Items Being Considered for 2008-09 Budget by District Three Administration

• Continue the initiatives started this year to improve test scores and graduation rates ($900,000)
• Open a new elementary and middle school
• Increase administrative and staff salaries to be competitive with other York County Districts
• Discontinue study hall in the high schools which will require additional high school teachers
• Reduce class size in the middle schools.

These are the items which the administration believes is "most important". Discussions with the board will begin at the January work session.

Motivating your students with high expectations

There’s a certain humor in the image of a motivational speaker standing on stage to share his message with an audience—and then finding that no one is listening.

That’s gotta hurt.
Then again, when you’re speaking in an auditorium filled with high school students, you know you’ve got your work cut out for you.

According to the Tulsa World (www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=071117_1_A16_hMany00454), motivational speaker Stan Pearson gave it a good try last month when he visited McLain High School for Science and Technology. His goal: to talk to young people about the importance of personal success and “believing in oneself in spite of other people’s perceptions or judgments.”

Alas, the judgment of the young audience was one of total disregard. “Pearson was repeatedly interrupted by students laughing and talking among themselves as he tried to speak,” the World reported.

The general public will read this story and, in too many cases, assume that today’s kids (and schools) are worse than ever. But thankfully that’s not true. As every school board member knows, a lot of today’s kids are respectful, thoughtful, and caring individuals.

Yes, they forget at times. Put two kids together, and they’ll start yapping at a moment’s notice—if given half a chance. But that’s where adults are supposed to step in. You set the expectations. You hold kids accountable. You make them understand why it’s important to show respect and consideration for others—and when to shut up.

So what happened at McLain High? Did the kids fall short of expectations? Or did the adults fail to set those expectations—and fail to hold kids accountable while a guest was trying to speak?

To me, these are interesting questions. And school board members might want to ask similar ones about their own schools. Are you confident that your students know how to behave when guests visit your schools?

And, if not, does that say something about your students—or your educators?
Del Stover, Senior Editor
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Motivational speaker is met with apathy

by: ANDREA EGER World Staff Writer
11/17/2007 12:00 AM

Many McLain students ignore his talk


Motivational speaker Stan Pearson said his message about the importance of having and pursuing a dream fell on too many deaf ears Friday at McLain High School for Science and Technology, but he persevered in the hope of reaching even a few students.

Pearson's visit to McLain and a handful of other Tulsa schools this week was sponsored by the Human Relations Student Association at the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa.

Pearson, associate director of student activities at Texas A&M International University in Laredo, Texas, speaks to school and college groups about diversity and achieving peak performance.

Speaking before an auditorium full of McLain juniors and seniors Friday, Pearson was repeatedly interrupted by students laughing and talking among themselves as he tried to speak about believing in oneself in spite of other people's perceptions or judgments.

"Sometimes we let society and others convince us we are not great. You all have something to offer," he began, then replied to some inaudible comments shouted at him by saying, "I wish you would use those smart comments on a test or an essay or to get a job. That's when it helps to be clever."

Pearson went on to say that he was accused of not being "black enough" when he was growing up in Chicago because he did not "talk black" or "act black."

"I had to ask myself, 'What does it mean for me to really be black?' " he said. "And I had to learn to fight from the neck up, instead of like this," holding up clinched fists.

"If you're really black, do you know what was Malcolm X's last name before he converted to Islam?" Pearson asked the students.

After fielding a couple of guesses, he revealed the correct answer, Malcolm Little, and then posed another question: When was Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated?

He shared that correct answer, too: April 4, 1968.

He breezed up and down the aisles of the auditorium, asking nearly every student what they want to be when they grow up, and heard answers ranging from obstetrician and engineer to rock star and professional boxer.

"When you say something out loud, you are then held accountable for it," he said. "Get on the Internet and look up how to be whatever it is you want to be."

Pearson thanked the "5 percent" of students who might take something away from his speech because they were paying attention. He also invited them to share what they had learned with the other 95 percent in attendance, who he said did not appear to be listening.

The Human Relations Student Association at OU-Tulsa also sponsored Pearson's visits this week to Grimes and Patrick Henry elementary schools, and Gilcrease and Nimitz middle schools.

District News for 12-12

ST-ARTS Auditions Set for January 8
Auditions for the 2008 summer ST-ARTS program (Special Talents in the ARTS) will be held on Tues., Jan. 8, from 4:00-8:00 at Rawlinson Road. Students in grades 6-8 who are talented in the performing arts (dance, drama, band, strings, piano, choral, and art) and who are new to the program are eligible to audition. Students who wish to audition need to complete a ST-ARTS nomination form, now available in the schools, and return the form to Dr. Sarah Lynn Hayes in the D. O. by Jan. 3.

ST-ARTS is co-sponsored by the Winthrop University College of Visual and Performing Arts and participating school districts from York and Lancaster counties.  The three-week, tuition-free program will be held on weekdays June 9- 23 from 9:00-3:30 at Winthrop.

<Northside Elementary School of the Arts will present "North Pole Star: The Search for the Most Talented Reindeer of Them All" at 7:00 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 18, in the South Pointe Auditorium. Providing the entertainment will be second and fourth-grade students.

<Elise Archie, dance teacher, has two concerts coming up next week. "An Evening of Dance" at 7:30 Monday night, Dec. 17, will feature the Northwestern JV and Varsity Performance Ensembles in the NHS Auditorium. Concert #2, "Inspirations," will be held at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 18 in the Rawlinson Road Auditorium and will feature the school's Dance Department. 

<Rock Hill School District Three Adult Education will hold commencement at 7:00 p.m. Monday, Dec. 17, in the Cyber Cafe at the Rock Hill Flexible Learning Center.

<Kelli Ferment's class at Lesslie Elementary has been adopted! Through the Adopt-A-Classroom Program (www.adoptaclassroom.org), a Fort Mill resident has donated $125 to Kelli's online account.

Teacher Salary Lags Behind Inflation

NEA president warns low teacher pay shortchanges students
WASHINGTON —Despite the value of education to Americans, the National Education Association published figures today showing that investments in America’s public schools remain stagnant, as the average increase in teacher salary continues to trail behind the rate of inflation for 2005–06. No state has achieved adequate and equitable funding despite years of court cases and education reform proposals.

According to NEA’s publication, Rankings and Estimates: Rankings of the States 2006 and Estimates of School Statistics 2007, the average one-year increase in public schoolteacher salaries was 2.9 percent, while inflation escalated 3.9 percent. Over the past 10 years, the average salary for public schoolteachers increased only 1.3 percent after adjusting for inflation. Because of inflation and other economic factors, teachers have not been able to keep pace with basic household expenses.

“Low teacher pay comes at a very high cost,” said NEA President Reg Weaver. “How can we expect educators to be focused, committed and at their best on a daily basis when they are fearful of the consequences of not earning enough to support their families? Each year we lose excellent teachers because they can’t afford to make ends meet. Low teacher pay shortchanges the teaching profession, and students end up paying the price.”

Weaver continued: “The values we place on education must match the investments if we’re going to attract highly qualified teachers or close student achievement gaps and reduce the high school dropout rate.”

According to the report, the national average public schoolteacher salary for 2005–06 was $49,026. State average public schoolteacher salaries ranged from those in California ($59,825), Connecticut ($59,304) and the District of Columbia ($59,000) at the high end to South Dakota ($34,709), North Dakota ($37,764) and West Virginia ($38,284) at the low end.

Rankings & Estimates provides statistics to raise public understanding of key issues affecting teaching and learning conditions in the nation’s public schools. Other public education indicators, including school population and student-teacher ratio, can be found in the state-by-state report. Among the other highlights:
• Public school enrollment — Public school enrollment was 48,727,536, up 0.7 percent over fall 2004. The largest percentage of school enrollment increases from fall 2004 to fall 2005 were in Nevada (3.1%), Georgia (2.9%), Texas (2.8%) and Arizona (2.4%). Eighteen states and the District of Columbia experienced declines in student enrollment in fall 2005. The greatest declines were in Louisiana (-9.6%), North Dakota (-2.2%),
Utah (-1.9%) and the District of Colombia (-1.3%).
• Expenditures per student — Average per student expenditure for public elementary and secondary schools was $9,100 based on 2005–06 fall enrollment. States with the highest per student expenditures were New Jersey ($13,781), New York ($13,551), Massachusetts ($12,596), Vermont ($12,475) and Connecticut ($12,436). Among the states with the lowest per student expenditures were Utah ($5,347), Arizona ($5,585), Nevada ($6,755), Oklahoma ($6,944) and Tennessee ($6,979). These figures, in the context of adequacy and equity in school funding studies, are about 25 percent short in meeting student needs.
• Gender diversity in teaching — Males comprised 24.4 percent of public schoolteachers in 2006. Many of them taught in Kansas (33.3%), Oregon (31.4%), Alaska (30.9%) or Indiana (30.5%). States with the lowest percentage of male faculty were Arkansas (17.5%), Mississippi (17.7%), Louisiana (17.8%), South Carolina (17.9%), Virginia (18.8%) and Georgia (19.3%).

Rankings and Estimates has presented selected education statistics since the 1960s.
The complete report can be found at http://www.nea.org/edstats/images/07rankings.pdf

Board Work Session Notes - 12-10

Sullivan Middle School made a presentation on some of the ways they are learning using the new IB "Middle Years" process. Around 20 students made the presentation with teachers and parents in attendance.

The Board met in executive session for personnel issues and approved William "Bill" Mabry as an Associate Superintendent upon entering open session. The vote was 7-0. Mr. Mabry comes to us from Sumter 17 and will begin his duties in February. He will be replacing John Hair who will be taking retirement at the end of this physical year (June 08).

The Board voted 7-0 to approve a trip by Walter Brown to attend the Federal Relations Network Conference, Feb. 3-5, in Washington, D.C.. Our district has had representation for a number of years and this is a great opportunity to meet with our representatives about education issues.

The superintendent reported on several initiates that the district is undertaking to improve performance and communications. Those include meeting with area civic and religious groups, and with teachers and staff.

Several board members gave an update on the recent state school board conference on legislative measures. They do not anticipate any new issues to come up this session and expect little activity because everyone will be up for election in the fall.

Dr. Kokolis gave a revised timeline on the reassignment process.

The Board held focus group meetings at Oakland Baptist and St. Mary's Catholic church - several members gave updates from those meetings. The next focus group meetings will be held on Feb. 7.

The Board received a report on a recent Effectiveness Audit from School Management Services. The report indicated even though performance in several key areas is not where it should be, the district has taken appropriate steps to bring in in line within a few years. The district was at standard for the percentage of students taking AP/IB exams and Dual Credit Courses but was below standard on the number successfully completing those courses. ACT and SAT scores were comparable for districts such as ours and Teacher and Student Attendance was above districts similar to ours. Our PACT results were low, our drop out rate was high and our graduation rate was low. Data indicates we may have a serious problem with grade inflation - but this is a problem in all states where state sponsored college scholarships are available based on high school GPA.

Building a Better Teacher: Confronting the Crisis in Teacher Training

Innovative schools invent better ways to prep educators for the classroom.
by Grace Rubenstein
published 11/14/2007
Melissa Zipper needs less than a second to tally the value of her teacher-preparation experience: "Nothing."
Looking back on the nine-month master's degree program, she elaborates, "I was reading about all these theories and creating hypothetical lessons and seating charts, but they had no real-world application. Every class I had was based on this utopian group of kids who all spoke English and functioned at the same level. I never learned how to modify or accommodate the diverse needs that I would find in my room."

Unprepared, Zipper began her first day as an intern sixth-grade teacher in a high-poverty neighborhood in East Palo Alto, California, fully responsible, with next to no support from her university. Sound scary? This is scarier: Zipper's alma mater (which she requested not be identified) is one of the largest producers of teachers in California, credentialing about 2,700 people a year.

Cut to Boston, where Maria Fenwick spent a full year working alongside a mentor teacher through the district-sponsored Boston Teacher Residency. By the time she became a full-fledged fourth-grade teacher, she knew the local curriculum, the community, and the daily demands of education, and she was hungry for her own classroom. She recalls, "I knew what to expect every step of the way."

Credit: Thomas Reis
The crisis confronting teacher education is that, across the country, Fenwick's experience is the exception and Zipper's is the rule. Though there are some leading lights, far too many of America's 1,200-plus schools of education are mired in methods that isolate education from the arts and sciences, segregate the theory and practice of teaching, and provide insufficient time and support for future teachers to learn to work in real classrooms. Far too many universities, for their part, run education programs on the cheap.

The consequences are painfully clear: Half of all new educators abandon the profession within five years, costing schools an estimated $2.6 billion annually and leaving children in the neediest areas with the highest number of inexperienced teachers.

The delinquency in teacher preparation is nothing new, of course -- but it's growing more dire as we ask teachers to perform increasingly challenging tasks: to teach more complex skills to high and measurable standards, and to ensure that every child in an incredibly diverse generation learns these skills equally well. The three R's are not enough anymore.

Based on scientific research, good teaching is one thing we know makes a big difference in children's learning. (Researchers at the University of Tennessee in 1996 found that elementary school students who had three highly effective teachers in a row achieved math scores more than fifty percentile points higher than those who had three ineffective teachers in a row.) The challenge now is to figure out how to make a good teacher -- or, as Thomas Carroll, president of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF), puts it, "to close the gap between the way we prepare teachers and the way teachers actually teach in the classroom."

Nadirah Muhammad, Boston Teacher Residency:
"My mentor teacher is an amazing woman. She has a very strong presence in the classroom, and the students know that she means business and that she cares."

Credit: Gregory Cherin
Dozens of education schools -- and a few independent agencies, such as the Boston Public Schools -- are pioneering ways to do that. The research on how well these new methods work ranges from nascent to nonexistent so far, but these early models provide a compass for how to begin building better programs -- changes that hold the promise to better equip would-be teachers and, by extension, their future students for success.

Devil's Bargain
So-called normal schools, the precursors to today's schools of education, emerged in the mid-1800s to staff a growing number of classrooms, reports Stanford University historian David Labaree. To meet demands for more accessible higher education, they evolved into four-year teachers' colleges and then state colleges and universities by about 1960. In the late 1900s, some universities that didn't have colleges of education grew them.

From the outset, teacher-training programs faced what Labaree calls a "devil's bargain" between quantity and quality: producing enough teachers to meet demand, or preparing fewer teachers to high standards. Under pressure, he says, they chose quantity.

The sheer numbers of education students (who earn more than 7 percent of the bachelor's degrees and 29 percent of the master's degrees granted nationwide), combined with a focus "more on adequacy than on quality," Labaree says, turned education schools into moneymakers for many universities. "The ed school is the Rodney Dangerfield of higher education," he adds. "It don't get no respect."

No respect doesn't mean no expectations, however, especially not in the past fifteen years or so. A cry for better education programs is rising as the scrutiny on K-12 schools' performance under the No Child Left Behind Act flows upstream to the institutions that prepare teachers. Calls for change have come from both outside and inside teacher education. Add to that the growing competition from alternative certification pathways and homegrown programs like Boston's -- such avenues produced about 41,000 of the 220,000 graduates of teacher-preparation programs in 2004 -- and education schools are feeling the pressure.

"Criticisms of the teacher-education establishment have been so incessant and persistent that the work of that establishment is changing," says Suzanne Wilson, chairwoman of the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University's College of Education. "People are not ignoring the critiques anymore."

Prep Gets Real
At the heart of reform in teacher preparation are innovations that provide extensive field experience and link theory more closely with practice.

Barbara Simon, mentor, Boston Teacher Residency:
"Some people have the philosophy that teachers should go right into the fire, and I disagree with that. There's some in-between that's good -- to gradually take on the role with some thought behind it, getting to observe before doing."

Credit: Gregory Cherin
Programs such as Boston's go the furthest by transporting the locus of training almost entirely from the university to the K-12 school. Through the four-year-old residency, supported jointly by the school district and local philanthropies, candidates take summer courses geared toward Boston's history and curriculum, then undergo a yearlong mentorship. The financial package -- an $11,000 stipend plus a forgivable tuition loan -- is designed to attract educators from diverse backgrounds. (Melissa Zipper, who survived her first year with help from an outside mentoring program and is still a teacher, had to shell out $19,000 for her degree.)

