***** It's an A D thanks Sp0ns0rs! *****

Learn Spanish easily with new E-book:   ¡Ahora Hablo!  $9.90
Educator Edition, "Simple Steps to Communicate with Spanish-speaking Students"
This book teaches "maximum communication with minimal grammar"
Award winning author and veteran Spanish teacher, Meg Graham, offers easy strategies
to authentic Spanish for better communication with students and their families.
For accurate pronunciation, each word has a phonetic key.
Try the book and the free practice links at Graham's website: www.ahorahablo.com
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THE NEXT SPUTNIK MOMENT: GETTING REAL ABOUT SCIENCE TEACHER PAY
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/05/14/37wheeler_ep.h27.html
In a commentary in Education Week, Gerald F. Wheeler, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, compares the present moment in national science education to 1963, when he first started teaching high school chemistry and physics. "Our second 'Sputnik moment' has arrived," he writes, "and we need to decide just what our future science education workforce will look like."
Wheeler claims that the state of American science teaching today has led to our "losing ground to our international competitors, and science education is the basis for future scientific discoveries and innovations." He points to low pay for science teachers in comparison with pay for science and engineering bachelor's degree recipients in the private sector, and reasons that the wage gap dramatically impacts the ability of schools and districts to recruit and retain capable science teachers.

 
Bush illegally mismanged billions on the Reading First and Voyager Expanded...
he would offer poorly paid teachers good hourly pay to stay late ... Garner, the retired reading teacher, called the decision unconscionable ... document that other teachers helped her write
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Literacy/texasScam.asp
 
Educational CyberPlayGround: Teachers Certification Exam from 1895
Each teacher will bring a bucket of ... individual taste of the pupils. Men teachers may take one evening each week ... teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Teachers/1895exam.html



LOUISIANA HOUSE WOULD INCREASE SUPPORT FOR PRIVATE SCHOOL TUITIONS IN NEW ORLEANS
A new bill passed by the Louisiana House of Representatives would dispense $10 million to pay private school tuition costs for 1,500 low-income students in New Orleans, according to Bill Barrow in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. The bill, which was strongly backed by Governor Bobby Jindal (R), now goes to the Louisiana Senate, where it is expected to pass.
The bill was hotly contested in the Louisiana House, where it was opposed by public school advocates as a measure that would take money from one of the nation's most challenged public school systems and put it in the hands of private institutions. Other critics feel that the measure would take money from taxpayers statewide and put it to the benefit of a single parish.
The bill would commence in 2008-09 and cover children from kindergarten through third grade in households earning up to 2.5 percent of the current poverty level, with an income not to exceed $53,000 for a family of four. The grants would be paid for from the state's general fund.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/capital/index.ssf?/base/news-6/121082949640410.xml&coll=1
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/05/14/99845souxgrschoolmoney_ap.html

Dr. Roger Abrahams - Roots of Rap
Abrahams, Roger D. "Black Talking on the Streets." Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking. Eds. Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer. London: Cambridge UP, 1974. 240-62.

1. Abrahams, Roger D. "The Training of the Man of Words in Talking Sweet." Language in Society 1 (1972): 15-29.
2. Abrahams, Roger D. Rapping and Capping: Black Talk as an Art. New York: Basic Books, 1970.
3. Abrahams, Roger D. Talking Black. Rowley MA: Newbury, 1976.
4. Abrahams, Roger. "Negotiating Respect: Patterns of Presentation among Black Women." Women and Folklore. Ed. Claire Farrer. U of Texas P, 1975.

