District Administration articles from July 2004

District Administration archives from July 2004

Anthony Amato: take 2,.(Editors Letter)
July 1, 2004... I will forgive Anthony Amato if the next time we call to interview him, he declines. Because of the brouhaha he's currently embroiled in as he fights to save his job as New Orleans school superintendent, I'm sure Amato hasn't realized an...

The vanishing male teacher.(Update: education news from schools, businesses, research and government agencies)
July 1, 2004... If current rates of decline aren't reversed, male teachers could be extinct within 30 years, based on extrapolated NEA statistics. For the last 20 years, males have rejected the teaching profession and now represent a mere 21 percent of...

Colorado law to assist low-income families.(Update: education news from schools, businesses, research and government agencies)
July 1, 2004... Colorado is the first state to put in-state public tuition money directly in the hands of students, circumventing tax limitations. Gov. Bill Owens signed the college tuition voucher bill, which goes in effect this fall. The voucher is for...

Young minds need P-H-O-N-I-C-S.(Update: education news from schools, businesses, research and government agencies)
July 1, 2004... A Phonics-based approach to instructing reading not only improves student performance, but changes the brain's physiology to make better readers, according to a recent study by Yale University researchers. Their findings were published in...

High-stakes testing: not so bad.(Update: education news from schools, businesses, research and government agencies)
July 1, 2004... That low clamor you might be hearing is the rumble of a thousand opponents of high-stakes testing criticizing a new study that says high school exit exams don't lower graduation rates. Jay Greene, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute...

Certification in Texas gets easier.(Update: education news from schools, businesses, research and government agencies)
July 1, 2004... College graduates in Texas who want to teach grades 8-12 now have the option of taking two tests, rather than completing education courses. The first test, a TExES content exam, proves the graduate is an expert in his or her field, and the...

Fake degrees grow.(Update: education news from schools, businesses, research and government agencies)
July 1, 2004... Eleven Georgia teachers were found to have received phony degrees from Saint Regis University in Liberia, a diploma mill that sells college degrees for little to no coursework. More prospective educators may be turning to diploma mills,...

Massachusetts needs more aid for poorest schools.(Update: education news from schools, businesses, research and government agencies)
July 1, 2004... Massachusetts is not doing enough to provide adequate funding to poor school systems. Suffolk Superior Court Judge Margot Botsford ruled in April the state needs to reconsider the way it funds public schools. Botsford recommended establishing...

Pros and cons of Kerry's education plan.(Update: education news from schools, businesses, research and government agencies)
July 1, 2004... Using details and putting public money where his mouth is, Sen. John Kerry, Democratic presidential candidate, recently mapped out his plan to boost K-12 education. Calling it the "New Bargain for America's Children and Teachers," Kerry's...

Megaconference Jr. = mega success.(Update: education news from schools, businesses, research and government agencies)
July 1, 2004... It was "truly chicken skin," rave Lynne Sueoka's students at Hawaii's Moanaluao High School. Sueoka's cybernauts awoke at 1 a.m. on May 6 and later felt goose bumps of excitement when they took part in Megaconference Jr., the first Web-based...

U.S. tech availability stellar, despite reports.(Update: education news from schools, businesses, research and government agencies)
July 1, 2004... The United States is not doing so badly in the world of technology in schools. Unlike a previous report in the recent Technology Counts 2004 survey by Education Week, which compared countries around the globe oil the availability of...

Experts disagree on how to narrow education gap.(Update: education news from schools, businesses, research and government agencies)
July 1, 2004... Closing the education gap is not as simple as The Education Trust, a national advocacy group, says it is. Experts disagree on the most effective solution, according to The Hartford Courant. To close the education gap the issue "has to be...

Does a GPA rise really reflect better learning?(Update: education news from schools, businesses, research and government agencies)
July 1, 2004... High school students have been receiving increasingly better grades, but according to the Associated Press. it could be the result of inflated marks due to added pressure on teachers and students to produce top-notch results. Although more...

Helping minority students after Brown vs. Board of Ed.(Update: education news from schools, businesses, research and government agencies)
July 1, 2004... It's 50 years after the Supreme Court's landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision and not enough has changed for minority students in this country, educators say. There are still wide disparities in educational opportunities for...

Cheaters rampant.(Update: education news from schools, businesses, research and government agencies)
July 1, 2004... A sample of 504 students ages 12-17 shows more and more students are cheating on tests and homework, according to news reports. Nearly one-third of students admitted to cheating, while about seven in 10 say people in their school cheat on...

College education imperative to U.S. economy.(Update: education news from schools, businesses, research and government agencies)
July 1, 2004... According to an ETS study, the government would need to spend $40 billion more on universal preschool, $52 billion more to get all students up to standards, and over $19 billion more on post-secondary education, all just to adequately prepare...

Turn the Paige?(Inside the law: analyzing, debating and explaining no child left behind)(Rod Paige)
July 1, 2004... It's becoming the comment that won't go away. A petition and advertising campaign directed at Secretary of Education Rod Paige says he has flunked his job and should be fired for calling the nation's largest teacher's union a "terrorist...

States look for tech edge in NCLB.(Inside the law: analyzing, debating and explaining no child left behind)(No Child Left Behind Act of 2001)
July 1, 2004... No Child Left Behind calls for technological literacy among students by ninth grade, but educators say school districts should look beyond the federal mandate's section devoted to technology to understand what a tech-savvy school system should...

Lazy days of summer ... in class.(Inside the law: analyzing, debating and explaining no child left behind)
July 1, 2004... For now, it looks like Ohio sixth-grader Mikeidra Mitchell is not being left behind. She will attend seventh grade this fall, but not without a detour to summer school. According to the Ohio Proficiency Test, Mikeidra improved in reading...

Summer program aims to boost reading. (Inside the law: analyzing, debating and explaining no child left behind.
July 1, 2004... Summer won't just be about bicycling through the streets and dipping in the pool for students in 11 school districts nationwide. These students will be taking part in the No Child Left Behind Summer Reading Achievers Program, which is...

New teacher training. (Inside the law: analyzing, debating and explaining no child left behind.
July 1, 2004... A select number of interested teachers will be able to participate in a new Teacher-to-Teacher initiative established by the U.S. Department of Education. The initiative was created in response to fears that the No Child Left Behind act...

Leadership with a spiritual flavor: this superintendent taps into human relations skills to bring out the best in his staff, fuel achievement and control costs.
July 1, 2004... Smooth teacher contract negotiations. A productive school board untouched by underlying issues and agendas. A school climate characterized by trust and respect. This edu-nirvana can be found in Port Washington-Saukville, Wis., thanks to...

Hitting the books--together: through a family literacy program, Hispanic parents and their young children are learning to be partners in educational success.
July 1, 2004... Over the course of one school year, Teresa Moran has gone from a concerned yet helpless parent to an active participant in her children's education. Last school year, Moran was struggling to communicate with her second grade son, Robert,...

No child left on their behind.
July 1, 2004... At breakfast the other day, my son asked if he could have a banana in his lunch, I paused a moment in my hectic morning music to think fondly that I was raising him right, that he valued the relentless education he has received about healthy...

Winning the substitute game: attracting and retaining substitute teachers isn't just a game of chance. These district-tested moves and the ability to think like a sub can help.(Cover Story)
July 1, 2004... It doesn't take long for a kid to learn one form or another of the game Sink the Sub. Nancy Haas of Arizona State University remembers well the day her grandson TJ, then in first grade, got all bright-eyed and announced "We're going to have a...

Will he survive? In 18 months, New Orleans Superintendent Anthony Amato has rid his district of ghost teachers and focused haphazard curricula. So why is he involved in a nasty fight to retain his job?
July 1, 2004... TRYING FOR CALM New Orleans schools Superintendent Anthony Amato is caught in an unexpected fight for his job. Just two months after getting a positive review, his board seemed on the verge of firing him, before a federal judge stepped in with...

Creating collaboration: these forward thinking districts are making their vendors work together.
July 1, 2004... After two on-campus shootings within two weeks in 2001. it was quite clear that Grossmont Union School District near San Diego had to dramatically improve its security infrastructure. As the high school district vetted its options, it also...

Positive power: school counselors are often the first line of defense for solving behavior and academic problems. Why mandating elementary counselors and group counseling makes sense for your district.
July 1, 2004... One spring day in the Sabino Canyon in Tucson, Ariz., a mountain lion roams the nearby Ford Elementary School yard, frightening the dickens out of youngsters at the K-5 school. Another day an unknown suspicious-looking man donning a...

Bullying laws hit roadblocks in nine states.(Security News)
July 1, 2004... Five years after a fatal shooting spree at Colorado s Columbine High School shocked the nation, 17 states have enacted laws to combat bullying in their public schools. But costs of enforcement and the intrusion of sensitive issues like...

Harassed teacher wins in court of last resort.(Security News)
July 1, 2004... An Arizona teacher who won a court order against a disruptive student may not set an example for other teachers, educators say. A court should be the last resort after administrative remedies fail, officials add. Elizabeth Anne Moore, who...

Close ties with police can help alleviate violence: each year that goes by we become more and more complacent, until the next tragedy. Then we seem to find additional dollars and call the bill something in honor of the dead child's name.
July 1, 2004... In May, four teenagers were wounded by gunfire, one critically, at Baltimore (Md.) County's Randallstown High School as a charity basketball event was ending and students were filing out of the gymnasium. Why doesn't this story garner the...

