School Notebook

OMG.

Get this, via the Associated Pressjust a couple hours ago: "Dozens of San Diego State University students were arrested after a sweeping drug investigation found that some fraternity members openly dealt drugs and one even sent a mass text message advertising cocaine, authorities said Tuesday.

"Two kilograms of cocaine were seized, along with 350 Ecstasy pills, marijuana, psychedelic mushrooms, hash oil, methamphetamine, illicit prescription drugs, several guns and at least $60,000 in cash, authorities said."

Wow.

Apparently members of both the Theta Chi and Phi Kappa Psi fraternities were among the 96 total people arrested.

This bust, understandably, has become big news.

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 4:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Remember my post of earlier this month about a Santa Ana teacher who got arrested after two kids looking for school supplies in her classroom cabinet found a gun and ammo instead?

Well just yesterday said teacher -- one Jayne DeArmond, 51, who headed (it's probably safe to say previously headed, considering) a third-grade class at Diamond Elementary School -- was charged with two felonies, according to the LA Times.

My-Thuan Tran writes in a brief that DeArmond is facing "one felony count of possession of a firearm on school grounds and one felony count of child endangerment by a caretaker. She was scheduled to be arraigned today. If convicted, she could face up to six years in prison."

Uh-oh.

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 3:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A new GI Bill is in the works, updating the old version to continue encouraging homebound service people to pursue education by helping them pay for it.

U.S. Represenative Jane Harman, who hails from our area, today announced her support for the bipartisan legislation that would -- for soldiers returning from Iraq or Afghanistan with at least three years active duty -- provide "benefits to cover the costs of a four-year education up to the level of the most expensive in-state public school, along with a stipend for housing, books and other expenses," according to a press release.

"Education benefits would be available to troops who have served at least 3 months of active duty service since September 11, 2001," it adds, "including members of the National Guard and Reserve."

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 2:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...this time the advice addresses how to keep your kids in their educational rhythm even during the not-too-far off summer-vacation season.

Courtesy of another tutoring company, Club Z, I present to you the following suggestions (again from provided flackage and this time including a plug for the company's services, sorry) for staving off what they're calling the "summer brain drain":

1. Take frequent trips to the library and register your child with a library card. University of Florida's Richard Allington notes that the best predictor of summer reading loss is a lack of books at home and limited access to library books, so keep a good selection of high interest, level appropriate books around the house. Schedule a consistent "reading time" daily for your child.

2. Attend thematic programs at the library. Libraries often host a great variety of summer programs for kids that celebrate reading.

3. Talk to your child's teachers and ask them what your child will be learning next year at school. This way you can tie in family trips with next year's curriculum to create a more meaningful hands-on experience. For example, if your child will be studying a unit on the civil war, plan a visit to Gettysburg.

4. Give your child a gift card to a bookstore, or give books as gifts.

5. Check out audio books from the library for your child to listen to stories in the car.

6. Consider summer tutoring. Tutoring can help children catch up or get ahead. Take advantage of the summer months to remediate or accelerate your child in areas like reading comprehension, mathematics, writing or SAT/ACT test prep. Club Z! even offers programs in music and study skills (with an emphasis on note-taking strategies, reading comprehension skills & prioritizing deadlines) that will help your child start the school year off right.

7. Research has revealed a direct connection between learning to play a musical instrument and an increased aptitude in mathematics. Consider introducing your child to music lessons over the summer.

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Remember the parental freakout that went national a while back over a Portland, Maine middle school's decision to start offering prescription contraceptives to students in an effort to combat the region's high rate of teen pregnancy?

The Associated Press is reporting today, some six months after the controversy came into the spotlight, only one girl has actually used the program. Local parents remain supportive, the story says.

Do you think that would ever fly around here?

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Run by the state the last five years, since going bankrupt and taking a $100-million bailout loan, the school board of Oakland Unified this week regained a wee bit of power, and promptly, apparently, abused it. Nice!

The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting today that Oakland trustees, on Tuesday given back the authority to hire and fire, turned around Wednesday and named an interim superintendent "without public participation or discussion."

"The school board also came up with the job description behind closed doors," staffer Jill Tucker writes.

All such decisions "should have been made in public," California First Amendment Coalition executive director Peter Scheer is quoted as saying, further noting that the board may have violated the state's open-meeting law known as the Brown Act.

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's a certain middle schooler in my life, who shall remain nameless but I will tell you she's related to me, who is sweet, funny, generous, kind and bright, a standout gymnast and altogether great kid with big dreams that include college.

One problem: She's performing really poorly in school -- extremely poorly -- and no one seems to be able to adequately impress upon her the fact that solid academics now will position her to actually achieve that university fantasy down the road.

And so this New York Times story today especially intrigued me. It's about a middle school in upstate New York that is experimenting with a unique new strategy for dealing with students like my niece. Any kid whose grade in any class falls below 65 percent, or who shows a noticeable lack of effort, is being, the paper reports, "excluded from all aspects of extracurricular life, including athletic contests, academic clubs, dances and plays, unless they demonstrate improvement on weekly progress reports filled out by their teachers."

Interesting, oui? Can't wait for the follow-up story to hear how well it did, or didn't work.

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As I was wheeling around the South Bay this afternoon after interviewing folks at LAX (for our story about the sudden shut-down of ATA Airlines), trying to decide where I should stop for lunch, I tuned into NPR for my afternoon news fix.

Almost as soon as I turned my radio on, a correspondent named Dan Collins launched into a report from Lima, Peru, where apparently all teachers are now required to take an annual "National Teachers Exam."

Of 180,000 educators who took the most recent test, Collins said, 95 percent failed. You heard that right. 95 percent. Failed. Ouch. Now that's gotta hurt.

The results have been characterized as "appalling." No duh.

However, as with all standardized tests everywhere, this one as well is controversial, with one camp calling it an inadequate measure of teacher competency and another saying, essentially, that it's the teachers who are inadequate, not the test.

One teacher interviewed on air by Collins decried the fact that the exam is given at all -- apparently it's a new thing in the country's effort to improve education there -- saying that Peru's powers that be aren't invested enough in educating educators and that teachers get "low pay and poor training."

Sound familiar?

A similar source went on to say: "More needs to be done to give Peruvian students the education they deserve."

Now, where have you heard that before?

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 3:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wow!

Now this is interesting, so I only apologize for not finding and bringing it to you sooner. My thanks to Scholastic's "This Week In Education" blog for helping me find it today, by pointing me toward the New York Times "Freakonomics" blog, which referred to the item about which I'm about to write.

Here it is: A Connecticut eighth-grader was recently suspended for three days, nixed from a dinner for honors students and removed from his vice-presidential post for buying a bag of Skittles from a fellow student, which apparently violates a school policy that prohibits any and all on-campus candy sales.

Again: wow!

The whole story is online at the web home of the New Haven Register.

Are our local schools equally strict? Talk to me, people.

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A current first-person feature on Teacher Magazine's website contends that maintaining good relationships with parents is essential to successful teaching.

Writes Danielle Mbadu of Kaplan Higher Education:
"I firmly believe that the types of relationships and encounters that are in place between teachers and parents can have a profound effect on student learning and growth. In my experiences, the parents that I am in contact with the most frequently, whether through e-mail, open houses, or face-to-face communication, have the children who do the best in my class. One reason for this is that those students know that their mom or dad and I are in touch with each other. In those instances when parents and teachers are working together, the students know there is support. That means a lot to students, even if they do not freely admit it."

Makes sense to me!

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 1:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Can you imagine?

Apparently Hollywood producer Brian Grazer, partner to Ron Howard (yes, that Ron Howard, he of Opie and Richie Cunningham and oh yeah, Forrest Gump, Splash et al) in Imagine Entertainment, for years has employed a "cultural attache," someone he pays to read for him, introduce him to interesting people from all walks of life and explain to him absolutely everything he doesn't quite understand but wants to.

What's more, Grazer supposedly pays this person some $150K and -- the topper -- his best attache so far was formerly a tutor because the Hollywood big-wig always seeks someone who has that "teacherlike quality." With all the potential teacher layoffs rippling across California, he could soon have an abundance of candidates.

The New Yorker website has a piece about the Grazer gig. Check it.

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 1:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The New York Times has one of those "I bet this happens here, too" kind-of pieces online right now. It's a look at the social stigma around receiving free- and reduced-price lunches in school. Apparently it's uncool and many kids choose to skip eating rather than be seen in the free line. Awful, right?

From Carol Pogash's story:

"Lunchtime 'is the best time to impress your peers,' said Lewis Geist, a senior at Balboa (High School, in San Francisco) and its student body president. Being seen with a subsidized meal, he said, 'lowers your status.'

San Francisco school officials are looking at ways to encourage more poor students to accept government-financed meals, including the possibility of introducing cashless cafeterias where all students are offered the same food choices and use debit cards or punch in codes on a keypad so that all students check out at the cashier in the same manner."

Read it all. Interesting stuff.

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our sports guys and Web gal compiled a list of which high school football players have signed with colleges on National Signing Day. Updates will be coming all day.

Check the chart.

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Naush Boghossian's story about the LAUSD coffee cake recipe has gotten quite a lot of feedback. Who knew a baked good would cause such a commotion? If you want more food to help you relive your childhood, we found a Web site where dozens of old cafeteria recipes have been collected. They are not all local, but you'll find peanut butter cookies, school pizza and sloppy joes, among others.

If you want the coffee cake recipe, it's in a nice, neat printable format over at school blog.

If you have specific recipes in mind that you would like us to try to find, drop us a line. Paul will try his best. Right, Paul?

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A just-released report by researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia and Pennsylvania State University in University Park ranks the United States 42nd, of 46 countries studied, in ability to provide equity in the distribution of high-quality math teachers to low- and upper-income 8th graders.

Ghana ranked No. 1.

Interesting!

Read the whole report here.

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A couple of years ago there was a story circulating about a school district in Kalamazoo, Michigan where a private donor had guaranteed that any child who graduated from the district was guaranteed tuition money to attend a state college. The city suddenly saw signs of economic development, higher student enrollment and fewer dropouts. Apparently, the trend is catching on across the country, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Tuition guarantees are gaining momentum across the nation, with more than 20 cities either establishing such programs or planting the idea in hopes that private donors or taxpayers will pony up the money to help offset staggering increases in college costs. At the same time, these programs also aim to attract new businesses and spur home ownership. It is too early to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of these fledgling programs, scattered around the country in places like El Dorado, Ark., and Hammond, Ind. While the Kalamazoo Promise has generated tremendous interest, economists point out that many communities do not have the private wealth that Kalamazoo has. And school officials caution that the programs, by themselves, guarantee only that a student will be able to go to college.

Read the entire story.

How tuition guarantees work.

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The San Francisco Chronicle has a fascinating feature about the work of Michael Rakowitz, an artist-in-residence at the Montalvo Arts Center Villa near Saratoga who aims to "open new channels of ideas and feelings about the Iraq war and its underlying issues" through food.

Rakowitz recently invited a group of high school students to the center to prepare and eat a meal together, using his Iraqi-Jewish mother's recipes, during which he asked questions about the kids knowledge, experience and understanding of Iraq as well as offering up his own.

From Steven Winn's story:

"Rakowitz spent 45 minutes each with two groups of about a dozen students, all of whom are enrolled in one of Judith Sutton's poetry writing classes. He asked questions, gently steered discussion and volunteered experiences of his own. He talked about his Iraqi grandparents' emigration in 1946 and told the students about the lines outside the door at Khyber Pass, an Afghan restaurant in New York, a few nights after Sept. 11, 2001. "People were there as a gesture of peace, as we were getting ready to attack Afghanistan," he said. "I thought that was really beautiful."

Rakowitz asked the students if they knew of any Iraqi restaurants in the Bay Area. When they couldn't name one, he asked if they knew any Vietnamese restaurants. They all nodded. Pointing out that we were once at war with Vietnam, he offered this wishful thought: "The thing I hope is that it will be very normal one day for people here to be eating Iraqi food."

The project is called "Enemy Kitchen." Read Winn's entire piece here.

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 9:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just came across this New York Sun story from last Friday that talks about presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani's still-developing "education advisory team," which he is so far populating with "voucher advocates, private-sector school consultants and opponents of teachers unions."

It's a short piece, but interesting information as the campaign marches on toward next November.

Read it here.

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

California has reduced its number of under-prepared teachers over the last decade, according to a new study that analyzed the state's teaching workforce and how many educators possess credentials in their respective subjects.

In its latest annual report, "The Status of the Teaching Profession: 2007," the Northern California-based Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, found that the percentage of teachers lacking the appropriate credential dropped from 13 percent in 1997 to just 5 percent this year.

The study also revealed that there are fewer novice teachers in the first or second year of teaching, declining from 46,000 in 2000-01 to 36,000 in 2006-07 and that schools of all types have lower percentages of underprepared teachers. For example, in 2000-01, 23 percent of faculty in low achieving schools were underprepared. In 2006-07, only 8 percent were underprepared.

Find the entire study here.

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An article in Newsweek magazine suggests that learning good, old-fashioned penmanship is still a necessity in the age of text messaging and computers and laments the declining instruction time it has been given in the classroom. (I think it struck a chord with me because lately I have been trying to help my 4-year-old learn to write legible letters on her list for Santa and I see how hard she has to concentrate.)

Anyway, here's the premise of the article:

Handwriting is important because research shows that when children are taught how to do it, they are also being taught how to learn and how to express themselves. A new study to be released this month by Vanderbilt University professor Steve Graham finds that a majority of primary-school teachers believe that students with fluent handwriting produced written assignments that were superior in quantity and quality and resulted in higher grades—aside from being easier to read. The College Board recognized this in 2005 when it added a handwritten essay to the SAT—an effort to reverse the de-emphasis on handwriting and composition that may be adversely affecting children's learning all the way through high school and beyond.

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A study of the 2004 Census reports that parents are putting more limits on their kids' TV watching, more are reading to their kids every night, and more feel guilty about not spending time with their kids.

From the AP story:

The findings suggest that adults are reacting to a more dangerous world, while both parents and students are dealing with increased competition to get into good colleges, experts said.

“Whether it’s a realistic panic or not, things like school shootings or child abductions or pedophile predators, that has a certain group of American parents pretty worried,” said Angela Hattery, a sociology professor at Wake Forest University.

Here's the whole story.

Go here for a lot of charts about children's quality of life.

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of our favorite blogs - and a good spot to find national education news - is This Week In Education, an offshoot of Education Week. Written by former Senate education staffer and journalist Alexander Russo, it's got a pretty political bent, but serves as a good clearinghouse of links to a slew of other school-ish blogs and ed stories from across the country.

It's worth a look.

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune asked teachers if students' text messaging habits creep into their schoolwork.

Kelsey Theis, a language-arts teacher at Pioneer Ridge Freshman Center in Chaska, Minn., said texting might be helping students learn an element of writing.

“We talk about the different components of writing -- organization, idea, content and individual voice,” she said. “But, a lot of times, students feel the need to stay silent. This might help them develop their individual voice.”

Still, the seepage of text messaging into student writing is vexing many trying to teach the importance of clear communication.

Eva Pitzel teaches seventh-graders and ninth-graders at Lake Junior High and Woodbury Junior High in Woodbury. She estimates that 25 percent to 40 percent of her students use some text-message abbreviations and slang in their in-class writing.

“I see it as a negative because they are not always showing me that they can write out the words correctly,” she said. “To compensate for this, we spend extra time editing in class and we talk about the different languages we use in our lives. I have to explicitly tell them that it is not OK to write like that for English class.”

In 2004, the Pew Internet and American Life Project said that 16 million American teenagers were using instant messaging and text messaging to communicate -- up from 13 million in 2000.

Nicole Muenchow, a social-studies teacher at Champlin Park High School in Champlin, said texting is rampant. “They’re not even writing proper sentences, using punctuation or spelling,” she said. “I keep having to tell kids that ‘people’ is spelled with six letters, not three.”

Derek Anderson teaches composition and literature at Mahtomedi High School in Mahtomedi. He has mixed feeling about the creep of texting.

“I sort of feel like any writing is good writing, as long as you get your point across,” he said. “But, for certain students, I think it holds some back. If you’re writing a college application and you write ‘2,’ instead of ‘to,’ you’re not going to get the same response.”

Read the story here.

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Who knew there was a National School Lunch Week? Chef Ann Cooper, director of nutrition services for the Berkeley Unified School District. Her Web site has a list of family-friendly recipes and nutritional information for feeding children. This week, she wants parents to analyze what their kids are eating, make some healthy adjustments, and report their experiences on her blog.

Cooper is the author of several books, including Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children, which was released in paperback in September.

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Paul Clinton researched the background of some interesting characters for whom South Bay and Harbor Area schools are named. Here's one:

Alice McLellan Birney Elementary School, Redondo Beach: Birney was a founder of the first nationwide Parent Teacher Association. Birney joined with Phoebe Apperson Hearst to form the National Congress of Mothers in Washington, D.C., in 1897. She contributed articles about child-rearing to The Delineator magazine. She died in 1907.

Here's the link to the rest. Four years ago, Larry Altman did some detective work to find out the stories behind 10 other school names.

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 1:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The interactive-whiteboard industry is expected to reach $1 billion in worldwide sales in 2008, an Education Week story reports this week. Their next move: Mobilize an army of lobbyists to crush the chalk industry!

Posted by Paul Clinton at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Sacramento Bee has the American Library Association's new list of most commonly challenged books at public and school libraries and at bookstores. The group is promoting the list as part of this week's "Banned Books Week."

Most of the books on this year's list are for children, but Harry Potter, which led the list for the past five years, dropped out of the top 10.

While past Banned Books Lists have included such famous works as John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men," Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" and Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn," and the 2006 list features Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "Beloved," Krug points out that this year's list "has a lot of coming-of-age stories for young people." These include the "Alice" series of books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, which have been attacked for their sexual content and language, and Chris Crutcher's "Athletic Shorts," in which teenage athletes deal with such issues as racism and homophobia.

Here's the link to the story and the list.

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's International Walk to School Day. The program started 10 years ago as a way to promote physical activity for kids, help the enviroment and draw attention to the need for safe walking and biking routes to school. There are 2,630 schools in the United States that registered their plans on the official Web site. According to that site, here's who is participating in the South Bay:

-- Richmond Street Elementary School in El Segundo

-- Meadows Elementary School in Manhattan Beach.
Organizer Ginny Sogomonian says on the site:

This is our second effort at a Walk to School. We have approximately 500 students and had a 72% participation rate the first year which we would like to raise. This year we are observing WTS month and having a prize drawing for kids who walk to school 10 times or more ($50 Sketchers gift certificate).

--Beryl Heights School in Redondo Beach

--Arnold Elementary School in Torrance

Want to see how far it is to school and how many calories you're going to burn? Go here and map your route.

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 5:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today's the day to get your shy students to ask all their burning questions. At least, that was the idea behind the official designation for Sept. 28 when it was set up by teachers 20 years ago. This story in the Sacramento Bee has a list of actual stupid questions asked by visitors to national parks. It's pretty funny.

In the Ask a Smart Question category, the Breeze Web site has a new feature. We compiled the most frequent "Ask Us" questions into a database. So, if you have a question about something in the South Bay, go here first to see if we've answered it in the past. If not, you will automatically be prompted to send your question to our "Ask Us" writer so we can answer it in the future. Go here.

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Cartoon Network wants you to help them in their "rescuing recess" campaign. Students and adults can sign up for a chance to win $25,000 for their elementary school. Go to the Web site; download a pledge card; and begin volunteering at your local school as a recess monitor. From the site...

Experts say fresh air and play give kids an edge in their school work. Yet, only 8 state school boards of education have a policy that ensures daily recess. Further, 55% of PTA leaders feel their school’s recess is in jeopardy.

It's all part of National Recess Week that started Monday.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 6:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The FDA and nutrition experts are teaming up with the Cartoon Network to teach kids how to read food labels so they can make healthy eating choices for themselves. One dietician quoted in The Associated Press story says they have to start teaching kids because parents are so crummy at it. Here's some of the AP story:

Continue reading "An unlikely source of nutrition education" »

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Californian Jeff Rubin [the founder] and Norma Martinez-Rubin -- they both live in Contra Costa County -- have designated Monday (Sept. 24) as National Punctuation Day: a celebration of colons; apostrophes; brackets; and 10 other punctuation marks. What is it? The day is to "reinforce important punctuation lessons" for the nation's children.

Their program of educational materials utilizes interactive games, raps and other activities to teach elementary school kids how to use punctuation properly. With the materials, teachers receive tools and classroom aids ... for the classroom, according to Rubin's Web site.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

If you're at a federally funded school, you should be spending today learning about the document that was signed 220 years ago, of course. But, according to a study by the Knight Foundation, only 10 percent of high school students could remember how their schools marked the occasion last year. And 51 percent had never heard of it.

In case you haven't either, here's what The Associated Press story says about it:

Continue reading "How are you spending Constitution Day?" »

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)