Articles tagged with report

Qualified teachers still the key to improving math and science education, new report says

Photo courtesy of Stockvault

Photo courtesy of Stockvault

“Don’t go asking those ‘why’ questions!”

That, in essence, is what a high school math teacher told a relative of mine a few years back when she and some of her classmates were struggling to understand algebra. I don’t have to tell you why that comment disturbs me, but here goes: Good teachers would do almost anything to get their students to ask more “why” questions, and here this person was discouraging them. “Just plug the figures into the

formula,” she seemed to be saying, “and get the right answer.”

I probably also don’t need to say that my relative — who, I might add, is extremely bright and witty –is not planning a career in math or science. 

I thought about that “no why questions” reprimand last week at the unveiling of a major report by the Carnegie Corporation called The Opportunity Equation: Transforming Mathematics and Science Education for Citizenship and the Global Economy.  

The report says that the United States must dramatically improve math and science education for all students if it is to compete in the global economy.

One key to unlocking student potential is attracting more and better teachers to the hard-to-staff STEM fields (science, technology engineering, and math), the kind who would welcome those very “why” questions.
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Naomi Dillon|June 16th, 2009|Categories: American School Board Journal, Student Achievement|Tags: , , |

Seniority ranks; How cutting from the bottom results in larger staff reductions

Today, let’s begin with a little math quiz — a grim one, unfortunately.

The economy’s bad, your district budget is in the red, federal stimulus funds won’t cover the gap, and you have to cut from the only place left to cut: personnel.

If you have to reduce personnel costs by 10 percent, what percentage of your workforce do you have to cut?

Easy: 10 percent, right?

Wrong. And if you’re a school board member or work in a school district, you probably know why. The real answer: When lay-offs are determined, they are usually based on seniority. So, to achieve a 10 percent reduction in personnel costs, you have to cut 14.3 percent of your workforce.

That’s the conclusion that Research Associate Marguerite Roza, of the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education, reaches in her recent report: “Seniority-Based Layoffs Will Exacerbate Job Loss in Public Education.”

Here’s how it works, the report says:

“When districts reduce head counts, they eliminate the most junior personnel in each job classification (teachers, aides, custodians, etc.). For each job classification, the most junior employees tend to be the lowest paid. Inevitably, the salaries of those laid off are lower than the district average. That means cutting, say, 5 percent of the junior personnel will reduce salary expenditures by less than 5 percent. Instead, more than 5 percent of the workforce will need to be cut in order to reduce salary expenditures by 5 percent.”
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Naomi Dillon|March 10th, 2009|Categories: American School Board Journal, Educational Research|Tags: , , , |
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