In the past, school heads could luxuriate in a Mr. Chips-like existence, focusing primarily on education. Today, they have to be schmoozers who raise funds to pay for costly programs, construction titans who dream up new facilities, and managerial stars who keep students, parents, alumni and teachers mixing smoothly.
2More
1More
The National Portrait Gallery/Education/Teacher Programs - 1 views
-
The National Portrait Gallery is one of the Smithsonian Museums in the DC area. The great thing about NPG is that it has resources available online for teachers. There are a variety of school programs and teacher programs but the best offerings are the online exhibitions. It is like having the gallery right there in your classroom. Some of those exhibits include George Washington: A national Treasure, Presidents in Waiting, and A Brush with History. The online exhibits are usable in the classroom directly from a computer or lap top. For example, the George Washington online exhibit begins with a famous portrait accompanied by an audio explanation of the portrait and the symbolic and historical items found within the portrait. Using the portrait as a starting point provides students with a visual association of that person and the historical events surrounding that person. There is also a link to biographical information about Washington and his role in our country's history. The Teacher's Guide associated with the George Washington exhibit includes lesson plans, activities and other teaching ideas; all printable and useable in class. NPG also offers two publications both of which are available on line. "The Patriot Papers," designed for students, features various historical events in an interesting and engaging fashion. For example, there is a "Special Edition on Slavery" featuring information on slavery and the key players involved. One of the articles in this publication is "A Chat with Harried: 1869" and also includes her portrait. The second publication, NPG in your Classroom, provides information to teachers on how to integrate NPG into classroom lessons. There are many more valuable tools on this site such as a "Reading Portraiture Guide for Educators." Check out the site….it is awesome!!!
12More
Several of Region's High-Profile Private Schools Are Changing Leadership - washingtonpo... - 0 views
www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2009092001805.html
Independent Schools Head of School Superintendent Search
shared by Joellen Kriss on 21 Sep 09
- Cached
-
-
-
These are the people that hire the teachers that teach the chilrden. It's an interesting cause and effect kind of relationship: people are less willing to leave their old jobs because they can't hire their own kind of people in the next position, meaning the job will be harder and less of their own. It adds a whole additional dynamic.
-
- ...8 more annotations...
-
making teachers slower to retire and less likely to shift jobs, and also making it harder to lead a school than in the past.
-
-
-
This is a really interesting statement and 100% true. School culture after a while becomes a given, so when a new head of school, whether they be of a private school or the superintendent of a public school district, comes in, that hiring board (of directors or of education) needs to now put it out on the table and naturally, things are reassessed in some way. It's kind of a thought provolking idea.
-
-
"A lot of what has been implicit in school culture has to become explicit" when the schools start meeting candidates,
-
-
Branch's total compensation from Georgetown Day, including benefits and expenses, was $442,097 for the year that ended in June 2008. At Bullis, Farquhar's total compensation including benefits and expenses was $336,222. Total compensation for public school superintendents in the Washington region, including benefits and perks, averaged $350,078 in fiscal 2007-08, according to a 2007 Washington Post analysis.
Smithsonian Catalogues Oral History of the March on Washington « Indiana Jen - 0 views
7More
D.C. Launches Rigorous Teacher Evaluation System - 0 views
-
-
Bill Turque's article in yesterday's Washington Post feels like a balanced view about a controversial plan. It definitely relates to some of the issues we've been chatting about in and out of our classes. These issues of teacher evaluation, standardized tests, teaching methods, and unions is important for anyone teaching in DC.
-
-
-
-
DCPS will use a team of expert teachers to evaluate the teachers in 2 of the 5 evaluation sessions. They will look for active student engagement, diverse teaching methods, and teachers who work to create a safe learning environment for their students. I think that it's great that teachers will be a part of this evaluation process because great teachers have opportunities to give the best advice for these teachers. Moreover, the experts would have a degree of independence from the school's administration and union influence.
-
- ...4 more annotations...
-
Rhee is investing $4 million in the system, called IMPACT, which will also assess teachers against an elaborate new framework of requirements and guidelines that cover a range of factors, including classroom presence and how carefully they check for student understanding of the material. But IMPACT is likely to be another flash point in Rhee's turbulent relationship with local and national teachers union leaders. They say that growth statistics are too unreliable to include in performance evaluations and that the new assessment system -- which the District can legally impose without union consent -- is an instrument to identify and remove struggling teachers, not a means to help them improve.
-
This year only reading and math teachers in grades 4 through 8 -- fewer than 20 percent of the District's 3,800 classroom instructors -- will be evaluated on the basis of growth on the annual District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System, or DC-CAS. Student value-added will account for half of their evaluation.
-
To allay teacher concerns that assessments will be tainted by personality clashes with principals, IMPACT will employ a corps of third-party "master educators" to conduct two of the classroom observations. The District's old system, like those in most other cities, required fewer classroom visits and left them largely to school administrators, who often had neither the time nor the expertise in subject matter to render fair evaluations, educators say. The master educators, who do not report to the principals, have backgrounds in the teachers' subjects.
-
IMPACT documents suggest that no nuance will be left unexamined in the 30-minute classroom visits. Observers are expected to check every five minutes for the fraction of students paying attention. Teachers are supposed to show that they can tailor instruction to at least three "learning styles" (auditory, visual or tactile, for example). They can lower their scores by "using sarcasm that visibly hurts or decreases the comfort of one or more students." Among the ways instructors can demonstrate that they are instilling student belief in success is through "affirmation chants, poems and cheers."
4More
Rethinking Schools - 1 views
-
Michelle Rhee is the exemplar for Duncan's school “reform.” What's really happening to children and teachers in D.C.?
7More
Report shows wide disparity in college achievement - washingtonpost.com - 0 views
-
45 percent of low-income and underrepresented minority students entering as freshmen in 1999 had received bachelor's degrees six years later at the colleges studied, compared with 57 percent of other students
-
Fewer than one-third of all freshmen entering two-year institutions nationwide attained completion -- either through a certificate, an associate's degree or transfer to a four-year college -- within four years
-
The success rate was lower, 24 percent, for underrepresented minorities, identified as blacks, Latinos and Native Americans; it was higher, 38 percent, for other students.
- ...3 more annotations...
-
-
Only 7 percent of minority students who entered community colleges received bachelor's degrees within 10 years.
-
report found a 51 percent graduation rate among low-income students and a 46 percent rate among underrepresented minorities, compared with a graduation rate of about 64 percent for higher-income students and 67 percent for whites and Asians.
-
So this article from the Washington Post talks about a report that examines college graduation rates. The findings are illustrative of the situation Lindsay and I encountered at McKinley this semester and I found it interesting that there's data that supports this. The advice I'd give people who want to decrease the gap (and I'm sure Lindsay would agree): schools need to be preparing these students for rigorous college work loads instead of coddling them and focusing on just getting them into college.
6More
Extra Credit: With IB Rules, the Fast Track Can End Quickly - washingtonpost.com - 0 views
-
-
-
Because the IB Diploma Programme requires students to take two-year Higher Level exams after senior year -- the program does not officially start until junior year -- she was advised to defer the Math HL I course for a year and take Math Standard Level I this year as a sophomore.
- ...2 more annotations...
-
This restriction seems to apply only if she pursues the IB diploma; there might be no such constraints for IB certificate candidates. If this is the case, perhaps she could continue an accelerated math curriculum, maybe taking a class such as multivariate calculus before starting college, by leaving the IB diploma path.
-
we can't help thinking that she's being held back. Although the IB Programme might need to establish rules and guidelines for consistent implementation, there's always a chance that they don't always provide for our kids' best educational opportunities.
-
This is a letter written by a parent into the Washington Post Education section. As an IB Diploma recipient, I find this extremely interesting, as the parent ignores all of the wonderful and beneficial things that one gets out of an IB education, questioning it because it doesn't allow his daughter to accelerate her math classes.
5More
An Education Debate for the Books - washingtonpost.com - 0 views
-
-
"People all think that in a bad economy, they need skills for a job," said Christopher Nelson, president of St. John's. "What they don't realize is that a liberal arts education will give them skills for life, and that will get them a job."
-
St. John's is one of a handful of American colleges that offer a curriculum built upon great works of literature, art, science and mathematics. Students read and discuss texts by Homer, Euclid, Chaucer and Einstein. There are no majors; students graduate with broad knowledge in several disciplines but a specialty in none, and without anything approaching vocational skills. Investing in a St. John's education requires a leap of faith.
- ...1 more annotation...
-
Article from the Washington Post that discusses the downward turn in applicants to schools like St. John's College where the emphasis is on a broad liberal education. Students at St John's don't choose a major and receive a broad education with very little in the way of job training. It raises an interesting debate about learning for the sake of learning, rather than learning with an objective (job placement, test scores, etc).
