05/29/02

Raleigh News and Observer

Schools to watch project seeks total excellence

Q&A with John A. Harrison of the N.C. Middle School Association

Middle school educators worry that broad standards for school quality have been undermined by a narrow focus on math and reading test scores -- especially when it comes to closing the achievement gap and meeting the varied needs of young adolescents. North Carolina next year will join a national project called Schools to Watch. A small number of successful middle schools highly rated for "academic excellence, developmental responsiveness and social equity" will be singled out as models for the rest of the state.

John A. Harrison, executive director of the 25,000-member N.C. Middle School Association based in Pinehurst, talked about Schools to Watch with staff writer Bruce Siceloff. Here are excerpts from the interview:

Q. What are the aims of this project, which began with just four model schools across the country?

A. It's not enough to simply say, "Our school has high test scores." The Schools to Watch criteria are that the school has academic excellence -- and also the school is meeting the needs of young adolescents by providing things like smaller class sizes and a number of elective opportunities, and in addition addressing the issues of closing the gap.

Schools to Watch is a response to the accountability movement, which we've seen has caused many middle schools to revert back to junior high schools. Junior highs are basically little high schools -- schools in which the teachers teach subjects. Middle schools are schools in which the teachers teach children. That sounds like a fine distinction, but it makes a really big impact in how the school looks and feels.

The National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform developed the Schools to Watch program to recognize schools which are being successful all the way across the board.

Q. What problems are you trying to fix?

A. The accountability movement never intended for schools to stop teaching social studies and science just because we were testing in math and reading. But schools across the country are spending more time teaching the subjects that are being tested.

It has caused problems down the road. Performance in high school science has flattened out because there hasn't been as much attention to science in middle school. The balancing act is what do you do not only to prepare students to be successful on their tests, but how do you also teach them all the subject areas?

Q. What are some of the qualities that have been recognized in Schools to Watch?

A. We often focus on problems and things that are challenges in our schools, but there are a lot of great things that are happening in middle schools across North Carolina that we don't get to talk about. This is going to be a great vehicle for sharing the good things that are happening in our middle level schools.

In one school in Texas, the focus is on parent involvement in the schools. That school has worked closely to utilize the talents of the parents in the community to enrich the activities that are going on in the school. Other schools have been successful with after-school and Saturday events, and offering clubs and activities not only sports-related but also academic-related -- Battles of the Books and that sort of thing. I know folks in Wake County are doing a lot of these things.

The idea is: What are you doing to be successful, and is this something we could be doing somewhere else?

More information is available from Schools to Watch (http://www.schoolstowatch.org) and the N.C. Middle School Association (http://www.ncmsa.net).-- Bruce Siceloff

==================================================

5/26/2002

Boston Globe

THE CHALKBOARD

Middle of the debate

By Laura Pappano,
Globe Columnist,

It seemed a stroke of brilliance 30 years ago: Create ''middle'' schools to soften the transition from nurturing elementary environments to the ready-or-not culture of high school that were typically replicated in junior high schools.

But today, long after districts created schools with ''middle'' in the name, embraced teen development as an educational goal, and divided grades into ''teams,'' there are serious questions about how well middle school is working.

In fact, there is a growing clamor that it's not.

The National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform - a Newton group that has the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The College Board, and the National Middle School Association among its many members - said the nation's middle schools are falling short and need to be rescued.

One sign of trouble: National Assessment of Educational Progress test results show 67 percent of eighth-graders not proficient in reading and 73 percent not proficient in math. It's also well known that standardized test scores decline during the middle-school years.

The drive to create a social environment tuned to teens has overshadowed the importance of academic rigor, said National Forum coordinator Nancy Ames.

''Many of us who go out to middle-grade schools see they do offer a watered-down curriculum,'' said Ames, a vice president at the Educational Development Center in Newton.

Developmentally, she said, students at this age are capable of great intellectual growth, but ''schools haven't figured out how to unleash young adolescents' potential.''

The traditional middle school serves students in grades 6, 7, and 8, but demographic shifts and available space have led districts to create a variety of configurations. Last week, Cambridge, for example, proposed moving middle-schoolers from K-8 schools into distinct middle schools because of space and other issues. However schools are configured, education reformers say the larger issue is that academics in the middle grades are flagging.

Nationally, Ames noted, only 20 percent of middle-school teachers have been formally prepared to teach at that level - one reason the National Forum is spearheading an effort to get states to adopt specialized and rigorous certification requirements for middle-school teachers.

Many middle-school teachers have transferred to the middle grades and lack training in working with preteens or in subject areas, Ames said.

Karen Spaulding, a seventh- and eighth-grade science teacher at the Morse School in Cambridge and a mentor teacher who was specifically trained to teach middle school, said she's frustrated that so many middle-school teachers lack proper training.

''I work with a lot of new teachers and consistently there is the issue of culture shock - they ask the kids to take out their pencil and [the kids] say no,'' she said. ''If you are a good middle-school teacher, they wouldn't say no.''

Although many focus on teacher quality, others blame curriculum.

