A new report by LFA and Grunwald Associates, with support from AT&T, examines how parents perceive the value of mobile devices, how they see their children using mobiles, and what they think of the possibilities for mobile learning.
Personal Attention
Blog Entries
Yesterday, the Council of Chief State School Officers named Michael Geison the 2008 Teacher of the Year. We at Public School Insights are quite happy with the choice, because Geison personifies the best of 21st-century education. He tailors his instruction to individual students' interests and needs, he engages them in hands-on work, and he promotes greater collaboration among members of the school community.
(We're talking about the guy in the middle.)
CCSSO executive director Gene Wilhoit clearly agrees: ...
The National School Boards Association's Council of Urban Schools of Education (CUBE) has teamed up with
the National PTA on a new survey examining parents' perceptions of urban school climate: What We Think. The survey's results are generally encouraging: Parents believe their children's schools are safe; They report that they are actively involved in their children's schools; They trust and feel respected by teachers and administrators; and they believe their children capable of high academic achievement. ...
Just last week, the Forum for Education and Democracy issued an important report on the federal role in K-12 education: Democracy at Risk: The Need for a New Federal Policy in Education. With its obvious nod to Nation at Risk, the publication joins a long line of reports that raise the alarm over American students' declining standing in international assessments. Unlike many of those reports, however, Democracy at Risk strongly criticizes recent reform efforts' almost exclusive focus on "mandates and sanctions." ...
Gary Swick has become something of a legend--not only at the Illinois high school where he teaches
science, but also among environmental educators nationwide. A winner of the prestigious Milken Educator Award, Swick regularly gets his students into the field, where they actually help protect the environment while they learn science. In one case, his students' careful observation of conditions at a nearby river prompted a City Council to adopt a construction site erosion control ordinance.
In our interview, Swick listed many benefits of environmental education. Among them: Students become better stewards of the world they inhabit; Reluctant or struggling students become much more engaged in science when they can do authentic work in the field.
Perhaps most important, Swick has turned his high school students into evangelists for the environment. They put on "energy fairs" to carry their message of energy conservation and green living to elementary school children and others across their state. He and his students travel to these fairs in a school bus (they call it a "cool bus") they have reengineered to run on biofuels--which can include grease and other waste from the school kitchen. ...
Mimi Bair is the principal of Memorial Middle School in Little Ferry, NJ, and a former staff member at Woodrow Wilson Elementary in Weehawken, where she helped implement an innovative arts-focused curriculum that has helped the school's mostly low-income students outperform students state-wide. (You can find PublicSchoolInsights.org's story on Woodrow Wilson Elementary here.)
Ms. Bair recently shared some of the secrets of her success.
In the week since the New York Times published a conversation on education philanthropy entitled How Many Billionaires Does It Take to Fix a School System, some high-profile bloggers have characterized the piece as an unintentionally sad commentary on the state of education funding. The transcript of a conversation among NYT Magazine editor Paul Tough and five education talking heads: Green Dot Charter School Founder Steve Barr, American Enterprise Institute education impresario Frederick Hess, New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, Venture Philanthropist Vanessa Kirsch and former Gates Foundation education head Tom Vander Ark.
To Diane Ravitch, the article confirms that the champions of corporate-style education reform have nothing but disdain for those "ordinary educators who toil in the classroom.... Only those untainted by actual direct experience of education have the insight to 'fix' the school system." ...
Rounding out our two-week celebration of NEA's Read Across America this year is Public School Insights' telephone interview with Don Deshler, one of the nation's most respected experts on adolescent literacy. Deshler is well known for linking policy to practice. As director of the Center for Research on Learning at the University of Kansas, he has been providing specialized training to secondary special education teachers for over 20 years
In the interview, Deshler discusses strategies for building schools' capacity to address the very specific needs of struggling adolescent readers. He urges schools to make adolescent literacy a school-wide focus, arguing that adolescent students with serious reading difficulties require both high quality and "high dosages" of instruction. ...
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Michael de Vito and Carmen Macchia of Port Chester Middle School, one of the many successful schools we feature on this site.
De Vito and Macchia told me the remarkable story of how they and their colleagues created a safe and positive school climate, a richer, broader curriculum focused on literacy and aligned to state assessments, a commitment to literacy across the curriculum, intensive collaboration among school staff, and strong support for teachers' work.
A central piece of their strategy: a focus on reading across the curriculum. DeVito and Macchia describe how their school-wide commitment to literacy has actually enriched their curriculum, rather than narrowing it.
One of Principal Macchia's insights bears repeating: It takes time to effect real transformation in schools. Though the political environment may favor instant turnaround, Macchia urges educators to settle in for a much longer haul. He advocates for multi-year plans to effect true systemic change.
Do you have a story about your school's transformation? Leave us a comment below, or share it through our story tool. ...
Even with a name that's murder to spell and downright painful to type, Jon Scieszka has become one of the nation's most celebrated and beloved children's book authors--and he has recently added a new honor to his store: In January, the Library of Congress named him the nation's first Ambassador for Children's Literature. But with honor comes great responsibility. Scieszka, who has sold more than 11 million books worldwide, will spend his term reaching out to children, parents and teachers as a missionary for reading.
As part of my celebration of NEA's Read Across America, I was lucky enough to speak with Jon about his ambassadorial duties, his long-term efforts to encourage more children to read, and some of his forthcoming projects. ...
The National Association of Secondary School Principals has released a list of Breakthrough Middle and High Schools for 2008. NASSP and the Metlife Foundation have recognized these schools, all of which serve many poor students, for dramatically improving student achievement. ...
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