Today's Reading List
Here's what the editors of Schools of Thought are reading today:
Los Angeles Times: Op-Ed – An L.A. teacher reviews her review
When Los Angeles teacher Coleen Bondy opened her evaluation, she found that the district considers her a below average teacher. Bondy argues that her evaluation was unfair because it only measured the outcomes from her least motivated students. She also believes that test scores by themselves are a poor method of evaluating teachers.
MySA.com: Textbooks tied to tests
The Texas State Board of Education ruled that annual standardized tests won't be rewritten until state lawmakers provide funding for districts to buy new textbooks. The board said a disconnect between information found in textbooks and testing materials based on the new curriculum wouldn't be fair to students.
KCTV 5 News: Student develops free tutoring program to those in need
A Kansas City college student quit his job as a tutor to start a non-profit that offers free tutoring to high school students.
CBS Baltimore.com: Baltimore Co. Parents Offer To Pay For School’s Air Conditioning; Officials Say No
Some Baltimore County parents are concerned that their children will suffer when hot weather comes back this spring, so they offered to pay for air conditioning window units. The school district turned down the offer, and requested $70 million from Maryland instead.
Click on Detroit: West Bloomfield Schools closed due to vandalism
A Michigan school district canceled the first day of the second semester after vandals put 15 buses out of commission.
College admits fudging students' exam scores
by the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) - An admissions officer at Claremont McKenna College in California has resigned after the school's president revealed that the officer had inflated college entrance examination scores for incoming freshmen since 2005.
"As an institution of higher education with a deep and consistent commitment to the integrity of all our academic activities, and particularly our reporting of institutional data, we take this situation very seriously," college President Pamela B. Gann wrote in an e-mail Monday to students, faculty and staff.
Gann wrote that a lone administrator reported composite scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test that were exaggerated by 10 to 20 points. That employee, whom she did not name, has resigned, she said.
Such scores are often used in various comparisons of colleges across the country, including U.S. News & World Report's prestigious annual rankings.
FULL STORY
The Great Moonbuggy Race
By Pamela Greyer, Special to CNN
Editor’s Note: Pamela Greyer is a K-12 science educator, STEM education consultant and NASA solar system ambassador. She is the former site director of NASA’s Science, Engineering, Mathematics and Aerospace Academy Chicago Program and continues to mentor and engage youths in NASA engineering competitions and contests.
In 2004, I became a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) educator. At the time, STEM was an emerging concept in the education landscape and just another acronym used by NASA condensed from a series of words.
I had no idea the influence that teaching in the STEM fields would have on my life - as an educator, on my ability to inspire my students to develop a love of science and most importantly, to introduce my students to and engage them in engineering.
As an inner-city high school science teacher from Chicago, I am always looking for new opportunities to involve my students in STEM learning. I am ecstatic this year because I have a team of high school students entered in NASA’s 19th Annual Great Moonbuggy Race. FULL POST
Related: Student News
CNN Student News is ten minutes of commercial-free, cost free news for middle and high school classrooms. It is available on line on our website, as a free downloadable podcast on iTunes and on HLN at 4:00 a.m. ET weekdays during the school year. Go to www.CNNStudentNews.com@CNNSchools on Twitter
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