Oklahoma teachers take a lead
Nearly 2,000 teachers in Oklahoma have National Board Certification, putting it in the top 10 of states with the most such teachers. (View a map of National Board Certified teachers here.)
A study released this month by the National Academies, completed at the request of Congress, finds that the certification does make a difference in the classroom, for both student performance and teacher retention.
Here are some statistics provided by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, which created National Board Certification:
- -There were about 63,800 National Board Certified teachers working in all 50 states and Washington D.C. as of March 2008.
- -Nearly one-fourth of 2008 State Teachers of the Year were National Board Certified, and such teachers won National Teacher of the Year four times since 2001.
- -Half of 369 education preparation institutions say they align their master’s degree programs with National Board Standards to a great extent.
However, Milton Hakel, chairman of the committee that wrote the report, also said that cause-and-effect is not clear.
“We don’t know whether the certification process itself makes teachers more effective as they become familiar with the standards and complete the assessment, or if high-quality teachers are attracted to the certification process,” Hakel said.
Are you or did your child have a National Board Certified teacher? Share your comments about the program below.
Wendy K. Kleinman
Education Reporter
Do you know an outstanding young educator?
Student contest information often comes my way. But this week, I came across an advertisement in Education Week that gives teachers and administrators a chance to shine.
A middle school social studies teacher in New Jersey was named as the 2008 Outstanding Young Educator. Now, the organization that bestows the title – the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development – is taking nominations for 2009.
The organization will, for the first time, honor not only one teacher but also one administrator. Nominations are due Aug. 1; the nominees must be age 40 or younger.
To nominate someone you know, visit www.ascd.org/oyea. And if you’d like, share your stories here about a great educator — young or young at heart – that has crossed your path.
Wendy K. Kleinman
Education Reporter
More on schools’ ‘bad apples’
A little more than a week ago, The Oklahoman ran several stories and graphics about the difficult process involved in terminating underperforming public school teachers.
One part mentioned the Toledo Plan, a unique method of teacher evaluation spearheaded by the Toledo, Ohio, school district.
NPR recently put together an interesting segment about the plan, including conversations with and about teachers who came under the scrutiny in the peer review system.
You can tune in to the “All Things Considered” recording by clicking here and selecting “Listen Now,” and share any comments you have on this blog.
Wendy K. Kleinman
Education Reporter
From bad to worst
The Center for Union Facts wants to give $10,000 each to 10 teachers — to stop teaching.
The organization said Tuesday it can be impossible to fire a bad teacher if he or she is protected by a union. To clarify, the Washington-based nonprofit also says it’s not against unions, just against corruption and the like within unions.
Anyone age 13 or older can submit nominations for the Worst Union-Protected Teacher at www.TeachersUnionExposed.com.
The Web site in part singles out Tulsa for firing “only two tenured teachers” out of more than 2,000 between 2003 and 2006. During that time, six tenured teachers seemingly resigned or retired in the face of termination, according to the site.
Do you think there are more than a handful of teachers in any given school district that should leave the profession? Do you think unions protect them too much? Or do you think union rules need to be in place for the good of the majority, even if that means a few unsatisfactory teachers are protected?
Share your thoughts with me and with other readers on the Education Station blog at NewsOK.com.
Wendy K. Kleinman
Education Reporter
Sugar Plum Fantasies
I learned an ugly truth in second grade. From a teacher no less.
The tooth fairy may not be an actual wing-wearing, coin-toting magical creature after all. She might be nothing but a fairy-tale.
I was horrified, scandalized, and permanently immunized — against such childish flights of fancy.
Now I’m a parent, and I’m wondering if there’s ever a right time to shine the glaring light of reality onto a child’s eyes. At what age should you have that “talk” about imaginary heroes propagated by toy sellers and story books.
Maybe you never have that talk, and the innocent learn the hard truth from playmates or teachers. Yes, you wait. Because childhood fantasy is a precious gift and dreams don’t come gift-wrapped by elves.
Susan Simpson, Staff Writer
Doing what works
Last week, the U.S. Department of Education launched a new Web site called Doing What Works to showcase and share effective ideas for helping students learn.
The Education Department says the site is meant to turn research into practice – and spread good practices.
The site includes slideshows and videos of teachers using specific strategies in their classrooms.
Currently the site has content about teaching English Language Learners, but more topics are to come, including early childhood education, literacy, math and science, and school restructuring.
To visit the site for ideas, go to http://dww.ed.gov.
Wendy K. Kleinman
Education Reporter
I (HEART) My Teacher
In case you missed it, last Friday marked the start of the holiday gift-buying season. It started early this year, experts said, so that retailers could reel consumers in before the economy slid even further.
These same experts say that people will buy fewer gifts this year. For some people, that might mean Great Aunt Mae doesn’t get a fruitcake this year — not that she wanted one anyway.
But there are a few people that are must-gets in my world. The hair stylist — she has scissor-wielding control of my self-esteem, and my daughters’ teachers, because I really appreciate the job they do.
Usually the teacher gifts are small gestures — a nice candle or a box of chocolates. But what do teachers really want?
Here’s what a story by the Associated Press suggests:
Avoid the No. 1 Teacher mugs and other gimmicky trinkets. The teacher already has many.
Most teachers love hand-made items, even a card handcrafted by your child.
You can’t go wrong with gift certificates, but keep the amount modest. Some districts have rules restricting the monetary amount of gifts.
Chip in with other parents and get a larger gift for the teacher.
I’m not sure what I’ll buy this year (no mugs!) but I usually try to find items that make the teacher feel a bit pampered, nice hand lotion for example.
The hair stylist is another story. She’ll probably get another bottle of wine. For drinking after the hair cut — if I like it.
Susan Simpson, Education Writer
Myths and misconceptions about the Holocaust
At a workshop Saturday at the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum about teaching the Holocaust, Cathleen Cadigan discussed some of the most common related myths and misconceptions. Cadigan is a regional museum educator with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Following are those myths, and the correct information about them, based on Cadigan’s presentation.
Myth: Hitler was Jewish.
Fact: Hitler is the fourth child of Alois and Clara Hitler. Allegations that Hitler’s father was Jewish stem from rumors surrounding Hitler’s grandmother, Maria Schicklgruber. There is speculation that Schicklgruber worked in a Jewish household and that her child, Alois, was fathered by the son of the house. Post-1945 investigations found that no Jews had lived in that area.
Myth: Hitler was elected by the German people.
Fact: The Nazi party received 33 percent of the vote in the 1932 elections. Other parties were the Socialist, Communist and Catholic parties. Hitler, however, was appointed chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg on Jan. 30, 1933.
Myth: Hitler survived the war.
Fact: It is believed that on the morning of April 29, 1945, in a civil ceremony in his bunker, Hitler married his mistress of many years, Eva Braun. The next day, they both bit into thin glass vials of cyanide. As he did so Hitler also shot himself in the head. A handful of remaining Nazi loyalists wrapped his body in a gray blanket, carried him out, saluted in honor and ignited his body.
Myth: Hitler was a homosexual.
Fact: One of Hitler’s close associates was a known homosexual. Fearing his rising political power, Hitler ordered his execution along with several of his allies in the infamous “Night of the Long Knives.”
Myth: The Jews are a race.
Fact: First and foremost, Jews are adherents of a religion — Judaism — around which a culture has evolved based on laws, rituals and customs regarding the Sabbath, holidays, diet and other matters. Second, they are a people with a national identity based on a shared history and historical homeland of Israel. The Nazis decided that if a person had one Jewish grandparent then that person was to be considered Jewish. While that strategy does work for determining someone’s national heritage — Irish-American or Mexican-American, for instance — a person can have grandparents of one religion but identify completely with another.
Myth: The Jews were the only victims.
Fact: People who could identify with other groups also were killed. They include:
-The mentally and physically handicapped, because they did not meet the standards of Hitler’s desired “Aryan race.”
-The Roma or Sinti, more commonly known as Gypsies, on racial grounds.
-Jehovah’s Witnesses, because they refused to salute Hitler or serve in the German army on religious grounds.
-Homosexuals, because they could not advance Hitler’s goal of increasing the population of Aryans.
-Prisoners of war, including 3 million Soviet risoners.
-Clergy.
-Freemasons.
-Political dissidents.
-Other groups of people viewed as inferior, including Poles and other Slavs.
Myth: All camps were the same.
Fact: There were four types of camps: concentration camps, transit camps, labor camps and death camps. Though many people died in all the camps, only the death camps existed for the sole purpose of extermination and used gas chambers. Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazis created thousands of them in all occupied countries.
Myth: All camps used tattoos.
Fact: Only those sent to Auschwitz received tattoos of numbers on their arms.
Myth: The Nazis routinely made soap out of human fat and lampshades out of human skin.
Fact: After examining all the evidence, including an actual bar of soap supplied by the Soviets, the Nuremberg Tribunal declared that “in some instances attempts were made to utilize the fat from the bodies of the victims in the commercial manufacture of soap.” But, it was not a routine practice. The only confirmed practice relating to the making of lampshades is of Ilsa Koch, who had tattoos she thought looked interesting removed from people’s bodies to make products out of them.
Myth: The Jews went like sheep to the slaughter.
Fact: There were many types of resistance, including spiritual resistance by praying or learning Torah or teaching Hebrew; smuggling food; raising armed resistances; and staying alive, the primary defiance of the goal of the Holocaust.
Myth: The King of Denmark donned the yellow star to show his support for Danish Jews.
Fact: Jews in Denmark were never required to wear a Jewish star. The Danish people did save a lot of Jews by taking them on boats in the night to safety in Sweden. A similar widely believed myth is that Norwegians wore paper clips to show their resistance against the Nazis and solidarity with the Jews. There is no evidence of this, either.
Myth: All Germans were Nazis and all Germans were perpetrators.
Fact: There were perpetrators who took action against Jews and other undesired people, and there were bystanders who did not speak up about what happened. There also were pockets of resistance. White Rose was a nonviolent resistance organization made up mostly of German students. Its leaders were beheaded.
Wendy K. Kleinman
Staff Writer
Bag of cash
A bag with $165 in cash accompanied sheets of information for participants of a financial seminar for educators and businesses Wednesday.
Unfortunately, the cash was shredded.
“This money is useless to us,” state Representative Ann Coody said. “Unless we know how to use it, then it’s absolutely useless to us.”
And the same goes for the state’s youth, said Coody, who co-authored legislation that requires schools to begin teaching financial skills to students next year.
Coody and other speakers made the argument at the workshop, “Financial Education in Oklahoma: From Policy to Action,” for the need for students to understand money matters like credit card debt and taxes.
More students leave college because of financial problems than because of academic problems. Oklahomans have set record bankruptcy rates for nine out of 10 years. The state is in the top ten for greatest credit card debt per capita. Divorce — of which a leading cause is financial problems — is at an all-time high.
“Unless our children … realize that (a credit card) is not just a plastic ticket to success, then they are doomed to failure,” Coody said.
This year’s sixth-graders will be the first students to need to obtain a “passport to financial literacy” in order to graduate. Students must be taught 14 financial topics between the seventh and 12th grades.
But middle school is not too early to start.
“My daughter got her first credit card application when she was 9,” said Penny Kugler of the University of Central Missouri.
Missouri implemented a similar school program two years ago, Kugler said.
Here, the state Education Department is working on curriculum and assessment tools for educators. But it also is counting on existing programs by banks and other economic institutions to provide help, said Kerri White, director of math curriculum for the state.
Robyn Hilger with the Oklahoma City Public Schools Foundation also suggested schools and businesses contact local education foundations, which may already have such connections.
To take matters into your own hands, visit www.dallasfed.org/ca/wealth/index.cfm. The site has a beginner’s guide to becoming financially savvy. The “Building Wealth” program is available in English and Spanish, and in print and interactive formats.
Wendy K. Kleinman
Education Reporter
Looking around – at college tours and electronic field trips
I’m about to start working on a story on tips for high school students, and their parents, who are scouting out colleges. One of the places I visited back when I made campus visits was The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. Though that’s not where I decided to go, I did love the campus – and the town.
For grade-school teachers who want to give their students a chance to visit Colonial Williamsburg without the cost and red tape of taking a class on a 1,300-mile field trip, subscriptions are available for “electronic” field trips to the historical grounds.
The Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence has more than 130 Colonial Williamsburg Electronic Field Trips to award to fifth- and eighth-grade teachers at Oklahoma public schools. Students can phone-in questions to town historians and participate in online activities that connect them with students in other states.
For more information and an application, visit www.ofe.org.
And if you’re a student or parent making the college-tour circuit now, or if you’ve been-there-done-that and have tips for others, send an e-mail to wkleinman@oklahoman.com and share your experiences with me. They may just make the paper at a future date.
Wendy K. Kleinman
Education Reporter