1More
The History Cooperative || Booker T. Washington Papers - 3 views
-
While I am not sure of the best way to highlight different pages of this website to suit the format of Diigo, I think this could be a really helpful website. The "Volumes" link takes the viewer to a section where you can go through the volumes page by page. These writings are a great primary source/document to bring into the classroom.... so much more exciting to read the real thing than just see a mention of it in a text book.
8More
How Arlington National Cemetery Came to Be | History & Archaeology | Smithsonian Magazine - 2 views
-
In correspondence, her husband referred to the place as "our dear home," the spot "where my attachments are more strongly placed than at any other place in the world."
-
Orton Williams was not only Mary Lee's cousin and a suitor of her daughter Agnes but also private secretary to General in Chief Winfield Scott of the Union Army.
-
Orton Williams was not only Mary Lee's cousin and a suitor of her daughter Agnes but also private secretary to General in Chief Winfield Scott of the Union Army.
- ...1 more annotation...
-
A sprawling Freedmen's Village of 1,500 sprang to life on the estate, complete with new frame houses, schools, churches and farmlands on which former slaves grew food for the Union's war effort.
6More
Comedian urges Hispanic students to stay in school - washingtonpost.com - 0 views
www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2009110505271.html
Fund motivational speaker hispanic drop out rates college financing
shared by Lindsay Andreas on 06 Nov 09
- Cached
-
One in five Hispanic teens drops out of high school, according to U.S. Education Department statistics. That's about twice the rate for black students and more than three times the rate among white students.
-
. "A lot of Latino students look at the sticker price and think, if my family makes $18-20,000 a year, I can't afford it," said Deborah Santiago, vice president of policy and research for Excelencia in Education, a Washington-based advocacy organization.
-
This was something that I personally ran into in my practicum. Better information needs to be distributed regarding college financing. There is a stigma in lower-income areas about taking out college loans and a lot of misinformation. When I taught a lesson on saving and investment for an Economics class, I spent the majority of the lesson answering questions regarding this and reminding students that college is an investment and that it will pay-off in the end. An example that worked really well was the game of Life, since many students have played it. In the board game if you go to college in the beginning, you will end up in the better retirement home in the end.
-
-
He told Wheaton students about a guidance counselor who encouraged him to go to college, and about his time at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles, where he became disillusioned, started partying and stopped studying. "I went from being the first in my family to go to college to becoming another Latino statistic: a dropout," he said.
-
Both parts struck me. Encouragement is so important, because if your teacher doesn't encourage you, who will after all? Second, a problem we have at McKinley is that students that go to college get distracted and overwhelmed by college and dropout the first year. This is important on two fronts, we need better college prep programs in high school and also the colleges and universities need better support systems for first generation college students.
-
1More
Washington, DC--Old Stone House - 2 views
-
This website contains a great list of Historic Sites in DC - for example, I have bookmarked the page for the Old Stone House in Georgetown. If you select, "List of Sites" - you will be taken to a listing by neighborhoods of other historic sites in the DC area. This could allow you to search for places near your school that could be a great resource to incorporate into your lessons. Many, including the Old Stone House, offer tours throughout the day. The Old Stone House is also staffed by well-informed Park Rangers who are eager to share their knowledge.
2More
Recovery.gov - 1 views
-
This is the site that the government has created to provide the average citizen with information regarding the "stimulus plan," which is actually called the Recovery Act. I must warn you that it is NOT an exciting site; however, it is useful if teaching government or making comparisons with other economic crises. For example, there is a ticker that is updated regularly and displays the number of jobs that have been created or saved from the money provided by the stimulus package. One can track awarded funds and used funds by state, project or recipient. For example, in Washington, DC approximately 2300 jobs have been created or saved and American University was awarded and received about 2.5 billion dollars from the recovery act. As I said, it is not exciting but certainly informative.
6More
Capital Gains FAQs - DC Public Schools, Washington, DC - 1 views
-
-
-
- ...1 more annotation...
-
The Capital Gains program is a partnership between DCPS and Dr. Roland Fryer, economics professor at Harvard University and the founder of Harvard’s Education Innovation Laboratory (EdLabs). In addition to Washington, DC, EdLabs and Dr. Fryer work with school districts in Chicago and New York City on similar incentive initiatives.
-
I know we've all heard about the rather controversial Capital Gains program - where DCPS is paying students cash awards for good academic performance and behavior - but I wasn't certain how much anyone really knew about the specifics of the program. I just recently learned that my own school - Emery Educational Campus - is participating in Capital Gains. I can say that my own students do not seem to take the program very seriously, or at the very least not enough to study more to make certain they perform well on the mandatory assessments (said one student: "I don't really care about the extra money").
