December 2006
Copyright © 2006 • Queue, Inc.

FREE STUDENT WORKBOOKS AVAILABLE FOR PREVIEW (Advertisement)

Queue, Inc.'s latest Test Preparation Catalogue features many new titles. We would be delighted to send catalogues and/or free review copies of any of the student versions of these books at no cost to you. Call, fax, or email your request.

In addition, we’re offering a wide array of curriculum-based materials in our New Curriculum Catalogue. We welcome you to request free review copies of these books as well as a copy of the curriculum catalogue.

We think you will find Queue’s test preparation materials to be great tools to prepare your students for state assessment tests. In addition, we encourage you to sample our curriculum workbooks to help engage and challenge your students.

For further information on Queue, Inc. and our product line, visit http://www.qworkbooks.com.

To order free previews, please visit: http://www.qworkbooks.com/samplerequest.html

or call: 800-232-2224

or fax: 800-775-2729

Education News

For back issues of this newsletter, as well as current and back issues of our other newsletters, U.S. Education News and Education Research Report, please go to: http://www.queuenews.com/

For the latest education research news, please go to: http://queuenews.typepad.com/education_research_report/

back to top  

Texas Shows Moderate Gains for Needy Students

A new report from the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation finds that just eight states can claim even moderate success over the past 15 years at boosting the percentage of their poor or minority students who are at or above proficient in reading, math or science.

The study also finds that most states making significant achievement gains-including California, Delaware, Florida, New York, Massachusetts, and Texas-are national leaders in education reform, indicating that solid standards, tough accountability, and greater school choice can yield better classroom results.

See the study here: http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&cmd=track&j=104914603&u=998506

To see the rankings please go to: http://www.edexcellence.net/foundation/global/page.cfm?id=388#tfr06edreformachieve

To see the rankings please go to: http://www.edexcellence.net/foundation/global/page.cfm?id=388#tfr06edreformachieve

back to top  

Four Texas Teachers Astounded at $25,000 National Award in Surprise Ceremonies

School assemblies just became a little more exciting as four Texas teachers were awarded $25,000 each and named recipients of the Milken Family Foundation’s National Educator Award. The four Texas teachers honored with the Milken National Educator Award include: Robert Rivera, a fifth-grade math teacher at A.S. Putegnat Elementary School in Brownsville Independent School District (ISD); Frank Ward, a fifth and sixth-grade math teacher at Kashmere Gardens Elementary School in the Houston ISD; Robin Turner, a third-grade teacher at Mary Jane Sims Elementary School in the Austin ISD; and Dagan Ferrier, a fifth-grade teacher at Indian Creek Elementary School in the Southwest ISD in San Antonio.

Robert Rivera, a graduate of the University of Texas at Brownsville, was Brownsville ISD’s Teacher of the Year in 2001-2002. Considered a remarkable educator, he was also named Teacher of the Year Nominee for Region 1 Education Service Center. To aid in student performance, he integrates technology in the classroom and allows students to use multi-media tools to present projects. His dedication to student achievement goes beyond the classroom as Rivera provided tutorials to all his students, which resulted in 100 percent of his students passing the 2005 Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) math test. More than 40 percent scored at the Commended level. In addition, Rivera serves on the district math core team to improve student achievement in math.

Houston ISD teacher, Frank Ward, strategically transforms his fifth and sixth-grade math students into confident, eager and motivated learners. To create a solid network of support, 2 Ward partners with his students’ parents for Saturday boot camps—helping parents to understand math so they can in turn help their children. As a result of Ward’s engaging teaching strategies, his students had a 97 percent passing rate on the TAKS math test in 2005, with 85 percent earning a Commended rating. The two previous years, 100 percent of his students passed the test. Once the youngsters master a mathematics lesson, he often reads to them so they can become better readers and better understand narrative math problems. A graduate of Texas A&M University, Ward earned a master’s in education at The University of St. Thomas.

Robin Turner, a third-grade teacher in the Austin ISD, is considered a phenomenal teacher, motivator and role model for her students. She integrates research, reading and writing in her classroom, empowering students with the ability to express themselves in a sophisticated and eloquent manner. She inspires students to seek out knowledge, giving them a love for learning. Turner’s influence is so overwhelming that she has received notes from second graders requesting her as their teacher when they move to third grade. Because of her in-depth knowledge of reading strategies and captivating personality, Turner was chosen to be a trainer of trainers for a reading program called Open Court Reading—instructing other classroom teachers across the state in the techniques of proven reading strategies. Turner continues to set an example of the importance of being a life-long learner by working to earn her National Board Certification.

back to top  

$33 Million in Teacher Incentive Fund Grants to Dallas and Houston

Two Texas school districts, Houston Independent School District and Dallas Independent School District, will receive a five-year grant totaling more than $33 million to provide financial incentives to teachers and principals who improve student achievement in high-poverty schools, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced.

A total of 16 grantees across the nation, with Houston and Dallas among the two, will receive a total of approximately $42 million during the first year of the Teacher Incentive Fund grant.

Houston ISD is recommended to receive $3,991,330 in the first year of the grant, with a total of approximately $11.8 million over the five-year period. Dallas ISD is recommended to receive $126,139 in the first year, with a total of about $22.3 over the five years. These school districts will use the Teacher Incentive Fund grant to develop or expand current compensation systems for teachers and principals. It will also be used to recruit effective teachers to those schools, particularly for hard-to-staff subjects like math and science.

In addition, the grant will pay stipends to teachers whose strategies and skills used in the classroom effectively close the achievement gap and raise student achievement, and provide incentives to encourage highly effective teachers to join and stay in high-needs campuses.

The Teacher Incentive Fund program is a federal initiative to develop and implement performance-based teacher and principal compensation systems in high-need, disadvantaged schools, where at least 30 percent of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.

back to top  

Final 2006 State Accountability Ratings and Gold Performance Acknowledgments Available

Accountability appeals boosted nine campuses up to an Exemplary rating, while 35 campuses and seven districts managed to shed their Academically Unacceptable rating

Ratings remained unchanged for most districts and campuses that appealed their state ratings. Overall, 70 of the 160 districts or campuses that appealed their ratings won their appeals.

State accountability data tables and information for individual districts and campuses are available at: http://www.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/account

Also available at that site are the 2005-06 Gold Performance Acknowledgments (GPA) which recognize districts and campuses for high academic performance on various indicators, such as commended performance on Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, college admissions tests, and AP/IB examinations. There are 12 different categories in which a GPA can be earned at the district level and 14 different categories at the campus level.

back to top  

State and Regional Teachers of the Year

Dana Kristin Boyd, a teacher at Dolphin Terrace Elementary School at the Ysleta Independent School District in El Paso, is the 2007 Texas Elementary Teacher of the Year.  Nika Maples, an English teacher at Fossil Ridge High School in the Keller Independent School District in Fort Worth, is the Texas Secondary Teacher of the Year.

Chart: http://www.tea.state.tx.us/press/teacherluncheon.pdf

back to top  

$95.5 Million in Texas Educator Excellence Grants Given to 1,119 Schools

More than 1,100 schools will receive $95.5 million in Texas Educator Excellence Grants.

Under this program created by the Texas Legislature and Gov. Rick Perry last spring, the 1,119 participating schools received grants of $40,000 to $300,000, depending on the size of the student population on their campus.

Schools that were eligible to receive this grant ranked in the top half of the state in the percentage of educationally disadvantaged students for their school type, such as high school or elementary, and were rated exemplary or recognized or ranked in the top quartile performance level for improvement in math and reading. Slightly different criteria applied to alternative education campuses.

Eligibility was determined using the most recent complete set of performance and demographic information available this spring. This data was from the 2004-2005 school year. However, awards to individual educators will be determined by student performance during the 2006-2007 school year. Individual awards may be based on any objective, quantifiable measure of student achievement, such as the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, benchmark exams, end-of-course exams or portfolio assessments.

Of the 1,151 eligible campuses, 1,119 schools applied or are planning to apply for the grant, representing a 97 percent participation rate. During a preliminary eligibility period, 19 schools declined to participate in the grant and additional schools were added to the eligibility list to replace them.

Each participating campus has crafted a plan that details how it will determine which employees get the incentive pay. The plans were created with the input of educators on that campus. Consequently, the plans will vary from school to school. The plans are currently under review.

The Texas Educator Excellence Grant funds are divided into two components. Part I funds represent 75 percent of the total campus award. These funds are used to reward classroom teachers based on improvements in student achievement at the campus. These funds must be used to award teacher initiative and assignments to hard-to-staff subjects. Awards to teachers must be made between May 2007 and Oct. 15, 2007.

Part II funds represent 25 percent of the total campus award. This money can be used to award other school personnel, provide professional development and other activities related to improving student achievement.

The initial 97 percent participation rate by schools encumbers $95.5 million of the $100 million set aside by the Legislature for this program. To fully use all the funding, an additional group of schools will be offered the option of participating in this program later this fall.

A list of schools participating in this first cycle of the grant is attached. Additional information about the grant is available at: http://www.tea.state.tx.us/opge/disc/EducatorExcellenceAward/EdExcellenceAward_RFA.html

The agency has also posted a list of schools that are eligible for the second cycle of this grant, should lawmakers approve additional funding. The preliminary list of identified schools is available at: www.tea.state.tx.us/opge/disc.

