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Georgia
Education News
June
2008
Copyright
© 2008 Queue, Inc.
IN
THIS ISSUE:
Leanne Maule from Cartersville High School Selected
as 2009 Georgia Teacher of the Year
Atlanta Public Schools Partners With SchoolNet
Public Schools As Good As Private Schools in Raising
Math Scores, Study Says
Parental Involvement Strongly Impacts
Student Achievement
Leanne Maule, an English teacher from Cartersville High School,
was named the 2009 Georgia Teacher of the Year Friday night.
As the state Teacher of the Year, Ms. Maule will spend the 2008-2009 school year on special assignment, serving as an ambassador and advocate for the teaching profession. She will give presentations to other educators, as well as business and community leaders, and represent Georgia teachers at state and national conferences. She will also be Georgia's entry in the 2009 National Teacher of the Year competition.
A graduate of Eastern Michigan University, Ms. Maule began
teaching in 1991 in Goose Creek, S.C. She came to Cartersville in 2000 and
joined Cartersville High School in 2002.
In her application, Ms. Maule said her own experience as
someone who struggled in school motivated her to become a teacher.
"I made a vow to myself that I would strive to become the
high school teacher ... who saw every child's potential," she wrote.
"My students know that I genuinely have their best interests at
heart."
Ms. Maule's classroom is creative and interactive. She
incorporates the arts into almost every lesson, including the creation of a
Renaissance Festival, a Shakespearian puppet show and dramatic interpretations
of poetry. She believes that high school lessons should be fun and exciting.
Her students agree.
One of her former students wrote of Ms. Maule: "I will never
forget, as long as I live, her inspiration and the enthusiasm I always see in
her everytime I open her door."
Atlanta Public Schools has renewed and extended its partnership
with SchoolNet for another five years. Atlanta Public Schools initiated its
relationship with SchoolNet as part of a district-wide mandate to accelerate
and sustain student achievement in math and science by improving instruction
and education delivery. For the past 3 years, APS has used SchoolNetÕs
Instructional Management Suite to get a comprehensive view of student data to
assess performance, analyze trends, and differentiate instruction to maximize
student achievement.
ÒThe use of the SchoolNet solution has brought data-driven
decision making from a strategic concept to a visible reality for Atlanta
Public Schools. Simply put, SchoolNet is the foundation of differentiated
instruction for Atlanta students Ð giving educators the information they need
to ensure all students master and exceed standards,Ó says Glynis Lee, Executive Director,
Information Applications Technology.
Every day parents, teachers, and administrators use SchoolNet to
access important data, enabling district-wide, collaborative decision-making.
SchoolNetÕs customers educate more than two million students in over 50 school
districts. SchoolNetÕs Instructional Management System helps districts manage
reporting, curriculum deployment, benchmark assessment, professional
development, district-wide communication and parent outreach.
Public Agenda and the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality has
released research that points to two specific areas where teacher training may
be lacking, according to rookie teachers in the trenches and fresh from
training: preparedness for the diversity of the contemporary American classroom
and teaching students with special needs.
Seventy-six
percent of new teachers said that teaching an ethnically diverse student body
was covered in their training. But only 39 percent say that their training in
this area helps them a lot now that they are in the classroom, which puts their
evaluation of the effectiveness of this aspect of their training near the
bottom of the list of subjects the new teachers had studied. The survey covered
12 areas of teacher training ranging from direct instruction to their study of
history, philosophy and policy debates in public education. No other factor
examined in the Public Agenda research showed nearly as great a gap between how
many received training in a given area and new teachers' assessments of the
effectiveness of said training.
This
final report of the "Lessons Learned" series, "Teaching in
Changing Times" focuses on the strengths and possible deficits of the
training new teachers say they receive. The new report and complete
questionnaire are available to media prior to release at: http://www.publicagenda.org/LessonsLearned3
The
first report in the "Lessons Learned" series (http://www.publicagenda.org/LessonsLearned1) described the
differences between the views and experiences of new secondary and elementary
teachers. The second looked at the views of teachers coming into the field from
three prominent alternate route programs (http://www.publicagenda.org/LessonsLearned2).
Many
new teachers also reported inadequacies in the training they received for
teaching children with special needs. Most new teachers (82 percent) say their
training in had covered this aspect of teaching, but only 47 percent say their
training helps a lot. This is a particularly important area for training, the
report notes, because nearly every new teacher reported having at least some
children with special needs in their classroom - only 5 percent reported having
no students with special needs.
The
entire "Lessons Learned: New Teachers Talk About Their Jobs, Challenges
and Long-Term Plans" series is online at: http://www.publicagenda.org/LessonsLearned
Suburban Surprise
The
anxiety about dealing with diverse classrooms - the sense of being unprepared
and untrained in this area - is greater among new teachers in more upscale
communities. Most new teachers working in both high-needs and in wealthier
schools say they were taught how to teach in an ethnically diverse student
body, but new teachers who work in high-needs schools are significantly more
likely to say that their training does, in fact, help them, with nearly half
(47 percent) saying that their training helps them a lot. By contrast, less
than a third (32 percent) of the new teachers in more affluent schools find
their training in this area helpful.
Training is Otherwise "Comprehensive and Useful"
Experts
and school critics have sometimes attacked teacher-training programs for being
out of touch with reality, but many first-year teachers do not agree. They
report that their training covered a wide number of topics from teaching
specific subject areas to knowing how to manage a classroom and maintain
discipline.
Ninety-two
percent say their training included coursework on children's cognitive,
emotional and psychological development and roughly half (49 percent) find it
to be helpful in the classroom. When it comes to direct instruction, of the 84
percent who learned the technique in training, 68 percent say it helps them a
lot now. And on classroom management and discipline, large majorities (78
percent) said their training addressed the subject, with 58 percent reporting
that their training was helpful.
Everyone Wants Smaller Classes
The
challenge of diverse classrooms is also reflected in the judgments new teachers
make about what would really help them improve teaching and student learning.
The researchers presented new teachers with a list of 14 proposals to improve
teacher quality. Two items topped the list and were significantly ahead of all
the others. Seventy-six percent of new teachers say reducing class size would
be very effective at improving teacher quality, and 63 percent say the same
about preparing teachers to meet the needs of a diverse classroom.
The
first edition of the "Lessons Learned" series ("They're Not
Little Kids Anymore: The Special Challenges of New Teachers in High Schools and
Middle Schools") reported that, for strong majorities of the new teachers
regardless of their grade level, the same two items topped their list of
recommendations for improving the profession overall. In the second edition of
the series, focusing on the experiences of teachers who come to teaching
through alternate routes rather than traditional university teacher training
programs ("Working Without a Net"), both new alt-route teachers and
new traditionally-trained teachers placed smaller class size at the very top of
their reform wish list, and there was substantial interest in beefing up
preparation to teach in ethnically diverse schools and classrooms.
Students
in public schools learn as much or more math between kindergarten and fifth
grade as similar students in private schools, according to a new University of
Illinois study of multi-year, longitudinal data on nearly 10,000 students.
The
results of the study appear in the May issue of the influential education
journal Phi Delta Kappan.
ÒThese
data provide strong, longitudinal evidence that public schools are at least as
effective as private schools in boosting student achievement,Ó according to the
authors, education professor Christopher Lubienski, doctoral student Corinna
Crane and education professor Sarah Theule Lubienski.
The new
study is the first published study to show that public schools are at least as
effective as private schools at promoting student learning over time, they say.
Combined
with other, yet-unpublished studies of the same data, which produced similar
findings, Òwe think this effectively ends the debate about whether private
schools are more effective than publics,Ó said Christopher Lubienski, whose
research has dealt with all aspects of alternative education.
This is
important, he said, because many current reforms, such as No Child Left Behind,
charter schools and vouchers for private schools, are based on that assumption.
After
controlling for demographic differences among students and schools, the
researchersÕ found that public school students began kindergarten with math
scores roughly equal to those of their Catholic school peers. By fifth grade, however,
they had made significantly greater gains, equal to almost an extra half year
of schooling.
Part of
the explanation, Sarah Lubienski said, might lie in the fact that Catholic
schools have fewer certified teachers and employ fewer reform-oriented mathematics
teaching practices Ð something they found in research for another study,
accepted for publication in the American Journal of Education.
Public
school students also Òrivaled the performance of students in other
(non-Catholic) private schools,Ó the researchers wrote. After adjusting for
demographics and initial kindergarten scores, they found that achievement gains
between kindergarten and fifth grade were roughly equal.
Put
another way by Sarah Lubienski, Òschool type alone doesnÕt explain very much of
why these scores vary É in truth, whether the school is public or private
doesnÕt seem to make that much difference.Ó
The
researchers go on to write that they Òpersonally see private schools as an
integral part of the American system of educationÓ and Òthere are many valid
reasons why parents choose private schools and why policymakers may push for
school choice.Ó
Academic
achievement, however, may no longer be one of those reasons, they write.
ÒClaims that simply switching students from one type of school to another will
result in higher scores appear to be unfounded.Ó
They
suggest Òmoving away from a simple focus on school type and instead examining
what happens within schools.Ó
Twenty-six percent of secondary-level science and math students in public
schools were taught by teachers who did not have "in-field" majors or
state certification in the 2003-04 school year, according to a new Child Trends
study, Qualifications of Public School Teachers for Science, Mathematics, And
History. Students in higher poverty schools and students with less experienced
teachers were more likely to be taught by "out-of-field" teachers.
Among
secondary-level science and math students in the 2003-04 school year:
- 58 percent had a teacher with a postsecondary major in the specific science
or math field that they were teaching.
- 61 percent had a teacher with an in-field regular state certification.
- 45 percent had a teacher with both qualifications.
- 26 percent had a teacher with neither qualification.
Students
of both math and science in lower poverty schools (where fewer than 50 percent
of students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch) were more likely to
be taught by teachers with in-field qualifications than were students in higher
poverty schools (where 50 percent or more of students were eligible for free or
reduced-price lunch).
- 64 percent of students in lower poverty schools had teachers with an in-field
state certification, compared to 53 percent of students in higher poverty
schools.
- 23 percent of students in lower poverty schools had a teacher with no
in-field certification or major, as opposed to 35 percent of students in higher
poverty schools.
Students of veteran teachers (with 6 or more years of teaching experience) had
in-field certified teachers more often than students of newer teachers (with 5
or fewer years of experience).
- 67 percent of students of veteran teachers had an in-field certified teacher,
compared to 45 percent of students with newer teachers.
- 11 percent of students with veteran teachers were taught by teachers without a
regular certification in any subject, compared to 58 percent of students of
newer teachers.
The
study also examines secondary-level history teachers. Among history students in
the 2003-04 school year:
- 62 percent had a teacher with a postsecondary major in the specific science
or math field that they were teaching.
- 79 percent had a teacher with an in-field regular state certification.
- 53 percent had a teacher with both qualifications.
- 12 percent had a teacher with neither qualification.
New research from the University of New Hampshire shows that students do much
better in school when their parents are actively involved in their education.
Researchers
Karen Smith Conway, professor of economics at the University of New Hampshire,
and her colleague Andrew Houtenville, senior research associate at New Editions
Consulting, found that parental involvement has a strong, positive effect on
student achievement.
The
research is reported in ÒParental Effort, School Resources, and Student
Achievement,Ó which appears in the spring 2008 issue of the Journal of Human
Resources.
ÒParental
effort is consistently associated with higher levels of achievement, and the
magnitude of the effect of parental effort is substantial. We found that
schools would need to increase per-pupil spending by more than $1,000 in order
to achieve the same results that are gained with parental involvement,Ó Conway
said.
Parents
seemed particularly interested in the academic achievements of their daughters.
The researchers found parents spent more time talking to their daughters about
their school work during dinnertime discussions.
ÒThere
are a number of theories about why girls seem to garner more attention from
their parents than boys. One possibility is that girls are more communicative
with their parents so these conversations about academics are easier for
parents to have with their daughters,Ó Conway said.
The
researchers also found that parents may reduce their efforts when school
resources increase, thus diminishing the effects of improved school resources.
ÒAs
an economist, I look for reactions to a specific action so it is not surprising
to me that parents may scale back their involvement with their childÕs
education when a school adds resources. As a result, increasing school
resources may not be as effective as we expect since they may diminish parental
involvement,Ó Conway said.
The
researchers used national data from more than 10,000 eighth-grade students in
public and private schools, their parents, teachers, and school administrators.
The researchers were particularly interested in how frequently parents
discussed activities or events of particular interest to the child, discussed
things the child studied in class, discussed selecting courses or programs at
school, attended a school meeting, and volunteered at the childÕs school.