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.

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=

Walch Education has inked a deal with the St. Croix School District of the U.S. Virgin Islands. We'll be developing and providing customized versions of our award-winning Academic Support Programs (ASPs). The material is being developed for approximately 700 special education students in the St. Croix district. We're creating four distinct ASPS, one each for Junior High and High School Mathematics and English Language Arts.

Each ASP will be developed according to NCTM and NCTE standards and correlated to the Virgin Islands’ Academic Content Standards. The ASPs will also include implementation guides keyed to the basal series being used in various classrooms.

Walch Education’s ASP series has been widely used in both national, standards-based versions and state-specific versions in Maryland, Florida, and Georgia. The national Algebra and English Language Arts versions were recently given Distinguished Achievement Awards “For Excellence in Educational Publishing” at the annual meeting of the Association of Educational Publishers.

To Tutor: In-house or not?

Interesting article in last Friday's Washington Post about how schools in Virginia, Maryland and elsewhere are finding that hiring outside tutors to work with their struggling students doessn't necessarily lead to better test scores. The headline is "Mandated Tutoring Not Helping Md., Va. Scores," and you can read the full article at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/12/AR2008061203681.html

The issue in a nutshell: NCLB requires certain schools to provide tutors to struggling students. But after all the time and expense of hiring and bringing those outside firms up to speed, the results are often negligible.

That emerging story is certainly contributing to the success of our customized Academic Support Program ("ASP") materials. Because the ASPs can be tailored to individual district needs, they also make sense in an in-school tutoring context. Rather than paying outside resources that may or may not hit the target, districts can use the ASPs as a comprehensive program for teacher-tutors.

That's what we're especially good at: developing customized materials that zero in on a particular district's particular needs. And then creating the materials, printing them quickly on our in-house digital presses, and delivering them with customized professional development. Sometimes the materials are new from the ground up, sometimes they're more of a tweak on the established state standards, or what the district next door has already developed. But however we work with a district, we're able to offer a level of attention and detail they simply can't find from traditional publishers.

And that includes materials that work for tutors, too.

3 for 3 ain't bad!

Our Director of Education, Susan Graham, just returned from Washington, D.C., site last week of the annual conference of the Association of Educational Publishers (AEP). This, our industry group, gives out annual awards for the "best of the best" published materials for schools. They're known as "Distinguished Achievement Awards."

We jokingly told Susan before she left that she shouldn't "return without any metal." Well, she didn't disappoint. Walch Education had three books nominated in three separate categories -- and we won for each of our entries! They are:

1) Our Academic Support Program (ASP) for Mathematics (in the category of Curriculum Packages for Mathematics, grades 9-12) http://www.walch.com/product/2157

2) Building Math (in the category of Currriculum Packages for Mathematics, grades 6-8) http://www.walch.com/product/2137

3) Our Academic Support Program for English Language Arts (in the category of Curriculum Packages for Reading & Language Instruction, grades 9-12) http://www.walch.com/product/2106

No, it may not be quite the same as receiving an Oscar or Tony, but it nevertheless makes us awfully proud. These are materials we created in close consultation with educators, they have been extremely successful in the field -- and now we have the kudos of our professional peers, as well.

Susan tells us there were photos taken in Washington, with her holding the three awards...we'll find those and post them, too.

AEP Distinguished Achievement Awards

3 of our titles have been nominated for the annual "Distinguished Achievement Awards" issued by the Association of Educational Publishers (http://www.aepweb.org/). The titles include our Algebra Academic Support Program, Building Math (created in alliance with Boston's Museum of Science) and Academic Support Program for English Language Arts. The actual awards are given out at the AEP's annual event, in Washington, D.C. in early June.

What's Next? Life skills!

Our newest release is What's Next? A Simulation of Adult Life Stages.

What's Next? was developed for middle- and high-school students, or special education classes, focusingon life-skills, consumer mathematics, or other similar curricula. Through role-playing activities, students learn the skills they will need as they transition into adulthood.

Take our word for it, this book is a lot of fun. Essentially, adulthood is conceived of as a "game" (and who's to say it isn't?) that the players (students) must learn how to manueuver through, gaining credits along the way.

Helping students prep for the November election

Another new set of releases for us are Dialogue, Discussion, and Debate: Social Studies and Dialogue, Discussion, and Debate: Science. Each is particularly apropos, considering the upcoming elections. Each title helps students develop methods for talking about and analyzing controversial subjects, such as genetic engineering, evolution vs. creationism, illegal downloads, assault weapons, hate speech, and more.


If your children are like my 7- and 12-year-old, then getting them to think and articulate clearly about topical matters is a challenge. That's why we think the "D3" series will prove to be so useful in classrooms.


You can learn more about the titles at http://www.walch.com/product/2197

Building Math recognized in District Administration magazine

It's nice to see Building Math, Walch Education's 3-book series that teaches middle school students algebra by solving engineering problems atop Everest, deep in the Amazon, or on a deserted island, recognized as the featured product in the "New Products" section of the current issue of District Administration magazine:

http://www.districtadministration.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=1368

Building Math has been hailed as an innovative approach to STEM curricula (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) in middle schools. The series was developed in partnership with Tufts University and Boston's Museum of Science.