teachers - Nxtbook Media

DIGITAL
TEACHERS
A NEW BREED P. 36
Adults
WHO ACT LIKE
Bullies P. 40
America’s
Most Popular
Teacher P. 18
SCHOLASTICADMINISTRATOR.COM - BACK TO SCHOOL 2011
Use Google’s
Chromebooks? P. 45
PRST STD U.S.
POSTAGE PAID
PERMIT #815
BOLINGBROOK,
IL 60440
Interactive whiteboards as simple as 1-2-3.
1. Place the MimioTeach bar
on any regular whiteboard.
2. Plug this hub
into your computer.
3. Press a button and…teach.
The MimioTeach interactive system. More simplicity. More value.
Simply teaching. At DYMO/Mimio, we believe the true measure of interactive technology is
how well it makes teaching more effective and learning more interesting. The MimioTeach™
interactive system turns your regular whiteboards into interactive whiteboards, in just a few
minutes. No need for expensive, bulky interactive whiteboards. No need for costly installation.
™
And spending less doesn’t mean you get less. The included MimioStudio software has
impressive features to make your teachers more successful and their students more
engaged. It’s surprisingly easy to use. What about planning for the future? Expanding to the
full line of MimioClassroom™ products is effortless because they all use the same software
and they’re all completely integrated.
Just call us or visit our website to learn more about the MimioClassroom family of products
and our wide variety of uncomplicated training options to ensure success. We’ll make it
easier for your teachers to do what they do best. Simply teach.
Request your free information kit:
Call 800.640.7282 or visit mimio.dymo.com/A86
©2011 DYMO, a Newell Rubbermaid company
“…simple to use, priced right, and
not confusing for teachers….”
Ken Royal, Scholastic
Headsprout K-5 Adaptive Reading Programs.
Researched. Tested. Proven effective.
Individualized reading programs that adapt to
the way each student learns.
Reading Comprehension 3-5. The first of its kind, this program includes
systematic instruction in comprehension strategies, allowing students to
Gates-MacGinitie
Reading Test® (GMRT)
Reading Total NCE Score for Comparison
Students and Headsprout Completers
60.00
transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” Students develop critical
Headsprout
Non-Headsprout
thinking skills that facilitate outstanding results on standardized tests.
55.00
Early Reading K-2. Well beyond mere practice, hundreds of instructional
routines automatically adapt to the needs of each learner. Lessons are tested
and proven both in the lab and in classrooms.
50.00
“The content and design of Headsprout Early Reading reflect scientific research
with an abundance of instructional strategies in phonemic awareness, phonics,
fluency, vocabulary and comprehension… Weaknesses Noted: None.”
45.00
46.3 46.8
– Florida Center for Reading Research
47.0 56.9
40.00
Request your FREE Information Kit:
call 866.833.6731
or visit www.headsprout.com/HS11
©2011 Headsprout Inc.
©2011 DYMO, a Newell Rubbermaid company
Beginning of
School Year
End of
School Year
Get the right data, right now with AIMSweb. This industry-leading, webbased software gives you the tools you need to benchmark all students,
set goals to help close the gap, monitor progress and celebrate success.
Go to AIMSweb.com to sign up for a free webinar.
866.313.6194 | AIMSweb.com
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. or its affiliate(s). All rights reserved. AIMSweb and Pearson are
trademarks, in the U.S. and/or other countries, of Pearson Education, Inc. or its affiliate(s). 5358 08/11 A3H
Get the RTI data you need.
Back to School 2011
31.
36
Online Teachers.
Cultivate the right
people to run
your virtual and
blended classes.
Streamline
Your Superintendent
Transition. Minimize disruption and keep progress
on track through those key
administrative changes.
40.
The New
School Bullies. It’s not
just students who can create a culture of fear in your
district—sometimes it’s principals and fellow teachers.
Handle problems before
they poison your schools.
45.
51.
Profile: KIPP’s
Marc Mannella.
Expanding Philly’s
charter into K–12.
Google’s
Gamble. Will the company’s
instant-on, cloud-based,
leased laptops be enticing
enough to vault over tablets
in the classroom? Two districts pilot prototypes and
learn some lessons.
47.
The Easy Way
to Improve Special Ed.
Refining your communication with parents might be
the most important change
you can make. See what
these districts have accomplished with thorough, and
thoughtful, plans.
PHOTOS (TOP TO BOTTOM): ROGER HAGADONE; JEFF FUSCO
Bloggers Are Saying
“If children don’t
learn to write their
names in cursive,
can they sign unemployment checks in
block letters?”
—SUZANNE TINGLEY, Practical
Leadership, on the loss of
penmanship in schools.
Back to School 2011 SCHOLASTIC ADMINISTR ATOR.COM 3
Back to School 2011
Administrator TV
View the newest additions
to Scholastic Administrator’s
growing library of education
videos to hear lively opinions
and real-world advice.
1:1 Computer Management.
See how Three Village CSD in
New York handles its tech.
18.
Personal Tutor.
Meet Sal Khan, and
see how his academy
can help your school.
Ron Clark. Learn how this
author mixes passion and interactivity to engage students.
TECH
20.
Tech Tools.
In our four-page, ISTEinfluenced section, you’ll find
the latest in projectors, interactive whiteboards, document
cameras, tablets, and software.
24.
NEWS. EDU
9.
News. Violent storms are
wreaking havoc on school build-
4
10.
Technology. Hear
what students really think about
how schools use technology.
It’s not what you think.
12.
Future. Horizon’s
annual crystal-ball gaze reveals
hot technologies for the next
five years. Hint: Learning will
be mobile, game-based, and
more personalized.
14.
Security. The new
face of cheating, and why
catching plagiarists may be
harder than ever.
16.
Russo. Leaving
the nation’s much-loathed
NCLB intact is the best
course of action: the case
against reauthorization
and waivers.
LEADERSHIP
53.
TED Video. Cameron Herold
on how to nurture entrepreneurial talent in your students.
Weigh In: What
Does the First Day of
School Mean to You?
Seven educators discuss the
beginning of another year, and
which initiatives they can’t
wait to put into motion.
IN EVERY ISSUE
6. Editor’s Letter
55. Conferences
56. Buzz
In Your In-Box
Love Administrator but want
to save paper? Subscribe to
our digital edition, online and
downloadable.
SCHOLASTIC A DMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
PHOTO: © ROBYN TWOMEY/CORBIS OUTLINE
Best in Tech
2011: 1:1 Technologies.
There are more ways than ever
to go 1:1 in your classrooms.
Your peers recommend the
newest in tablets, netbooks,
laptops, and personal learning
devices.
ings across the country, threatening opening day.
If you could follow the line into the future,
it would end in success.
Introducing STAR Enterprise™—our new generation of
reading and math assessments. With new tools, content,
and reports, teachers can quickly get needed data to drive
daily instruction and practice. Fast, accurate, and easy to
administer, the suite of STAR Enterprise assessments lets
teachers spend more time teaching and less time testing.
Create more success stories with our help.
Take an interactive tour
at renlearn.com/lp/18574
EDITOR’S LETTER
Listen and Learn
at iste this year, i went to dinner
with an education venture capitalist.
When I questioned his theory about how
current superintendents would stay put
in their jobs for the next three years, he
gently reminded me that he was paid for
his opinions. Left unsaid was that my
opinions are nice, but my compensation
isn’t directly tied to them (thankfully). In
one way, he’s totally right—the best insight comes from the trenches.
When I reflected on all the exciting talk about tablets and digital
learning at this conference, I realized that the loudest and most
innovative voices were the educators’. I met with at least a dozen of
them who talked about what was happening in their schools, from
Skyping with instructors in China who teach authentic Chinese to
American students to having severely disabled special-ed students use
tablets to increase their ability to communicate. As a veteran of these
conferences, I’m often dazzled by the glimpses of what is possible in
education. Yet, at the same time, the gulf between the possible and
the daily realities in our schools can be large. What made this year
different is that the great visions of what is possible for our students
were not coming from outside theorists, but from true educators.
WWW.SCHOLASTICADMINISTRATOR.COM
VOLUME 11•ISSUE 1
GROUP PUBLISHER Michele Robinson
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Dana Truby
DESIGN DIRECTOR Dan Schultz
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, CUSTOM MEDIA Jennifer Prescott
MANAGING EDITOR Chris Borris
EXECUTIVE EDITOR Wayne D’Orio
SENIOR EDITOR, TECHNOLOGY AND PRODUCTS Ken Royal
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Jacqueline Heinze, Hannah
Trierweiler Hudson, Alexander Russo, Dana Truby
SENIOR ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR Aruna Goldstein
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Megan Kaesshaefer
COPY EDITOR Andrew Boorstyn
ART PRODUCTION Pamela Simmons
PHOTO EDITOR Nicole Durrant
GROUP PUBLISHER/ADVERTISING DIRECTOR, EAST COAST
Michele Robinson, [email protected],
212-343-6455
SALES & MARKETING ASSOCIATE Jenna Bryerman
[email protected], 212-343-6205
REGIONAL SALES MANAGER, WEST COAST Lisa Hershey
[email protected], 607-264-5018
REGIONAL MARKETING ASSOCIATE, WEST COAST
Chrissy Bridger, [email protected],
607-264-5017
MANUFACTURING & DISTRIBUTION Mimi Esguerra
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF MANUFACTURING Brian Fedison
PRODUCTION MANAGER Elaine Esguerra
AD PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Rick Gelke
VP OF FINANCE Peter Sallese
DIRECTOR OF FINANCE Chris Paquette
SENIOR FINANCIAL ANALYST Ilona Pleskach
EXECUTIVE VP/MAGAZINE GROUP Hugh Roome
Wayne D’Orio, Executive Editor
[email protected]
PRESIDENT & CEO, SCHOLASTIC INC. Richard Robinson
Published by Scholastic Inc.
557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012-3999
(212) 343-6100
Maurice R. Robinson, Founder, 1895–1982
© Copyright 2011 by Scholastic Inc. All rights reserved. Materials
Editorial Board
Irvine (CA) Unified School District
Public Schools
Deborah Baker, Assistant
Joe Hairston, Superintendent,
Arthur Stellar, Superintendent,
ed—in whole or in part in any form or format without special
Burke County (NC) Public Schools
permission from the publisher. Microfilm or microfiche copies are
Robert Voors, Superintendent,
available through university microfilms, serials, and Acquisitions
Glendora (CA) Unified School
District
Dept., 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. POSTMASTER
in this issue may not be reproduced—unless otherwise indicat-
Superintendent of Curriculum and
Instruction, Brighton (NY) Central
Schools
Baltimore County (MD) Public
Schools
Rick Bates, Director,
Superintendent for Academic and
Technology Services, Plano (TX)
Independent School District
Information Technology, Rapid
City (SD) Area Schools
Jim Hirsch, Associate
Tim Wilson, CTO, Osseo (MN)
send notices of undelivered copies to Scholastic Administr@tor,
2931 E. McCarty St., PO Box 3710, Jefferson City, MO 651023710. Publishing Information Postal Permit #156287. Direct all
Amy Holcombe, Executive
Area Public Schools
Superintendent (retired), McHenry
(IL) School District 15
Director, Talent Development,
Guilford County (NC) Schools
Craig Witherspoon,
McCarty St., PO Box 3710, Jefferson City, MO 65102-3710.
When changing address, please include an address label (or
Thomas Floyd,
James Parry, Project Director,
Superintendent, Birmingham City
(AL) Schools
Tammy Worcester,
without both the old and new addresses. Customer Service
Instructional Technology
Specialist, ESSDACK
Number: (800) 724-6527. BPA INTERNATIONAL MEMBERSHIP
Christy Chambers,
Superintendent, Madison County
(KY) Schools
TIE education consultants
Gwen Gross, Superintendent,
Superintendent, Drayton (ND)
6
Hy C. J. Schlieve,
change-of-address requests to Scholastic Administr@tor, 2931 E.
copy) from the current issue. We cannot make address changes
APPLIED FOR JULY 2002. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
SCHOLASTIC ADMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
The Reading Bill of Rights
A Child’s Right to Read
Today we live in a world full of digital information. Yet reading has never been more important, for we know that for
young people the ability to read is the door opener to the 21st century: to hold a job, to understand their world, and to
know themselves. That is why we are asking you to join our Global Literacy Call to Action: We call this campaign: “Read
Every Day. Lead a Better Life.” We are asking parents, teachers, school and business leaders, and the general public to
support their children’s right to read for a better life in the digital world of the 21st century.
Here is what we believe about reading in the second decade of the 21st century. We call this The Reading Bill of Rights:
WE BELIEVE that literacy – the ability to read, write and understand – is the birthright of every child in the world as well
as the pathway to succeed in school and to realize a complete life. Young people need to read nonfiction for information to
understand their world, and literature for imagination to understand themselves.
WE BELIEVE that the massive amounts of digital information and images now transmitted daily make it even more
important for a young person to know how to analyze, interpret and understand information, to separate fact from opinion, and
to have deep respect for logical thinking.
WE BELIEVE that literature and drama, whether on printed pages, screens, on stage or film, help young people
experience the great stories of emotion and action, leading to a deeper understanding of what it means to be truly
human. Without this literacy heritage, life lacks meaning, coherence and soul.
WE BELIEVE every child has a right to a “textual lineage” – a reading and writing autobiography which shows that who
you are is in part developed through the stories and information you’ve experienced. This textual lineage will enable all
young people to have a reading and writing identity which helps them understand who they are and how they can make
their lives better. In short, “You Are What You Read.”
WE BELIEVE every child should have access to books, magazines, newspapers, computers, e-readers, and text on
phones. Whatever way you read, you will need to figure out what the facts are or what the story tells you. No matter how
and where you get access to ideas, you will need the skills of reading to understand yourself and your world.
WE BELIEVE that reading widely and reading fluently will give children the reading stamina to deal with more
challenging texts they will meet in college, at work and in everyday life. And every child should be able to choose and
own the books they want to read, for that choice builds literacy confidence – the ability to read, write and speak about
what they know, what they feel, and who they are.
WE BELIEVE that every child has the right to a great teacher who will help them learn to read and love to read.
Children need teachers who provide intentional, focused instruction to give young people the skills to read and interpret
information or understand great stories they will encounter throughout life.
WE BELIEVE that in the 21st century, the ability to read is necessary not only to succeed but to survive—for the ability
to understand information and the power of stories is the key to a life of purpose and meaning.
Join Scholastic’s global literacy campaign by sharing The Reading Bill of Rights with your friends and family on
Facebook, Twitter or through a personalized email.
w w w. s c h o l a s t i c . c o m / R e a d E v e r y D a y
The Latest
News & Trends
in Education
and Technology
PHOTO: © AP PHOTO/THE GAZETTE, BRIAN RAY
Last-Minute Renovations?
august is typically an exciting time
for administrators as they ready new
buildings, new programs, and new teachers for the upcoming school year. But for
one district, in Urbana, Iowa, officials are
facing a rebuilding project just 10 days
after a new elementary school was completed. Winds of more than 100 m.p.h.
ripped through the area just north of
Cedar Rapids in early July. Remarkably,
no one was injured, although a nearby
volunteer fire department building and
its five engines were crushed, at least
three trucks overturned on I-380, and
a large section of the roof of Urbana
Intermediate Elementary School was
ripped off. A water main break and a
small gas leak added to the damages.
Principal Jon Hasleiet told The Gazette,
“We already have a lot going on; this is
kind of crunch time for us. We didn’t
expect adding a new roof would be part
of the plan.” But he said all the teachers
in the affected section of the building
had already been in the school to help
clean up, and he hopes the building
will be ready to open for the first day of
school this month. Although the damages
haven’t been estimated yet, he added,
“things are going to get taken care of and
we’re going to be okay.”
