October 1996
Teacher Magazine, Vol. 08, Issue 02
Education
Extra Credit: For Your Students
Following is a list of contests, scholarships, and internships for students organized by application deadline. Asterisks (*) denote new entries.
Classroom Technology
Virtual Visionaries
Imagine that you are a student in an advanced high school physics class. The subject of today's lesson is electrostatic forces and fields. You've already learned some of the concepts from lectures and textbooks. But today, your studies are about to enter a whole new dimension--literally.
Education
Extra Credit: On The Web
Following is a list of World Wide Web sites that teachers and their students may find helpful.
Recruitment & Retention
Help Wanted
California school districts have embarked on a massive teacher-hiring spree sparked by a nearly $1 billion state initiative to reduce class sizes in the primary grades.
Education
Extra Credit: Deadlines
Following is a list of application deadlines for grants, fellowships, and honors available to individuals. Asterisks (*) denote new entries.
Teaching Profession
Teaching Matters
The single most important strategy for achieving America's education goals is to recruit, prepare, and support excellent teachers for every school, concludes a report released last month by a prestigious national commission.
Education
Extra Credit: In The Spotlight
The National Association for Humane and Environmental Education has named Brenda Durham of Stephen Foster Elementary School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., as the 1995-96 KIND Teacher of the Year. Durham receives $500 worth of educational materials and a subscription to KIND News, a newspaper for engaging students in activities that demonstrate caring and respect for people, animals, and the environment.
School & District Management
The Essential Ted Sizer
It's 8 a.m. on a flawless morning in May, and Theodore Sizer, the
nation's most famous school reformer, looks like he's just punched out
of the third shift.
School & District Management
Connections: Hope or Despair?
In Ted Sizer's ideal world, schools would be humane places--places small enough for teachers and students to know and care about each other; places where people know the joy of hard work and learning; places that reflect the highest virtues and values of a compassionate, democratic society.
School & District Management
Chicago Hope
Power walking down a deserted corridor at the Chicago Public Schools' massive headquarters, Maribeth Vander Weele suddenly notices a fresh tag on the wall, courtesy of the Latin Kings, one of the city's more notorious gangs.
School & District Management
Findings
Teachers and administrators have worried for years about the increasing frequency with which urban students move in and out of their neighborhood schools. A new study suggests there is good reason to worry: In schools with high mobility rates, the pace of instruction slows for all students, not just the ones who are moving. David Kerbow, a researcher at the University of Chicago, surveyed 13,000 6th graders in Chicago, a district with notoriously high student mobility. At any given time in an average Chicago elementary school, only half the students have been enrolled for three years. Not surprisingly, Kerbow found that the more often elementary students move, the further they fall behind academically. By 6th grade, students who have changed schools four or more times are about a year behind those who have had more stable school careers. But Kerbow also found that in schools with high turnover, the pace of instruction for all children slows after 1st grade as teachers take time to review material for new students. By 5th grade, the researcher says, these schools are a full year behind those with more stable enrollments. Kerbow reported his findings in the June issue of the Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk. "Without a certain level of [student] stability," he writes, "it is unclear how school-based educational programs, no matter how innovative, could successfully develop and show long-term impact."
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
Teachers and administrators have worried for years about the increasing frequency with which urban students move in and out of their neighborhood schools. A new study suggests there is good reason to worry: In schools with high mobility rates, the pace of instruction slows for all students, not just the ones who are moving. David Kerbow, a researcher at the University of Chicago, surveyed 13,000 6th graders in Chicago, a district with notoriously high student mobility. At any given time in an average Chicago elementary school, only half the students have been enrolled for three years. Not surprisingly, Kerbow found that the more often elementary students move, the further they fall behind academically. By 6th grade, students who have changed schools four or more times are about a year behind those who have had more stable school careers. But Kerbow also found that in schools with high turnover, the pace of instruction for all children slows after 1st grade as teachers take time to review material for new students. By 5th grade, the researcher says, these schools are a full year behind those with more stable enrollments. Kerbow reported his findings in the June issue of the Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk. "Without a certain level of [student] stability," he writes, "it is unclear how school-based educational programs, no matter how innovative, could successfully develop and show long-term impact."
Law & Courts
A Day in Court
A federal appeals court has reinstated a gay student's lawsuit that accuses a Wisconsin public school district of failing to protect him from abuse by other students. It is one of the first lawsuits that seek to hold school officials responsible for harassment of homosexual youngsters.
School & District Management
Vouchers: Who's Right?
Two studies of the first program in the nation that allows children from poor families to attend private schools on public dollars have reached dramatically different conclusions about whether it raises student achievement.
School & District Management
Artistic License
Filmmakers have taken dramatic license in turning the story of a Miami school bus hijacking into a made-for-TV thriller.
School Choice & Charters
A New Choice
The idea of giving parents public money to send their children to private religious schools--a topic of debate for years in policy circles and the courts--has become a reality for hundreds of low-income families in Cleveland.
Education
Extra Credit: Teaching Tools
Following is a list of free or inexpensive resources that teachers can order.
Teaching Profession
Fashion Statement
Joe Catalano, a 27-year teaching veteran, has gotten back in the habit of wearing a tie to work. Each morning, he makes his selection from a closet bulging with traditional prints, Mickey Mouse and Looney Tunes characters, and golf and basketball themes.
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
Voices: Missing Person
James sits next to me and unfolds the day's Metro section. "Will you
read this to me?" he asks, pointing to a story on the lower half of the
page.
Education
Letter to the Editor
Letters To The Editor
Your thoughtful piece "Odd Man Out" about men teaching young children stirred memories of my first years teaching kindergarten.
School & District Management
Opinion
A Language of Hope
There were four wide boards nailed to the front wall of the Little
Greenbrier Schoolhouse.
Teaching
Opinion
Look Back In Anger
I'm in front of the class on the first day of school, and for some reason, I'm totally unprepared. (How did this happen?)