Mar 27, 2007
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The Wall Street Journal Online [via Yahoo! Finance] reports on a new initiative to reward students and teachers for performance on Advanced Placement exams. Students would receive $100-$500 per passing grade and teachers would receive compensation based on their students’ exam grades. The article highlights the achievements of 17-year old Jessica Stark; she made $600 last year for passing six AP exams.
A new initiative, aimed at encouraging careers in math and science, plans to replicate these AP bonuses across the country. Teachers get them, too — at times, $5,000 annually or more — for helping their kids pass AP classes in math, science and English.
We’ve known for years that the United States lags behind other nations in math and science education. “The math and science situation in this country is serious — serious to the point that the U.S. is suffering competitively today and is going to suffer worse competitively in the future if we don’t do something about it,” Exxon Chief Executive Rex Tillerson said in an interview. Exxon has ponied up $125 million toward the $900 million goal for the Initiative. Other power players in both education and business are on board:
The National Math and Science Initiative, announced in early March 2007, is a nonprofit project whose leaders include former high-ranking U.S. Department of Education official Tom Luce, former president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Charles Vest, and College Board head Gaston Caperton. It aims to build on both the Texas AP-incentive effort and a University of Texas program that that encourages college students to become math and science teachers.
The program’s proponents say AP incentives have succeeded at getting more students to pass the tests in Texas, and they expect the broader initiative to encourage more students to go on to careers in math and science.
Critics of the program contend that bribing kids and teachers is harmful and a waste of money; they seem not to realize that financial rewards [or at least the opportunity to reap them] are exactly what you get later on for a job well done. It isn’t bribery, it’s reality.
The Advanced Placement curriculum is designed to give outstanding high school students an opportunity to take college-level classes and earn credits toward future degrees. Many high schools [such as the one I'm spending the most time in currently] encourage students to take the challenging AP courses but don’t require them to take the exam. I explain to AP students whenever I get a chance the value of taking the test - even if getting a 3 is a long shot:
- Saving money on future tuition. Tuition for a 4-credit course at a private university is ~$3,600. The fee for the AP test is $83 [or $53 if you apply for a financial hardship credit]. This means a student needs only a 2.3% chance of getting a 3 on the test to make the gamble financially viable - that’s about 1 in 45. So, no matter how woefully inadequate you’ve judged your skills to be, the test is worth taking. Buy or borrow an AP review book and give it a shot.
- Fast-tracking to higher-level courses. By testing out of introductory courses, students avoid the hassle of 101′s that they’ve already taken. They can engage themselves in more challenging and advanced coursework earlier in their post-secondary careers. As a result, they’ll build relationships sooner with professors who can influence their work over the next few years.
- Making the most of your class selection. You’ve only got ~32 courses in your undergraduate career [8 semesters, 4 classes a semester]. Take the most interesting and challenging stuff you can, not Calculus for the second time.
- Show colleges you can do the work. Guidance counselors love to trumpet AP courses as a way to “look good” to college admissions officers. The reality? Selective colleges want to know that you can do the work, and that means taking a tough class and demonstrating competence at the end of it. The AP test is a standardized certification of the material you’ve learned, not a grade from a teacher that, as I wrote about the other day, can mean anything. Take the test and show the colleges what you know, not just that you showed up for class and did your homework.
- Use your time for something worthwhile. Consider the opportunity cost of not taking an AP exam and instead taking the course over again at the college level. By getting credit for AP exams, you can shave courses - even entire semesters - off your next few years. That’s time you can use for jobs, internships, or additional study to advance your career. Or, if you’d prefer, you can relax and enjoy yourself - there’s no shame in that, you’ll have earned it.
There are many more benefits of taking a rigorous Advanced Placement curriculum, but I’d also like to spend some time on the teachers. The National Math & Science Initiative [which looks to include English exams, too] also plans to reward teachers for, well, doing their jobs properly. Why should a teacher take seriously the job of giving students the AP experience?
- Students deserve it. The kids are supposed to be the real focus of teaching, right? Your students deserve access to the highest-quality education. Yes, Advanced Placement classes are tougher than the regular high school curriculum you’re used to delivering - but you have a Bachelor’s degree and the ability to transmit knowledge about a 101-level course. If you can’t do this, find out how. The College Board offers workshops on AP teaching. The colleges and universities around you can help with professional development. Organizations like the University of Texas’s Uteach [cited in the article above] specifically address the needs of secondary teachers.
- Professional development. Teachers don’t do enough of it and administrators don’t encourage it with enough frequency or zeal. Keeping in touch with the AP curriculum - a great linking device between K-12 curriculum and its relevance to college - will help align your teaching with the positive curricular changes beyond your classroom. At the least, it’ll keep you in the know.
- Accountability. I know I’ll take heat for this, but the main reason teachers don’t encourage their students to take AP tests is because those results make the teacher accountable. It’s true. A good teacher who is well-prepared and confident in their abilities wants their students to take the test. If you aren’t comfortable with your students being tested, put yourself in a position - via professional development, peer/mentor help, anything - not to have to worry about their results. You’ll have solid numbers to show administrators, peers and parents that prove your value in the classroom.