Iowa wasn’t the only place where vio-
Back to School 2011 SCHOLASTIC ADMINISTR ATOR.COM lent storms damaged schools this year. A
dust storm, or haboob, that went through
Arizona in early July partially destroyed
the roof of Youngker High School in
Buckeye, less than a month before school
is scheduled to start. Officials there
expect repairs to be completed before
students arrive. The prognosis for schools
in Joplin, Missouri, was less rosy after
a tornado killed seven students and one
faculty member in May. Three schools,
including the district’s only high school,
were total losses, while its two middle
schools are likely ruined as well. Classes
are expected to meet in empty buildings
when the new school year starts this fall.
9
TECH.EDU
The New Digital Divide
What we think about tech (and how students really see it).
T
he term “digital divide” has traditionally referred
to the technology gap between financially secure
suburban districts and their poorer urban counterparts. Another digital divide, however, is cause for concern: the disparity between how educators view their use
of technology and how students perceive its use. Simply
put, schools are falling short of kids’ expectations about
how technology can and should be used in the classroom.
A new survey by CDW-G highlights this rift. Threequarters of teachers say they consistently use technology,
but only 40 percent of students get their hands on these
tools on a regular basis. Almost all students (94 percent)
report using tech to complete homework, while fewer than
half of teachers (46 percent) incorporate it into assignments. Everyone would agree schools were failing if kids
felt the only place they read books or solve math problems
is at home. And yet, say 86 percent of students, schools
have left another key literacy—technology use—outside the
classroom. One student summarized schools’ need to play
catch-up: “Technology will play a major role in my future...
if I am exposed to it now, I will be able to adapt to it later.”
IT OPINIONS: Tech is improving
IT leaders who say their district’s technology is cutting-edge or
current rose from 41 percent last year to 64 percent this year.
47%
29%
7%
Planning Your
Upgrades
Does your district
have plans to upgrade
or improve classroom
technology in the next
two years?
10
Adequate,
but could be
refreshed
Aging
No
14%
Yes
65%
94%
46%
30%
17%
59%
14%
49%
74%
41%
75%
of students say they use
technology to work on class
assignments at home
of students think smartphones
are essential 21st-century
classroom tools
Unsure
21%
of students believe faculty
know how they want to use
technology
of students say they are
encouraged to use tech
throughout the school day
of teachers say they regularly assign homework that
requires the use of technology
of teachers think smartphones
are essential 21st-century
classroom tools
of students use tech to
communicate with their
teachers daily
of faculty say they think
they understand how students want to use tech
of faculty say they regularly
use technology to teach in
the classroom
SCHOLASTIC ADMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
PHOTOS (LEFT TO RIGHT): © SHAWN GEARHART/ISTOCK; © KEMTER/ISTOCKPHOTO
Current,
no more than
three years old
FACULTY
of students use technology
to communicate with their
peers daily
17%
Cutting-edge, with
new/innovative
technology
STUDENTS
Meet Your New Classroom Assistants!
NetSupport recognizes that today’s students have access to a wide range of
technology. That’s why we ensure teachers have the tools to effectively engage and
interact with their students in a Mac, Linux or Windows environment by providing a
choice of classroom management solutions.
NEW
NetSupport Assist – Supporting the next generation of Apple
Mac® and Linux classrooms
NetSupport Assist combines whole class monitoring and real-time
presentation tools with powerful remote control features, enabling you
to engage and interact with your students, as a group or individually.
NetSupport Assist Key Features:
•Real-time instruction tools
• View / control student screens
• Student Register
• Application Metering
• Real-time thumbnail view
• Internet Metering and control
• Remote PC management
• Group or 1:1 Chat facility
• Powerful Student Surveys
• Full wireless support
Download a free 30-day trial at: www.netsupportassist.com
NetSupport School – Complete Windows classroom
management
The established market leader for classroom management in a Windows
environment, NetSupport School includes everything in NetSupport Assist
plus:
• Language Lab mode
• Student information bar
• Digital Student Journals
• Printer management
• Custom Test Designer
• External device management
• Dedicated Technician Console
• Hand out and collect files
• Keyboard Monitoring
• Lesson Planner
• Show student screen to the class
• Virtual Whiteboard
Download a free 30-day trial at: www.netsupportschool.com
www.netsupport-inc.com
To discuss your classroom management requirements, call our education specialists toll free
at 1-888-665-0808 or email: [email protected]
FUTURE.EDU
ED TECH TIMELINE
2012
–
In one year or less...
Cloud Computing
– Expect to see not only data
– storage and collaboration but
outsourcing of infrastructure to
– cloud providers.
2013
Mobile Learning
Cell
phones and tablets have
–
become mini-computers in their
– own right, and their presence in
the classroom will only grow.
–
Crystal Ball Predictions
Where will education technology
take us next?
A
12
2014
In two to three years...
Game-Based Learning
Educators are beginning to see
– the collaborative and learning
potential in multi-player online
– video games.
–
–
Open Content
2015 So long, textbooks—researchers
say schools will be using more
– and more free curricula,
– resources, and materials.
–
–
In four to five years...
Learning Analytics
Soon we may be able to use the
– data-mining technology behind
Google Analytics to assess
–
engagement, performance, and
– progress.
2016
–
Personal Learning
Environments
2017
By 2015, we’ll see much more cus– tomization on an individual level.
One student may play a robot
– game to learn about engineering,
while another designs a bridge.
–
SCHOLASTIC ADMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
PHOTOS: JEFF FUSCO
new school year usually means thinking big picture about
the technologies you want to implement and the outcomes you want to achieve, and the 2011 NMC Horizon
Report offers plenty to chew on. This annual report from the New
Media Consortium, the Consortium for School Networking, and the
International Society for Technology in Education outlines key trends
and challenges, and identifies two to three technologies on the nearterm horizon, the mid-term horizon, and the far-term horizon.
This year’s report underscores how the demand for access anytime,
anywhere, has set the stage for widespread adoption of cloud computing and mobile learning. “People expect to work, learn, and study
whenever and wherever they want to,” the report notes. This demand
has implications both in and out of the classroom, as students are just
as likely to talk about news stories on their Facebook page as they are
in school. The report calls these instances “found learning” and suggests that their impact will be profound.
We still have a way to go, however, when it comes to teaching kids
how to use the resources available to them effectively. The Horizon
Report says digital media literacy is a critical challenge that is not being
addressed in teacher education programs. They suggest that part of
the problem is that “digital literacy is less about tools and more about
thinking, and thus skills and standards based on tools and platforms
have proven to be somewhat ephemeral.” In other words, found learning on Facebook won’t have any meaning unless we give kids the
critical-thinking skills they need to apply it to their lives.
–
Smart investments for our future...
...Your investment
to education begins here.
C
anon’s education sales division
multifunction printers make it easy to
is your one stoP soLution
Print, copy, scan & Fax anything from
for all of your school’s imaging
documents, books, photos and negatives.
needs. From digital sLr cameras for
or, create 13” x 19” posters easily on
Photojournalism and hd video to a full
PiXma Pro Printers.
line of high definition camcorders for
From
academics
to
administration,
recording events. the simple operation
canon
of Powershot digital cameras make them
imaging needs. Projectors, binoculars and
perfect for class projects.
calculators are also available.
has
the
equipment
for
your
School Purchasing information available at:
www.usa.canon.com/educationalsales or
email: [email protected] • phone: 800-344-9862
©2011 Canon U.S.A., Inc. Canon is a registered trademark of Canon Inc. in the United States. IMAGEANYWARE is a trademark of Canon reserved. All LCD and printer output images simulated
SECURITY.EDU
THE NUMBERS:
Plagiarism
Sources
Students who turn in
unoriginal work are
more likely to grab content from social sites
than paper mills.
33%
comes from social and
content-sharing sites
such as Facebook and
Answers.com
The New Face of Cheating
How students are using social sites to get ahead.
e all know student plagiarism has been enabled by the vast amount of digital content
W
floating out in cyberspace. Numerous online paper mills specifically target students
willing to hand over a few dollars for a final essay or report. The catch? Would-be cheaters aren’t
using them—at least not in the numbers you’d expect. Instead, they are cribbing from social and
sharing sites like Facebook, Answers.com, and, above all, Wikipedia. A new report from plagiarism prevention firm Turnitin found that one-third of “matched content” from papers checked
by its service came from social sites, and that’s not even including Wikipedia, which remains the
largest single source for plagiarism and represents another 10 percent of matched content. In
contrast, only 15 percent of matched content came from paper mill and cheat sites. Students may
know it’s wrong to buy a paper online but still not understand what it means to be original. In
other words, students may not know they’re cheating when they’re cheating.
Who's to Blame
in Atlanta?
In other cheating news,
everyone’s pointing fingers in
the Atlanta testing scandal.
Here are the top targets.
14
HIGH-STAKES TESTING
Others feel cheating is an
inevitable by-product of highstakes testing. “Every time
we raise the testing stakes,
more cheating will result,”
Deborah Meier wrote in USA
Today. On CBS News, Diane
Ravitch blamed NCLB for the
scandal and called for the
law to be repealed.
DISTRICT CULTURE
Several teachers involved told
investigators they were afraid
of losing their jobs if they
didn’t cheat. “It is not that the
teachers are bad people and
want to do it. It is that they
are scared,” a teacher told the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
TEST SECURITY
“Cheating is rare on expensive tests such as the SATs...
test-givers spend what it
takes to have their sessions
proctored,” wrote CNN.com's
Chester Finn. “State assessments, though, are generally
done on the cheap.”
comes from homework
and academic sites
like medlibrary.org
and nih.gov
14.8%
comes from cheat sites
such as oppapers.com
and allfreepapers.com
13.6%
comes from news
sites like The New
York Times and the
Huffington Post
9.5%
comes from encyclopedias, primarily
Wikipedia
4.1%
of content comes from
other sites
SOURCE: PLAGIARISM AND THE WEB:
MYTHS AND REALITIES (TURNITIN.COM)
SCHOLASTIC ADMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
PHOTO: © KENNET HAVGAARD (RF)/GETTY IMAGES
TEACHERS
Several editorials called out
the educators who corrected
student test answers. “It’s
the cheats who need to go,
not the tests,” said The New
York Times. “[Students] are
being written off as hopeless
by teachers who believe the
only way to raise their scores
is to cheat,” added USA
Today. Atlanta interim superintendent Erroll Davis apparently agrees: He asked that
all 178 teachers implicated in
the scandal either resign or
face being fired.
25%
COMMENT.EDU
Read Alexander Russo’s blog, This Week in
Education, at scholasticadministrator.com.
Russo.
The Case Against Waivers: Why leaving
the nation’s much-loathed NCLB intact is
the best course of action.
16
Win by Losing?
Will inaction on
NCLB reauthorization benefit
Democrats?
also approved a variety of
waivers during the past two
years, most of them noncontroversial. But this time, he
wasn’t just offering to sand off
the law’s hard edges or make
state-by-state exemptions.
He was proposing relief from
certain aspects of the law in
exchange for implementation
of some additional reforms.
Another big difference was
that Duncan was making such
a public display of his waiver
proposal, generating publicity
and reaction on Capitol Hill
and among the states.
While several states cheered
the idea of waivers—and a
handful (South Dakota, Idaho,
Montana, and Kentucky)
have already indicated they
would stop ratcheting up their
AYP targets with or without
approval from Washington
—neither Republicans nor
Democrats in Congress
seemed to like the Duncan
proposal very much. Union
leaders weren’t any more
enthusiastic. NEA president
Dennis Van Roekel came out
against the plan, as did AFT
president Randi Weingarten.
House education committee
chairman John Kline fired off
a letter questioning the legality of what Duncan was threatening to do and demanding
further specifics. Even George
Miller came out against it.
Did the plan violate the separation of powers that gives
Congress exclusive authority
to make laws, or was it just
call
‘ They
it flexibility.
I call it
recess reauthorization.’
SCHOLASTIC ADMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
PHOTO: NICK WASS/AP IMAGES FOR STATE FARM
our indefatigable education secretary, Arne Duncan,
didn’t take the summer
off—far from it. Duncan continued to step up pressure on
Congress to take action on the
much-reviled federal education law known as No Child
Left Behind, publicly calling
for a speedy reauthorization
by Congress or else threatening to use his waiver authority
to make changes administratively. They call it a “flexibility
package.” I call it a “recess
reauthorization.”
The rationale behind updating NCLB is pretty clear. The
law has been left unchanged
for a long while now, and it
has some elements, like the
2014 deadline for schools to
reach 100 percent proficiency,
that don’t make much sense.
State and local administrators
have a long list of additional
changes they’d like to see
made, either through waivers
or reauthorization.
For more than a year now,
the Obama administration
has had a “blueprint” for how
it would like to revamp the
law, mostly by focusing on the
lowest-performing schools.
Duncan has been relentless on
the issue of revamping NCLB
and has tried similar stunts to
encourage Congress to take
action in the past, including last year’s promise of an
additional billion dollars for
education in exchange for a
speedy reauthorization. He’s
bad politics? Many observers
thought it was both.
While Duncan’s intentions
may have been good, the truth
is that it’s a particularly bad
time to try to push for a new
law. Revamping such massive
laws takes enormous momentum and good will from a wide
array of stakeholders, all of
which are in short supply right
now. Having one or the other
party in control of the White
House and Congress helps,
too—another situation we lack
presently. Most important of
all, a successful reauthorization takes lots of new money
to pay for new initiatives and
to protect districts and states
from short-term loss of funds.
Alas, there’s none of that at the
moment, either.
Of course, not doing anything now means not doing
anything until 2013, when
there will be a new Congress
and (potentially) a new resident in the White House.
But in truth, overdue
reauthorizations aren’t necessarily a big deal. It’s not
like Congress won’t fund
programs like NCLB with
expired authorizations. They
do this all the time. And, as
we have learned over the past
decade, the consequences of
not making AYP are actually
not all that dire—especially for
schools that miss by only one
or two subgroups.
There’s nothing wrong with
talking about reauthorization. In fact, the Obama team
might be aiming to win by
losing—blaming a Republicancontrolled House for inaction
on education issues in next
year’s election. That may have
been a secondary rationale
for proposing blanket waivers
and new conditions, in which
case the gambit may have been
successful. In the topsy-turvy
world of Washington politics,
failure to take action can mean
political success for one party
or the other. Inaction on NCLB
may bolster the Democratic
case that Republicans are
unwilling to cooperate on
important issues.
One has trouble with silent-e; one is ready to move on.
Now you can teach both – at the same time.
Welcome to the Lexia classroom.
In the Lexia classroom, educators and administrators rely on Lexia Reading®, the
award-winning, technology-based program that provides differentiated practice,
embedded assessment and targeted instruction without having to stop to test
and re-test students.
• Announcing Lexia Reading version 8: the newest version is a breakthrough in
technology-based curriculum that predicts student performance on year-end,
grade-level assessments and offers prescriptive recommendations for the intensity
of instruction needed to improve each student’s performance and help close the gap.
• Lexia Reading is perfectly aligned to all the requirements of Title I and IDEA funding.
• Lexia Reading closes the gap for ELL, SPED, Title I, and struggling readers.
For additional information or to evaluate Lexia Reading,
go to www.lexialearning.com/aug or call 800-435-3942.
INTERVIEW.EDU
Salman Khan
How his self-paced lessons became
the most used education videos online.
BY ALEXANDER RUSSO
online and hybrid learning programs are everywhere these days, and an
affable math whiz named
Salman Khan may be their
Pied Piper. His series of
free YouTube courses and
exercises, dubbed Khan
Academy, have been featured
on national television and
in nearly every magazine
you can think of. Even your
grandmother might have
heard of him. The videos are
short, low-tech presentations
of (mostly) math and science concepts Khan started
creating in a closet studio
for nieces and nephews. So
far, Khan has narrated about
2,300 mini-tutorials and
developed a dashboard to
help teachers or tutors see
where students have gotten
lost. Formal implementations
of the courses and exercises
have been few thus far, and
there is as always a concern
about technology fads. But
at the very least, Khan has
introduced the idea of online
learning to the general public
and made it clear that such a
thing might be good for kids,
teachers, and parents.
from my academic teams
(quiz bowl, math team), starting in middle school. My love
18
Q What are the main differences between your
model and what others—
Rocketship, K12, School of
One, AVID/Advanced Path
—are aiming to do?