Leland Cogan, senior researcher at the Third International Math and Science Study (TIMSS) National Research Center, said research from the study that showed US students scoring near the bottom of a 41-country comparison revealed 75 percent of material taught in eighth-grade math is a rehash of the previous four years. ''Twenty-five percent of the material might be new,'' he said. ''In the higher-achieving countries, the ratio between new material and review material is just the reverse.''

Parents know, middle school is a rocky time. ''Middle school is the scapegoat of all things bad,'' said Jack Berckemeyer, assistant executive director of the National Middle School Association. ''If you ask an adult, `When was the worst time of your life?' What do they say? The onset of puberty, grades 7 and 8.''

Like it or not, the image persists that young adolescents are so distracted by their hormones that they can't focus on learning and that middle schools are caldrons of social and educational chaos. Educational consultants say just such images drive many to consider private schools.

''We get a huge number of inquiries from people wanting to change school at the middle-school juncture,'' said Mary Mansfield, educational consultant with Musinksy and Associates in Weston. ''The middle schools right now are seen as the weakest link, even in the best systems.''

Tim Lee of Advocates for Human Potential, in Sudbury, said parents look to private schools for academic rigor, help in honing study skills, or helping a student who has had a tough time socially.

John H. Lounsbury, publications editor for the National Middle School Association and the man said to have launched the middle-school movement, acknowledges that middle schools are in trouble. But he said the poor record of achievement is not the fault of the concept, but because schools haven't gone far enough in tuning in to students. Schools, Lounsbury said, have made ''organizational changes'' but failed to make deeper changes to harness early adolescents' passion, using that energy as a ticket to more challenging academics.

Middle-schoolers, he said, ''reach a stage of mental development and they are able to be analytical about the ways of society, to recognize the hypocrisies in adult life. They often give parents and adults a difficult time. But this is the way the good Lord made them. It is not out of kilter or wrong.'' Too often, he said, ''the schools are in conflict with Mother Nature'' and are ''rather narrow and traditional'' in their approach to learning.

Being tuned to adolescents may allow teachers to make lessons more rigorous - if they have the knowledge. But too many lack skill in their subject, said Sandra Stotsky, senior associate commission at the state Department of Education. ''We desperately need to upgrade the teaching corps at the middle-school level,'' she said.

Phil Veysey, director of educational policy and programs for the Massachusetts Federation of Teachers, acknowledged that the problem ''needs to be addressed.''

It prompted the state Board of Education last October to raise requirements for middle-school certification. Instead of getting a generalist's license, Stotsky said, middle-school teachers must now take more academic courses and specialize in either math/science or humanities.

Having subject knowledge - and an understanding of middle-schoolers - is critical, said Debra Gately-Cacciatore, an eighth-grade history teacher at South Middle School in Waltham. Gately-Cacciatore, a high-school history teacher who seven years ago transferred to middle school, said at first she treated students like high-school students, handing out a syllabus and giving assignments that were too demanding.

Now, ''I can't stop laughing at how absurd I was as a teacher,'' said Gately-Cacciatore, who took courses to hone her middle-school skills. Still, she and two other middle-school teachers gathered for a recent roundtable discussion said that half the teachers in their schools are not tuned to working with adolescents.

For example, before you start class, you may find a distressed child who has fought with a parent or bombed a test, said Jennifer Piccioli, a sixth-grade English and social studies teacher at Brown Middle School in Newton. ''You learn phrases,'' she said, ''like, `Do you need to take a break?'''

Piccioli and other teachers said getting the most from middle-school students academically requires factoring in, not fighting, their social development.

''You have to love puberty to teach middle school,'' Piccioli said.

==================================================

05-28-02

Hartford Courant

Laptops Of Luxury?

Educators Spar Over Handing Out Computers

By JIM FARRELL,
Courant Staff Writer

Albert Branch loves his laptop computer.

Albert is a freshman at the Connecticut International Baccalaureate Academy, an East Hartford magnet school that six months ago joined an increasingly popular education trend - giving laptop computers to all its students.

As part of a $750,000 technology program, the academy's 90 students are now working on wireless IBM ThinkPads.

"It's exciting," said Albert, 14, a Hartford resident who last year attended the Kennelly School, where he visited the school's computer lab once a week. "Now the resources are always there, and there's no excuse not to learn."

While Albert is enthusiastic, educators nationwide are engaged in a vexing debate about the wisdom of the laptop investment.

Advocates say portable computers for each student offer unprecedented learning opportunities and create welcome efficiencies in the often-sluggish world of education.

Critics say laptops are essentially "$2,000 pencils" that cast a feel-good aura over an institution but do little to improve achievement, while draining crucial dollars that could be better spent.

"I think we're probably at a crossroads," said Michael Hannafin, director of a Georgia-based research laboratory that explores learning and technology issues.

Schools nationwide spent heavily on computers during the past decade, Hannafin said, but the spending is slowing as the economy softens and school budgets tighten. Also, he said, there is a lack of research measuring the value of computers as an educational tool. But Hannafin said any reservations must be tempered by the realization that technology has become pervasive and that schools that "have done things right have had a lot of success."

Only a handful of the more than 1,000 public schools in Connecticut issue laptops to students. Included are the Metropolitan Learning Center, a magnet school in Bloomfield, and Two Rivers Middle Magnet School, which is scheduled to open in East Hartford in August. Experts say the stakes are high at those schools.

"Just wanting technology isn't enough," said Michael Helfgott, who, as executive director of the Connecticut Commission for Educational Technology, is helping chart the course on a statewide basis. "You have to know why you need it, and how it's all going to fit."

Plugging In

Steve O'Neal, technology director at the Baccalaureate Academy, is determined to do things right.

For the past three years, the academy program has been housed inside East Hartford High School. A $14 million state-funded building is under construction next door, though, and students and staff are expected to move in next January. In the meantime, the school has purchased 170 laptops at $1,800 each and installed antennas at select spots inside the high school that allow wireless connection of the computers to a schoolwide network.

"The idea is we would incubate the technology here, and then take it with us when we move," said O'Neal, whose many responsibilities include training, overseeing the school website and troubleshooting technical problems. "If the technology doesn't flow seamlessly, it's more of a distraction," he said. That's why "if a teacher needs tech support, I drop everything I'm doing."

One of the teachers most committed to technology is O'Neal's wife, Kelley, who teaches English at the academy. She said she likes knowing that she can do computer-based lessons whenever appropriate, not just when the computer lab is available.

During a recent class, she had students write poetry on their laptops, then upload their work to a shared drive where classmates could read them and copy their favorite lines. The assignment was connected to their study of the William Golding novel "Lord of the Flies," and was followed by work that included small-group discussions and the creation of a group poem. The exercise was fairly traditional, but students were engaged.

"It allows for a lot more communication when you don't have much time," said Summer Echelson, a student teacher who was helping Kelley O'Neal.

Another portion of the lesson sent students to a "Lord of the Flies" website, where they were directed to maps, analysis and two poems written by a high school student from California.

"I could not do this lesson without computers," said Kelley O'Neal. "It's so much more efficient."

Her students cite other advantages.

Dominique Shabazz, 14, of Manchester, said she likes being able to revise her written assignments without starting over.

Ryan Lamb, 14, of Hebron, said he finds it especially useful for homework.

"You always have access to everything," he said.

Steve O'Neal said he's looking forward to implementing video-conferencing, developing more Web-based resources and greater home-school communication.

"This is where it's all going in the future," he said. "We're just starting off slow, taking it one piece at a time."

A Hard Lesson

While laptop computers offer tremendous potential, they also bring risk.

Four years ago, Carmen Arace Middle School in Bloomfield was labeled cutting edge as it moved to the vanguard of the technology-in-education movement by committing $2 million to put laptop computers in the hands of students in fifth through eighth grades.

Today, those laptops are broken down and obsolete, packed away in storage, and the board of education has yet to make its final payment of $540,000. What went wrong?

"There's enough blame to go around," said Don Rowe, a parent who was part of the technology committee in 1997 that charted what proved to be a disastrous course. "If anything, it's bad luck and bad timing."

Bloomfield contracted with Atlanta-based NetSchools, which offered a soup-to-nuts technology program that included prototype laptops called StudyPros. In the first months, attendance was up, behavioral problems down and hundreds of visitors descended from as far away as Malaysia and Bermuda to peek into classrooms filled with energized, attentive students peering at their portable computers.

Time magazine took note in April 2000 with a story that stated: "More schools are convinced they're worth the cost." By then, though, unbeknownst to the public, serious and chronic problems had developed in Bloomfield. The StudyPros frequently malfunctioned. Black lines would inexplicably appear on the screen, obscuring text and images. Batteries often wouldn't hold a charge.

A 15-page report released last fall that recommended ending the program noted that there was no substantial improvement in student achievement, that teachers received sparse training in integrating technology into the curriculum, and that there was no evidence to suggest parental or community involvement increased.

Jerry Crystal, who was technology facilitator at Carmen Arace during the laptop years and now has similar responsibilities for the school system, said the lack of an ongoing evaluation plan was unfortunate for two reasons. Regular assessment might have identified problems sooner, he said, but might also have helped validate some of the program's strengths.

"I saw some tremendous things happen," Crystal said. For example, teachers developed interdisciplinary units on civil rights and archaeology that won state and national awards. Another highly regarded project involved evaluating data from the Titanic.

"Unfortunately," Crystal said, "in education, anecdotal experiences don't matter. It's only numbers and statistics."

Crystal's biggest lament is that Bloomfield chose not to work with NetSchools when the company offered a plan to replace the StudyPros with laptops made by proven manufacturers such as Hewlett-Packard. A spokeswoman for NetSchools said the company is still interested in working with Carmen Arace. But Barbara Campbell, who as assistant superintendent was in charge when the decision to drop the laptop program was made, said it is time to move on. She said the only place NetSchools now has in Bloomfield is atop a file called "Lessons Learned."

"Test the technology," reads the first of seven items on a list she has compiled. "Know what you are buying." Other reminders include making decisions with a K-12 focus, planning for a rolling replacement of equipment, and evaluating as you go.

"The mistake that typically occurs is `Let's get the technology and then figure out how to use it,'" Campbell said. Districts that have been successful, she said, "first decide what they want to do, and then figure out the role technology would play in that."

Among the mistakes made in Bloomfield was a decision to purchase a prototype computer that soon became outdated. The StudyPros were designed to use infrared signals from transmitters inside the classroom. The system worked much like remote control devices used with televisions. If a person walked between the transmitter and the laptop, the signal was interrupted and contact lost.

Now most wireless computers, such as those used in the Baccalaureate Academy program, use radio frequencies. The connection works much the way a cellphone does, and is more dependable.

Beyond Laptops

Emerging technology remains a perplexing issue as school districts craft technology plans. Handheld computers, including Palm Pilots and tablet computers, which look like the "screen half" of a typical laptop, are being designed especially for students to use and are relatively inexpensive.

"A lot of superintendents say, `I'm never going to get a laptop for every one of my students, but I can get them all one of these,'" said Nick Caruso of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education.

Handhelds, for example, can be programmed to collect, analyze and share data, connect to the Internet, track attendance and assignments, and more. "The potential is fascinating," Caruso said.

In the meantime, schools with laptop programs forge ahead.

"I cannot believe how much kids have benefited," said Dominic Grignano, technology facilitator at East Rock Magnet School in New Haven. His school has about 250 computers for its 850 students in grades K-8, and will soon supplement that by giving more than 200 laptops to teachers, administrators and students.

Ed Epstein, principal of Kent Center School, which five years ago became the first public school in the state to outfit all its grades 7 and 8 students with laptops, said that those who purchase computers expressly to raise standardized test scores miss the point. After all, he said, writing tests are still administered using pencil and paper.

"We knew that laptops and computers were a thing of the future, and we wanted to put them in the hands of our students," he said. "There's a whole change in the dynamic between teachers and students."

==================================================

05-27-02

Columbus Dispatch

Students compile stories from World War II vets

Frank Hinchey
Dispatch Staff Reporter

MILFORD CENTER, Ohio -- Veteran Chuck Riedmiller can barely bring himself to talk about the Bataan "death march,'' the brutal jungle trek that followed the Japanese conquest of the Philippines in 1942.

"I just choke up,'' Riedmiller, 85, of Marysville, confided recently. "Eighty-five miles in five days,'' he recalled of the sweltering forced march where those who fell behind were shot in the head or run over by Japanese trucks. "You never forget it.''

But a worry that others will forget his story -- and the stories of thousands of others like him -- prompted him to write his recollections down.

Riedmiller's is among 213 firsthand accounts of Union County World War II veterans gathered by Claudia Robinson's eighth- grade language arts class at Fairbanks Middle School. The students intend to publish the compilation under the title Heroes from the Heartland. A book-signing with the veterans is scheduled for Saturday at Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Marysville.

The students' work is important, Riedmiller said. It falls to them to help ensure that what he endured for 43 months as a prisoner of war will not be lost.

"They should know about it,'' he added. "Pearl Harbor got all the publicity at the time. After we were captured, we were forgotten.''

Robinson, an Air National Guardsman, said she was motivated to start the project by her own military background. "My mom was in the Navy, and my grandpa was an ambulance driver in World War I.''

Sometimes, the stories brought her to tears, she said. Sometimes, it was the storytellers who had tears in their eyes.

"It's a bridge between the young generation and the Greatest Generation,'' added Robinson, 28. "It's sad that we couldn't get to all of the stories of those who have passed.''

The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs estimates there are nearly 5 million living World War II veterans. About 16 million members of the armed services participated in the war, and they are dying at the rate of 400,000 a year.

Future history projects will focus on Union County's Vietnam and Gulf War Veterans.

"It's been a life-altering experience for the kids,'' Fairbanks Principal Pat Lucas said of the six-month project. "She is immersing the children in history instead of just reading about it in a textbook.''

It also gives the students a better understanding of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack and a sense of how young people living through World War II coped with the anxiety caused by an attack on U.S. soil, Lucas said.

"It has made them take stock of how we look at ourselves as a nation.'' Ashley Poland, 14, helped gather information about her grandfather by talking with veterans when they came to visit the school.

Among them was Joe Dodge, 78, a friend of Ashley's now-dead grandfather, Carroll Poland. Through the class project she learned that Dodge, like her grandfather, was a Marine who fought in the Pacific.

"I like to learn hands-on instead of through textbooks,'' Ashley said. "And I learned about people in the community and that Joe was a friend of my grandfather.''

Classmate Ashley Short also said she liked the project's personal touch.

"It shows how the veterans felt, and it gave us insights what really went on in the war,'' she said.

George Peto, 79, didn't try to sugarcoat his story for the 70 or so students in the class.

The Marine veteran told them he lost a half- dozen buddies in fighting to retake Japanese-held islands from New Britain to Okinawa.

"You couldn't dwell on it,'' he said. "You had to react to what was happening, and go on. It was the only way to survive.''

Walter Herd, 88, and his wife of 63 years, Doris, 85, believe Robinson's project provides a real-life history lesson for the students.

The Marysville couple recalled how they learned of the Pearl Harbor attack from radio bulletins. "We realized then that the way of living for all citizens of the U.S.A. would change dramatically,'' they wrote in the book's preface.

==================================================

05-25-02

Chattanooga Tmes & Free Press

Girls Inc. wins national self-reliance award

By Yolanda Putman
Staff Writer

Konda Jones wants to make sure youngsters attending Girls Inc. are exposed to more than just urban schools and public housing.

"Some of them have never seen a $100,000 home in real life. I want them to think outside the box. Until they do, they won't know the big picture," said Ms. Jones, academic achievement director at Girls Inc.

Her efforts have paid off -- the Chattanooga chapter recently won a national self-reliance and life skills award for improvements made to the six-week, after-school program, Budgets for the Future.

Linda Haynes, director of innovative programs at Girls Inc. in New York, said the local chapter won the award because the program "exposed girls to a wide array of opportunities to make financial choices and gain new knowledge and inspiration."

The award is "very prestigious," she said.

The biggest benefit of Budgets for the Future is that girls are more aware of the importance of budgeting and what they can expect when they become adults, Ms. Jones said.

Twelve-year-old Shanika Fennell recently participated in the program and said she learned a lot.

"I don't see how my mother does it," she said. Shanika and her brother are raised by their mother in Maurice Poss Homes. But Shanika said that is not where she plans to stay. She said she wants to be an attorney.

Ms. Jones said she made some changes to the program after she began to oversee it last spring. Most of the program took place in the classroom. Instructors gave youngsters an imaginary income and asked them to look through newspapers to shop for necessities and the best deals, she said.

To make the program more realistic, Ms. Jones said she took the girls, about 35 of them ages 12 to 14, to car lots so they could see how much different cars cost.

She had credit counselors talk about the importance of paying attention to interest rates and having good credit. They visited banks and talked about opening savings and checking accounts.

The field trips also exposed the girls to various socioeconomic communities within the city, Ms. Jones said.

"I want them to experience it so they don't feel like they have to be stuck in one socioeconomic group," she said.

She said she also uses the program to encourage youths to do well in school.

"If they stay in school, get an education and get a good job, maybe they will think, 'I can have something like this,'" she said.

==================================================

05-29-02

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

For incoming sixth-graders, middle school can be a scary place

By Carolyn Bower

Of the Post-Dispatch

Getting lost. Not being able to open the combination lock to your locker. More homework. Less recess. Taunts from eighth-graders.

Those are among the fears some sixth-graders said they had when they first came to middle school from elementary school.

"Last year you got the advantage of being the oldest, but now you are the youngest," said Sara Klarfeld, a sixth-grader at Parkway Northeast Middle School in Creve Coeur. "Now you have to sit in the front of the bus. After a while you get used to it."

Sara and other students in Peggy Flynn's class recently wrote letters that Flynn will share with students entering sixth grade at Parkway Northeast in August. "I asked my students to give the new students advice about what it takes to survive in the sixth grade," Flynn said.

More than 88 percent of public school students nationwide change schools when they enter sixth grade. Some principals say that transition is one of the biggest of a student's school career.

From having one teacher and one classroom in elementary school, many middle-schoolers will change classes and have several teachers. And it's up to the student to find out what work to make up after an absence.

Flynn said teachers in middle school expect a lot of responsibility, independence and time management - things some students have not had to deal with.

A comparable situation for an adult is changing jobs after working six years in the same place with the same people, said Jack Berckemeyer, assistant executive director of the National Middle School Association based in Columbus, Ohio.

Earlier this year, the middle school association and the National Association of Elementary School Principals issued a paper urging principals, teachers and parents to help ease the transition to middle school. Adults can help new middle school students recover that sense of belonging so common in elementary school, the groups said.

When students feel more comfortable, they are more likely to perform well, said Nathan Bailey, principal at Ladue Middle School. Like principals in many area middle schools, Bailey meets with fifth-graders in the spring to answer their questions and give them a tour.

Triad Middle School Principal Max Pigg said fifth-graders in that district are invited to visit and to share classrooms with sixth-graders. "It seems to ease the anxiety," Pigg said.

In Parkway, at least one Parkway summer school offers a course in how to survive middle school.

Some of Flynn's students could teach that class.

Future sixth-graders should never give out the combination to the lock on their locker because people will turn it upside down or take things and put them where you can't find them, Michael Holloran said.

Britt Banaszynski advised future sixth-graders to "get to classes on time, have your books and materials so you don't get in trouble."

Teachers will say something if your shorts are too short or if you wear pajama pants, Claire Latham wrote to future sixth-graders.

Certain supplies are essential. Mike Caraffa, 12, recommends a calculator, a ruler and "a focused mind."

Alena Armstrong said: "Let those butterflies out of your stomach and take a deep breath. Wish for the best. Be yourself, and don't try to impress others. It's really not that scary."

Tips from students on how to survive middle school

Get organized and be responsible

Choose your friends carefully and what you tell them.

Think ahead about what books you need from your locker.

Dress appropriately and get to your classes on time.

Tips for parents to help children adapt to middle school

Attend school functions, meet your child's teachers and stay involved in your child's education.

Support children's efforts to become independent.

Encourage your child to tour the new school.

Make sure your middle-schooler has the supplies the school requires.

Provide your child with tasks that help develop organizational skills and responsibility long before middle school.

Encourage children to try new things and regard failure as part of learning.

Help children learn about school rules, schedules, locker procedures and the availability of counseling.

Be alert to signs of depression or anxiety in students and seek help when needed.

Source: Middle school teachers, the National Middle School Association and the National Association of Elementary School Principals

==================================================

05/30/02

The Oregonian

Master of stones and bones

Dave Olcott, an eighth-grade science teacher, has spent 31 years at Centennial Middle

D ave Olcott, 55, teaches eighth-grade science at Centennial Middle School and coaches the track, cross-country and basketball teams. He recently won the district's Triple C Staff Recognition Award for his caring, creativity and commitment when it comes to teaching students.

Olcott also received the Middle School Teacher of the Year award in 1998 from the Oregon Science Teachers Association.

During his 31 years at Centennial, Olcott originated several programs at the school that he hopes will outlast his career, including the Heppner Exchange, a Stones and Bones elective and summer overnight field trips to Steens Mountain. Family: Olcott was raised in east Portland and lives in Corbett with his wife, Dee, 54; son, Collin, 21; and daughter, Erin, 19. Why teaching?: "I suppose the motivation was just working with young people," he said. "Science has been an interest of mine, and that's easy to bring into the classroom."

Olcott received his teaching license through Portland State University and obtained a master's degree in physical geography with a focus on ecology and field geology from the University of Illinois. Rural exchange: Olcott started the middle school's Heppner Exchange in spring 1981. It sends 30 Centennial eighth-graders to the heart of the dryland wheat country in Eastern Oregon for a week. Heppner, the seat of Morrow County, bounded by the Blue Mountains to the south and large corporate farms to the north, is about a three-hour drive from Portland. The same number of Heppner eighth-graders travel west and stay with Centennial families.

Centennial students live with Heppner families on ranches, farms or in town and attend classes at Heppner High School, which encompasses grades seven through 12. Heppner has 35 students in the eighth grade. Centennial has 500 eighth-graders.

The 30 student spaces are selected by random drawing because more than 100 Centennial students apply for the exchange program. While there, Centennial students learn about dryland farming, irrigation, forestry and livestock. The highlight for many is the day they take turns branding, vaccinating and castrating cattle.

Heppner students visiting the Portland area learn about the agricultural, business and industry changes in east Multnomah County. They hike in the Columbia River Gorge and take the MAX to go shopping in downtown Portland. Field tripping: Olcott has led overnight student trips to the John Day Fossil Beds to explore plant fossils, collect specimens, identify weathering patterns in rock formations and watch the sunrise on the Painted Hills.

For a 1994 salmon unit in his science class, Olcott took students on a day trip to Bonneville Dam and the fish hatchery in the Columbia River Gorge. Students heard speakers from the Bonneville Power Administration and the Oregon Tribal Council. Stones and Bones: Olcott started a lapidary lab at the school 14 years ago and named the 17-student elective "Stones and Bones." Students learn how to polish rough stones such as thunder eggs, which Olcott collects on weekend trips, and use deer antlers to flake obsidian arrowheads.

"The class is hands on and ties in with their geology lessons," he said. "You never know what's going to kick the lights on with a kid. You get some kids who are not excelling in other classes, and you give them something hands on to do, and it gets them fired up."

Students use diamond saws, a high-speed sander and a buffing wheel to cut and polish their thunder eggs, Brazilian agate and petrified wood. Students are required to finish at least three big projects during the nine-week quarter. Some make belt buckles, pen sets, and heart- and cross-shaped pendants.

Olcott said perfecting the technique takes practice and patience, and can be frustrating for young people accustomed to instant gratification.

"You still need to work the stone and talk to it nicely to get it finished," he said.

Olcott's lapidary lab is also open to the Mt. Hood Rock Club, a community group that meets several times a week to cut and polish the rocks they've collected. Snake scare: Occupying a large corner in Olcott's classroom -- decorated with lynx, coyote, elk and mountain sheep skulls as well as enlarged photos of students on field trips -- is a homemade cage that has housed a 4-foot-long gopher snake for 21 years.

Olcott found the snake at the side of the road in Heppner and named it Crunch. Its counterpart, Munch, was released after two years because a mouse that Olcott had tried to feed the snakes ended up chewing on Munch's tail. Fifteen years ago, one of the snakes escaped from the cage for several weeks and made repeat appearances along the gym floor until it was caught elsewhere in the building.

Olcott had originally built the snake cage for a boa constrictor 24 years ago. He and the principal submitted a purchase order for a 3-foot-long boa, but the request was denied by the superintendent. They resubmitted the order as two units of reptile specimen, and after its approval, purchased the snake. The snake fell ill two years later and died of a liver disease.

The animal and nature enthusiast calls Crunch a "nice pet." "It's clean, and all I have to do is throw in a warm mouse every now and then," said Olcott, who feeds the snake every two weeks. He buys live mice from the pet store, or his students bring them in from their farms.

"I don't wound the mouse," he said. "But if the mouse stays in there for more than a day, I have to start feeding the mouse." Retirement rumors: Olcott quelled rumors that he would be retiring in June and said he would teach for at least another year.

"I still have the spirit and energy to interact with kids, and that's what it's all about." -- Tracy Jan

==================================================

5/26/2002

The Boston Globe

Tough years a bit easier with students as guides

By Sandy Coleman,
Globe Staff

The long hours of work. The gossip. Intimidating peers. It's tough to be a middle-schooler, say students at St. Kevin School in Dorchester.

''We go through a lot of changes and stuff,'' said seventh-grader Paul Benoit. ''We're making new friends and our parents are in our lives. They want to know everything. They want to make sure we are not doing drugs, not staying up too late and are getting enough to eat. So, it's a hard time.''

The solution: ''Middle Schoolers Know What's Up,'' a 26-page survival guide written by students for students. Benoit and other St. Kevin seventh-graders offer fellow middle-schoolers advice on everything from how to handle loads of homework (put all your effort into it) to how to avoid gossip (don't tell your secrets) and how to make teachers like you (laugh at their jokes).

Edward Sullivan, head of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Middle Level Educators and assistant principal at Sarah Givens Middle School, said he has not seen such a guide written by students for students.

''At this age, it's very common for [students] to think parents know nothing, and they know everything. So, they might be more willing to look at the advice that is given by other students,'' said Sullivan, who reads a lot of material aimed at middle-school educators, students, and parents.

It's not surprising that students would write such a guide, said Jack Berckemeyer, assistant executive director of the National Middle School Association. ''Adolescents all across the United States, even Canada, have been figuring out what their role is in dealing with conflict and issues that relate to them.''

Social worker Nancy Pando is helping students publish the guide, complete with student drawings, at a copy shop to make it available in guidance counselors' offices. Pando, who has been working in schools using a Department of Public Health grant aimed at urban parochial schools, suggested students work on the guide because she, like other experts, believes that the middle-school years can be life-changing.

When she began discussing the guide, the students launched into negative talk with lots of complaints: too much homework, too much gossip, too hard to stick with things, they told Pando. She helped them focus. ''The purpose of the guide is to draw out of the kids the strengths that get them through the day,'' said Pando, who teaches at Regis College in Weston. ''What it is they do well and how they can give that to peers.''

Benoit, who gets advice from his mom and his older siblings, agrees information is more meaningful when it comes from peers. ''Hearing it from a kid is easier than hearing it from a grown-up,'' he said. ''When you're hearing it from a grown-up it's like they were your age 50 years ago.''

One of Benoit's pieces of advice in the guide: ''When handling a bully - never under any circumstances cry or hit them. After they either make fun of you or hit you, go up to the meanest teacher and tell them what he or she did.''

''Some kids will really have problems with bullies,'' said Beniot, 13. ''Sometimes [the person being picked on] starts to think of things to do back to them, very mean things like going into a school and shooting people. The only reason that happens is because they didn't have anyone to help them because nobody knows.''

One thing that can help students through difficult, uncomfortable and embarrassing situations is to keep a ''game face'' (think poker face), said Brandon Webbe, 13.

''I use it most of the time,'' said Webbe. ''I've used it if I wasn't paying attention that much in class and lost the page number or whatever.''

==================================================

05-28-02

Los Angeles Times

Single-Gender Schools Gaining Favor, Success

Education: Some pupils like segregated classrooms, but critics say it's not real world.

By MASSIE RITSCH, Times Staff Writer

As they sit separated by a hallway, the boys and girls of Jefferson Leadership Academies in Long Beach don't cite research to explain why they concentrate, learn and behave. And they don't care whether their public middle school violates federal law. Something about their school is working, they say. And if they took classes together, it wouldn't.

"You can ask your teacher something girlie, and you don't have to worry about boys saying something cruel," seventh-grader Kiona Jones said. "It's more open."

Boys at the school acknowledge that the girls would distract them. In a class of just boys, eighth-grader Jesse Alvarez said, "we still joke around, but we get our work done."

Educators have debated whether single-sex classrooms make Jesse more focused and Kiona less timid, but for three decades the question has been overshadowed by fears that spending public dollars on such segregated programs would violate federal laws against discrimination.

However, Congress and officials in the Bush administration recently signaled that single-sex classes should not be confined to private schools and that revised regulations will lift the legal cloud. As a result, rare experiments like Jefferson's are expected to become more common.

"Our effort here is not to say that single-sex education is the greatest thing since sliced bread," said Brian Jones, general counsel for the U.S. Department of Education, at a briefing this month. Rather, he said, the government is encouraging innovation and flexibility, and will not fund schools that extend advantages to one gender without offering comparable treatment to the other.

This shift in federal opinion is the most dramatic in the field since Title IX became law in 1972 to give female students equal access to education. Along with the offer of millions of dollars in federal grants for experimental programs, the policy change has invigorated the single-sex movement-and the debate over whether it really helps youngsters.

"It says to the local school districts, 'If you'd like to look into it, don't worry about the lawyers ganging up on you,'" said Carolyn Colletti of the National Coalition of Girls' Schools.

Educators wanting to develop same-sex programs will likely look to Jefferson Leadership Academies and the 10 other public schools nationwide where either one gender is excluded or boys and girls take all their academic classes apart. An uncounted number of other U.S. schools separate the genders in only some subjects, such as math and science.

The voluntary program that Jefferson Principal Jill Rojas designed three years ago to revamp the low-scoring Long Beach school was an attractive example even before Washington warmed to single-sex schooling. For about 1,200 students in grades six through eight, Jefferson has one faculty, one campus and one cafeteria. Every class but band is segregated.

While one group of 35 boys studies reading, writing and social studies, the girls-also in blue and white uniforms-study math and science across the hall. At midday, they swap. For homeroom, the boys are assigned to male teachers and the girls to female ones.

"We both have English with Miss Jones. You have it first period, I have it third period. What's the difference?" Rojas said, conjecturing why her "separate but equal" model has not been among those challenged by civil-rights organizations.

Opponents attribute whatever success single-sex schools have achieved to other advantages: small classes, skilled teachers, active parents-but not the gender separation. Lack of those extras, they contend, shortchanges children at less-fortunate schools. And, critics argue, single-sex schools train students in an environment too different from the adult world.

"Schools are the workplace of childhood," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, which joined the New York chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union to formally complain about a public high school for girls in Harlem. "If we teach that boys and girls can't learn together and can't thrive together ... that's not a good lesson for our daughters or our sons."

A coeducational environment, particularly in middle and high schools, is not "the real world" either, counters Leonard Sax, the Maryland physician and psychologist who runs the National Assn. for the Advancement of Single Sex Public Education.

"It is a very peculiar and unreal culture in which what counts is how you look, not who you are," Sax said.

That is precisely why Tina Perry sends her 14-year-old daughter to Jefferson in the Long Beach Unified School District. Teenagers, Perry has observed teaching at a Watts middle school, are "hormonal hoodlums," and putting them all together disrupts learning.

In the coed science classes that Perry teaches, "I just feel like I waste time knowing who's dating who," so she can keep them apart during lab projects, she said. High school, however, is not a place to separate students, Perry believes, so she is sending her daughter to ninth grade at a school with coed classes.

Educators argue about an array of research on single-sex schools. The most exhaustive studies were conducted abroad, mostly in England and Australia, where single-sex public schools are deeply rooted.

Overall, the research suggests that same-gender education works for some students but not all, and that such programs do little or no harm. Some research concludes single-sex classes are best in elementary school. Other studies find more benefits in middle and high school. By some measures, single-sex is worthwhile only for girls, especially minority girls from low-income homes. Still more studies suggest that boys benefit too.

"There is no definitive study that says absolutely, positively, without a doubt the best way to educate kids is single-sex classrooms. But there's also no definitive study that says absolutely, positively, without a doubt the best way is coed classrooms," said Karen Stabiner, the Los Angeles author of "All Girls: Single-Sex Education and Why It Matters," scheduled for publication in August by Riverhead Books. The spectrum of opinions suggests that new single-sex programs in public school districts won't all look alike, few if any will be mandatory, and most public schools will remain coed.

The wide-ranging reform bill passed last year by Congress and signed in January by President Bush directed the Department of Education to revise its regulations to permit more single-sex elementary and secondary programs. The department on May 8 opened a 60-day period for public comment.

A 1996 Supreme Court decision that opened the publicly funded Virginia Military Institute to women left room for exclusive education programs if "comparable," or equally funded, opportunities are available to all students.

"'Comparable' doesn't mean the same.... If you have a ballet class at the girls' school, you don't have to have a ballet class at the boys' school," said Sax, the advocate for single-sex public education.

California attracted much attention in the late 1990s for its experiment with separate academies for boys and girls. When the state funding ran out, all but one of the six schools closed. Students at the remaining San Francisco 49ers Academies in East Palo Alto have improved their grades and behavior and are less likely to skip school or drop out, the school reports.

At the Jefferson academies in Long Beach, teachers make small adjustments for differences they perceive in boys' and girls' development, learning styles and interests.

Boys in Jack Sokoloff's seventh-grade humanities class want to know more about military battles. In her science class for girls, Marisela Moreno emphasizes women's contributions to medicine.

Diane Naegele, a seventh-grade humanities teacher, said that in 14 years of teaching at other schools, she never gave boys much credit. Girls seemed to be doing the deep thinking. When Jefferson boys are by themselves, she has noticed, "they're willing to say their crazy ideas, and a lot of their crazy ideas have meat to them."

Outside of Jefferson's classrooms, there are fewer formal divisions, but students create them. In the cafeteria, girls sit mostly to the left of the lunch line and boys take the right. The playground is less segregated.

Jefferson's program seems to sit well with most students, but some grumble. Contrary to studies that show students are more focused in single-sex classes, Oscar Vasquez, 12, said he would pay better attention if a girl-at least one he thought was cute-were at the desk next to him.

"If you didn't know some kind of math and she knew it, you'd really listen to her," he said. "But with another boy, you'd just start playing around."

Since Jefferson split into single-gender academies, the school's overall standardized-test score has improved 16%. Although it is difficult to isolate the reason among other educational reforms, increases were achieved in all grades and all subjects by all ethnicities and both genders.

Still, Jefferson's scores remain well below the state average for middle schools-although among urban schools with similar demographics, Jefferson ranks higher. Coming mostly from the surrounding neighborhood but also elsewhere in Long Beach, more than 80% of the academies' students qualify for free or discounted lunches because of their families' low incomes. About a third are classified as still learning English.

"The students think they've done better" because they study in segregated classes, principal Rojas said. "And that's all I care about."

==================================================

==================================================