Owner: The Principal's Office URL:http://senttotheoffice.blogspot.com Join Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2007 07:29:35 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: A view of education from the office of a high school principal in Connecticut, USA. It's OK to be sent to the office...because education has never been so important! Site statistics:Click here
On the 50th anniversary of Sputnik – a step backwards! 2007-10-07 15:41:00 On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik
and Science education changed in the United States. Money poured into schools to enhance the study of Science at every grade level. Materials for hands-on learning, textbooks, and lab equipment were all improved in order to promote a new generation of students who would flourish in every area of Science.Robert Yager in School Science and Mathematics wrote:Science and mathematics education have been linked to technological advances, the economy, and the well being of the United States citizenry since the Sputnik Shock of 1957. In the 20 years following the Soviet exploits in space, $2 billion were expended to advance K-12 science education in the US. It was a response designed to salve the nation’s wounded pride and the beginning of the dramatic infusion of funds and scientific talents to improve school science and mathematics.Science education has certainly improved and is probably the most consistent “hands-on” subject in our
Higher Order Thinking vs. Higher Test Scores 2007-10-14 19:25:00 Thomas Armstrong in his book, The Best Schools, lets us know what is at stake when schools lose focus on the development of student inquiry, creative thinking, critical thinking, and higher order thinking:These are difficult times for educators who believe that learning is worth pursuing for its own sake and that the chief purpose of school is the nurturing of students as whole human beings. Higher
test scores seem to be the order of the day. To accomplish this aim, administrators strain to meet political agendas, teachers respond by teaching to the test, and students in turn react by cheating, taking “learning steroids” (legal and illegal pyschostimulants), or just not caring in order to cope with the demands placed on them in school. The adventure of learning, the wonder of nature and culture, the richness of human experience, and the delight in acquiring new abilities all seem to have been abandoned or severely curtailed in the classroom in this drive to meet quotas, deadlines, Read more:Order
Don’t cut back or eliminate the arts in favor of…anything! 2007-10-19 17:54:00 A warning appears concerning the constricted focus that plagues classrooms as a result of the pressures of NCLB in Steven Wade’s article, “Educating Children in the New Millennium: Child’s Play” (EdWeek 10/10/07).Many students today are not benefiting from a balance of intellect and imagination. As an American Academy of Pediatrics report published last January notes, changes in the family structure, the highly competitive college-admissions process, and federal education policies have led to a reduced time for recess and physical education in many school systems, a fact that has reduced free play and unscheduled time for children.Even worse, some school systems have reduced or eliminated curricular art programs that look like play to some people. Increasingly, research in neuroscience suggests that the arts (and play) have a significant impact on students’ cognitive, social, and emotional development… Not only do play, the arts, and physical education have inherent value Read more:favor
, anything
Trust your teachers! They are the most important factor in school success! 2007-10-28 16:04:00 Logic Alert! There is finally a sincere emphasis in education to listen to a group of people who day after day are in the school’s trenches with children. That worthy group is our teachers
. Marge Scherer in an article, "Playing to Strengths” in Educational Leadership (9/07), writes: If principals must be politicians, crisis managers, cheerleaders, legal experts, disciplinarians, entertainers, statisticians, and evangelists for their school’s mission, teachers today also juggle many duties. From classroom manager to subject-matter expert, from caregiver to child advocate, from student of learning theory to life-time learner, teachers, like principals, perform increasingly complicated jobs that take enormous amounts of time beyond a typical work week.Enter a new kind of school leadership about all things instructional. Teacher leadership connects teachers and principals in their mutual mission: improving learning for students… Unlike the movement in the early 1990’s toward site Read more:factor
“Cash Cow Factories” 2007-11-03 20:38:00 Johns Hopkins University has decided to take it upon themselves to point the finger at public high schools with high dropout rates and label them “dropout factories.” Is this any help to schools and communities who are already in crisis for one reason or another? Now, these community’s schools take on the dubious Johns Hopkins-created-title and offensive tag (to gain headlines for JH, obviously) of “dropout factory.” All public schools should be outraged that any institute that claims to be a proponent for education has chosen to use a label like “dropout factory” as part of a supposed scientific study of school matriculation rates. Good going JH – you made the news!How helpful is it of Johns Hopkins to point out the inadequacies in the schools that provide future clients? Oh…, wait. I suppose that these “D.O. factories” don’t really send students to populate the hallowed halls of good old JH. Just how many students from these disadvantaged schools, in disadvan
Connecticut makes a quick “exit”! 2007-11-12 18:13:00 It looks like the “exit exam” is indeed coming to Connecticut
. With a commissioner of education brought in from “MCAS” Massachusetts, we will now join the ranks of states convinced that a set of exit exams as a graduation requirement will miraculously change education for the better. Connecticut has always considered itself among the education elite of the United States, but now we risk being hindered by “a curriculum narrowed to a few subjects, teaching reduced to little more than test preparation, increased dropout rates and demoralized students.” (See “No Exit” by Monty Neill and Lisa Guisbond, op-ed contributors, New York Times, 11/4/97.)A bit harsh, perhaps, but authors, Neill and Guisbond do make several good points:If exit exams really enhance equity and school quality, why are Southern states – the first to adopt graduation tests – still mired at the bottom by any measure of educational performance? Why, in short, should Connecticut follow the failed practic Read more:makes
“Economic catastrophe?” High School exit exams can cure that! 2007-11-17 09:22:00 There is one report out there addressing high school reform that does not blame the schools for every decline in Western Civilization! According to the executive summary of a report titled, “Restoring Value to the High School
Diploma: The Rhetoric and Practice of Higher Standards” by Grubb and Oakes of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research & Practice (see www.greatlakescenter.org), the “movement for standards and rigor” has been grounded in avoiding impending “economic catastrophe.” (The lack of rigor in schools drives the price of oil?) In addition, promoters of reform ring the alarm of “competitive decline” of the USA. (Schools apparently are responsible for corporate greed and scandals that bankrupt business.)The authors warn us to avoid simplistic solutions – like exit exams
. According to the Grubb and Oakes:To some extent, the arguments for rigor are simplistic. Two conceptions of rigor are dominant: test-based rigor, requiring higher test scores on c Read more:Economic
, High School
Obama’s flaw! 2007-11-25 20:39:00 Barack Obama
admitted to a group of high school students last week that he was involved in certain “indiscretions” as a youth. Deciding to take the honest path, he has openly admitted to “inhaling.” As reported in CNN’s Political Ticker, (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/):Earlier this week in New Hampshire Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama spoke candidly about his past experimentation with drugs and alcohol in high school, and on Saturday—after a question on medicinal marijuana—Obama was prodded a bit further and asked whether or not he had ever inhaled.“I did,” the senator from Illinois said to light applause. “It’s not something I’m proud of. It was a mistake as a young man.”The question was a reference to a line made famous by former President Bill Clinton who, while admitting to trying marijuana, said he did not inhale.“I never understood that line,” Obama continued. “The point was to inhale. That was the point.”This news “hit
Standardized Test Scores Invalidated! 2007-12-01 20:47:00 Sean Cavanaugh, in Ed Week (11/28/07), reported that “reading scores for the United States on an international assessment of student skills have been invalidated because of major errors in the printing of the test, in what a top federal education official called an ‘embarrassment’ for government officials and the private contractor responsible for administering the exam.”The test in question is the reading section of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) given to 57 nations.Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t the whole big-brother-government-testing-craze based on the belief that standardized testing is the only way to get consistent assessments? Haven’t educators been scolded because schools cannot be trusted to produce valid assessments? Haven’t schools been bullied into succumbing to fool-proof accountability measured by standardized tests? Hmmm….something is wrong here.According to the article in Ed Week, the chairperson Mark Schneider of the Natio
New Year's Resolutions for Teachers 2007-12-14 14:07:00 1. Be committed to high achievement for every student in your classes. 2. Use a variety of approaches and resources to meet the needs of every student in your classes.3. Engage each student in high-level thinking and connect your curriculum to his or her life in and out of school.4. Mentor a student who needs a positive adult connection.5. Take charge of your own professional development and continuously work to improve and reflect upon your practices.6. Collaborate with at least one other colleague and share your ideas about teaching and learning.7. Increase your communication with students and parents.8. Take a risk and try something in the classroom that you have always dreamed of trying.9. Allow technology to have a major impact on your teaching and student learning in at least one unit of study.10. Take the time to support students in their other endeavors at school.There has never been a time when the role of the teacher is more important. As difficult as the work can be, the dai Read more:Resolutions
, New Year
"There is also a reading portion, but results for U.S. students were thrown out because the tests were printed incorrectly" 2007-12-08 10:38:00 The test scores from the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment (see last week's blog entry) were released to the general news outlets this week. The sentence headlining this week's blog entry is the only mention of the reading scores by the Washington Post on December 5, 2007.The article by Maria Glod of the Post focuses on the math and science performance:"The disappointing performance of U.S. teenagers in math and science on an international exam, in scores released yesterday, has sparked calls for improvement in public schools to help the country keep pace in the global economy…""The PISA test, given every three years, measures the ability of 15-year-olds to apply math and science knowledge in real-life contexts. About 400,000 students, including 5,600 in the United States, took the 2006 exam. There is also a reading portion, but results
for U.S. students were thrown out because the tests
were printed
incorrectly…""The PISA results underscore concerns t
There is no joy in Mudville — 86 current and former MLB players have struck out. 2007-12-16 10:52:00 Sad That Every Record may Ominously Indicate Drugs.From the Mitchell report:For more than a decade there has been widespread illegal use of anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing substances by players in Major League Baseball, in violation of federal law and baseball policy. Club officials routinely have discussed the possibility of such substance use when evaluating players. Those who have illegally used these substances range from players whose major league careers were brief to potential members of the Baseball Hall of Fame. They include both pitchers and position players, and their backgrounds are as diverse as those of all major league players.- - -The illegal use of these substances was not limited to the players who are identified in this report. There have been many estimates of use. In 2002, former National League Most Valuable Player Ken Caminiti estimated that "at least half" of major league players were using anabolic steroids. Dave McKay, a longtime coach fo
Reform the paradigm of school reform! 2008-03-06 15:26:00 Two things to ponder about high school education reform…1. You can’t fix high schools by fixing high schools. In order to reform high schools you must reform entire K-12 systems. High schools do not exist in isolation. The President of the Georgia Institute of Technology, G. Wayne Clough, in an article titled “Wanted: Well-Rounded Students Who Can Think” in The School Administrator (www.aasa.org/) admonishes us that schools need to look at reform in a holistic manner. According to Clough, “Education in science and mathematics is distinguished from many other disciplines in that advanced studies build directly on preparation begun in middle school.” High school students are products of their middle school and elementary school experiences. 2. You can’t promote math, science,
We look to the East. They look to the West! 2008-03-02 14:05:00 What are the most important skills we can give our students in this global economy?Here’s part of an article by Yong Zhao in The School Administrator (2/08), titled, “What Knowledge Has the Most Worth?” (www.aasa.org/)“Teachers are gardeners.”This Chinese metaphor fully reveals the purpose of schooling. In its attempt to cultivate certain talents, it suppresses other talents, just as a gardener does. In his effort to cultivate desirable plants, he takes out the undesirable ones and labels them weeds. The fate of a plant is solely determined by the gardener’s selection criteria and how he applies them. Similarly, the fate of certain intelligence is determined by what schools value and how that value is applied.Although, in general, most modern schools worldwide tend to value lin
Eclipse eclipsed. 2008-02-22 10:45:00 There was a spectacular total lunar eclipse on Wednesday evening, February 20. The moon turned red. When we woke up the next morning, the lead story on the cover of the New York Times questioned John McCain's ethics in a story describing his relationship with a female lobbyist. In later interviews as he answered penetrating questions, McCain turned red. The same evening, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton duked it out in a debate in Austin, Texas. At one point, referring to plagiarized lines from his speeches, Clinton called Obama the candidate of "change you can Xerox." The audience booed. Clinton turned red.The next total lunar eclipse will be on December 21, 2010. By then, only the moon will be turning red!
Mike Huckabee, coming soon to a pancake house near you… 2008-02-15 06:28:00 CNN’s Political Ticker (), files several updates each day on election news. An entry on 2/15, “On the Trail” complied by Rebecca Sindernbrand of CNN’s Washington bureau, listed the events of the day for each candidate. Listed below is the schedule for each of the candidates. * Hillary Clinton attends campaign events in Cincinnati, Cleveland and Lyndhurst, Ohio.* Mike Huckabee
stops by a pancake house in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.* John McCain is in Wisconsin, where he holds town halls and media availabilities in Oshkosh and LaCrosse and a Reagan Day Dinner in Milwaukee.* Barack Obama is in Wisconsin, where he attends campaign rallies in Milwaukee, Oshkosh, and Green Bay. Does it remind you of the typical multiple-choice school question, “which one of these does not belong?” File th Read more:Mike Huckabee
When did shuttle launches become so news-unworthy? 2008-02-07 13:58:00 It's too bad that the space shuttle program has become old news. In regards to the current Atlantis mission, Traci Watson of USA Today wrote, "The successful launch meant that a European scientific laboratory that has been waiting on Earth since 2002 finally reached space, where it will be attached Sunday to the International Space Station. It will be the first room of the station that isn't owned by Russia or the United States. Operated by the European Space Agency, it gives European nations their first chance to control a human spacecraft."As the space shuttle Atlantis lifted off on Thursday afternoon headed toward the International Space Station, it reached a mind-boggling speed of 14,000 miles per hour. That's four miles per second! With apologies to racing fans, even the 50th running
The “Specter” of spy-gate surfaces at the Super Bowl! 2008-02-01 18:12:00 Besides being a nice example of alliteration, this week’s title is in reference to Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter who jumped on board and hijacked the Super
Bowl news bandwagon. He didn’t try to re-focus the attention of the American people on important matters (like the violence in Kenya over the disputed presidential election). That would be too much of a downer for us as we support the economy by purchasing our 11-ounce bag of chips as part of the 11.2 million pounds of chips that are sold for Super Bowl parties.Specter held a press conference two days before the Super Bowl (note the timing!) to complain about a delay of several months in getting a response to requests for information about Commissioner Roger Goodel’s handling of the Patriot’s tapes. These are the tapes that Read more:surfaces
Just what are we getting for 1.1 billion dollars? 2008-01-25 16:08:00 Pauline Vu, a staff writer at Stateline.org, in an article titled, “Do State Tests Make the Grade?” points out that 1 billiondollars
just doesn’t go as far as it used to. And, when it comes to high stakes testing, which as a result of the passage of NCLB in 2001 has become a 1.1 billion dollar industry, it doesn’t even get us consistent testing from state to state!Differences in state standards that are used to create the tests and the reluctance of some states to spend money for high-quality, challenging tests have caused a great disparity in testing from state to state. For example, a look at various fourth-grade reading tests shows wide differences. Texas’ 2006 reading test is entirely multiple choice. Ohio’s 2005 test includes several short-answer questions, such as asking
Pass the test and get an iPod! 2008-01-18 13:58:00 Scott Cech in EdWeek, 1/16/06, (www.edweek.org), reports that sometimes students need more than high test scores or an “A” to be motivated to excel.Is there anything wrong with receiving $500 for a test score? What if that inducement seems to help pull up SAT scores and college-enrollment rates among disadvantaged students?A recent study by C. Kirabo Jackson, a professor of labor economics at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., answers neither of those questions. But as money-for-achievement programs grow in New York City and elsewhere, the research pours new fuel on the debate over whether remuneration works in education and what the trade-offs are.Published last month on the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute’s Web site, the study found that when students and teachers in d Read more:iPod
Forget the politicians; schools need to take charge of their own reform! 2008-01-11 15:37:00 In his article in EdWeek, “Where is Education in the 2008 Election?” (see www.edweek.org), David S. Seeley doesn’t blame the candidates for not moving education issues to the forefront of their campaigns. His feeling is that no serious improvement in education can take place without bipartisan support. Good luck finding any of that until November 2008, if then! According to Seeley: There has, of course, been some discussion of the federal No Child Left Behind Act on the campaign trail. But most of it has consisted of little more than partisan jousting over whether President Bush should be praised or blamed for the program. People seem to forget that the No Child Left Behind legislation was developed and adopted with strong bipartisan support. The current, politically polarized debat Read more:politicians
, charge
Bravo Governor Rell! Connecticut makes a school improvement move that makes sense. 2008-01-06 11:15:00 While the Committee for High School Redesign in Connecticut
(currently sporting a one-test-fits-all mentality) takes two steps backwards as they ponder reforms that will be announced for all students starting with the Class of 2013, the Governor
’s office took a huge leap forward, releasing very positive and constructive news for Connecticut high schools. The following information was released to schools by the state on December 27:Governor M. Jodi Rell today announced the launch of the CT Virtual Learning Center, a statewide program for High School students to take online courses. Enrollments are being accepted now for students to begin coursework in January 2008.“We want to use online courses to increase access to high quality content so that every student in Connecticut will have acc Read more:Bravo
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As the New Year begins, a step back from the argument! 2007-12-31 08:51:00 The New Year will see educators and politicians continue the debate on whether academic standardized testing, end of course exams, or school based performance standards – or a combination of all will promote the most effective means of student achievement. But in the meantime, schools must remember that they shoulder the following responsibilities: (from “Strategies for Parents and Educators” - NASSP)Provide a caring supportive environment. Feeling cared for and safe builds students’ resiliency. Promote positive social connections between staff members and students, students and their peers, and home and school.Foster positive attitudes. Help students believe that they can succeed if they try. Provide situations in which students are able to succeed. Frame failure as a learning opp
NCLB is just another quagmire for this administration. 2008-03-15 16:20:00 In EdWeek (3/5/08) in an article by David Hoff, “A Key Republican Sees Odds Dipping For NCLB Renewal,” Representative Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (formerly mentioned in this blog in March ’07) bemoans the fact that it has been a bit tough to push the reauthorization of NCLB down the throats of other lawmakers.According to Buck, “We’re in a climate where it doesn’t look very favorable to get the reauthorization done.”Of course, it would help if the members of Congress actually made an effort to do something about NCLB. Hoff mentions in his article that Buck (who is the senior Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee) has not even met with Representative George Miller from California who is the committee’s chairperson to discuss anything about NCLB since October!
“It is what it is” isn’t “it” anymore. 2008-03-19 16:06:00 It is time for all of us to join together and aggressively chastise anyone who uses the phrase, “it is what it is.”This existence of this phrase has become as insidious as a stomach-bug in an over heated first grade classroom. It’s easy to catch. It’s everywhere. And, it’s spreading.By the way, it is also meaningless. Most people who employ this phrase begin with a sentence offering some sort of explanation or excuse. They then cap off their lame sentence or two with, “it is what is.”Translation: “go away.”Or “accept it.”Or “why bother asking me when you can’t do anything about it, neither can I, so don’t try, because I’m not going to try either.”Or “drop dead.”“It is what it is” has become the excuse for the non-excusable, the buzz where there is no
Three points that everyone should know concerning the 7,000 students who drop out of high school every day. 2008-04-06 18:52:00 You couldn’t view any media source recently without hearing that 7,000 students drop out of high schools every
day. It is a serious concern – and it is a very complicated problem. CNN equated the situation to 7,000 students “going missing” each day. Equating drop outs with missing children sensationalizes the story and while it grabs attention, it only creates a panic for a quick fix, rather than helping to promote the large scale overhaul of communities and schools that is truly needed. The comments of the “experts” who have been interviewed have offered little help. To most of them, the fix is centered on higher “accountability” on the part of schools, more “rigor” for students, or more “relevance” in subjects for students. And of course, NCLB proponents always st Read more:Three
, everyone
The best predictor of college success…? 2008-05-03 18:42:00 According to an article in USA Today by Janet Kornblum and Gregg Toppo, the new section of the SAT exam, the “controversial” writing portion, is the best indicator of success in college.Forget high school grades, high school GPA, or the difficulty of courses taken in high school. All one must do to predict future success is to look at the score on the 25-minute writing portion of the SAT exam, which was added in March 2005.There is one problem with this claim. The study which determined the predictability factor of the writing portion of the SAT was done by the College Board - the same College Board that creates, administers, and scores the writing exam. According to Kornblum and Toppo’s article, research results (by the College Board) claim that the writing portion of the SAT exam
If you want creativity in schools, then demand it! 2008-05-10 07:46:00 Meris Stansbury, Assistant Editor of eSchool News in an article “Creativity is important but neglected,” may be pointing out the obvious: businesses want creative individuals and schools are trying to promote creative individuals. But the pressures and mandates of the current testing craze (being driven in the background by business leaders!) are squelching schools’ abilities to promote creativity anywhere in the curriculum. Educators and employers agree that creativity is increasingly important in U.S. workplaces, according to a recent report. Yet, the report suggests a disconnect exists between what survey respondents say they believe and how they act. In fact, findings indicate most high schools and employers provide creativity-conducive education and training only on an elective Read more:demand
High Stakes Testing: If it is broke, don’t fix it. Just join in! 2008-05-17 10:59:00 Pennsylvania lawmakers are skeptical.According to Martha Raffaele of the Associated Press: Members of a Senate panel on Wednesday joined a chorus of skeptics who question whether the state should spend millions of dollars on a proposed state graduation testing program for Pennsylvania high school students. Senators who participated in a Senate Education Committee hearing expressed doubts that the Read more:Stakes
, Testing
, broke
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