The final list of eligible campuses will be published in August 2007 after the 2007 accountability ratings are released.

back to top  

Nine-Year-Old Boy Escapes Abductor Thanks to Yello Dyno

Yello Dyno child safety lessons are credited with foiling a recent attempt at child abduction in Lubbock, Texas.

A Hispanic man tried to force a nine-year-old boy into his car, but he broke free and ran home. The boy was unharmed and police now have a composite sketch of the suspect, described as 5'7, 130 pounds with a bald or shaved head. A witness, who heard the boy's story came back to the area and found a person matching the description, but he fled in a 90s-style sedan, similar to a Chevy Lumina. The boy told police he learned how to get away because of the Yello Dyno Program at his school.

“It is a fact that one in five children you know will encounter a child predator. Research shows that safety knowledge cannot be taught the same way you teach English or math,” explains Jan Wagner, founder of Yello Dyno. “The knowledge has to be stored in the part of the brain that takes charge when a child is fearful or anxious. The Yello Dyno Method™ ensures that children automatically recall right action and act on it in a crisis.”

The Yello Dyno Method™ is based on the research of Nobel Prize winner Dr. Roger Sperry, and the internationally recognized research on children in crisis of Dr. Bruce Perry.

According to Sara Wilson, Safe and Drug Free Specialist for the Lubbock ISD, “It's a blessing to hear how the Yello Dyno program saved this child from the unthinkable. We make sure children have the patterns to respond correctly if they are ever in danger. You certainly don’t want to leave that to chance.”

Yello Dyno, an award-winning, non-fearful, musically-based program, arms parents and educators with curricula and materials needed to teach children how to protect themselves from child predators: sexual predators, abusers, abductors, bullies, violent kids, drug pushers, and Internet stalkers.

back to top  

Identity-Based Control for Texas School District

The Mount Pleasant Independent School District of Mount Pleasant, Texas, is using the ConSentry LANShield platforms to detect and stop unauthorized activity and to prevent the spread of malware.

The Mount Pleasant School District is a K-12 school system that encompasses about 5,000 students and 900 employees spread across eight sites. Although the district’s LAN was protected at the perimeter by an intrusion prevention system (IPS) as well as by anti-virus software, the district had no way to control user access on the LAN or to monitor and control how network resources were used. The school district also needed a better way to contain malware, since IPS devices are too expensive to deploy throughout the internal LAN segments. A three-year search for an easy-to-use, affordable LAN security solution that could track and control traffic on the network ultimately led to ConSentry Networks.

“The ConSentry LANShield devices are a great complement to our other security solutions,” said Noe Arzate, systems administrator at the Mount Pleasant School District. “The admission control and captive portal features let me control who gains access to the LAN. But I also need to limit what users can do on the LAN, so the post-admission control is critical. For example, I now can make sure that only teachers and key administrators have access to the grading system, and guests and contractors are restricted to Internet access. The visibility the LANShield provides shows me what users did and how and when they did it, so I can correct any problems that may have caused a security breach.”

A Layer 2 through 7-aware device, the LANShield device operates inline, giving it complete visibility into LAN traffic. Arzate can thus define a range of access control policies based on MAC and IP addresses, applications and content at Layer 7 and above, users and roles, and more. ConSentry’s patent-pending malware algorithms detect zero-day attacks and let IT define policy to block just the infected application or all traffic from the affected user.

“Teachers lose a lot of time when they don’t have a computer,” said Arzate. “They can’t put grades in, and they don’t have the resources to provide instruction.” The improved uptime from blocking malware, together with reduced troubleshooting due to increased LAN visibility, directly and positively impact the district’s education mission.

The ConSentry LANShield devices have already proven their worth, enabling Arzate to see computers generating unnecessary traffic inside the network. He also used LANShield to pinpoint a vulnerability scan attack. The IPS identified a printer as the source of anomalous traffic, but the LANShield device showed that a computer connected to the printer was actually the source — it was using the printer to scan for open ports on other systems.

The ability to simply drop the LANShield device into the network was another major draw for the Mount Pleasant ISD. “Being a school district, funds are limited, so the fact that we were able to just switch a couple of patch cables and have the system up and running without any reconfiguration is a big plus,” said Arzate.

Initially the school district used the LANShield visibility function and malware controls, and then the district implemented simple access control policies. More granular policies will be implemented in the future, with more restrictions on student accounts.

back to top  

Houghton Mifflin and ALAS Award Two $10,000 Scholarships to Aspiring Latino Administrators

Houghton Mifflin Company and the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents (ALAS) have announced the recipients of two $10,000 scholarships to support the advancement of aspiring Latino administrators. Elizabeth J. Blanco of Whittier, Calif., and Anthony Chavez of Frisco, Texas, were chosen among a pool of accomplished applicants for their demonstrated educational leadership and commitment to becoming urban school superintendents.

