Owner: Kentucky School News and Commentary URL:http:\\theprincipal.blogspot.com Join Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 15:36:35 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: News and commentary related to public school education in Kentucky and related topics; law, media, leadership, policy. Site statistics:Click here
2007-03-18 21:32:00
Road Trip to Gethsemani 2007-03-18 12:46:00 No time to blog yesterday...due to a road trip I made to the Abbey of Gethsemani. Father Shamus and the other monks played host to the typical visitors - but this weekend, they also hosted the other abbots and abbesses from around the country. We spent time in conversation with Father Shamus and observed a traditional worship service as the monks chant (pray) the psalms.The road trip was organized by Rev. Bill Kincaid for the New Horizons Sunday School class at Woodland Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Lexington.The Abbey of Gethsemani is described by the monks as "a school of the Lord’s service, a training ground of love. Following Christ under a rule and an abbot, we Trappist/Cistercian monks lead a life of prayer, work, and sacred reading, steeped in the heart and mystery of the Church’s mission. Pupils in such a school as this come to know themselves, their God, and his great mercy. Clearly, the monks of this abbey walk in the footsteps of many whom God has called into Read more:Road Trip
Girls chant ‘kill him’ as gang chases schoolboy then stabs him to death 2007-03-16 23:35:00 Stewart Tendler, London's Times Online Crime Correspondent reports:Seven teenagers were questioned by police yesterday after a 16-year-old boy was chased by a mob and stabbed to death
in a London street lined with £1 million homes.The murder is the fifth involving black youths in London in the past few weeks.Witnesses say that teenage girls egged on the attack with shouts of “Kill him, kill him” before the victim, named last night as Kodjo Yenga, was surrounded. At one point Kodjo raised his arms to fend off blows from sticks. The suspects being held include four 13-year-olds, two 15-years-olds and a man aged 21. Read more:Girls
, chant
, schoolboy
, stabs
Once...there were flight lessons 2007-03-16 23:02:00 Breitbart.com reports: "Suspected members of extremist groups have signed up as school bus drivers in the United States, counterterror officials said Friday, in a cautionary bulletin to police.An FBI spokesman said, "Parents and children have nothing to fear."Asked about the alert notice, the FBI's Rich Kolko said, "There are no threats, no plots and no history leading us to believe there is any reason for concern," although law enforcement agencies around the country were asked to watch out for kids' safety.Kolko said the bulletin was sent merely as an educational tool to help local police identify and respond to any suspicious activity."
CEP Study: States Lax in Overseeing NCLB Tutoring 2007-03-16 22:53:00 A key provision of the 2002 No Child Left Behind law–its mandate that struggling schools offer low-income students free after-school tutoring–has gone almost completely unmonitored, a study released by the Center on Education Policy finds.Private tutoring companies have jumped to take advantage of the law's "supplemental education services," or SES, provision, which divvies up a pot each year estimated to be as large as $2.5 billion. But though companies produce rosy reports, very few states and districts have any idea whether the tutoring is actually helping students learn. More than two thirds of states told CEP they have a tough time monitoring SES programs for quality and effectiveness, and three said they are "not at all" able to monitor them.CEP President, Jack Jennings told US News and World Report the flow of federal money paired with very little oversight is "a recipe for disaster." Read more:Study
, States
, Tutoring
Is a Top School Forcing Out Low-Performing Students? 2007-03-16 22:39:00 "Things were not going well for Jasmine Boulware during her first year at prestigious Myers Park High School