-
They have "Tech Tickets" at McKinley, it's just a huge joke because the rewards are like breakfast with Mr. Pinder the principal, who they hate. Last Wednesday, they started joking around about starting a black market for tech tickets, at least they are inventive about it. But it doesn't motivate them.
7More
The Washington Teacher - 2 views
-
Two days of protests by DC students in response to unfair teacher layoffs. Students held protests on September 28 at the DCPS central office and at Duke Ellington High School for the arts on September 29 at lunch time. These videos say it all. Our students are following the lead of the rank and file teacher rally held on last Thursday, September 24. What a tribute to DC teachers. You have taught them well !
-
McKinley Technology Senior High School located in NE DC was disrupted today as students unexpectedly protested teacher layoffs at the DCPS central headquarters near the Capitol today.
-
I thought this might be interesting to share in light of what is happening with DCPS. Yesterday was my first day at my practicum placement and during lunch a few teachers were talking about the "buzz on the blogs" and the firings. All of them mentioned the students protestes by the students at the Duke Ellington School.
-
The kids protesting in the videos, most of them were my kids! They are so wonderful. :)
-
THis is fantastic! Thanks for posting it. Interesting that Fenty says no teachers will be taken out of classrooms . . . John, maybe you should call him . . . ;-)
35More
Re-thinking Newsweek and U.S. News Rankings - 0 views
www.bethesdamagazine.com/...rethinking-rankings.php
school rankings achievement montgomery county newsweek U.S. News bethesda measuring top schools best schools
shared by jbdrury on 18 Sep 09
- Cached
-
B-CC had been ranked as the nation’s 64th best high school on the 2008 Newsweek list, but it was missing from U.S. News’ top 100. One parent e-mailed: “Should I be worried?”
-
In the 2009 Newsweek rankings, released in June, four county schools (Richard Montgomery, B-CC, Thomas S. Wootton and Winston Churchill) were ranked among the nation’s top 100, with two others (Walt Whitman and Walter Johnson) narrowly missing
- ...31 more annotations...
-
-
Most years, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) has more schools in the top 100 of both lists than any other school system in the country
-
rankings validate that the school system is “seeing the benefits of providing the academic support that allows our students to aim high and achieve at the highest levels.
-
-
-
Mathews’ goal is to improve students’ academic preparation, especially in lower-and middle-income neighborhood schools. His solution is to expose more students to challenging course work, and he unapologetically describes his purpose as “advocacy as well as evaluation.
-
He says the Challenge Index’s key attributes make it the singular best measure of a school’s quality: It can be easily understood; it points directly to implementing positive change through rigorous course offerings; and it can be applied meaningfully to all schools—unlike quality evaluations based on traditional measures such as test scores, which, he says, are inherently biased toward schools in wealthier, upper-middle-class neighborhoods.
-
-
have attacked the Challenge Index for not effectively capturing what it purports to measure (school quality), in part because it doesn’t gauge student achievement, only the number of rigorous course exams taken.
-
Newsweek ranks schools based on the Challenge Index, which was developed by Washington Post education reporter (and Bethesda resident) Jay Mathews. A school’s Challenge Index score is the number of Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB) and Cambridge tests taken by all students in a school year divided by the number of graduating seniors. (AP courses are well-known; IB and Cambridge also consist of rigorous courses for which students can receive college credit. Like AP, their standardized exams are graded by outside examiners.)
-
-
a school must do significantly better on standardized state English and math tests than statistically expected given its economic makeup; be in the top half of its state (approximately) in the performance of its minority students
-
“College Readiness” formula combines two components: the percentage of 12th-graders who had taken an AP or IB exam during or before their senior year; and the percentage who passed at least one exam—equivalent to an AP test score of 3 and an IB score of 4.
-
-
U.S. News project, cites three ways its methodology is superior: “We measure success [tests passed]—not just quantity of tests taken. We factor in how well schools do in serving economically disadvantaged students and minorities. And we recognize schools within their respective state.”
-
The U.S. News rankings have been attacked by education experts for intermixing highly selective “elite” schools, such as Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va.—currently their top-ranked school in the U.S.—with schools having open admissions
-
Unlike U.S. News, Mathews eliminates some academically elite schools, setting the cutoff at the level of the highest average SAT/ACT scores of any “normal enrollment” school in the country.