A While others have cre-
ated physical schools to
enable their respective
blended-learning models,
ours is focused on building
the best learning resources
that can be applied across
many diverse environments
(e.g., public schools, charter
schools, independent schools,
after-school programs, summer programs, developingworld schools, homeschooling). Our model is applicable
to any learner—it can be used
as the core learning platform
or a supplementary one. Q How big a part of Khan
Academy are interactivity and
“gamification” at present,
and what’s your take on their
importance?
A We believe that great learn-
ing requires engagement
from users and between
users. Our philosophy is that
the learning itself should be
engaging, and we have simplified our design to focus on
the intrinsic joy of learning.
We don’t hide our content
behind fancy graphical
games, but rather we try to
make the educational content
as engaging as a game. We
do incorporate aspects of
gaming, like earning points
and badges, to serve as positive reinforcement and drive
the targeted behavior. Game
incentives are powerful, and
they must be used correctly,
so we are always analyzing
and iterating to ensure we are
motivating desired behaviors. Q What’s the average age of
Khan Academy users right
now—and what do you think
is the lower limit for using
your videos?
A Our main user base ranges
from upper elementary
school through adult learners
with the average in the high
school/college-age range. We
don’t believe there are age
restrictions to learning. If
learners find our tools useful, they should be able to
use them. We are in adherence with COPPA, which
requires security measures
for users under 13 who want
to log in to access exercises
and learning data. Q Do you have any concerns
that the Khan Academy
approach will be used to
increase class sizes, or
reduce use of fully trained
teachers? Are we ready for
teacher-less classrooms?
A We believe the teacher
plays a critical role for learn-
ers. While Khan Academy
does help students who don’t
have access to teachers, the
ideal learning happens with
the engagement and mentorship of a trained adult. We do
not think Khan Academy in
any way diminishes the role
of the teacher, but rather clarifies it. Teachers do not need
to deliver content; they need
to coach and mentor students. Our goal is to increase
the educational outcomes
for students, with whatever
resources and support they
have. We’d rather see the
world focused on increased
PHOTO: © ROBYN TWOMEY/CORBIS OUTLINE
Q What parts of your own
childhood academic experiences shaped the development of Khan Academy?
A I remember the students
of math stemmed from being
in that world and around
peers who challenged me in a
very collaborative way.
test what Khan Academy
can really do, particularly
around creative, projectbased learning. However, we
have a lot on our plates in the
near term, so this is a bit further out. We do hope it will
become a reality in the coming years.
Q Where were the biggest
school implementations
in 2010–2011, besides
California’s Los Altos School
District, and what is planned
for 2011–12?
A There have been official
pilots with three schools in
the Los Altos School District,
and we are planning for 10
to 15 official pilot programs
starting in fall 2011. Based on
our data, it appears that over
1,000 classrooms are informally using Khan Academy
across the globe.
On-Demand Help
This not-for-profit has a simple mission: change education
by providing free world-class
lessons to anyone, anywhere.
Tight Quarters.
Khan films
thousands of videos
inside a walk-in
closet he has converted into a studio.
outcomes versus increased
class sizes.
Q Are there any misperceptions about what Khan
Academy is doing or can do?
A There is much more aware-
ness about our video content
than our exercises or analytics, so when people hear that
Khan Academy is in classrooms, they envision kids sitting around watching videos
the whole time. In actuality, Khan Academy aims to
allow students to learn at a
completely individualized
pace—exactly the pace they
need when they need it—and
provide tools to best facilitate
coaches to support them.
Watching videos outside of
the classroom frees up classroom time for the teacher
to be able to focus attention
on each child’s learning
needs and explore concepts
at a much deeper and richer
level. Exercises keep students
challenged and engaged in
learning and provide teachers with an abundance of
insightful data and reports.
Our classrooms are not these
dehumanized, robotic environments with students
glued to a computer screen.
Rather, they are dynamic
environments with a constant
buzz—kids peer-tutoring
each other, teachers mentoring students one on one or
in small groups, or projectoriented work focusing on
teamwork, creativity, and
deeper learning. Q You’ve talked about building a physical school based
on Khan Academy—is that
something in the works or
still just an idea?
A We would love to start a
school to serve as a place to
Simple, Not Simplistic.
Each 10-minute video shows
Khan running through problems
step by step.
Classroom Use. Students frequently tutor one another while
watching the videos at school,
Khan says.
SCHOLASTIC A DMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
The
Latest and
Greatest
EducationFriendly
Tech Tools
by Brian Nadel
Optoma
toma D300.
D300
toma’s first docu
Optoma’s
document
nt camera, the D300,
wass worth
w rt the
t e wait.
wa Forr
$250,
50, it has an adjustadjust
able
le neck, an LED light,
andd a 9X optical zoom
lens,
ns, so you control what
shows
ows up onscreen. It
also
1,280-byso creates a 1,280-by
1,024
024 resolution video
stream.
r a optomausa.com
tomausa.co
Casio XJ-H1600.
At $300 or more, projector bulbs are eating
away at your tech budget. Casio’s XJ-H1600
hybrid projector ($1,799) can help. Its innovative imaging engine uses an LED and a
laser rather than a traditional bulb. Rated to
last 20,000 hours, it may make replacement
bulbs obsolete. casioprojector.com
Improv Electronics’
Boogie Board.
The small chalkboard goes digital
with Improv Electronics’ Boogie
Board. This monochrome LCD touchscreen slate is an easy-to-use writing tablet. One model, at $45, is 4
ounces and less than a quarter-inch
thick, with an 8.5-inch screen.
improvelectronics.com
20
Elmo TT-12.
Need a document
camera that does it
all? Elmo’s TT-12 has
its own lighting, a highresolution 3.4-megapixel camera, and a
12X zoom lens. The key
is that its camera arm
swivels and rotates
to work with anything
from a newspaper to a
petri dish. $950.
elmousa.com
Toshiba Thrive.
Toshiba’s Android tablets have
a file manager to make sure no
homework assignment ever gets
lost. It starts at $429 and includes
a 10.1-inch screen, a 1.2GHz processor, and a beautiful hires display. toshibadirect.com
Panasonic
Security Alert.
Panasonic’s Security Alert System is a
twofer. It has a pendant that works as
a microphone, so every student can
hear. In an emergency, the pendant’s
button delivers a silent, network-wide
alarm. Pricing varies. panasonic.com
Canon VB-C60.
Canon’s $1,500 VB-C60 security
camera can actually see in the
dark and capture a sharp video
clip that can be used as evidence. Its lens can remotely tilt,
pan, and zoom to catch a vandal
or burglar in the act.
canonusa.com
Kuno Mobile Tablet.
Kuno’s Android 10.1-inch Mobile
Tablet is the only tablet designed
with teachers and students in
mind. The slate includes the
CurriculumLoft family of school software. It’s expected to sell for less
than $500. mykuno.com
SMART Board
885ix.
Two people at a time
can use this widescreen
board. The short-throw
projector, placed about
a foot from the screen,
ensures nothing will get
in the way of your image.
Pricing varies.
smarttech.com
SCHOLASTIC ADMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
TECH HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE
LiveScribe SmartPen.
The Echo ($150–$200) holds up to
eight hours of audio, listenable via
speakers or headphones or downloadable through a micro-USB connector. The redesigned pen has an
ergonomic grip and easy-to-replace
ink tip. livescribe.com
BenQ’s Projectors.
The latest BenQ projector
hits a bull’s-eye for schools
because it is inexpensive and
can cut power costs in half.
Based on the latest Digital
Light Processing technology,
the MX850UST can put an
XGA image onscreen with up
to 2,500 lumens of brightness.
Price TBD. benq.com
HP TouchPad.
HP’s new tablet differs from an
iPad by building its TouchPad
slate around the webOS software. It can’t match the number
of teaching apps the iPad has,
but it can play Flash. The system has a 9.7-inch screen and
sells for $500 (with 16GB) and
$600 (with 32GB). hp.com
22
Promethean
ActivBoard
500 Pro.
Why settle for a puny
whiteboard when
you can go big?
Promethean’s 87- or
95-inch ActivBoard
500 Pro systems
include a short-throw
projector, which means
everyone gets a good
view and the ability to
interact with its digital
surface. Pricing varies.
prometheanworld.com
Motorola WiNG 5.
The next generation of WiFi gear may let
you say goodbye to network congestion
and LAN choke points. Optimized for moving voice, video, and data, Motorola’s WiNG
5 equipment includes items for use inside
and outside. Pricing varies. motorola.com
Software Picks for 2011
Vernier’s Video
Physics App.
Vernier’s new iPad app ($3) is
a great way to not only show
students how a physical phenomenon occurs but help them
graph it as well. All you do is
use the iPad 2’s video camera
to record the motion you want to
analyze, and the program marks
the object’s position frame by
frame and graphs its motion. It’s
great for a rolling ball, a football
field goal, or a car’s acceleration. vernier.com
Global Scholar’s Pinnacle Aspire Suite.
We spend a lot of time talking about student assessments, but
what about tracking how teachers are doing, and getting them help
where they need it? That’s exactly what the performance-management module of Global Scholar’s Pinnacle Aspire Suite is all about.
With the ability to track each staff member, the software can help
set up an assessment program, put together a mentoring program,
and provide a single place for all record-keeping and evaluations.
The cloud-based program can be used on its own or as part of the
Pinnacle Suite. Pricing varies. globalscholar.com
T Smart Learning.
Just about every school is looking
at slates to replace notebooks and
desktops, but few have thought
about getting special software
that can make this platform a better education fit. That is, until SK
Telecom, the South Korean telecom giant, introduced its T Smart
Learning platform this summer.
The program is chock-full of tools
to teach, to set educational goals,
to prioritize work, and to schedule
assignments—there’s even a digital
library. T Smart is the modern-day
equivalent of the loose-leaf notebook. The software lets parents
look in and see how their child is
doing. Pricing varies.
sktelecom.com
HeadSprout.
Mimio’s acquisition of HeadSprout
means a one-stop place to get
classroom hardware, software, and
curriculum content. In the coming
months, HeadSprout’s self-paced
reading curriculum will be integrated into the MimioClassroom line of
interactive whiteboards, document
cameras, and response clickers.
Pricing will vary.
mimio.com/promo/headsprout
Junior Scholastic
for Interactive
Whiteboards.
There’s a new version of Junior
Scholastic adapted for classroom
interactive whiteboards. Aimed at
grades 6–8, the new social studies
curriculum is free for teachers until
the end of August. A big bonus
is that each issue has a series of
printable study sheets in Acrobat.
junior.scholastic.com
SCHOLASTIC ADMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
SEEKING
EDUCATION
As new tablets and bring-your-own-tech possibilities emerge, the look of
1:1 continues to morph into more than just one hardware device in the
hands of students. Our education-tech experts share what 1:1 means to
them, as well as how they are doing it in their districts. BY KEN ROYAL
24
Apple
Kuno/Curr.Loft
Dell
apple.com
mykuno.com, curriculumloft.com
dell.com
PHOTO (LEFT): © RALPH ORLOWSKI/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
REVIEWER: Dennis
Villano, media and
technology specialist, Burlington
(Massachusetts) Public
Schools
PRODUCT WE USE: iPad
HOW WE USE IT: Students can use iPads
for nearly every task needed in class,
and teachers can use them to develop
and distribute digital content. The
diversity in available content provides
students with many instructional
materials, and we are seeing more collaboration among students.
GOALS: We are providing every high
school student with an iPad to build
a learning environment that prepares
our students for college and the workplace. Its use allows for the infusion of
a digital curriculum and the extension
of learning beyond the classroom.
RESPONSE: Teacher support may be
the most critical factor in 1:1 success.
Helping teachers feel comfortable,
allowing collaboration time, and providing ongoing guidance are important throughout the process. And
when was the last time you brought
a cart of devices into a classroom and
actually heard kids cheer?
LEARNING CURVE: I’ve trained students
and teachers on many technology
products, and I have never found
one as simple to introduce and as
easy to explore.
WHAT’S AHEAD: We are planning extensive ongoing teacher training to help
facilitate the creation of digital curriculum content. We will have a large team
of students helping as a tech crew,
supporting their peers and teachers as
part of a new Digital Industry course.
Drew Markel,
assistant principal,
Crothersville (Indiana)
Community Schools,
REVIEWER:
PRODUCTS WE USE:
Kuno Tablet with
CurriculumLoft Explore1to1
HOW WE USE THEM: We are a rural, highpoverty area. This means many students don’t have the means to obtain
WiFi or broadband access. Students
need to download their curriculum
to a device they can take home with
them. The Kuno and CurriculumLoft
Explore1to1 allow for that “sync”
to take place in the school, where
Internet access is available. The
students can later return home and
access that information, even if they
don’t have Internet access.
GOALS: We wanted an Android-based
tablet for 1:1 to give each student a
managed Internet and network-capable device. We also wanted teachers
to upload their current curriculum in
the cloud so building lesson plans will
be as easy at home as it is at school.
RESPONSE: All stakeholders were
excited about implementing 1:1. The
project is fully supported by the board
as well as teachers and students.
LEARNING CURVE: Many students use
touch screens, so the Kuno was not a
hard transition. We added schoolwide
wireless in preparation for the project.
WHAT’S AHEAD: We will be installing a
complete virtual desktop solution using
Cisco UCS servers running virtual
clients. These virtual instances will be
available both on the students’ Wyse
thin clients in a lab or classroom setting and on the Kuno. All virtualization will be managed using VMware.
REVIEWER: Eric Jones,
executive director
for secondary education, Henrico County
(Virginia) Public
Schools
PRODUCT WE USE: Latitude E6400
HOW WE USE IT: We have 25,000
students grades 6–12 using Dell’s
Latitude E6400 for our 1:1 program.
AP or advanced math classes are often
limited, so we use videoconferencing
software to pair students with teachers at other schools. Students are able
to take the classes from their home
campus online. We also have a robust
online credit-recovery program.
GOALS: We wanted 24-7 access to content and curriculum, and we wanted
to minimize the digital access divide
and improve student achievement.
RESPONSE: The majority embraced
the idea, but there was certainly a
significant minority who had questions and concerns about how the
classrooms would change. Our board
unanimously approved a contract for
12,000 student laptops. We spent $18
million that year and had no negative
response from the community.
LEARNING CURVE: We have an instructional tech resource in every secondary school to work with teachers at
varying ability levels. Our goal with
PD is to make each teacher comfortable. We continue to use Dell consultants with digital curriculum, additional training, and implementation
and infrastructure review.
WHAT’S AHEAD: Our goal in two years
will be to refresh at the high school
level. Another likely direction: We’ll
no longer purchase textbooks.
SCHOLASTIC ADMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
TECHNOLOGY
Fujitsu
fujitsu.com
REVIEWER: Dave Ehlers,
director of technology,
Weston County School
District #1, Newcastle,
Wyoming
PRODUCT WE USE:
Lifebook T730 Tablet PC
HOW WE USE IT: This tablet is part
of our overall tech deployment to
improve students’ educational experience. Other devices include SMART
Boards in every room, Cisco wireless
access points with controller, and a
Windows Virtual Server Solution to
ensure a solid infrastructure. GOALS: We needed something that
would engage students and give them
more digital access, and the Lifebook
T730 best fit our needs.
RESPONSE: We included staff, administration, students, parents, and board
members as part of the tech-choice
process. Even though the slate/
iPad technology has some advantages,
the T730 features solid construction,
high resolution, hard-drive disk suspension, and optical drive flexibility.
LEARNING CURVE: Since this is the
second generation of tablets in our
district, the learning curve is much
smaller than during initial deployment. Professional development was
supplied by Fujitsu at no additional
cost to our district. Qualified Fujitsutrained technicians handle all support
in-house.
WHAT’S AHEAD: There will be staff professional development follow-ups
as part of our district’s professional
development. PD topics will include
hardware and software updates,
classroom management software, and
Internet and network security.
