voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence. - It's a Race Against Time for San Diego's Newest Teens

voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence. - It's a Race Against Time for San Diego's Newest Teens

It's a Race Against Time for San Diego's Newest Teens

• Story
• Comments
• Image (3)

Share

Send this page to your friends

Print

Create a hardcopy of this page

Font Size:

Default font size

Larger font size

• 

  Sam Hodgson

  Viraj Ward is one of three Crawford High teachers in a special program for teen students new to English and U.S. schools.

Sam HodgsonHawa Fallah says she got only four years of schooling in Guinea, where she had to sell bananas to pay her school fees.

Related Links

• Related: Burma Refugees Struggling to Adjust in City Heights (March 3, 2010)
• Related: Welcome Home (Dec. 30, 2009)
• Related: A School for Junior Doctors and Nurses, Seceding to Stay Small (Nov. 19, 2008)

Posted: Sunday, April 18, 2010 7:45 pm | Updated: 7:53 pm, Sun Apr 18, 2010.

By EMILY ALPERT

As a child in Guinea, Hawa Fallah had to sell bananas in the seaside city of Conakry to pay her school fees. When business was bad, she didn't go to school. The sixteen-year-old says she only got four years of schooling in her country. Her family moved to San Diego nine months ago for something better.

"Here the school is free," Fallah said. "In our country, it is not free."

She wants to be a doctor.

Fallah is part of an extraordinary program for newcomers with extraordinary challenges. Her classmates come from Burma, The Gambia, China, Mexico and elsewhere. Many of them can speak three or four languages, but are still learning English. Some are scarred by war or genocide; their schooling may have been scant. But to graduate high school, they must catch up to their classmates in a few short years.

It's a fact that one teacher reminds them of when they get distracted, ringing a bell to refocus them.

"Don't waste our time," said Viraj Ward, chiding her class. "We don't have a lot of time toget

Shameless Self-Promotion Smonday � Student Activism

Shameless Self-Promotion Smonday � Student Activism

Shameless Self-Promotion Smonday

April 18, 2010 in Students

It’s shameless self-promotion Smonday again!

Last week, readers posted links to a racial resentment quiz, a story in a Latvian newspaper, a video about university privatization in Finland, and a report on plans for this Thursday’s Climate Camp at the University of Vermont.

What do you have for us this week?

THE EDUCATION FRONT Blog | The Dallas Morning News

THE EDUCATION FRONT Blog | The Dallas Morning News

Charlie Crist's odd Florida veto of a merit pay bill 12:05 AM Mon, Apr 19, 2010 | Permalink | Yahoo! Buzz William McKenzie/Editorial Columnist Bio | E-mail | News tips

This story last week about GOP Gov. Charlie Crist vetoing a Florida bill that would have directly linked teacher pay to classroom performance is a big deal beyond his state. It's a setback in one of the latest causes in education reform, and that is helping students get better teachers by determining how well they perform in the classroom.

President Obama is in on this crusade. He's pressing for students to have more effective teachers, which is why he wants states and districts to link pay to classroom performance. This connection even is one of the fundamentals of his administration's Race to the Top effort.

Michelle Rhee has pushed for the same link in Washington, D.C., where she is superintendent. And, to the surprise of some, she just got the city's teacher union to go along with her aim of getting rid of bad teachers in return for higher pay for good teachers.

But here comes Crist, a Republican, undermining the effort to get more effective teachers in the classroom. He says he heard from many parents on this, urging him to veto the bill. But it's an odd move. Obama, a Democrat

New York Schools Streamline Trade-Book Purchasing - NYTimes.com

New York Schools Streamline Trade-Book Purchasing - NYTimes.com

Small Vendors Left Out of Schools’ Book Purchasing

Ramin Talaie for The New York Times

Connie Attanasio, president of Attanasio & Associates, a trade-book vendor in Queens.

By JO CRAVEN McGINTY

Published: April 18, 2010

Enlarge This ImageEven as recently as last year, the process by which books ended up in New York classrooms bore more resemblance to Avon than Amazon.

Kalim A. Bhatti for The New York Times

The warehouse of Ingram, the country’s largest trade-book wholesaler.

Scores of salespeople traversed the city, going from school to school, peddling so-called trade books: the novels, works of nonfiction, test guides and other publications that teachers use to supplement textbooks.

But the city has transformed the way it buys these books, abandoning the decades-old process in which numerous vendors competed in door-to-door or bazaar-like settings, to one in which nearly all such books — literally millions of volumes — are purchased via computer from two large discount wholesalers that have promised savings of at least 30 percent.

In its first year, city school officials say, the streamlined process is on target to save $18 million. But, much as large book retailers have pushed out independent sellers, some of the small local companies that used to deal directly with the schools say they may be forced out of business, at a cost, they contend, to students.

“You’ve got to sit and read through hundreds of books to make good selections,” said Connie Attanasio, a trade-book vendor who specializes in collections for English-language learners. “You can’t give a discount of over 30 percent and do the kind of work we did.”