- Performance bonuses. The trend to reward teachers for excellent student performance is growing. If your school doesn’t already recognize outstanding teachers with financial bonuses, bring it up to the administration, the Board of Education, or contact a private foundation and have them approach your school. Doing your job well and focusing on the students may not do it for you; if that’s the case, you can be driven by the almighty dollar until you can get yourself out of teaching.
Put succinctly, if you’re a student, take the test. If you’re a teacher, encourage all students to take the test. The benefits to both parties are enormous.
*** If you’re interested in scheduling a presentation to your district or students about the value of Advanced Placement exams, e-mail [email protected] [e-mail link opens in new window] with “AP Exams” in the subject.
Mar 27, 2007
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Jeffrey S. Solochek of the St. Petersburg Times has followed up on a 2006 blowup about whether teachers in Pasco County, Florida should be subject to a dress code:
A committee of teachers and administrators convened by superintendent Heather Fiorentino, who identified the issue as a problem, completed its review of teacher dress Thursday by deciding that there really is no problem.
The group agreed that attire matters, even suggesting that it deserves a prominent mention in new teacher training. But it deemed the district’s current policy, which says the staff should dress in a manner that “will add dignity to the educational profession,” as quite sufficient.
The committee suggested that the rare cases involving inappropriate attire can be addressed by the principal.
General George Patton said that you must, “Always do everything you ask of those you command.” Maintaining a professional appearance and demeanor in a school is an important part of education. If a teacher doesn’t demonstrate the utmost pride in their appearance and respect for themselves, no one should expect the students to follow suit.
That means a teacher must:
- Dress neatly, wearing professional attire that shows students that you care about your appearance and are proud of it.
- Wear clean, ironed clothing. Dirty, wrinkled clothes are the most prevalent (and needless) problem I see in schools. If you don’t like ironing, buy a bottle of wrinkle releaser. It’s $3 and works in 30 seconds.
- Have a variety of outfits - don’t wear the same thing every day. You need not have an extensive wardrobe, just some standard tops/bottoms and a basic knowledge of how they can go together. If you don’t know how to do this, ask your sister, mom, or stylish co-worker. They’ll be glad to help. [If you're a male teacher, make use of ties to mix up your appearance.]
- Conceal any obnoxious additions to your body, e.g. tattoos and piercings. This is not as obvious to many as it ought to be.
- Wear clothes that fit. Clothes that are too tight, loose or revealing are distracting and reflect poorly on you.
- Avoid “business casual” attire when possible. It looks lazy. It’s the equivalent of getting a grade of C. You know, just enough to get by without taking too much heat for it.
- Keep current. You don’t need to read GQ or Elle every month to look good. If your clothes are out of style, stop wearing them to school. Students don’t take you seriously if you wear badly outdated clothes.
If you want respect, you’d better look and act as though you deserve it. A well-dressed teacher suggests (actually, it’s more like “screams”) that there is an important purpose for his/her presence in the class. To most adults, clothes reflect a person’s seriousness of purpose - and they’re right. Kids think in more simplified terms; they’re even more likely to equate a well-dressed teacher with seriousness.
There is no excuse - none - for being a teacher and not dressing well. It is a necessary part of the job with which you are charged (and which you have chosen). Your personal preferences and comforts mean far less than the students’ rights to encounter positive examples of adult behavior. Think you can’t afford to dress well? Saturday I spent $95 at Macy’s and got a suede jacket, a tweed suit coat, a microfiber windbreaker, two pairs of dress slacks and two chic ties.
The Education Wonks sum it up well when they say, “Maybe it would be a good idea if those who wanted to be treated as “professionals” dressed professionally.”
If you don’t want to take it from me, take it from the high school girl who last week called me “divalicious.“
Mar 24, 2007
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Monday’s Courier Post Online, “South Jersey’s Website,” reports that having a good GPA may matter in school, but employers don’t really care:
Keeping your grade point average up can be vital to your academic success.
Slacking off could land you on academic probation, or the university could yank your scholarship.
Plus, according to U.S. News and World Report, maintaining a high GPA is crucial to those who dream of attending top graduate schools such as Harvard Medical School (3.8 average GPA), Yale Law (3.9) or Stanford Business School [sic] (3.6).
Thankfully, most employers don’t enforce these same academic standards on their applicants.
According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ “Job Outlook 2005″ survey, 70 percent of hiring managers do report screening applicants based on their GPA, but the largest group say they use a 3.0 as their cutoff.
Though not new, this is a major statement about the value of a GPA. If the private sector reaches consensus that something has little meaning, it’s usually accurate. GPA means so little to employers that the best conclusion they can draw is that 3.0+ is a only a general indication of quality that at best supports a larger body of evidence and is at worst irrelevant.
Generations ago, grades and the resulting GPA were a certification of knowledge. Grades of A/4.0 certified that a student demonstrated exceptional command of the material; B/3.0 showed mastery; C/2.0 showed competence; D/1.0 showed inadequate grasp of the material. If teachers and professors still applied universally this philosophy toward grading, employers would care - it would be useful information to evaluate a candidate because the number would have a clear correlation with measuring skills.
