Talk Priority Schools

Linda Barker is the director of Teaching and Learning for the Colorado Education Association. A National Board certified teacher and former Montana Teacher of the Year, her work involves developing policies, partnerships, services, and information that support personal and professional growth for over 40,000 members of CEA. She also serves as the association’s liaison to the State Board of Education, the Colorado Association of School Executives, the Colorado Staff Development Council, the Colorado Department of Education, and the Colorado Association of School Boards. Below are excerpts of an interview with Linda conducted Oct. 26 in Pueblo, CO.

School Improvement; Building a Cooperative Culture
Most districts identified their schools very late in the year so most districts made some drastic changes almost at the end of (last school) year. There wasn’t a lot of time to plan, to develop a serious turnaround or transformation process, time to look at external providers. Everyone looked at it as a huge mountain to climb and then how do we put everything in place that we need to do for kids and teachers and the community in the schools that were identified as targets in the School Improvement Grant process. read more »

By Amy Buffenbarger

The National Education Association hosted a National Summit on Family, School, and Community Engagement last week in Alexandria, Va where educators, education leaders, parents, family and community activists, business leaders and representatives of the faith community met for two days of small group and panel discussions.

Participants shared success stories and discussed the challenges faced with strengthening the bonds between families, communities and their public schools. Parents work hard and don’t have much time to visit their childrens’ classrooms. Sometimes there are language barriers between educators and families. Legislators don’t prioritize family and community involvement as highly as they should. Some educators could use more training in reaching out to parents. In other cases, the education system has changed so much since the parents were in school, they simply don’t understand it anymore. read more »

The average teacher spends $356 a year out of his or her own pocket on classroom supplies. The items run the gamut from hands-on activities to improve learning to school supplies for students.

The spending can be particularly heavy for teachers at lower-income priority schools, where students often show up for school without the most basic supplies, such as pens and paper.

NEA’s Priority Schools Campaign is rewarding the generosity of teachers everywhere with a new contest designed to help five lucky teachers recover some of the money they spent this year on classroom supplies.

How can you participate? Just visit the Priority Schools Campaign Facebook page and post some of the things you purchased for your classroom this year. You can post a list or even a photo.

Then, from Monday, September 13, through Friday, September 17, each day at 5:00 p.m. EST the Priority Schools Campaign will randomly draw a winner for a $100 Staples gift card.

To participate in the contest now, just visit the Priority Schools Campaign Facebook page.

Participation is not required. To be eligible for the prize drawing without participating in the contest, e-mail priorityschools@nea.org

A nice piece on PSC in the September edition of Worlds of Education, the magazine of Education International, based in Brussels. EI is a global union federation, including NEA, of 348 member organizations in 169 countries. One of the largest labor organizations in the world, EI advocates for quality public education for all, defends international human rights standards with a focus on labor rights, and helps generate understanding and action regarding the lives and working conditions of more than 30 million teachers and other education employees around the world. The piece was written by Tim Walker, a staffer with NEA Interactive Media, who has covered international affairs extensively for NEA, including reporting on the ground in Morocco covering educator efforts to rescue students from child labor situations. read more »

By Kevin Hart

Last week, Talk Priority Schools reported on a New York Times story that exposed the shaky qualifications of some firms marketing themselves as school “turnaround specialists.” Some of these companies have practically sprung up overnight, as they try to get a share of billions in federal School Improvement Grants being awarded to some of America’s lowest-performing schools.

Now, Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, has announced that he intends to hold hearings to review companies that contract with school districts to help improve schools. In a statement, Miller said that ”it seems some companies with little or no expertise in education are purporting to be experts in school turnaround to try and take advantage of available federal money.”

read more »