Don't Go Away Mad, Just Go Away

An article in the latest issue of The Washington Monthly by Greg Anrig of the Century Foundation argues that the school vouchers movement is essentially kaput. Anrig tracks the slow but steady decline of what was once a potent political force after a series of stinging (and extremely expensive) defeats, most notably in Utah this past November. Conservatives can grumble all they want, but, as Anrig points out, vouchers are withering under the glare of too much empirical evidence that they just don’t work. Low-income students are not benefiting, student achievement is not improving and public schools have not been reenergized by competition.

Ok, so the news is encouraging, but voucher proponents have deep pockets and are nothing if not resilient. Florida’s voucher program – struck down by the state Supreme Court in 2006 – is being resuscitated and is likely to appear before the voters as a constitutional amendment this November. And President Bush continues to push vouchers at the federal level.

For recent news about the campaign against school vouchers and how you can take action, visit Issues in Education and the Legislative Action Center at NEA.org.

Love List

Pity the poor principal. She's got a really tough job. There are so many vital parts to it, so many things to keep track of. Like--the list of high school couples. Requires constant updating!

You don't think it's essential to keep track of the romantic lives of your students? That apparently puts you at odds with the Memphis, Tennessee, school board and Principal Daphne Beasley of Hollis F. Price Middle College High School, which operates in collaboration with LeMoyne Owen College to let students earn a high school diploma plus two years of college credit.

According to the Memphis administration, Principal Beasley got complaints from the college that students were engaging in "explicit sexual behavior in public view" on campus. She warned her charges that this sort of thing was forbidden, but the complaints continued. So, ever resourceful, she asked her faculty to send her the names of all student couples, and started calling their parents, asking them to back up her admonitions.

The list included two boys named Nicholas and Andrew. "Principal Beasley called my mother and outed me to my mother!" said Nicholas in an interview with a local TV station.

She also posted the list on her office wall, where apparently students and staff could see it. Nicholas said he and Andrew have had to endure verbal abuse since the list went up.

As if the beleaguered principal's To Do list wasn't long enough, now she may have to make time to respond to a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union, which claims she invaded the students' privacy.

But so far, she's enjoying solid support from her superiors in the school administration.

Summer reading

It's not quite summer yet, but you can keep it on the shelf for a few more weeks...
I've got a copy of Relentless Pursuit, a Year in the Trenches with Teach for America, by Donna Foote -- and I'd be happy to send it to whoever wants it. (Or whomever??) It's fabulous. I know there are a lot of these in-the-trenches books, but this is better than most.

Donna Foote is a former Newsweek reporter who spend a year in a poor South Los Angeles high school, spending lots of time in the classrooms of four new TFA teachers. As you can imagine, this is not an easy assignment for them.

My favorite line: "He did it. Dante urinated in a water bucket right in the middle of Miss Snyder's class."

You have to admire these young teachers. They have a great sense of mission, if not much self-preservation... But you also have to wonder about a system that takes chronically under-prepared educators and ships them to the most challenging schools in the country to serve our neediest students, hoping that their enthusiasm and intelligence will be enough to carry the day.

As you'll see, sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't.

Reading Last?

Students enrolled in Reading First, a key component of President Bush’s so-called No Child Left Behind law, read no better than students who aren’t in the program, according to a new Department of Education study.

“There was no statistically significant impact on reading comprehension scores in grades one, two, or three,” Grover J. Russ Whitehurst, director of the Institute of Education Sciences at the Depart of Education, said in a press briefing.

This comes as no surprise to educators:

“As an experienced teacher of third grade, I am deeply saddened by the Reading First Program. I have been teaching for more than 25 years and I have never seen so many students hurt by something that is supposed to be helpful,” writes one educator. “Many of our best teachers are seeking employment in non-Reading First Schools. The reason …is that the focus is on fluency and not comprehension. As a result, we have students who quickly read a passage, but cannot comprehend a word that they have read. I have [also] seen language skills, math, science, social studies, and all other aspects of education neglected because of the pressure of Reading First.”

Others are frustrated by the constantly changing curriculum procedures, and mountains of documentation requirements:

“I am a veteran teacher and this is my first year in a Reading First school....The workload is outrageous! I never seem to be caught up because we make changes constantly. Everyone is on pins and needles waiting for a state visit. There is no room for flexibility. I plan to leave at the end of the school year,” says one frustrated educator.

President Bush and Education Secretary Spellings have lauded Reading First as an effective program rooted in science and research, but controversy surrounded it from the start. Federal investigators found that some overseeing the $6 billion program had financial ties to the publishers of Reading First materials.

“The Bush Administration has put cronyism first and the reading skills of our children last and this report shows the disturbing consequences,” said Sen. Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Senate education committee. “Instead of awarding scarce education dollars to reading programs that make a difference for our children, the Administration chose to reward its friends instead.”

Are you in a Reading First school? Share your experiences on our discussion board.

Education Foundation Raising Funds for Tornado Victims

We mentioned earlier this week that several tornados ripped through southeast Virginia, causing an estimated $21 million in damages to local communities. At least two schools sustained damages, and scores of teachers, students and families were forced out of their destroyed homes.

The Suffolk Education Foundation is now accepting donations for students & staff whose families fell victim to the tornados. Monetary contributions -- payable to the Suffolk Education Foundation and designated Tornado Relief -- can be mailed to the Foundation at P.O. Box 394, Suffolk VA.

Elementary School Survives Virginia Tornado

By now you’ve probably read news reports about — and seen photos of — the barrage of tornados that ripped through southeast Virginia last Monday, injuring 200 people, flattening 145 homes, and causing an estimated $21 million in damages. But you might not have heard about Elephant's Fork Elementary School in Suffolk, Virginia. Sitting just an hour outside of Virginia Beach and less than 20 miles north of the North Carolina border, the school was struck by one of the tornados late in the afternoon, after school had let out and most of the children had gone home (thankfully).

But Virginia Education Association member Sidney Neighbours, the Assistant Principal at Elephant’s Fork, was still in the school building, along with a handful of other staff members and roughly 45 students who were participating in after-school programs, when the tornado struck. Mr. Neighbours describes the harrowing moments during which the storm shattered windows and shook the building, while teachers and students scrambled for refuge in the gymnasium:

I heard my principal scream and I ran out of the office to the gym -- just moments before the glass blew out in the window right behind my desk. If I’d been sitting there, this e-mail would be very different. I ended up running into the gym and crouching on the floor, holding a student who was in the hallway (she was returning to class from the restroom, I grabbed her as I was running into the gym). It was all over in just a few seconds, which seemed like hours… I didn't even have to get a band-aid out of the nurse’s office... It is nothing short of a miracle. We have 3 mobile units blown off the foundations, and every car in the parking lot sustained damage, including one that was flipped over and thrown about 3 car lengths away from where it was parked… but there's no way we could replace any of the precious lives in that building -- so "stuff" doesn't matter. Thank God, no one was injured...

Below is a picture of the same tornado (taken by Marsha Mears on April 28, 2008) as it touched down near Elephant’s Fork Elementary School.

Amazingly the twister battered Elephant’s Fork Elementary (and nearby Driver Elementary) but caused only minor damages: a few downed trees and smashed windows. Suffolk Public schools were closed the day after the tornados, but Elephant’s Fork reopened to staff at noon the following day… and Mr. Neighbours was there to greet them.

Several relief organizations in southeast Virginia are accepting donations. NEA has resources that may help teachers address the fears and anxieties of students who may be troubled by media coverage of natural disasters like the tornados that struck southeast Virginia.

Why Our Nation Is "At Risk"

A quarter of a century ago this month, America was informed that our economy was "at risk" because of "a rising tide of mediocrity" in our schools.

"If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre performance that exists today, we might well have considered it an act of war," said the famous report, commissioned by the Reagan administration.

At the time, the United States was much less exam-oriented than other countries. We had state tests, but they didn't dominate the school experience. An excellent education, we knew, can't be reduced to a standardized test score.

And we proved it. Since the report, those supposedly "mediocre" American students have led the creative burst of innovation that gave us the computer revolution and continues to transform the world.

Our kids do have the right stuff.

But somehow, America's educators get no credit, at least not at home. Instead of building on our strengths to solve our problems, we've adopted the foreign focus on tests, amplified it, and made it our own.

