Prince George's County Sees Scores Rise

Interesting article in The Washington Post about the recent rise in test scores in Prince George's County, Maryland: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/14/AR2008111401342.html?hpid=sec-education

As the article notes,

"The Prince George's County school system made "significant progress" in the 2007-08 school year, the first time it has met Maryland academic standards since a new testing regimen began in 2003, state officials announced yesterday."

We're particularly proud of progress in Prince George's County, which has been a partner of ours in this year's new Maryland Algebra/Data Analysis program: http://www.walch.com/product/2386

2008 Election Ideal for Classroom Discussion

Our newest Teachable Moment at Walch.com uses the 2008 election as a springboard for discussion. The 10th in a series of free lesson plans, this Teachable Moment helps students explore what it means to be labeled a "Democrat" or "Republican," how those terms came into use, and how political parties function today.

Complete with worksheets, answer keys, online references, and a list of National History Standards addressed, the Teachable Moment gives educators an opportunity to use today's headlines to further informed classroom research and learning. Here's the link:

http://www.walch.com/teachable/teachable_moments_10_billboard_controversy.pdf

We developed each Teachable Moment to supplement your own instructional materials, providing background information and student prompts. The 2008 election is now only a week away, but the lessons it can teach students about how political parties were created, how they define themselves, and what that means for the political process -- these lessons will be as valuable next year and for the foreseeable future.

Time was, political affiliation was unquestioned by many Americans. You were a Republican or a Democrat -- and that was it. Today's students want to know the real meaning behind these terms, and our newest Teachable Moment is a great way to kickstart that discussion.

FCTE, FCTM, GCTM, MCTM

One week ago, at the same time, Walch Education was exhibiting at four educational conferences: the Florida Council of Teachers of English (http://www.fcte.org), the Florida Council of Teachers of Mathematics (http://www.fctm.net), the Georgia Council of Teachers of Mathematics (http://www.gctm.org) and the Maryland Council of Teachers of Mathematics (http://www.marylandmath.org).

In the South and in the North, talking to language arts teachers and talking to mathematics teachers, we kept hearing the same things:

• Even the textbooks that supposedly align to state standards often miss the mark, leaving the teachers to fill in the gaps
• Hands-on learning is critical
• If it makes a teacher's life easier, it has value
• Test prep drives much of what teachers work on

That last item is particularly noteworthy. Whatever an individual teacher's -- or district's, or state's -- opinion about "teaching to the test," those standardized tests cannot be ignored.

And more are coming. According to Outsell, a research and advisory firm focused on the publishing, information, and education industries, "Starting in 2012, the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) will for the first time measure technology literacy and proficiency among K-12 students on a national level."

The materials and programs that garner interest are those that make a teacher's life easier and help prepare kids for tests.

One of our programs that drew a lot of attention was the Station Activities series: http://www.walch.com/search.php?catid=42 We currently have versions addressing Georgia and Florida standards, as well as a national version. These are all for middle school mathematics classes; in a few months, we'll have language arts versions, too.

PD in the USVI

That's Jill Rosenblum, our Director of Standards and Assessment, conducting a professional development (PD) program this past week in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.

As was noted below in the June 25th post, Walch Education is providing junior-high and high-school Academic Support Programs (ASPs) for both Language Arts and Mathematics to the St. Croix School District. Jill and Susan Graham, our Director of Education, helped to develop the four programs, and spent some time in the USVI (a territory of the United States), working with local educators to implement the programs, each of which was correlated to the Virgin Islands' Academic Content Standards.

In Jill's words, “Each of the ASPs contains approximately 60 hours of instruction. They’re complete programs with a variety of teaching tools and strategies, something the instructor can use to review core concepts, assess students’ needs, and—maybe most important—provide remediation and support for the skills identified as needing special attention.”

Maryland HSA Prep Boosted with New Walch Course

More than 10,000 8th- and 9th-grade students are starting the school year using Walch Education's Maryland Algebra/Data Analysis program, which you can learn more about at http://www.walch.com/news/Maine%20and%20Maryland%20collaborate%20on%20math%20program.pdf.

We developed this program in partnership with Prince George's County, but it's already creating quite a buzz elsewhere in Maryland. What makes the MD ADA so special? Not only is it ideal for helping kids get ready for the HSAs and MSAs, it also gives teachers a wide range of instructional methods to choose from, in dealing with (we are told) a wide range of learning styles and abilities.

The MD ADA comes as two teacher binders, which are completey reproducible, plus a hardbound student book. Total cost is as low as $45/student -- and that's for a full-year course.

Getting graphic about organizers

We recently came across a very useful paper written by the good people at CAST, the Center for Applied Special Technology: www.cast.org/publications/ncac/ncac_go.html

The topic is graphic organizers, those ways of displaying information or data visually and creatively. Sometimes they're called "knowledge maps," sometimes they're referred to as diagrams, but however you name them, they're incredibly useful in working with a diverse group of students, especially those who learn visually. The paper is a great overview of some of the basic forms of graphic organizers, what distinguishes them from each other, and how they are applied.

Walch, of course, has a number of books focusing on graphic organizers within disciplines. Here, for instance, is our title on Graphic Organizers for Geometry: www.walch.com/product/850.

Florida rule heralds more summer school

The Miami Herald from Tuesday, July 8th, has an intriguing story about a new law in Florida: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami_dade/story/596955.html.

The law, enacted two years back, requires middle school students in the Sunshine State to pass their core subjects before moving on to ninth grade, high school. That means that thousands and thousands of Florida middle schoolers who were previously "passed through" to high school will now be required to take summer school classes or in some other way raise their grades to an acceptable level.

It's clear that the trend towards tougher state standards is not going to rest at the high-school level. More and more, we're seeing states formalize their learning expectations in middle schools, too. That's a major reason why we've been developing targeted programs for that age group: http://www.walch.com/search.php?query=florida&per_page=