Curriculum Administrator articles from April 2001

Curriculum Administrator archives from April 2001

LISTENING TO THE MESSAGE.(safety programs to combat violence in schools)(Brief Article)(Editorial)
April 1, 2001... As we were putting together this month's issue with its focus on school safety and violence, another school shooting occurred. This incident, in a town outside of San Diego, left two students dead and 13 others hurt. At first blush, the same...

Letters to the editor.
April 1, 2001... DEFENDING KIPP VOCIFEROUSLY This month brought a huge amount of letters to us, nearly 300 strong, about our story "Judging the KIPP Academy," CURRICULUM ADMINISTRATOR, January 2001, p. 45. These letters, all from students at the Houston...

Will the University of California's Decision be The Beginning of the End For the SATs?(scholastic assessment test)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... After 100 years, does the SAT still serve its purpose? Recently some smaller colleges have stopped using the test as a criteria for admissions, but now that they may be joined by the country's largest university system, the University of...

The State of the Education Industry: Strong, but with Pitfalls, Says a Market Analyst.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... While the Big Four education publishers--McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education, Harcourt and Houghton Mifflin--are all in solid financial shape, one of the nation's leading financial analysts for the education industry is warning school administrators...

Evolution Returns to Kansas Curriculum.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... Ending nearly two years of ridicule from many education experts, Kansas Board of Education members decided to again teach evolution as the central theory of the origin of man. In one of the most watched cases in recent U.S. education history,...

EDISON SCHOOLS FIND THE BLACK.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... Following a string of adding school sites, Edison Schools reported its first substantial earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation and amortization, net of non-cash charges, for the quarter ending Dec. 31. The company posted EBITDA,...

American Bar Association: Zero Tolerance is Too Restrictive.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... A kindergartner in Pittsburgh is suspended from school because his Halloween costume, a firefighter, includes a plastic ax. A Green Bay third grader is suspended because the fob on his key chain is a one-inch replica of a gun. A sixth grader in...

iHIGH MAKES NEW HIGH SCHOOL MARKETING PARTNERSHIPS.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... Kentucky-based school marketing company iHigh recently signed marketing rights agreements to represent 14 new high school state associations, bringing its total to 15. iHigh now maintains the marketing rights for state associations including...

TWO BILLS RESTRICT SALE OF STUDENT INFO.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... Among recent legislation proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives was a comprehensive education bill, H.R.340, the Excellence and Accountability in Education Act, from Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., which included provisions requiring...

NCES: MORE THAN HALF THE NATION'S SCHOOLS REPORT CRIMINAL INCIDENTS.(National Center for Education Statistics)(Brief Article)(Illustration)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2001... For the most recent year of available data, 1996-97, more than half of the K-12 public schools in the U.S. reported a criminal incident to police, reports the Digest of Education Statistics 2000. About 57 percent of U.S. schools reported a...

Internet Filtering Company N2H2 Courts Controversy Over Selling Of Student Data.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... It's 10 a.m., do you know where your student's Internet data is going? In a move that quickly devolved into a public relations headache, N2H2--one of the nation's dominant school Internet filtering companies--was fending off criticism that...

USA TODAY AND TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC. PARTNER TO DELIVER EDUCATION MATERIALS WITH HANDHELDS.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... Texas Instruments and USA Today announced a plan to explore ways to bring activities from the paper's Education Online into classrooms via the new TI-Navigator classroom learning system. Recently handheld computing devices by Palm and...

Survey: Some Indiana Superintendents Caught Surfing Questionable Web Sites.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... If asked, would you know what Web sites you've been accessing from your school-owned computer, and would any of those sites be inappropriate? Recently, computer records from 49 central Indiana school districts showed that school superintendents...

AOL Offers Free SAT Test Prep Online.(AOL@School offers free achievement practice tests)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... AOL@School's latest alliance offers users a free four-week SAT prep test course from TestU, officials announced in mid-February. "My passion for technology is to use it for what it does well, real educational uses," says Terry Crane, AOL's...

GATES FOUNDATION CONTINUES SMALLER SCHOOL/CLASS SIZE PLAN.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... Following in the footsteps of a similar initiative in Oakland, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is offering a group of Washington state public high schools the equivalent of about $500 per student in funding if the schools agree to scale...

EDMIN.COM TEAMS WITH MICROSOFT ON A NEW K-12 CURRICULUM MANAGEMENT PLATFORM.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... In a move to help expand its reach, EDmin.com, a provider of Internet-based educational applications, recently teamed up with Microsoft to bundle Edmin.com's Virtual EDucation System with the new Microsoft Encarta Class Server, a Web-based...

REPORT URGES READING COMPREHENSION STUDY.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... A draft report by the DOE's Office of Educational Research and Improvement says that developing a systematic study of reading comprehension will be an important challenge in coming years. "We still have much to learn about how children...

$10M TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN MATH AND SCIENCE INSTRUCTION.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... Students in San Diego's City Schools will be the beneficiaries of close to a $10 million donation during the next three years designed to improve math and science instruction. Through the grant, the Foundation for the Improvement of Mathematic...

THE ATLAS OF SCIENCE LITERACY.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... In a first-ever joint publishing arrangement, Project 2061 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Science Teachers Association have published the Atlas of Science Literacy. The publication provides educators...

Mothers Against Drunk Driving Enters Elementary Schools.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... MADD's latest program to prevent drunk driving is targeting elementary school students. The program, called Protecting You/Protecting Me, educates children about the dangers of underage drinking but also teaches them how to protect themselves...

SUMMER WORKSHOPS FOR TEACHERS.(offered through the National Council for the Social Studies)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... The National Council for the Social Studies, through its professional development program, 'is sponsoring a series of summer workshops for teachers. The seven programs, offered at various sites around the country, will focus on national...

A Most Decorated Educator.(Rod Paige)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... Rod Paige capped his flurry of recent educational awards by being named the AASA Superintendent of the Year. The way Rod Paige has been picking up awards lately, he could even make the contestants at a Miss America pageant nervous. Paige...

UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE.(Pennsylvania school district uses Sony PlayStations to teach migrant students)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2001... This wealthy Pennsylvania district uses Sony PlayStations to help at-risk migrant students succeed. The Kennett Consolidated School District in Chester County, Penn., is a district of extremes. It Is one of the wealthiest school districts...

WHAT'S MINE IS MINE.(computers at school)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... When technology is everywhere all the time, "ownership" takes on a new meaning. Not so long ago, being on the wrong side of the Digital Divide meant not having access to a computer. More recently, it's meant not having entree to the...

Internet Filters: Good or Bad, Now Necessary.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... The feds are forcing school districts to consider filtering online content by threatening to reject funding requests. If you have been debating about whether or not to install filtering technology to block objectionable online content in...

Columbine Revisited.(Columbine High School)
April 1, 2001... In the aftermath of the Colorado high school's tragedy, the district's superintendent shares her insights on how to work with students, staff and community during trying times. Incidents of school violence generate such notoriety--evidence...

Security Measures.
April 1, 2001... Violence prevention should be an ongoing process that includes physical deterrents coupled with peer communication. High profile school shooting incidents in the past couple of years have generated headlines, heightened public awareness of...

Safety in the BIG APPLE.(New York City Schools )
April 1, 2001... Administrators in the country's largest school district take student safety very seriously. Here, the official in charge of student and safety prevention services talks about measures the district takes to keep its students safe. Safety in...

Going the DISTANCE.
April 1, 2001... Growing acceptance of distance learning in the K-12 market has led to innovation and competition. Here's a quick quiz: What do basketball star Shaquille O'Neal, former South African president Nelson Mandela, relationship expert Barbara...

Virtual CLASSROOMS.(schooling online)
April 1, 2001... Satellite conferencing, video technology and the Internet are at the forefront in the effort to deliver quality education to anyone, anywhere, anytime. In the old days if a student wanted to learn something they had to walk, ride a school...

IMPROVING ALL STUDENTS' MATH IQ.
April 1, 2001... This Pennsylvania school district has boosted its math scores by mixing new lessons with fun and family participation. It was test time at Parkside Elementary School. But as its fifth-graders puzzled over complicated math problems, they put...

Taking Stock of Math Education.(curriculum)
April 1, 2001... Experts debate the ills, and possible solutions, for what ails math curriculum. After literacy, no other issue associated with contemporary education is more hotly debated than mathematics education. Well-organized citizen and academic...

Axel's Whirled Math Numbers and Equations.(Review)
April 1, 2001... Axel's Whirled Math Numbers and Equations **** Great Wave Software, www.great wave.com, 800-423-1144 Grade: preK-3 Teaches: math, numbers, counting, greater than/less than, word problems, place value, single- and two-digit addition and...

2001 World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia.(Review)
April 1, 2001... 2001 World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia **** 1/2 World Book Inc. www.worldbook.com 800-967-5325 Grade: 4 to 12 Teaches: research skills Platform: Windows, $49.95 When choosing an encyclopedia for a child, ease of use is an essential...

GeoCycle.(educational software)
April 1, 2001... GeoCycle **** EdVenture Software www.edven.com, 203-852-9246 Grade: 3 to 7 Teaches: geography: states, capitals, major cities, natural features, famous sites Platform: Win, Mac, $29.95 Have you ever seen one of those tiny UltraLight...

The Name Says It All.(How Stuff Works )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... How Stuff Works provides concise, entertaining explanations of the science behind everyday items such as motors, compact disks, hair dryers, microwave ovens, MP3 players and more. The site also provides helpful background on current events...

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Rubrics.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... Performance assessment in the classroom is an idea whose value has only been fully recognized in the past decade. Unlike a true-false or multiple choice test, performance assessment requires students to demonstrate an understanding of the...

A Place to Learn and Unwind.(online assistance to educators)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... Using a Java-based application similar to those found in chat rooms, Tapped In serves as an online meeting place for educators to participate in discussions, plan projects with colleagues, attend online courses and find new classroom resources....

A Noteworthy Web Site.(teaching musical theory online)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... What chord do we get if we apply both chromatic mirror inversion and retrograde motion to a dominant seventh chord? That's one of the questions addressed at Teoria (Spanish for Theory), a rich resource for music teachers and students of music...

INFOLINE.(includes multiple articles)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... Start Something In a recent survey of students, 70 percent of respondents believe it is very important to have values in order to be successful, however, only 12 percent knew the definition of "values." In an effort to motivate...

A Program To Count On.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... Mathematica for Students offers new features and volume discounts. Mathematica has long been the leading professional math computation and presentation solution. The updated Mathematica 4.1 Student Version is similar to the professional...

new products.(teaching equipment)
April 1, 2001... TEXAS INSTRUMENTS OFFERS COST-EFFECTIVE NETWORKED TECHNOLOGY Texas Instruments, education.ti.com, $9,800. Texas Instruments' new TI-Navigator system offers a cost-effective alternative to traditional classroom computer networks....

DOT BOMB?(Internet)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... Is the Internet just another passing fad? Is the Internet dead? Was the great electronic mall nothing more than a house of cards? If my stock portfolio is any indication, the answer is, Yes! This time last year it was soaring to new heights...

The Next BIG THING.(hand-held computers in classrooms)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... When we published the first issue of EDUCATION IN HAND in December, we were excited at the potential we saw in handheld computers in education but we were unsure of what the education community's reaction would be. Would busy school executives...

The Latest PALMS.
April 1, 2001... Three new computers give users expansion card capacity, more memory, additional built-in software and new faceplates. Palm Inc. has introduced three brand-new models--the m105, m500 and m505--along with a whole suite of new updated...

Independence In the Palms of Their Hands.(Palm pilots for special education students)
April 1, 2001... This Kansas high school uses handheld devices to help special education students excel When you think of hand-held devices for high school students, odds are you think of a calculator. When you think of gadgets for kids with special needs,...

PUSHING BARRIERS.(Palm pilots in education)
April 1, 2001... These schools are exploring many ways to use Palms for administration and learning. It's a scene that has played out in just about every high school in the country. A principal runs into a group of students roaming the hallway or out in...

Palm Awards First Round of Palm Education Pioneer program Grants.
April 1, 2001... Palm Inc. and SRI International recently awarded the first round of grants for the Palm Education Pioneer program. These 15 winners from around the United States represent projects in a variety of grade levels and academic programs. The...

Palm's New Training Program.(professional development for teachers)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... The Palm Education Training Coordinator program is supporting school district professional development plans and creating a special learning community. The new Palm Education Training Coordinator (PETC) program addresses the top issue for...

Applications Just For the Classroom.
April 1, 2001... Here's a Look at some of the top programs specifically for educators--and students -- using Palms. With the number of Palm users in the education profession growing daily, there is an increasing demand for education applications available...

Peripherals for Palm OS.
April 1, 2001... Palm IIIc Recharger Kit www.palm.com $39.95 The Palm IIIc Recharger allows users to power the lithium battery anywhere there's a power outlet, from home to school to a hotel. The snap-on plug adapters connect the AC recharger to power...