The city uses a different process to buy textbooks, which the city’s Education Departmenttypically buys directly from publishers in large quantities.

Education Technology in the classroom: What should it look like? � SCUSD Observer

Education Technology in the classroom: What should it look like? � SCUSD Observer

SCUSD Observer

Education Technology in the classroom: What should it look like?

leave a comment »

My name is Alice Mercer, and I am an ed tech blogger (I blog about education technology). I am and educator and a computer and technology teacher at an elementary school in Sacramento City Unified School District. In addition, all of my teaching experience both in the lab and out, has been in high poverty schools. I believe in the power of technology to change education, but I also believe that if we are really going to change education, all students need to create and not just consume their education. If we can’t make it work with poor and minority children, we won’t really change how we are teaching, but if it can work where I teach, it can work anywhere.

Technology is one of the “new” and trendy things to talk about in education, but what does it mean? First, just knowing your way around a computer and the Internet doesn’t mean you’re ready to teach technology. Effective use of technology is more important than the technology itself. Why is this? Let me give an example. I have a dad who is super smart, and was a math wiz. He would sometimes attempt to “help” me with math, but all his smarts did not make him a great tutor for me. Ideally, we should be using technology to make a lesson richer, more effective, and more enticing for students. Getting to that point requires learning, time, and most importantly, support.

Next, you need to know not all technology is the same, and how it is used is where the real differences come out. Some people approach “learning” to use a computer as though it is like “learning” typing. Although there are skills involved in learning technology, the potential uses are much richer, and more complex than how one

Alternate Path for Teachers Gains Ground Education News - The New York Times

Education News - The New York Times

Alternate Path for Teachers Gains Ground

By LISA W. FODERARO 1 minute ago

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Dan Cosgrove, in his second year with Teach for America, in his classroom at Leadership Prep in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

The New York State Board of Regents is expected this week to allow alternative teacher preparation programs to offer a master’s degree, delivering a blow to education schools.

Girls in Private Schools Ask, Thin Mints or Samoas?

By JOANNE KAUFMAN

At New York’s elite schools, membership in the youngest Girl Scouts troops more than doubled this year.

At Upstate Campus, Saving Energy Is Part of Dorm Life

By LISA W. FODERARO

Two residence halls at the college in upstate New York earned Energy Star labels as part of campus efforts to be environmentally friendly.

John Jay College Accused of Bias Against Noncitizens

By NINA BERNSTEIN

A Justice Department lawsuit says the college demanded extra work authorization from noncitizens that it did not require from citizens.

Florida Governor Splits With G.O.P. on Teacher Pay

By TRIP GABRIEL and DAMIEN CAVE

Gov. Charlie Crist’s decision spurred speculation he would abandon the party to run for Senate as an independent.

Charter Extension Denied to Low-Scoring Stanford School

By CAROL POGASH

Responding to low test scores, the Ravenswood school board denied a charter extension to a K-through-12 school created and overseen by Stanford University.

Despite Budget Woes, University Still Has Money for Bottled Water

By SCOTT JAMES

The University of California may be in horrible budget straits, but it still has spent about $2 million in recent years on brand-name bottled water.

School’s Out! (Temporarily); The Auditorium Collapsed

By WINNIE HU

Classes at Mount Vernon High School were canceled after a 60-by-100 foot piece of wall in the auditorium collapsed on Monday. No one was injured.

Wyoming: Ex-Radical Sues Over College Speech

By DAN FROSCH

William Ayers filed a federal lawsuit on Thursday against the University of Wyoming over its decision to bar him from speaking there.

U.S. Falls Short in Measure of Future Math Teachers

By SAM DILLON

American college students earned a C on a new test comparing their skills with their counterparts in 15 other countries.

Critics Turn Out at Open House on N.Y.U. Expansion

By LISA W. FODERARO

As New York University formally unveiled its 25-year expansion plan, residents of Greenwich Village were among the chief critics.

• Times Topics: New York Univ

Schools Matter: New research confirms that California's Prop 227 was a mistake

Schools Matter: New research confirms that California's Prop 227 was a mistake

New research confirms that California's Prop 227 was a mistake

by skrashen

New Research Shows that Prop 227 was a Mistake.
Sent to the Capitol Weekly (Sacramento, CA), April 18, 2010

Two studies have just appeared that show that children in bilingual programs learn about as much English as do children in English-only programs.

One study, headed by Robert Slavin of Johns Hopkins University, compared English learners in five states over five years who had the same program of instruction, except that one group was taught entirely in Spanish in kindergarten, with more English gradually introduced until the program was entirely in English by grade three. The researchers found only very small differences between the groups on English tests given in grades three and four. The second study, done by Christopher Jepsen of the University of Kentucky, looked at children in California: Those who had bilingual education did just as well as similar children who did not on tests of English in grades four and five.

Both studies show that the children in the bilingual programs made the same progress as comparisons in