In between the stale old university methods and the urban teaching residencies is a practical and promising model that's gaining in reach: the professional-development school. As described by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), these programs are partnerships between teacher-preparation programs and K-12 schools that provide settings for student teaching, faculty development, and field-based research -- unions so intimate that they form a hybrid institution. A typical field placement in these school-university teams -- which, as does the Boston program, liken themselves to medical residencies in teaching hospitals -- lasts a semester or two.

Kansas's Emporia State University was an early adopter of the model. Its Teachers College provides training and ongoing support to mentor educators in its thirty-four professional-development schools. In turn, mentors commit to give student teachers weekly evaluations and opportunities to do everything from individual tutoring to whole-class teaching. University staff visit classrooms regularly to assess candidates' progress and provide feedback. All the while, the educators-in-training reconvene in university classes to debrief and draw connections to theories of education.

"The key to the success of these programs is that no matter what theory students are learning about, they get to see it in practice immediately," says Dean Tes Mehring.

The payoff: The attrition rate of ESU graduates from teaching is a low 7.2 percent after three years, and principals rate alumni highly on a wide range of knowledge and skills.

Measure This
Besides the theory-practice bond, assessment -- the watchword in K-12 schools -- is catching on in teacher preparation. Education schools at the forefront of this change are creating and using various assessments to measure candidates' skills and identify and improve weaknesses in their programs. ESU, for instance, evaluates candidates via tests, observations, and performance tasks at regular intervals; those who perform below par -- about 4 to 5 percent of students per semester -- get dropped from the teaching program.

Pablo Aguilera, Stanford University:
"You can make people go to school for five years and tell them to read any number of books, but they won't really learn anything until they're in an actual classroom."

Credit: Bart Nagel
It may sound odd in this assessment-happy age, but no, education schools have not always done this. Some impetus for change comes from the NCATE, which accredits 632 of the nation's education schools. In 2001, the organization reinvented its standards to demand more evidence of program outcomes ("what candidates know and can do"), not simply inputs such as coursework and field experience.

Two teams of universities have created teaching-performance assessments that could be used more broadly. The Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT), developed by thirty public and private universities, embeds various assessments in candidates' coursework and demands a capstone documentation of three to five teaching hours, including lesson plans, videotapes, and student work. Teacher Work Samples, an assessment methodology adopted by eleven schools nationwide in a coalition called the Renaissance Group, use detailed standards and a rubric to evaluate how well candidates teach a four-week unit.

Raymond Pecheone, co-executive director of Stanford University's School Redesign Network and PACT's project director, draws this analogy: "Back in the early '90s, we used to evaluate people's writing by giving them a multiple-choice exam. This is not rocket science, but if you want to test how well people write, you've got to ask them to write. These tests are sorely needed."

Two even more neglected but emerging education-school adaptations are training in how to use technology for learning, and induction support for beginning teachers after graduation.

Road Not Traveled
One problem in the quest for quality is that accountability measures so far have been mainly quantitative, not qualitative. The federal government, via NCLB, demands that, to be "highly qualified," teachers possess expertise in their subject matter and certification from their state. This requirement assumes that certification ensures skill. In reality, states generally focus more on the number and type of candidates' training experiences than the quality.

A state might require 300 hours of student teaching for licensure, for instance, but "rotten schools of education can place bad students in failing K-12 schools with weak teachers" and still meet the requirement, says Arthur Levine, former president of Columbia University's Teachers College and author of the 2006 report "Educating School Teachers."

Further obscuring the best practices, hardly any education schools have ever followed up with alumni to measure their effectiveness on the job -- until now.

"Historically, a school of education could claim to be strong and be recognized around the country with no evidence about how its teachers perform in the classroom," says the NCTAF's Thomas Carroll. "That day is over."

Early efforts at this kind of accountability have used simple surveys -- not the most rigorous form of research, but they're a start.

Another problem: There is little scientific evidence to guide the way. The small pool of research on what works in teacher preparation generally lacks rigor, and it dates to the days before many of these reforms came about. Education researchers have taken notice of the vacuum and have begun working to fill it, but evidence will take years to build.

More challenges lie ahead. To fully commit to a model of professional-development schools, for one, requires money. Emporia State University's Teachers College has managed it through permanent state allocations and strong commitment by the university, as well as by holding vacant some faculty positions and asking students to pay half of their mentor teachers' $500 annual stipends.

Marshall "Mike" Smith, education-program director at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and a former education official in the Clinton and Carter administrations, says broad reform will come only if states revise their standards to demand more field experience with good supervision. According to data compiled by the Education Commission of the States, minimum requirements for student teaching now range from 180 hours in Louisiana to 100 days in Maryland. (The most common figure is about twelve weeks.)

States also must commit more money to preparation programs, Smith says, and teachers themselves must demand better training. What could incite that kind of demand? "Evidence that something else worked clearly better," he responds, "which we don't have."

The need is urgent; teachers work at the frontier of everything education is meant to do. Public education itself grapples intimately with big changes in America, from new languages to health epidemics to economic imperatives. Our answer to the challenge of improving teachers' training will influence the experience children have in classrooms -- and the skills with which children enter adult life -- for years to come. It's a question of what kind of future we want to create.

10 Leading Schools Silence the Critics: Innovative Teacher Prep

• Academy for Urban School Leadership: Seasoned Professionals Bring a Passion for Reform
• Alverno College: Making Higher Ed Accessible to Nontraditional Students
• Bank Street College of Education: Hands-On Training and Mentoring Create Leaders
• Boston Teacher Residency: Real-World Training and Cost Incentives Keep Teachers Teaching
• Curry School of Education: A Fieldwork-Filled, Five-Year, Dual-Degree Program
• Emporia State University: Rigorous Assessment Makes for Hall-of-Fame Teachers
• Michigan State University: An Ambitious and Ever-Evolving Program
• Montclair State University: An Interdisciplinary Approach
• Stanford University: Where Theory and Practice Meet
• University of Texas at Austin: A Formula for Preparing High-Quality Math and
  Science Teachers

Richland 1 OKs bonuses

Posted on Wed, Dec. 12, 2007
Richland 1’s rewards for school improvements prove costly
By BILL ROBINSON
brobinson@thestate.com
Bonus pay is coming this month to Richland 1 employees who the school system says produced better academic results by students a year ago. But it’s going to cost the district nearly double initial estimates.

Five members of Richland 1’s school board approved spending $1.97 million on the controversial incentive pay Tuesday night, nearly $1 million more than superintendent Allen J. Coles projected earlier this year.

Raises will range from $150 for non-teachers in schools where performance improvement met district goals to about $2,000 for educators. All told, 927 employees will get a bonus.

The escalation in the incentive plan’s cost drew rebukes from some board members.
Coles came in for criticism from trustees Wendy C. Brawley and Vince Ford for the way he handled projections and disseminated the final numbers of people who qualify for the extra pay.

Brawley cast the lone dissenting vote, while Ford abstained.
Even trustee Dwayne Smiling, who voted with the majority, had harsh words for Coles.
“I am for the ‘pay for results’ plan. I always have been,” Smiling said. “What I’m against is ... it seems our superintendent often places the board in a predicament. If we don’t approve something, it’s our fault.”

Coles recommended the district offer extra pay to teachers and support staff at schools where students made significant gains in academic performance. About half the district’s schools received state report cards in November that showed their students made progress.

Ford and Brawley complained the criteria explaining how the money would be doled out lacked clarity. Coles said the guidelines have been well-publicized on the district’s Web site.

“We have an obligation to our employees to pay them the money we said we would,” Coles said. “Anything short of that would impact morale.”

Employees at schools that moved from an “unsatisfactory” rating to “below average” were eligible for extra pay, a situation Ford said did not warrant a bonus.

“Below average is not stretched,” Ford said.
Brawley said she was troubled that details of how much money is needed for the plan were difficult to come by until a day or so before Tuesday night’s meeting.

“Give us the same respect (that) you give your staff,” Brawley told Coles.
Trustee Jasper Salmond said the bonus pay “is a pretty good increase” reflecting performances that were difficult to predict.

“There’s an integrity issue,” Salmond said. “You’ve made promises to people.”
The district will tap a $1.6 million fund left over from the 2005-06 school year, Coles said.
Reach Robinson at (803) 771-8482.