in Charlotte, N.C. hailed by Newsweek Magazine as one of the 100 best high schools in America.The 16-year-old freshman had racked up several disciplinary suspensions, mainly for disruptive behavior.So when the assistant principal called her into his office in February, 2005, she anticipated another reprimand. Instead, she was told that her days at Myers Park were over. "He said I wasn't learning anything, wasn't going to learn anything and only wanted to hang out with my friends," Jasmine recalls. "He told me there was no place for students like me at Myers Park."Jasmine's mother, Kelly Kennedy, says she reluctantly allowed her daughter to withdraw, but only after being told that Jasmine could return to Myers Park in the fall.But when Jasmine tried to re-enroll the following September, she was turned away...It was only when Kennedy went directly to the Charlotte Mecklenburg d Read more:Forcing
, Performing
, Top School
Classroom Cell Phone Woes - Italian-style 2007-03-16 22:36:00 Italy has banned schoolchildren from using mobile phones in class in an attempt to stop ringtones disrupting lessons and prevent pupils messing about with video cameras.The ban follows a series of incidents that have shocked Italian
s. In November, a video showing a disabled pupil being bullied by classmates, filmed on a mobile phone, caused outcry after it was posted on the Internet. In another, pupils filmed each other sexually harassing a female teacher.The story from Reuters. Read more:Classroom
Study says Kid's Asthma Out of Control 2007-03-16 22:31:00 Four out of five kids with asthma don't keep their symptoms under control, a new study shows.University of Rochester researcher Jill S. Halterman, M.D., MPH, and colleagues analyzed data from a telephone survey of 975 asthmatic children in Alabama, California, Illinois, and Texas.Among children with persistent asthma, they found:More than one in three kids — 37 percent — isn't getting the prescription drugs needed for asthma control.An additional 43 percent of these kids have asthma drugs but still aren't controlling their asthma. Only 20 percent of kids with persistent asthma keep their symptoms under control. CBS News reports. Read more:Study
, Control
Five Bucks for the Beer. Telling all your friends about the great party...priceless! 2007-03-16 22:19:00 A South Carolina assistant high school principal and his wife — a middle school teacher — were accused Wednesday of throwing a summer keg party where students paid $5 to drink, officials said. John and Mary Clark turned themselves in to police and were charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. FoxNews tells the tale. Read more:Telling
, great party
Maryland Moves To Tie Teens' Drivers Licenses to Truancy 2007-03-16 22:10:00 Maryland lawmakers issued a tough warning to teenagers yesterday: no school, no car keys.The House of Delegates approved a bill that would deny driver's licenses to students with 10 or more unexcused absences in the previous calendar year. A similar measure passed the Senate Judiciary Committee late yesterday, and it appears to have wide support in the full chamber.The bill would require school districts to report each case of truancy to the Motor Vehicle Administration, and the student would have to present an attendance record to the state to get a permit.Get the full story at the Washington Post. Read more:Maryland
, Teens
, Drivers
, Licenses
GOP Bills Would Relax Test Requirements of 'No Child' Law 2007-03-16 21:53:00 With all of the ramped up activity surrounding the reauthorization of No child Left Behind, it seemed that some unified Republican/Democratic action to relax testing requirements while preserving NCLB's intent might be in the offing. Well, maybe...but...not so unified. Politics makes strange bedfellows and the White House appears unified with the Democrats in their criticism of the Republicans!This story from the Washington Post. Republican critics of the No Child Left Behind law flexed their growing muscle yesterday as 57 GOP lawmakers, including the national party chairman, endorsed legislation that would undermine President Bush's signature education initiative.House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who voted for the law in 2001, said he now opposes it because it has shifted control of public schools to the federal government in a more dramatic way than he ever imagined."The overwhelming intrusion of No Child Left Behind is too large to deal with unless you fundamentally change Read more:Bills
, Relax
, Requirements
Pew Notes Growth in Chinese language instruction in American Schools 2007-03-16 16:47:00 The Pew Charitable Trust blog stateline.org reports:American
