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TEACHERS USE BLOGS TO GET STUDENTS WRITING
LAURA PACE, PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE - Three teachers are using blogs to
help students write -- a sort of an online term paper in shorter bursts
-- and the group is finding it's improving the caliber of the writing
and evoking scholarly thoughts from students. . . High school English
teachers Nicole Roth, Charles Youngs and Michael Bellini are using
blogs, short for Web logs, in their classrooms. And a new pilot project
will have some kids blogging about art displays at the Carnegie Museum
of Art.
The students still have tests and papers to write, but [Youngs] has
found they have adopted a scholarly tone in their writing. . .
Recent postings includes thoughts on "Letters to a Young Poet" by Rainer
Maria Rilke. And there are no abbreviations or slang. Students are
required to use proper grammar.
"Katie C." wrote: "Letters to a Young Poet" truly enlightened me in many
different areas of life. Rilke presents [a] multitude [of] philosophical
ideas ... which enabled me to enjoy the text while embedding within me a
feeling of inspiration."
"Rachel B." wrote: "Rilke finds beauty in everything, which also
expresses his views of Romanticism. Another lesson I found to be
interesting was Rilke's views on solitude. He says to embrace solitude.
Today's society tends to shun 'outcasts,' while maybe they are really
the only people [who] understand what Rilke was talking about."
The three teachers have taken what they know on the road, and have given
presentations for Prentice Hall and schools around the country, with
more appearances to come. . .
Dr. Roth's students were nervous at first, because unlike a regular term
paper, their comments were read by their classmates in addition to the
teacher. They would stare at the empty block on the computer screen that
holds about 200 words and try to fill it all, sometimes with difficulty.
But by the end of the class, "I couldn't get them to stop," she said.
This doesn't mean the kids necessarily liked to blog. She also surveyed
them for qualitative information and "all the groups, they equally hated
[writing]," she said, no matter what the format.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07158/791999-298.stm
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MAINE CHARGES AHEAD WITH SCHOOL CONSOLIDATION
ANN S. KIM, PORTLAND PRESS HERALD - After months of debate on various
consolidation plans, Maine is embarking on a plan to shrink the number
of school districts from 290 to about 80. The state estimates that
reduced administrative costs will result in savings of $66.4 million in
state and local money in the second year of the 2007-2009 budget cycle.
. .
Kim Bedard, president of the Maine School Boards Association, was
unhappy about the flurry of activity leading up to the budget's
enactment, which she said did not allow enough time to fully analyze all
the . . . Bedard, a member of the Kittery School Board, questioned how
well lawmakers could have understood the plan in the short time frame.
"No question, there will be unintended consequences," she said.
The plan is not mandatory, although districts that do not participate
will face penalties. Those districts will lose standing in construction
projects, half of their state money for administrative costs and, in
some communities with high tax bases, the minimum state subsidies.
Nonparticipating districts will also see their level of state funding
frozen at current levels. . .
PROGRESSIVE REVIEW, FEBRUARY 2007 - The assault on community controlled
public education is not only a result of Bush's No Child law. Bill
Kauffman once noted in Chronicles that it was liberal Harvard president
President James Conant who produced a series of postwar reports calling
for the "elimination of the small high school" in order to compete with
the Soviets and deal with the nuclear era. Says Kauffman, "Conant the
barbarian triumphed: the number of school districts plummeted from
83,718 in 1950 to 17,995 in 1970.". . .
Education is one of those human activities clearly centered on two
people (teacher and student). As the system surrounding this experience
becomes larger, more complex and more bureaucratic, the key players
become pawns in a new and unrelated bureaucratic game. The role of the
principal also dramatically shifts - from being an educational
administrator to being a cross between a corporate executive and a
warden. It is such a transformation that helps to bring us things like
what happened at Columbine.
Consider, for a moment, that not a single private school has merged with
five or ten other academies in the name of efficiency and improved
learning. No one has suggested a
Andover-Exeter-Groton-Milton-Choate-Kent School Administrative District.
If conglomeration of schools really helped, why would such places not
give it a try? I once asked the head of one of the top private girl's
schools in the country what he considered the maximum size of a school
he'd like to run. His reply: 500 students. . ."Remember, that means
1,000 parents."
Particularly bizarre is what is happening in Maine. The plan itself is
familiar: the pursuit of the false god of educational efficiency through
the concentration of school districts as ordered by the governor. . .
What makes it stranger is that Maine is one of a handful of New England
states where one can still find the remnants of American democracy
functioning at human scale thanks to such institutions as town meetings
and lots of small villages that do what they want without excessive
interference from above. This tradition has produced in recent years
more independent governors (although not the present one) than just
about any state and a culture of honest independence in politics and
governance that would best be emulated rather than reorganized.
And who suggested the course that the governor is following? None other
than representatives of that citadel of Washington anti-democratic
elitism, that hospice of prematurely aging MBAs and political science
majors: the Brookings Institution. This is like Arianna Huffington
coaching the Chicago Bears.
To add to the oddity, it is all being done in the name of "smart
growth." The tie-in with smart growth is quite revealing. From the
progressive movement of the early 20th century on, well-meaning but
excessively self-assured members of the elite have controlled the
debate, the money and the plans, with barely restrained contempt for the
reservations, concerns and resistance of the less powerful. And so it is
with smart growth.
Listen to Grow Smart Maine:
"Many of Maine's smaller cities and towns are experiencing unplanned
growth but lack the resources and experience to manage that change in
ways that protect the character of their community. . . The Model Town
Community Project will work with a selected town during 2006 and 2007 to
provide tools and advice that will help the town shape its future. The
project will mobilize local, state and regional resources, enable the
town to explore new growth strategies and fully engage local residents
by combining the best elements of New England town meetings with ground
breaking new technologies."
In other words, we'll come in and show you how to run a town meeting our
way, just like we learned at business school.
But if smart growth is meant to be about environmentally sound planning,
how come we have to consolidate our school districts and our town
offices?
Because once you put your faith in the sort of expertise that a
planning-managerial elite offers, once you turn to MBAs like others turn
to Jesus, then you don't really need democracy, town meetings or small
schools. What you need is efficiency and managerial skill and you have
been promised that, so why worry?
In both the school consolidation and the smart growth debates the issue
of human scale - and not some liberal-conservative conflict - is at the
core. But we have been taught - by intellectuals, by the media, by
politicians, - to revere a promise of efficiency and technological
advance over the empirical advantages of living the way humans have
traditionally lived, including valuing the small places that host,
nurture and define their lives. We have been trained not to even notice
when our very humanity is being destroyed in the name of mere physical
change.
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
TEACHERS USE BLOGS TO GET STUDENTS WRITING
LAURA PACE, PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE - Three teachers are using blogs to
help students write -- a sort of an online term paper in shorter bursts
-- and the group is finding it's improving the caliber of the writing
and evoking scholarly thoughts from students. . . High school English
teachers Nicole Roth, Charles Youngs and Michael Bellini are using
blogs, short for Web logs, in their classrooms. And a new pilot project
will have some kids blogging about art displays at the Carnegie Museum
of Art.
The students still have tests and papers to write, but [Youngs] has
found they have adopted a scholarly tone in their writing. . .
Recent postings includes thoughts on "Letters to a Young Poet" by Rainer
Maria Rilke. And there are no abbreviations or slang. Students are
required to use proper grammar.
"Katie C." wrote: "Letters to a Young Poet" truly enlightened me in many
different areas of life. Rilke presents [a] multitude [of] philosophical
ideas ... which enabled me to enjoy the text while embedding within me a
feeling of inspiration."
"Rachel B." wrote: "Rilke finds beauty in everything, which also
expresses his views of Romanticism. Another lesson I found to be
interesting was Rilke's views on solitude. He says to embrace solitude.
Today's society tends to shun 'outcasts,' while maybe they are really
the only people [who] understand what Rilke was talking about."
The three teachers have taken what they know on the road, and have given
presentations for Prentice Hall and schools around the country, with
more appearances to come. . .
Dr. Roth's students were nervous at first, because unlike a regular term
paper, their comments were read by their classmates in addition to the
teacher. They would stare at the empty block on the computer screen that
holds about 200 words and try to fill it all, sometimes with difficulty.
But by the end of the class, "I couldn't get them to stop," she said.
This doesn't mean the kids necessarily liked to blog. She also surveyed
them for qualitative information and "all the groups, they equally hated
[writing]," she said, no matter what the format.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07158/791999-298.stm
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
MAINE CHARGES AHEAD WITH SCHOOL CONSOLIDATION
ANN S. KIM, PORTLAND PRESS HERALD - After months of debate on various
consolidation plans, Maine is embarking on a plan to shrink the number
of school districts from 290 to about 80. The state estimates that
reduced administrative costs will result in savings of $66.4 million in
state and local money in the second year of the 2007-2009 budget cycle.
