Info, links and musings from a (non-teacher) education supporter… because education is an entitlement.
I recently found four new blogs to monitor, written by educators:
Found via a Houston Chronicle article discussing how teachers are using blogs to vent, anonymously.
More and more schools are providing parents the option to access and control what their children are eating through online tools. Clear Creek is the latest in this trend.
Clear Creek takes lunch online
System provides parental control over children’s cafeteria accounts and eating habits
– reported by the Houston Chronicle
Students forgetting their lunch money is becoming a thing of the past in the Clear Creek school district with a new program that allows parents to deposit money into their children’s accounts via the Internet.
The new MealpayPlus system, which began earlier this month, allows parents to make credit card and debit card payments into their children’s account over the Internet or by telephone.
The program also lets parents monitor what their children are buying and how much money is left in their account. Parents get e-mail alerts when their children’s cafeteria account is nearly depleted.
“If your son buys a peanut butter and jelly sandwich five days in a row, you’re going to know. Or, if every day your child is getting a snack on top of his lunch, you’ll know,” said Carrie Taylor, a spokeswoman for the Clear Creek Independent School District. “This is much more than a lunch payment system. You’ll really be able to monitor what your child is purchasing and how the money is being spent.”
[snip]
Other area school districts have implemented similar programs.
The Houston Independent School District launched one a year ago, giving parents the ability to ban their children from spending lunch money on junk food.
The payment plan not only is a convenience for parents but also provides the technology to eliminate the type of bookkeeping errors that caused HISD to overcharge the federal government for meals.
The Houston district had to pay a $220,000 penalty because of its inability to keep accurate counts of free meals served to students from poor families.
The lunch payment program and tracking system is becoming the norm nationwide. The Dallas, Austin and Pearland school districts also have similar programs.
To register for the MealpayPlus program in the Clear Creek school district, parents can log onto www.mealpayplus.com or by telephone at 866-286-7228. Locally, questions can be directed to the district’s child nutrition services office at 281-284-0701.
The Houston Chronicle has an editorial where they state that “Morale will remain low until all good teachers are paid what they are worth to society.” I agree that the pay structure needs to be revisited. There are teachers who deserve more pay and teachers who barely deserve the pay they are receiving. Teachers should have an opportunity to receive merit raises as anyone would in another industry. And, yes, to some the salary is an issue that affects morale.
However, it’s not the only issue. blogHOUSTON takes a crack at this topic that’s pretty much on the money (and those of you who actually read my blogs know that I don’t usually agree with them). While I take issue with the breakdown of vacation and work hours (I have four teachers in my family and can tell you that they work more Saturdays and take home work more times than I do — and I’m a workaholic), their compilation of morale issues is accurate:
Where there is low morale in schools, other factors are often the cause — unruly students, uninvolved parents, weak-willed administrators, dumbed-down curricula geared to lower-level students, etc. Pay isn’t generally at the top of the list of gripes. Teachers who love to teach aren’t doing it to get rich. They love to help students learn.
To make matters more interesting, blogHOUSTON then chastised the Houston Chronicle for their publishing the names of every teacher who received a raise. This is the point at which I go “WOW!” That was really on point.
Then there’s the issue of the Chronicle posting every teacher’s name who received a bonus, along with the amount of the bonus. I have a problem with that. I don’t have a problem with the Chronicle posting the amounts, the schools and the subjects, but there was no reason for the names to be printed. (Although Gayle Fallon must have enjoyed the blog brawl that ensued. Anything that can get her closer to ALL teachers getting ALL the bonus money is a win for her. More union dues money — yay!)
Yes, it’s public money and that makes it perfectly reasonable to disclose the amounts. It strikes me though that issues of individual pay should be private whenever possible, just as entities are loathe to disclose personnel matters. Can HISD go back to the drawing table to fine-tune the bonus program? Certainly. And that’s something the private sector has been doing for years, but the decision to print the names was unnecessary. The teachers are public sector employees, but generally don’t put themselves in the public eye, and that’s something I wish the Chronicle had considered.
Something I tell my clients regularly is that if you do newsworthy or take a job where you can reasonably expect media attention, then your privacy is gone. No, it’s not fair, but that’s way we work now. However, to take regular people who are only doing their jobs and have not done something that can be categorized as newsworthy and then shine a light on their lives… that’s truly unfair.
Did the teachers do something newsworthy? Not really. All they did is their jobs to the best of their ability. The school district did something newsworthy. Unfortunately, they have been caught in the shadow of that action. If I were one of those teachers, I’d be very upset.
Resources:
As can be expected, the recent bonuses doled out by HISD have caused some buzz amongst the teachers.
Teacher bonuses strike a nerve
‘Frustrating day’ for those who don’t agree with HISD’s incentive formula
– reported by the Houston Chronicle
[snip]
The district doled out about $14 million in bonuses to nearly 8,000 teachers and other employees under the new performance-pay plan. The payout sparked delight among some, discontent among others.