26
Turning
Technologies
HP
hp.com
turningtechnologies.com
REVIEWER: Ken Collura,
director of technology,
Diocese of Columbus,
Ohio
PRODUCT: Compaq
Tablet PC
HOW WE USE IT: Teachers are able to
home in on the curriculum and learning style that gets the best results
from each student. The Guided Notes
feature allows teachers to provide a
detailed class outline. Special-needs
students can dictate their essays into
the computer and use voice recognition software to turn the sound file
into a document.
GOALS: Our goal was to incorporate
technology into a learning environment that facilitates interactivity in
the classroom and enables students to
learn in the way that best suits them.
RESPONSE: The tablet PCs were so popular that we expanded the program
so more students could participate.
Students say tablet PCs help them
make better use of their time; teachers
say they have changed the classroom
in a positive way. Classes with tablet
PCs are no longer taught primarily
by lecture; they are more like interactive laboratories.
LEARNING CURVE: Tablet PCs are easy
to use—students and teachers took to
them quickly. I’ve seen virtually every
tablet out there and think the HP
PCs have a great form factor, a quality screen, and a user-friendly stylus.
They’re durable enough to take dayto-day use by students.
WHAT’S AHEAD: We’ve had a phenomenal response to the tablet PC program at our high schools and hope to
expand it to additional schools.
REVIEWERS: Belinda Stutzman and
Dave Zukor, technology integration
specialists, Wayzata (Minnesota)
Public Schools
PRODUCT WE USE: ResponseCard NXT
HOW WE USE IT: Our teachers use them
for common pre-, formative, and summative assessments across the district.
For example, our eighth-grade science
teachers all give the same unit tests
throughout the year even though they
are in different buildings—however,
they meet and analyze data from
all district students to make solid
instructional decisions.
GOALS: In our 1:1 plan for grades 3–12,
we are using the ResponseCard
NXT. We were looking for a common learning experience for students
where teachers use standard reference data for formative and summative assessments.
RESPONSE: Most teachers and administrators are excited about streamlining the collection of data so the
focus of time and energy can be on
responding to the needs of students.
We have received positive comments
from parents and students regarding
engagement, motivation, and instant
feedback.
LEARNING CURVE: The students were
comfortable with the devices quickly. For teachers, training was needed
to learn how to incorporate all of the
software options into the teaching
toolbox. We provide training after
school and on an as-needed basis. We
also provide in-classroom support.
WHAT’S AHEAD: We have been using
a classroom model for the past two
years, and because of its success we
will be moving to a learner model. SCHOLASTIC A DMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
TECHNOLOGY
Qwizdom
quizdom.com
REVIEWER: Bob
Richardson, instructional technology coordinator, Orange County
Public Schools, Florida
PRODUCTS WE USE: Qtopia
learning platform, Q4 responders, Q7
presenter tablets
HOW WE USE THEM: Qtopia is used in our
math modules, and we are anxiously
waiting for other subjects to be added.
We use the Qwizdom tools throughout the entire school.
GOALS: The goal is to move to a 1:1
computing platform. We tested and
then added netbooks to the classrooms. Every class has a student set of
25. Qtopia, along with the responders
and tablets, are key elements.
RESPONSE: Qtopia has been viewed by
the school’s shareholders as exceptionally beneficial toward meeting our
objectives to improve student learning
with its online resources, as well as
for improving efficiency through the
use of our 1:1 technology. Working
with Qtopia’s student response systems, teacher tools, and online programs has been rewarding for our
students and teachers. It allows teachers to access more information faster
than they could before.
LEARNING CURVE: Students picked up the
general use of the programs and systems quickly, usually within the first
session. Teachers learned a great deal
through students’ experiences. Qtopia
and Qwizdom technology support has
been immediate.
WHAT’S AHEAD: In the new school year,
we want to expand our 1:1 program
to cover more schools and more
students. 28
RM Education
rmeducation.com
REVIEWER: James Monti,
director of technology,
West Warwick (Rhode
Island) Public Schools
PRODUCT WE USE: RM Slate
HOW WE USE IT: The slate
fits perfectly onto tabletops for our
wheelchair-bound students. It was
fabulous that we could use existing
assistive technology software. We
started to use the RM Slates for state
testing, then we dropped the slates
into the classrooms, where they
have been used nonstop by teachers
and students.
GOALS: We wanted to move toward
ubiquitous wireless access everywhere in the district. We knew that
touchpad technology was the direction we wanted to move toward, but
we were skeptical about moving to
a non-Flash environment. We also
wanted a tool that we could use with
Aspen, our SIS.
RESPONSE: Students as young as kindergartners have been using RM
Slates. We know they’re being used
extensively, because the most popular
message our help desk has received is:
“How do we clean dirty fingerprints
from the screen?”
LEARNING CURVE: By using the RM
imaging services, we were able to
simply hand the tools to students and
teachers after a minimal run-through.
Students and teachers were able to
use the machines quickly, and the
slates were pretty intuitive, regardless
of user age.
WHAT’S AHEAD: We’re looking for funding to buy a slate for every teacher and
administrator to use with the state’s
new Educator Evaluation System.
Acer
acer.com
REVIEWER: Nancy
Caramanico, director
of technology K–12,
Archdiocese
of Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
PRODUCT WE USE: Netbook AOD250
HOW WE USE IT: Students used languagelearning software and headsets with
the netbooks. The software gave actual student pronunciation feedback.
Students collaborated using Google
Docs on projects and writing, and
created blogs and used Skype to communicate online with classmates and
experts. Teachers used Google forms
for assessment purposes.
GOALS: We wanted to put 1:1 technology access into the hands of students
each day for access to online resources, learning, and collaboration.
RESPONSE: Students found that it made
it easier to learn as it allowed them to
interact with content online, as well
as collaborate with students in and
out of their classes. Students said that
they liked being able to look up what
was being discussed in class as it was
happening. Parents were happy to see
that technology was being incorporated, and administrators saw daily
positive uses.
LEARNING CURVE: We used a variety of
methods to achieve 1:1. The netbooks
are portable and easy to maintain. For
some classrooms, each student had
a netbook. For others, netbook carts
were made available on a regular
basis. The carts were easy to move.
In some cases schools needed to augment wireless access at school.
WHAT’S AHEAD: Expanding 1:1 access to
more students.
SCHOLASTIC A DMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
on’t panic, interactive whiteboard.
I’m sure someone can still afford you.
Meet Mobi View™. Only $449.*
Mobi View™ mobile interactive whiteboard delivers maximum mobility and interactivity for a fraction of the cost of a fixed
interactive whiteboard. Plus, with its touch screen you can easily launch, control, and interact with any application, website,
or instructional resource from anywhere in the classroom. No wonder those other interactive whiteboards are worried.
100% interactive whiteboard.
And that’s just the beginning...
To learn more about Mobi View™ visit www.einstruction.com/mobiview-saagt.
*
U.S. Education List Price in USD. Valid in the U.S. only.
For us, creating a new school
is old school.
Maximize Learning Time | Promote Student Practice | Assess Student Progress
Monitor District Achievement | Change School Culture
In a transformed school, optimism is palpable. The air bristles with energy, enthusiasm, and excitement.
A feeling of positive momentum permeates the hallways. With a Renaissance School Excellence
partnership, you can experience sustainable, cultural transformation—without turning your world upside
down. We’ll work as a team to make the most of your assets and our vast experience to create a new
culture of learning.
Transform your school.
(800) 338-4204, ref. #18578
www.renlearn.com
IS YOUR DISTRICT ON A
MERRY-GO-ROUND?
Andres Alonso
Was deputy chancellor
in New York City; is now
CEO of Baltimore City
Public School System.
Manny Rivera
Went from
Rochester, NY, PS to
a senior role in New
York state to CEO of
Global Partnership
Schools.
Arlene C. Ackerman
Switched from the
District of Columbia
to San Francisco to
her current spot in
Philadelphia.
Cami Anderson
Jumped from
heading NYC’s
alternative schools
to superintendent
of Newark, NJ, City
Schools.
Gregory Thornton
Went from
Montgomery
County PS to
Pennsylvania’s
Chester Upland SD
to Milwaukee PS.
ILLUSTRATION: STEPHEN KRONINGER
Following this advice will help smooth your
district’s transition between superintendents. BY MARTY WEIL
L
et’s put it bluntly: when
changes at the superintendent level occur within a
school district, things are
as likely to go backward
as they are forward. Transitions can be
fraught with pitfalls as well as full of
promise. If superintendents and other
district professionals do not share current knowledge about effective practices
with incoming supervisory personnel,
the field frequently chases its tail: Poor
decisions may be made, and the efforts
of those who are successful are undermined and counteracted by the activities of the uninformed. Why does this
happen? And more important, what can
be done to avoid these mistakes and
improve administrative transitions at the
highest levels?
Include Board and Public
some experts say incoming superintendents step up to the plate with
Back to School 2011 SCHOLASTIC A DMINISTR ATOR.COM
strikes already against them, such as
an education that hasn’t fully prepared
them for the job. “Most programs that
prepare school administrators who ultimately become superintendents don’t
include what I call the ‘practical reality’ of being a superintendent,” says
E. Wayne Harris, visiting professor at
Virginia Tech University, codirector of
the School Leaders Institute, and past
superintendent of Roanoke City Schools
in Virginia.
31
MERRY-GO-ROUND
32
What Not to Say
douglas b. reeves, founder of the
Englewood, Colorado–based Leadership
and Learning Center, says there are several things to look at regarding superintendent transitions. “First is inconsistency and misunderstanding about
the assessment of the superintendent,”
he says. Those issues should really be
resolved before a contract is signed; however, often the first formal assessment is
either at the end of the contract period or
after some controversy. Even the expectations concerning the superintendent
are often unclear.
“The classic story from superintendents is that the board says that they
want them to do a certain thing,” says
Reeves. “They do that, it makes people
unhappy, and the board says, ‘No, that’s
not what we really meant.’ Clear expectations for and assessments of the superintendent are important.”
According to Reeves, the worst thing
that incoming superintendents do is try
to put their stamp on the district with a
new strategic plan or vision. “That merry-go-round of one more superintendent,
one more strategic plan, is the leading
cause of cynicism on the part of administrators and people at the school level.”
It is most important to talk about
what is not going to change. Incoming
superintendents need to identify a few
things that they are going to hold constant, given the culture, background, and
values of the district. “They need to say
these things explicitly,” says Reeves.
ENTRY PLANS: A KEY TOOL FOR KEEPING ON TRACK
W
hen queried
about the value
of entry plans, Michael
Smith answers without
hesitation. “It’s the way
to go,” he says. Smith,
superintendent of Illinois’
Oakland Community Unit
School District 5, is moving to another district
in the state as the new
superintendent. He has a
plan for himself and for
administrators accompanying him in the move. “It
covers what needs to be
done, when we are going
to do it, and how we are
going to do it,” he says.
According to Smith,
the order in which he will
do things is very important. “In my new district,
there are decisions that
some people would consider simple, such as an
athletic schedule. But the
athletic director is waiting
on a new principal, whom
I have to hire, before all
this can fall into place;
and it has to fall into
place pretty quickly.”
A plan at that point is
invaluable.
Smith advises that his
replacement will also
need a plan. “They will
be a superintendent for
the first time,” he continues. “This happens a
lot in small schools. So,
for someone in that position, even knowing where
to start is a challenge.
PHOTO: © IGPHOTOGRAPHY/ISTOCKPHOTO
According to Harris, the programs tend
to be more theoretical, with a focus on
being an instructional leader. They give
idealistic examples of how one runs a
meeting and how to interact with constituents, but the real down-and-dirty kinds
of experiences are usually not covered.
“Rarely is significant attention paid to
the importance of working with a school
board,” says Harris. “Your success will
rise or fall depending on whether you have
been able to create a relationship with the
board. As the superintendent, you are the
chief administrator, but you have a group
of people who determine whether or not
you continue in that position. They’re
called school board members.”
Harris sees a second void in media
relations preparation. Rarely do school
superintendents have the opportunity
to understand working with various
types of media, and media is changing extremely rapidly. The explosion of
social media in the past five years is a
prime example of a media phenomenon
that affects districts in ways not many
anticipated.
Scores of items can hinder smooth
superintendent transitions: in-place
building projects, hidden personnel
issues and financial problems, conflicts
among groups, and more, says Bren Price
Sr., executive director of the Western
New York Educational Service Council
at the State University of New York at
Buffalo. “They exist almost everywhere,”
he says.
Price notes the first thing an incoming superintendent needs to do is survey the district and the people within
it. The superintendent needs to find out
what the district is proud of, the district’s
needs, the district’s perceived strengths
and weaknesses, and how people are
feeling about all these things. “They need
to get a broad-based understanding of
the culture of the community by interviewing a host of people from various
constituent groups,” he advises. “This
is something that any superintendent
must do to ‘hear the voices’; unfortunately, most don’t have the time to do that
because they are expected to get right to
the business of the district.”
Harris says that understanding the
cultural and political positions in the
district is important. “Unless that incoming superintendent came up through the
district or has some deep knowledge of
what goes on in that locality, he needs
to have access to the outgoing superintendent to talk about the priorities of the
board,” he says.
success will
‘ Your
rise or fall depending
on whether you
create a relationship
with your board.’
—E. Wayne Harris, School Leaders Institute
“What most people immediately do is
go in and announce what will change,”
continues Reeves. “This leaves everyone
wondering about what won’t change. The
more you can resolve that mystery (that
is, here is what is not going to change),
the easier it will be for a superintendent
to get people to be open-minded about
the things he wants to change.”
They are just asking for
trouble if they try to do it
without having an entry
plan in place.”
According to former
Roanoke, Virginia,
superintendent E.
Wayne Harris, who is a
codirector of the School
Leaders Institute, an
entry plan allows the
incoming superintendent
to listen, observe, and
assess the current state
of the district.
Everyone agrees that outgoing superintendents can be a key contributor to a
successful transition. They should have
an opportunity to meet with the new
superintendent for a considerable amount
of time to go over the major categories
of operations: finance, personnel, building conditions, and the local politics.
Specifically, they should review the politics within the community, among the
board members, and within union groups.
“Ideally, the outgoing superintendent
would put together a notebook of some
form that would outline the status of and
expectations from each of these categories,” says SUNY Buffalo’s Price.
The outgoing superintendent should
also alert the incoming superintendent
to potential problems. For example, the
“I am a major supporter of an entry plan,”
he says. “I have used
one, and when I coach
superintendents, my first
recommendation is to
create an entry plan. It
shows the board, school
staff, and community
that you have a thoughtful process for gathering
information to determine
where you are and to
guide you in proceeding
during the first 90 days,
six months, or year.”
Harris explains his
process: “I will select
individuals to interview
and then talk with them.
I’ll gather information
and analyze it. I’ll assess
how well we are doing
based on what they tell
me. Then, I will create
a plan for how we will
move forward; it will
outline the things that
we continue, that we
eliminate, and that we
will start. I’ll create a
timeline for how we
will do all that. Finally,
I will connect it to the
budget.”
Bren Price Sr. of SUNY
Buffalo in New York
agrees wholeheartedly
with Harris. “An entry
plan is absolutely essential,” he says.
“In the two superintendent positions that I
had and the two interims that I did, I spent
a considerable amount
of time chatting with
people in different constituencies,” he explains.
“I found out as much as
I could about the district
and the people there. I
had in-depth conversations with business officials, personnel administrators, and union
officials. I identified the
key people. I took notes.
Then I reported what
I learned back to the
board.”
Price notes that an
entry plan helps to set
the stage for a future
vision and strategic
planning, since there’s
a good chance that
such a careful study
has not been done for
a while. “Boards—and
other folks—might be
very surprised at what
people are saying. It’s
going to give you some
deep clues in terms of
which roads to travel
and which to detour,” he
concludes.
new superintendent may want to institute a new initiative such as a football
program or a girls’ hockey program.
There may be an issue, however, in the
community that could turn that initiative
into a major problem. The superintendent who is leaving should explain who is
behind a given issue, what happened the
last time around, and how to prepare for
dealing with it when it comes up again.
“It is important for the outgoing superintendent to make sure that the incoming
superintendent has access to both people
and data,” says Reeves.
There’s often an inevitable tension
about whether loyalties should lie with
the outgoing superintendent or the
incoming boss, “Staff tends to be loyal to
the person who hired them, rather than
the new person,” says Reeves. “Number
one, the departing superintendent has to
tell staff that their loyalty is to the district
and therefore to the new superintendent.
Number two, the outgoing superintendent ought to be very forthcoming about
information, especially financial and student-achievement information.”
Taking Audits
(Including of Yourself)
over the past year, reeves has
observed, at both the state and district
levels, increased use of “implementation
audits,” which can be of great value to
incoming superintendents. In this process, the new superintendent takes an
inventory: What are the current initiatives? Are they being implemented? What
is their impact on student achievement?
“Before a new superintendent adds
anything else, they have to answer these
questions,” says Reeves.
Harris adds it’s always good for incoming superintendents to ask a few questions
of themselves. “Most people who become
school superintendents think they have a
clear handle on the job because they may
have operated previously at a relatively
high level,” he says. “They may have been
an assistant or deputy superintendent. But
the actual job of superintendent requires
them to function successfully in a continuing state of chaos.”
Harris further explains: “For the superintendent, the rules change as the players
change, whether they are board members
or elected county officials. Further, as the
national landscape changes, especially
around standards and the economy, they
have to be nimble in the role of superintendent. If they are not able to do that,
then being a superintendent is not the
right profession for them.”
SCHOLASTIC A DMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
Your school invested in new interactive whiteboards.
Great! Now what?
CLASSROOM MAGAZINES
Read. Learn. Motivate. Inspire.
Bring your lessons to life with
ready-to-go digital resources
Scholastic Classroom Magazines for grades Pre-K–12 cover the entire spectrum
of subjects with current features you can only get with magazines. And now
that award-winning content is available in an interactive, easy-to-use digital
format that’s perfect for your whiteboard or classroom projector. FREE with
your subscription of 10 or more copies, you get exclusive access to digital
issues, anchor videos, audio features, differentiated learning opportunities, and
much more to support your curriculum all year long!
To order, give us a call
To view digital samples, or order online visit
1-800-SCHOLASTIC
scholastic.com/classmags
Be sure to mention code 4021
Enter code 4021 at checkout
200-SDM-11
4021
Future
Creating
BY MICHELLE LOCKE
LOCK
I
n some ways, kristin Kipp’s high school
English class last year
was as traditional as
could be. She led her students through the classic
American story of Nick,
Jay,
adveny, and Daisy’s adven
tures
disres iin Thee Great Gatsby;
Gatsb the class dis
cussed,
ssed, debated, and wrote about F. Scott
Fitzgerald’s
tzgerald’s novel. But Kipp never met
anyy of her students—the entire class was
taught
ught online with e-mails, discussion
boards, phone calls, and webinars.
webinars
This
is mode of learning has become
increasingly
creasingly popular, and more schools
aree exploring the net benefits of going
online
advanced,
line to offer more, and more advance
courses
urses for students.
students
How
w Popular Is It?
It
In 2000, online enrollment totaled
totale
about
out 50,000 students. The latest data
show
ow more tthan
an 4 million students.
tudent
That’s
at’s still only a dent in reaching the
total
tal 55 million students in K–12, but it’s
“the
anyhe fastest growing innovation any
where
sigere in K–12 education, and that’s sig
nificant,”
ficant,” says Susan Patrick, president
and
d CEO of the International Association
forr K–12 Online Learning (iNACOL)
(iNACOL).
Some
me classes are 100 percent online,
like
currike Kipp’s course, part of the curri
cula
la offered by Jefferson County Public
Schools
hools near Denver; some are blended,
meaning
in-person
support.
anin they include inrt.
rson su
mpanies like Blackboard and Moodle
Companies
ovide online platforms. A number of
provide
mpanies design the courses, including
companies
2 and Florida Virtual School (FLVS).
K12
Butt what of the school that wants to
take
ke more of a DIY approach due to bud
budgett constraints or a desire to retain con
con36
trol over the process? It can be done, says
Quinn Kellis, assistant superintendent
of Dysart Unified School District, about
20 miles northwest of Phoenix, which
opened its iSchool last spring. But “there
has to be a tremendous amount of support
built into the program. It would be a catacata
strophic
rophic failure to assume just because
students
udents are enrolled that they’re going to
independently
dependently do all the work and finish
on time.
time.”
Funding
nding is a big issue when deciding
to offer Web courses, and Dysart’s decideci
sion
on to jump online was partly motivated
by students taking credit-recovery classclass
es from outside online providers, which
meant
ant the district was losing approxiapprox
mately
tely $1.5 million a year, Kellis says.
re important, students were finishing
More
havi gra
thee courses without having
grasped
ed the
necessary
says.
cessary skills, he says
Setting
ttin up
u the iSchool cost about
$300,000,
00,000, with additional annual costs
projected
ojected to be about $250,000, so
Dysart’s
sart’s online effort is not so much
a moneymaker as a money saver, says
Kellis.
confillis. Meanwhile, officials can be confi
dent
highnt their students have access to high
quality
ality curricula.
curricula
Thee iSchool began with a focus
on credit-recovery opportuopportu
nities
ties and is now adding
honors
elective
nors and
a el
ctive
courses.
urses
Web
b
Teacher
acher Musts
Must
identifying
entifying the hallhall
marks
rks of a skilled
killed online
nline teachte h
er starts with the traditional qualifiualifi
cations,
tions, mastery of the subject material,
and
d the ability to deliver it. But online
teachers
achers need a few more skills in their
toolbox.
olbox
Tech
Tolerance: Online
line teachers don’t
ch Tolerance
have
ve to be computer experts, but they
must
st be comfortable with technology
and
d flexible enough to be ready with
alternatives
occur.
ternatives if glitches occur
PHOTO:
O: ROGER HAGADONE
HAGADON
More districts are
using the DIY model
to create online
teachers and offer
blended courses,
all
ll while keeping an
eye
ye on the bottom line.
SCHOLASTIC A DMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
FUTURE TEACHERS
Communication Skills: In a virtual
class, communication is mostly done
by the written word, making it important for the teacher to develop a digital
voice. “I have to communicate that I’m
a real person and that I really care about
them,” says Kipp. Some teachers worry
about missing face-to-face interaction,
but “you would be amazed at how much
more quickly you learn about the student
and build that relationship,” says Jodi
Marshall, director of student learning
at FLVS. Teachers also contact students
weekly by phone, text, instant message,
and/or Web conference.
Super Scheduler: No teacher is out the
door as soon as the 3:30 p.m. bell peals. But
for the online teacher, there is no bell and,
with students able to work at any time,
it’s possible for a conscientious teacher to
fall prey to a 24-7 mentality that will sap
energy and creativity. “You have to set
boundaries in terms of your work life and
personal life,” says Marshall.
Choosing Teachers Carefully
38
5 points to consider
before going online
Avoid surprises when starting online
courses by following these points.
FUNDING: This is a starting point
1
for schools considering offering
online classes. Each state has its own
approach, with some more supportive
than others.
TECH SUPPORT: Districts need
2
to be able to handle online
enrollments, keep track of students,
and tie the results into existing information systems. Meanwhile, technical
support is needed for any hiccups.
CONTENT: Will the district build
3
its own digital content or use
digital content products from providers? Either way, it needs to align with
state and district academic standards
for classes.
TRAINING: Before they teach
4
online, instructors need to understand the system and the issues their
students will face. Some states are
considering requiring special licenses
or other certification for online instructors, according to iNACOL. Short of
that, some states are already requiring
a certain amount of professional development, such as Wisconsin’s standard
of 30 hours of professional development in online teaching.
BUY-IN: Online courses won’t
5
work unless everyone—tech
leadership, teachers, and administrators—believes in it.
check student integrity, and they frame
tests with some open-ended questions.
Some schools require an in-person final
that must be passed to earn credit for
the course. Another integrity safeguard
is to require that students complete sections of the course before being e-mailed
a password that will allow them to take a
test on the material.
Kipp asks questions with answers that
aren’t easily found online. So she didn’t
ask her students to talk about “the significance of color in The Great Gatsby,”
a phrase that yields 4,120 Google results.
But she did ask them to create a dialogue
between two characters in the book.
b
Projects are another good assessment
tool, and here students can be given freedom of expression, perhaps turning in
a podcast rather than an essay. Kipp’s
Gatsby students created a study guide by
way of a wiki.
In terms of teacher assessment,
online courses provide an abundance
of data. While it’s true the principal
can’t walk into the classroom, she can
watch recorded sessions, go online for
synchronous classes, and access everything from the amount of time a teacher
spent on the phone helping a student in
a particular content area to how long
students waited for graded papers to
the content of e-mail conversations with
parents. “Teachers need to be comfortable with that kind of transparency,”
notes iNACOL’s Patrick, “but I think
it makes evaluation a much more datadriven process.”
If computer records show that a teacher is getting caught up in long phone calls
while papers went ungraded, an administrator might suggest setting time limits.
On the other hand, if the record is that
after a marathon phone session, a student was able to turn in four successful
assignments, that could indicate a good
use of teacher time.
For Kipp, connection makes for online
success. The student has to connect with
the content, the teacher has to connect
with the student, and the class members
have to connect with one another. “They
make a lot more gains when they have
those three things going for them.”
Often, the first time Kipp meets her
students in person is at graduation. It
takes a minute to put a face to a name,
b
but “we already know each other,” she
says. “They know that I have chickens
in my backyard, that I’m a voracious
reader, and that I have three kids. And
it’s the same for me with them. It’s kind
of amazing.”
SCHOLASTIC A DMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
PHOTOS: © MICHAEL BODMANN/ISTOCKPHOTO (CORD); JEFF FUSCO/GETTY (TEACHER)
good candidates for online teachers can be found among both existing
and new teachers, says Kellis. “Current
classroom teachers have experience
teaching and they have content knowledge, whereas a teacher fresh out of college generally has greater excitement
and often personal experience with the
online program.” The trick is accessing
the best qualities of both.
Training to be an online teacher
includes the same thing that will get
you to Carnegie Hall—practice, practice,
practice. For instance, teachers who are
training to teach online take turns leading discussion boards and figuring out
how to ask guiding questions. “If you
get a bunch of 16-year-olds in a room,
somebody has to be pushing them to take
it deeper,” says Kipp, who was named
National Online Teacher of the Year
in 2011 by iNACOL. “That’s part of the
training—how you help a discussion keep
moving without dominating it.”
Teacher training is one part of online
success; another is assessment, both of
students and teachers.
On the student side, it’s not hard to
determine if a child is keeping up with
assignments. A program can show how
much time the student spent online,
when assignments were turned in, and
so on. But there is always the question of
whether it’s actually the student tapping
away at the keyboard.
As in conventional classes, online
instructors use anti-plagiarism tools to
✔TAKE ACTION
Optoma’s interactive products
transform how teachers teach
and how students learn.
Projector Expert
I WANT MY STUDENTS TO
RETAIN MORE, INTERACT
WITH EACH OTHER WHILE
LEARNING AND BE
EXCITED ABOUT COMING
INTO THE CLASSROOM
EACH DAY
TW675UTiM-3D
Ultra Short Throw 3D Interactive Projectors
Our line of ultra short throw 3D interactive projectors offers
schools a comprehensive way to engage and immerse
students in learning. Built-in features let schools integrate
interactive technology without the high cost of whiteboards.
TW675UTiM-3D Includes:
Qwizdom WizTeach software ($299 value)
PointBlank interactive pen
Wall mount
Q300 MirrorBoard
Make any Display Interactive
The Optoma Q300 MirrorBoard gives you the freedom to
INTERACT in your classroom with the power of your
computer at your finger tips. Wirelessly connected to a PC,
the 10-inch viewable display allows users to control presentations from anywhere in the room. Reach your students by
teaching near them!
OPTOMA BRINGS INTERACTIVITY INTO THE CLASSROOM EVERY DAY
For more information, please call 1-888-967-8662
or e-mail [email protected]
www.optomausa.com
© 2011 Optoma Technology, Inc.
MirrorBoard Raffle!
Call Optoma’s sales office at 888-967-8662 and
mention this ad to be entered into a drawing for a
FREE MirrorBoard* ($499 value)!! Hurry, raffle
*No purchase required
ends September 30, 2011.
The New School Bullies
It’s not just kids who are pushing each other around. Adults who act like
bullies can poison the entire school culture. BY CHRIS BORRIS
I
Inside the Pressure Cooker
bullying happens in every workplace. It’s the ugly side of human nature,
a side effect of power. According to a
40
wide-scale survey by the Workplace
Bullying Institute, 37 percent of U.S.
workers have been bullied. If you assume
this carries across professions, that’s a lot
of teachers being mistreated.
“I have witnessed administrators publicly humiliating both older teachers and
new ones. The teachers that the administration didn’t like would be made to
feel so uncomfortable that even if they
had tenure they would want to leave of
their own accord,” reports a tenured former teacher who started out as a NYC
Teaching Fellow and taught K–6 in a
rough-and-tumble school in the South
Bronx. (Like several sources in this story,
he chose to remain anonymous.) “The
best method of achieving this would be
ILLUSTRATION: ZINA SAUNDERS
t was probably the most
fractious school board meeting Katy ISD had ever hosted. In March of this year,
an SRO-only crowd of more
than 50 teachers, parents,
and former educators in this
large district outside Houston confronted the trustees. They were demanding
the board look into charges of teacher
bullying at Golbow Elementary, and
they’d been waiting a long time for a
response—six months before, teachers
had sent a letter to the superintendent
and trustees charging Golbow’s principal and vice principals with a pattern of
abuse, including terminating and pushing out teachers, and demeaning and
belittling them. They said the district
itself was complicit, its grievance process “broken.” Now they were here to get
some answers. Clearly, there was trouble
in River City.
Across the country, districts grapple
with student bullying. Teacher bullying,
except in a few districts, is not an item
on the agenda. Some say teachers should
get over it, that bosses are bosses (George
Jetson put up with Cosmo Spacely’s vitriol, right?). But a school is different from
an office in one key way: It’s full of children, imminently impressionable whether the bullying is happening on the playground or in the principal’s office. When
an administrator threatens or humiliates
a teacher in front of students, or a group
of teachers slander a colleague because of
some perceived difference, it affects not
only the teacher but the whole tenor of
the school. “In a bullying school, morale
is eroded, initiative squelched, and risktaking discouraged,” writes Les Parsons
in Bullied Teacher, Bullied Student. It
becomes a “poisoned environment.”
to stack all the poorly behaved children
together and place them in those teachers’ classes. This also created a lot of
jealousy among teachers, producing a
very negative atmosphere, which in turn
ended up hurting the children.”
Some schools are, simply, pressure
cookers. Students come in with a multitude of issues—language barriers, malnutrition, learning disabilities, lack of edu-
easy. I started with a brand-new school,
a certain philosophy—it’s an embarrassment of riches. You can’t compare
it to a principal in, say, the South Bronx
who is supervising 100 teachers, 25 of
whom have been teaching a long time,
and maybe want out. I trained at the
[NYC] Leadership Academy, where they
believe in a national school reform movement. They understand you’ve gotta
works with principals and teachers on
classroom management and effective
leadership. The principals have been
rigorously selected, she says, but “it’s
extremely challenging to open a new
school, especially one that serves so
many children at risk. Most principals
have tremendous demands made upon
them and not nearly enough support
staff or resources. Successful new principals typically work 12-hour days, or even
longer, or they start to drown.”
The mad push to find a fix means
stress at all levels, the staff developer
notes. “There’s a real trickle-down effect.
One school in Brooklyn I work with is
under tremendous stress. The principal may be removed. She explodes, and
teachers feel belittled; they have a sense
of unease, a constant feeling that their
jobs are on the line. And the superintendent has been bullying [the principal], is
on her to improve.”