Grades - even at the university and graduate levels - can mean almost anything now. Some are a reflection of one or two assignments while others rely heavily on details like attendance and effort regardless of the quality of a student’s work. And, without matching a GPA up with a transcript that displays the courses taken, you don’t know whether a candidate’s 3.5 non-major GPA reflects exceptional knowledge in high-energy physics or 17th-century Siberian basket weaving. If your prospective employee went to Baja California Language College, he even graded himself.
I’ve interviewed plenty of job seekers, worked in executive recruiting and now consult privately on job/admissions applications (as well as going through all the processes myself). Players on both sides of the interview desk know that they have a very short time to get to know who’s across from them. The most valuable currency in these situations is a fact that isn’t open to interpretation. There simply isn’t enough time to investigate what a particular number means. For most jobs, employers are right to treat the candidate’s GPA as no more than a secondary measure of his knowledge or abilities.
Since the grade inflation of the 1990′s, many colleges and universities are trying their damnedest to make the GPA matter again [just read some of these articles about Boston University's and John Silber's crackdown on grade inflation, especially Chris Berdik's treatment]. It usually takes a University a decade to see a leveling of their GPA; we’re just starting to see it pay off at some institutions.
Maybe by 2017 the GPA will matter once again to employers.
Mar 22, 2007
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A few weeks ago I released a free font of my print handwriting. In just a week it had been downloaded 5,000 times; in two weeks, over 11,000 users have installed it. Someone in the world downloads the font on average every two minutes.
A quick glance at the download map shows that people are using the font in Norway, India, Israel, Iraq, Egypt, France (it’s apparently popular in Paris), Brasil, Chile, Australia, Japan, all fifty of the United States and many other countries.
If you’d like to download the font free, you can get it here at dafont.com.
Installation instructions:
1. Save to desktop.
2. Right click icon of font file and copy.
3. Go to Control Panel —> Fonts - this will open up the font folder
4. Right click anywhere in the folder and paste the file, then close the window. You’re done - the font “tabor handwriting” is installed and ready to use in MS Word, etc.
5. Click and drag the original downloaded file into the Recycle Bin. Since you’ve copied it to the Fonts folder, you don’t need the download anymore.
Let me know how you’ve used the font by sending an e-mail to [email protected] [e-mail link opens in a new window] or leaving a comment on this post.
Mar 22, 2007
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In an article titled “School Chief Defends Suspension” appearing in Wednesday’s edition of The Daily Star, we get a glimpse of another failed disciplinary policy - or lack of one. Unfortunately, this example is just a stone’s throw away in Schenevus:
The superintendent of Schenevus Central School said Tuesday there is no set penalty for students who fight on campus. [ed. note: bold added]
Three students were suspended for two days after a two-on-one altercation Monday sent one of them to the hospital with a broken nose and teeth.
Superintendent Lynda Bookhard deserves the heat she’s taking over this issue. Read on:
The administration has discretion to set penalties when a student violates the school’s code of conduct, Superintendent Lynda Bookhard said as she discussed the two-day suspension given to the three boys.
Discretion is a good thing in justice; some offenses are worse than others and punishment should be amended to reflect that. But there’s no minimum punishment, no comprehensive policy at Schenevus?
The mother of the boy attacked by two others isn’t pleased:
But Sperbeck’s mother said she thinks the school’s punishment is too lenient, and she doesn’t understand why her son faces the same level of discipline.
“They attacked him,” Michelle Sperbeck said. “They hit him in the face.”
Bookhard declined to speak specifically about the fight or why all three students were disciplined, but she defended her actions.
“I am not going to reveal the whys and wherefores, but I have good reason,” the superintendent said.
We don’t know the details of the incident and Bookhard is right not to discuss them [and, obviously, she can't]. She’ll realize after this incident that it’s much easier to have a solid policy and explain why she’s deviating from it than it is to create a policy every time and attempt to justify it. Someone is going to consider it too arbitrary - many times that’s true - and the criticism will flow. Then she won’t have to resort to smarmy, smug comments in defense of herself.
There’s a philosophical travesty buried later in the article:
She said a longer period of suspension is no guarantee of punishment for a student who break the rules.
“The bottom line is, if a child is out of school for five days, parents can’t stay home for five days,” Bookhard said.
She said suspended students could end up spending their suspension unsupervised.
“Is it a punishment?” Bookhard asked.
Oh, now I see, Superintendent Bookhard. If the offender has violated many students’ rights to an education without disruption - and this is an incident that will for weeks waste time and resources to varying degrees within the classroom and District - we wouldn’t want to commit the sin of exclusion, even if it’s at the expense of every other student in the school. Common sense dictates that the welfare of many outweighs the welfare of one, especially when that one has caused the issue unnecessarily.
And parents can’t stay home for five days, but they can stay home for two? Ask the average parent if that’s easy to do on short notice. Bookhard’s rationale here is on the level of a student I had the other day who reacted to my disciplining another student by saying, “You shouldn’t do that, he’s just going to hate you.”
If the Superintendent is so concerned about suspension just being a week of tv-watching instead of a real consequence for actions, implement in-school suspension and take care of the problem directly.