-
“It would be deceptive for us to put them [schools above this threshold] on this list [because] the Challenge Index has been designed to honor schools that have done the best job in persuading average students to take college-level courses and tests. It does not work for schools that have no, or almost no, average students.”
-
As of 2009, schools with AP exam pass rates lower than 10 percent (schools that would have made the list in previous years) have also been eliminated from the main Newsweek ranking. Most of these schools, which are typically located in low-income neighborhoods, have recently introduced their students to academically challenging courses as a form of “shock therapy.”
-
-
Just as the Challenge Index is too limited in its concept of best schools, the U.S. News procedures try to cover too much. The crux of the problem is combining three essentially different criteria (college readiness, overcoming economic disadvantage and minimizing ethnic group disparities) into one ranking. Schools that excel in one aren’t necessarily those that excel in the other(s). Some schools that do the greatest job of preparing their minority students might not have total-school achievement scores that are among the best. Other schools characterized by superlative overall college readiness might score only slightly above average relative to their economic profile. In trying to incorporate “economic disadvantage” and the reduction of ethnic group (minority) achievement gaps together with schoolwide high achievement, the U.S. News ranking risks confounding different educational objectives. Depth and breadth of performance, and exceeding expectations, should be reported separately, rather than conjoined. Separate rankings would be easier to understand, more informative and less disputable—although perhaps less likely to help sell magazines.
-
Several principals, including Whitman’s Goodwin, noted how nonacademic programs that help students succeed and are a huge part of some students’ lives (arts, music, sports, civic activities, etc.) are not examined.
-
eferring to the many qualitative features that go into making a great school, Doran says, “The rankings are measuring the brain of the school—not the heart of the school.”
24More
Reauthorization of ESEA: Why We Can't Wait -- Secretary Arne Duncan's Remarks at the Mo... - 1 views
-
-
People want support from Washington but not interference. They want accountability but not oversight. They want national leadership but not at the expense of local control.
-
And now that I'm here I'm even more convinced that the best solutions begin with parents and teachers working together in the home and the classroom.
- ...19 more annotations...
-
Many teachers complain bitterly about NCLB's emphasis on testing. Principals hate being labeled as failures. Superintendents say it wasn't adequately funded.
-
-
Until states develop better assessments—which we will support and fund through Race to the Top—we must rely on standardized tests to monitor progress—but this is an important area for reform and an important conversation to have.
-
it places too much emphasis on absolute test scores rather than student growth—and it is overly prescriptive in some ways while it is too blunt an instrument of reform in others.
-
-
NCLB is that it doesn't encourage high learning standards. In fact, it inadvertently encourages states to lower them. The net effect is that we are lying to children and parents by telling kids they are succeeding when, in fact, they are not.
-
-
We don't believe that local educators need a prescription for success. But they do need a common definition of success—focused on student achievement, high school graduation and success and attainment in college.
-
-
In my view, we should be tight on the goals—with clear standards set by states that truly prepare young people for college and careers—but we should be loose on the means for meeting those goals.
-
-
And so the work of reauthorizing ESEA begins in states and districts across America—among educators and policy makers, parents and community leaders. This work is as urgent as it is important.
-
And yet we are still waiting for the day when every child in America has a high quality education that prepares him or her for the future.
-
Our shared goals are clear: higher quality schools; improved student achievement; more students going to college; closing the achievement gap; and more opportunities for children to learn and succeed.
-
Let's build a law that respects the honored, noble status of educators—who should be valued as skilled professionals rather than mere practitioners and compensated accordingly.
-
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's speech at the Monthly Stakeholders meeting this past week. It's a part of a series of town hall style meetings that the secretary is holding with those who have a stake in the policy they will be shaping: teachers, parents and others. The speech is interesting mostly because, what he's calling for sounds great to me, but I wonder if there's any possibility of anything this reasonable ever happening. Secretary Duncan seems like an ok guy (didn't know he is a former superintendent) but I still wonder what the next big thing is going to turn out to be and how/if it's going to help.
2More
Au Contraire! Rhee Disses Layoff Claims | NBC Washington - 1 views
-
I happened to see this clip on TV this morning while having my cereal and getting ready to head off to my practicum placement. In it, Rhee addresses the security issues and says that the security company "went under" and that is why police were called in. This was a big topic among my teachers today at school.... they feel that the story about the security company "going under" is false and are pretty angry that they had NO security last Friday and that teachers had to take turns outside the school acting as security.