A Brave New World-Wide-Web

An interesting video on a teachers experience with technology.

Local School Boards

Dr. Britt Blackwell had a "To the Contrary" piece in Saturday's Rock Hill Herald (Education must have open communication). As a follow-up to this, I'd like remind parents their communication link is to the teacher, principal, district administration, and then the school board...and since this is an election year, I thought it would be good to review what Boards and Board members are charged with below:

Governance Standards

The Board

School districts are governed by boards, not by individual trustees. While always respecting their different roles, the board and superintendent work together as a "governance team." This team assumes collective responsibility for building unity and creating a positive organizational culture in order to govern effectively.

To operate effectively, the board must have a unity of purpose and:

• Keep the district focused on learning achieving for all students.
• Communicate a common vision.
• Operate openly, with trust and integrity.
• Govern in a dignified and professional manner, treating everyone with civility and respect.
• Govern with board-adopted policies and procedures.
• Take collective responsibility for the board's performance.
• Periodically evaluate its own effectiveness.
• Ensure opportunities for the diverse range of views in the community to inform board deliberations.
• On a regular basis, review student performance measures, gauging accomplishment of District goals in order to effectuate more rapid identification of obstacles and implement solutions to them.
• Sets the goals and a timetable for achievement of District learning achievement goals, and determines annual milestone measurements to the achievement of goals.

The Board's Job

The primary responsibilities of the board are to set a direction for the district, provide a structure by establishing policies, ensure accountability and provide community leadership on behalf of the district and public education. To fulfill these responsibilities, there are a number of specific jobs that effective boards must carry out:

Effective Boards:

• Involve the community, parents, students and staff in developing a common vision for the district focused on learning and achievement and responsive to the needs of all students.
• Adopt, evaluate and update policies consistent with the law and the district's vision and goals.
• Maintain accountability for student learning by adopting the district curriculum and monitoring student progress.
• Hire and support the superintendent so that the vision, goals and policies of the district can be implemented.
• Conduct regular and timely evaluations of the superintendent based on the vision, goals and performance of the district, and ensure that the superintendent holds district personnel accountable.
• Adopt a fiscally responsible budget based on the district's vision and goals, and regularly monitor the fiscal health of the district.
• Ensure that a safe and appropriate educational environment is provided to all students.
• Provide community leadership on educational issues and advocate on behalf of students and public education at the local, state and federal levels.
  

  Governance Standards

  The Individual Trustee

  A trustee is a person elected to serve on a school district. Individual trustees bring unique skills, knowledge, and values to their board. In order to govern effectively, individual trustees must work with each other and the superintendent to ensure that a high quality education is provided to each student.
  To be effective, an individual trustee:
• Keeps learning and achievement for all students as the primary focus.
• Values, supports and advocates for public education.
• Recognizes and respects differences of perspective and style on the board and among staff, students, parents and the community.
• Acts with dignity, and understands the implications of demeanor and behavior.
• Keeps confidential matters confidential.
• Participates in professional development and commits the time and energy necessary to be an informed and effective leader.
• Understands the distinctions between board and staff roles, and refrains from performing management functions that are the responsibility of the superintendent and staff.
• Understands that authority rests with the board as a whole and not with individuals.
• Believes that the District's student achievement focus is driven best by the establishment of learning achievement goals for all students. Goals should be set in collaboration with the Superintendent and Staff, who are responsible for formulating the actions/tactical plan to achieve the goals. Goals should be measurable in order to gauge District performance and tactical plan effectiveness.
• Believes that the primary role of the Superintendent is to implement tactical plans to achieve the goals and the Superintendent must be given a consistently high level of support and encouragement in this difficult responsibility.
• Understands that clear goal-setting helps to prevent the Board and Superintendent from being diverted from their primary student achievement goal. Wishy-washy goals undermine the rate of progress.
• Understands that his/her performance is tied to the District goal performance and achievement. The Board is a team that fails or succeeds together.
• Represents the entire Board in public, explains the Board's goals, and explains why non-goals need to be rejected in order to maintain focus on student achievement. The District "cannot be all things to all people" and also achieve its primary focus.
• Understands that obstacles will come along in the implementation of tactical plans to the achievement of goals, portions of the community may or may not support every decision or the goals themselves, but after gaining public input on the matter as appropriate, it is the duty of the Board to move to a solution involving Board action, or support the Superintendent's actions.
• Agrees that the "public process" should not be an excuse for ineffective untimely leadership in addressing obstacles. In short, time is of the essence in building a much stronger student-performance result for the children in the District.
• Understands that advising the Superintendent on matters that he/she brings to the Board for feedback is not an invitation to Trustees to make the decision, removing Superintendent responsibility for the decision and action.

Education, Blogs, and Web 2.0

I am not an educator - though I have an interest in education. I am always impressed with the dedication and time teachers spend to educate our children. Most teachers do not have time (or maybe the energy) to use Web 2.0 tools to network with other teachers. The beauty of Web 2.0 is networking with the world. I'm including information from Sarah Ebner (England) because when you read her stuff, you realize everyone faces some of the same issues - if you only check with US sources, you'd think we were the only ones. When you have time, check out some of her recommendations below.

Sarah Ebner
is an experienced journalist who has been shortlisted four times at the British Press Awards, in 2008 for feature writer of the year. She was a producer and occasional reporter for BBC Newsnight, and also edited Supernanny.co.uk. Sarah has two children and lives in London.

The 7 best teacher blogs

Blackandwhiteteacher
School Gate is nearly three months old - it's a kind of quarter birthday, and time, I think, to flag up some other education blogs that I have come across, this time based more in the UK than across the pond.

There are so many great blogs out there (some greater than others!) Many are quite wonk-ish, featuring experts dissecting education policy; few, as far as I can tell, are like School Gate and written from the parental point of view. But what I have found particularly enjoyable is all the brilliant teacher blogs available. Anyone interested in education should take a look at these...
Please note that I haven't repeated any of the blogs mentioned in my original post on the ten best education blogs but still enjoy them!

1) To Miss with Love
Miss Snuffleupagus is a black teacher in inner city London. She writes honestly, with wit and passion, and is not afraid of controversy (except of course that she obviously is, a little, or she would use her real name). Her blog is never dull. Go and read it - you won't be disappointed
Sample post:
"Racism does exist in schools. But it often has little to do with the achievement or underachievement of black pupils. Unfortunately however, in our modern world, the race-card must be played to further certain people’s careers and to make others simply feel better about themselves. And so the madness goes on. And my kids are indeed made into victims. But they are not victims of racism. They are victims of the racism debate."

2) My bellringers.com
Well, I had to include a few American examples, and I truly enjoy reading Carol Richtsmeier's views and news about education. She's a teacher in Texas, very well informed and writes beautifully, with a lovely light touch.
Sample post:
"My daughter, who works at a day care while attending attending Texas Tech, called this past weekend to rhetorically asked if I knew “what moron decided it’s OK to put 18 4-year-olds in a room with one teacher.”
“Why the same moron who has never been locked in a room with 18 4-year-olds, bless their hearts,” I replied.
Then, my daughter, who also works a second job at a grocery store, said her co-workers were discussing the recent Russian crisis…
(Isn’t that great, I thought, young people discussing current events. I got goosebumps just thinking about it.)
Oh, but wait… one of her co-workers, well…
“She thought Russia had invaded Georgia,” my daughter said, “as in the state, not the country.”
Never one to let a teachable moment slip by, I said, “You see why it’s so important to get your college degree?”
“But Mom, I think she is in school,” my daughter said."

3) Scenes from the Battleground
Old Andrew is a British secondary school teacher with very strong views and opinions which are always carefully expressed and strongly argued. A very good read (I'm always disappointed when he doesn't post daily, which must be a good sign.)
Sample post:
"The biggest, single policy mistake in education in the last twenty years, the one that has undermined everything else, has been the attempt to treat badly behaved children as if they had a right to be in classes with their victims. This has been labelled as “Inclusion” and is often presented as simply an extension of policies aimed at including the disabled in schools; to a true believer children with problems and children who cause problems are one and the same."

4) It shouldn't happen to a teacher
I really like this delightful blog by a young maths teacher. He veers from enthusiasm - well behaved students whom he loves to teach - to incomprehension when they don't behave or hassle him. Believable and very enjoyable.
Sample post:
"As I got out of my car a pupil I'd taught in year ten shouted to me 'Sir! I got an A in maths!' This is of course fantastic. I'd given that group up at the end of year ten because my relationship with them was based on mutual loathing. The girl in question was actually one of about three I could actually stand in the group so I was pleased my teaching hadn't ruined her chances to do well.
And I was delighted with my class's results. I'd been set a target of eight grade Cs, in total we got twelve. More importantly I was able to punch the air when I read them for some of the pupils. Some of them had worked really hard and deserved their success.
In the cases where pupils hadn't gotten a C I had good excuses too: 'she's never here', 'he's bone-idle', 'he's a twat' etc..."

5) It's not all Flowers and Sausages
Written for teachers "who rock", this American blog is really good fun and very well written. It gives a real insight into the world of teaching, but with a light touch.
Sample post:
"Sometimes it feels as if the forces in the universe are aligning to make this job as difficult as possible, just to see if I have the balls to stick with it. Other times, it feels as if teachers (as people) are the absolute last priority on everyone's list...that we will just suck it up and deal with ridiculous situations "for the kids."
If one more person tells me to do it "for the kids", I might throw a kid at them. Seriously. Stop playing on our good intentions and altruistic dedication to the future and treat us like the professionals you so desperately claim you want us to be. It just seems at times as if this job teeters on the brink of being inhumane."

