For "Read Across," A Twist on Tale of the Three Little Pigs

Veteran teacher Kathy Jewell-Quigley collects all types of pig arts and crafts, from delicate porcelain figures and paintings of dancing pigs, to dozens of books about “The Three Little Pigs” fairytale, including copies in nine languages.
“I’m a pig collector,” says Jewell-Quigley, a special ed teacher with the Bedford Public School District and a delegate from the Michigan Education Association attending the NEA Representative Assembly in Washington, D.C. “The story about the three little pigs is my favorite.”
Her interest in pig collectables is not surprising. Jewell-Quigley was born and raised on a pig farm in Tecumseh, Michigan. She loves porkers.
“It’s in my blood,” she says.
This might explain why Jewell-Quigley volunteered to dress up in a costume and perform the classic pig tale as part of the National Education Association’s first “Read Across Washington” held June 30. The program was launched at 18 public libraries in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
The day-long celebration of summer reading featured Cat in the Hat characters, children’s book authors and volunteer readers. The message of the event is, “children who read, and are read to, do better in school and in life.”
What is a total surprise to those who know Jewell-Quigley’s love for pigs is that she dresses up as the wolf. Jewell-Quigley read to more than 30 youngsters at the Palisades Public Library in Washington, D.C. dressed as Alexandar T. Wolf, a sympathetic character who accidently huffs and puffs and blows down the pig houses, though not out of malice, but because he has a bad cold.
In this alternative version by writer Jon Scieszka, Jewell-Quigley says the pigs are “mean, stupid and rude” and the wolf is a “distinguished English gentleman who is just asking for a cup of sugar to bake his granny a cake.”
After the wolf knocks on their doors, his cold gets the better of him and he accidently sneezes and blows down the straw houses of the first two pigs.
“It‘s not his fault,” she says. “When the houses fell, after the dust settled, the pigs were just laying there. You wouldn’t leave a ham dinner behind would you?”
As with the classic version of the story, the third pig’s house is made of brick.
“He’s the rudest pig ever,” she says. “He calls the cops on the wolf and he (wolf) gets carted off to jail.”
During her performance, Jewell-Quigley wears a top hat with hairy wolf ears glued to the brim and a four-foot long tail she made at home.
“I sewed in a wire so it sticks out and doesn’t drag on the floor,” she says.
She confiscated one of her husband’s neck ties to match the wolf’s gray pinstriped suit, spats and cane. Her oversized pocket watch was created by commercial art students out of cardboard, and the drama teacher at her school gave her the top hat.
“I usually hand out a box of tissues so the kids can hand me the tissues after I sneeze,” she says.
But more than the costume and props, it is her exaggerated cough and hurricane sneeze that gets the students’ attention.
“At first, I thought she really had a cough,” says Mike, 11, who was at Palisades. “Then I realized it was part of the story.”
Mike is entering the sixth grade and says his parents encourage him to read an hour a day. Whenever possible, he also tries to read the book that a movie is based on before going to the theater. That’s how he read all of the Harry Potter books.
“I own all the (Potter) movies and the books,” he says. Mike is currently reading Jules Verne’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” which opens as a movie later this month.
Haja, 11, has been going to the Palisades library since she was age 7. She says her parents encourage her to read, especially on school nights when she is not allowed to watch television.
“Monday through Thursday, I have to read,” she says. “No TV.”
During the storyteller’s performance, Hada says she particularly enjoyed the wolf’s long nose and hairy tail.
“I liked her claws too,” she says. “She used a lot of expressions.”
The Palisades children’s books librarian, Paulette Diallo, is a former high school teacher from Baltimore. She said having a storyteller act out a book allows her the opportunity to follow-up with other book recommendations.
“I can now look for other books by the same author, or in the same genre,” she says. “She (Jewell-Quigley) did a great job imitating the voices.”

NEA’s reform call draws Obama praise; NEA Annual Meeting delegates tackle dropouts and training

There should be a new balance in the federal role in education, National Education Association President Reg Weaver said yesterday at the NEA's Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, unveiling a comprehensive NEA proposal that spells out how to get there. Under the so-called “No Child Left Behind” law, there’s far too much testing and punishing, and not enough funding, Weaver said. “Federal education policy needs more than a legislative tweak here and there.”

NEA President Reg Weaver lays out NEA’s program for a new balance in the federal role in education, at a press conference yesterday. The proposal, or “white paper,” was immediately applauded by Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate. Calling teachers the “single most important factor” in students’ achievement, he praised the proposal as “a roadmap for educators, elected officials, policymakers, and all who care deeply about the future of our children to consider and debate in the days ahead.”

NEA’s proposal calls on the federal government to better enforce civil rights laws to promote access and opportunity, fund past congressional actions and current federal mandates, and help create the capacity at local and state levels for school transformation.

Also on Tuesday, delegates packed a forum on the dropout crisis among ethnic minorities. ABC Primetime anchor John Quiñones and actor/activist Hill Harper joined education experts on a panel that emphasized students and educators must be supported by parents, communities, administrators, and legislators. Too often they aren’t, said Norma Cantú, a civil rights attorney and professor. “For many of our students, let’s call it what it is: not dropouts, but pushouts.”

Obama’s education advisor, Linda Darling-Hammond, encouraged a standing room-only crowd of attendees at the annual Teacher Quality policy briefing to “take charge” in her keynote speech.

“All children have the right to learn, but we must also guarantee that teachers have the same right,” she said. She urged teachers to campaign for candidates and education reform that values them, including greater professional development and mentoring opportunities.

--Reported by Alain Jehlen, Cynthia Kopkowski, and Tim Walker

Cross-posted on nea.org in RA Action

As Temps Soar, So do Spirits at Outreach to Teach

By 9 a.m., it was 89 degrees. But the only number that mattered at Friday’s Outreach to Teach event in Arlington, Virginia, was 350—the number of volunteers who braved the heat to help out.

Outreach to Teach, an annual event organized by NEA’s Student and Retired programs, offers student members the opportunity to roll up their sleeves with retirees and active educators, and also to help transform a high-needs school campus with gallons of paint, buckets of seedlings, and heaps of enthusiasm. This year, the energetic group descended on Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia, the oldest high school in its district.

Inside, under the direction of the Rachael Ray Show designer Evette Rios, teams of volunteers were transforming the faculty dining room. Make way for the Country Squire Dining Room table, please! While, retirees Sarah Borgman of Indiana and Mae Smith of Illinois “sewed” together full-length curtains with sticky tape, Kimberly Gray, a recent graduate of Illinois State University, wore the signs of her labor across her black shorts: White paint!

“Today is all about giving back to the community and making the school environment a better place to teach,” Gray said.

Down the halls, busy volunteers created cloud-covered bulletin boards. “No intimate kissing, warned the behavior board. “Wakefield in the News!” crowed another. Many were putting to use donations from The Home Depot. Inside the media center, Wyoming student president Aaron Merkin had one of the most… interesting jobs, scraping gum off the bottom of chairs. (Every little bit helps!) “I can’t imagine how the kids are going to react. They’ll be, hopefully, so surprised and excited.”

“I say it’s like Extreme Makeover: The School Edition,” said Virginia student president Sarah Danielson.

Outside, Oklahoma Retired program president Joy Dennis took a much-needed break from painting yellow curbs. “Here I am, I’m hot and I’m sweaty and I probably smell, but I’m really enjoying it,” Dennis proclaimed. “What we’re doing really makes a difference – not only to the students, but the faculty. It’s a great morale booster.”

Missouri student president Geron Tatum agreed. “It’s not just about being in a classroom, it’s about creating an environment where learning is possible, where kids don’t have to worry about ceiling tiles falling on their heads.” But, even before the students return, and the faculty get a load of their new faculty lounge – fresh terracotta paint, faux-suede chairs, and a flat-screen TV, all donated by JCPenney – there is an immediate reward for everybody involved in the event, Tatum said.

With work gloves in hands, surveying the bags and bags of mulch that he and his team were spreading, Tatum said, “It’s like the old saying, ‘Alone, you’ve got one finger. But together, you’ve got a fist that can strike a mighty blow.’ … I just love Outreach to Teach.”

--Mary Ellen Flannery

Cross-posted on nea.org in RA Action

The Child-Moms of Gloucester

The picturesque but declining fishing port of Gloucester, Massachusetts, has become the dramatic focus of a national debate over teen pregnancy, with the claim and denial that a group of high school girls, all under 16, made a pact to get pregnant and raise their children together.

There are conflicting stories: Maybe the pact only involved just two of the girls. Or maybe the girls got pregnant unintentionally, and agreed to help each other stay in school and raise their children after they found out--that's what one of the girls told Good Morning America.

But there's no dispute that at least 17 girls got pregnant this year at the 1200-student school, compared with four (well, one report says five) last year.

Just about everyone agrees this is a bad thing, except possibly some of the girls, who reportedly celebrated the news of positive pregnancy tests with high fives.

Who or what is to blame? There's no agreement on that. Was it Juno? Jamie Lynn Spears? Catholic opposition to contraceptives? The day care center that is part of the high school's efforts to keep pregnant girls from dropping out? The sinking fishing industry?

But if the goal is to have fewer teen mothers, there are some hard facts that can help point the way:

First, the teen birth rate in the United States fell from 1991 when it was 62.1 per 1,000 girls, to 2005 when it was 40.5. That's a very big drop. In 2006, the most recent year for which the statistics have been compiled, the rate jumped three percent to 41.9. But it's still a lot lower than it used to be.

It's unclear whether 2006 was a short interruption in the decline, or a reversal. But these numbers suggest we're not looking at a new crisis. The Gloucester High School rate this year comes to roughly 30 per 1,000 girls, so they're still better than average. It's just that they used to be way below.

But what do these numbers really mean? Birth rates are reported per year, but a girl has more than one year as a teenager in which she can have a baby--she has seven, to be exact. Roughly a third of girls get pregnant before they're 20, and about a sixth give birth.

The teen birth rate is dramatically higher in the US than in Western Europe--roughly twice as high as in England, and eight times as high as in the Netherlands, for example. The abortion rate also higher here than in Europe--European girls just don't get pregnant as often. That may be because Europeans promote contraception among teens much more. Another factor may be Western Europe's philosophy sometimes called "solidarity," which results in less poverty. They have higher taxes and they use some of that money to lift people off the bottom. As a result, the child poverty rate is much higher in the United States than in most of Western Europe.

The fact that teen births are so rare in Europe suggests that we could do better here.

The current federal strategy focuses on abstinence-only sex education. In 2002, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that a third of secondary schools were using this approach. But a carefully controlled study found that abstinence-only programs don't keep teens from having sex. (On the other hand, the study also disproved the theory that the moralizing tone of abstinence-only education could promote pregnancy by discouraging contraception. It turns out that abstinence-only education just doesn't have much effect on teen sexual behavior.)

What was shocking in Gloucester was not just the number but the report that girls got pregnant on purpose. That’s not as unusual as you might think—surveys suggest roughly one fifth of teenage girls may get pregnant on purpose. (But let’s hope that’s not true for girls under 16!)

Bottom line: Does the Gloucester incident, pact or no pact, reveal a sudden unraveling of the social fabric? No. Could we do a whole lot better in keeping teenage children from having children? Almost certainly, yes.

Hard Times

At the start of each school day, the students of Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore, MD, walk past a statue of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, a former student of the historic school that opened its doors in 1883.

The scene is captured in the HBO Documentary, “Hard Times at Douglass High: A No Child Left Behind Report Card,” and award-winning filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond are careful to point out the irony: Before Marshall won “Brown v. Board of Education" in 1954, Frederick Douglass was one of only two high schools African Americans were allowed to attend in Baltimore. But 50 years later, the student body at this inner city school is once again segregated, separate from but no where near equal to surrounding schools in whiter, richer neighborhoods.

Hard Times is a cinema verite documentary, a film technique that uses very little voice over, commentary, or editing, letting the camera capture the story without much molding from the filmmakers. Unfortunately, the style doesn’t allow the film to clearly explain how NCLB mandates are impossible for urban schools in poor neighborhoods like Douglass to meet, but it clearly conveys the school’s struggles.

There aren’t enough textbooks to go around, students regularly miss school, and of those who do show up, many refuse to go to class, preferring to make trouble in the hallways instead. Only a handful of parents attend Back to School Night, even fewer go to the school’s holiday performance, and nearly 70 percent of the teachers – of which there is a shortage – are uncertified. Some of the best teachers leave in frustration, like a gifted young English teacher who quit halfway through the year, leaving three classes of confused students to be taught by a “permanent substitute.”

It’s a powerful portrait that shines a glaring spotlight on the problems underfunded urban schools face, but the title would have been more accurate if the filmmakers left off the last half. It captures the hard times in vivid detail, but doesn’t report the failures of No Child Left Behind.

Science won't vouch for vouchers

Science can be annoying!

Sometimes it gives you an answer that contradicts your beliefs.

When the Department of Education commissioned a study of the Washington, DC, voucher program, a high priority for the Bush Administration, the feds probably weren't hoping for proof that vouchers don't improve student achievement. But that's what they got.

The results, released last week, show students attending private schools (mostly religious) didn't do better than students who stayed in the public schools.

(Despite those results, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings called vouchers a “lifeline” and said "no one in a position of responsibility can sever this lifeline right now and leave these kids adrift in schools that are not measuring up." But if D.C. public schools are "not measuring up," neither are the private schools when it comes to educating these students. That's what it means to say there's no significant difference between the two groups.)

Voucher advocates have pointed out that some subgroups of the D.C. voucher students showed small, not statistically reliable improvements, which they say is better than nothing. But this comparison test should have been easy for vouchers to pass.

Here’s why: All of the students in the study had applied for vouchers. They either got or didn't get vouchers (up to $7,500 a year) according to a lottery. So the two groups were very comparable, except for one big difference: One group got an educational experience they believed would boost their achievement, while the other group did not. There is extensive research on what happens when people expect scores to rise—they generally do, even if the expectations are based on bogus information.

So when the voucher students got up to $7,500 to take part in a program they expected would work, that should have helped them do better, even if in fact the private schools were no better than the public schools they left.

But that didn't happen.

And the same results have come out of earlier studies in D.C., in Milwaukee, and other places. Of course, test scores are not the only measure of academic achievement, but so far there's no research showing any other benefit.

So if we’re looking for "scientifically-based" strategies for improving learning, vouchers don't make the grade.

Congress is considering extending the D.C. voucher program beyond its scheduled September expiration. You can send your Representative and Senators a message through the NEA web site's Legislative Action Center, asking him or her not to extend vouchers in D.C., and instead use the money to improve public schools for all children.

--Alain Jehlen

School’s Out for Friday?

An influential Vermont state senator wants to turn the lights out on Friday schooling, in an effort to save energy costs. Sen. Vince Illuzzi proposed that all public employees, including educators, work four days a week to save on energy costs. Making up the fifth day would most likely mean longer days Monday through Friday.

The executive director of Vermont-NEA believes the proposal is “quite interesting” and said that Vermont educators certainly want to help with energy costs. But there are several obstacles, says Joel Cook. For starters, state law currently prohibits the school year being more than 175 days and the four-day schedule would require that law being changed first.

“Every so often, a legislator has suggested moving to a four-day student week, and just about every legislator wants to help the state address our energy costs,” says Cook. “We're pleased to see Sen. Illuzzi step forward with a concrete idea, and of course would be willing to work with others to take a closer look at it.”

Vermont wouldn’t be the first state to make such a switch. Idaho has several school districts operate on four-day weeks. When they made the switch a number of years ago, the goal was to save money on energy costs and on transportation. The transition came at a time when state revenues had fallen behind projected budgets and the governor ordered many state agencies to cut back on spending.

What do you think? Would you rather work longer days four days a week, or stick to a traditional schedule?

Young Latino Scholar Stays Grounded

Roberto Zamora says he felt pretty good about his math and physics background once he arrived in Boston to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

“I expected MIT students to be much more advanced than I was because many of them went to private high schools and had taken courses I had never even heard of,” Zamora says. “I soon learned that the strong foundation I had developed in high school enabled me to hold my own against any problems the professors would throw at me.”

But then there were those other science courses.

“I do have to admit that I felt unprepared for some classes such as biology and chemistry,” he says.

After catching up, Zamora graduated from MIT in 2007. At age 23, he is now a graduate student in the physics department at the University of Chicago.

He is an unassuming young man who attributes his academic success to simply doing his studies and staying out of trouble. But to appreciate his plight, you must consider that Zamora graduated from Porter High School (’03) of the Brownsville Independent School District (BISD) in Texas. About 98 percent of the district’s 48,400 students are Hispanic, mostly of Mexican descent.

The dropout rate for Latinos is currently just under 50 percent. And only about 11 percent of Latinos have a bachelor’s degree or more. Beyond that, according to a 2006 Census Bureau report, Brownsville is the poorest city of its size in the U.S.

For teachers in this town along the U.S.-Mexico border, this means that 95 percent of their students are categorized as “economically disadvantaged.”

I imagine that it is students like Zamora who inspire teachers to do their best work. And it is teachers like those at Porter who inspire students like Zamora to excel.

“I think Porter did an excellent job of preparing me with real-world skill sets that cannot always be found buried in textbooks,” he says.

For example, Zamora was a part of the Technology Student Association (TSA) where he and two friends competed in an event known as Systems Control Technology. In this competition, teams were given an industrial type problem and asked to come up with robotic solutions in a three-hour time span.

“In this event I learned how to work under pressure, communicate on a team, give a presentation, and use my creative skills to come up with solutions. I can honestly say that I used each and every one of these skills quite often in college, especially in my aerospace engineering courses,” Zamora says. “These abilities are usually what determined the difference between an A and B, or whether my team's engine prototype was picked as the winning design.”

Socially, it was challenging for Zamora to adjust to being so far from home.

“The northeast has such different weather and culture there is no way you can move there from Brownsville and not feel some sort of initial shock,” he says.

Going from high school to college will bring all sorts of shocks. Fortunately, students like Roberto Zamora will persevere and make their teachers proud.

A Come-Back for Common Sense?

When she was Assistant Secretary of Education from 2001 to 2003, Susan Neuman helped implement No Child Left Behind, which embodies the belief that well-run schools can wipe out the problems caused by poverty.

Now a professor at the University of Michigan School of Education, she's endorsed a very different approach to shrinking achievement gaps. Neuman was the most surprising signer of a statement from 63 education leaders affirming that no, schools can't work miracles.

"There is no evidence that school improvement strategies by themselves can close [achievement] gaps in a substantial, consistent, and sustainable manner," the statement says.

Or, as Neuman put it more succinctly in an interview yesterday, "A school can not trump poverty."

But the point of the new statement is not just to say what can't be done. It's to propose a different angle of attack.

"There is solid evidence that policies aimed directly at education-related social and economic disadvantages can improve... student achievement," the statement affirms.

It sets out four "pillars" for a "Broader, Bolder Approach to Education." The first is to keep working to make schools better through research-proven strategies like smaller classes for disadvantaged students.

The other three pillars all involve efforts outside k-12 education:

• Invest in high-quality pre-school.
• Invest in healthcare for kids.
• Pay attention to the time students spend out of school.

"By and large, low-income students learn as rapidly as more-privileged peers during the hours spent in school," says the group, citing an amazing research finding which is almost universally ignored.

Helen Ladd, one of three co-chairs of the group, told Education Week, “Our notion is that schools can’t do it alone... That has been missed in the education debate.”

The original signers come from all over the political spectrum. Neuman is not the only former Bush Administration leader in the group.

Neuman says that even when she was at the Department of Education, her speeches focused on poverty and bringing community resources to bear on reducing its effects.

"There's been a failure of us as a society to recognize how important the effects of poverty on a child are," she said. "This is something that stays with a child every moment. We need a national conversation on how to create a 360-degree surround for these children."

Does the broad support for this statement signal a return to common sense? The bloggers are buzzing. Here's one example. Here's another. (I picked two that I agree with. Google "Broader, bolder" to find more.)

In the spirit of the Web, Neuman and her co-signers are inviting other people to join them in signing the statement.

You'll be in good company!

--Alain Jehlen

June 12 is World Day Against Child Labor

According to the International Labor Organization, there are approximately 218 million child laborers - between the ages 5 and 14 - worldwide. The exhausting and grueling work these children are involved in expose them to lasting psychological and physical danger. Morocco has one of the highest child labor rates in the Middle East and North Africa and is concentrated in the country’s agricultural sector, as well as the carpet, garment, and leather tanning industries.

Key to the prevention of child labor in Morocco and around the world is the alleviation of poverty and illiteracy. The absence of educational opportunities for poorer families, however, makes it difficult, if not impossible, to break the cycle.

To theme of World Day Against Child Labor 2008 is improving access to education - not only a basic human right but a critical building block in the fight against child labor.

A remarkable dropout prevention program initiated by the Syndicat Nationale de l’Enseignement (SNE), the leading teachers union in Morocco, is helping to address the child labor problem and is the focus of a new short documentary video produced by Education International (EI).

Initiated in 2005, the program takes a multifaceted approach to tackling the dropout problem. As seen in EI's video, the results in the five targeted schools in Fez have been startling. Each school has seen significant reductions in the number of dropouts. Schools are cleaner, students are enthusiastic about learning, parents are more committed to their children's education, and teachers are benefiting from new professional development opportunities.

Abdelaziz Mountassir, SNE vice-president, says combating child labor is an important and natural role for teachers unions.

"As educators we fight child labor because it’s our duty to defend the rights of children to learn.”

You can watch the video here.