Saturday, January 21, 2006

Kings Dominion Law Remains

Larry O'Dell for Associated Press reports that Virginia is not going to get rid of the Kings Dominion Law that prevents most Virginia public schools from opening prior to Labor Day. A bill that would have reverse the current law was killed by the Senate Education and Health Committee by a vote of 11-3 on Thursday.

According to the state Department of Education, 79 of the state's 132 school divisions had permission to start this academic year earlier, mostly to compensate for days missed because of bad weather."Others apply for it and get rejected year after year," said Sen. Kenneth Cuccinelli, R-Fairfax, who proposed eliminating the post-Labor Day opening law.Cuccinelli said Fairfax County school officials believe that the late start puts their students at a disadvantage in end-of-year testing.

As noted by Princess Moss, president of the Virginia Education System, feels that teachers want as much as they can have prior to the mandated Standards of Learning tests that are given in the Spring. The testing window for schools begins in March for the Writing SOL followed by the other core subjects in April/May. It does not make sense to educators to have up to a month and half after the tests; the time should be moved to the start of the school calendar.

Is there a way to have a compromise? Online courses would all schools to start prior to Labor Day. They could even be hybrid courses that start online prior to Labor Day and then move in the traditional mode after the holiday. Businesses that are centered around tourism would not loose their cheap labor force and schools could begin prior to labor day.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Saving Money By Having Independent Contractors

Apparently a public school district in Michigan has created a novel way to save the district thousands of dollars by simply have school administrators categorized as independent contractors. Hiring independent contractors allows school districts not to pay insurance or retirement perks.

Mr. Dowdy says that hiring independent contractors is becoming more popular with school districts around the state. However, he notes that teachers' unions are opposed to the idea for teachers.

It is certainly understandable why many teachers would be opposed to becoming an independent contractor because of the insurance premiums. For example, I get $475 per month taken out of my paycheck before taxes that helps defer the total cost of my family insurance while the school district pays approximately $612 per month on my behalf. I get paid about $2300 month. If I had to pay for my total insurance premium by paying out an extra $612, I would need to look for a second income to supplement. Something else to consider: I am assuming that I would get the same rate that the school district gets for the insurance which may not be the case because I would be an independent contractor. I may not have the "collective bargaining power" as a large organization to get the cheaper corporate rate. I honestly can see many public entities doing this to save money on behalf of the public purse.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Online Courses Popular

CNN reports that many college students like online course while some colleges feel that offering them is only giving in to the lazy student; however, one student reports that he concentrates better and as a result has better grades.

Public schools should be studying the trend that is happening around some colleges and univerisities and consider the option of offering some of its courses online like math. More than ever, many high school students are working part-time jobs to help towards the costs of their future college education. Many of the students that I hear from wish that courses like math could be offered online so that they could take an afternoon part-time job. I can't think of a better way to learn time-management and future undergraduate success. If a high schooler can juggle part-time work with an online class along with their high school campus classes, I feel we are assuring a student to succeed with higher education that demands students to multitask and we are also giving them the opportunitiy of true "real world" experience.

Another plus for offering online courses, would be to assure highly qualified teachers for all students. For example, many of our upper math courses like Trig and Statistics, have class enrollments under 20 compared to the average class size of 28 for other courses. It is very hard to find certified math teachers for five high schools but these courses could be taught online to all students by a qualified math teacher. The school district saves money too. Instead of five teachers, the school district is only paying for two or three teachers.

Virginia public schools are already offering online AP courses now but I feel that the school system should be looking at other ways to expand online options to other students as well. Online courses offer a win-win for both students and school officials.

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Cyper-age Nightmare on 20/20

The members of the Educational Technology Planning class aka EPPL 639 are way ahead of the issues presented on ABCNews' 20/20 in regards to green computing and the ethics surrounding our toxic e-waste. One solution that was presented in the show was to ask for an upfront fee that would be used to safely dispose of e-waste which Europe is currently doing as a way to curbside the toxic loads. In Europe, computers are being sent back to the manufacturer for recycling/reusing.

Two items of interest were discussed on 20/20. One of the interesting statistics mentioned was that the average computer monitor has five pounds of lead. The program also noted that hard drives needed to be wiped out with personal information before carted off to a foreign country; the reporter shared an incident that confidential information from the Wisconsin's Department of Health and Family Services found its way into the global community. We all should be concerned about the policies surrounding computer disposal since everyone of us has information like social security numbers, addresses, and other personal information that are on various hard drives that have collected over the years of life.

I know that there were a few of my classmates surprised about the toxic elements inside of computers when I presented the information on green computing. Now with the mainstream attention to this issue, it will be interesting to see how the general public responds to the issue.

Monday, January 02, 2006

Education, China, and Politics

With China soon to be the superpower of economics, language programs in public schools are focusing on Mandarin have already started in Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, and Boston.

In the U.S. Senate, the Foreign Relations Committee is considering a proposal to allocate $1.3 billion to boost Chinese language and culture classes in public school, and China, too, is doing its part, said Michael Levine, education director at The Asia Society in New York City. China's education ministry has formed partnerships with states including Kentucky and Kansas, as well as the countries of Brazil, Australia and the United Kingdom, to boost teacher exchanges and training.


Kansas says that its not fair to ignore the new world influence and were eager to add Chinese to their offerings. As pointed out:

Those who believe teaching Chinese is important point out that trade between the U.S. and China is growing. U.S. trade with China exceeded $230 billion last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, trailing only Canada and Mexico. It's difficult to learn. To read Chinese, one must know thousands of characters, because the language does not have an alphabet. And when speaking Chinese, tone can determine meaning. For example, "ask" and "kiss" are pronounced the same in Chinese but are differentiated by tones. But Low's students said knowing the language will give them an advantage when they apply to college or begin their careers.


While I have not check out all of these resources, for those that do not want to wait for their public schools, take a look at some of these online resources.