“These schools are struggling to raise
achievement, and everyone feels this
crazy pressure,” she continues. “Schools
don’t have a lot of time to prove themselves. When I was teaching, I was considered a model teacher, even though my
test scores were not great. The tone was
very different, that you couldn’t transform kids’ scores overnight. There’s been
a huge shift, and you would expect to see
a lot more bullying.”
Dave Staiger, a social studies teacher
programs
‘ Leadership
understand you’ve
gotta be really good
to your teachers—
it’s a Management
101 thing. ’
—Donna Taylor, principal, Brooklyn School of Inquiry
cational support at home—and principals
and teachers are overwhelmed. It’s no
excuse for bullying, but it explains why
abuse can happen more often here.
“It’s so tricky. In any hierarchical situation there will be issues,” asserts Donna
Taylor, principal at the Brooklyn School
of Inquiry (BSI), a new gifted and talented school in New York City. “For me it’s
be really good to your teachers—it’s a
Management 101 thing.”
The Trickle-Down Effect
in new york city’s smaller, reconstituted schools, the ranks are filled
with eager, young Teaching Fellows or
Teach For America members, says a former teacher turned staff developer who
at Phoenix High School in Kalamazoo,
Michigan, can attest to this. At a school
where he taught previously, “I had an
assistant principal who tried to pressure
us to cheat on administering a standardized test. The teachers involved were all
close and united, and they stood up to
her and stopped it. So, like a union, that
unity among staff can prevent bullying.”
This begs a question about Katy
Independent School District: Is the
SCHOLASTIC A DMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
SCHOOL BULLIES
district reluctant to remove the principal because she is, indeed, improving scores? District spokesman Steve
Stanford defended the principal’s
actions at Golbow Elementary, telling Houston Chronicle reporter Helen
Eriksen in April that “although there
has been turnover … there is no evidence
that it is having a negative impact on student learning. To the contrary, there is
evidence student learning is improving.”
That may be—though critics point to
the extra resources this principal has
been given—but at what cost? Golbow
parent Alana MousaviDin wrote to the
Chronicle: “What used to be a fun, loving, and exciting place for our children
has since become a disgrace. The atmosphere has become somber, the employees work robotically.... Teachers who are
dearly loved, needed, and appreciated
are disappearing, and while new teachers are coming in, they are not allowed
to teach with the panache and innovation that they are fully capable of. Our
children are suffering.”
This begs another set of questions:
How often do teachers feel united
enough and secure enough to stand up
and refuse an administrator? And what
do they do when they’ve already stood
up, and then been shut down?
Both Sides of the Union Coin
42
ARE YOU A
GOOD BOSS?
DO
DON’T
DO
DON’T
DO
DON’T
DO
DON’T
include teachers in decisions that will affect the
school environment
place teachers where
they can’t succeed—
it hurts students, too
provide professional
development opportunities for teachers
take credit for something
you haven’t done
have an open door
policy
reprimand teachers in
front of others
support teachers in
disputes with parents
stifle collaboration
among teachers
What’s the Solution?
unions aren’t a panacea for schools.
Some, including Taylor, say good leadership training is key. This might mean a
leadership academy (there are various
versions around the country), where, as
Taylor says, they teach that “you’ve gotta
be really good to your teachers,” or consciousness-raising graduate programs
in education that emphasize collaboration and teacher buy-in. It might also
mean preventing the wrong people from
becoming principals.
California State University professor Gary Anderson, in his foreword to
Joseph Blase and Jo Blase’s Breaking the
Silence, asks: How do we identify the
characteristics of principals with a tendency toward abuse before we credential them? How do leaders foster school
cultures in which abusive behavior is not
tolerated?
PHOTO: RONNIE ANDREN
partly, it depends on where you are.
In states with strong teachers unions and
a precedent for transparency, you stand
a better chance of being heard and supported. But the union brand is no silver
bullet. “The union hardly did much,” says
the former South Bronx teacher, “but
they made you feel like they could.”
Staiger agrees: “Unions and tenure
give teachers some but not complete protection from being mistreated by administrators.”
The union did step up—eventually—
when special education teacher Kimani
Brown was placed in one of New York
City’s “rubber rooms” (where disciplined
teachers go to await a verdict) after questioning whether his principal, Marian
Bowden, at Brooklyn’s MS 393 was following the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act and providing adequate
services for special-needs students. The
United Federation of Teachers filed a
lawsuit on Brown’s behalf in 2008 and
the principal resigned—but not until
Brown had languished in a rubber room
for a year and a half.
Randi Weingarten, then president of
the UFT, said, “This is a clear case of a
principal retaliating against an educator
who had the nerve to stand up for his
students. This principal needs to understand her role should be that of a leader,
not a bully or tyrant.”
For school reformers, there is the
other side of the union coin. The very
protections that unions have in place for
teachers can hamstring innovation and
make change difficult if not impossible.
Surprisingly, they can also create a different sort of bullying.
“At a small Manhattan school where I
was working, the principal was perceived
as very weak, and a group of teachers got
together and tried to bully him,” says the
NYC staff developer. “The principal was
attempting to change the schedule to
make room for a more flexible working
environment and professional development. One teacher who didn’t agree with
the bullying went against those touting
union rules, and they ostracized her.”
“Part of the way to achieve results
with new, smaller schools is to extend
the school day slightly, ask more of teachers,” she adds. “Some teachers don’t
object because there’s an unwritten
understanding you’re making a commitment to go above and beyond to make the
school work.”
Donna Taylor, principal at BSI, agrees
with the need for flexibility, at least at
smaller schools. She says that while her
school follows a union contract, it’s also
been able to “take advantage of SBOs
[school-based options] to change mandates that are not working. To be effective, you often have to be creative with
your options.”
district made a concerted effort to say,
‘ Our
That is not appropriate here. ’
—Steve Crary, HR director, Sioux City, Iowa, schools, where there is an adult anti-bullying program
And if they don’t foster these cultures,
what is the alternative? Legislation to
prevent workplace bullying is one idea
that’s been floated, though largely it’s
sunk in committee: Since 2003, 21 states
have introduced the Healthy Workplace
Bill; 16 bills are currently active but none
may surface anytime soon.
Gary Namie, who heads the Healthy
Workplace Campaign, sees legislation
as a way to avoid costly lawsuits. He
says districts will ensure they’re hiring
the right people and keeping them in
line if their own bottom line is affected.
According to the Workplace Bullying
Institute, which Namie also heads, the
cost of settling one such lawsuit filed by
a California teacher against her district
was upward of a half-million dollars,
something no district can afford.
Two districts think they might
have an alternative. Iowa’s Sioux City
Community Schools and Desert Sands
Unified School District in La Quinta,
California, are the first two districts to
put in place an anti-bullying program
that covers adults. “We were working very hard to address student bullying, and we wanted to make certain our
employees were modeling what we ask of
our students,” says Steve Crary, human
resources director for Sioux City schools.
“Our district made a very concerted
effort to say, ‘That is not appropriate
here.’” Sioux City’s program was covered
by a local philanthropic organization,
and Desert Sands’s cost $45,000. While
there’s been some blowback in La Quinta
about spending funds on the program,
it’s a small sum for a district compared to
the cost of a lawsuit.
And it seems to be making a difference. “There were some real bullying situations that were addressed early in the
program. People saw this and knew we
were serious. It is really helping us build
the type of organization we all want,”
notes Crary. Interestingly, Crary also
sounds a cautionary note on the topic of
workplace bullying: “Sometimes what
someone believes is bullying is actually just human conflict. The employee
may feel they are being bullied when
the supervisor has a real need to address
some issues.” But, he adds, “the key, no
matter what the issue, is that we do it
with respect and professionalism.”
ADMINISTR@TOR Back to School 2011
Still Trouble in “River City”
as of late june, the situation at
Katy ISD outside Houston remained
a tense stalemate, with an unyielding administration, a nearly 70 percent
staff attrition rate since the new principal took over two years before, and an
angry, frustrated group of teachers and
parents. On InstantNewsKaty, a local
news website run by journalist John
Pape, one article on the controversy had
a comments section 10 times as long as
the piece itself, page upon page of criticism of the principal, the unresponsive
board, and Superintendent Alton Frailey,
who is referred to derisively by many as
“Big Al.” One poster criticized the school
board as “out of control and disconnected from the taxpayer.” Former principal Terri Majors, who is active in the
teachers’ cause, is worried that Golbow
is becoming a broken school. “Golbow is
dying on the vine,” she says. That’s something no district wants to hear.
Island Right
CHROMEBOOKS
ILLUSTRATION: MIGUEL DAVILLA
R
Will computers that are instant-on, leased,
and cloud-based find a foothold in schools?
BY ESTHER SHEIN
Back to School 2011 SCHOLASTIC A DMINISTR ATOR.COM achel wente-chaney
knew it was a good omen
the day that students at
Crook County Middle
School cracked open boxes of Google
Chromebooks, popped in batteries, and
were online within a half hour, looking
at a website about the explorers Lewis
and Clark. Wente-Chaney, CIO for the
High Desert Education Service District
in Redmond, Oregon, says that needing
no IT involvement was “pretty amazing. It was a much different process than
for any other equipment we’ve received
before.”
High Desert is one of a handful of
districts that last winter began piloting
Chromebooks, known in the beta phase
as Cr-48s. Google launched the machines
as “the next generation of the desktop,’’
says Rajen Sheth, product manager of
Google’s Chrome for Business group.
The Web-based laptops boot up in seven
seconds and have a battery life of more
than eight hours, according to Sheth.
This fall, Google will offer schools a
subscription program for the Acer and
Samsung Chromebooks: $20 per month,
per device, over a three-year period.
So-called “Web PCs” are being eyed by
many school districts, since much of what
schools are doing is over the Internet
and the wireless model allows students
to work anywhere, anytime. The lease
versus buy model works well in certain
instances because it offers lower up-front
costs, although some schools are finding
it costs less in the long run to purchase
equipment outright. Other challenges for
Google include stiff competition from the
plethora of tablets and netbooks flooding the market at prices starting as low
as $100. And because these devices don’t
use traditional software, districts must
also have ample wireless bandwidth for
them to work.
Wente-Chaney says about 1,500 students in two of their schools tested the
Cr-48s, and the feedback was “overwhelmingly positive.” The laptops
passed the tests for speed, simplicity, and
security—the three components school
officials are generally concerned about
with technology.
“We’ve struggled trying to find the
right capacity of a machine with the
right price,” she notes, as well as speed.
“When you’re in a 35- to 40-minute class
45
CHROMEBOOKS
period, it doesn’t work well’’ to have a
computer that is slow to start up. “What
we’re finding is, you open the lid and
take a breath and your browser window
is there.” Wente-Chaney says that feature is critical for a student who wants to
look up something yet stay in “that learning moment.”
The only negative was the device’s
trackpad, she adds. “It was a little flaky.”
Otherwise, there was no maintenance
required and minimal IT involvement.
But while Wente-Chaney says the
Chromebooks are a good fit for High
Desert schools, the district is facing
“bleak funding issues,” and school officials are trying to determine now if the
subscription model is the best way to go.
“Our plan is to do smaller rollouts this
fall,’’ she says.
Ready Out of the Box
the cr-48s also received high marks
from the Council Bluffs Community
School District, where some 2,000
students got to test them, says David
Fringer, director of information systems
in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Google gave the
district 500 laptops, and 21 teachers were
chosen to pilot the machines.
Last February, the students, who had
already been using Google Apps for
Education, began using the Cr-48s in virtually every class, from language arts to
math to foreign languages. “The response
was very positive, from the teachers and
the kids,’’ Fringer says. Once students
turned the laptops on, they just needed
to sign into their Google accounts to
use them. “It was probably the easiest
deployment of any device we’ve ever had.
Typically we have to do a bunch of configurations, and these come essentially
ready out of the box.”
Sean Wahle, who is entering his senior
year at Council Bluffs’ Thomas Jefferson
High School, worked with the Cr-48s
every day in both his economics and
sociology classes. Wahle says he used the
machine to access Google Docs, conduct
Web searches, and write essays.
“The boot-up time didn’t take long at
all,’’ says Wahle. “When you first opened
it up, it had a picture of you for your login,
so you didn’t have to remember [it].” The
machine also automatically signed him
into his e-mail, which he says he liked.
Wahle says he was a little confused by
the trackpad when he first started using
the Cr-48, since it didn’t have the two
buttons at the bottom that are typically
found on laptops. Also, he says, he does
46
WHO WILL USE
CHROMEBOOKS?
W
hether Chromebooks will gain
momentum outside of the education realm depends on who you ask.
Like many technologies, its popularity
is dependent on what the laptop will
be used for. “It’s about as close to
instant-on as I’ve ever seen,” observes
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, a blogger
for ZDnet. When switched on, the laptop automatically checks to make sure
it has all the necessary updates, so
the end user doesn’t have to worry, he
says. “I can’t see it being as popular
as Google Docs, because you pay for
this, but I can certainly see this being
used by office workers and workers
on the go if they need something
light and fast and want to be on the
Internet.” On the flip side, the laptop
doesn’t have large storage capabilities and can’t run Windows apps, but
Vaughan-Nichols says Chromebooks
are not designed for power users.
was the easiest
‘ Itdeployment
we’ve ever had. ’
—David Fringer, Council Bluffs CSD, IA
Forrester Research, however, does
not predict Chromebooks will make
strong inroads in business. George
Colony of Forrester wrote in May that
Google’s Web ad model means the
company wants “us to ditch our powerful laptops and trade them in for Webcentric workstations that won’t work
unless they are linked to Google’s
servers.” Another challenge for the
Chromebook, he adds, is that network
processors and storage devices are
getting cheaper and faster each year.
a lot of cutting and pasting, and it took
some getting used to having to access
a wrench icon at the top of the screen
instead of right-clicking.
Echoing Wente-Chaney, Fringer says
one aspect of the machines no one seemed
to like was the trackpad. Because there
are no buttons, “you had to know some
things like how to drag to copy and paste,
and [when to] right click or left click.”
Google officials observed the problem and
have since changed the trackpad.
Additionally, the Cr-48s “did not play
nicely with Java applets that might be
embedded in instructional software,’’
Fringer notes. But he says Google officials listened, and “my understanding is the Chromebooks are now Javacompatible in the production version.”
Like Wente-Chaney, he says the laptop’s most impressive feature is the long
battery life. It can be charged overnight
and last all day, while other machines
they use last only three or four hours
before needing a recharge. But Fringer’s
district is also grappling with whether
they will deploy Chromebooks on a subscription basis in the fall because of the
price. The $20-per-month, three-year
model ends up costing $720 per unit,
compared with being able to buy a “traditional netbook from HP for about $350
to $400 if we buy in bulk,” he says. “That
means we can get twice as many netbooks as Chromebooks, so it becomes an
issue of whether a fast boot and long battery life is worth the difference in cost.”
Council Bluffs officials who participated in a focus group told Google officials
that $12 per month was a more reasonable price, Fringer says. “We’re trying to
come to grips with [spending] $720 for
one machine. We’re still trying to quantify whether it makes sense.”
Jim Hirsch, associate superintendent
of schools for Academic and Technology
Services in Plano, Texas, says it’s hard to
predict if schools will embrace leasing
the machines, since it’s no secret maintenance and operating budgets are already
stretched to the max. “If districts are paying for [the lease program], dollars have
to be redirected from some other expenditure, and no one’s budget is increasing,’’
says Hirsch. “I could not pinpoint any
option where I could say, ‘Let’s forget that,
and say, let’s spend on Chromebooks.’ ”
In his own district, which has bond
notes available, Hirsch says they might
look at Chromebooks down the road—if
they can purchase them. Right now, they
were not a good fit, he says.
SCHOLASTIC A DMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
Special Ed Strategies:
ILLUSTRATION: JAMES STEINBERG
Be Clear,
Be Proactive,
Be Inventive
Communicating with
special ed parents
can decrease tension
and lawsuits while
improving student
performance.