Chavez, assistant principal for the Dallas Independent School District, is currently enrolled in the Masters of Education program at Dallas Baptist University. The ALAS/Houghton Mifflin scholarship will be applied to their studies.

“With this scholarship, there will no longer be a delay between my master’s and doctorate degrees,” said Chavez. “I will be able to fulfill my career goals and dreams faster—and be a good role model for our growing student population.”

By the year 2025, Latino children will comprise 25 percent of the nation’s school-age population. In the largest states—California, Texas, New York and Florida—Latinos have already reached that level, yet less than 1 percent of the nation’s educational leaders are Latino.
Blanco and Anthony Chavez, our promising leaders of tomorrow.”

“ALAS is grateful and appreciative of our partnership with Houghton Mifflin,” said Dr. Wilfredo T. Laboy, president of ALAS and superintendent of the Lawrence Public School District in Massachusetts. “We applaud them for investing in developing Latino educational leaders in this country.”

back to top  

Austin Independent School District

Austin Independent School District has moderate debt levels and capital needs, a sound financial status, and a sizable economy. The Austin area experienced deep recessionary pressures during the latest national downturn, which translated into declining taxable assessed valuation (TAV) for AISD. As a result, the district's operating performance declined in recent years. However, economic activity in the area has started to accelerate and prospects for a return to historical reserve levels should occur more quickly than anticipated.

The district serves the City of Austin and has a current student enrollment of over 81,000. While the district is considered property rich under state legislative definitions, AISD faces challenges typical of a large urban school district, with pockets of low-income residents and underperforming schools. Despite these pressures, the district continues to make improvements in standardized test scores and maintains broad community support, as evidenced by the 78% passage rate of its most recent bond election.

General fund reserves are good, despite declining levels in fiscals 2004 and 2005. For fiscal 2006, the district continued with teacher pay enhancements and certain academic incentives, but revenues were higher than expected, allowing the district to achieve a $9 million surplus and stabilize reserve levels. For fiscal 2007, financial prospects are even more favorable. The district's TAV posted a 14% increase over the prior year and budgeted expenditure growth is a moderate 5%. In addition, the district is levying an optional $0.04 per $100 TAV, which is expected to generate around $17 million in revenue. Altogether, AISD expects to generate a surplus of nearly $21 million, effectively boosting the undesignated general fund reserve to 13%, the approximate level prior to the local recession.

Debt levels are moderate and capital needs are manageable. Given the low enrollment growth of around 1% annually, capital demands are geared towards renovations and additions to existing facilities. With this issuance, overall debt levels remain virtually unchanged from the district's August 2006 issuance at 4.0% of TAV and around $2,500 per capita. Subsequent to these bonds, remaining authorization totals $398 million and is expected to have limited impact on debt ratios given the district's sizeable tax base and rapid amortization of existing debt, of which over 80% will be retired in ten years.

back to top  

Mabank Independent School District

The Mabank Independent School District, Texas' (Mabank ISD) is located approximately 50 miles southeast of Dallas and its boundaries include portions of Kaufman, Henderson and Van Zandt Counties. The three principal communities in Mabank ISD are Mabank, Gun Barrel City and Seven Points. Population is estimated at roughly 15,500, and the current enrollment of roughly 3,300 has been increasing only modestly over the past three fiscal years. Nearby Cedar Creek Reservoir is a major tourism attraction, and improved highway access to the area from Dallas over the past decade has generated both residential and commercial development activity. This growth has not produced sizeable enrollment increases to date; however, additional development is likely, which may generate more rapid enrollment growth over the next three-to-five years.

Mabank ISD has a favorable financial profile, characterized by generally positive operating results and satisfactory operating reserves. Voters approved a $38 million bond authorization by a comfortable margin in 2005, despite district projections of a more than tripling of the debt service tax rate over the near term. A portion of the proceeds from this sale will exhaust the 2005 authorization. District officials anticipate that the scheduled fall 2007 opening of a new high school, along with a realignment of existing facilities, will meet classroom needs for the foreseeable future.

Direct debt has increased sharply with the recent offerings and is above average at $2,150 per capita and nearly 4% of fiscal 2007 taxable assessed valuation (TAV). These ratios assume state support of roughly 30% of annual debt service costs. The pace of debt retirement is below average, with slightly more than 30% retired in ten years. Mabank ISD's fiscal 2007 debt service tax rate is $0.34 per $100 of TAV, up from $0.08 in fiscal 2005 and in line with projections made prior to the 2005 election. District officials expect the rate to trend downwards in coming years, even with conservative tax base growth assumptions.

back to top