students have been learning to say "hola" and "bonjour" for years now, but lately, more and more of them are learning to say "ni hao."Interest in learning Chinese
has surged in the United States, as China has risen as a global and economic power. In 2000, there were about 5,000 students studying Mandarin Chinese in U.S. public schools, according to the American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Now that number is between 30,000 and 50,000, leaving states and districts scrambling to find enough qualified teachers. Read more:Notes
, Growth
, language
, Schools
, Chinese language
Grant Co High School students have flair for drama 2007-03-16 16:41:00 Grant County News online reports:"It was only two years ago that Ryan Ray started the speech and drama
program at Grant County High School
with just 15 students.Senior Justine Croy, a founding member of the team, remembers those days."When Mr. Ray first started this, I'm not sure what he saw," she said.Obviously, Ray saw something, because now the team has swelled to 40 members and has become a major player in the high school speech and drama scene."We went from finishing pretty much in the bottom three at every competition to now finishing in the top three," Croy said. Read more:Grant
, flair
, High School
Scott County Enhances Technology Program with infusion of Funds 2007-03-16 16:35:00 Updated technology has been rolling into ScottCounty
schools this month, with 247 new computers installed in nine buildings.Most of the computers being replaced had been at the schools six years or longer - eons in the tech world."These computers were brought to the schools to better equip students with a better quality of technology," said Don Beaven, director of networks for the school district.More from the Georgetown News-Graphic.Also from the Jessamine Journal...The new computers, along with 177 more being delivered next week, were purchased with the district’s $272,600 allotment through the state’s Instructional Device Upgrade project. The 2006 Kentucky General Assembly put $50 million in the education budget for technology improvements, and each of the state’s 175 school districts received a share of the money based on enrollment. Read more:Technology
, Program
, Funds
, Scott County
The V-word Girls: Suspensions Rescinded 2007-03-16 16:07:00 WCBSTV.com reports: The one-day suspensions imposed on three high school girls for including the word "vagina" in a reading from "The Vagina Monologues" have been rescinded, one of the girls said.Hannah Levinson, 16, said she and her friends received formal letters Tuesday from the school superintendent lifting the suspensions."He said the board is going to devise some steps to discuss censorship so it won't come up in the future," Levinson said. "They're going to clarify how the school can interpret the First Amendment." Read more:Girls
John Yarmuth takes on Stephen Colbert; and... 2007-03-16 15:24:00 Why any Congressman would agree to go on the Colbert
Report is beyond me. If Stephen
's logical fallacies don't get you the video editing will. But recently John Yarmuth bravely (actually, you may want to insert your own adverb here) debated the relative merits of throwing kittens into woodchippers - Yarmuth arguing in the affirmative. “Well, you know, there are times when you have to find a way to dispose of kittens," Yarmuth stammered and blinked.Since Yarmuth's performance, Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), the Democratic Caucus chairman, has told new Democratic members of Congress to steer clear of Stephen Colbert
where Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio) recently spent time trying to explain to Colbert that he is not his predecessor - convicted felon Bob Ney (R).Yarmuth, it turns out, is a fan of the show. So, he knew what he was in for. His hour and a half interview was shot on February 9 and then was edited down to the most embarrassing six -minute segment.Go here to see the Colbert Repor
