District Administration articles from March 2006

District Administration archives from March 2006

Following the philosophy of Wozniak.(Steve Wozniak )(Editorial)(Biography)
March 1, 2006... If you think it's hard to imagine one person almost single-handedly creating the personal computer revolution and then recasting himself as an after-school teacher for sixth graders, then obviously you don't know Steve Wozniak too well. Wozniak...

Florida's anti-voucher ruling challenged.(Update: NEWS, STATS AND FAST FACTS)
March 1, 2006... A voucher school advocacy group is looking to change the Florida state's uniformity clause so it would allow for public funds to go toward voucher school programs in the Sunshine state. The Alliance for School Choice, based in Phoenix, is...

Real-life laptop usage to be studied.
March 1, 2006... Ditching the guessing or anecdotal-story game for hard-core data is what a new two-and-a-half-year study of Deli laptops at the Henrico (Va.) County School District is all about. In the most extensive study of a school/laptop computer...

Arabic and Russian push.(learning different languages to combat terrorism)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Learning foreign language in American schools, K-12 and college, will be vital in part to combat terrorism and promote freedom and democracy, according to President Bush. The president recently announced plans to boost foreign-language study,...

Feds help students go wireless.(Fayetteville School District )(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... A federal loan program helped sixth and seventh graders at the Fayetteville School District in Arkansas get wireless laptop computers for next school year, according to The Morning News. The school board is borrowing about $700,000 under...

More data get gates' approval.(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Improving the collection and use of education data and creating state longitudinal data systems to improve student achievement are among the biggest pushes of the Council of Chief State School Officers and the U.S. Department of Education. ...

Texas closes district permanently.(Wilmer-Hutchins School District)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... The Texas Education Agency plans to permanently obliterate poor-performing Wilmer-Hutchins School District and send its students to Dallas schools as of July, pending clearance by the U.S. Justice Department. State law gives the agency the...

Tennessee creates special history.(african-american history at schools)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... The Tennessee Department of Education established a uniform curriculum for African-American history to be taught in any high school that wants to add it as an elective. In the past, schools wanting to offer an African-American history class, or...

Teacher rights when fired.(sexual abuse case)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Teachers need to know their rights. In an unusual move, a National Education Association attorney for a teacher acquitted of sexual abuse charges in court was recently smacked with sanctions for bringing to court what the judge thought was a...

Spellings wants strategy for higher ed.(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Education Secretary Margaret Spellings recently created a commission to develop a comprehensive national strategy for postsecondary education. The commission, led by Charles Miller, former chairman of the Board of Regents over the...

Largest merit pay in Texas.(Houston Independent School District will )(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Houston Independent School District will have the largest merit pay program in the U.S., basing rewards to teachers on how well their students score on standardized tests. The $14.5 million program would distribute up to $3,000 annually...

High school completion rates: 1975-2002.(Table)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Estimated Completion Rates, which take into account migration adjustments 1975 83% 1980 80% 1985 78% 1990 75% 1995 71% 2000 70% 2002 66% Basic Completion Rates, which are the number of ninth-graders in one...

Vermont's student-teacher ratio could change.(Update: NEWS, STATS AND FAST FACTS)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... The 10.9-1 student-to-teacher ratio in Vermont is the lowest in the nation, but the powers that be think it's creating a green headache. Raising the ratio to 12 or 13 students to one teacher would still leave the state below the national...

First steroid testing of its kind.(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Some New Jersey high school athletes will be subjected to random steroid testing under an unprecedented plan recently issued by then-acting Gov. Richard Codey, according to the Philadelphia News Inquirer. Athletes whose teams qualify for...

Water flows for brain.(water vconsumption for better learning)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... At least one school in Maryland is giving students a break, a water break that is. Lindale Middle School has 59 water coolers in classrooms, in addition to hallway water fountains, to encourage students to drink more. a way to stave off...

South Dakota provides vision.(laptops for students)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Administrators in South Dakota have a lot to do in the next four years. Gov. Michael Rounds launched the 2010 Education Initiative providing a vision for the future of education. Part of the plan will involve coordinating preschool services,...

NAACP fights Connecticut's lawsuit.(Inside the Law)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Making clear that the Connecticut NAACP is not endorsing the No Child Left Behind law, President Scot X. Esdaile says the NAACP state chapter is choosing to side with the U.S. Department in Education while the state fights to have their lawsuit...

NCLB cuts for 2006 mean more juggling.(No Child Left Behind Act)
March 1, 2006... On the heels of celebrating the fourth anniversary of No Child Left Behind, $1 billion cuts to the program this year has some congressional and education leaders sore. President Bush has overseen record education spending, but mostly...

NEA fights its own battle.(National Education Association)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... As Connecticut pushes to keep its lawsuit against the government going, the National Education Association and other plaintiffs are appealing a similar decision by a U.S. District Court judge who dismissed the first lawsuit filed to prevent the...

In Utah, students of color need colorful teaching.
March 1, 2006... As some education organizations agree that No Child Left Behind has a worthy cause, the law's mandates and lack of enough federal funding are not helping minority students--even those in Utah. At Westminster College, in a recent panel...

NCLB at age 4: still a toddler?(No Child Left Behind)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... What a difference four years could make--depending on whom you talk to. President Bush claims the No Child Left Behind act is working given the National Assessment of Educational Progress. or the so-called nation's report card. showing...

Getting tough on school shootings.(SECURITY TRENDS)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... The murder of a Tennessee high school assistant principal in November points to an alarming trend in school safety. Thirty-nine school-associated violent deaths covered the 2004-05 school year, and 14 more students and teachers were...

Pinpointing substance abuse.(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Educators may attribute adolescent mood swings and behavior changes to hormones or stress, but sometimes the problem is substance abuse. School counselors and educators in 55 New Jersey high schools will receive training in a...

Making cyberspace safer.(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Cyberspace can be dangerous for kids. Take 14-year-old Kelligh Prince who was solicited via an instant message from a sexual predator. Prince relied on instinct and later blocked the stranger's e-mail address. Both online sexual predation...

Online safety tips.(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... 1. Implement an interactive, meaningful educational programs on cyber citizenship. Programs should address specifics like cyber-bullying, stranger danger and music theft. 2. Get peer counseling groups involved. Peers can help diffuse the...

The great communicator.(Administrator Profile: Brian Benzel)
March 1, 2006... Forty or so years ago it wasn't far-fetched to consider school administrators as the glass-office workers they may have been, cloistered away from the voices of parents, students and staff they governed. But that's certainly not the scenario in...

Read all about it.(District Profile: Madison (Wis.) Metropolitan School District)(learning to read)
March 1, 2006... Last May, a first grader named Jasmine transferred to Mendota Elementary School, a K-5 school that's part of the Madison (Wis.) Metropolitan School District. She could barely read. Her parents were frustrated at her former teachers for letting...

Do these web sites work? Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Learn what our online experts, Odvard Egil Dyrli and Kirk Snedeker, say is right-and wrong-with these district Web sites.
March 1, 2006... DESIGN * The site links to Web pages for each of its 100 schools, with a building photograph, contact information and selected class homework assignments, though much of the content is outdated or incomplete. Many of the pages offer access...

Excellence by design: superintendent Mary Frances Callan has taken her Palo Alto district to great heights. But she says the hard work and focus her team expends is every bit as important as the money and technology the district enjoys.(Interview)
March 1, 2006... PALO ALTO (Calif.) Unified School District seems to be leading a charmed life. Located in the heart of an educational (Stanford University) and technological (Silicon Valley) region, its schools enjoy a phenomenal outpouring of community...

The perfect plan: one district goes beyond the usual RFP to create a document that challenges vendors to think creatively.
March 1, 2006... Some districts dread the end of a laptop or technology contract, envisioning a spate of committee meetings, budget decisions and equipment overhauls. But the York Region School Board in Toronto couldn't wait to dig in and get a fresh start--and...

The great debate: evolution v. intelligent design doesn't have to pull a school district apart and leave both sides gunning for the other.
March 1, 2006... Few topics strike terror in the hearts of K-12 school administrators like the evolution v. intelligent design debate--and with good reason. School board members in Dover, Penn., found themselves blinking in the national spotlight when a...

Beat the hiring frenzy: to get the most qualified candidates, you need to be online.
March 1, 2006... WHETHER YOUR DISTRICT HIRES TWO OR 2,000 TEACHERS EACH YEAR, it's a challenging process. First, you need to make sure you're tapping into the best pool of candidates. Then you have to find highly qualified people who do what you're looking for...

Global discussions: thanks to virtual town meetings with students across the globe, it's easy to share information about HIV and AIDS.
March 1, 2006... Charlie Brown calls it an effort to make the world a smaller place. The distance learning facilitator of the Magnolia (Texas) Independent School District, just 40 miles northwest of Houston, is the technical advisor responsible for connecting...

Lights, camera, lesson plan: an under-resourced school district receives a state-of-the-art media center.
March 1, 2006... It was a heady day for the staff and students of the Poughkeepsie Middle School, a struggling institution just 82 miles north of Manhattan. The students and faculty were greeted by U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton and Discovery Channel CEO and...