BY CARALEE ADAMS
A
dministr ators in the
Madison Met ropolita n
School District in Wisconsin
don’t mind when parents of
students with disabilities are vocal. In
fact, they offer training for parents to be
effective advocates for their children.
There are parent workshops—complete with free food and child care—to
demystify individual education plans
(IEPs), navigate federal disability
Back to School 2011 SCHOLASTIC A DMINISTR ATOR.COM benefits, and understand vocational
rehabilitation, says John Harper, executive director of the district’s department
of educational services.
“Parents are an essential component to
hold teachers accountable,” he says. “An
informed citizenry is another way to get
a higher performance level from staff.”
Armed with training, a special education parent-advisory council, and
involvement in a local inclusive education network, parents in Madison have
put constant, positive pressure on the
schools, says Harper.
And it’s something that administrators
say has paid off. Of the Madison students
with disabilities, 79 percent are considered “full inclusion.” Upon graduation,
85 percent with developmental disabilities have paid employment. There has
been a dramatic reduction in legal action
against the district and no due process or
state-level complaints in three years.
47
SPECIAL NEEDS
good rapport is developed, parents can
support learning at home.
Students with disabilities can’t always
advocate for themselves, so they rely
on their parents to ensure that their
individual needs are being met, says
Beth Swedeen, a parent of a child with
a disability in Madison who serves on
the school’s Special Education Parent
Advisory Council. “When our kids do get
the right support, it can be a night-andday difference from when they get the
wrong type,” she says.
The IEP can’t happen without the parent, says Laura Hamby, program specialist in curriculum and instruction for
the visually and hearing impaired with
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Schools
in North Carolina. “It is truly a team process. No one person makes a decision. It
takes all of us to figure out what’s best for
the child.”
Reducing Parent Frustration
so if everyone is looking out for a
child with a disability, why is there often
conflict?
“There is a tug-of-war between the
parent wanting it all and schools looking
at resources,” says Lisa Dieker, professor
of exceptional education at the University
of Central Florida, who has a child with a
disability. “When I get in those meetings,
my mother heart leads me.”
Parents get frustrated when schools
discount their expertise and say they are
unrealistic, says Barbara Trader, executive director of TASH, a Washington,
D.C., nonprofit that advocates for inclusion of people with disabilities. “Parents
want schools to be champions for their
kids and appreciate their kids as kids
first, not just a diagnosis label,” she says.
Many of these parents are single, live
in poverty, and, if their child is not placed
in a neighborhood school, have transportation challenges. “School districts
need to understand the life situation that
a lot of our people face,” says Trader.
“Compassion is critically important.”
At the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro, students in the department
of specialized education services are
required to take a course in working with
families that is co-taught by a parent of a
child with a disability.
“It adds real life,” says department
chair Marilyn Friend, who is also president of the Council for Exceptional
Children. “The parents talk about what
the medical side of their life is like, the
complexity of the family dynamic, the
personal stress, and also the joys they
experience.” The hope is that these new
teachers will be more tolerant and open
as a result of the exposure.
Many teachers today did not grow
up sitting in class next to students with
disabilities, says Dieker. “We now need
teachers who are disability natives.
We fear things we don’t understand.”
Schools need to help teachers feel more
comfortable accepting whatever kind of
student comes through their door and
see it as a learning experience, not a challenge, says Dieker.
6
SOUND
STRATEGIES FOR
SCHOOL-PARENT
COMMUNICATION
SOURCE: JOYCE EPSTEIN, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER ON
SCHOOL, FAMILY AND COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS AND
THE NATIONAL NETWORK OF PARTNERSHIP SCHOOLS,
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
48
PHOTO: © AMERICAN IMAGES INC (RF)/GETTY IMAGES
“It’s common sense. The more you
put out there proactively, the more questions you answer, the more comfortable
parents are to pick up the phone and
call you,” says Harper. “We’ve solved so
many potential conflicts by being visible
and available to parents.”
Districts that reach out with understanding at the beginning of the year,
encourage exchange of information
between school and home, and train
teachers to communicate effectively can
build strong family-school partnerships.
Experts say it shouldn’t be something
neglected in lean economic times. And
research shows that cooperation can
improve learning outcomes for students.
While special education has been
mandated since 1975, inclusion has
only been around for about a decade.
For many veteran teachers and principals, this is a new population to understand, and training is needed, says
George Guiliani, executive director
of the National Association of Special
Education Teachers (NASET) and associate professor of education at Hofstra
University in Hempstead, New York.
“We are in a country of inclusion. The
days of exclusion are gone,” says Guiliani.
“You have to be open to the idea of
change—and it has to come from upward
administration.”
Communicating effectively with any
parent is vital, but particularly with parents of students with disabilities. Since
families know their child best, they can
provide insights to teachers. And, if a
districts
‘ School
need to understand
the life situation
that a lot of people
face. Compassion is
critically important. ’
—Barbara Trader, TASH
How Administrators Can Help
administrators can’t assume that
parents will come to meetings or be kept
in the loop by teachers. Experts suggest
establishing a communication policy that
outlines, for instance, how quickly phone
calls and e-mails should be returned.
“Parents don’t get upset if their children aren’t doing well,” says Guiliani.
“It’s when nothing was done by the
teacher to notify them early on that [their
child wasn’t] doing well.”
The Houston Independent School
District recently began routing all calls
from parents of children with special
needs to Gregory Finora, special education parent liaison with the district.
“It allows one person to keep track of
everything, so nothing gets misplaced,”
Finora says. He then follows up with
the appropriate campus to help resolve
complaints about unanswered evaluation
requests, transportation issues or behavior concerns.
When a parent calls, Finora puts the
student’s name into a database, and background information pops up while he
is talking to the parent. He then types
notes into the file that will be shared
with all parties.
Houston has also trained its teachers to listen closely to the words and
body language when talking to parents
about their child’s needs during the IEP
process. It’s complicated, and teachers
should not assume parents understand
everything, says Finora. Teachers are
also coached to probe by asking, “What
would you like me to do?” or “Is there
anything else on your mind?”
There has to be genuine caring on the
part of the teacher and the school to connect with parents, says Debbie Schuler,
administrator of instructional services at
the Florida School for the Deaf and the
Blind. “There is always this big push to
be a family-friendly school. But you have
to train your school culture. Do you only
want parents to bring in cupcakes, or do
you really want them there?”
In addition to training, Friend suggests
asking parents of students with disabilities to be part of the overall efforts of the
school, such as serving on the improvement planning or curriculum committee.
When their voices are at the table as critical decisions are made, it helps builds
understanding, she says.
Start Communication Early
“we want to hear positive things
about progress, not just when there’s a
problem,” says Swedeen, whose child
with a disability is now 18.
Before the school year starts, invite
parents of students with disabilities to
visit the school. Seeing the environment
is safe and orderly can put parents and
students at ease and be the foundation
for good teacher-parent rapport.
Or start even earlier. At the end of
the school year, students at Ritzman
Community Learning Center, a K–5
school in Akron, Ohio, visit their next
year’s classroom, while parents attend
a health fair in the gym and meet other
parents. To keep in touch, the school
hosts a “Summer Surprise” in July featuring books, math games, community
resources, and a disc jockey playing
music for families.
These ideas were the result of a survey of parents that revealed the school
was weak in communications, says
Principal Larry Bender. Other new practices include a weekly recorded phone
call from the principal about upcoming events, a daily communication sheet
from teachers that requires a parent signature, and parent-involvement nights.
The 345-student school has 50 students with disabilities, including about
30 who are deaf or hard of hearing, so all
of these activities include sign-language
interpreters. “The parents of the hearingimpaired students are woven right in.
We don’t separate them,” says Bender.
“Many parents expressed that they love
being part of it just like everyone else.”
The result of the school’s ramped-up
outreach: Attendance at school events is
up by about 30 percent and more parents
are volunteering. The improvement in
1Return
2Consider
3
4
Be flexible
Be willing
5
Link par-
6
Use proven
phone calls
and e-mails
in a reasonable amount
of time. Have
a policy that
makes those
expectations
clear to
teachers and
parents.
the diverse
parent population. Send
home notes
or call as an
alternative
to e-mailing.
Translate
materials, if
needed, and
have interpreters at
school events.
with the
timing of
school
functions.
Hold some
events in the
evening to
accommodate
two-parent
working
families.
ent events
to learning
activities in
school. Rather
than just a
social gathering for families, for example, have kids
read poetry
or stories they
wrote at the
event.
communication strategies. For ideas
and best practices, go to
the National
Network of
Partnership
Schools
to meet parents at their
convenience
off-campus.
Parents may
have negative attitudes
about school
based on their
own experience, and may
be reluctant
to come in.
(www.csos.jhu.
edu/p2000).
SCHOLASTIC A DMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
SPECIAL NEEDS
the follow-up survey this year was met
with cheers at the staff meeting, says
Bender.
Adapting Tactics for Older Students
by middle school, communication
can be trickier with parents, as students
are expected to be more independent,
says Lindsey Engels, a special education teacher at Liberty Middle School in
Fairfax, Virginia. At the beginning of the
year, Engels phones parents of every student in her class to introduce herself and
see if they have questions. “It lets them
know I am forward-thinking,” she says.
At back-to-school night, Engels has
parents fill out forms about their children, and she follows up with those
who do not attend. For her families that
speak Korean and Spanish, she gets an
interpreter. She communicates throughout the year by e-mail and appreciates
when parents let her know when there
are issues that might affect the kids at
school. “We try to form a plan that is proactive, rather than reactive,” says Engels.
“It’s about trust and honesty.”
While parents may have been very
involved in earlier grades, by high school
many of them feel defeated and aren’t as
tuned in to their child’s education, says
Dawn Bosuzek, special education facilitator at Metro High School, an alternative high school in Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
where 30 percent of students have a disability. It’s much harder to restart communications with parents at this stage,
she says, but it’s not impossible.
To foster communication, teachers
at Metro make home visits to see the
student’s environment and to talk with
parents in a more familiar place. “We try
to focus on what the kid is doing well in
school, even if it’s just showing up,” says
Bosuzek. Teachers also connect learning
with real life and jobs to motivate students to work hard.
In an IEP meeting, Metro students
participate and are first asked about their
strengths and interests, with parents
then adding their input. When the team
can see where the gaps are in experience
or learning, a plan can be crafted, says
Bosuzek.
Leverage Today’s Technology
not all parents can make every
school event, especially at the Florida
School for the Deaf and the Blind, which
draws students from across the state. So
the school uses live streaming video of
the deaf dance group’s performances, the
50
THE NUMBERS
80%
of the
5.8 million students
receiving special
education spend
40 percent or more
of their time in a
regular classroom.
46%
of Louisiana’s
special-ed students
aged 14–21 dropped
out in 2008. This is
the highest specialed dropout rate in
the nation.
15%
of Rhode
Island students aged
6–17 classify for special education, the
highest rate in the
country. Idaho’s rate
of 8.5 percent is the
lowest in the country.
5.2%
of people in the
United States aged
5–17 classify as
having a disability.
SOURCE: ANNUAL DISABILITY STATISTICS COMPENDIUM
2010, REHABILITATION RESEARCH AND TRAINING CENTER
ON DISABILITY STATISTICS AND DEMOGRAPHICS
drama production by the blind students,
and choral concerts.
“It’s one of the best things we’ve done,”
says Schuler. “We get calls from grandparents and third cousins in Arkansas.
It helps the family see what they are
doing.” The four parent meetings that
the schools hosts each year are interactive and broadcast online, as well.
Taking away excuses, or overcoming them through technology, also helps
to boost parental input. Every teacher
is required to have a Web page to post
homework assignments, photos, and videos of what’s happening in class, Schuler
adds. Parent newsletters are handed
directly from the bus chaperones to the
parents when students come home so
they don’t get lost in a backpack, adds the
administrator.
In addition, Schuler says that 97 percent of parents participate in the IEP
conference, which sometimes is done by
videoconference.
Harper says the schools in Madison
recognize that IEP meetings can be
intimidating for parents when they are
surrounded by professionals. In their
training for parents, they break down
the parts of the process and explain the
terms.
“For many, the IEP process is a big
annual meeting that they get nervous
about,” says Swedeen. “You hear a lot
of technical jargon.” It’s better viewed
merely as a plan for a child to be successful and something that is an ongoing process, she says.
Guiliani of NASET agrees that not
all IEP planning sessions go smoothly. When a parent is upset, he says, it’s
important for educators to listen and not
be defensive. “Then you say, ‘Here’s what
we need to do. Let’s collaborate and work
together to solve the problem.’ Then the
school has to follow through. Let the
parent feel they’ve been heard.”
Parents want teachers to believe in
their kids, no matter how severe their
disability, says Trader of TASH. It’s
important for schools to look at young
students as potential adults who need
to develop the same skills as other students to be independent and productive
as adults.
“Kids who succeed have bulldogs
as parents. They won’t take no for an
answer,” says Trader. They expect a lot
from their kids, have a vision, and can
communicate that effectively and fairly,
she says. “Those kids end up employed
and on their own.”
SCHOLASTIC ADMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
Marc Mannella
Leading KIPP’s first try at a
K–12 system. BY JONATHAN SAPERS
arc mannella, ceo
M
of KIPP Philadelphia
Schools, says his experience definitely informs his
management. As a former
Teach for America middle
school science teacher in the
Baltimore public schools,
Mannella remembers having
to hoard paper and get to the
copy machine early before
its inevitable breakdown. As
the founder and school leader
for five years of the KIPP
Philadelphia Charter School,
grades 5–8, and now as CEO
of a burgeoning system that
by 2019 hopes to serve K–12
with a total of 10 schools
clustered in north and west
Philadelphia, Mannella says
every school will always have
two top-tier copiers and more
than enough paper: “One
of the things that we insist
upon,” he says, “is that our
teachers have what they need
to do their jobs.”
PHOTO: JEFF FUSCO
Q What is the thinking behind
the expansion?
A By fifth grade our kids have
fallen very far behind because
they’re mostly coming to us
from the traditional school
district. The thinking was we
would be able to catch them
up, and by eighth grade, we
would be able to help them
earn scholarships to independent schools or acceptance
into magnet or “select admit”
high schools. And this plan
largely worked. But what we
found was our teachers were
having to make Herculean
efforts to catch our kids
up, and some of these high
schools we thought were
going to be able to help our
kids continue this trajectory
were not quite up to the task.
Q What positive signs can
you point to so far?
A When you look at our first
group of students that started
Back to School 2011 SCHOLASTIC ADMINISTR ATOR.COM
with us in 2003, kids who finished eighth grade with us, we
are projecting that 78 percent
will matriculate to college.
The acceptance number is
in the 90s, but college acceptance is not the right measure.
Because I don’t care if the kid
goes to college—I care that
they’re sitting in the seat.
And I care that they finish.
When you look at adults 25 to
29 years old in the last census, only 30 percent nationally have a four-year college
degree. When you look at kids
‘ College
acceptance is
not the right
measure.
Because I
don’t care if
a kid goes to
college—
I care that
they finish.’
51
LEADERSHIP
KIPP STATS
Students: KIPP serves more
than 32,000 students in
109 schools in 20 states.
Philadelphia KIPP:
Kindergarten at KIPP
Elementary Academy, grades
5–8 at KIPP Philadelphia
Charter School, grades 5–6
at KIPP West Philadelphia
Preparatory Charter School,
and grade 9 at KIPP Dubois
Collegiate Academy.
Early Progress: After fifth
grade, first-year KIPP students already outperform
those from neighborhood
schools on Pennsylvania’s
math and reading tests.
Continued Success: In year
two, KIPP Philly students top
the district’s average scores;
in year three they approach
the state average; and by the
end of eighth grade, students
outperform the state average.
SOURCE: KIPP.ORG AND KIPPPHILADELPHIA.ORG.
in poverty, it’s eight percent.
But when you look at the top
quartile of kids in terms of
income, you’re talking about
75 to 80 percent, depending on the year. So that’s the
real achievement gap in this
country. KIPP just released
our national numbers from
our first couple of classes, at
33 percent. So we have gotten
above the national average.
