June 23, 2011

TIME Magazine

Budget Cuts in the Classroom: What's on the School Chopping Block?
By Andrew J. Rotherham
Read more: Here . . . .

June 23, 2011

Arizona schools see sharp drop in English learners, report says
by Pat Kossan - The Arizona Republic

June 20, 2011

WOW!!! I really mean WOW!!!

Arizona is actually the home of 3rd best school in the nation. It's a charter.

What do they do that public schools don't? That's the real question.

Read story here . . . .

Newsweek

AZCentral

June 19, 2011

More bad advice

I have teacher friends all over the world. Some I went to college with. Some were students in online graduate classes. We all talk the same NCLB language these days and complain about the required tests. My friends in Texas talk about the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills), Illinois has the ISAT (the Illinois Standards Achievement Test), and Florida has the FCAT (Florida's Comprehensive Assessment Test).

So, it hit the newspaper today that Arizona is going to follow Florida's footsteps. Arizona will grade schools as A,B,C,D or F instead of "excelling," "highly performing," "performing," "underperforming" and "failing" (I don't understand what this has to do with student' scores); 3rd graders who still aren't reading will be held back a year; and a third to a half of teacher and principal pay will be based on test scores (I don't like my salary dependent on someone else, much less 35 or 100 students). It could change dramatically from neighborhood to neighborhood or school to school.

So what's the difference between Arizona's and Florida's test scores? According to the article, the difference is money. We haven't had any for 10 or 15 years. Arizona is 49th in per-pupil expenditures. We have had some of the largest class sizes in the country. Because we don't have the money to cap them.

We are burning teachers out at a rapid rate. More and more and more is required of teachers. Every year since I started teaching, raises have always been small and hard fought.The most I remember ever getting was 3%. The excuse has always been the budget . . the state budget, the county budget, the district budget or the school budget. When they can't deliver cash, they start negotiating for our benefits.

Read the article here . . .

June 17, 2011

Teacher faces deportation
By Jadiann Thompson
KPHO Phoenix

Click here . . .

June 14, 2011

Does the apple fall far from the tree?

When AIMS test scores are used to rank students, teachers and schools, many schools rank low. Teachers look at the numbers, they develop "curriculum maps" to make sure they are teaching all the concepts that will show up on those AIMS tests, and, they try to make sure that not only do they teach the concepts but the students learn the concepts.

Many parents want to blame the schools and the schools want to blame the parents.

The following article is not about kids or schools. It is about all of the people, 16 and above who can't pass the written part of the driving test. In fact, 6 out of 10 people, fail it.

Think about what that means for children and society.

Click here . . .

June 13, 2011

They finally figured out what happened to our crayon money . . . click here.

June 6, 2011

Alabama just passed the the toughest immigration law yet.

Click here . . . .

June 5, 2011

New law on AIMS scores means fewer graduates

The world of teaching has changed 180° since I began teaching in 1986. School used to be a fun place to be for both students and teachers. We played games, sang songs and stayed up half the night studying for really tough finals.

NCLB has turned schools into testing mills rather than places of learning. There are formative assessments, summative assessments, weekly spelling tests, chapter tests, mid-term and final exams and finally, the AIMS test every year.

As of today, students can go to school every day, complete satisfactory class requirements, stay after school and get tutoring, but after taking and failing any part of the AIMS test, they are kicked out of school without a diploma.

Click here for story.

May 31, 2011

Student Health - Cafeteria Food

Cafeteria food has been the subject of numerous studies by my students for several years because it sucks so bad. I know I'm aging myself, but I'll never forget the smell of homemade dinner rolls wafting throughout the school tempting us to get through the morning so we could get to lunch.

I remember the homemade mac & cheese, the peach cobbler and Christmas cookies. I don't remember anyone telling me that I couldn't have seconds or thirds, for that matter.

The cafeteria ladies were so sweet. They loved us all and you could taste it in the food they served us.

Today, nothing is made with love in it, the cafeteria ladies hate their jobs and yell at students who are trying to sneak over to the salad bar for extra pickles. The foods include meatloaf (mystery meat with ketchup), Chef Boyardee ravioli (a little salt, anyone?), pre-packaged Taco Bell burritos, and pre-packaged grilled (plastic) cheese sandwiches.

The Breakfast in the Classroom is worse. Sugar-laden cereals, rolls and muffins are served up with no content labels at all. Periodically, breakfast consists of peanut butter and graham crackers.

Lactose (milk)? Gluten (bread)? Peanut butter? Massive quantities of sugar? Food allergies anyone?

Not only do the federal food programs serve our children unrecognizable plastic food, they also serve dangerous food. Killer food.