6) Mr Teacher (UK version - although the totally unconnected US version is worth a look too!)
Another secondary school teacher from the UK (where are primary school teachers?) who writes a thoughtful blog where he is as honest about British education as he is about himself.
Sample post:
"When students reach the point when they are choosing their options for further study - when only English, maths and science are compulsory - my subject suffers tremendously. In other words, hardly anybody picks it. This pains me because I have come to admit to myself that, as a teacher, I must shoulder some of the responsibility. And I have decided that it is partly due to the fact that my lessons, and my delivery of these lessons, have not been sufficiently interesting and engaging."

7) Diary of a trainee teacher
Yes, it's a primary school teacher, but only for the moment! This blog is by a modern languages graduate who's decided to go into teaching and is currently training. It's fresh and fun to read, but makes some interesting points too.
Sample post:
"As part of my assignment for this course I’ve been asked to write a reflective journal, and the main thing that I’ve realised through the writing of this journal is that I DEFINITELY couldn’t teach primary school. The Year 6 classes are nice enough, but then they’re a well behaved group who will soon be year 7s. Today with younger children I really realised that small children often can’t sit still, are always telling tales (please miss, so and so is doing it wrong) and take loads of time and fuss to do anything! I know that teenagers may well not be any better, but at least I can then say “year 8 I’m very disappointed, with behaviour like that I’d think you were still in year 3!”. I also know I’d find it frustrating teaching children to say ‘bonjour’ and ‘mon frère’ over and over again."

Read my original tips on the Ten Best Education Blogs

Rock Hill School Information for September 25

PASS (The New PACT) Dates Slated for Spring 2009
Dates have been announced for the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards, for grades 3-8. They are:
Writing.....................March 10
ELA (Reading and Research)..May 12
Math........................May 13
Science or Social Studies...May 14/15
Field Testing...............May 19

Beverly Laney, choral director at South Pointe, has received a $500 grant from the York County Arts Council to help purchase costumes for South Pointe's third annual "Ye Olde Madrigal Feaste" on Nov. 8 and 9.

Castle Heights Middle School has been named as a South Atlantic Division All-Star Team because of their hard work last year in raising almost $11,000 for the American Cancer Society through Relay for Life,

Dr. Linda Hutchinson, coordinator at the Central Child Development Center, has been elected to the Alumni Council of the School of Education at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

NCLB & Football

From the Why Homeschool Blog.

"Have you heard about the NCLB version of football?
The Crimson Wife at Bending the Twigs has a funny post on the NCLB version of football, she writes:

I couldn't find the original source on a quick Google search, but I personally came across it in one of the comments on Tamara Fisher's blog "Unwrapping the Gifted".No Child Left Behind: The Football Version
1. All teams must make the state playoffs, and all will win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.
2. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time in the same conditions. No exceptions will be made for interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabiliites. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL.
3. Talented players will be asked to work out on their own without instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who are not interested in football, have limited athletic ability, or whose parents don't like football.
4. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th, and 11th games.
5. This will create a New Age of sports where school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimal goals.
----------"

Web Search Strategies in Plain English

A short video on the best way to use internet searches.

Rex Talks With York County School Boards

South Carolina State Superintendent of Education Jim Rex met with the 4 York County School Boards Tuesday night in Tega Cay.  Also attending were  SC District 15 Senator Wes Hayes, SC District 48 Representative Carl Gullick, SC District 45 Representative (and SC District 16 Senate candidate) Mick Mulvaney, York County District 4 County Councilman Roy Blake, and SC 16th Judicial Circuit State School Board member Britt Blackwell. (All the York County Legislative Delegation and County Council were invited)

Rex gave a broad overview of the state of testing and funding in South Carolina. Poverty continues to be a major obstacle to success with only 8 districts (out of 86 in the state) having student populations with less than 50% above the poverty level (Free & Reduced Lunch status). Three of those districts are in York County (Fort Mill, Clover, & Rock Hill) and there are indications  Rock Hill will drop from the list this year. Teacher salaries continue to be a deterrent to getting students to select education as a career. (As a personal comparison - Chairman Norwood and myself entered the work force in 1975 - he in education (teacher & coach) compared to industry for myself (engineering). Our starting yearly salaries were within $1,000. Today, starting salaries are about $20,000 apart.).  There will also be a major teacher shortage in a few years.  As "Baby Boomers" leave teaching positions, there are simply not enough teachers to replace them.

Public choice continues to be a major push. Districts should be looking for choices within schools to minimize transportation issues (every 8 cents in fuel adds $1 million in expense for buses). South Carolina now leads the nation in Single Gender choice and may soon lead the nation in Montessori choice. Vouchers continue to be a major threat to public education.

They (Department of Education and State Legislature) continue to look at funding models with weightings for poverty, special needs, and high growth.

Superintendent Rex was very complimentary of York County Legislators for supporting education initiatives.