April 1996
Teacher Magazine, Vol. 07, Issue 07
Education
Opinion
Fashion Statement
President Clinton has come out for uniforms in public schools. I admire President Clinton. I will surely vote for him. But I can't help wondering if it's a good idea to have our president beating the drum for putting uniforms on 45 million kids.
Education
Connections
Since their creation a century and a half ago, the free, common schools have rarely been free of controversy and often have been objects of parental suspicion and distrust. Battles over the state's authority to require communities to establish public schools and compel children to attend them raged across the land during the first half of the 19th century. Angry opponents argued that education was not a proper function of government and that it was an intrusion into the domain of parents. They feared the secularizing influence of schools that were largely expected to provide religious and moral instruction. And they objected to paying higher taxes to finance education.
Education
Views From The Classroom
The nation's public school teachers agree with the general public about the importance of teaching basic academic skills, but they disagree over how good a job schools are currently doing, according to a study released in February by the research group Public Agenda.
Education
Teacher Resources
DEADLINES
Following is a list of application deadlines for grants, fellowships, and honors available to individuals. Asterisks (
Following is a list of application deadlines for grants, fellowships, and honors available to individuals. Asterisks (
Education
Homegrown Learning
Betsy Abrams steers her six-year-old Toyota Corolla through the town of North San Juan on her way to pay a visit to the Pryor family. Turning off the main highway onto a narrow dirt driveway, she carefully maneuvers the car over and around a series of large, muddy potholes. "This isn't too bad compared with some roads that I've been on,'' she says. "At least it's not very long.''
Education
What Scares Children?
Keywords:
After filming the spine-tingling shower scene in the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock thriller Psycho, actress Janet Leigh was so petrified she never again set foot in a shower. Although Leigh's fear may have been more intense than most, she was not alone. Many adults who witnessed the murder on the silver screen had at least one or two disturbing thoughts the next time they stepped into a shower.
After filming the spine-tingling shower scene in the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock thriller Psycho, actress Janet Leigh was so petrified she never again set foot in a shower. Although Leigh's fear may have been more intense than most, she was not alone. Many adults who witnessed the murder on the silver screen had at least one or two disturbing thoughts the next time they stepped into a shower.
Education
Mission Impossible
At 8:45 a.m. on a frigid Monday morning, Charles Mingo, Whitman Scholar, Thompson Fellow, and Milken award-winning principal of DuSable High School on Chicago's South Side, begins the second semester in a closed-door conference-room meeting with 20 assistant principals, school directors, counselors, and curriculum specialists.
Education
Whose Kids Are They, Anyway?
At first, Chip Angell couldn't make head or tail of the woman's story. She phoned late last spring, a time of year when the warm daytime sun in Toccoa, Ga., gives way to an evening cool that makes for a pleasant stroll around the town square. A lawyer, Angell works out of a storefront office just off the square. For five years, he has run legal interference for many $6- and $7-an-hour workers who are headed for bankruptcy, tangled in insurance red tape, or just plain down and out.
Education
Service Sanctioned
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A New York state school district's mandatory community-service requirement violates neither the privacy rights of students nor the rights of parents to direct their children's upbringing, a federal appeals court ruled earlier this year.
A New York state school district's mandatory community-service requirement violates neither the privacy rights of students nor the rights of parents to direct their children's upbringing, a federal appeals court ruled earlier this year.
Education
Uniform Policy
Proponents of school-uniform policies got another boost in February, when President Clinton ordered the Department of Education to distribute a manual on the subject to the nation's 15,000 school districts.
Education
The Front Page
Keywords:
Three days to publication and the journalism classroom at Birmingham High School looks like the Los Angeles Times in miniature. Students input last-minute articles, proofread copy, examine, criticize, and change layout, argue over headlines and bylines, debate front-page articles. When the dismissal bell rings at 3:05, no one leaves. Students know what has to be done in order to send the Courier to the printing company at eight the next morning.
Three days to publication and the journalism classroom at Birmingham High School looks like the Los Angeles Times in miniature. Students input last-minute articles, proofread copy, examine, criticize, and change layout, argue over headlines and bylines, debate front-page articles. When the dismissal bell rings at 3:05, no one leaves. Students know what has to be done in order to send the Courier to the printing company at eight the next morning.
Education
All-Time Best Sellers
Keywords:
What do The Poky Little Puppy and Charlotte's Web have in common? In their respective categories, hardcover books and paperback, they are the best-selling children's books of all time, according to a list of best sellers that appeared in the Feb. 5 issue of Publishers Weekly, the book industry's bible. Puppy, with 14 million copies sold--nearly twice that of Charlotte--is the grand winner. The figures in the lists, which rank 123 hardback and 252 paperback titles, cover sales from the original publication date through the end of 1995. Authors appearing high and often on the hardcover list include Dr. Seuss (of course), Beatrix Potter, and Shel Silverstein. Those on the paperback list include Judy Blume, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Stan and Jan Berenstain (of Berenstain Bears fame). Following are the top 10 titles on each list.
What do The Poky Little Puppy and Charlotte's Web have in common? In their respective categories, hardcover books and paperback, they are the best-selling children's books of all time, according to a list of best sellers that appeared in the Feb. 5 issue of Publishers Weekly, the book industry's bible. Puppy, with 14 million copies sold--nearly twice that of Charlotte--is the grand winner. The figures in the lists, which rank 123 hardback and 252 paperback titles, cover sales from the original publication date through the end of 1995. Authors appearing high and often on the hardcover list include Dr. Seuss (of course), Beatrix Potter, and Shel Silverstein. Those on the paperback list include Judy Blume, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Stan and Jan Berenstain (of Berenstain Bears fame). Following are the top 10 titles on each list.
Education
Coming Up Short
Two-thirds of Maryland's 11th graders have not completed the state's requirement that they perform 75 hours of community service before they graduate next year. The class of 1997 is the first to have to satisfy the service-learning mandate, which legislators approved in 1993.
Education
Get Rid Of The Kid
The new chairman of the Massachusetts state school board, Boston University President John Silber, says having a student representative on the panel is "as much nonsense as a pediatrician asking an infant what medicine is best.''
Education
Unconventional Wisdom
Dalrymple Boulevard begins just yards from the Mississippi River and meanders northward, eventually becoming Park Boulevard.
Education
All Or Nothing
Instead of giving a gay student group access to one of its high schools, the Salt Lake City school board took draconian measures in February, voting to eliminate all extracurricular clubs at the school beginning next fall.
Education
Dressed For Success
Linda Moore has been feeling especially proud lately. And she has President Clinton to thank. In his State of the Union Address, Clinton praised student uniforms as a way to promote safety and discipline in public schools. Moore, principal of Will Rogers Middle School in Long Beach, Calif., felt a particular satisfaction in the endorsement.
Education
Opinion
Don't Blame The Kids
Days before Washington hosted the "Million Man March'' and the
National African-American Leadership Summit last fall, the U.S.
Department of Justice released a report showing that one-third of
African-American men between the ages of 20 and 29 are in the
criminal-justice system, either in prison, in jail awaiting trial, on
probation, or paroled. Unfortunately, America's schools helped put many
of them where they are.
Education
Letter to the Editor
Letters
As someone who has been a teacher, principal, and parent, I fully understand the complexity of the issues raised in your article "What's Right for Rafael?'' [March]. I empathize deeply with Rafael's family. I also realize the limitations of public schools; I am someone who left public education for private education because I watched my class size and responsibilities grow each September while the support services continued to dwindle.
Inclusion
As someone who has been a teacher, principal, and parent, I fully understand the complexity of the issues raised in your article "What's Right for Rafael?'' [March]. I empathize deeply with Rafael's family. I also realize the limitations of public schools; I am someone who left public education for private education because I watched my class size and responsibilities grow each September while the support services continued to dwindle.
Education
Opinion
Handle With Care
The schoolmaster had the reputation of being a kindly man, but probably the accepted theory of what young boys were like and what worked in school was such that he believed that each of his students needed to "have their clock wound up every Monday.'' This meant, in practice, that every one of them needed a good flogging to start off the week as motivation that would last them until Friday. Luckily for the boys, the schoolmaster's wife was just as kind as her husband--and a lot more sensible--and she regularly "lost'' the keys to the closet where the rods were kept. But the terror of Monday morning never left the boys.