District Administration articles from July 2006

District Administration archives from July 2006

A report from the future.(technology in educational institutions)(Editorial)
July 1, 2006... The overwhelming thought I had as I attended numerous EduComm sessions at the magazine's show in Orlando last month-and walked the massive InfoComm floor-is that the future is now. While this certainly isn't an original statement, veteran...

Reacting to MySpace.(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... I JUST READ [Gary Stager's] article ("Guess Why They Call It MySpace," May 2006, page 78). While I agree with him in principle, we have blocked the site and others like it at our district. Why? Because we had one student threaten to kill...

Sports and civics.(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... I ENJOYED READING your article on sports and their influence on civics ("Sports & Civics," May 2006, page 42). It was good to read that others associated with our profession realize and publicize the importance of athletics in producing good...

Nutrition advocates to schools: shape up.(junk food and sodas banned in schools)
July 1, 2006... Soda is out, but students are exercising less. Junk food is being scrutinized, but recess is still iffy. Childhood obesity rates are climbing and schools, say advocates, must monitor what calories students are taking in and burning up. ...

Hope for low-performing high schools.
July 1, 2006... A new report from MDRC, a nonprofit social policy research group, acknowledges that reforms for low-performing high schools only really gel with district support. "There's frequently turnover at the top, new administrators having their own...

Omaha waits for answers.(racial segregation in schools)
July 1, 2006... Omaha Public Schools is in a holding pattern now. What started last summer as the school board's attempt to enforce an old law has turned into a new law, a new lawsuit and claims of racial segregation. "As far as the Omaha Public Schools...

High quality mentoring.(for teachers)
July 1, 2006... New York City is serious about keeping its new teachers. In 2004, the State of New York Board of Regents modified its teacher certification requirement so that all new teachers with less than a year of teaching experience in the state must...

Maryland to take over troubled schools.(implementation of No Child Left Behind Act)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... State school board officials in Maryland, the first in the nation to invoke a provision of No Child Left Behind to take control of some Baltimore schools, are considering financial penalties in the wake of the General Assembly's vote for a...

Lack of teacher quality.(Department of Education)
July 1, 2006... No state is meeting a particular requirement under the No Child Left Behind law, which calls for every teacher in core subjects to be highly qualified, and the National Education Association claims the requirement is not fair. Although the...

Next steps for failing schools.(restructuring)
July 1, 2006... About 1,750 schools nationwide--including up to a third of the Chicago Public Schools system--are being tagged for restructuring, a process under No Child Left Behind that kicks in when schools do not meet math and reading targets for five...

Dept. of Ed expands tutoring pilot program.(Margaret Spellings od Department of Education)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings is expanding a pilot program so that districts can reverse the order of consequences for schools with low performance results under No Child Left Behind. The department found in four Virginia...

World history is dismal in most states.(quality of education in states)(Statistical table)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... The news from the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation's newly released report, The State of State World History Standards, is disappointing. This first-ever review of state academic standards in world history shows that most states are not setting...

Promoting good citizenship.(education on democracy)(Table)
July 1, 2006... Promoting Good Citizenship It's no secret that political and civic knowledge is lacking in today's students. According to the 1998 NAEP Civics Assessment--the most recent one, since it's offered only once a decade--nearly one-third of...

Physics is a blast [off] in Houston.(students are encouraged to choose careers related to physics)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... In May, 1,500 juniors and seniors from the Houston Independent School District explored the world of physics with NASA astronauts and rocket scientists. The event, called the BP Physics Challenge, was a partnership between HISD, British...

Career education gets a promotion.(In United States)
July 1, 2006... To combat high school graduates leaving school with few of the skills needed for college or workplace success, some states are trying to reform career education. In May, the Florida legislature passed a bill requiring one course in career...

Reaping the benefits.(Larry A. Price of Wilson County Schools)(Biography)
July 1, 2006... Larry Price of Wilson County (N.C.) Schools is not so different from the other inspirational superintendents featured in this magazine, except, perhaps, for one thing: his ability to tend a farm plot. In spite of a penchant for farming due to...

Dive into data.(Florida's School District of Indian River County)
July 1, 2006... Holly Herndon no longer waits for district officials to crunch the local assessment numbers before she can make decisions on instruction. Herndon, like other teachers in Florida's School District of Indian River County, can access her...

Mixed reviews: education leaders and politicians debate the effectiveness of charter schools.
July 1, 2006... WITH A PROCLAMATION by President George W. Bush and a series of visits by federal education officials, charter schools enjoyed a week of national attention in May, celebrating their supporters' claim that they can be more effective than other...

Making reading count: districts are trying many strategies--from more time on task, extra non-fiction texts and reading coaches--to boost scores for struggling students.
July 1, 2006... In Okemos, Mich., Paula Pulter's first grade class at the Cornell Elementary School has covered units on American history, the Revolutionary War, U.S. presidents, weather and recycling. At the Thorn Apple Elementary School in Grand Rapids,...

No-nonsense networking: connecting dozens of schools in a high-speed network while on a budget is no small feat. The key to success? Finding partners who know what they're doing.(Clark County )
July 1, 2006... When Philip Brody arrived at Clark County (Nev.) School District in September of 1998, he was charged with upgrading the district's computer network so schools could become competitive in the newly dawned Internet age. The only problem,...

Money talks: school district budget departments tackle one of the toughest jobs in education and still come out winners. Learn how some of the country's largest districts handle their budgets.(Cover story)
July 1, 2006... Nothing that involves dispersing money seems to come out fair--and still school systems manage to attract budget directors who gear up for the challenge on an annual basis. In the quest to find that perfect process, some districts have...

Making choices: educators and experts explain how leaders can re-evaluate their districts' sex education programs.
July 1, 2006... Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, boys and girls in sixth grade in Osseo Area Schools, Minn., learned the term masturbation. All fourth-graders learned about anatomy in mixed-gender classes and the definition of sexual intercourse. And junior...

Web-powered job recruiting: online teacher recruiting saves time, money and resources.
July 1, 2006... For several years, William Singleton, superintendent of South Carolina's Jasper County School District, has traveled to job fairs in other states to recruit teachers, particularly in math, science and special education. Armed with $2,500...

Unwind, recharge, bounce back: summer reading to make you a better educator.
July 1, 2006... My recent critique of Tom Friedman's new book, The World is Flat, and the reverential treatment it gets from many school leaders generated a lot of mail. The column was as critical of educators desperate for marching orders from a non-educator...

No teacher held back: we need to get over the idea that education is somehow about textbooks.
July 1, 2006... Recently, officials in Massachusetts urged smaller school systems to look at merging or sharing resources with other schools to save costs as the state looks for ways to cut more than $1 million in state funding to 23 school systems. The idea...

Substitute roster.(technology )
July 1, 2006... Problem: When a Syracuse (N.Y.) City School District faculty member was going to be absent, he or she would call the principal and start a chain reaction. The principal would then call the superintendent's office and two office staffers would...

Tableau 2.0: Tableau Software.(New Products: THE LATEST OFFERINGS IN BOOKS, HARDWARE, INTERNET AND SOFTWARE)
July 1, 2006... www.tableausoftware.com Software, starts at $499/license (with 50% academic discount) This edition enables users to explore, investigate and analyze data using a visual interface. Users can find data relationships, trends, patterns and...

Leap Track Reading Pro program: LeapFrog SchoolHouse.(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... www.leapfrogschoolhouse.com/readingpro, Interactive Books/Software, $1,855 This program provides intensive, individualized instruction in reading, writing and various content areas with interactive Quantum LeapPad personal learning tools...

MacBook Pro: Apple.(New Products: THE LATEST OFFERINGS IN BOOKS, HARDWARE, INTERNET AND SOFTWARE)
July 1, 2006... www.apple.com, Hardware, $2,599 (education discount) Apple's new notebook computer features the Intel Core Duo processor and a system architecture that delivers up to five times the performance of the PowerBook G4. Weighing 6.8 pounds, it also...

35IR-USB Master Wireless Headphone: Califone International Inc.(New Products: THE LATEST OFFERINGS IN BOOKS, HARDWARE, INTERNET AND SOFTWARE)
July 1, 2006... www.califone.com, Hardware, $63 These wireless USB headphones with an Infrared USB transmitter were designed to help teachers facilitate group learning around a computer or laptop--up to five feet line of sight-range without disturbing...

Tech tools--resource kit for graphing calculators: teacher created materials.(New Products: THE LATEST OFFERINGS IN BOOKS, HARDWARE, INTERNET AND SOFTWARE)
July 1, 2006... www.tcmpub.com, Kit, $299 Aimed at students in grades 5-12, this kit was designed to be used with Texas Instrument graphing calculators, which are not included. Its 60 open-ended projects give students opportunities for critical thinking....

High-speed color domes: ELMO.(New Products: THE LATEST OFFERINGS IN BOOKS, HARDWARE, INTERNET AND SOFTWARE)
July 1, 2006... www.elmousa.com, Cameras, $1,625-$2,250 The four versions of the ESD line of high-speed, compact color cameras were designed to deliver high resolution--470TVL--images with excellent color accuracy. They are compatible with a wide variety...

Web Hawk: Tangent Inc.(New Products: THE LATEST OFFERINGS IN BOOKS, HARDWARE, INTERNET AND SOFTWARE)
July 1, 2006... www.tangent.com/webhawk Software, starts under $1,000 With more than 9.5 million unique domains categorized in its destinations database, the new version of this content filtering solution monitors and blocks access to sites with...

NP 1000/NP2000: NEC Solutions Inc.(New Products: THE LATEST OFFERINGS IN BOOKS, HARDWARE, INTERNET AND SOFTWARE)
July 1, 2006... www.necsam.com Hardware, $5,995/$6,995 This new line of digital installation projectors offer both vertical and horizontal lens shift to accommodate near limitless projector placement and integrated high speed wireless LAN IEEE 802.11b/g...

BrainPOP en Espanol: BrainPOP.(New Products: THE LATEST OFFERINGS IN BOOKS, HARDWARE, INTERNET AND SOFTWARE)
July 1, 2006... www.es.brainpop.com Web site, annual subscription starts at $100 This Web site offers award-winning content in science, math, social studies, language arts, health and technology in Spanish. It was designed to assist teachers meet the needs...

By the numbers.(Table)
July 1, 2006... NetDay Technology 62% of teachers depict themselves as average or beginner tech users. Which of these technology products do you use on a weekly basis? GRADES 6-12 TEACHERS WEEKLY USAGE...