Here's the Boost that Poor Children, Their Teachers, and Their Schools Really Need 2007-03-16 15:00:00 The American Federation of Teachers publication American Teacher reports in its current issue:"By the time children from low-income homes enter school, they are, on average, already far behind their middle-class peers. At the beginning of kindergarten, disadvantaged children are three times more likely than other children to score in the bottom quartile on assessments of reading, math, and general knowledge. In terms of specific skills, they are much less likely than their more advantaged peers to be able to identify the letters of the alphabet or to count beyond 10. But the actual challenge they face is even greater: The same home and community factors that lead to the school-entry achievement gap are at work over the summer. Middle- and upper-class children not only enter kindergarten knowing more, they continue learning more every summer.As a result, although the evidence indicates that in school, poor, middle-class, and wealthy children actually learn at about the same pace, by fou Read more:Schools
, Boost
, Children
No Child Left Behind law faces change 2007-03-16 14:57:00 The Baltimore Sun reports, "President Bush's signature No Child Left Behind education law is headed for fundamental changes this year, including a likely softening of do-or-die deadlines.School administrators long have complained about the annual deadlines, which punish schools that do not make enough progress toward having all children perform at their grade levels.School officials also have rebelled at requirements that students with limited English or with learning disabilities perform as well as their grade-level peers.Now, those issues are being taken up by congressional lawmakers across the political spectrum." Read more:faces
More States Offer Preschool 2007-03-16 14:15:00 A new report from the National Institute for Early Education Research shows shows more and more states are adding pre-kindergarten programs as research highlights the importance of getting children ready to learn."Virtually every state has a very strong movement toward doing a better job with pre-k," said Arthur Rolnick, a senior vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and part of a group of business leaders calling for giving low-income kids earlier access to public school.A report released yesterday finds states spent at least $3.3 billion last year on pre-kindergarten. That doesn't include money from federal and local governments, which contribute to the state programs.The state funding is up from $2.8 billion in 2005, according to the report by the National Institute for Early Education Research at New Jersey's Rutgers University.In all, nearly 1 million children, or 20 percent of the country's 4-year-olds, were in state pre-kindergarten last year — up from 1 Read more:States
, Offer
, Preschool
Virtual school: Grades K-8 may be held online 2007-03-16 14:04:00 Elementary school students in Utah soon may be able to go to school without ever having to leave home. Given the success of the state's electronic high school, Utah education officials hope to expand their online
offerings to students from kindergarten through eighth grade. While the new "school" is still in the planning stages, the time is right for its virtual doors to open, officials say.This from the Salt Lake Tribune.
Autism study may hold clues 2007-03-16 13:57:00 University of Washington scientists helped craft a report saying random genetic 'glitches' could be cause of autism.As the evidence mounts indicating that many forms of autism are caused by gene mutations, scientists working with top genetics researchers in Seattle have found compelling evidence suggesting most cases of autism could be caused by errors in human DNA that are random and spontaneous rather than inherited.This from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Read more:Autism
, clues
Not even homelessness deterred 9-year-old's devotion to her school 2007-03-16 13:51:00 Brenda Tejeda Baez has endured a lot of chaos in her short life.By the time she was in third grade, she had lived in five different friends' apartments and two homeless shelters. Her mother is unemployed, and she rarely sees her father, who lives in the Dominican Republic.When she started kindergarten, she knew only Spanish. Yet, the 9-year-old girl, now a third grader, has refused to budge on the one constant in her life: attending the Louis Agassiz Elementary School in Jamaica Plain.Even when her family had to live for three months in a homeless shelter in Worcester, Brenda, her mother, and her little brother traveled more than an hour each way on public transportation from Worcester to Jamaica Plain to get to [school]. Read the Boston Globe article.
Courier-Journal "conversation" on Special Education 2007-03-16 12:57:00 On March 4th, The Courier
-Journal
ran an article on the challenges facing special education teachers and parents. Today several folks responded. Scan below to see the original article followed by a link to today's responses.The original article by Chris Kenning:SPECIAL EDUCATORS FIND STANDARDS STIFLING:Some fear practical skills are taking a back seat to the new academic demands of No Child Left Behind"Seventeen-year-old Corey Bohn doesn't know his phone number and can't make change for a dollar.His Down syndrome makes it a struggle to talk, recognize letters, cross a street, or even let someone know when he's in pain.Nevertheless, Corey, who attends Doss High School in Jefferson County, now is expected to learn versions of grade-level academics such as the Pythagorean theorem, the periodic table of elements, principles of cell division and the parts of a novel — all before he leaves high school."I just don't think learning that is important for him," said Debbie Bohn, Corey's Read more:Special
, Education
, Special Education
KET Nets $80,000 in pledges for A History of Northern Kentucky 2007-03-16 12:40:00 Sunday night Kentucky
Educational Television received $80,000 in pledges when it debuted its landmark documentary "Where the River Bends: A History
of Northern
Kentucky."The program goes down as the top pledge-producing locally-made documentary in the history of KET, said officials at the Lexington-based public TV network."We've had probably more mail and phone calls about this show than we have had on any show in a while," said Craig Cornwell, KET program director.The documentary repeats at 7 p.m. tonight on KET2. And the network has just rescheduled a third airing set again for KET1 at 7 p.m. Sunday.See the complete story from the Kentucky Post. Read more:Northern Kentucky
Kentucky author Robert Penn Warren Honored with a Stamp 2007-03-19 17:07:00 Robert Penn Warren
—the first official poet laureate of the United States—will be honored by the U.S. Postal Service with a stampin the LiteraryArts stamp series at an 11 a.m. ceremony April 22 in Penn'shometown of Guthrie,KY.The ceremony will take place at the RobertPenn Warren Museum at 122 CherrySt., and is part of a week-long series ofevents celebrating the 100thanniversary of Warren's birth. The stamp willbe available at the museum and atthe Guthrie Post Office April 22, and atPost Offices and Philatelic Centersnationwide on Saturday, April 23."It is an honor to celebrate the life and accomplishments of Robert PennWarren," said Ann Wright, Kentuckiana District Manager, U.S. Postal Service,whowill dedicate the stamp. "His powerful ability as a poet and author—asthreePulitzer Prizes attest—is unmatched."See the U S Postal Service Press Release. Read more:Kentucky
, Robert
, Stamp
Technology Sniffs Out Student Plagiarism 2007-03-19 17:01:00 Plagiarism detection programs have become increasingly popular on collegecampuses now that Internet research has become standard and students havediscovered the ease of cutting and pasting information.The Center for Academic Integrity at Duke University reported that 10percent of students surveyed in 1999 admitted doing so without properlycrediting the source. By 2005, the percentage was almost 40 percent. And 77percent said they didn't think such cheating was a serious issue. "It'sendemic," [an assistant dean at Regent University James] Davids said.See the story at CBS News. Read more:Technology
, Sniffs
, Student
, Plagiarism
Troubled schools get longer day, small classes 2007-03-19 16:57:00 The Boston Herald Reports:Nine Boston Public schools at risk of being taken over by the state willhave smaller classes and longer hours during the next school year under animprovement plan announced yesterday by Superintendent Michael G. Contompasis. The $10 million initiative calls for each ofthe schools to have an extra hour of instruction every day beginning inSeptember, a full-time “family and community outrach coordinator” and a maximum class size of two fewer students, officials said. Seventy-five percent of the schools’ vacancies will be filled at the sole discretion of their principals, Contompasis said. Teachers currently in those schools may request transfers to other schools for the 2007-2008 academic year, he said. But those who choose to stay will receive salary incentives of up to 5 percent and 20 additional hours of professional development.
Free-Speech Case Divides Bush and Religious Right 2007-03-19 16:16:00 Bong Hits 4 JesusThe New York Times reports: A Supreme Court case about the free-speech rights of high school students, to be argued on Monday, has opened an unexpected fissure between the Bush administration and its usual allies on the religious right.As a result, an appeal that asks the justices to decide whether school officials can squelch or punish student advocacy of illegal drugs has taken on an added dimension as a window on an active front in the culture wars, one that has escaped the notice of most people outside the fray. And as the stakes have grown higher, a case that once looked like an easy victory for the government side may prove to be a much closer call.As the Olympic torch was carried through the streets of Juneau on its way to the 2002 winter games in Salt Lake City, students were allowed to leave the school grounds to watch. The school band and cheerleaders performed. With television cameras focused on the scene, student Joseph Frederick and some friends unfurled a Read more:Speech
, Divides
, Right
More Free University Lectures 2007-03-19 16:10:00 Includes science and technology lectures from UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, Bristol, Cal Tech, Virginia and Stanford. See LectureFox. Read more:University
, Lectures
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