You may have noticed it’s been a little quiet around here for a while. That’s because I’ve been moving everything over to a new website. It’s got a dot-com after my name, a pretty good-looking logo by Jess Craig of IROCKSOWHAT and a new tagline I explain in great detail here.
The only thing that’s missing is you.
Won’t you come join me at www.emmillerwrites.com?
Is there such a thing as “Superman” when it comes to turning around public education? Here’s what I learned in writing about what makes an A+ teacher.
Late last month, Dorothy Rouse sat around the small table with three second-grade students, workbooks open in front of them.
Rouse held up a fourth book, her fingers following the letters in the words on the page.
“We’re going to sound it out and then say it fast,” she said. “Sound it out: Mmm. Aaa. Ddd. Say it fast: Mad.”
And then, “Camila, what is it?”
Camila Guardado, 8, brightened and answered: “Mad!”
Rouse has thought a lot lately about how she works as a special education resource teacher at Highland Elementary School in Elgin.
That was part of the process to earn her National Board Certification, an advanced teaching credential that teachers nationwide can earn in addition to the required state license. That process requires educators to complete assessments and several portfolios that reflect their practice over several years.
School District U46 recognized nine teachers who recently were certified at a Board of Education meeting last month. That brings the total number of certified teachers in the Elgin district to 60, according to U46.
But those teachers aren’t the only ones reflecting on what works in their classrooms, as the Center on Education Policy estimated in December that 48 percent of all U.S. schools did not make the Adequate Yearly Progress outlined in the federal No Child Left Behind Act last year. That’s an all-time high and an increase from 39 percent in 2010, according to the CEP Web site .
President Barack Obama has offered waivers of those NCLB requirements for states that adopt education reforms and implemented the Race to the Top program to reward states for making reforms. And Governor Pat Quinn referenced a number of recent “education reforms (that) put the children of Illinois first” in his state of the state address earlier this month.
But Rouse said, “Legislation can’t dictate what a good teacher is.”
What does make a good teacher, she said, “is different in different places.”
“You have different needs in different places. Bartlett has different needs (than Elgin). The result is the same: Achievement. Just getting there is different.”
Rouse, Dundee Middle School teacher Kristine Pizzolato and Mooseheart Child City & School teacher Jennifer Antonson each have been recognized by their school districts, as well as the Kane County Regional Office of Education and other organizations.
Each teaches in very different communities. And each shared what has worked well for them in their combined 45 years in the classroom.
For the rest of the story, visit The Courier-News.
Photo credit: Michael Smart
I forgot how happy the Puppet Bike makes me! puppetbike.com
Best street art ever?
Following up on our post from yesterday, which quoted Amanda Hess’s article that shows that “the media is male and getting maler,” here is an excellent post from GOOD which shows what you can do to have more women published and promoted.
good:
Recently, a female GOOD staffer was commiserating with a male journalist about the dearth of female bylines in major American magazines. She suggested a solution: He should speak to the editors of these magazines—people he knows personally—about how awesome she is. She was on the phone with a highly regarded editor within a week, discussing the possibilities for freelance work.
Reading big statistics, it’s easy to place yourself in a bystander role. You acknowledge that women are underrepresented in your industry—particularly if you work in media, design, or tech. You know that they are far less visible, and probably paid less, than men of equal experience. You’re frustrated at how difficult it sometimes seems to fill your workplace or panel discussion with enough women. But what have you ever done about it?
PROMOTE WOMEN. It’s time to stop lamenting and start doing. Here’s how:
1 Think of three women in your industry who are underpaid, underemployed, or under-noticed. Women who are rising through the ranks more slowly than their male peers. Women who are really great at what they do but haven’t been recognized as up-and-comers yet.
2 Think of three powerful people (of any gender) in your industry who you know personally and who are in a position to hire or assign to women.
3 Compose an email to each of those powerful people individually and recommend a specific woman they should meet, hire, or otherwise work with.
4 Email those women and tell them you’ve recommended them. We haven’t provided a form email by design—a genuine, original email is what counts.
Put your email where your mouth is. Use your network. Endorse women today. Then boost the signal. Women, share your stories about infiltrating male professional networks. Facilitators, submit your own accounts of giving women a leg up. Submit your stories here on GOOD’s Tumblr, on Twitter with the #promotewomen hashtag, or in the comments on our site. We’ll compile your stories and publish them as inspiration.
We have the power to end the gender gap. Take five minutes and send three emails to do something about it.
If you are looking for a female reporter to promote… cough, cough.
Why do they call Elgin Community College President David Sam “the dancing president?” Watch, starting at 37:58.
ELGIN — Community College District 509 Board of Trustees Chairman Robert McBride tried to find the perfect song to describe Elgin Community College’s “dancing president,” he said.
He settled on: “How do you think he does it? / I don’t know! / What makes him so good? / (He) ain’t got no distractions, / Can’t hear no buzzers and bells, / Don’t see no lights a flashin’ / …Sure plays a mean pinball.”
Yes, that’s “Pinball Wizard” by The Who.
But, McBride said, “that kind of really describes our president,” David Sam, who celebrated his fifth year at ECC with an open house Wednesday in its Jobe Lounge on the campus, 1700 Spartan Drive.
For the rest of the story, visit The Courier-News.
ELGIN — The New York Giants couldn’t have won the Super Bowl without Tom Coughlin. That’s the team’s coach, who has led the Giants to two Super Bowl wins in four years.
Now School District U46 is hoping coaches also can help struggling teachers within the second-largest school district in Illinois.
U46 and Elgin Teachers Association officials presented the first stage of a Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) program at last week’s U46 Board of Education meeting.
“We have a shared goal with the ETA to make sure every student has an effective teacher, and PAR is really to support those struggling teachers,” U46 Superintendent Jose Torres said.
That’s because “One of the things we know is the most important factor in student achievement is the teacher in the classroom,” said Andrea Erickson, U46 coordinator of Teacher Effectiveness Initiatives.
The PAR program — developed in collaboration with the National Education Association Foundation Institute for Innovation in Teaching and Learning — will pair struggling third- and fourth-year teachers with peer consulting teachers, starting next school year. Each peer consultant not only will coach those teachers but also evaluate them and help their principals determine whether to dismiss them.
U46 is one of 11 school districts nationwide invited by the NEA Foundation to be part of the Institute for Innovation in Teaching and Learning’s first cohort, according to the foundation’s website. Each of those districts has identified issues most critical to their students and has committed to work together with their teachers unions to improve the quality of education for their students.
Fitting goals
The Elgin district chose the PAR program because that’s a plan that fits into both U46’s and its teachers union’s goals, ETA President Kathryn Castle said. And it lends itself to new teacher evaluation requirements under Illinois Senate Bill 7, passed in June, she said.
The education reform bill requires principals to evaluate teachers as “unsatisfactory,” “needs improvement,” “proficient” and “excellent,” according to Erickson. Those evaluations can be used to determine a teacher’s tenure — as well as dismissal.
Evaluations for the current school year will be completed March 15, and teachers with a “needs improvement” rating will be required to complete some professional development at the discretion of those teachers and their principals, Erickson said. One such professional development program they can choose is PAR.
“We think of it in terms of continuous improvement and growth for teachers — and for teachers who don’t continuously improve, opportunities to move on,” Torres said.
The idea of coaching, at least, isn’t entirely new to the Elgin school district, according to Tony Sanders, U46 chief of staff.
“We’ve had for years a very successful Teacher Mentor Program. We give this support to most of our teachers who are new to teaching or to our district,” Sanders said.
For the rest of the story, visit The Courier-News.
Photo credit: Michael Smart for Sun-Times Media