ARIZONA COURT OF APPEALS REJECTS PRIVATE SCHOOL VOUCHERS
An Arizona state appellate court ruled unanimously that vouchers for parents of disabled and foster children that help pay private school tuition violate the Arizona state constitution, reports Pat Kossan in the Arizona Republic, and the Associated Press.
The Court of Appeals in Tucson said that the programs, each funded at $2.5 million annually, violate the state constitution's "aid clause," which prohibits the use of public funds for churches and private or religious schools.
Supporters of the programs plan to appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court, while backers of the ruling applaud the move, which they feel returns badly needed public funding to the statewide public school system.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0516vouchers0516.html
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/05/16/100820bczvoucherchallenge_ap.html

RULES OR NOT, SOME SCHOOLS DON'T RESTRUCTURE
A 2007 Government Accountability Office (GAO) study found that many schools mandated for restructuring under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) have avoided taking meaningful action, writes Robert Tomsho in the Wall Street Journal. NCLB requires that schools failing to make adequate yearly progress on state proficiency tests in English and mathematics must submit to mandatory measures that range from state takeover to replacement of teachers.
However, what the GAO found was that 40 percent of schools required to restructure - 1,300 out of 99,000 U.S. public schools in 2006-07 - have taken no corrective action. Their principals reportedly felt that in their interpretation of NCLB, restructuring wasn't necessary, or that their school district had decided against it. Another 40 percent elected to make "other" changes in school governance, allowable but unspecified under NCLB. Critics have called the "other change" option a loophole that facilitates inaction. NCLB doesn't require states to report specific steps taken by schools once they have fallen into the restructuring category.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121063138674386483.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

WINDOWS TO BE ON LAPTOPS FOR WORLD'S POOREST CHILDREN
Global software giant Microsoft and the computing/education project One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) have overcome a dispute about operating systems that will allow Windows to run on the specially-designed laptops that OLPC sells at greatly reduced prices to developing nations, writes Steve Lohr in the New York Times. The XO laptops, which are small, sturdy, and designed for children, originally ran Linux, an open-source (i.e., free) operating system; Microsoft opposed the Linux operation. However, OLPC found that government officials from countries buying the laptops, including Peru, Mexico, and Uruguay, preferred computers that run Windows. They see Windows-based computing as a marketable skill that will improve the lives of children in the long run.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/technology/16laptop.html?ref=technology

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MUSIC MAKES YOU SMARTER

Are you interested in the research that shows how
and why music education makes your smarter?
Help teachers integrate music into the classroom.

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UTAH ADDS A SECOND ONLINE HIGH SCHOOL
The Utah State Board of Education has approved the online charter Open High School of Utah, the second such school in the state, the Associated Press reports. It will matriculate 125 ninth graders statewide in the fall of 2009 and expand in future years. Utah's first online charter school, the Utah Virtual Academy, will open in August of this year for kindergarten through 11th grade, and already has a waitlist of 2,000 students.
Licensed teachers will be part of the school, and all materials and curricula at the Open High School will be available on the Internet. This will permit teachers in different states and even countries to potentially use the school. The classes are expected to appeal to rural students limited by offerings at their local school, as well as to home-schooled students.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/05/18/101850utonlineschool_ap.html

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INTEGRATE FOLKLORE, MUSIC, & TRADITIONAL CULTURE
Folk music - sung during the days before there was a music
industry when the role of music was about your life -
about the life and times that most of us don't experience
anymore and when the music was sung because it helped
people through it and sustained them.

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MORE AP CLASSES? WHAT ABOUT HONORS CLASSES?
Daniel de Vise of the Washington Post recently reported on a trend in Washington, D.C.-area districts, where high schools are eliminating honors classes in favor of Advanced Placement (AP) courses or International Baccalaureate (IB) classes (which entail a full two-year load of college-level work). He reports that the rationale is twofold: honors classes now show little difference from regular coursework, or honors classes are too similar to AP classes, the only distinction being that students don't take the AP test at the end. The trend has led to concern from students and parents that kids who fall between AP and regular classes are being left in the cold. "There's some students who are just honor students," said Lucy Blauvelt, 16, of Rockville High School in Maryland. "They don't have the ability to push themselves into AP. They're too smart to be in regular classes."
A decade ago, the expectation was that college-bound students would take one or two AP classes and the rest would be honors classes. Now, the ratio has shifted. D.C.-area administrators say their motivation has not been to elevate AP enrollment, but to streamline high school study and provide the students with the best level of college preparation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/18/AR2008051802461_pf.html


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