So, the reason we investigate school food is primarily so we can learn one way the government works against us while pretending to help us out. Why don't these foods have labels on them? How much salt, sugar and hydrogenated oil are in these foods? How much protein are they getting?

May 30, 2011

America's Education Problems Way Deeper Than 'Good' or 'Bad' Teachers

May 10, 2011

What's the real story?

What are our statistics? How are our kids really doing? For the past 10 years, it seems, students, teachers and parents have been aiming at a moving target. One year schools had to increase AIMS scores by a certain percentage. The next year, so many students had to take the test to pass AYP, or whatever the measure is called.

According to NEA's 2008 Education Statistics Nationwide in education Arizona ranks:

• Second in highest student-teacher ratio. Utah is first.
• Second fastest growing student population. Nevada is first.
• Ranks 35th in the nation for average teacher salaries and is $6,536 below the national average.
• Ranks dead last in per pupil expenditure.

Education Week's annual report, Quality Counts 2008, looks at education issues in all of the states. A portion of Quality Counts 2008 included an examination of K-12 education spending in each state. Some important highlights from this report include:

• Arizona ranks 49th out of the 50 states in the amount spent per student
• Arizona expended $6232 per student which is $2741 below the national average expenditure of $8973 per student
• Arizona would have to increase per pupil spending by 44% to move to an amount equal to the national average expenditure per student
• The cost to move Arizona to the national average is estimated to exceed $2.7 billion.

May 9, 2011

It's an interesting thing that's happening in America, and I guess around the world. All governments are going crazy trying to cut their budgets. We have to cut social services, medicaid, and many others. The feds cut funds to the state and the states cut funds to the police, firemen and teachers, . People are dying because of these cuts.

Don't get me wrong. Everybody can tighten up a little and everybody should, but not at the expense of human life. We MUST fund the police and firemen, and I'm not talking about Joe Arpaio who blows our cash like a junkie.

The problem I have is with the trillion dollar debt fighting battles that aren't ours to fight. Then the government mysteriously has bazillions of dollars for tornados, floods, aide to Haiti, and aide to Japan.

I remember watching a teacher and her students sitting under a tree after the Indonesian tsunami. Learning. We do complain a lot about money but if you went to several schools, you could find their "book room". You will find many brand new materials collecting dust. At one school I worked at, teachers were propping their doors open with computers. At another school, there were textbooks and materials filling the old home-economics classroom. There was a permanent storage container full of science materials.

So many things are bought because the school districts have to spend all they get or they might not get as much next year. Many principals buy things that nobody asked for and consequently never gets used or is used by office staff.

I worked for 10 years for a principal that let teachers spend the rest of the money. Throughout the year I would keep my "wanna" list and when the principal said it was time to spend their money, I just gave him my list. I usually got most if not all of what I asked for.

Not anymore. There's never anything left to buy educational supplies and materials, or teacher salaries. Pencils, copies and crayons are a primary teacher's required materals. These are just a fraction of what teachers spend their own money on for their classrooms.

Board members and district office administrators attend conferences all over the country. None of them have contact with students on a day-to-day basis. What do they really know about what's happening in our classrooms? How many pencils and crayons do administrators buy?

So, let's look at things a different way. The Arizona Cardinals have player salaries from 1 million to 7 million. These figures do not include all the "extras" they make hocking everything from restaurants and hotels to Nike shoes.

This biggest basketball player salaries put the NFL to shame. Most of the top players are getting from $15 to 20 million. The highest NBA salary for a coach is only 4 million. Imagine how they feel.

The average teacher salary in the U.S. is between $40,000 to $50,000.

Just look at the numbers: $1,000,000 (for the lowest paid ball player) v $40,000 (for the average teacher). Where are our values? Why do we pay so much money to someone to play a game with a ball that they would play anyway?

ASU President's base salary is $475,000 The president at NAU makes $300,000 and the president at U of A makes $420,000.

Now, here's more shocking information. The ASU football coach makes $1.5 million, ASU basketball coach makes $1.1 million. University of Arizona's football coach makes $1 million and their basketball coach makes $2 million.

What would you think about making people who make $500,000 or more give 10% of what they make to the public school of their choice? Sort of a tithe to a school.

Send your tax credit dollars to your school today so they will have it at the beginning of the year. These funds are so important to kids and teachers so they can plan field trips and after-school programs.

OK, so that's how things are. How should they be?

Are we capable of teaching and learning without "stuff" (otherwise known as teaching materials) like the kids and teachers learning and teaching on the beach? Would test scores get better or worse? Is it more important to study classic philosophers or to know how to get food? If the answer is that we could teach and learn under a palm tree if we had to, we would.

On the other hand, you have to wonder if teachers were paid like coaches and ball players, would their test scores reflect that? Would scores go up when salaries go up? Or is teaching under a palm tree more effective?

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

Albert Einstein