Is that going to cost us our edge? Will the next fantastic technical upheaval erupt from somewhere else?

You know, if an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the stifling test-score obsession that exists today, we might well have considered it an act of war.

--Alain Jehlen

El Día de los Niños

On April 30, in conjunction with El Día de los Niños (Children’s Day), teachers across the country will organize classroom activities that reflect cultural diversity through storytelling, and highlight writing and language skills. Libraries, museums, parents’ groups and other community organizations will sponsor similar events that will also feature wood carving, pottery-making and poster design.

Though many of us will not be able to attend these events, the National Education Association's Minority Community Outreach in partnership with the National Latino Children’s Institute will post online photos of activities celebrating El Día de los Niños.

In case you're wondering about the Spanish name, it was inspired by Mexico's Día del Niño (Day of the Child), which began there in 1925 after the first World Conference for the Well-being of Children. In 1996, Texas native Pat Mora, a poet and author of children’s books, began working with Latino faculty at the University of Arizona to develop a similar celebration in the U.S.

Mora and others wanted to promote literacy and multi-cultural learning. The annual event is also referred to as El Día de los Niños/El Día de los Libros (Children’s Day/Book Day) and is celebrated throughout Latin America and other parts of the world.

Since 1998, the U.S. Senate has passed resolutions marking April 30 as El Día de los Niños.

Take Our Kids Out of School Day?

Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day is a day better spent in the classroom. So say many NEA member-educators. I’ve heard from some of them. “Though the concept is positive,” concedes Carolyn Melius of Indian Head, MD, she, like other members are concerned about the counterproductive effect on many students who can ill afford to miss a day of school. “Why couldn't this be held during school breaks?” Melius asks.

The event’s organizers see the day as an opportunity for parents, businesses, and the community to support educators in the difficult work of teaching kids. Carolyn McKecuen, president of the Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Foundation, told me that ideally, students are taught lessons about the workplace on Wednesday, experience the workplace on Thursday, and come back to class on Friday to share the experience with their classmates. “If this was done in the summer, you’d be teaching one child, not bringing that knowledge back to the classroom,” said McKecuen, herself a former teacher.

Research the foundation commissioned six years ago suggests that what was then Take Our Daughters to Work Day “increased girls' interest in education, influenced their decision to go to college or professional school, and broadened girls' thinking about their goals and aspirations with reference to work opportunities.”

But do girls and boys have to miss a day of classes to reap these benefits? I must say—and not just because I work for them—that our members have a point. Why not have kids go to work with their parents in the summer when it won’t disrupt school? While we by no means support all the high- stakes testing done as a result of the No Child Left Behind law, testing remains a reality. Kids have their own work to do. And at this time of year, a lost day of class work can impact students’ preparedness and confidence.

I’ve no doubt educators appreciate the efforts to support their work. Can we find ways to do it that don’t shorten learning time in class?

Happy Earth Day!

Well, I sent my 3-year-old off to school today with her first Earth Day project: A collage of "What Cows Give Us." (And boy, do they give us a lot of our favorite things... cheese, ice cream, whipped cream...)

Many of you have similar, probably much more sophisticated activities planned for the day. For example, a Michigan middle school just sent me news of their new solar panels, installed today as part of the district's switch to sustainable energy. Others are cleaning creeks, planting trees, and... wait a second! Talk about planting trees... One Florida school district is planning to plant 10,450 trees between 11 and noon!

Some of you also may be tracking news of the $100 million "No Child Left Inside Act", which has taken federal legislators on a field trip to a national wildlife visitors center in Maryland today. That legislation would aim to strengthen environmental education through teacher training, program grants, and state-adopted environmental science standards -- and it has the support of NEA. For more information, go here.

Of course environmental education isn't just a one-day affair. Or shouldn't be, anyway. The NEA also is partnering with polar explorer Will Steger to bring global warming to classrooms. (Not literally!) For more information, including lesson plans and video from Steger's ongoing Arctic expedition, go here.

And a few more tidbits that I've collected...

This site has grants for environmental education. Free money!

And this site is looking for nominations for outstanding environmental educators.