“Today has been a pretty frustrating day for teachers across the board,” said Amy Whitlow, a first-grade teacher at Eliot Elementary who earned a $500 bonus. “There were snide remarks made toward some teachers that got higher bonuses. A lot of teachers were very angry and upset.”
Teachers across the district, for example, didn’t understand how a nurse ended up receiving a bigger bonus than a math or science teacher.
They didn’t understand how a teacher earned no bonus even though 100 percent of her students passed the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.
And they didn’t understand how an admired educator who had been named “Teacher of the Year” received zilch.
[snip]
A round-up of recent links and posts throughout PalomaCruz.com:
It looks like the University of Houston is looking into starting a medical schoo. The Houston Chronicle reports:
In a move that would ratchet up an ongoing rivalry in the Texas Medical Center, the University of Houston is considering starting a medical school in partnership with The Methodist Hospital and Cornell University.
The idea, quietly explored by UH leaders in recent months, comes amid appeals for medical school expansion because of projected statewide and nationwide doctor shortages. Houston now has two medical schools — Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.
“We would be remiss if we didn’t explore the possibility,” UH President Jay Gogue said. “When you’re sitting next to the world’s largest medical center, in a state that’s 41st out of 50th in physicians per capita, it would be almost unconscionable not to do due diligence.”
Under a consultant’s proposal, UH would provide students’ basic-science training in their first two years and Cornell-affiliated physicians at Methodist would provide the clinical training in the last two years. Students would get a medical degree jointly awarded by UH and Cornell.
UH acknowledged its interest in a medical school only after the Houston Chronicle filed a Texas Open Records request. UH initially sought to appeal the request to Attorney General Greg Abbott, but acquiesced and released the consultant’s report and e-mail correspondence with Cornell about the “collaborative project.”
[snip]
Do we really need another medical school in Houston? Considering that news reports are predicting a shortage of doctors, maybe we do.
Kennedy Elementary School has the two teachers who received the biggest bonuses under the Houston Independent School District’s Performance Pay program. Marjorie Hunt-Bluford received $7,175 and Chacaselon Bolton received $7,000. In a tie for the $7,000 bonus were Brenda Branch from Looscan Elementary School and Jacquelyn Clark from MacArthur Elementary School (both received $7,000 each).
For the complete list of who received what, check out the Houston Chronicle’s report on this.
Also of interest, the Chronicle’s statement on why they decided to publish the names of the teachers who received bonuses.
Despite the fact that Alvin ISD, like every other school district in Texas, will start school August 27, they will keep their fall break. This means that they will have a break October 1-5, and won’t get out of school next year until June 5.
Alvin ISD will keep its fall break
Week off in October means next school year won’t be ending until June 5
– reported by the Houston Chronicle
The Alvin school district has decided to keep its week-long fall break holiday for the 2007-08 school year.
All school districts in the state will start the next school year on Aug. 27 because of a statewide mandate. This school year, classes in the Alvin school district began Aug. 9 and will end May 24.
For next school year, the district had been considering two calendar options. One included a fall break from Oct. 1-5, and the other did not.
The school board decided to go with the fall break option after a majority of the district’s employees voted in favor of it, district spokeswoman Shirley Brothers said.
The calendar that’s been approved includes the reduction of Thanksgiving break from a week to three days, and the elimination of the day off the Monday after Easter. The school year won’t end until June 5.
[snip]
The Texas State Legislature is considering making seatbelts mandatory on school buses. This is a move to make buses safer for children. However, the bills being considered don’t mention where the cash-strapped school districts would find the funds to make the needed upgrades (if the bills passed). In my opinion, this is important information to have.
Opinions differ on seat belts
Bay Area school districts have varying thoughts on need for restraints on buses
– reported by the Houston Chronicle
School districts in Galveston County are closely monitoring three bills filed in the state Legislature that would require seat belts in school buses.
A House bill filed by Rep. Allan Ritter, D-Nederland, and a Senate bill by Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, would mandate that all school buses acquired by school districts after Sept. 1 have lap-shoulder seat belts for each passenger, including the driver.
Another House bill filed by Rep. Mike Hamilton, R-Mauriceville, would require each school bus purchased by school districts after Sept. 1, 2008, to have seat belts. It would also mandate seat belts for each school bus operated by or contracted by a school district after Sept. 1, 2017.
The Galveston school district already has ordered three buses with the lap-shoulder seat belts, which should arrive in July, and the devices will be on all future buses it purchases, district spokeswoman Christine Hopkins said.
Purchasing the buses with seat belts cost approximately $24,000 more and the vehicles have a one-third less seating capacity, said Arnold Proctor, the Galveston district’s assistant superintendent for business and operations.
[snip]
I don’t have children, so I have to confess that I didn’t know that buses aren’t already equipped with seatbelts. Silly me.
They do for Hispanic students, according to an Issue Brief recently released by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools at the Texas Charter School Conference in Houston.
“The evidence speaks for itself,” said Nelson Smith, president, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. “Charter schools are making significant progress and bringing new hope to Hispanic families who have been underserved by the traditional public school system.”
Read more: