Get Schooled

I just hung up with a Cobb mother – a former CDC employee  – whose child attended the Georgia Virtual Academy. (The girl is now back in a public elementary school, but the mom is not happy there and plans to send her to a Catholic school next. The child had been in a Catholic school in the past, but the mom could no longer afford it due to divorce.)

The k-8 academy is the only virtual charter school in the state, operated under the umbrella of the education management company K12 Inc, the nation’s largest online curriculum provider. The online school paired up with an existing state-approved charter school, the Odyssey School in Newnan, and opened here in 2007. The state pays for the students who enroll in the Georgia Virtual Academy. (Please note that the academy is not the virtual high school run by the state.)

More virtual schools are seeking to open here now that we have a state law entitling them to local and state school monies, thus making Georgia a very lucrative …

Continue reading Mom says virtual school was virtual waste of time, money »

I’m en route to the charter school rally at the Capitol. Interesting AJC story today by D. Aileen Dodd on for-profit online class providers seeking approval from our new state Charter School Commission. The commission’s approval to set up shop in Georgia and thus qualify for school tax funding would be a financial bonanza for such companies.

Take a look at the story. I was a doubter of the effectiveness of virtual classes until I looked at the scores of high school students in Georgia taking AP classes online. Their scores were in the range of peers who took the AP classes in schools. The high school program is overseen by the state DOE.

However, I have concerns about doling out thousands in tax dollars to private online providers. My chief concern is monitoring. I suspect that the spending would be hard to parse if any questions ever arose.

Back in a few hours. I won’t be around to clear filter until 1.

Continue reading Virtual schools, but real tax dollars paying for them. Good idea? »

Here’s an example of why covering education is never dull.

What Jeb Bush calls educational success, the ACLU calls cause for legal action

I just finished looking at the PowerPoint that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush showed last week at a conference in Atlanta.  His presentation was titled “The Florida Formula for Student Achievement.”

Based on the upbeat graphs and charts, anyone would think that Florida was leading the nation in most key measures, including closing the achievement gap and high school graduation.

Literally seconds after viewing Bush’s PowerPoint, I opened my e-mail to this news release, which paints a far different view of Florida’s formula.

ACLU Sues State Of Florida And State Officials Over Poor Graduation Rates

High Dropout Rates Evidence Of A Violation Of Florida Constitution

Poor graduation rates in Palm Beach County, Florida, demonstrate a failure by state officials to ensure that all students receive a high quality education as mandated by the …

Continue reading Are Jeb Bush and ACLU talking about same schools? »

I get a lot of calls about students who win prizes and it’s hard to figure out which merit attention. I would have room for nothing else if I listed every student who won a certificate, a $50 gift card or a savings bond.

Darpan Patel is a regional finalist for a top science prize for a cancer related project

But this Wheeler High School senior deserves a shout-out. Darpan Patel’s achievements are remarkable and remind us that there are many students in “government” schools doing sensational stuff.

Darpan is a regional finalist in the 2009 Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology. He and 15 other students will present their graduate level research projects this weekend  at Georgia Tech in an effort to win a $3,000 individual prize, a $6,000 team prize and an invitation to the National Finals in New York and a shot at the $100,000 Grand Prize.

Competing for the individual prize, Darpan is the only Georgia student in the regional finals.

The public can view the …

Continue reading The science guy: Wheeler High student has it all and more »

DeKalb County officially welcomed the return of recess to its schools this week.

Recess is now formally required by the DeKalb County Board of Education

While most schools held recess, it was not mandated and could be denied to a child as a punishment or canceled for the entire class due to a conflict.

Now, recess is no longer an option but a requirement and cannot be withheld from a student.

A core group of dedicated DeKalb parents had been pushing for a concrete policy. (See the petition for mandatory recess. )

Here is the language approved Monday at a work session of the board mandating unstructured break times:

(I am not sure why the DeKalb board felt compelled to rename recess the much more unwieldy “unstructured break time,”  but then again, I don’t get why my own system dubs trailers “cottages.”)

Unstructured Break Time

The DeKalb County Board of Education supports supervised, unstructured break times as an integral component of a child’s physical, social, and …

Continue reading Play ball! Recess mandated now at DeKalb County schools »

Yet, more news today on teacher quality. (See two earlier blog entries today here on this topic.)

On Tuesday, the long-awaited recommendations from an influential task force — Strategic Management of Human Capital -  were released. There is a good story in Education Week.

Among the report’s recommendations:

Raising admissions criteria for teacher education programs, perhaps through higher SAT or the ACT scores.

A tough content test before licensing.

More state funding and support for alternative roads into teaching, such as Teach For America.

An intensive internship experience similar to a medical residency.

A multi-tiered licensing system that requires evidence of effectiveness before granting tenure and use performance-based evaluation systems to drive professional development and help reset teachers’ salary schedules.

End to central-office-forced placements and seniority “bumping.”

In-depth induction and mentoring programs for new teachers.

Ed Week also reports that …

Continue reading Teacher quality news seems to be everywhere today »

FYI: Since charter schools are a big interest area here, some of you may want to know about this event Friday.

Charter Schools Rally at State Capitol to Draw Close to 1,000

Event will feature students, parents, educators, politicians and other charter supporters

WHAT: Rally at the Capitol for Charter Schools
WHERE: Georgia State Capitol (Washington Street side), 214 State Capitol, Atlanta
WHEN: 10 a.m. – Noon, Friday, Nov. 6

ATLANTA  – A crowd of nearly 1,000 students, parents, educators, politicians and others will show their support for  public charter schools in Georgia at the first ever “Rally at the Capitol for Charter Schools,” Friday, Nov. 6, 10 a.m. – noon, on the steps of the Georgia State Capitol building.

Event will illustrate bi-partisan, diverse support for charter public schools
The event is coordinated by the Georgia Charter Schools Association and sponsored by Connections Academy (a virtual K-12 online school). It is designed to …

Continue reading Charter school supporters take to street Friday »

A Get Schooled poster doesn’t like the story in the AJC about allegations of racism in which students get suspended at Wheeler High School and why.

According to the story, a 14-year-old girl was among nine Wheeler High students who spent a weekend in the Cobb Youth Detention Center after watching two classmates fight. Some parents say the punishment was too harsh and likely racially motivated. Cobb school officials deny the allegations and say the teens did more than observe the Oct. 23 brawl.

Poster “Pompano” didn’t like the story and wrote:

Why it it that this piece of crap newspaper never passes on an opportunity to race bait here in Atlanta? Nice headline today on “Racial bias in suspensions” but no facts in the article to substantiate. Just an opportunity to give some people who want to holler discrimination their 15 minutes of fame – what a pathetic organization.

As a journalist, I often run into the complaint that we are manufacturing racism where it doesn’t …

Continue reading Sometimes, when kids holler “discrimination,” it’s true »

In an addendum to my blog post below on better-prepared teachers, here’s a related New York Times op-ed by Susan Engel, a senior lecturer in psychology and the director of the teaching program at Williams College.

These are her relevant comments: (Go here to the NYT to read her full piece.)

Our best universities have, paradoxically, typically looked down their noses at education, as if it were intellectually inferior. The result is that the strongest students are often in colleges that have no interest in education, while the most inspiring professors aren’t working with students who want to teach. This means that comparatively weaker students in less intellectually rigorous programs are the ones preparing to become teachers.

So the first step is to get the best colleges to throw themselves into the fray.

These new teacher programs should be selective, requiring a 3.5 undergraduate grade point average and an intensive application process. But they should also be free of …

Continue reading Make teacher programs harder to enter, intense and free »

Many people argue that the key to education reform is better-prepared teachers. Teachers often tell me that they didn’t know what they were doing their first year and they were not equipped to teach to the range of abilities in their classes.

That has made me a bit leery of first-year teachers.  My kids have had several novice teachers. One quit mid-year and was replaced by another first-year who was clearly out of her depth and ended up leaving the profession. On the other hand, my son had his student teacher one year return the next as his classroom teacher and she was great.

In a new brief, the Alliance for Excellent Education makes many interesting points around this issue.

Among them:

…until relatively recently teacher education students were typically young white women attending a four-year college. Today’s candidates are increasingly diverse, bringing different backgrounds and skills to their preparation programs. An 18-year-old middle-class teacher candidate will …

Continue reading For better students, do we need better teachers? »