Online social networking: sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Xanga are transforming teen cultures.
March 1, 2006... On a fateful day in November, only 400 out of 3,000 students showed up for classes at San Antonio's Warren High School, after threats against the school were posted on the popular free online social network site MySpace. The warnings said two...

Sounds better, less expensive: will your school impede the creative development of your students or embrace tools that let you get out of the way?
March 1, 2006... I recently led a sold-out podcasting workshop at a state edtech conference. Two days before the event I learned that data uploading and downloading would be prohibited (on a non-school day). Since participants were not required to have iPods, I...

Making the most of professional development.
March 1, 2006... What can districts do to ensure that professional development strategies and spending align with findings from the best available research--and affect student achievement? Three 2005 reports address these questions. Good professional...

Facility management.
March 1, 2006... Problem: Rochester Community Schools, located in southeastern Michigan, only a few miles from the Detroit Piston stadium and near two colleges, was facing the challenge of how to maximize its income from renting its facilities without...

Students in Michigan connect with authors.(Berrien County Intermediate School District)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Last fall, students at Michigan's Berrien County Intermediate School District read The Ultimate Gift by Jim Stovall. They wrote about the author and his book in an online blog. But the best part of the unit was when they interviewed Stovall via...

New health content for states.(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... State departments of education in Alabama, Florida, Kansas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming have partnered with Discovery Education to make the year-old Discovery Health Connection available to every school district in each state. Discovery...

Biotechnology is coming to a district near you.(Curriculum Update)
March 1, 2006... In 1988, Ellyn Daugherty took what she believes was the first biotechnology workshop for teachers. At that time, only a handful of schools offered any kind of biotech lesson or class. Today, thanks to the industry's explosive growth, more...

TeachingBooks.net makes reading come alive.(TeachingBooks.net)(from Orange County Public Schools )(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... Your district's students can learn about authors from TeachingBooks.net. Nancy Pelser-Borowicz, district library media specialist for Orange County Public Schools in Fla., is a self-professed Teachingbooks guru, having accessed more than 40,000...

Corwin Press: Leading Every Day: 124 Actions for Effective Leadership.(Leadership Books)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2006... www.corwinpress.com, $39.95 Modeling the philosophy that leadership exists in everyone, the author offers inspirational leadership stories, cogent quotations, actionable advice and the latest research on best practices in group leadership,...

Greenwood Publishing Group: No Child Left Different.(Leadership Books)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2006... www.greenwood.com, $39.95 A group of authors from various disciplines explain why there has been a 300-percent increase in the use of psychotropic medications for children under the age of 20 and why prescriptions for preschoolers have...

Sage Publications: The SAGE Handbook of Educational Leadership: Advances in Theory, Research, and Practice.(Leadership Books)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2006... www.sagepub.com, $125 This handbook consists of five main sections that cover everything from leadership and management to law and policy. Learn about leadership views that reflect contemporary research regarding the superintendency and...

Solution Tree: The Power of SMART Goals: Using Goals to Improve Student Learning.(Leadership Books)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2006... www.solution-tree.com, $24.95 If you're looking to transform your schools into places where every student is meeting and exceeding standards by focusing on results, this book will show you how. It features four stories from elementary,...

Teachers College Press: What School Boards Can Do: Reform Governance for Urban Schools.(Leadership Books)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2006... www.tcpress.com, $31.95 Here's a comprehensive approach to board leadership referred to as reform governance. This accessible framework brings together all the work of an urban school board ranging from big ideas about core beliefs and...

No Starch Press: Silence on the Wire: A Field Guide to Passive Reconnaissance and Indirect Attacks.(Computer Literature)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2006... www.nostarch.com, $39.95 Author Michal Zalewski shares his expertise to explain how computers and networks operate, how information is processed and delivered, and what security threats lurk in the shadows. In this narrative, he explores a...

Iste: National Educational Technology Standards for Students: Resources for Student Assessment.(Computer Literature)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2006... www.iste.org, $39.95 Learn about NETS-based strategies and tools that accurately measure students' ability to use teehnology effectively for learning. This book includes detailed guidelines for creating and choosing reliable tests of...

Mcgraw-Hill Osborne: PC Upgrading and Troubleshooting Quicksteps.(Computer Literature)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2006... books.mcgraw-hill.com, $16.99 This reference book uses color screenshots and brief instructions to explain how to fix all kinds of problems associated with desktop and laptop PCs, monitors, printers, CD and DVD drives, Windows XP and...

Iste: The Digital Reader: Using E-books in K-12 Education.(Computer Literature)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2006... www.iste.org, $37.95 If anyone in your district wants to learn about e-book hardware and software, look no further. In this book you'll find descriptions of the most popular e-book platforms and programs and dozens of practical ideas for...

Peachpit: The Macintosh iLife 05: An Interactive Guide to iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, and GarageBand.(Computer Literature)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2006... www.peachpit.com, $34.99 This illustrated handbook shows users how to organize, produce and share digital media, ranging from editing and e-mailing digital photos to burning home movies to a DVD. The two-page spreads are self-contained...

No Starch Press: The Cult of iPod.(Computer Literature)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2006... www.nostarch.com, $24.95 Are you missing out on the iPod craze? Feeling confused? Wired News editor Leander Kahney examines how Apple's portable player is changing the way people store, carry and use information as well as the way they...

iMac: Apple.(New Products: THE LATEST OFFERINGS IN BOOKS, HARDWARE, INTERNET AND SOFTWARE )(Product/service evaluation)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... www.apple.com, Hardware, $1,299 Offering the new Intel Core Duo processor, this computer also comes loaded with a built-in iSight video camera for out-of-the-box video conferencing that offers four times the resolution of its predecessor,...

Nova5000: Fourier Systems.(New Products: THE LATEST OFFERINGS IN BOOKS, HARDWARE, INTERNET AND SOFTWARE)(Product/service evaluation)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... www.fourier-sys.com Hardware, Starts from $419 This Windows CE 5.0 tablet-computing device was designed to alleviate the cost of 1:1 computing by filling the gap between handhelds and notebooks. Weighing just 1.8 pounds, it includes...

iLife '06 and iWork '06: Apple.(New Products: THE LATEST OFFERINGS IN BOOKS, HARDWARE, INTERNET AND SOFTWARE)(Product/service evaluation)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... www.apple.com, Software, $79 each This application introduces iWeb, which creates professional-looking pages, online photo albums, blogs and Podcasts. The suite also includes iPhoto 6, which supports up to 250,000 photos and introduces...

Quickstart Music Suite: Midisoft Corp.(New Products)(Product/service evaluation)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... www.midisoft.com, Software, $129 One product, four different types of software: music recording, music notational, piano learning and music composition. Music Mentor teaches the history of music and music appreciation by letting students...

Destination Reading Course III/IV: Riverdeep.(New Products)(Product/service evaluation)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... www.riverdeep.com Course, $499 each Course 111 has been designed for upper elementary grades 4-6 and makes reading relevant by engaging students with individualized, age-appropriate, diverse content. It focuses on vocabulary and...

V-339 projector: PLUS Visions Corp.(New Products)(Product/service evaluation)(Brief article)
March 1, 2006... www.plus-america.com, Hardware, $1,995 Push a single button on this DLP portable projector to switch between presentation and premium-video applications. For business presentations, use the four-segment color wheel (dynamic mode),...

Reading Readiness program: Knowledge Adventure.
March 1, 2006... www.knowledgeadventureschool.com Software, Starts from $89.95/single user Designed to help educators manage students' individual literacy needs, this adaptive early-reading system combines standards-based lessons, classroom management...

Vmath: Voyager Expanded Learning.(New Products)
March 1, 2006... www.voyagerlearning.com Program, $399/teacher resource kit, $59/student math pack This new intervention program provides struggling math students in grades 3-8 with up to 40 minutes of targeted, systematic, daily instruction to bring them...

Digital STARLAB: Learning Technologies.
March 1, 2006... www.starlab.com, System, starts from $48,500/ digital projection system only (no dome) This compact and manually operated digital projector produces starfield images. Features include a custom fish-eye lens creating small bright stars that...

Video iPod-compatible service: VIDITalk Corp.(New Products)
March 1, 2006... www.viditalk.com Software, $1,995/20 user license Create and distribute video podcasts with this software. It lets users create video messages on desktops or portable computers that are delivered through streaming technology via the...

Harmony Island: A Tropical Adventure in Conflict Resolution. The Academic Edge.(New Products)
March 1, 2006... www.academicedge.com Program, $89/educator version Aimed at middle- and high-school students, this program introduces conflict resolution and social problem-solving skills. It consists of an information- and media-rich CD-ROM about...

Calendar of events.
March 1, 2006... MARCH 2006 FETC 2006 Florida Educational Technology Conference March 22-24, 2006 Orlando, Fla. www.fetc.org APRIL 2006 ISC West The International Security Conference West 2006 April 4-6 Las Vegas,...

Professional development.(By the Numbers)(Image)
March 1, 2006... PARTICIPATION Percentage of teachers who participated in various professional development activities Any of these activities 99% Workshops, conferences or training 95% Regularly...