The school where I teach (City Academy) is featured in this article.  The photos are from my school -  Tom is in one of them.

Article:  http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_12014617
Gallery of photos:
http://www.sltrib.com/portlet/article/html/render_gallery.jsp?articleId=12014617&siteId=297&startImage=2

Grants foster technology use in Utah classroomsQwest Foundation » Money is
intended to spur innovative teaching.

By Steven Oberbeck

The Salt Lake Tribune

Lara Dean of Lincoln Elementary in Salt Lake City soon will be using a "Smart Board" to help her teach second- through sixth-grade students who are having trouble learning mathematics.

Language arts instructor Colin Haakeson at East High School has secured a digital camera that students learning English are using to create documentary films about ways to improve the school.

Within the next several weeks, Sheila Cody's and Gareth Orr's students at City Academy Charter School will be operating a WeatherBug tracking station so they can monitor weather, and feed their data to other schools and a television station.

Similarly, Brenda Hurlburt of Bryant Middle School will be using a classroom set of graphing calculators and temperature probes to aid in the teaching of algebra.
( Read more... )

Cody said the WeatherBug station on the roof of City Academy Charter School will allow students to conceive, design and perform their own experiments. She is hopeful the generated data -- temperature, humidity, wind speed -- will help make student projects "better and deeper."
In her grant application, Hurlburt pointed out that 75 percent of Bryant Middle School's students come from families with low incomes and 65 percent are minorities.

"Many of our students are unfamiliar with this type of equipment (graphing calculators) and are intimidated by it," she wrote, adding that having it available in a safe and friendly environment will help students address that gap.

( Read more... )
Photos from the SL Tribune Photo Gallery:

Jim Urquhart/The Salt Lake Tribune City Academy science teacher Shelia Cody checks the WeatherBug readings on Friday. The new WeatherBug weather monitoring system was partly paid for by a grant from the Qwest Foundation.

Jim Urquhart/The Salt Lake Tribune Building manager Tom King looks at the new WeatherBug monitoring equipment on Friday at City Academy in Salt Lake City. The weather monitoring equipment was partly paid for by a grant from Qwest.

im Urquhart/The Salt Lake Tribune The new WeatherBug equipment keeps tabs on the weather from the roof of City Academy in Salt Lake City. The weather monitoring equipment was partly paid for by a grant from Qwest.

Yesterday I held a civics lesson for my 10th grade advisory students where I teach on the "Power of the President".  I was given some materials by a colleague to use, including a cute little video on "brain pop" and some other items for discussion.

One thing I had the students do was write a letter to President Obama.  First I gave them the entire transcript of his speech for reference.  Happily, most of them had watched his inaugural speech already.  The prompts I gave them included:
"I like it when you said...." and "I wish you would have said....".  It was a great exercise in civic engagement.  Some students finished their letters but others really wanted more time to do a thorough job, so I anticipate more coming in to me today.  We will send them in separate envelopes and await replies.

I will share some of those letters here over the weekend.

Today's Deseret News has a piece on the Utah Senate race in West Jordan in which incumbent Butt-arse (my pet name for Chris Buttars)  is fighting to retain.  According to the article, A Dan Jones poll reveals that the race is statistically a tie.

Butt-arse has demonstrated, through his words and actions over the years, that he is against anything that involves people making choices for themselves.  His mission is to have as much government interference in peoples' private lives as possible.

Butt-arse's past positions resulting in proposed legislation include anti-gay clubs in schools, anti-gay marriage or gay rights, and anti-evolution and pro-creationism theory ("Intelligent Design" - an attempt to refute evolution), as well as tuition tax credits (the precursor to vouchers).

Here's a quote by Butt-arse that I found on the website linked below:

“Well, there’s a lot of things we vote on that we don’t understand, but I would rather stand on the principle of ‘let’s go for it.’ “ — Salt Lake Tribune quotes Chris Buttars


Be sure to check out this site and encourage everyone in District 10 to vote against Chris Butt-arse!

Save Me From My Senator - Chris Buttars Scares Me.

It was started as a result of dire frustration by a constituent of his. It’s chock full of really useful information, including
101 Reasons to Get Rid of Chris Buttars, Tools for Citizens to use in the Fight, news and blog articles, and lots more.

See my past posts on this candidate:( Read more... )

Here's my revival of a cartoon Tom and I created about Butt-arse:

Dat's all folks! Copyright©2006 motannaed

Charles Rice Learning Center in South Dallas - An inner-city school--with an enrollment that is 99 percent
African- American, 83 percent eligible for subsidized lunches, and nearly 70 percent living with one or neither parent--has students who consistently win city-wide math and computer contests, a choir group
that has performed nationally, and achievement records that have attracted the attention of the federal Department of Education.

Full Text of Speech:
( Read more... )

Education sure is in the news a lot lately.  It's a subject near to my heart since I have spent my entire 24 year (so far!) career in the field.

This week, Utah Governor Huntsman endorsed a full year for teachers in a move to justify giving teachers raises.  Of course we all know that teachers already do not work enough, so this makes perfect sense (said sarcastically).

"I'm not going to rest until we ... get to the point we're paying teachers what they deserve, which is basically what they're getting in surrounding states," Huntsman told the Public Education and Higher Education appropriations committees, the Utah Board of Regents and the State Board of Education in a joint meeting at Granite District headquarters Wednesday.
The trimester idea would give teachers contracts longer than the traditional 180 to 190 days a year and therefore, higher pay because they're working more.

Let me get this straight.  In order to pay teachers what they deserve (as stated in the above), we should increase the amount of contract time for teachers to bring their salaries in line with other states?  Huh?

The Utah Supreme court recently determined that an amendment to the voucher bill was not enough to stand alone as the law which would dictate that Utah schools distribute tax-supported vouchers to parents to want to send their children to private schools.  In other words, the people will determine that in a vote in November.

I find it interesting that pro-voucher groups like Parents for Choice in Education spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to push the voucher bill through this past year's legislature and to oppose the petition drive for a referendum allowing the people to vote in November on the issue.   Why would anyone or any group oppose having the vote and voice of the people making the decisions?

According to an editorial in the Salt Lake City Weekly by Holly Mullen, a good chunk of the money for this group's efforts came from out of state interests connected to Amway and WalMart. 

Hmmm....vouchers don't have anything to do with the interests of right-wing rich people, do they?  Right....

Voucher post on Dee's Dotes
Fall election will decide fate of Utah vouchers
Voters will decide fate of school vouchers, court says
Vouch for Us (opinion)

      Before this year, healthy eating didn't mean much to Melissa Powell, a junior at City Academy in Salt Lake City.
      She ate where it was convenient — the nearby McDonald's or chips and soda from the gas station.
      But now you will find her eating sushi made with organic vegetables, fresh fruit smoothies and other healthy items available to students at the school through a student-run lunch "store" dubbed City Academy Creations.
      Schools all over the nation are making efforts to become healthier through vending choices and healthy breakfast and lunch options. And when City Academy, a charter school, moved to its new building downtown, it chose to ditch the vending machines altogether and provide its own healthy affordable goods.
      The school recently received a $1,350 Community Garden Grant from the state health department to establish what the school calls a "full circle garden" that will contribute to the school's store.
      Spearheaded by Shea Wickelson, the school's food science teacher, the garden is run by students who cultivate tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots and strawberries to sell in the school store for lunch.
      And the students are the chefs, farmers and marketers — hence the name "full circle."
     

Bad Senators. No bone.

Senate OKs club measure: It would allow schools to ban gay alliances

The Senate has approved the ever-changing student clubs bill — now back to its original form — which would allow school officials to ban clubs that threaten "the physical, emotional ... and moral well-being of students."
( Read more... )

School Voucher Blogswarm

No on HB 148, No to Vouchers: An Unproven Risky Scheme-Davis Didjeridu No on 148, No to Vouchers: Accountability-Davis Didjeridu No on HB 148, No to Vouchers: Constitutional Issues-Davis Didjeridu No on HB 148, No to Vouchers: Unrealistic Finances-Davis Didjeridu No on HB 148, No to Vouchers: The Wholesale Purchase of the Legislation by Purchase of the Legislators-Davis Didjeridu No on HB 148, No to Vouchers: Conclusion-Davis Didjeridu

No to Utah School Vouchers Blogswarm-Ober Dicta by Steve Blogswarm: No on school vouchers-Jen's Green Journal Vouchers are being fast tracked Vouchers and simple economics Higher education grant programs as a justification for vouchers The truth about vouchers

On January 30th I posted my piece, School Vouchers-A Bad Idea. Today I offer this related post as part of a blog swarm on the topic which is being decided on in the Utah Legislature this year.
( Read more... )

The School Voucher Bill, a standing issue in the Utah Legislature it seems, is back and is being fast tracked.

HB148, sponsored by Rep. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, would cost Utah taxpayers $5.4 million in 2008 and $8.8 million in 2009 if approved. The families of all public school children would be eligible for taxpayer-funded vouchers to help pay private school tuition under the bill.
Voucher amounts would range from $500 per child to $3,000 per child depending on family income.
The bill places no limit on how many families could use vouchers.

This is a bad idea. If this passes, public tax funds would potentially be funneled into private schools, many which are religious in nature. Most private schools do not have the oversight that public schools do and are not beholden to state mandates.

The "problems" with our public schools need to be addressed and fixed - not with "solutions" that would, in the words of legislative proponents of the voucher bill, force districts to improve services and trim bureaucratic waste if faced with the prospect of losing students (and the funds that come with them) to private schools. As is typical of many of the legislative bills, this one attempts to overlook the real issues that need to be "fixed" - not stomped on with the out-moded adage of "fix it", without providing the tools to do so.

The entire system needs to be overhauled with public funds remaining in the public school system.

I have an Ethiopian daughter, Helen:

Without my yearly support, she would not be able to attend school in her village, as is the plight of many Ethiopian girls.

Thanks to Children of Ethiopia Education Foundation, a Utah organization, thousands of girls are staying in school. (read more at the website).

Helen is in second grade and I am eagerly awaiting a letter from her when COEEF founder "Mr. Norm" returns soon from his December trip to Ethiopia. I sent a letter and photos with him last week. I have been sponsoring Helen since her first year in school. I plan to support her through her final year in high school.

If you are still looking for a gift idea, consider sponsoring a girl's education in a loved one's name. It's only $200/year and it provides an entire year's schooling, uniforms, and all school supplies.

Last night Tom and I attended the Utah Coalition for Civic, Character and Service Learning's "Dialogue on Democracy" at the Rice Eccles Stadium Scholarship Reception Room at the University of Utah.   The event was attended by Legislators, community leaders, students, and campus administrators and was sponsored by the Hinckley Institute of Politics.    Speakers included Chief Justice Christine Durham and Lt. Governer Herbert Walker, both who serve on the Utah Commission on Civic and Character Education.  Senator Karen Hale presented the Civic, Chariacter, and Service Learning Award to Professor Dan Jones (also of Dan Jones & Associates, which conducts political and issue-oriented polls).  Professor Jones teaches at the Hinckley Institute.  Kirk Jowers, Director of the Hinckley Institute, and Norma Matheson, former First Lady of Utah, introduced the guest speaker of the evening, Larry Sabato who is Director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.  Sabato is know for his "crystal ball" approach to predicting election outcomes.  Sabato was entertaining in his style of presentation and spoke to the theme of being civically engaged and getting students to be involved.

We sat at a table with some other educators from Utah.   As dinner began we were assigned to discuss these three questions:

• Identify your role in fostering I-16 civic education and civic engagements.
• What can you do individually to strengthen the civic mission of schools?
• What can be done to make politics (civic involvement) as important as American Idol?

The last question surprised me a little and really made me think.  At first I was angry and sad at the same time that this question had to even be posed as a topic for thought and discussion.  Tom and I both discussed, recognized, and confirmed that the focus of the media needs to change and the value of making entertainment via television a primary in-home activity needs to also change.  In the meatime, what we as educators can strive to do is inspire students towards those ends to be the catalyst for change through our meaningful and carefully planned and implemented lessons and experiences  in our classrooms.

Here is the Utah Coalition for Civic, Character and Service Learning's  

Resolution on educating for Democracy

Whereas, we recognize that civic and service learning are essential to the well-being of our representative democracy and should be a central purpose of K-16 education; and

Whereas, we understand that civility, respect for the rights and viewpoints of others, and civic responsibility are vital in our representative democracy; be it there for

Resolved, that we will help instill in K-16 students the desire to become engaged citizens endowed with the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and confidence to participate full in democratic life.

Last night the school where Tom and I work, City Academy, had its grand opening to celebrate our new downtown location.  FOX 13 news was there and had a piece on us at 9pm last night (it's mentioned on their website).
Here is the article in today's Deseret News just as the ribbon was cut to the building (I'm standing in the front with my camera):

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,650201572,00.html

I read this morning, with anguish, the Associated Press piece, Gunman kills 3 Amish schoolgirls and himself.

This is the third school shooting in a week. The incident was similarly fashioned after the one at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colorado.

Our schools are becoming targeted battlegrounds. I would urge anyone involved in a school to examine your security policies - including how people get into your building.