E-rate Tips for School Boards
E-rate allows rural and low-income school districts and libraries to purchase Internet access and other telecommunications services at discounted rates. However, to truly get all the benefits from the program, you need a long-term strategy. Use your district’s technology plan as the basis for your E-rate funding requests.
November 2009
Curriculum Mistakes to Avoid
I’ve always loved twice-baked potatoes, especially when they’re covered with cheese. But I hate twice-made policy mistakes. When a board establishes flawed policies, children end up being taught less well than they should. What’s distinctive about these six policy mistakes is that history emphatically proves all of them are misguided.
November 2009
Growing Your Own Teachers
Finding qualified teachers was an uphill battle for many years in Belen, N.M., which is considered a high-need district by the state. But five years ago, a solution appeared in the form of a Transition to Teaching grant. Today, 28 highly qualified teachers in Belen have taken this route.
September 2009
Are You Open to Alternative Certification Teachers?
Despite low pay and long, often thankless hours in the classroom and at home preparing on evenings, weekends and vacations, many accomplished professionals decide to switch careers and become teachers. And many are doing so with a passion that is both refreshing and exciting for the profession.
September 2009
Making Minority Staff Feel Welcome
When new teachers make decisions about where they want to teach, salary often drives their final choice. But as they continue in their careers, professional development and how the rest of the staff contribute to a positive school environment become important. Simply stated, it’s the little things that count.
September 2009
Teacher Retention Vital to Teacher Quality
It takes new teachers three to seven years to hit their stride and become quality instructional leaders. With one-third of all novice teachers leaving the profession in three years and more than 40 percent leaving within five, some students rarely get the benefit of having an experienced teacher.
September 2009
How Can We Increase Teacher Quality?
We’ve all heard about the “Lake Wobegon Effect”—our habit of declaring all our children “above average.” An even bigger whopper lurks out there: it’s the system many districts use to rate teachers “superior,” “distinguished,” or some other meaningless superlative, and it’s about as reality-based as that mythic Minnesota idyll.
September 2009
Support Your Library and Raise Student Achievement
Since the early 1950s, school libraries have evolved from having a primary focus on books to providing a rich selection of digital resources. Problems arise, though, when there is a lack of educated staff to continue to oversee and enhance the growth of these libraries.
August 2009
The Importance of Civics Education
Overall, schools have seen a decades-long decline in civics and government courses and students’ general interest in democratic values. That decline has not only left students less informed about the basic workings of government, but also has led to less participation in government and their communities.
January 2009
Helping High School Freshmen Succeed
“What made you stick it out when others just like you quit?” We posed this question to individual students who were successful despite the odds. In every case, the students had an important connection to school in some way -- and a smooth freshman year. We developed a single program to address both factors: a ninth-grade seminar.
January 2009
Can Detracking Boost Student Achievement?
Should closing the achievement gap between wealthy and low-income children be our first priority? Or should we focus on preparing our most talented students to lead the world in scientific and mathematical discoveries? We don’t have to choose. Both goals are attainable if schools provide access to their best curriculum to all students.
January 2008
Alternative School Makeover
Some teachers and students will never “fit” traditional definitions. However, alternative schools should become more than vehicles to rid regular education programs of troubled students, and places to exile unwanted teachers. If we believe that every student and teacher is valuable and worth saving, then we can do better.
December 2008
Find Success in Early Childhood Education
As school districts work to improve student learning and narrow achievement gaps, it’s abundantly clear that starting in kindergarten is too late. Many students, particularly low-income and minority children, arrive in kindergarten and first-grade classrooms already far behind their peers. That’s a big challenge for districts seeking to improve student achievement.
November 2008
The New World of Electronic Textbooks
Familiar, stalwart, and in some cases, even romantic, the printed word has been the preferred method of instructional delivery in schools for eons. Change is on the horizon, however. For a select but growing number of school districts in a select but growing number of states, instructional content is as dynamic--and digital--as the world around them.
July 2008
2008 Teacher of the Year Mike Geisen
An interview with Crook County Middle School's Mike Geisen, 2008 National Teacher of the Year.
June 2008
Rewarding District Best Practices
The three school districts that won grand prizes in each category of this year's Magna Awards view high school as a critical stage in public education. Rather than giving up on their high school students and those who've already dropped out, each winning district established creative and innovative high school programs.
April 2008
The Challenges of Supplemental Educational Services
Successfully implementing supplemental educational services, or SES, is challenging—and local officials play an essential role in deciding whether students receive the quality tutoring they are entitled to under the law. Still, it's not clear that school boards are taking that responsibility to heart. Only 14 percent of the 3.3 million students eligible for services receive assistance.
February 2008
The Importance of School and Parent Partnerships
Despite a lingering national perception that schools are rigid, they have become pretty adept at adapting to change. As a whole, though, schools are struggling to connect with the one group that has the biggest impact on a student's academic career: parents.
February 2008
School Transitions Made Easy
Unfortunately, not all schools understand the importance of creating a well-organized and well-thought-out plan to help ease the transitions kids make, especially between two of the most critical junctures in K-12 education: the move from elementary to middle school and from middle to high school.
January 2008
Can Poor, Rural Schools Reverse Their Fortunes?
Public schools are perceived as an obstacle to a better future in a small Mississippi town and county. So what can be done to turn them around...?
December 2007
How One District Is Improving Native American Achievement
For Native American students to succeed, strong partnerships between schools and communities are vital. Just ask officials in Tahlequah, Okla.
December 2007
Making Every School A Magnet School
Converting all of its schools to magnets was a risk worth taking for an Arkansas district.
December 2007
Classroom Walkthroughs Can Improve Teaching and Learning
But you must plan them with patience and persistence
December 2007
A Community of Learners
Developing strong learning communities for schools takes highly skilled leaders who are prepared to get the details right
November 2007
Communicating What You Teach
As curriculum debates continue to be waged across the U.S., schools can learn from the mistakes of others.
November 2007
What is Ready?
ASBJ examines the skills 21st century students need to succeed in life.
September 2007
The Blame Game
Business leaders and educators often take opposite approaches to school reform. How can they work together?
September 2007
What the 'Influencers' say
Groups weigh in on how schools prepare their students
September 2007
Educating Generation Z
What will the graduate of 2020 look like? Take a virtual peek into the future.
September 2007
The Caring Village
A nontraditional N.Y. school reaches students through small classes and personal connections
September 2007
Searching for Zero
A dropout is a dropout. By this definition, nearly every school district has a dropout problem, regardless of its wealth or the kind of students it serves. The good news is that boards are key to solving the problem. Consider the influence school boards have over district policies: “What policies keep kids in [school], and what policies push kids out?”
July 2007
Newsmaker: Andrea Peterson
Andrea Peterson describes herself as a “real day-to-day kind of person,” one who prefers to take on multiple projects as they come, deal with them, and move on to others. It’s how she has built an acclaimed music education program in Granite Falls, Wash., and how she views the next 12 months of her life.
June 2007
The Boys (and Girls) of Summer
Does summer school really work? Districts across the country are turning to summer school, after-school, and even Saturday sessions to help academically struggling students meet testing goals, including federal Adequate Yearly Progress standards. With sanctions—and, in some states, rewards—riding on the outcome of those scores, meeting those benchmarks is critical. Does summer school help districts reach those goals? Most educators say it certainly does. But many also say there is still room to improve how most districts treat summer school.
June 2007
College for All?
Should all high school graduates try to earn a four-year degree? It’s a complex question that carries strong opinions on both sides of the fence. But many critics question the wisdom of “college for all”—the philosophy that all high school graduates can and should go on to earn a four-year degree. Students who’ve barely scraped by in high school soon discover that colleges are not lenient about late homework and low test grades. Some find out college isn’t what they expected, and many fail.
June 2007
Moment of Truth
If not schools, then what institution will prepare today’s children to live and work successfully in a nation that’s increasingly diverse racially? A generation after white flight ravaged many of the nation’s largest urban school districts, both racially and economically, a number of small metropolitan areas are now facing, in the words of one education analyst, “their moment of truth.”
April 2007
Putting Students First
Putting students first spurred three school boards to create the programs taking top honors in this year's Magna Awards. Though radically different in size and geography, the three grand-prize-winning school districts share a vision for public education that succeeds because of community cooperation.
April 2007
A Chance for Change
The great irony of our time is that the brutal reality of poor instruction is seldom addressed or even mentioned at school board meetings. It isn’t written about in the education section of newspapers or honestly discussed at faculty or central office meetings. It works silently to cripple every well-meant improvement initiative. There is a fairly simple way out. We can turn the tide immediately by instituting the most effective, widely recognized structure for guaranteeing effective teaching and coherent curriculum: professional learning communities.
April 2007
A Dynamic Duo
An increase in the student population is the reason most cited for initiating a co-principalship. Parents, teachers, and community members expect to be able to talk to the principal, see a lead administrator at extracurricular activities, and have someone available in the building when important issues arise. As the student population increases, the principal’s role just becomes too much for one person. Why not consider two?
April 2007
Leader of the Pack
You wouldn’t know it by looking at them, what with their slow gaits and sad, brown eyes, but cows may be savvier than school boards when it comes to selecting leaders. Or so the latest research suggests. Scientists in France found that bullying, selfishness, size, and strength weren’t recognized within the herd as suitable leadership qualities. Intelligence, inquisitiveness, confidence, experience, and good social skills were. Cows realize this. You’d think we would, too.
April 2007
Win-Win Partnerships
Across the nation, school board members and administrators are seeing how their districts benefit when corporations, universities, and local businesses come together in partnerships. Partnerships range from providing mentors for students, to offering leadership training for principals and other administrators, to recognition programs for teachers, students, and others. These partnerships can be critical for districts that are time strapped and cash squeezed.
April 2007
Lost in Translation
A look at the first IDEA case to reach the Supreme Court. In terms of its significance, the Rowley case is considered by some to be second only to 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education. For the Rowley family, it was about fairness. For their school district, it was about fairness, too.
The Issues of IDEA
In its 31-year history, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act has pushed the complicated realm of special education into the mainstream of K-12 education. The benefits have been tremendous: Countless students with disabilities have reached a potential that even their greatest advocates did not think was possible. But as with any law, there were unforeseen consequences and pitfalls, and the emotional aspect of special education has no doubt affected the way these have played out.
A Line Item for Achievement
How much are school districts spending to improve instruction and student achievement? No plans are cost-free, of course, but I have found an encouraging and reasonably priced initiative that several districts are implementing—instructional coaching. Instructional coaching is an encouraging, reasonably priced way to improve classroom teaching and student learning.
March 2007
A Changing World
Gone are the days when vocational education, as it was once called, was considered a dumping ground for the unmotivated, the misfits, and the troublemakers. Today’s career and technical education is less about lug nuts and monkey wrenches and more about computer-aided drafting and premed bioethics. And it’s for everyone, not just the kids who aren’t going to college.
February 2007
School of the Future
The name itself was a brash declaration: School of the Future. Its location was just as audacious. West Philadelphia was the last place you’d expect to make such a bold statement. Yet last September, there it was: a 162,000-square-foot marvel of architectural and pedagogical synergy between the Philadelphia School District and software conglomerate Microsoft. And there everyone else was, curious about what the future was supposed to look like. The future, as it is, looks remarkably like the workplace.
February 2007
Battling ‘Myths’
ASBJ Managing Editor Kathleen Vail recently interviewed author Alfie Kohn about his new book, The Homework Myth. Here are excerpts from the question-and-answer session.
February 2007
Apprenticeships: A Tradition That Works
Teaching a trade may not be as popular as it once was, but apprenticeships remain useful. The best apprenticeships present students with compelling problems, time to come up with solutions, and opportunities to apply math, science, and English. The best mentors know when apprentices are ready to tackle new challenges. And they know when to walk away and allow their apprentices to own the problem.
February 2007
The Future of Teaching
One-hundred percent proficiency—that was the big story of No Child Left Behind when the law was passed in 2002. The proficiency requirement was, understandably, the primary focus of public attention in NCLB’s early years. It dominated media reports and the agendas of local administrators and school board members. But there’s another NCLB requirement that is equally important: All children—black and white; Hispanic and Asian; rich and poor; suburban, rural, or urban—must be taught by highly qualified teachers.
November 2006
The View from the Top
Jason Kamras and Kimberly Oliver are at the age and place in life where it would be easy to chuck ideology and take a high-paying private sector job. That would be the easy route, but Oliver and Kamras have never taken that path. They believe teaching can be a good career choice for professionals like them. They also believe children—all children, but especially those who come from high-need, high-risk schools—deserve the best public education has to offer.
November 2006
Literacy: The Next Generation
Once upon a time, Americans identified illiteracy among high school graduates as a national crisis. The solution, almost everyone agreed, was to teach every child to read by the end of third grade. If students could read well by then, they would read even better in all the grades that followed. The 2005 results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress—the nation's report card—show just how wrong we were.
November 2006
Politics and Policy
To maintain its momentum, the abstinence-only movement needs to convince more Americans that abstinence-focused curricula will help delay teen sexual activity and limit unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. But there may be a problem: There’s a paucity of research showing that the abstinence-only message works. When abstinence and sex education are on the agenda, boards must be prepared for bruising debates over ideology, morality, and money.
November 2006
Kindergarten Learning Gap
Public schools do not create the achievement gap. Recent data from the Northwest Evaluation Association indicates that virtually the entire gap in language achievement and almost 70 percent of the gap in math achievement are created before the beginning of second grade and most likely between birth and kindergarten. Involving parents and caregivers during the powerful early learning years from birth to age 5 gives young children an equal chance at success.
April 2006
The Promise of Arts Education
More frequently than most of us can imagine, arts educators are functioning as change agents in the school improvement process. But for that to happen takes vision, creativity, and administrative support. The arts make classroom learning relevant, engage active learning, and provide a way for students to discover and learn to embrace the value and duties of citizenship. Far from being a 'frill,' arts education provides opportunities for renewal and reform.
June 2006
Partners for the Arts
Districts everywhere are learning that collaboration is critical as they struggle to find the space, the time, and the money to keep arts alive in their schools. Meaningful arts programs have always had a rocky foothold in district budgets. Now, between No Child Left Behind’s focus on math and reading and business leaders’ belief that science and technology are the keys to keeping America competitive, the arts’ presence in the curriculum is becoming even more tenuous.
June 2006
Drawing and the Brain
Arguments against arts education survive primarily because we have ignored much of the recent research on how the human mind develops when art is a consistent part of long-term instructional planning. Some exciting new developments shed light on the linkages among the arts, brain development, and academic success. Researchers in educational psychology have revealed surprising evidence about the positive effect the arts have on young learners, ranging from increasing math and reading scores to improvements in general cognitive abilities and social development.
June 2006
Arts at the Core
The performing and visual arts challenge students to use reasoning skills—both concrete and abstract—to draw conclusions and formulate ideas. They encourage creativity and imagination, from concept to process to completion. And in districts both large and small across the United States, they enhance learning for students and adults alike, as these six programs demonstrate.
June 2006
The New Integration
Will focusing on socioeconomic status in school enrollment raise achievement? Advocates of economic integration say the policy makes sense on a number of levels. While many urban districts were once under court order to desegregate—that is, to consider race in student assignments—today something approaching the reverse is true. Recent court decisions have prohibited school districts from assembling their student bodies by race. But the benefits of economic integration go far beyond any legal advantages. Disadvantaged students do markedly better in middle-class schools.
April 2006
Integration by Income
Spurred in part by increased state and federal pressure to raise overall student achievement and to reduce the achievement gap between groups, a growing number of districts are pursuing policies of socioeconomic school integration. Most of these districts rely primarily on a system of magnet schools and public school choice, rather than compulsory busing, to achieve their goal of socioeconomic integration. While most of these programs are fairly new, the early signs are promising.
April 2006
Planning for Equity
No magic formula will help school districts find long-term strategies for attaining—and maintaining—desegregation and equity. But districts can take some simple steps to further desegregation. A comprehensive focus on equity in programs and facilities is the best way to help desegregation stick. School board members and administrators, and the courts, must be attuned to opportunities to encourage desegregation as a part of district planning—and to the equity that such careful planning engenders.
April 2006
Closing the "Reality Gap"
Our children live in a world unlike the world we entered when we left school. In a microscopic measure of human time, we have moved through the Agricultural Age, to the Industrial Age, to the Information Age, and now to another era altogether. Author Daniel Pink calls this new era the Conceptual Age. It requires us to be not only knowledgeable and competent, but creative and inquisitive as well. Our high schools rarely provide the learning needed for a Conceptual Age.
April 2006
Skills for a New Century
New Technology High School is everything its name implies. Computers await each student. Classroom communication occurs mostly in Lotus Notes. And every senior must complete a digital portfolio, including resume, personal statement, and work samples. The graduates of this northern California school enter the world better prepared than most for life’s endeavors. But it’s not the software and equipment that give them such an edge: it’s how they use those tools.
March 2006
Global Learning
21st-century students need 21st-century knowledge of the world. Yet, many schools operate as they always have, preferring to focus on the adventures of Argonauts, not astronauts; on stories of dinosaurs, not the implications of Star Wars; on details of the Triangular Trade, not today’s trade wars; on reasons for the Great Wall, not the fall of the Berlin Wall; on the details of feudalism, not today’s globalism; or on countless other events best relegated to—in former Secretary of State Cordell Hull’s memorable phrase—"the happy heaven of dead issues."
March 2006
What Do You Teach?
School boards once made curriculum decisions simply by conferring with the administrators and content specialists in their districts. Those days, as you probably already know, are gone. Now, parents and community members increasingly want—and expect—a say in what and how schools are teaching their children.
November 2005
Teaching About History
Philadelphia is hardly the first school district to highlight cultural diversity in history education. What sets Philadelphia apart is that the district is the largest—and likely the first—to single out an ethnic group, carve out a one-year course, and make the class a graduation requirement for all students.
November 2005
Teaching About Sexuality
Few curriculum topics have the ability to incite, embarrass, confuse, or confound as much as human sexuality. Creating or making changes to your district’s sex education program practically guarantees packed board meetings, as well as a barrage of phone calls, e-mails, and letters to the editor.
November 2005
Teaching About Origins
One of the most confrontational issues before American school boards and administrators is the effort by some Christian fundamentalists to have their views on life and its origins taught in science classes as a scientifically valid alternative to biological evolution. A scientist explains why intelligent design isn’t science.
November 2005
The Real Business of Boards
How did the issue of achievement get taken away from school boards? There are at least four reasons: failing to focus on results; fear or aversion about comparing our district’s results to others; not accepting responsibility for poor results; and a loss of focus about our mission.
September 2005
A Place Apart
Throughout America, rural communities—and rural schools—are hurting. While much of the nation's attention is focused on urban schools (and their problems are certainly profound), by many measures poverty is actually worse in rural areas. Yet advocates for rural schools say their districts are often ignored when it comes to setting education goals and allocating the resources to meet them.
April 2005
Title I at 40
It is the largest, most far-reaching federal K-12 program, with $13 billion sent annually to school districts to help educate children living in poverty. It has been the source of debate for more than four decades, raising questions about local control, federal spending on schools, and the labeling and achievement of low-income students. Title I at 40: A landmark anti-poverty program enters middle age with a new focus on achievement and accountability.
April 2005
Choosing to Make a Difference
No decision you make as a school board member is more important than the decision you make about the effects of poverty and social problems on your students. There are some things, of course, about which you don’t have much choice—including the fact that, in many districts, a significant number of children arrive at your doors behind. If we just give these students education of exactly the same quality as other students, chances are they will leave behind as well.
April 2005
The Challenge of Teacher Quality
High standards and expectations must apply to teachers as well as to students. With research confirming a direct link between teacher competency and student achievement, teacher quality is moving to the top of the education agenda. Just as the public is insisting on higher standards and performance for students, it is expecting no less from the nation’s teachers. The new challenge is to craft long-term strategies for finding and keeping high-performing teachers.
April 2005
Math That Adds Up
Few educated people in the United States would say they have trouble reading, but many don’t hesitate to admit to a weakness in mathematics. This lack of knowledge about math and how to teach it is part of a growing body of evidence that today’s students are not getting the math education they need in a world increasingly dependent on technology and science. Can we reverse the tide? If so, how?
April 2005
Words on Paper
Is writing at risk? After years of being sidelined, student writing shows signs of moving to the center of the education policy agenda. Increasingly, decision makers are recognizing that effective writing is fundamental to learning and communication and therefore vital to success in education and the workplace. But the federal No Child Left Behind Act's stringent mandates for testing in reading and math are creating a serious shortage of time and resources for teaching writing. Written expression is the result of ordered thought and the product of good teaching, but there are signs it may be on the decline in the nation's classrooms.
March 2004
Past and Prologue
The debate goes something like this: Students learn only the dark side of American history. And this focus on the negative is churning out students who are so disengaged from our political system that they scarcely bother to vote. Others say the perception is false, that negative subject matter isn't all that's taught in social studies classrooms, and that children do get a balanced view of history. Whatever is being taught, it doesn't seem to stick.
February 2004
Breaking Down the Data
Looking for ways to improve instruction and student learning? Take an informed approach. Using data to support instructional planning has become an important focus for schools, districts, and education organizations. The intent of data-driven decision making is to collect, analyze, and interpret meaningful school improvement data to make a positive impact on curriculum, instruction, and student learning.
February 2004
A Contract for Families
From birth to age 18, children spend more than 90 percent of their waking hours outside school in an environment that is heavily conditioned, both directly and indirectly, by families. Yet, the thrust of formal education policy is devoted overwhelmingly to school improvement, ostensibly to raise student achievement and improve educational equity. For children to succeed, true education reform needs to take place outside the classroom, too.
December 2003
Ready to Learn
How much kids should be able to learn at 4 years old is at the heart of the reauthorization debate for Head Start, the federal program that helps about 1 million of the nation's poorest and most vulnerable children prepare for school. The Bush administration's proposal to emphasize literacy and academic skills in Head Start has raised new questions and renewed old battles about how young children learn—and when they should be required to show it on a test.
November 2003
Level the Learning Field
If all children are to succeed in school, they need the same opportunities from an early age. Providing high-quality public preschool programs for all children would ensure that each child enters kindergarten on a more level playing field. The public preschool could simulate the early home literacy experiences that many disadvantaged children lack. Providing access to all children would ensure peer modeling and help to close the socioeconomic gaps that too often exist in public schools.
November 2003
Can You Hear Me Now?
Hearing loss takes a toll on learning. Hearing-impaired children are likely to display delayed speech and language skills and social adjustment problems, all of which contribute to poor overall achievement. Children with severe or profound hearing loss are easy to spot, but those with moderate or minimal hearing problems sometimes go undetected. As a result, many students with minor hearing problems experience a slow but steady decline in academic achievement.
May 2003