dissabte, 6 de juny del 2009
divendres, 5 de juny del 2009
Paguem el doble als profes, a veure que passa...
Next Test: Value of $125,000-a-Year Teachers
Rhena Jasey, a Harvard graduate, is on a teaching dream team.
So what kind of teachers could a school get if it paid them $125,000 a year?
Pepe Quintero is apartment-hunting in Washington Heights, where he’ll teach in the fall.
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An accomplished violist who infuses her music lessons with the neuroscience of why one needs to practice, and creatively worded instructions like, “Pass the melody gently, as if it were a bowl of Jell-O!”
A self-described “explorer” from Arizona who spent three decades honing her craft at public, private, urban and rural schools.
Two with Ivy League degrees. And Joe Carbone, a phys ed teacher, who has the most unusual résumé of the bunch, having worked as Kobe Bryant’s personal trainer.
“Developed Kobe from 185 lbs. to 225 lbs. of pure muscle over eight years,” it reads.
They are members of an eight-teacher dream team, lured to an innovative charter school that will open in Washington Heights in September with salaries that would make most teachers drop their chalk and swoon; $125,000 is nearly twice as much as the average New York City public school teacher earns, and about two and a half times as much as the national average for teacher salaries. They also will be eligible for bonuses, based on schoolwide performance, of up to $25,000 in the second year.
The school, called the Equity Project, is premised on the theory that excellent teachers — and not revolutionary technology, talented principals or small class size — are the critical ingredient for success. Experts hope it could offer a window into some of the most pressing and elusive questions in education: Is a collection of superb teachers enough to make a great school? Are six-figure salaries the way to get them? And just what makes a teacher great?
The school’s founder, Zeke M. Vanderhoek, 32, a Yale graduate who founded a test prep company, has been grappling with just these issues. Over the past 15 months he conducted a nationwide search that was almost the American Idol of education — minus the popular vote, but complete with hometown visits (Mr. Vanderhoek crisscrossed the country to observe the top 35 applicants in their natural habitats) and misty-eyed fans (like the principal who got so emotional recommending Casey Ash that, Mr. Vanderhoek recalled, she was “basically crying on the phone with me, saying what a treasure he was.”)
Mr. Ash, 33, who teaches at an elementary school on the outskirts of Raleigh, N.C., will take the social studies slot.
The Equity Project will open with 120 fifth graders chosen this spring in a lottery that gave preference to children from the neighborhood and to low academic performers; most students are from low-income Hispanic families. It will grow to 480 children in Grades 5 to 8, with 28 teachers.
The school received 600 applications. Mr. Vanderhoek interviewed 100 in person.
Along the way, Mr. Vanderhoek, who taught at a middle school in Washington Heights before founding Manhattan GMAT, learned a few lessons.
One was that a golden résumé and a well-run classroom are two different things. “There are people who it’s like, wow, they look great on paper, but the kids don’t respect them,” Mr. Vanderhoek said.
The eight winning candidates, he said, have some common traits, like a high “engagement factor,” as measured by the portion of a given time frame during which students seem so focused that they almost forget they are in class. They were expert at redirecting potential troublemakers, a crucial skill for middle school teachers. And they possessed a contagious enthusiasm — which Rhena Jasey, 30, Harvard Class of 2001, who has been teaching at a school in Maplewood, N.J., conveyed by introducing a math lesson with, “Oh, this is the fun part because I looooooove math!” Says Mr. Vanderhoek: “You couldn’t help but get excited.” Hired.
Teachers said the rigorous selection process was more gratifying than grueling.
“It’s so refreshing that somebody comes to a teacher and says, ‘Show me what you know,’ ” said Oscar Quintero, who goes by Pepe and will teach special education. “This is the first time in 30 years of teaching that anybody has been really interested in what I do.”
The school will use only public money for everything but its building. It is close to signing a lease for private space on 181st Street, to be covered by a combination of public school financing, a charter school grant and what Mr. Vanderhoek described as a “small amount” of private donations (he ultimately hopes to raise enough private money to build a permanent space).
To make ends meet, teachers will hold responsibilities usually shouldered by other staff members, like assistant principals (there will be none). There will be no deans, substitute teachers (except for extended leaves) or teacher coaches. Teachers will work longer hours and more days, and have 30 pupils, about 6 more than the typical New York City fifth-grade class.
The principal, Mr. Vanderhoek, will earn just $90,000. Teachers will not have the same retirement benefits as members of the city’s teachers’ union. And they can be fired at will.
That did not scare Mr. Quintero, who is in his 60s and is moving from Florida; Heather Wardwell, 37, who is leaving East Greenwich High School, in Rhode Island, after a decade, to teach Latin; or Judith LeFevre, 54, the Arizona teacher who earned about $40,000 as recently as two years ago.
Ms. LeFevre, who will teach science, wrote via e-mail that the school was “an experiment of sorts, in which I’m one of the subjects.” She added, “This could be unsettling were it not for the excitement of working with a team of master teachers, all of whom are motivated to help every student succeed, with no excuses and no blame.”
Her other teammates: Damion Frye, 32, who teaches English at Montclair High School in New Jersey, has a master’s degree from Brown University and is pursuing his doctorate at Columbia’s Teachers College, and Gina M. Galassi, 40, who teaches music at Kingston High School in Ulster County, N.Y.
Mr. Carbone, 44, spent four years as head strength and conditioning coach for the Los Angeles Lakers. He left for a quieter life in Spring Valley, N.Y., last year, after overhearing one of his three sons say, “I want to play basketball, but my dad hasn’t taught me yet.”
Whatever the magic formula for a great school or teacher may be, Mr. Vanderhoek has come to believe that there is an essential ingredient to the search for such teachers: Time spent in that teacher’s classroom, watching students learn. Then again, his team has yet to hit the court.
“I have tremendous confidence that the staff is going to be excellent,” he said. “But we will see.dijous, 4 de juny del 2009
Tanca el Angeles de Charlie (topless), i els "claustres educatius" amb pregàries. (Californication?) no us perdeu els comments...
Hesperia topless bar closes doors
Comments 19 | Recommend 2HESPERIA • Charlie’s Topless Angels topless bar has closed its doors.
The strip club on Catalpa Street just east of Santa Fe Avenue East, opened in Hesperia in May 2005 — the only topless bar in the High Desert.
A message on the business’s voicemail suggested the venue is working to reopen in about six months.
The establishment previously closed as a bikini bar in Adelanto in 2002.
Board considers adding prayer to school board meetings
Hesperia Unified School District board member Anthony Riley took the lead in advocating that the board open with a religious invocation at the board's May 18 meeting.
"They do it at the county level, they do it at the city level, they do it at the state," said Riley, who works for Supervisor Gary Ovitt. "We're also talking about equal representation, whether it's someone from a Baptist church ... or a Jewish rabbi may come up. We do that at the county level, and quite frankly, it works extremely well, because that way we have all aspects of the community represented."
Although board members had previously sought legal opinions on adding an invocation to meetings as far back as 2007, Riley said he started thinking about the issue shortly after being elected last November.
"This is something I had mentioned to our superintendent back in December," he said. "It was odd to me that we didn't open up our meetings with a flag salute and a moment of silence."
(The Pledge of Allegiance, which is accompanied by a JROTC honor guard at least one meeting of the month throughout the school year, has long been a staple of school board meetings.)
Board members Robert Kirk and Lee Rogers also expressed their support for the idea at the board's last meeting. A formal vote on the issue is expected at the board's June 8 meeting.
The lone voice of opposition to the idea was board member Chris Bentley.
"My concern is, as usual, process, [getting] the cart before the horse," he said Friday. "I'm not anti-invocation. I'm, in my opinion, trying to look out for the school district."
Specifically, he's worried that the board may either open itself up to a lawsuit by excluding some religious groups, or that the board will have no control over who's allowed to speak.
"You cannot have an invocation that expresses a preference for one religious faith over another," he said. "What if a Wiccan comes up and give a Wiccan invocation? ... [Alternately,] they could go down a path to where there's nothing but a Christian denomination giving a Christian prayer."
The Hesperia City Council opens its meetings with invocations, and those saying the opening prayer tend to share a fairly similar religious worldview. The nine meetings held so far in 2009 have had invocations from the clergy of five different houses of worship: Hesperia Church of Nazarene, New Life Chapel, First Baptist Church, River of Life Church, High Desert Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Riley, aware of the possibility of legal complications, said he'd also be comfortable with the board merely adding a moment of silence at the opening of meetings.
"I'm not saying we should have prayer in schools," he said. "I'm saying we should have a moment of reflection before we open up business, just like in every other level of government."
"I'm good with a moment of silence," Bentley said. "The problem with an invocation is when you start invoking a specific entity."
The next meeting of the HUSD school board will be held on June 8, 2009, at 6 p.m. in the HUSD Educational Support Center Annex, 15576 Main Street.
dimecres, 3 de juny del 2009
Barcelona, mapa d'aromes
Intento mostrar la zona mitjançant Street View
http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=41.391427,2.168405&spn=0,359.988799&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=41.391515,2.168518&panoid=UCzUwvf660WeFwuj5xz0rw&cbp=12,230.77,,1,5.05
dimarts, 2 de juny del 2009
Una molt trista història (del Guardian)
A grieving couple plunged to their deaths at Beachy Head clutching a rucksack containing the body of their five-year-old boy after he died of meningitis, it emerged today.
Neil and Kazumi Puttick drove to the beauty spot in East Sussex a day or two after their son Samuel died at home in Wiltshire. They are thought to have leapt together with two rucksacks, one holding the body, the other filled with some of the child's favourite cuddly toys and a model tractor.
Samuel, who was left paralysed by a car accident four years ago, was taken ill on Tuesday last week. On Friday he was sent home from hospital in Bristol when it became clear that he was not going to live. He was certified dead at his home on Friday evening. At the weekend his parents drove in their people carrier 140 miles to Beachy Head.
Their bodies were spotted at the foot of the cliffs on Sunday evening and were recovered on Monday. The people carrier was found parked nearby, a half-eaten banana and family-sized bag of peanuts left on the front seat.
Police officers were searching the couple's home but Detective Inspector Ian Williams, of Sussex police, said: "As a result of our investigation I am satisfied that Samuel's grieving parents Neil and Kazumi appear to have taken their own lives. This is a tragic incident and we extend our sympathies to their family and to the large number of friends and carers affected."
A spokesman for the Bath and North East Somerset NHS said Samuel had been receiving treatment for pneumococcal meningitis at the paediatric intensive children's unit at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children.
"When it became clear that Sam had no hope of recovery from his severe infection, he was discharged to his family home on Friday 29 May at his parents' request to die peacefully. He was certified dead at his home by a doctor at approximately 8pm that evening," he said.
Friends and neighbours described the Putticks as devoted parents who had moved into a large farmhouse, Wishing Well Farm, in the village of Brokerswood near Westbury, so that Samuel could be given the care he needed.
He was badly hurt in a car crash in 2005 and needed a ventilator to breathe. His parents gave up their jobs to look after him full time. A charity was set up to help pay for his medical bills and major work was carried out at the farmhouse to give him the facilities he needed.
Friend Sue Capon, who runs nearby Brokerswood Country Park, said: "To see what they have gone through was awful and I can only assume losing Sam was too much for them. They were a very, very close family and they were 100% dedicated to Sam. He was adorable and always had a smile on his face." She said he loved nothing more than visiting the park and enjoying a plate of chocolate cake.
Capon said the Putticks had recently been on holiday to Mrs Puttick's native Japan with an "army" of carers and luggage.
She said: "I last saw them last week. I did think something was strange this weekend, the vehicle wasn't there and I hadn't been asked to look after the house. Their life was Sam and without him their life did not mean anything to them. They were devoted to one another as well as to their child and it's just such a sad ending."
Another neighbour, Sue Hawkins, said Sam was "lively" and "interested" and would visit her lambs. She said: "Sam used to come up and visit in his wheelchair. He would visit our orphaned lambs and he used to name them, bless him. I thought he was looking worse than usual lately.
"He was starting to struggle to speak more and had tubes and would struggle to eat and drink. This is so awful, they were such a sweet family."
Samuel's former headteacher, Mary Murray, of Westbury Leigh primary school, said: "Sam joined us last September and it has been a real privilege to have him with us. He was a determined and happy little boy. The whole school community will miss Sam's cheeky smile."
The bodies of Mr Puttick, 34, and his wife, 44, were spotted about 400ft down the cliff just before 8pm on Sunday. Police were alerted, but it was decided it would be safer to wait and carry out the recovery on Monday. An Eastbourne coastguard station officer, Stuart McNab, said he found the child's body in a rucksack along with a second rucksack filled with soft toys and a toy tractor. Postmortems were to be carried out on all three bodies at Eastbourne district general hospital.
Samuel's parents described him as "the happiest boy in the world" on a website set up to raise funds for the boy's treatment months before his death.
dilluns, 1 de juny del 2009
Los Caídos han caigut del titular (Libertad Digital)
Los Reyes cierran el Día de las Fuerzas Armadas con un homenaje a la bandera