Closing the Achievement Gap: Teaching Content
A federal voucher program that enables nearly 2,000 D.C. children to attend private schools is “facing an uncertain future in the Democrat-controlled Congress and may well be heading into its final year of operation,” reports the Washington Post. Kevin Carey on this and other school choice news at The Quick and The Ed.
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“One unintended effect of the No Child Left Behind Act, which is intended to help fund teaching of science and math to young people, is that it has effectively squeezed out civics education because there is no testing for that anymore and no funding for that,” she said. “And at least half of the states no longer make the teaching of civics and government a requirement for high school graduation. This leaves a huge gap, and we can’t forget that the primary purpose of public schools in America has always been to help produce citizens who have the knowledge and the skills and the values to sustain our republic as a nation, our democratic form of government.”
So says retired Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor channeling E.D. Hirsch. Speaking at the Games for Change conference in New York City last week, O’Connor discussed an interactive, web-based civics curriculum she is developing for seventh-, eighth- and ninth-grade students called Our Courts. Yep. Madame Justice is becoming a gamer.
O’Connor noted that two-thirds of Americans can name at least one of the judges on American Idol, but fewer than one in ten can name the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
“The better educated our citizens are, the better equipped they will be to preserve the system of government we have. And we have to start with the education of our nation’s young people. Knowledge about our government is not handed down through the gene pool. Every generation has to learn it, and we have some work to do.”
Our Courts is scheduled to launch a site for teachers in September 2008, and in September 2009 for kids. Preview the site at http://www.ourcourts.org.
Do we need a Hippocratic Oath for teachers?
A spate of recent examples of bad classroom behavior suggests a promise at least to do no harm might be in order. A Georgia biology teacher was arrested last week for telling an unruly student he would “rip your eyeballs out” during a tirade. That followed a pair of nationally publicized incidents where kindergarten teachers humiliated students. Megan McArdle, blogging about adoption policies at The Atlantic, recently wrote
“Virtually every profession that involves an element of coercion needs a version of the Hippocratic Oath.”
So how about it? What should a Hippocratic Oath for teachers say? What general principles ought to guide ethical classroom practice? Eduwonk set a precedent by offering a book as a prize for his “If I had $5 billion dollars” contest, and I know a good idea when I steal one:
The best teacher’s Hippocratic oath wins a $50 Barnes and Noble gift card. You choose your own book. I’m all about choice.
Update: If this article posted by Joanne Jacobs is to be believed, teachers in Australia get in hot water for simply raising their voices.
Another excellent teacher/blogger, Ms. Frizzle, says “gotta bounce.”
It’s one of the most difficult and frustrating challenges faced by teachers and administrators. 
Balancing the rights of the accused and the accuser in cases of bullying and harassment in school. Sharon Noguchi of the San Jose Mercury News turns in an excellent report on the dilemma, noting that short of kicking a bully out of school, even when educators do a lot they are often accused of doing too little to appease parents and ease victims’ fears.
Parents of harassment victims insist school authorities don’t react quickly or forcefully enough to protect their children - even as school officials say they’re working harder than ever to prevent and respond to bullying and aggression.
“We’re trying to help on a daily basis,” Los Gatos-Saratoga Union School District Superintendent Cary Matsuoka tells the paper. “But there’s only so much we can control in the world of 14-, 15-year-old adolescents.”
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