But our goal is basically to
close the gap completely. Our
goal is 75 percent and we’re
nowhere near it.
Q What does KIPP offer
that competitors can’t?
A I’d hesitate to use the word
52
have
‘ We
longer school
days, school
weeks, and
school years.
We know
that makes a
difference.’
science and social studies. We
still have music. We still have
a sports program. We’ve been
able to keep all of the things
that we know make great
schools great schools.
Q What about the violence
problem that has plagued the
Philadelphia system?
A I think what we’re able to
do is set up an environment
where the kids are cared for,
where they know that they’re
cared for, where they know
that they’re loved. And that
really matters. And that takes
our incidence way below sort
of the typical school in our
neighborhood. I think the
other thing that we’re able
to do is have a very transparent disciplinary process. So
everyone’s got our handbook,
they know what’s coming.
Q How do you create a great
working environment?
A Our whole [recruitment]
process is designed to figure
out whether or not a candidate
believes what we believe. And
if the beliefs align, then we
believe we’ll be able to teach
a teacher the concrete skills
they need to help our kids
reach the highest achievement. So, for example, one of
our beliefs is all children will
learn when they’re taught in a
high-quality way. If you don’t
believe that, if you’re teaching to the top of the class, or
the bottom of the class, if you
don’t fundamentally believe
that a student with an IEP in
your classroom has every right
to learn, then you can’t work
here. We’re pretty unapologetic about it.
Q How will you
define success?
A Success would be 75 per-
cent of our alumni graduating from college with a fouryear degree. That’s success.
And once we get there, we’re
going to have to bust our
butts to stay there.
SCHOLASTIC ADMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
PHOTOS: JEFF FUSCO
can’t. They don’t. A lot of the
stuff that we believe makes
us work is absolutely possible
for anybody who just decides
to do it. One is just some of
the mechanical aspects of
our school. We have longer
school days, school weeks,
and school years. We know
that makes a difference. Our
kids come in around 7:30
and leave between 4:30 and
5, depending on the school.
Everyone starts three weeks
[early, before regular schools
begin in late August]. And all
the schools to some degree
have Saturday school. More
time in class matters. It creates a pressure release. Our
kids have full math. They
have reading. But they’re able
to have reading class in their
whole-group setting and then
get an additional 45 minutes
where they’re with other kids
on their level. We haven’t cut
LEADERSHIP
What’s Your Opinion?
Post your thoughts at
scholasticadministrator.com.
WEIGH IN: What Does the First
Day of School Mean to You?
Administrators
speak with
passion about
each new year’s
potential.
Administrators
were eager to
let us know
what it takes.
BY CAROL PATTON
BY JACQUELINE HEINZE
PHOTO (TOP): JEFF FUSCO
CULTURAL
IQ
“There is no event on
our calendar that more
clearly reflects the
hopes and dreams of
America than the first
day of school,” says
John Mackiel, the superintendent of
Omaha Public Schools. “It’s the anticipation of the academic, physical, and
social growth that’s going to occur that
makes the first day of school so very
exciting.
“We’re the largest, most diverse
school district in Nebraska. Ninety-nine
different languages are spoken in the
Omaha Public Schools. Two of those
languages are oral and have no written
component.
“We’re going to be seeing the implementation of a framework for cultural
proficiency and cultural-proficiency
training that will run district-wide. All
8,000 school district employees will
participate in a variety of workshops,
conversations, training and seminars,
and book studies that will develop an
understanding of the components and
importance of cultural proficiency in a
large, urban school district. We need to
be sure as educators and as individuals
in service in a variety of ways—from
those who are transporting students
and feeding students to working in
the main offices—that we understand,
appreciate, and build on the strength
of diversity that this school district
offers. So we want to make absolutely
sure that as an educational institution,
we’re meeting the needs of youngsters
through awareness, understanding,
and competency.”
Back to School 2011 SCHOLASTIC ADMINISTR ATOR.COM REFLECT
AND GO
“Back to school always
means a fresh start, a
time to begin anew,”
says Jim Boothby,
superintendent of
Regional School
Unit 25 in Bucksport, Maine. “We’ve
reflected on where we have been, where
we want to be. It’s a time to put our
thoughts into action and start fresh.
“We’ve got a number of things happening. We’ve gone through a complete
reorganization. RSU25 comprised what
were three separate school administrative units. Everything is new for us—
aligning curriculum among the three
educational units and transitioning from
a traditional education program to a
standards-based system where we’re
getting into precision teaching and precision programming for students. We
have a better grasp and understanding
of students’ needs, where they are in
their learning pathway, and we are able
to provide programming to specifically
meet their needs.
“Another exciting initiative that’s
happening is in our high school. It’s
one of four schools in the country
that are part of the Building Assets,
Reducing Risk grant. Last year was our
training; this year is going to be the
introduction. It’s actually taking the
freshman academy approach, focusing
on developmental assets that students
will need for success.”
COLLEGE
PREP
“The minute that our
students step through
the schoolhouse doors,
we think of them
as college preparatory,” says Cynthia
Lane, superintendent of Kansas City,
Kansas Public Schools. “Last year, we
implemented a standards-based college
preparatory curriculum starting at preschool, all the way through high school
graduation. We are beginning to change
belief systems and say, every child, the
minute he or she enters the preschool
53
LEADERSHIP
Across the Nation: Common Core,
Internships, and School Realignment
excited about our new Common Core standards,” says
“I’m
Rachel Kaplan, an eighth-grade math teacher at Edmundo
Eddie Escobedo Senior Middle School in Las Vegas. “Las
Vegas is a very transient town. Now all teachers will be held
accountable for teaching consistent concepts on a similar
timeline and using Common Core standard tests so all testing has the same rigor.
“
“
”
We are going to be embarking on an internship initiative for
middle schoolers,” says Allison Slade, founder and principal of Chicago’s Namaste Charter School. “Every Friday for
the whole school year, we will be sending 15 to 20 eighth
graders downtown on public transportation to do half-day
apprenticeships.
”
The biggest new initiative in our district is a reconfiguration
of the school grade levels,” says Kim Bodensteiner, chief
academic officer at Lawrence Public Schools in Kansas.
“Moving our ninth graders to high school gives them more
curriculum, activities, and programs. And our middle
schools—grades 6 through 8—are now designed to meet the
needs of children during those in-between years.
”
8/14
The earliest
date school is
allowed to start
in Arkansas.
6,775
Los Angeles
USD students
who missed
the first day of
school in 2010.
Looking For More?
1/3 square Left
To request information about products and advertisers featured in this issue of Scholastic Administr@tor
http://administratormag.hotims.com
door, is a college student, and we’re preparing them every step of the way to be
successful in that direction.
“We have revised that curriculum
and have already included the Common
Core national standard expectations.
We implemented formative assessments
every four and a half weeks in all core
subjects last year, and this year we’re
expanding that to all subjects where
we check to see whether or not our
instruction is moving our kids. Once
a month, after looking at the data, we
ask what we need to do to improve
our instruction in order to make sure
that all students are meeting or even
exceeding the expectations we have set
for them.
“We believe that whether or not they
make the choice to attend college once
they graduate, it is our obligation to
have them fully prepared so they can
make an informed choice.”
MINI
SCHOLARS
“That first day of
school is always a
time for new beginnings,” says Nancy J.
McGinley, superintendent of Charleston
County School District in South
Carolina.
“The initiative I’m most excited about
is our first-grade reading academy,
which will be starting its second year
in August. We are keeping youngsters
from falling off the track academically
because we are offering support right
after kindergarten, where we are recognizing struggling readers before they
become failures, before they become
students who are even experiencing
failure in school. We’re getting them
the help they need in either a smallgroup reading program or one on one.
“We had more than 700 youngsters
across the district in the first-grade
reading academy throughout the whole
year or part of the year. We’ve seen
students who were in the lowest 25th
percentile when they were identified
at the end of kindergarten move into
the highest percentile at the end of first
grade. We’re seeing shrinking numbers
in that bottom percentile after they’ve
been in the reading academy.
“In my 30 years as an educator, the
focus on literacy, especially support at
the youngest age possible, is the best
thing I’ve ever done.”
54
CONFERENCES
Listings for education leaders.
Conferences
Association
of Latino
Administrators and
Superintendents:
Summit on
Hispanic Education
October 12–15
San Francisco, CA
Latinos are America’s
fastest-growing student
population, and this
conference—focusing on
issues and trends, as
well as raising the bar in
Hispanic education—is
a must. Actress and
activist Eva Longoria is
the opening speaker.
alasedu.net/
SummitInformation.aspx
National
Association of
State Boards of
Education: Annual
Conference
October 13–15
Atlanta, GA
How can state boards of
education help students
be competitive in an
ever-increasing environment of global change?
This national gathering
of state-level education
leaders will attempt to
answer this question,
focusing on lessons in
learning from an international perspective.
nasbe.org
ASCD Fall
Conference on
Teaching and
Learning
October 27–30
Las Vegas, NV
This conference looks at
how schools can support
teacher effectiveness in
a balanced way, addressing all of the factors that
improve student learning.
Over four days, more than
90 sessions will address
topics ranging from the
integration of technology
to differentiated instruction to research-based
teaching practices.
ascd.org/conferences
/fall-conference/2011
.aspx
NAEYC Annual
Conference & Expo
November 2–5
Orlando, FL
At the largest early ed
conference in the world,
the NAEYC brings together tens of thousands of
educators to learn practical information, connect
with colleagues, and
prepare for the future.
The gathering offers more
than 800 sessions.
naeyc.org/conference/
The Education
Trust National
Conference
November 3–5
Arlington, VA
The National Trust prides
itself on its mission to
“speak up for students,
especially those whose
needs and potential are
often overlooked.” The
focus will be on closing
the gaps in opportunity
and achievement, particularly for those from lowincome families or from
the African-American,
focus on how to leverage the Core Knowledge
Sequence and the new
Common Core standards
to bridge the achievement gap. More than 125
sessions will cover all
PreK–8 domains, as well
as character education,
technology, and more.
coreknowledge.org/
conference
Latino, or American
Indian communities.
edtrust.org
Virtual School
Symposium
November 9–11
Indianapolis, IN
The VSS brings together
more than 2,000 representatives from national,
state, district, private,
and other virtual school
programs to attend the
industry’s leading event
in K–12 online and
blended learning. Learn
about the latest trends,
challenges, and opportunities in e-learning,
and gain access to the
latest research and best
practices. virtualschool
symposium.org/
Coalition of
Essential Schools:
Fall Forum
November 10–12
Providence, RI
CES’s primary networking
and professional development event for more than
25 years celebrates the
exchange of innovative
practices and democratic
policies that are increasing equitable student
achievement.
essentialschools.org
Core Knowledge
National
Conference
November 10–12
Orlando, FL
This year’s conference,
Closing Gaps, Building
Bridges: Language,
Knowledge, Reading, will
National
Middle School
Association: 38th
Annual Conference
and Exhibit
November 10–12
Louisville, KY
NMSA2011 features
more than 500 specialized workshops in 59
topic areas, all designed
for middle school administrators and teachers.
Last year’s big hit was a
21st-century classroom
exhibit featuring the latest educational technology; this year guarantees
even more surprises.
nmsa.org/annual/
National Council of
Teachers of English
Annual Convention
November 17–22
Chicago, IL
This year marks the
centennial convention of
teachers and writers who
come together to educate
and inspire English teachers, from elementary
through college levels.
Check out the website
for the list of speakers
and details on postconvention workshops.
ncte.org/annual
ADVERTISER INDEX
ADVERTISER
PHONE # / WEBSITE
PAGE #
ADVERTISER
PHONE # / WEBSITE
PAGE #
Brainchild
www.brainchild.com
27
Optoma Technology
www,optoma.com
39
Canon USA
www.usa.canon.com/educationalsales
13
Panasonic
panasonic.com/Aplus
43
CDWG
21stcenturyclassroom.com
C4
Pearson Education
AIMSweb.com
2
DYMO/Mimio
mimio.dymo.com/A86
C2
Renaissance Learning
renlearn.com/lp/18574
5
DYMO/Mimio
www.headsprout.com/HS11
1
Renaissance Learning
www.renlearn.com
30
einstruction
www.einstruction.com/mobiview-saagt
29
Scholastic Classroom Magazines
scholastic.com/classmags
34-35
C3
Grand Canyon University
www.scholastic.com/yourpurpose
Indiana Wesleyan Univ*.
indwes.edu
8
Lexia Learning Systems, Inc
www.lexialearning.com/aug
17
NetSupport Inc.
www.netsupport-inc.com
11
Teq
teq.com/blueprint
7
Xpand Education
www.xpand.me/education
15
*Ad not running in every issue
OVERHEARD
“Educators are not morally
different from other people: Many wouldn’t cheat
under any circumstances,
but some will cheat if they
can benefit and expect to
get away with it.”
— PAUL HILL , Center on Reinventing
“Let’s refuse to be defined
by people who are happy
to lecture us about the
state of public education—
but wouldn’t last 10 minutes in a classroom.”
— RANDI WEINGARTEN, AFT president,
countering the wave of politicians
criticizing teachers.
“Literacy is a very important life skill. It’s difficult
for me to think of a job
for which literacy wouldn’t
be a useful skill to have.
Students need to concentrate on literacy so that
they know how to read.
Math is similar. There’s
no reason to think someone has to go to college
to someday start her own
hair salon, but it helps
a lot to know something
about how to keep the
books.”
—MATTHEW YGLESIAS, fellow at the
Center for American Progress Action
Fund, on why math and literacy are
vocational skills.
56
SCHOLASTIC ADMINISTR ATOR.COM Back to School 2011
CARTOONS (FROM TOP): BY PERMISSION OF STEVE BREEN AND CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.; BY PERMISSION OF MIKE LUCKOVICH AND CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.; © MATT WUERKER/THE CARTOONIST GROUP
Public Education, writing about what
the Atlanta cheating scandal reveals
about teachers.
ADVERTISEMENT
PROFILE: Jim Davis
Degrees Earned
at GCU:
B.S. in Biology and
Physical Education
Present Occupation:
Superintendent,
Joy Christian School,
Glendale, AZ
“A Phenomenal
Place to Be”
WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO CHOOSE GCU?
WHAT WERE THE CLASSES LIKE AT GCU?
I was actually
visiting Arizona from my
home state
of Oklahoma
and decided
to visit the
GCU campus
for a tour. I
had heard
about the education department’s excellence, and I knew
after one visit that GCU was the place I wanted to be.
The classes were very rigorous and relevant. The instruction was challenging, so you left knowing that you were
prepared. Also, there were never more than 20 students
in any of my classes, so there was a lot of one-on-one time
with the professors and collaboration with and support
from the other students. I was also surprised by the
diversity of the student body—people from all over the
country and the world. It felt like a cohort, and sometimes even an extended family. Lots of discussion in and
out of the classroom.
WHAT MADE IT DIFFERENT FROM OTHER
SCHOOLS YOU WERE VISITING?
There is so much promise at GCU. Its reputation for excellence is unparalleled. I was impressed when I graduated, and I’m still impressed when I go back to visit and
see constant growth and modernization. And with all the
support GCU gets from its alumni, I have all the confidence that it will just get better and better.
There was a seriousness of purpose at GCU, founded on
both academic and moral integrity. I also liked that the
education department was so intimate.
WHAT DO YOU SEE FOR THE FUTURE
OF GCU?
HOW DID YOUR
EXPERIENCE AT GCU
PREPARE YOU FOR
YOUR JOURNEY
FROM TEACHER TO
ADMINISTRATOR?
It definitely laid the foundation.
I think one of the most important qualities an educator can
have is a sense of character—a
sense of self and moral fiber.
GCU blends core values with
modern practicality and instills
a love for learning that goes beyond the classroom.
College should also give you a network of people who
share your beliefs and passion, and GCU is small enough
to keep you connected with one another—and to professional opportunities.
Get a free copy of
Why We Teach! Go to
www.scholastic.com/
yourpurpose
to learn more.