Pilotting a paperless curriculum.(Curriculum Update: the latest developments in math, science, language arts and social studies)
July 1, 2004... It's the Case of the Missing E-books, mad Superintendent Mike Smith is the sleuth. In the growing world of electronic textbooks, there seems to be the fewest selection of books at the filth and sixth grade levels and many more available for...

A decade of difference: more credits, higher GPAs.(Curriculum update: the latest developments in math, science, language arts and social studies)
July 1, 2004... Have high expectations, and students will live up to those expectations. The recently released 2000 High School Transcript Study offers evidence that this common, long-held belief is true. From 1990 to 2000 secondary school students earned...

Stepping up for civics.(Curriculum update: the latest developments in math, science, language arts and social studies)
July 1, 2004... Districts in as many as 21 states may soon notice an elevation of civic education policy and practice, as the new Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools begins selection of its first grant recipients this month. Up to six $150,000 grants and...

Fear of Shakespeare: is there an antidote?(Curriculum update: the latest developments in math, science, language arts and social studies)
July 1, 2004... One of an English educators' greatest challenges can be getting students to see that there's much ado about something when it comes to the works of William Shakespeare. Learning scaffolds such as reading along to an audio or video version of a...

Google's new offering can help or hurt school districts.(Odvard Egil Dyrli on Free E-mail)
July 1, 2004... Love it or hate it, Google's new Gmail service is refocusing attention on free e-mail issues that affect every school district. Gmail blows away its competition by providing each individual with a gigabyte of free storage--as much as 500 times...

What sort of mature culture relies on Jessica Simpson to "save the music?".(GaryStager on Jazz Education)(Column)
July 1, 2004... I first encountered Roy Haynes 26 years ago as a high school freshman sitting in a darkened auditorium next to my Dad. The occasion was a special concert featuring the jazz ensembles of our town's two high schools. My two incredibly hip...

In-depth lessons in database systems.(Computer literature: books on the latest software for technology directors and IT staff)
July 1, 2004... Instead of spending hours writing up student report cards, a FileMaker Pro computer document is making life a lot easier for teachers in the Greenwich (Conn.) School District school. Bill Ronk, fourth-grade teacher and technology fan at...

FileMaker Pro 6 Bible.
July 1, 2004... FileMaker Pro 6 Bible Wiley Publishing, Inc. $49.99 Any newcomer to database management tools will find step-by-step instructions to create and use databases quickly and easily in this conceptually organized guidebook. And if you are a...

FileMaker Pro 6 for Windows & Macintosh.
July 1, 2004... FileMaker Pro 6 for Windows & Macintosh Peachpit Press $21.99 The visual QuickStart Guide uses pictures to guide the reader through software and covers new XML (Extensible Markup Language) and Digital Image features. The 366-page book works...

The Book of Filemaker 6.
July 1, 2004... The Book of Filemaker 6 No Starch Press $59.95 This book's dual purpose is to be a complete reference and a hands-on how-to that goes beyond the manual to create dynamic database systems. The thorough introduction to FileMaker Pro...

Developing Web Information Systems.
July 1, 2004... Developing Web Information Systems Butterworth-Heinemann $39.99 This is the first book to bring together IS development and Web applications in a thorough and systematic process. It gathers traditional system development methods that have...

The benefits of curriculum alignment.(Research corner: essentials on education data and analysis from research authority AEL.)
July 1, 2004... Auto mechanics perform alignments by lining up the direction of the wheels so the vehicle is pointed in a straight line. Curriculum alignment follows the same principle, with the "wheels" being curriculum, instruction, standards and assessment....

EVQ-1000: CoVi Technologies.(Focus: security)
July 1, 2004... www.covitechnologies.com, Hardware, $540 This HDTV camera aims to extend the reach of video surveillance beyond most of today's leading systems through rapid and accurate identification of people over live and recorded video. It can...

i3 IP Intercom Series: Digital Acoustics Corp.(Focus: security)
July 1, 2004... www.digitalacoustics.com, Hardware, $325 Used with Talkmaster management software, this product is the first in the company's quick-to-install and highly configurable two-way intercom stations. It's recommended for in-classroom paging,...

Software Tutorials: Atomic Learning.(Focus: security)
July 1, 2004... www.atomiclearning.com Internet, $79.99 per user/year (volume discounts available) These Web-based tutorials target software applications that students and teachers use daily, such as Microsoft Excel, AppleWorks and Dreamweaver. Approximately...

ThinkPad X40: IBM.(Focus: security)
July 1, 2004... www.ibm. com/thinkpad, Hardware, $1,499 and This laptop weighs 2.7 pounds and comes with a full-size keyboard, a battery life of up to 7.5 hours and new recovery tools that address common problems, such as viruses, missing system files and...

WJ-HD300 Series DVRs: Panasonic Digital Communications & Security Company.(Focus: security)
July 1, 2004... www.panasonic.com/security, Hardware, $7,060-$43,480 (depending on memory capacity) These distal video recorders provide surveillance and security for monitoring students and faculty members. They can help prevent or quickly diffuse potentially...

A Policymaker's Primer on education research: how to understand, evaluate and use it: the Education Commission of the States, Midcontinent Research for Education and Learning.(Focus: security)
July 1, 2004... www.ecs.org/Research Primer, Internet, Free This interactive, online document is designed to help educators and others better understand and evaluate education research. It provides an overview of research methods and statistics, flash...

Class R10 reader and 2K card: HID.(Focus: security)
July 1, 2004... www.hidcorp.com, Hardware/ Software, Pricing set by security installer This smart card device is designed for typical access control applications for districts that may be installing either a first security access control system or expanding an...

Assistive technology: an introductory guide for K-12 library media specialists: Linworth Publishing.(Focus: security)
July 1, 2004... www.linworth.com, Book, $39.95 This book is designed to help library media professionals reduce the research time needed to understand complex assistive technology used by students, including those with disabilities. It describes a range of...

VB-C5Oi/R PTZ Network Video Camera: Canon USA.(Focus: security)
July 1, 2004... www.canon.com, Hardware, $1,799 The system can be used to monitor hallways and parking lots and other outdoor areas. The pan tilt zoom network camera, with butt-in server, can monitor areas in nearly all total darkness and detect and track...

WinDVD Creator Platinum 2: Intervideo.(Focus: security)
July 1, 2004... www.intervideo.com, Software, $99.95 This software provides a single interface for capturing, editing, authoring and burning videos to DVDs and CDs. Designed to support all CD and DVD formats, users can view their videos on PCs, laptops and...

Achievement Series: Scantron Corp.(Focus: security)
July 1, 2004... www.scantron.corn Software, $4 and up per student/year (volume discounts available) This Web-based system is designed to help educators create and deploy their own exams and quizzes, incorporate content by third-party publishers, and score...

EN-Gauge: MIJA.(Focus: security)
July 1, 2004... www.mija.com, Hardware, $250-$300 Electronically monitored fire extinguishers aim to enhance fire safety in schools. This device tracks an extinguisher's presence, pressure and obstruction via the attached gauge. A signal can be sent to...

InterWrite SchoolPad: GTCO CalComp.(Focus: security)
July 1, 2004... www.gtcocaicomp.com Hardware, $676 (educational price) This wireless pad enables teachers to use its electronic pen like a mouse to annotate and highlight any computer image. It allows any surface to be used as a whiteboard, or it can be...

AXIS 210 Network Camera: AXIS Communications.(Focus: security)
July 1, 2004... www.axis.com, Hardware, $499 Tiffs surveillance camera can help prevent violence, vandalism and crime on school grounds by allowing remote monitoring and management of real time images, it contains a built-in Web server and can be connected to...

Kids InfoBits: Thomson Gale.(Focus: security)
July 1, 2004... www.gale.com, Software, $495/year This electronic database was designed to help K-5 teachers and media specialists meet information literacy requirements by teaching students a variety of skills--such as basic research techniques and how to...

Are your students making gains like these?(Information Showcase)
July 1, 2004... Are Your Students Making Gains Like These? New research shows a 65% increase in fluency gains when students add Recorded Books to their practice. To maximize the effectiveness of your program, try the "listen and read" strategy with Recorded...

Lower your discipline referrals proven results.(Information Showcase)
July 1, 2004... Lower Your Discipline Referrals Proven Results Since 1992, Project Wisdom has been producing a school-wide character education program that helps students make wiser choices. Join more than 11,000 licensed schools across America. It's simple....

TIP (Texbook Inventory Program).(Information Showcase)
July 1, 2004... TIP (Texbook Inventory Program) is designed to be the most | comprehensive textbook inventory recording the transactions of textbooks (as well as components, test booklets, calculators etc.), at both the district and campus level. TIP is...

RFB&D's[R] learning through listening[TM].(Information Showcase)
July 1, 2004... RFB&D's[R] Learning Through ListeningTM memberships are a RFB&D proven reading accommodation for students with learning disabilities, learning through listening visual impairments or other physical disabilities. RFB&D memberships offer access...

By the numbers on obesity: a data bank on education trends for district leaders.(Illustration)
July 1, 2004... Overweight BY SEX Percentage of overweight adolescents 6-19 years of age for school year 1999-2000 GIRLS 15% BOYS 16% Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention FUND-RAISING FOODS In 2001, clubs and...