. .
Kim Bedard, president of the Maine School Boards Association, was
unhappy about the flurry of activity leading up to the budget's
enactment, which she said did not allow enough time to fully analyze all
the . . . Bedard, a member of the Kittery School Board, questioned how
well lawmakers could have understood the plan in the short time frame.
"No question, there will be unintended consequences," she said.
The plan is not mandatory, although districts that do not participate
will face penalties. Those districts will lose standing in construction
projects, half of their state money for administrative costs and, in
some communities with high tax bases, the minimum state subsidies.
Nonparticipating districts will also see their level of state funding
frozen at current levels. . .
PROGRESSIVE REVIEW, FEBRUARY 2007 - The assault on community controlled
public education is not only a result of Bush's No Child law. Bill
Kauffman once noted in Chronicles that it was liberal Harvard president
President James Conant who produced a series of postwar reports calling
for the "elimination of the small high school" in order to compete with
the Soviets and deal with the nuclear era. Says Kauffman, "Conant the
barbarian triumphed: the number of school districts plummeted from
83,718 in 1950 to 17,995 in 1970.". . .
Education is one of those human activities clearly centered on two
people (teacher and student). As the system surrounding this experience
becomes larger, more complex and more bureaucratic, the key players
become pawns in a new and unrelated bureaucratic game. The role of the
principal also dramatically shifts - from being an educational
administrator to being a cross between a corporate executive and a
warden. It is such a transformation that helps to bring us things like
what happened at Columbine.
Consider, for a moment, that not a single private school has merged with
five or ten other academies in the name of efficiency and improved
learning. No one has suggested a
Andover-Exeter-Groton-Milton-Choate-Kent School Administrative District.
If conglomeration of schools really helped, why would such places not
give it a try? I once asked the head of one of the top private girl's
schools in the country what he considered the maximum size of a school
he'd like to run. His reply: 500 students. . ."Remember, that means
1,000 parents."
Particularly bizarre is what is happening in Maine. The plan itself is
familiar: the pursuit of the false god of educational efficiency through
the concentration of school districts as ordered by the governor. . .
What makes it stranger is that Maine is one of a handful of New England
states where one can still find the remnants of American democracy
functioning at human scale thanks to such institutions as town meetings
and lots of small villages that do what they want without excessive
interference from above. This tradition has produced in recent years
more independent governors (although not the present one) than just
about any state and a culture of honest independence in politics and
governance that would best be emulated rather than reorganized.
And who suggested the course that the governor is following? None other
than representatives of that citadel of Washington anti-democratic
elitism, that hospice of prematurely aging MBAs and political science
majors: the Brookings Institution. This is like Arianna Huffington
coaching the Chicago Bears.
To add to the oddity, it is all being done in the name of "smart
growth." The tie-in with smart growth is quite revealing. From the
progressive movement of the early 20th century on, well-meaning but
excessively self-assured members of the elite have controlled the
debate, the money and the plans, with barely restrained contempt for the
reservations, concerns and resistance of the less powerful. And so it is
with smart growth.
Listen to Grow Smart Maine:
"Many of Maine's smaller cities and towns are experiencing unplanned
growth but lack the resources and experience to manage that change in
ways that protect the character of their community. . . The Model Town
Community Project will work with a selected town during 2006 and 2007 to
provide tools and advice that will help the town shape its future. The
project will mobilize local, state and regional resources, enable the
town to explore new growth strategies and fully engage local residents
by combining the best elements of New England town meetings with ground
breaking new technologies."
In other words, we'll come in and show you how to run a town meeting our
way, just like we learned at business school.
But if smart growth is meant to be about environmentally sound planning,
how come we have to consolidate our school districts and our town
offices?
Because once you put your faith in the sort of expertise that a
planning-managerial elite offers, once you turn to MBAs like others turn
to Jesus, then you don't really need democracy, town meetings or small
schools. What you need is efficiency and managerial skill and you have
been promised that, so why worry?
In both the school consolidation and the smart growth debates the issue
of human scale - and not some liberal-conservative conflict - is at the
core. But we have been taught - by intellectuals, by the media, by
politicians, - to revere a promise of efficiency and technological
advance over the empirical advantages of living the way humans have
traditionally lived, including valuing the small places that host,
nurture and define their lives. We have been trained not to even notice
when our very humanity is being destroyed in the name of mere physical
change.
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