Staff E-mail

Every year we come back, and everyone’s furniture is missing. There are summer programs run by kids who have the keys to our rooms and must switch things around. Then they wax our floors, so all furniture sits out in the hallway for awhile with people in the building. Anyhow, when we return, we get [...]

SAT Scores Way Down

My guess is that the NCLB backers aren’t going to say much about this. Now I know that the test has changed, and the fact that the number of “retesters” decreasing is probably the cause for the scores going south, but I’m willing to bet if the SAT scores were up, Bush would take full [...]

More on Pluto

My Very Elegant Mother Just Served Us Noodles.My Velvet Eyes Make Johnny Stay Up Nights.My Very Erratic Mother Just Sniffed Uppers Needlessly.My Very Expensive Machine Just Smashed Up Nina.Mother Very Easily Made John Stop Using Narcotics.My Very Entertaining Monkey Just Stumbled Upon Neptune.Many Volcanoes Erupt Mulberry Jam Sandwiches Under Norway.My Very Eager Mother Just Saw [...]

Pluto

My guess is that it will take about 25 years before the last elementary school teacher says Pluto is a planet. Much less for a high school teacher. Any other guesses?
In 1994, I taught with a woman who still taught about the Soviet Union as if it still existed. When I told her that it [...]

Seat Time and Credits

Here is a real gem from a principal in Burnsville, Minnesota, as reported by the (Minneapolis Star Tribune) in a story about college level classes in high school.
But Burnsville High School still offers seven CIS [College in the Schools] courses and 10 AP courses. Principal Kay Joyce said she likes CIS better because “if you [...]

Science vs Orthodox America

There is a lot said about how the United States lags behind other countries in science. Personally, I don’t believe it is nearly as bad as they make it seem. (Maybe more on that later) But I know that what we teach needs to be reinforced at home, in neigborhoods, and yes, even in churches. [...]

Textbooks and Learning

I came across a post on the blog Textbook Evaluator titled “As Textbooks are Dumbed-Down, SAT Scored Decline“. As you can guess from the title, it appears that the author believes poorly written textbooks are to blame for lower SAT scores.
First, SAT scores did decline for many years, especially in reading. Here are the SAT [...]

More Bad News for Charter Schools

From the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune

WASHINGTON — Fourth graders in traditional public schools score better in reading and math than students in charter schools, according to a government report that is likely to spur a fresh debate over the benefits of school choice.
The report, released Tuesday, says fourth graders in traditional public schools scored [...]

German Tank Problem

Math teachers have been using the “German Tank Problem” for awhile to teach estimators. It goes something like this.
The Allies capture five German tanks. Suppose that the serial numbers on the tanks are 15, 23, 59, 83, and 109. Provide an estimate of the number of tanks that were produced.
You can see that your estimate [...]

New Teacher Orientation Seminar

My district’s New Teacher Seminar that is supposed to be on Tuesday (about two weeks before the kids arrive) has been cancelled, but it will be rescheduled for January 30th.
Perhaps they can call it the “Kinda New Teacher Seminar”. If they have something terribly important to say to the new staff, I think that a [...]