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February
2007
Copyright © 2007, Queue, Inc.
FREE
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Georgia ranks high in standards, low in achievement:
Chance for Success
The new Chance-for-Success Index provides a state-focused perspective on the importance of education throughout a person’s lifetime. The index is based on 13 indicators that highlight whether young children get off to a good start, succeed in elementary and secondary school, and hit crucial educational and economic benchmarks as adults. State rank: 38
Aligning Education from Cradle to Career
State rank: 4
Elementary and Secondary Performance
State rank: 41
Standards, Assessments, and Accountability
State rank: 9
To see the complete Georgia report: http://www.edweek.org/media/ew/qc/2007/17shr.ga.h26.pdf
2008 Georgia Teacher of the Year Finalists Named
Ten teachers from across the state have been named t as finalists for 2008 Georgia Teacher of the Year.
The finalists were chosen from the 147 local district teachers of the year who applied for the statewide honor. Their applications were read by a panel of 20 educators and business and community leaders as well as members of the Georgia Department of Education.
A separate panel of judges will conduct site visits in the coming weeks to observe each of the finalists in the classroom. The winner will be announced March 29 at the annual Teacher of the Year banquet.
"It is an honor to be chosen as Teacher of the Year at any and all levels," said Pam Walker, 2007 Georgia Teacher of the Year. Ms. Walker, of Douglas County, will be one of those visiting the 10 finalists at their schools.
"I look forward to seeing these great teachers in action," she said.
2008 Georgia Teacher of the Year Finalists
- Jennifer Dawson, Cobb County, Lost Mountain Middle School, Social Studies/Language Arts
- Anthony Stinson, DeKalb County, Lakeside High School, Algebra/Trigonometry/Calculus
- Shelly McLemore, Fayette County, Flat Rock Middle School, Social Studies/Science/Reading
- Sheryl Williams, Gainesville City, Gainesville High School, Physical Science/Chemistry/AP Biology
- Amy Stewart, Gordon County, Sonoraville High School, Physics
- Michael Hinkle, Jackson County, Jackson County High School, Spanish
- Karen Mitcham, Jones County, Jones County High School, English Language Arts
- William Haskin, Lowndes County, Hahira Middle School, Social Studies/Reading/Science
- Emily Jennette, Marietta City, Sawyer Road Elementary School, 2nd Grade
- Robin Dudley, McDuffie County, Thomson High School, Health Occupations/Healthcare Science
Overhaul in Math Instruction Coming to Georgia Schools
Facing unacceptably low math scores and a "whopping" disparity between black and white students when it comes to those scores, the state is radically changing the way it teaches math, state Schools Superintendent Kathy Cox told legislators recently.
Some changes are already in place, but more students will see the curriculum shift in coming years - particularly in 2008, when the changes come to Georgia high schools.
The new programs are based on Japanese models and will take an "integrated" approach to teaching math, the superintendent said during a Wednesday hearing on her department's fiscal 2008 budget.
That means "you're learning algebra as you learn other operations of math," Cox told The Telegraph after her presentation.
Cox spokesman Matt Cardoza described the new curriculum, already in place in sixth and seventh grades, as a blended one. High school classes such as algebra I, geometry and algebra II will be replaced with Math I through Math IV, he said.
By the end of high school, all students will have taken the equivalent of algebra II - a goal just 20 percent of high school seniors hit now, Cox said.
The shift was brought on by disturbing math achievement figures, which have lagged even as reading scores have increased across the state, Cox said.
For example: White high school students meet math testing requirements at a rate of about 86 percent, Cox said. For black students, the rate is under 59 percent…
To read the complete article, please go to: http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/local/16485101.htm
"Distinguished" School Districts Named
Four Georgia school systems have been named "Distinguished Districts" for their improvement in educating economically-disadvantaged children. Each district will receive a $50,000 award.
The winning districts are:
- Large School District (10,000 students or more): Lowndes County
- Medium School District (4,000-9,999 students): Monroe County
- Small School District (2,000-3,999 students): Heard County
- Very Small School District (Under 2,000 students: Quitman County
Scores on State-generated Tests Often Contradict Results on a National Test
…While international assessments confirm that American students lag behind those in several other countries in science and math, many school districts and states keep telling parents that their children, like those in Lake Wobegon, Garrison Keillor’s hometown of fable, are all above average.
More testing under the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act was supposed to help measure whether elementary school children are learning what they need to know. But scores on state-generated tests often contradict results on a national test. North Carolina is one of several states with glaring differences between how well it says its students are doing and the harsher verdict of independent comparisons.
The North Carolina Board of Education finally is getting the message. It has switched to a tougher math exam, and recently raised the passing scores in math for grades 3 to 8. So far it’s one of only a handful of states raising their standards.
Welcome to the era of high-stakes testing, where persistently low scores mean principals can get fired and states can take over failing schools. No Child Left Behind requires U.S. schools to make steady progress, so that by 2014 every student is proficient in math and reading. But to ensure cooperation, Congress left it up to each state to measure how well its pupils were doing.
Although the goal was transparency, results have been less than clear. While states report growing percentages of students are proficient, the verdict is considerably worse on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), an exam dubbed “the nation’s report card” that is given to a sampling of students in all 50 states.
The discrepancies in some states are alarming. In Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia, far more students rated proficient on the homegrown tests in 2005 than on the NAEP exam – about 50 percentage points higher.
Local control of public schools is a hallowed tradition in American education, and there has long been antipathy to the idea of a national test. NAEP has been around since 1969, but it tests only a cross section of students in each state. Participation is mandatory, and its existence serves as a deterrent to states’ dumbing down tests to look good and avoid costly penalties...
Some state educators say comparisons are unfair because NAEP is too rigorous and was designed to chart long-term trends, not to measure what states feel students should know.
To read the complete article, please go to: http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=172668
The preceding article was excerpted from State of the States 2007, Stateline.org’s annual report on significant state policy developments and trends. To see a digital copy of this 48-page publication go here: http://archive.stateline.org/flash-data/Stateline's_State_of_the_States_2007.pdf
32 Georgia School Districts are Using Lucid's Web-based System
Lucid Data Corporation's professional development management system, PDExpress®, is now supporting professional learning programs in 32 Georgia school districts. Districts are using Lucid's Web-based system to manage online workshop registration, professional leave requests, professional learning transcripts, annual professional learning plans, multi-level routing of forms, and certification information.
PDExpress provides Georgia districts with an efficient way to organize teacher professional development and manage Professional Learning Units (PLUs).
According to Scarlett Correll, Director of Professional Learning at Valdosta City Schools, "PDExpress allowed us to cut administration time, while centralizing information and giving teachers more control over their own professional learning information and opportunities. We are able to concentrate on the professional learning content that we want our staff to experience and not get bogged down in registration paperwork."
An additional key benefit experienced by Georgia customers is the ability to easily generate annual professional learning reports required by the Department of Education. What used to take a week or more to create, now only takes an hour or so with PDExpress' robust reporting features. PDExpress offers three easy methods for extracting data and generating reports: 52 embedded standard reports, ad-hoc queries, and an integrated spreadsheet.