A Mouse Click Away

There’s no denying today’s students are into the social networking scene, staking out their place on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and other popular websites to share photos, post blogs, and otherwise communicate with friends and family. Their web of contacts is, well, on the Web.

But what about students’ teachers? If you’re a teacher, should you accept friend requests from students—or send requests yourself? Connecting with your class in the digital world could engage them in a way that has academic benefits but that could also stir up questions of propriety.

Barbara Williams, a social studies teacher in Sierra Vista, Arizona, and Dr. Sheri Bauman, a school counseling professor at the University of Arizona, offer these suggestions for teacher/student cyber-interaction in an interview with the Arizona Daily Star:

• Consider maintaining separate professional and personal sites, with strict limits on personal information available to students.
• Tell parents at the beginning of the school year that you might text message students or communicate with them through the Internet, so they aren’t surprised. Make sure they have an opt-out opportunity if it makes them uncomfortable.
• Have a collective discussion as a faculty to consider the implications and settle on best practices.
• Check personal sites regularly if the public has access to them. Even if you don’t post inappropriate material, that doesn’t mean your friends won’t.

For more, visit The Whole World (Wide Web) is Watching from NEA Today magazine.

By Tyler Miller, NEA Today intern

Ivy League Endowments Hurting, Too

Endowments at colleges and universities across the country have taken a beating since the economic recession began in December 2007, but as it turns out, the hefty investment portfolios at Ivy League schools have been especially hard hit.

Harvard, Yale, and Princeton universities have said they’re anticipating endowment declines of 25 to 35 percent for the fiscal year ending today, according to an article in this morning’s Wall Street Journal. So too are non-Ivy Leaguers Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Prior to the recession, the five schools’ endowments ranged from $10 billion to $37 billion.

“The largest college endowments, long the envy of their smaller rivals for their sophisticated and profitable investment strategies, were left behind over the past year by the performance of smaller schools with far simpler approaches,” writes WSJ reporter Craig Karmin.

That performance allowed smaller college and university foundations and endowments—those with less than $100 million in the coffers—to limit their losses to 16% in 2008-09.

Still, whether a 16% drop or a 35% plunge, institutions of higher education everywhere will be grappling with tough choices come the fall, as leaner endowments mean less funding for scholarships, graduate assistantships, technology and equipment, research projects, and other important expenditures.

By Tyler Miller, NEA Today intern

Peer Review: A lifeline or a death sentence?

Have you ever known a teacher that had so much potential but was unable to succeed because he or she lacked confidence or had a classroom full of disinterested students?

Well, there’s a solution out there for those educators trying to find the right balance—peer review.

In a peer review program, teachers with poor job evaluations are paired with mentors who are chosen by the school district and are qualified to show other teachers how to improve.

If the teacher doesn’t improve after one year, he or she goes “on trial” before a 16-person panel of teachers and principals that determines whether the teacher should be fired or go through a second year of peer review. No teacher gets more than two years.

The program can be a lifeline for drowning teachers, and it allows districts to deal fairly with them.

According to a Washington Post article, Montgomery County, Md., is the only district in the D.C. region to embrace peer review, even though more than 80 school systems in America have programs in place.

There seems to be a fairly high success rate in the Montgomery County program, which was instigated 10 years ago. During the 2008-2009 academic year, there were 66 Montgomery County teachers in peer review. Of those, 31 are leaving their schools, five will be monitored for a second year, and the remaining 30 will successfully exit the program, the Post article said. The whole county, made up of 11,500 teachers, is losing just 31 this year because of peer review.

Dal Lawrence came up with the idea of teachers reviewing their colleagues 28 years ago, when he was president of the Toledo Federation of Teachers. Since then, almost 500 teachers have been ousted from Toledo schools as a result of peer review. But in the five years before the program was created, no teachers had been fired due to poor performance, Lawrence told the Post.

The NEA has encouraged peer review since the mid-1990s, and the AFT began supporting it in 1984. Proponents argue that peer review helps save the jobs of teachers who simply need a push in the right direction. Opponents, however, argue that it puts some teachers in an awkward position and can pit teachers against one another.

So is it a good idea?

The right answer is in the eye of the beholder, but what’s clear is that peer review helps maintain or improve teacher quality in public schools. And that’s a huge part of providing a great public school education to every child in America.

By Emilie Openchowski, NEA Today intern

Home Alone

“I wish my dad was around more,” says Tori, 15, from Clarkston, Washington.

It’s the rare occasion that Tori gets to spend time with her stepfather, Robert Hangen, who works as a teacher’s assistant days, and as a bowling alley manager and D.J. nights and weekends.

By the time Tori gets home from school, Hangen has already gone to start his shift at the bowling alley.

Across the country, education support professionals like Hangen are forced to cobble together two, three, sometimes four or more jobs to eke out a living for their families. It’s a tough life, but sometimes even tougher for their kids.

“I wish we could just have a family dinner…but my dad’s never home for dinner,” Tori says. “Almost every family gets to have a family dinner.”

Since graduating from college, Hangen has wanted to work with children in education. “I want to make a difference,” he says. “I want to make sure I pass on my knowledge. If that means I have to work other jobs to do it, I will.”

As a mathematics instructional assistant with the Clarkston School District, Hangen brings home just $1000 a month – not enough to put food on the table and make the monthly mortgage payment, or have the “luxury” of spending free time with his daughter.

See more of the Hangen’s story in a video produced by the Washington Education Association, and learn more about WEA's living wage campaigns. We also want to hear your story. Do you work multiple jobs to make ends meet?

Supreme Court: School Violated Girl's Rights With Strip Search

An Arizona school violated the rights of a 13-year-old student when it strip searched her in 2003 while looking for ibuprofen, according to a decision handed down today by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In May, NEA Today brought you the story of Savana Redding, who was ordered to disrobe by the assistant principal of her Safford, Ariz. school after he received an apparently false tip that she had brought ibuprofen to school. Redding, an honor student with a spotless disciplinary record, sued, saying she had been humiliated and traumatized by the event.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had sided with Redding, saying the search was excessive and unreasonable, particularly since the possession of ibuprofen did not pose an imminent danger to other students.

The Supreme Court agreed, ruling 8-1 that the extreme search was a violation of Redding's privacy. NEA had filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on Redding's behalf, arguing that such searches are psychologically traumatic.

To read the actual decision, click here.

Share your plan to recruit more teachers

There was an interesting article in the Tulsa World today that discussed how Oklahoma could lose up to half its teachers in the coming decade. The baby boomers are retiring, and new teachers aren't filling the ranks quickly enough. This problem is occurring in nearly every state in the country.

Policymakers have engaged in vigorous debates on how to steer more college graduates into teaching. Is the primary issue compensation, as the Tulsa World article suggests, or are there other issues at work? If you could design a set of "dream policies" that would stimulate teacher recruitment, what would they be?

Arizona Legislators Are Feeling the Heat

Though the sky is bright and clear over the capitol dome in Phoenix, legislators contemplating cuts to the education budget are feeling nothing but heat from members of the Arizona Education Association (AEA).

Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this month, about 30-50 AEA members, parents, students and school board members on each of these days have arranged to meet with state legislators to lobby against the impending cuts to public schools. Hundreds of supporters from locals across the state have participated in the March4 Schools Heat Wave at the Capitol.

The day starts with an 11 a.m. briefing from AEA lobbyist Jennifer Loredo at the Department of Economic Security cafeteria. Like clockwork, individual meetings or small-group lunches with legislators are followed by the full group of “heat wavers” convening in the Senate gallery and then the House gallery to be acknowledged by record keepers and to demonstrate a presence. After a debriefing by AEA leaders, the group disperses by 2 p.m.

“Different locals are assigned to each day, so the turnout has been consistently high,” says Sheenae Shannon, AEA Director of Internal Communications. “This session is important due to the massive cuts in public education.”

The Arizona legislature has cut more than $350 million from public education for the current school year budget and now faces a $4 billion dollar deficit for next year. Some of the state’s 90 legislators are introducing bills that attack teachers, education support professionals and schools.

Even though schools are closed and families are planning vacations and other summer activities, the campaign is going strong. One reason for the campaign’s success in June is that it really started about five months ago.

That’s when approximately 10,000 teachers, parents, school employees, and other community members of the March4Schools Coalition marched to the statehouse on March 4 to protest cuts to the education budget and other public services. This event was followed by “Shadow Days” in April and May when educators and others would “shadow” legislators and policymakers at their offices when they were considering how to vote on budget cuts.

As the new fiscal year approaches (it begins July 1), AEA plans to continue applying pressure to legislators and government agency officials. See the Arizona Budget Coalition site for a list of options and proposals to the ill-conceived budget cuts.

To charter or not to charter?

Parents used to have just two choices about their child’s education: public or private. Now, though, those parents who choose public often also decide between mainstream neighborhood schools and charter schools.

But at PS123, which shares a building with a charter called Harlem Success Academy II, some parents have little choice at all.

Next year, enrollment at the Success Academy will double to accommodate a burgeoning wait list of students and Chancellor Joel Klein’s desire to increase charter school enrollment city-wide. The problem is, the schools’ facility won’t be growing along with enrollment, so something's got to give.

Unfortunately, that something is half the current fifth graders at PS123, who will be reassigned to other schools farther away. Now their parents are wondering: Are charter schools really any better than regular public schools?

"Ours is not a failing school,” Antoinette Hargrove, president of PS123’s parents association, told the New York Daily News. "Our test scores are going up. If ain't broke, don't fix it."

Clearly space is an issue—it’s New York City, after all. And while charter and regular public schools rarely share buildings, according to Senior Policy Analyst for NEA Bob Tate, it could definitely be happening more often.

“One of the obstacles many charter schools face is finding a location for their school,” he says.

But the real issue isn’t space; it’s how the charter schools operate and how well they educate their students.

Charter schools are a relatively recent addition in the field of education, the first one emerging in the early ‘90s in Minnesota. But they have become increasingly popular across America. According to http://www.uscharterschools.org/, about 1.4 million children are now enrolled in more than 4,500 charter schools in 40 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Charters present themselves as innovative schools where educators have the freedom to teach however they please. They are “public schools of choice,” where students and teachers choose to be there (as opposed to regular public schools, where students are assigned to schools by district lines).

But Tate believes charter schools might not be all that different from public schools. “In some cases, there are advantages,” he said. “But there is no such thing as a ‘typical’ charter school,” because each one operates from its own approved charter. Some use more traditional structures and approaches, in testing and grading schedules and teaching styles, for example. But others allow for more autonomy and less or different structures, which can benefit students having trouble learning in their neighborhood school.

Tate says that some people don’t like charter schools because they’re perceived as diverting funds from public schools in the area. But he also said they can be seen as a welcome choice in some neighborhoods.

“Parental satisfaction in charter schools is generally high,” he says, adding that some low-income families are eager to try charter schools as an alternative if they are not pleased with what they see happening for their child in the regular neighborhood public school, or if they think they may be able to do better.

But the main concern many people share about charters is how to decide what their role and scope should be in a community. If a regular public school is not meeting standards, maybe charters are a good thing. But if they are overrunning schools that don’t seem to be having problems, like the Success Academy is doing to PS123, what’s the solution?

“We [at NEA] believe there is a role for charter schools, especially in testing innovations that can possibly be expanded,” Tate said. “But [these schools] need to be accounted for and regulated.”

There’s no easy way to bridge the divide, and until we find one, the debate will go on.

By Emilie Openchowski, NEA Today intern

Children Uniting Nations unites us with Generation Next

I have had a great public education, from first grade through my senior year of high school, and even now into my third year at what is recognized as one of the best public universities in the country. But it was only after attending the fourth annual Children Uniting Nations conference in Washington, D.C. that I fully realized how lucky I am.

I was not a foster child, and I was never overweight. My parents saved up a lot of money to pay for my education so I am not in debt. I’m not addicted to drugs or alcohol, and no one in my family has a substance abuse problem. I have never experienced any emotional trauma that would prevent me from getting a great education.

Apparently, a lot of children these days suffer from at least one of these afflictions—especially those in foster care—and the point of the conference was to bring attention to the plight of these kids. All day, I heard people lament the past several years of government inaction and urgently call for change.

“With a new administration brings new opportunities to highlight the vitally important issues facing the world’s children,” Chairperson of CUN Daphna Zimon wrote in a letter to all conference participants. “Our aim is to bring all sides together in a forum free of partisan divide, and today, I truly believe we have accomplished that goal.”

The day began with a star-studded press briefing in the Capitol Building with the likes of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senator Debbie Stabenow from Michigan, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and actress Gabrielle Union all making short-but-sweet speeches. Over and over, the rhetoric was the same: We must act now because our children need our help and support.

As the day progressed, the outlook for children and students seemed more and more bleak. Panelists discussed students’ debt problems, health problems—obesity and drug addiction—and psychological problems (did you know there are some foster children in preschool who have shown effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?), and the economic decline’s effect on the future of our children.

At the end of the day, there was such a sense of impending doom, I would be surprised if anyone left the event without feeling a desire to get the government moving to improve any and everything related to education. Probably the point of the conference, right? To inspire all of us who attended to act.

How, you might ask? Asking your representative to support new legislation, like the Foster Care Mentoring Act drafted by Congressman Joe Crowley of New York, which works to connect foster care children with mentors, is a great way to get involved. Take this a step further, and you could sign up to be a mentor to help change a foster child’s life.

Just because I am lucky doesn’t mean I should ignore the unlucky ones. If I had not attended this conference, my eyes never would have been opened to the troubles of many of the children in our country. Just because we live in the land of the free doesn’t mean we are free to look the other way, not when the future of our country and the world is at stake.

Nearly two years ago, at a Democratic primary debate at Howard University, then-Senator Hillary Clinton said, “I really believe that it takes a village to raise a child…and the American village has failed our children.”

She was right. We have failed, and are failing, our children. It’s time for the government to dig its head out of the sand and to pass legislation that provides an excellent public school education for every child in America, regardless of family or financial background. It’s time for every American to show support for Generation Next. It’s time to stop postponing their future.

By Emilie Openchowski, NEA Today intern

Ms. Short Goes to Washington

In a packed hearing room on Capitol Hill Tuesday morning, tech-savvy members of Congress asked themselves: What exactly does an innovative 21st century classroom look like?

Probably an awful lot like Lisa Short's.

Short, an MSTA-NEA member and science teacher at Gaithersburg Middle School in Maryland, testified before the U.S. House of Representative's Education and Labor Committee in the first of a series of hearings about "The Future of Learning: How Technology is Transforming Public Schools." Their point? Find out how technology-based education tools can best be used in U.S. classrooms.

"Today's students use technology in everything they do," noted U.S. Rep. George Miller, the chairman of the committee. (Think of it: Texting, instant messaging, Facebooking, listening to iPods...the life of a teen!) But most schools ask kids to put all that stuff away. "School today, for far too many kids, does not look like the rest of their world, and does not capitalize on technology's potential to engage students and improve learning."

On Tuesday, the expert witness testimony -- which included Short's engaging demonstration of an interactive classroom white board -- pointed the members of Congress to a few new exciting developments in ed tech. They heard about students equipped by school districts, like Bryan, Texas, with their very own laptops. Or teachers, in states such as Delaware, who can log into their home PCs and watch high-quality professional development videos. At the same time, the committee members also learned more about the development of adaptive, online assessments for students.

But it was Short who commanded the stage, like only a teacher can. Since getting the interactive white board, her classroom has been transformed, she told committee members. "I've only had this kind of technology for one year, but I can't imagine teaching without it," she said.


The board allows Short to combine visual and auditory lessons -- like flashy 2-minute videos projected onto a large screen -- with tactile and kinesthetic engagement, accommodating all the different learning styles in her classroom. For example, after showing a short film about tectonic shift, Short might invite her students to approach the board and actually push land masses around the screen with their hands. Her students are so eager to answer questions now, Short had to develop a random number generator to give everybody a fair shot.

In a twist of roles, Short distributed wireless, hand-held "Activotes" to the members and gave them a quick multiple-choice quiz: What percentage of American classrooms have the kind of technology she just showed them? Lucky for them, every committee member answered right: Just 16 percent.

But the key to student improvement isn't just more, fancier stuff. To make technology work for students, many of the committee members recognized that teachers also need high-quality professional development. With $650 million in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act allocated for educational technology, some of that money should go to teacher training, suggested U.S. Rep. Rush Holt.

Although Short sat alongside Aneesh Chopra, chief technology officer for The White House, and other education heavyweights, lawmakers clearly deferred to her classroom expertise. "Let me turn to Ms. Short -- and others, if there's time," Holt began one question. And it was a good thing they were listening to her. Consider the Texas technology officer sitting two seats down who suggested to the committee that reluctant teachers could be made to use technology if their administrators were convinced it's a good idea, "because teachers do what their administrators tell them to do." (Hint: Teachers are a lot more eager to do what's best for their students.)

Said Rep. Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawai'i, to Short: "Sitting here, I thought, 'I would have liked to be in your class!'"

Take a look at Short's full testimony here: