto your best teachers? Put good principals in your schools.

For years, teachers have been telling me that a good principal—someone who is supportive, focuses on improving instruction, and creates a healthy school climate—is the single most important factor in their choice of schools to work in.

Now a national survey of 40,000 teachers confirms my anecdotal-based opinion.

The survey, sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, found that 68 percent of teachers said  “supportive leadership” is essential for retaining good teachers, as opposed to only 45 percent who rated higher salaries as important.

That comes as no surprise to me. Without a good principal or an enlightened central office, a school can become a lousy place to work. No teacher is going to sit in a classroom every day if the principal won’t intervene against student misbehavior in hallways or classrooms—or can’t inspire a sense of meaning and progress to the work teachers do.

Conducted in conjunction with Scholastic Inc., the survey findings, Primary Sources: America’s Teachers on America’s Schools, offers some other insights into the minds of teachers:
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Naomi Dillon|March 4th, 2010|Categories: Educational Research, Governance, Leading Source, Teachers|Tags: , , |

Do business methods work in education reform?

Do charter schools pose a threat to public education, or can they play a part in improving it? What about giving financial rewards to districts that demonstrate they are willing to implement reforms?

These topics are being debated across the country these days, as Arne Duncan and the Obama administration promote their ideas for public school reform. Education historian and former federal education official, Diane Ravitch tackles these ideas head on in her new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System.

A recent article in The Washington Post examines Ravitch’s new book, and points out that many of its ideas are not in line with those of the current administration.

Ravitch believes the new methods rely too much on business principles, such as pay for performance, and standardized testing. Instead, Ravitch believes public schools need to adopt a national curriculum that covers a full range of arts and sciences. She is also a strong defender of teachers’ unions, which puts her at odds with the proposed move toward more charter schools.

Diane Ravitch is one of the featured speakers at NSBA‘s 2010 Annual Conference in Chicago, April 10-12, 2010, and she will also be signing copies of her new book at the Conference bookstore on Saturday, April 10.

Barbara Moody|March 2nd, 2010|Categories: Boardbuzz, Privatization, School Boards, Student Achievement, Teachers|

The dropout problem

Earlier today, President Barack Obama spoke about high school dropouts, and how he hopes to help the cause. The numbers are scary. About 7,000 students drop out of high school a day. Yes, everyday! That’s more than a million a year nationwide and you can only imagine the consequences of all those students not completing their high school education. You’ve heard BoardBuzz talk about high school graduation rates before, but alongside President Obama’s efforts is another familiar face, General Colin Powell.  He and his wife, Alma, and their organization (America’s Promise Alliance) are starting Grad Nation, which they hope will curb the dropout problem.

What’s common knowledge doesn’t mean there’s a common solution.  The education community understands that many of these dropouts are in large and urban districts, and these same districts are the ones being concentrated on as the lowest performing schools that need to be changed.  The administration and the Department of Education have made it very clear that they are targeting the 2,000 schools that contribute the most to the dropout problem.  But with grants and promises of major funding coming from the government, is that all these districts need?  We know, based on the work that the Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE) does within NSBA, that one size does not fit all.  Each district has its unique issue to address and a network of like-minded solutions must be draw upon for success.  We’re hopeful that the network set up by America’s Promise will help shape policies and programs that help school districts succeed.  With $900 million to utilize as transformational grants, BoardBuzz hopes it pays off and changes graduation rates for good.

Kevin Scott|March 1st, 2010|Categories: Boardbuzz, Governance, Teachers|

Teacher evaulation process needs evaluation

Photo courtesy Stockvault

Photo courtesy Stockvault

There’s a reason school districts still rely on the same teacher evaluation model that’s been around for half a century.

Many are not ready for anything more ambitious.

Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of local school leaders who do a great job of evaluating teachers.

It’s just that, with everything else there is to do in today’s public schools, the teacher evaluation process can get lost in the shuffle. You just assume it’s working fine.

That’s why there are principals out there who are not adequately trained to evaluate their faculty. And why there is little money out there to provide that training.

And why lots of mediocre teachers get a “satisfactory” rating each year—because principals don’t feel qualified to make hard judgments or prefer to avoid the hassles of dealing with a struggling teacher.

Of course, there also are those schools that just avoid the issue altogether. That reality was revealed in a new report that concludes the Boston Public schools “routinely neglect a basic task: evaluating teachers.”

According to the Boston Globe, the report, commissioned by the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, found that “half the city’s approximately 5,000 teachers have not received an evaluation in the past two years, and a quarter of the city’s 135 schools have not conducted evaluations during that period.”
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Naomi Dillon|February 25th, 2010|Categories: Governance, Leading Source, Teachers|Tags: , |

The devastating results of school budget cuts

BoardBuzz has seen the devastating results of lay-offs in our school districts including: larger class sizes that do not facilitate the type of interaction and specialized instruction for many students and teachers; the loss of specialists for intervention programs such as reading and math coaches and after school tutoring; and discontinued extracurricular programs that help provide a well-rounded education program for our students.

Take for example Virginia, where  Gov. Bob McDonnell is recommending $731 million in cuts over the next 2.5 years.

Virginia’s proposed budget cuts will trickle down to each of the local school districts.

The largest school district in Virginia, Fairfax County, has announced it is planning to cut hundreds of education jobs and reducing full-day kindergarten, foreign language immersion, sports, music programs, and social workers and guidance counselors. Additionally, class sizes could increase and new fees are being considered for athletics and for Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate tests.

Alexis Rice|February 24th, 2010|Categories: Boardbuzz, Educational Finance, Educational Legislation, School Boards, Student Achievement, Teachers|

Overuse of restraints in special education

More than a year ago, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., head of the House Labor and Education Committee, began probing the use of seclusion and restraints in special education classrooms. At the time, those acts seemed to be rare and isolated.

But new research has, unfortunately, proved otherwise.

Not only are many schools and teachers frequently and improperly using those methods to punish students—sometimes for seemingly trivial behavioral issues— but also a handful of incidents have resulted in students’ deaths. And state and federal policies are lax in addressing the issue, which can leave districts unable to fire abusive teachers or reprimand inappropriate acts.  

In a story for the March ASBJ, I spoke to researcher Joseph B. Ryan, who was concerned about the training teachers are receiving. As part of a study that was used by Miller’s staff, he interviewed teachers and found that many had only received training on how to restrain, not when. Others, when asked about the prevalence of the use of restraints, cited policies and school rules, but when he examined incidence reports he found that the use of restraints was much more widespread than they acknowledged.

“It becomes a cultural situation—this is why parents and advocates are up in arms,” he said. “It’s an inappropriate response in the majority of times staff use it.”

Miller’s bill – which was passed by the House committee by a vote of 34 to 10 earlier this month — would create minimum safety standards for schools and require states to set and enforce policies. It prohibits a number of types of restraints deemed dangerous and requires schools to notify parents of incidents and report data to the U.S. Department of Education.

Since the story was published, NSBA has given another resounding endorsement to the measure.

“We believe that this legislation will meet our safety and other goals for students and school personnel while providing sufficient authority and flexibility to schools and school districts in training school personnel based on their unique needs,” NSBA associate executive director Michael A. Resnick wrote in a Jan. 25 letter to Rep. Miller. “The legislation is strategic and balanced in dealing with such factors as training, prohibiting the use of certain practices, and promoting positive learning supports.”

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor

Kathleen Vail|February 17th, 2010|Categories: Governance, Leading Source, NSBA Publications, Special Education, Teachers|
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