July 13, 2008 - July 19, 2008 Archives

It’s gaining popularity on college campuses and could be the next wave of the future for K-12 classrooms. Open textbooks, or online content that can be accessed, personalized and printed by licensed users is starting to take a fledging foothold in higher education, where textbook prices (I had no idea) have risen twice as fast as the rate of inflation for the past two decades, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Besides being a cheaper alternative to traditional hardbound textbooks, the electronic material can be customized and updated far more frequently than its printed counterpart. The Student Public Interest Research Groups, a nonprofit student association, has been working to bring open textbooks to colleges since 2003 and has collected more than 1,200 signatures from faculty at various higher learning institutions in all 50 states.

“The way we’re going to lower prices in the long run is by giving viable options,” Nicole Allen, who is leading the petition drive, told USA Today. “Right now the publishers have a stronghold on the market.”

Changing the way instructional content is delivered is not completely foreign territory to K-12 educators either, as I detail in July’s ASBJ cover, "The New World of Electronic Textbooks." To gain a broader perspective on the issues, you could spend hours performing your own research (a little Monday morning humor), or you could just check out my story.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor

The incumbent branded him a dissolute radical -- a “liberal, sociologically motivated professor who by his associations must advocate sit-ins and love-ins.”

Julian Nava weathered that attack, but after winning election to the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District, he was branded by many on the other side -- Latino activists with whom he sympathized but whose tactics he could not always support -- as a member of “The Establishment.”

If that sounds like a mild epithet today, consider that this was in 1968, when phrases like “sit-in,” "love-in', and “Establishment” put you on one side or the other of a vast, cultural/political divide. And perhaps the scariest place to be at that time was where Nava consciously sought to dwell, the place where he felt he could do the most good: the Middle.

“Man in the Middle” is the fitting title of a story by Michael Balchunas in the Spring 2008 issue of Pomona College Magazine, the alumni magazine of the liberal arts college in Claremont, Calif.

It tells how Nava deftly -- and, I would add, courageously -- helped guide the district through one of the most volatile periods in its history.

Nava was there when 22,000 students from 16 schools walked out over the treatment of minorities, especially Hispanics. And he was there when his friend, the schoolteacher and activist Sal Castro, was fired because of his involvement in the protests. During the round-the-clock student sit-ins that followed at the school board office, Nava had to balance his sympathy for Castro and the students’ desire to have the teacher reinstated with his duties as a board member.

“I wanted to hold the four-vote majority on the board, which I would have lost if that sit-in got out of hand,” Nava said.

In the end, Castro was indeed reinstated, and of the 92 demands issued by Latino students (including. Balchunas writes, “ending corporal punishment, such as paddling of students for speaking Spanish”) the vast majority had been implemented by the time Nava left the board in 1979.

“Man in the Middle” is a remarkable story of a public servant who was willing to take heat from all sides in order to do what he thought was right.

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor

As Randi Weingarten took the helm of the American Federation of Teachers this week, she called for community schools to replace the standardized tests of the No Child Left Behind law.

It’s a concept that sure makes a lot of sense, given that we know the lowest-performing schools serving the neediest students are the ones that need much more than data highlighting their status.

Weingarten said she still supports holding schools and teachers accountable for student progress, but wants a system that’s fair and accounts for the factors that they can control.

“For years we tried to correct what was wrong with NCLB,” she said in her inaugural speech as AFT president. “But now we know better: NCLB does not work.”

The law, she continued, relies too heavily on standardized tests, narrows the curriculum, stresses sanctions over supports, and doesn’t help the students it was designed to target—those most in need.

“These are the children who have the least opportunity outside the school walls to be exposed to all the elements of a well-rounded education: the arts and physical fitness, the ability to think critically and argue logically, the value of active citizenship, and a knowledge of different people and places,” Weingarten continued.

Community schools have the ability to provide for the social needs of these students and sometimes their parents as well. A community school could host a health clinic, after-school tutoring and mentoring programs, recreational activities, and family counseling.

Her speech popped up just as I was researching the cover story for ASBJ’s October issue, which will look at how school districts are planning for new schools, or in some cases, closures, in the wake of some pretty interesting demographic shifts. Weingarten, I learned, lives in the Battery Park section of Manhattan, one of the New York City neighborhoods that’s seeing a rather surprising enrollment surge. Stay tuned for that issue.

Joetta Sack-Min, Assoicate Editor

How is it that a school system with so many excellent schools—including nine of the top schools in America—finds itself operating a school that is rated among the worst in the state?

That question is just one of many that come to mind as I research an article for the November issue of ASBJ, tentatively titled, “We Know What Works in Education, So Why Aren’t We Doing It?”

My eye recently turned to Palm Beach County, Fla., where nine schools recently were recognized by Newsweek magazine as among the top 5 percent in the nation. This year, 109 county schools received an A grade and 31 received a B grade under the state’s school accountability system.

What’s interesting, however, is that four schools received an F rating. Or, as the Palm Beach Post put it, these schools “flunked.”

How can that be? With so many successful schools, how is it that officials in Palm Beach County find themselves with low-performing schools?

A look at Glades Central Community High School provides a partial answer: Nine out of 10 students at the school live in poverty. It’s proving difficult to recruit high-quality teachers to the school. There have been four principals in six years. And the high school is hurt by the number of students who arrive unprepared. Notes the Post, “only 18 percent of the school’s freshmen and 9 percent of sophomores are reading on grade level.”

And school officials have responded to the problem. A new online curriculum was introduced “to help students catch up in math and reading.” Officials added an extra period each day for tutorials. This coming year, all students will be enrolled in a remedial reading course.

Will it be enough? Or will Glades Central prove an example of a school that, despite all the expertise of local officials, continues to struggle academically? And, if so, what does that say about the ability of educators to fix educational problems that are solved every day in other schools?

I hope you’re interested in answers to these questions. I only hope I have some answers by the time the November ASBJ is published.

Del Stover, Senior Editor

So you’re out shopping and you see an item that catches your eye. You’ve got to have it. But there’s no sticker price on it. What’s the next thing you do? (1)Ask an employee for assistance (2)Do some research online (3)Shrug and buy it anyway; you’ve got to have it.

I’m guessing not many of you headed straight for the cash register, price unknown … if you did, can you adopt me? Jokes aside, while savvy consumers wouldn’t dream of plunking their credit card down without first seeing the bill, most us will order food and drink without knowing how much it will cost us calorically.

Well, New York City is trying to change that, through an ordinance that would require all chain restaurants and eateries--- companies with at least 15 franchises throughout the country--- to post calorie counts alongside its menu items.

As you would expect, many of the establishments, including the state’s restaurant association, balked at the law, which will bear some teeth today, when officials can begin fining those who are in non-compliance.

I’m not surprised by the position many of these companies have taken. They want to make money after all, they’re not interested in saving the world, or at the least city, which according to its health department, classifies more than half of New Yorkers as overweight or obese.

But what I did find surprising, as I read news account of this trend-setting regulation, which has been followed to an even more stringent degree by King County, Wash., is the reaction of consumers.

One NYC lady interviewed was so upset by the calories that stared back at her on a TGIF menu that she nearly lost her appetite and requested an older menu sans the nutritional information.

I guess ignorance is bliss, though, that adage doesn’t trickle down to younger folks, as one study found. Researchers from Pennsylvania State University discovered that when nutritional information was provided to high school students they made healthier choices. Here's to starting early.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor