August/September 1999
Teacher Magazine, Vol. 11, Issue 01
IT Infrastructure & Management
Ringing Endorsement
It's hard to forget the panicky voices of the students and teachers trapped inside Columbine High School.
School & District Management
A Clean Sweep?
Oak saplings planted six years ago in front of Thomas J. Rusk Elementary School are now a healthy seven feet tall.
Teaching Profession
Turning Inward
Gay teacher Rodney Wilson left the classroom, but he's
still battling the status quo--one person at a time.
School Choice & Charters
Flower Power
The Sudbury Valley School, in Framingham, Massachusetts, is perhaps the United States' most extreme example of progressive education.
Teaching Profession
A Star Is Born
After writer Tracy Kidder made her the heart of his bestselling Among Schoolchildren, Chris Zajac hit the talk shows and was, for a short time, America's most famous teacher.
Education
Then And Now
Everyone loves a good story. And over the past decade, Teacher
Magazine has published hundreds-articles about teachers, principals, students, reformers, and the issues, conflicts, and challenges that animate them.
School & District Management
Chicago Blues
Bonnie Jerome should be happy. After flirting briefly with a career as a social worker, she's found her calling as a 5th grade teacher in Chicago.
School & District Management
The Crucible
"Educational child abuse." That's how a top New Jersey official characterized the Jersey City schools in 1989, on the eve of the state's
takeover of the district.
Families & the Community
A Mom And Pop Shop
The era of the bake sale is nearly over. The last decade has seen traditional forms of parent involvement in schools usurped by more activist
models.
Education
Ten People Who Shaped The Decade
History is often the study of the leaders, the politicians, the generals, the powers that be. But when it comes to telling the story of
education in the '90s, the usual suspects merit little more than a
footnote.
Teaching Profession
Tenth Anniversary Issue
Journalists labor under the notion that their words are the first draft of
history, and as a result, they toss around phrases like "watershed year"
with great abandon.
School & District Management
Building Boom
After years of neglect, schools in big cities nationwide echoed this
summer with the sound of hammers, chain saws, and drills.
Student Well-Being
Wanted: Sports Docs
In January, Spencer Frost broke his leg playing basketball for his high school team in Waterford, Wisconsin. "I felt it pop and snap," the 17-year-old Waterford Union High School athlete recalls. "I was in enough pain that I rolled around on the floor for a while."
Student Well-Being
Making Nice
Early last year, Monica Viega's class was so loud and raucous that it resembled the Jerry Springer Show. Sometimes her 5th graders became so angry that they even tossed furniture across the room.
Families & the Community
Three's Company
When Michelle Baker first learned that her son Colin would take part in a parent-teacher conference, she was skeptical. "I
thought, This is going to be a fiasco," she recalls.
Teacher Preparation
Back To The Future
The entrance to Main Hall is boarded up, cordoned off by yellow construction tape and plywood fencing. Inside, signs warn: "Danger. Construction Area. Keep Out."
School Choice & Charters
The Fretful Visionary
Many teachers dream of starting their
own schools, but most never go beyond fantasy.
School & District Management
Tough Guy
Five years ago, Ruben Perez was an unknown assistant principal at Denver's Horace Mann Middle School. Tired of putting up with disruptive students--and of his principal's failure to act on the problem--Perez decided to take matters into his own hands.
Mathematics
Where The Boys Are
In the spring of 1993, writer David Finkel of the Washington Post spent time following a brilliant young woman named Elizabeth Mann as she wrapped up her senior year at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver
Spring, Maryland.
Law & Courts
Supreme Indignity
Cissy Lacks never imagined her teaching career ending like this. With a lucrative book deal and a nice retirement part, maybe. But not with a four-year court battle to win back a job she lost for letting students use profanity in their classwork.
Teaching Profession
Equation For Success
On the cover of our March 1993 issue, we called math teacher Kay Toliver a "rising star." Like most teachers, she had spent her career in relative obscurity.
Special Education
Faith In The Unseen
Olivia Norman was once a model of
how disabled children can thrive in
regular classrooms.
Early Childhood
Hooked On Phonics
Marion Joseph arrived at the meeting of California reading experts prepared for a bruising debate. It was 1991, and the phonics and whole language troops in the state's infamous reading wars were lobbing verbal grenades at each other with increasing enmity.
Teaching Profession
In This Corner. . .
When the superintendent of the Cincinnati public schools moved last spring to cut innovative teacher programs, his mailbox was soon stuffed with letters from prominent educators and researchers across the nation, urging him to reconsider. The letter-writing campaign was orchestrated, of course. And there was little doubt that the person behind it was Tom Mooney, president of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers.
School Climate & Safety
Serial Killings
On January 17, 1989, a 26-year-old unemployed welder in Stockton, California, named Patrick Purdy drove his Chevrolet station wagon to Cleveland Elementary School, which he had attended two decades before.
Classroom Technology
Kids' Stuff
Sitting in a booth at a tony hotel café in Washington, D.C., Donna Stanger blends right in with the dozen or so suited professionals at nearby tables.
Law & Courts
Colorblind
Michael McLaughlin, a middle-aged white lawyer from Boston, would seem an unlikely symbol of the civil rights movement.
Accountability
Common Sense
The testimony rang of desperation. For weeks, North Carolina's board of education had been drafting a blueprint for a massive shake-up of schools to improve the state's anemic academic performance.