Teaching Ambassador Fellowship Positions

Secretary Spellings has announced the creation of Teaching Ambassador Fellowship positions for currently practicing, K-12 public school teachers at the U.S. Department of Education for the 2008-2009 school year. These positions will offer highly motivated, innovative teachers the opportunity to contribute their knowledge and experience to the national dialogue on public education. The Fellowship includes two kinds of opportunities for teachers across the U.S. Up to 20 Classroom Fellows will remain at their schools under their regular teaching contracts and will be paid to participate in additional Department discussions and projects throughout the school year on a part-time basis. Up to five Washington Fellows will be chosen to become full-time, paid federal employees in Washington, D.C. for the school year, working on education programs and participating in policy discussions.
Teaching Ambassador Fellows will be selected based upon their record of leadership, impact on student achievement, and potential for contribution to the field. Highly qualified K-12 public school teachers who have spent at least three years in the classroom are eligible to apply. Teachers must be currently practicing in and employed by a public school district to be eligible. To ensure collaboration at the school and district levels, teacher applicants must have the full support of their school principals.
Applications are due by April 7, 2008. Teaching Ambassador Fellows will be named by early summer for the 2008-2009 school year.

Please read the detailed information found at http://www.ed.gov/programs/teacherfellowship to learn more. Be sure to click on all of the links to review the following: Program Overview (http://www.ed.gov/programs/teacherfellowship/programoverview.html)Eligibility (http://www.ed.gov/programs/teacherfellowship/eligibility.html)Applicant Info (http://www.ed.gov/programs/teacherfellowship/applicant.html)Application Instructions (http://www.ed.gov/programs/teacherfellowship/applicationinstructions.html) FAQs (http://www.ed.gov/programs/teacherfellowship/faq.html).

February 12, 2008

Genesis One

http://www.levitt.com/store.html

Genesis One — A physicist Looks at Creation

According to Professor Gerald Schroeder, a nuclear physicist from MIT, God’s creation took 15 billion years, but also six twenty-four hour days as Scripture states! The answer lies in time dilation in our universe. Things that look very small, like distant stars, are actually very large. And times that seem very short, like six days for all of creation, become very long—even as long as 15 billion years. “How can these things be?” Just read this book.

When agnostic scientists finally acknowledged Divinity...

The (intelligent and orderly) design of the universe and its laws are such that this fact has not escaped the notice of even agnostics. Below, four quotes from agnostics regarding the design of the universe. Even to them, the apparent design of the universe has theological implications.

For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. (Robert Jastrow)

“There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all....It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature's numbers to make the Universe....The impression of design is overwhelming.” (Paul Davies)

“As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency - or, rather, Agency - must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?” (George Greenstein)

A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question. (Fred Hoyle)

http://www.godandscience.org/love

Author & Astrophysicist :
Dr. Robert Jastrow, is the director of Mount Wilson Observatory and was founder and director for twenty years of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He authored books which explore the universe; Red Giants & White Dwarfs, and Until the Sun Dies.

. .as to why science and theology don't have to be enemies. Dr. Jastrow, recognized as one of the world's foremost astronomers (and an acknowledged agnostic on religious matters) demonstrates with remarkable honesty that astronomy and theology may well have more to talk about than the fanatics in either field would like to admit. He does so in a manner which is non-threatening, non-controversial, and non-technical.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393850064/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=I125DVW9MTPIQ1&colid=2MX0I27RBG0YN

Originally published in 1978, this second edition includes an appendix presentation by Catholic and Jewish theologians. He concludes his book with this often quoted statement: "He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

Christian/Catholic websites:

http://www.robertspitzer.com/links.htm

http://www.ewtn.com

IDEA 2004 (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) -- a U.S. Law

The culmination of many years of struggle on behalf of children with disabilities occurred on November 29, 1975, when President Ford signed Public Law 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA). This landmark federal legislation mandated a free, appropriate education for students with disabilities aged 3 to 21. The EHA has been called the "first compulsary special education law." Today, EHA is known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Despite the name change and other amendments, the basic rights and provisions it afforded students with disabilities and their families have remained largely the same: the right to an individualized education program, the right to protection in evaluation procedures, the right to due process, and the right to education in the least restrictive environment.

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB 2002) contains sweeping changes in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. All students including those with mild disabilities are to be held to the same curriculum and assessment standards. Federal aid is contingent on an increase in proficiency in math, reading, and science among all students. States must maintain goals and assess results for various categories of students based on poverty, ethnicity, disability, and limited English proficiency.

2006 Pearson Education, Inc.

Allyn and Bacon, Boston, MA, USA

www.ablongman.com

Boston New York San Francisco

Mexico City Montreal Toronto London Madrid Munich Paris

Hong Kong Singapore Tokyo Cape Town Sydney

National Parks Seek Teacher Rangers

National parks enrich the lives of many in this nation. They provide access to the powerful ideas, values, and meanings associated with the remarkable cultural, natural, and recreational heritage of the United States. The National Park Service (NPS) strives to provide opportunities for all Americans to connect to their national heritage through the national parks. However, these opportunities are lacking for some - often due to a variety of social and economic factors.

The Teacher to Ranger to Teacher (TRT) Program offers a solution, by linking National Park units with teachers from low income school districts. Under this program, selected teachers spend the summer working as park rangers, often living in the park. They perform various duties depending on their interests and the needs of the park, including developing and presenting interpretive programs for the general public, staffing the visitor center desk, developing curriculum-based materials for the park, or taking on special projects.

Then, during the school year, these teacher-rangers bring the parks into the classroom by developing and presenting curriculum-based lesson plans that draw on their summer's experience. In April, during National Park Week, teacher-rangers wear their NPS uniforms to school, discuss their summer as a park ranger, and engage students and other teachers in activities that relate to America's national parks.

For additional information about the Teacher Ranger program go to http://www.nps.gov/wupa/forteachers/trt.htm.

January 26, 2008

Some Critics on No Child Left Behind

Not everyone is enamored of the standards movement...

Alfie Kohn has called the standards movement a "horrible idea." Kohn points out that the movement oversimplifies why children might want to learn, how they are best taught, and how improvement might best be brought to a complex system. The idea of demanding higher test scores, Kohn notes, will accomplish little more than studying for tests, emphasizing rote learning, and tightening control over classrooms by people who do not spend their time in classrooms.

Gerald Bracey (2004), editor of a research column in Phi Delta Kappan, has been particularly critical. He has spoken out against the No Child Left Behind Act as well as against the standards movement, particularly the standardized testing that has come to be part and parcel of the movement.

Bracey, observing the high price paid in terms of what might be called by some nonstrategic subjects:

In what might be considered its swan song, the Council for Basic Education conducted a survey and found NCLB producing "academic atrophy" in social studies, history, geography, civics, languages, and the arts. A little more of this, and we can declare, "No Education Left." (p.166)

Marzano, Kendall, and Cicchinelli (2000), who are not particularly critical of the movement, note an apparently overlooked problem with addressing the standards. Their calculations show that, given the demands of the standards and accompanying benchmarks from the various subject matter areas, it would take more than 15,000 hours to adequately address the necessary content. Put another way, Marzano, Kendall, and Cicchinelli say the implication for coverage would be to extend school from K-12 to K-21. They conclude that one possible solution would be to extend the amount of time given to instruction, and another would be to decrease the number of standards.

James Popham cites three reasons why schools should not be judged on the basis of standardized test scores: 1) Mismatch between what is taught and what is tested. 2) Standardized tests do not measure the most important things that teachers teach. 3) Over time teachers become familiar with the content of standardized tests, and that leads to an inflation of test results because teachers, knowingly or not, end up teaching to the test.

Research on Education Innovations

Fourth Edition

Arthur K. Ellis

2005 Eye on Education, Inc.

New York, USA

http://www.eyeoneducation.com

http://www.abcte.org/

http://www.abcte.org/how-we-help/teach-and-inspire

http://newteacherhotline.com/

Assistive Technology for Literacy Produces Impressive Results for the Disabled

Multimedia tools can serve as a "scaffold" to help children learn to generate grammatical speech

by Terry Woronov

Angie is blind. But by using a special Braille-encoding laptop computer to take notes, she is able to participate fully in regular tenth-grade classes. At the end of the day she prints out her work in Braille or standard print in her school's computer lab. "It's my lifeline," she says of her computer. For students like Angie, technology can change lives

The field of "assistive technology" -- tools to help students with disabilities -- is booming. More and more products designed to support the integration of these students in regular classrooms are available. Computer tools synthesize speech, merge printed text with audio, and help students with limited motor skills generate text. Keyboards operate by head, foot, mouth, or even the blink of an eye.

http://www.edletter.org/

Inclusion and Special Education (page 9)

Harvard Education Letter

Focus Series 1

1996 President and Fellows of Harvard College

Cambridge, MA