Inside Scoop
A Primer on the Texas Miracle

Where was George Bush when Texas leaders got serious about education?

Throughout the country, George Bush has been taking credit for leading the way to Texas's improved test scores, especially for minority students. But from inside the Lone Star State's schools, the view is different.

Texas teachers say the crucial reforms that led to today's better test results happened before Bush became governor--and, in fact, he's been against some of them.

A recent report put Texas among the top states for student test scores, after allowing for family background. What did the researchers give as reasons for Texas' success?
The report, from the RAND Corpora-tion, said the two biggest reasons were smaller classes in k-4 (a maximum of 22) and wider access to public pre-school (over 20 percent in Texas, higher than in any other state).

How did smaller primary grade classes and the big push for public pre-schools come to Texas?
Both of these reforms were launched by the pivotal Texas education law of 1984, usually called HB72. This law also included other important changes, such as planning periods for all teachers, dropout reduction efforts, higher salaries, and the "no pass, no play" provision requiring athletes to maintain academic standards or lose their eligibility to play.

All of these provisions upgraded the importance of learning in Texas. They were proposed by a commission led by Ross Perot that was appointed by Governor Mark White. And White worked hard to see them enacted into law.

George Bush, according to his official biography, was working in his family oil business at the time.

Has George Bush proposed federal efforts to reduce class size or to expand public pre-school in his campaign for President?
No. But Al Gore has. He pledges to complete the job of hiring 100,000 new teachers for the early grades, and to help communities build more schools so they will have modern classrooms to teach in.

Gore also proposes a $50 billion plan to provide universal access to high-quality pre-school, starting with all four-year-olds. Parents would not be required to send their children, but tuition would no longer be a barrier.

What other factors have helped Texas teachers boost student achievement, especially for minority students?
A lawsuit brought by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund led to a state Supreme Court ruling in 1989 declaring that the Texas school finance system was unconstitutional.

The evidence showed the wealthiest district in Texas had over $14 million of assessed valuation per child, while the poorest district had only $20,000--a ratio of 700 to 1.

As a result, children in wealthy communities had far more money spent on their public education, even though their parents paid lower taxes than residents of poor communities. The court ordered the state to change that.

The legislature responded with a 1993 law often called "Robin Hood," under which state funds are used to compensate--partially--for local differences in property wealth. Ann Richards was the governor when this law was passed.

George Bush, that year, was working with a group of partners who had bought the Texas Rangers baseball team.

Now that he is governor, Bush says he's against Robin Hood.

What has Bush done about education as governor?
Mostly, he's not tried to turn the clock back on the reforms launched by his predecessors. He has also promoted more funding for reading programs.

On the negative side, Bush pushed for vouchers in all three of the legislative sessions during his time in office. The legislature turned him down, but he kept coming back to try again.

Where has Bush stood on state funding for education?
Last year, the state had a budget surplus of $6 billion. The legislature wanted to use most of this surplus for teacher raises, realizing that Texas salaries are far below the national average.

Governor Bush disagreed. He wanted the lion's share for tax cuts. The money left over, Bush said, should go to school boards to use as they saw fit. He didn't want it earmarked for teacher raises.

After a six-month battle with the legislature, the governor got $2 billion in tax cuts, but he had to accept $3,000 raises for all teachers. The compromise left Texas teachers better off than before. But due to Bush's opposition, their salaries are still several thousand dollars below the national average.

Low salaries make it hard to attract and keep qualified teachers. Texas has 500,000 certified teachers who have left the profession. It needs only 270,000 to staff every classroom, but districts can't fill vacancies. Last year, there were 12,000 teachers on emergency permits and 10,000 permanent subs.

That's just not good for Texas children.

--Alain Jehlen

News: Rights Watch
Protecting Your Intellectual Property Rights Online

So you think you own the fruits of your intellectual labor? Think again.

Suppose you create original "cyber materials" for an online course you teach as a part of your school's Web-based, distance education program.

If you later change jobs, can you still use those materials to teach the course at a different school?

Better yet, can you sell them to a company or another school?

And what if some other school or teacher uses them without permission? Can you sue for money damages?

The answer depends on who owns the copyright to these materials--you or your employer.

Historically, teachers haven't worried very much about this. In the traditional classroom setting, lesson plans and other personally produced materials have had little commercial value.

But the explosion of distance education has changed all that. Like textbooks, online instructional materials created for Web-based learning can be used and reused without the involvement of the teacher who originally created them. These materials have value separate and apart from the teacher's skill in teaching.

The proliferation of private companies offering a host of online educational services has also created a hot market for teacher-produced, instructional materials.

This, in turn, has raised the stakes in intellectual property rights.

So who owns the copyright to cyber materials? Under the federal copyright law, it's whomever the employer and employee designate as the owner.

But if there isn't any written agreement, the general rule is that the employer owns the copyright to materials that teachers produce as part of their jobs.

Materials created by teachers in the scope of their employment are deemed "works for hire" under the federal Copyright Act of 1976, and --unless the parties agree otherwise in writing-- the school employer owns them.

In deciding whether particular materials are "works for hire" created in the scope of employment, courts consider these factors:

• Did the employee's job duties include creating the materials?

• Did the employee create the materials on the job or with the employer's equipment?

• Did the employee create the materials to aid or "serve" the employer?

In most cases where teachers are given the assignment to produce original "cyber materials" for the school, the teachers' creations will be deemed a "work for hire" owned by the employer.

But where teachers develop distance learning materials on their own and for their personal benefit, the teachers likely will be deemed the copyright owner, with the right to use, license, or sell the materials.

So how can teachers protect their intellectual property rights? Working with their local NEA affiliate, they should bargain protections into the collective bargaining agreement. In non-bargaining states, local NEA affiliates and school employers should develop equitable intellectual property policies.

One solution is to bargain a "shop right" arrangement that allows teachers to retain copyright ownership of the distance learning materials they create, but grants the school a "license" to use the materials as part of its educational program.

This compromise approach protects a teacher's intellectual property rights, but also recognizes a school employer's legitimate interest in securing use of the materials for instruction by the school.

There are, however, many other valid approaches that school employees and employers can use. To learn about one NEA local affiliate's solution, check out the sidebar on this page.

--Cynthia M. Chmielewski
NEA Office of General Counsel

One Local's Solution

How can an NEA local affiliate successfully bargain intellectual property rights for faculty-created distance education materials?

In Flint, Michigan, the answer for the Mott Community College Education Association is interest-based bargaining.

MCCEA initially raised the intellectual property rights issue back in 1997, and both parties agreed to use the collaborative problem-solving clause of the local contract to resolve it.

After 16 months of collaboration, that decision has paid off in an agreement that MCCEA President Steve Robinson calls a "win-win solution."

How's that possible?

The agreement divides ownership rights between the creating faculty member and the college.

The college owns the rights to the actual courseware product, but the faculty member owns the rights to all notes and materials used in its production.

The result? If a faculty member leaves the college, neither party is left empty-handed. The college can still use the courseware product, and the faculty member is free to use all the notes and materials at a new job.

The agreement also provides faculty members with other rights, including the right of first refusal to teach the course and the right to share in revenues.

To read MCCEA's innovative contract language, visit the local's Web site at www.mccea.org/intelprop.html.

Departments: Resources
Lessons Learned Abroad

New Zealand's decade-long school reform efforts offer lessons for the United States.

When Schools Compete:
A Cautionary Tale
By Edward B. Fiske
And Helen F. Ladd
Brookings Institute Press
$18.98

The debate over how to improve America's public schools is long and vigorous. Choice, competition, vouchers, and charter schools top the laundry list of reform ideas proposed by many. But do they work?

This book attempts to answer. Its authors, Edward Fiske, a longtime education editor at the New York Times, and his wife, Helen Ladd, a professor of public policy and economics at Duke University, examine a decade-long education reform effort in New Zealand, the largest and longest experiment with self-governing schools operating in a competitive environment.

In 1989, New Zealand embarked on what is arguably the most radical overhaul of a state education system ever undertaken by an industrialized country. The government abolished the national department of education and turned over control of the country's nearly 2,700 primary and secondary schools to locally elected boards of trustees, controlled by parents. This series of reforms was called Tomorrow's Schools.

Two years later, in 1991, a newly elected government abolished neighborhood enrollment zones and committed to free-market principles, giving parents the right to choose which school their children would attend.

Interested in this large-scale reform, Fiske and Ladd spent five months of 1998 visiting New Zealand schools, analyzing data and interviewing teachers, school administrators, parents and policy-makers. They were particularly interested because New Zealand has roughly the same population as an American state, and it has similar social, cultural and political traditions as the United States, as well as a similar minority population.

The reform has provided a laboratory for self-governing schools and parental choice--ideas that underlie the current interest in voucher experiments and charter schools in America. The book details both the successes and failures of this experiment, providing invaluable insights and lessons learned for all who are interested in improving public schools.

The authors found that while New Zealanders clearly enjoy the empowerment of self-governance, operational freedom, and parental choice, several negative consequences emerged. The biggest? Senior education officials conceded to the authors that the system of self-governing schools in a competitive marketplace did not work for 10 to 30 percent of the schools.

"The promotion of a competitive educational environment assumes that some schools will be successful and others unsuccessful," write the authors. "Is it desirable to reform a state educational system in such a way that you know from the outset that some schools--and more important, the students in them--will find themselves in a worse situation than before?"

While some schools and students actually did benefit from the reform efforts, many did not--particularly minority and low-income students. The authors found a dramatic increase in polarized school enrollment patterns by race and ethnicity.

Schools deemed to be high quality, based on the socioeconomic and racial mix of its students, quickly became oversubscribed. They were then allowed to set their own admissions criteria, virtually hand-picking the more affluent and high-achieving students.

Meanwhile, minority students became increasingly concentrated in schools serving high proportions of minority and low-income students. Their choices were extremely limited.

"The problems of schools serving concentrations of disadvantaged students will not be solved by school autonomy and parental choice,'' write the authors. Instead, they advise, policy-makers would be wise to address more directly the challenges of teaching and learning in such schools.

--Dina Spector Gómez

Excerpt:
"The concept of an educational marketplace presumes that some competitors will succeed and others will fail...New Zealand's experience with Tomorrow's Schools thus raises the question of whether it is appropriate, practically as well as morally, to organize public education in such a way that, when the system is operating the way it is designed to function, there will be failures as well as successes among both institutions and individuals."

New from the NEA Professional Library

Coping with Standards,
Tests, and Accountability
Voices from the Classroom

Allan A. Glatthorn and Jean Fontana
144 pp., $14.95
#2015-4-00-FN

No trend in current American education can be as baffling or polarizing as the standards movement.

How to raise test scores, improve student performance, and evaluate teachers are issues hotly debated in nearly every community.

In 12 well-referenced chapters, teachers, teacher educators, and administrators share their views on and experiences with accountability, testing, and standards programs in states and school districts throughout the nation.

For more information, call 800-229-4200, or check the Web at www.nea.org/books.

Books by NEA Members

The Microchip Caper
By Robert Graham

Eleven-year-old Julie and her twelve-year-old brother Todd have sailed from California to Hawaii with their parents in search of fun and relaxation. What they find, however, is an adventure aboard a mysterious boat loaded with boxes full of computer parts! For children ages eight to eleven. 114 pp., $4.95 plus $4 s&h from Island Heritage Publishing, 99880 Iwaena, Aiea, HI 96701, 800/468-2800.

In Your Face: Words of Encouragement for Youth The ABCs of it...
By Rita G. Giles

Teenagers often have difficulty expressing themselves to their parents and peers and that can result in harsh words and angry feelings. In Your Face helps teens communicate effectively and fight through adversity to lead productive, peaceful lives. This book can help parents gain insight into the life of their teenager.

125 pp., $9.95 plus $1.75 s&h from GiRo Consulting Company, P.O. Box 8961, Falls Church, VA 22041.

My Personal Spanish/English Phrase Book
By Richard Simonson

This handy phrase book lists hundreds of idiomatic expressions useful for teaching any grade level. Includes workbook pages to help you improve your skills and space to jot down your own day-to-day words. A photocopier-friendly version and renewable copy license is also available for Spanish teachers. 29 pp. $11.47 plus $2.90 s&h from Richard L. Simonson, P.O. Box 7198, Page, AZ, 86040, 520/608-0299. Photo-copy version: $67 plus $8 s&h.

They Called Me Teacher
Stories of Minnesota Country School Teachers and Students from 1915 to 1960
By Tom Melchior

This book holds the stories of country school teachers recounting anecdotes of the bygone era. A type of "teacher-genealogy," the tales tell of dedication, hard work, the human spirit, and passion for the noble profession of teaching. 267 pp., $19.95 plus $4.30 s&h from Melchior Publishing, 1901 West 125th St., Shakopee, MN 55379, 612/445-4109.

You Can Make a Difference
A Teacher's Guide to Political Action
By Barbara Keresty, Susan O'Leary, and Dale Worthy

You Can Make a Difference tells the inspirational and instructional story of how three teachers turned activists banded together to save their Reading Recovery from budget cuts. Their shared insights and suggestions help readers explore a grassroots program for political action. 88 pp., $14 from Heinemann Publishing, 361 Hanover Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801.

Girl in Hyacinth Blue
By Susan Vreeland

This new work of fiction has been acclaimed as both ambitious and brave. The story traces the ownership of a beautiful Vermeer painting back through time to the moment of its creation. By depicting the lives of those people whom the painting has touched, Vreeland comments on what is ultimately meaningful and transformational in the human experience.

242pp. $17.50 plus s&h from MacMurray and Beck Alta Court, 1490 Lafayette St., Ste. 108, Denver, CO 80218.

TV Tips

Napoleon
PBS, Wednesdays,
November 8 and 15,
Check Local Listings

Director David Grubin takes his audience from Napoleon's Corsican birth to his exile in St. Helen in the four-part documentary featuring international historians, original footage of what was once Napoleon's empire, and quotations from Napoleon's writings. For more information , contact the Fisher Company Press Contact at 914/674-6164.

Pelswick
Nickelodeon, Tuesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET, beginning October 24, check local listings.

This new animated series features the adventures of a typical 13-year-old boy, who happens to be a quadriplegic. Despite using a wheelchair, Pelswick insists on being treated like everyone else, and he faces adolescent predicaments and family challenges with a unique sense of humor.

Building Big
PBS, Tuesdays in October, 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET, check local listings.

Hosted by David Macaulay, author of The Way Things Work, each episode of this five-part series focuses on a different type of large-scale engineering. Sketchbook in hand, Macaulay scrambles up, around, over and through bridges, domes, skyscrapers, dams, and tunnels, explaining the principles behind each type of construction. Interactive workshops and educational materials are available at www.pbs.org/buildingbig.

CNN Newsroom
CNN, Weekdays, 4:30-5:00 a.m. ET, check local listings.

Created for classroom use, CNN Newsroom incorporates special reports with daily news. On Mondays in October, "Vikings" will investigate these Scandinavians and how they lived, and profile Gunner Marel Eggerston, who intends to recreate Eriksson's journey. Also this month, "The Electoral Process" airs on October 24, and in a week-long series beginning October 2, "The Faces of a Hero" explores definitions from mythology and literature and looks at modern heroes. For more information, or to sign up to receive classroom guides and programming information by email, visit www.turnerlearning.com.

Safe Passage: Voices from the Middle School
Court TV, October 17, 12:00-1:00 p.m. ET, check local listings.

Airing live from Washington, D.C., this one-hour special raises awareness of the challenges faced by teens by looking at middle school from their perspective. How to handle conflict and peer pressure while developing a resilient nature is examined, along with ways schools and communities can be made safer for kids. "Reality Check" will allow viewers to compare their awareness of teen behavior with what teens themselves report.

The Hound of the Baskervilles
Odyssey, October 21, 8:00-10:00 p.m. ET, check local listings.

Sir Henry Baskerville returns to his ancestral home after his uncle suffers a mysterious death, and while many in the village believe his death was the result of a Baskerville family curse, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson hurry to sort through the suspects and save Sir Henry from an untimely death. KIDSNET is producing free educator guides designed for high school English teachers; visit www.kidsnet.org for more information.

Cora Unashamed - Masterpiece Theatre's American Collection
PBS, October 25, 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET, check local listings.

Based on the story by Langston Hughes, this film tells of Cora, a member of the only African-American family living in a small Iowa town during the Depression. After Cora's young daughter dies, her affection nurtures Jessie Studevant, her employers' daughter. When Jessie becomes pregnant, Mrs. Studevant takes steps that have tragic consequences, and Cora's devotion to the girl empowers her to speak the truth - at great personal cost. Also airing on October 8, 15, and 22 is the three-part adaptation of Charles Dickens's classic, Oliver Twist. Support materials are available at www.pbs.org and through NCTE at www.ncte.org.

Animated Epics - Don Quixote
HBO, October 9, 7:30-8:00 p.m. ET, check local listings.

This animated presentation features Miguel de Cervantes's tale of the knight-errant, Don Quixote de la Mancha. Accompanied by his squire, Sancho Panzo, he embarks on a quest to right the wrongs of the world.

Hate.com: Extremists on the Internet
HBO, October 23, 10:00-10:45 p.m. ET, check local listings.

The politics of hate groups, how their leaders recruit online, and the connection between these groups and recent acts of violence are examined in this investigation of how hate groups grow through the Internet. In conjunction with this presentation, HBO is developing a cyber-campaign, "Hate Hurts," to share ways to develop empathy and promote tolerance.

TCM By The Book - Lives on Film
October 1-6, 6:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. ET, check local listings.

Intended to motivate students to read and develop a passion for literature, offerings in October include films based on biographies of Madame Curie, Louis Pasteur, Vincent van Gogh, and others. TCM By The Book offers taping rights for one year from airdate on selected programs and free support materials. Visit www.turnerlearning.com for more information.

Assignment Discovery - Earth Science, Life Science, Energy & Health
Discovery Channel, weekdays, 9:00-10:00 a.m. ET, check local listings.

Four, week-long series on science and health debut in October, beginning with Energy, which includes programs on sound, matter, fire, physics, and magnetism. Health follows, with smoking, weight, brains, bones, and puberty explored, and Earth Science and Life Scienceare the focus of the third and fourth weeks. Produced for grades 7-12 and commercial-free with taping rights. Find lesson plans at http://school.discovery.com, and request the Fall 2000 Educator Guide by calling 888-892-3484.

Reading
Lessons on Reading for Capitol Hill

NEA and the International Reading Association team up to give Washington policy-makers a better understanding of just how complex and challenging it is to teach reading.

I f you think that everything out there on reading instruction could fill a library almost all by itself, you're right. Over 100,000 academic journal articles on reading are now in print.

Distilling the wisdom from all this research isn't easy, not for scholars in the field and certainly not for the lawmakers responsible for setting federal policy on reading.

That's why, this past summer, NEA joined with the International Reading Association to offer policy-makers on Capitol Hill an in-depth briefing on a remarkable new resource for everyone who cares about increasing the effectiveness of reading instruction.

This new resource, the recently released third edition of the Handbook of Reading Research, analyzes what's to be learned from the tens of thousands of articles on reading.

At 1,000 pages, the Handbook isn't exactly light reading. But it can help policy-makers on Capitol Hill better understand what works in reading instruction--and avoid the sorts of simplistic "mandates" from above that can drive dedicated educators crazy.

"Part of the point in discussing the Handbook on Capitol Hill," explains NEA staffer Barbara Kapinus, "was to help policy-makers understand just how rich and varied the research really is."

One example: People outside the classroom, Kapinus points out, often think that learning to read is a process that ends as soon as a child can decode the words on a page. But learning to comprehend, analyze, remember, and use what is read--and come back for more--is actually a learning process that continues through life.

At the Capitol Hill briefing, two of the Handbook editors, Michael Kamil from Stanford and Rebecca Barr from National-Louis University in Illinois, were also on hand to describe how this new work differs from other recent reading research reviews.

"The Handbook is the most comprehensive set of reviews about reading research currently available," Kamil told the Capitol Hill briefing.

The Handbook covers both experimental studies that have tested different reading instructional techniques against one another and descriptive studies, where researchers have watched to see exactly how children interact with print. As NEA's Kapinus points out, these descriptive studies--not included in earlier reviews--can be just as valuable as experimental studies.

Co-editor Barr explained to her Capitol Hill audience that the Handbook goes beyond questions of what techniques work to examine how various approaches work. This is research that can help educators select the most effective strategies for their particular classes or students.

Are the policy-makers quick studies (or at least speed readers)?

"If they come away with a better knowledge of how reading works--and start funding programs that reflect that knowledge," says Kapinus, "they'll get good marks."

For more:
To see the wide range of topics covered in the Handbook on Reading Research, check out the table of contents on the Web at www.stanford.edu/~mkamil/hrr3/index.htm.

How To ...
Bring Stories To Life

Who better to bring a story to life than actors? That's the premise behind the volunteer organization Book PALS (Performing Artists for Literacy in Schools), which sends professional actors into schools in at-risk neighborhoods to instill in children the desire to read.

Founded in 1993 by Barbara Bains of TV's Mission Impossible fame, Book PALS now read to more than 40,000 students in 900 schools each week.

You don't need an Oscar to bring drama into reading time. Just take a look at these Book PALS tips for reading aloud:

• Choose quality literature. Half the battle of reading aloud successfully to children of all ages is book selection.

• Read the book to yourself first to spot material to shorten, elaborate on, or eliminate.

• Look for places or words that lend themselves to sound effects or "coloring," that is, words that you can make sound like what they are--cold, soft, angry.

• Wait for the attention of the whole group. Compliment those who are focused, gently look at those who are fidgeting. Lead children in stretching exercises between read-aloud segments, then allow them a moment to settle down quietly.

• Even sixth grade students love a good picture book. There are many picture books with powerful themes that can elicit excellent discussions.

• Don't start a reading if you don't have enough time to introduce the book, read it properly, and discuss it afterward.

• Don't read too fast or too slow Read rapidly through sections that are familiar. Slow down when you are setting up a revelation or surprise.

• Don't impose your interpretations on a story. Let interpretations come from the students, with your gentle guidance.

• Don't be afraid to give the characters different voices.

For more information, visit www.bookpals.net. To "book" a Book PAL for your school, call Ellen Nathan, the national program director, at 323/549-6709.

What's So Great About Technology?

Thousands of educators are rebooting their attitudes now that they're realizing how technology can enhance learning.

When it comes to technology, everyone seems to want more--more equipment, more speed, more memory. But to what end? If it's just to use computers to record grades or write reports, educators may find it hard to regard technology as more than an overhyped teaching fad.

But in Washington state, educators like Shelee King are showing their colleagues how to harness the true teaching potential that technology harbors with a project called The Learning Space.

"Most teachers have used computers as a basic tool to accomplish something they already had been doing or teaching," says King, a technology integration specialist in the Mukilteo school district. "We're able to show them how to use advanced skills, such as video conferencing, Web design, and Internet search projects, to get students really excited about learning."

King has worked on the Washington Education Association's Learning Space project since its creation in 1996. She's part of a cadre of 70 teachers who've showed other educators how to use technology to turn around their teaching practice.

Training workshops, an online learning community, an annual technology showcase called "Tomorrow's Classroom," and The Learning Space Web site are all part of the package--and you don't have to live in Washington to take advantage of them.

Thousands of teachers, from all across the world, are now logging on to www.learningspace.org, exchanging ideas for using technology to improve student achievement.

The site features an online lesson plan publisher, interactive chat room, Web page hosting, links to project resources and virtual field trips, online newsletters and technical assistance, and technology grant information.

Because teachers like King built The Learning Space from the ground up, everything is tied to state essential academic learning requirements.

One example: Carolyn Hinshaw, a fifth grade teacher at Birchwood Elementary, coordinates the Across Washington project, which helps students learn about their state while satisfying state academic learning mandates.

Her online projects include Spring Across Washington, a six-week effort that has students create a Web site to document what spring is like in their region. Students involved in the project post digital photos and poetry and use E-mail to compare results with other classrooms around the state.

Thanks to the practical nature of what The Learning Space has to offer, interest in incorporating technology into teaching has exploded. Last year, King and 11 other Learning Space volunteers kicked off the first Tomorrow's Classroom technology showcase.

More than 200 teachers, helped by WEA stipends of $200 each, created booths to share the variety of learning projects they implemented throughout the year. The event attracted 10,000 educators, administrators, students, parents, and the general public from across the state.

"Tomorrow's Classroom 2000: A Digital Journey," held this past August, emphasized how classrooms have become collaborative and interactive. Theme-based pavilions focused on topics such as distance learning, curriculum assessment, homework help, teacher training, and a back-to-school technology mall.

All this may strike some educators as too futuristic. But Learning Space educators see these technological advances as classroom realities.

"The biggest change we're seeing is the infusion of technology into the curriculum," says Carolyn Hinshaw, an original cadre member and Learning Space lead teacher. "Technology is becoming an everyday part of the regular classroom."

"Technology is the whole notion of knocking down the walls of the classroom," adds Shelee King. "The only way our students are going to achieve in this world is through the use of technology."

--Michelle Y. Green

For more:
Visit www.learningspace.org for free online training modules. The Learning Space also has a core team of 40 trainers offering fee-scheduled consultation.

Dilemma
How do you teach today's lessons with yesteryear's textbooks?

One way is to supplement old textbooks with today's newspapers. In my classroom, I use the Buffalo News. You need to be flexible, because the paper arrives minutes before the students do. But there are many flexible lessons that require only scissors, glue, maps, and a lot of space.

We also go online to the Buffalo News to find out the continuing story the next day or to go to other sources for information on a discovered topic. You can't get more up to date than that.

For teachers who think their students would have difficulty reading the news, I would encourage giving it a try. My students, grades four through six, are almost all identified as educationally handicapped or in need of remediation. Newspaper day is usually the best day of our week.

Elaine Hardman
Fourth through sixth grade teacher
Wellsville, New York

I found myself in just this predicament nine years ago. Though I'd been hired to teach sixth grade language arts, I ended up teaching several sections of seventh and eighth grade social studies and language arts.

To complicate my challenge, I discovered that the seventh grade social studies text was copyrighted before these students had been born!

The students and I decided to use the text to determine the scope and sequence of what we would study, and we began a year of discovery of the Western Hemisphere together.

We used the media center extensively, as well as other resources in our community. This was before the Internet and iMac labs.

The students and I looked forward to our discoveries and relied on each other for information. In cooperative groups, independently and as a class, we undertook to research and update our tired text. We even collaborated on test questions. I think that taught students how tentative some information is, and how vital it is to hone our research skills.

In my experience, the outdated textbooks freed my class and me to create our own learning--ultimately, the best!

Sandra Gotfred
Middle school teacher
Pueblo, Colorado

It's relatively easy to get examination copies of the new textbooks from textbook suppliers, and they make a wonderful resource for updating and enriching an older textbook.

I speak from experience: The chemistry book I teach from was published in 1983. I've gotten not only new ideas from the new books, but safer and more environmentally sound labs, too.

As a final bonus, when the department decided to get new books this year, picking the text was easy, since I was already familiar with the new chemistry texts on the market.

Susan Smith
High school chemistry teacher
Rohnert Park, California

Idea Exchange

Red Ribbon Week
Here are some activities for Red Ribbon Week, a "Just Say No To Drugs" program during the last week of October.

• Have students trace one of their feet on red paper, cut it out, and sign it. Glue the feet on a white banner, spelling out the words "Take a Stand Against Drugs" with the feet.

• Ask a local nursery to donate several hundred red tulip bulbs and bulb food. Have the students plant a piece of paper with a promise to be drug-free along with the bulb and food. In the spring, a garden of red tulips will remind them of their promise. Purple crocuses can be planted among the tulips to spell out "No."

• Have students decorate donated grocery bags with an anti-drug slogan and return them to the store to be used.

Michelle Welch
Bakersfield, California

Multiplication Patterns
I write out the multiplication facts (0x0 to 12x12) on the chalkboards--169 problems in all! Then I tell my students to copy them all and that they'll be tested on those facts. You can imagine the complaints!

I then remind them that math is filled with patterns and ask if they can discern any. Soon, someone spots that any number times zero is zero. I erase 25 problems from the board, and we're off and running.

They quickly teach themselves the rules for multiplying by ones, twos, fives, 10s, and most of the 11s. Someone notices that 3x4 is the same as 4x3 and that there are others like that, so the remaining duplicates are eliminated.

What we have left are a paltry 29 multiplication problems to write down. We practice a few each week, since distributed practice is how students learn their facts, and, in a couple of months, all the second graders know their multiplication facts through the 12s.

Jay Edwards
Hemet, California

Have a great idea? You can pass along your tips to NEA Today's more than 2.4 million readers in one of five ways:

• By mail: NEA Today, 1201 16th St., N.W., Washington, DC 20036
• By phone: 202/822-7201
• By fax: 202/822-7206
• By E-mail: Ideas@neatoday.nea.org

New Teachers Get a Boost

Interactive training seminars bolster the confidence of new teachers of all ages in Massachusetts.

When seventh grade English teacher Tim Webber wended his way through his first year in the classroom, he had plenty of help.

For one, Webber had a mentor. But he also benefitted from having participated in Case Study Seminars for Beginning Teachers, a five-session training series developed by the Massa-chusetts Teachers Association that shores up classroom skills and keeps new teachers up-to-date on education issues.

"The MTA sessions gave me a broader perspective of issues," says Webber, who's now in his third year of teaching at the Bromfield School in Bellingham, Massachusetts. "They helped me become a reflective practitioner--and assess myself as I go along."

When first grade teacher Colleen Faris started her first year in the classroom, she, too, had plenty of experience to back her up--her own.

Faris had operated a private preschool for 23 years and earned a master's degree in special ed before coming to Fallbrook Elementary.

Yet "when I saw the ad in MTA's monthly newspaper," Faris recalls, "I said, 'I'm not a young kid, but as far as being specifically tuned to the issues of the time, I need a refresher course.'"

Like Webber, Faris gleaned a lot of practical knowledge from the seminars. She was brought up to speed on standards-based assessment, and she found the information on new issues in special ed to be particularly helpful.

Amid a turbulent climate of education reform, NEA's Massachusetts state affiliate is helping "new" teachers of all ages and backgrounds develop a firm footing in the classroom.

"We've looked at the needs of the many new teachers coming in," says Mary Nowasaki, a geography teacher at Auburn Middle School who's one of the MTA trainers.

"As the education climate has changed," notes Nowasaki, "we've concentrated on presenting information on education reform, recertification, and the statewide testing program."

More than 200 teachers in six Massachusetts districts were trained last year in standards-based curriculum instruction, classroom management, assessment, issues in special education, and instructional technology. Funded by the state board of education, the Association seminars were offered to first- and second-year teachers, who received professional development or continuing education credits.

Nowasaki and her co-trainer, Judy Ferrari, an English teacher at Westborough High, made sure the three-hour sessions were structured so that participant eyes didn't glaze over.

Sessions were held several weeks apart, taking place right after school, with a pizza break in the middle. And the course wasn't a "lecture" series.

"We split into small groups, and people went back and forth about special ed issues," Colleen Faris notes. "It was very interactive."

The seminars have helped new teachers in Massachusetts gain confidence, sometimes showing them that what they think they're doing right is, actually, right.

"The session I enjoyed most was on integrating the Massachusetts curricular framework into our lesson planning," says Tim Webber. "It was good getting to know about other teachers' approaches and to reaffirm that what I'm doing is working out."

In the end, the seminars provide one special resource that both new and veteran teachers can benefit from: thinking time.

"I used this block of time to think about lessons I've done," says Webber, "whether they worked well, and how I could do things better."

--Michelle Y. Green

For more:
Contact kskinner@massteacher.org for information on training seminars.

How do you say 'no' to extra assignments on the job?

My most effective "no" was given the day my principal asked me to serve on another committee this year. My first impulse was just to tell him "no," but I asked him for a couple of hours to decide.

I went back and made a list of all the school events and responsibilities currently on my agenda. When I saw the principal later that day, I asked him which items I could eliminate in order to assume the new committee assignment.

I didn't have to say "no" because my principal could see that I was already overcommitted. He withdrew his request.

Barbara Kissler
High school home economics teacher
North Platte, Nebraska

My solution is simple, but sometimes the hardest thing for me to do.

As a 20-year veteran, I've been on a ton of committees. So, every five years or so, I put myself on a "sabbatical" from committees.

I purposely wipe my slate clean. I gently tell everyone, including my principal, that next year is my year off all unnecessary committees.

That year that I'm off, I delight in listening to the intercom announce yet another early morning or after school meeting that's starting, that I don't have to go to.

The following year, I pick and choose which things I'll get myself back into. Somehow, by the time the next "sabbatical" roles around, I'm up to my eyeballs again and ready for some well-deserved time off. The people on my staff don't seem to mind. In fact, some have followed suit.

Mary Beth Solano
Third grade teacher
Timnath, Colorado

I use creative statements to turn a negative into a positive situation.

One possibility: "No, thank you. The students I currently serve deserve 100 percent of my time and energy."

Another one: "No, thank you. It's important that you give less experienced colleagues an opportunity to serve" (or "to gain that valuable experience").

Jan Zurenko
Special ed teacher
Otsego, Michigan

First, give yourself permission to say "no." It doesn't mean that you're less of a professional or lazy. You decline because you have already established your priorities and allocated your time. That has to include some personal time for you.

Second, rehearse how to respond, so when an administrator approaches with yet another "opportunity," you can gracefully say, "I appreciate your confidence in me. I am, however, focusing my energy on these items at the moment."

It's true that the busiest teachers are often called on to perform just one more task, and then one more, and so on. It's your duty to yourself and your profession to know when to draw the line.

Jan Bowman
High school English teacher
Davidsville, Pennsylvania

Got an Answer?

What do you do when parents show no interest in things like IEP meetings?

E-mail your answer to dilemma2@neatoday.nea.org. You can also fax to 202/822-7206 or use regular mail. Please include your name, city, state, job title, and grade level, if applicable.

Published respondents will receive a new NEA Today mug!

How I Did It

Yomare Polanco
Middle school science teacher
New Brunswick, New Jersey

To keep 57 middle school students interested in science and still follow state curriculum guidelines, I created a cross-curricular project called "Looking for the best grain."

Drawing from my background as a chemical engineer, I wanted to combine the rigors of the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards with a hands-on approach to science.

The "Looking for the Best Grain" project combines mathematics, science, and Internet research while fostering a passion for learning at a young age.

Students apply problem-solving skills to real-life situations by determining which type of grain--soft white wheat, dark spring wheat, or hard winter wheat--makes the best bread.

To do this, they have to learn how to conduct a scientific experiment by separating the hull from the endosperm in the grain and creating a hypothesis about which grain makes the best baking flour--projects that meet New Jersey Core Curriculum Standard 5.2.

To progress on their projects, students must recognize the basic structure of grain, which leads them to meet Standard 5.6. They must integrate mathematical charts, meeting Standard 5.5.

Working with the grain involves various pieces of machinery, so students review safety procedures, which in turn meets Standard 5.4.

Not only are students enjoying science, but they finally have an answer to the question, "When will I use this in real life?"

The activities demonstrate to students how, in modern industry, chemists, engineers, and scientists work and care about the production of quality food.

Locally, the Stevens Institute of Technology and K.Jabat Inc. enhance this project by showing my students the practical applications of their results in real-life jobs.

Students also post the data from their experiments on the Web and then discuss them with scientists around the world via E-mail.

For the complete experiment and findings, visit the Web at www.angelfire.com/nj/suprema/.

President's Viewpoint
What's At Stake?

A lot is up for grabs in Election 2000. We stand to make a crucial difference.

Alot is at stake in the upcoming elections: The White House. The Congress. The Supreme Court. But what's really at stake is the future of America's children. Personally, I wish every citizen could visit Paul Revere Elementary School before stepping into the voting booth on November 7th.

Located in Anaheim, California, Paul Revere Elementary School sits literally in the shadow of Disneyland. Children can look up from the school's playground and see the theme park's famous Matterhorn.

But inside the school, some 1,200 children have been crammed into a facility built to accommodate 700. Some first and second grade classes overlap in the same room. Recess has been eliminated in the early grades; gym class has been "combined" with a 20-minute lunch period. Over 60 percent of the students speak limited English or none at all. More than 80 percent live in poverty.

Paul Revere Elementary stands as a shameful metaphor for all the promises that have yet to be fulfilled for the children of this country--and for the issues that demand attention in this coming election.

Currently, our nation is experiencing the longest period of peace and prosperity in its history. In an era of overnight billionaires and budget surpluses, it is obscene that every child in America should not be able to receive a decent, public school education right in his or her neighborhood. Indeed, it is obscene that we would not work to bridge the gap between rich and poor, or reform schools in the poor districts so that they are on a par with the wealthiest.

Martin Luther King once said, "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

Yet at a time when our nation is enjoying unprecedented levels of "comfort and convenience," the ultimate measure of presidentialcandidates Al Gore and George W. Bush is exactly how they planto direct this prosperity.

Al Gore intends to invest in public education-to fund such reforms as smaller class sizes and universal preschool--while providing tax relief to working and middle--class families. Governor Bush wouldsubsidize school vouchers and create massive tax cuts that dispro-portionately benefit the nation's wealthiest.

Gore plans to increase education funding by $115 billion, Bush by $13.4 billion. Gore says that standards and accountability must be coupled with "training and support" for students and teachers alike. Bush says that if schools don't show results, he'll "impose consequences for failure." Gore wants to invest in school infrastructure. Bush has said, "I don't believe the federal government should be building classrooms across the country."

Therefore, this November, we must neither cast our votes aside, nor cast them lightly. Right now, almost one out of every 100 Americans is a member of the NEA. Individually, we are rarely counted among the powerful. But in our numbers we are a force to be reckoned with--provided that we vote.

At the voting booth, we must insist that the next President champion America's children, public schools, and the people who work in them. We must insist that resources go where they're needed most--not funneled cynically to the wealthiest. We must insist, in short, that no child be relegated to a school--or a life--that exists only in the shadows of America's best dreams.

Comments? You can E-mail Bob Chase at BobChase@nea.org. If you would like a response, please be sure to include your name and NEA local affiliate.

People
Wade in the Water

There's nothing dull about science in Sandra Brown's classroom. In her Earth's Oceans unit, kids get a chance to investigate the local water supply.

Sandra Brown's water quality testing project is but one example of the innovative work that earned her a 1999 Presidential Award for Math and Science.

Brown, a 30-year teaching veteran who currently teaches fifth grade science at Allisonville Elementary School in Indianapolis, Indiana, takes an inquiry-based, cross-curricular approach to teaching science in her Earth's Oceans unit.

Once a year, Brown's students, in collaboration with the Marion County health Department, test water at a local pond and creek. The unit also teaches students how to dissect sharks, prepare a hyperstudio presentation, and search the Internet for information about the ecosystem.

Working on the Earth's Oceans unit gives students valuable practice researching and building Web sites, preparing Power Point reports, and creating model aquifers. In small groups, students even design and construct under-sea settlements out of Legos and Z-sand. The unit culminates with a beach party in Brown's classroom.

"We use an integrated type of science unit where you pull all of the subjects together," Brown says. "Usually our focus is on language arts and math, but the Earth's Oceans unit brings in other disciplines and draws all of them together."

The Presidential Awards for Math and Science are administered by the National Science Foundation and given to 200 K-12 teachers each year. As one of this year's winners, Brown received a Presidential citation and a $7,500 grant. Under Brown's supervision, the money will be used to improve the quality of science instruction at Allisonville Elementary.

Last spring, Brown traveled to Washington, D.C. to accept her award and, while there, she found inspiration and support from fellow Presidential scholars.

"What a wonderful honor this is,' 'says Brown. "And what a great time I had talking with teachers from across the country."

Here Kitty, There Kitty

I got a $5,000 advance for my third book, and it went straight to the vet." With her needy pets always in mind, Susan Smith of Virginia's Shenandoah County is continuing to write inspirational children's books about youngsters and their pets.

Smith, the coordinator of media services for the Shenandoah County School District, has always been fond of animals. But it was during college that she began providing shelter for stray cats. One year, she took in 22 cats that she found on campus.

"They have a way of showing up when they need help," says Smith, an NEA member. "They just seem to find me."

Today, Smith cares for over 30 cats, some since 1985. They live in a small cottage, which she's turned into a feline sanctuary.

Her collection includes cats who are elderly, deaf, one-eyed, diabetic, three-legged, or who have balance problems.

Over the years, Smith has found cats in an assortment of unlikely places, for example, at the local fast food outlet or abandoned in the snow.

"Me?" Smith laughs when asked how she rooms with 30 cats. "The cats have their own house. I live with my mother."

The cats are the inspiration for Smith's books, which send realistic messages to kids about animals and life.

Unlike many children's authors, Smith believes children deserve to read about the sad things that happen to everyone. Her publishers have not always approved, but Smith insists upon writing stories that address real hardship.

"Books need to be more realistic, because every pet has to go to heaven sometime," Smith explains. "It helps kids feel better when they know sad things happen to other people, not just them."

Between her full-time job and caring for her cats, Smith continues to be inspired by her pets.

"My unfinished book, Cat Children, is about all my cats and their unique stories," Smith says. "I think taking in all these cats has made me a better writer and given me an urge to get my books out."

In the end, however, Smith admits that it's her simple love of cats that motivates her to spend most of her paycheck for their care.

"It hurts me to see those creatures suffering," Smith said. "I think that it's my calling to help these cats."

How Can I Thank You? How 'bout a Porsche?

What do teachers often get that's shiny and red? You're thinking apple, right? But that's not the shiny, red object that Shasta (California) College instructor Larry Lease received a few months ago.

Lease, an accounting instructor of 19 years, had joked that if any of his students ever struck it rich, they could repay him with a Porsche. He never expected anyone to remember his offhand comment.

But one of his students from 14 years ago, Robert Sullivan, did remember. He gave Lease an "arena red" Porsche Boxster.

"He called me to do lunch," Lease recalls. "When we got to the parking lot, he handed me the keys and said, 'I always knew I was going to buy you that Porsche.'"

Lease hopes to encourage teachers with this story about a student who didn't forget a friend and teacher.

All the negative press teachers get, says Lease, can be discouraging.

"But periodically I get notes from students telling me what they're doing," he says, "and that's the most encouraging thing about my job."

What's next? "Since you already have a Porsche and you'll be old by the time I make it," one student quipped at the last graduation, "how about I get you a Winnebago?"

In Iowa, Journalism Really Helps Kids Get Along

"I wanted to teach English to students who hated it," says Davenport Central High journalism teacher Deb Buttleman Malcolm. "I thought journalism was the best way to do this well. Journalism can establish the relevancy of other subjects."

In her effort to expand the borders of education, Malcolm has established the student-driven Journalism All Cultural Achievement Plan and Outreach Academy with mini-grants from the Journalism Education Association, NEA, and Opportunity Iowa.

This summer's 10-day outreach program focused on local Native American heritage. Students learned basic journalistic skills during the summer camp and became a tightly knit group as well, learning to appreciate and value their differences.

"We teach primary research skills, interviewing techniques, basic caption writing, and photography," explains Malcolm. "Children, especially English-as-a-second-language learners, thrive in the journalistic setting. Journalism teaches them that we are part of families. The journalism camp gives them a family. They take care of each other."

Malcolm's outreach programs have captured national awards from NEA and the Journalism Education Association for student impact.

"It's not a matter of making the students future journalists. It's about teaching them how to relate," Malcolm says. "We teach them to use their voices, not their fists, to stand up for themselves."

Continuing a Family Tradition

The Wood family is truly an Association family. For more than 25 years, Merrill and Sara Wood have served their NEA local affiliate, California's Southwest Teachers Association, in just about every capacity.

But nothing ever stays the same, and Merrill and Sara retired this fall. They've left behind a most precious asset to continue their Association work: their daughter Laura.

Laura, a fourth grade bilingual education teacher, has just begun her third year of teaching, but she's already a building rep, serves on her local's Executive Board, and last summer served as a delegate to the NEA Representative Assembly in Chicago.

Laura knows about activism. As a child she and her sister went to parents' night at her elementary school, while her parents did double duty in a parent/teacher conference and a picket line outside the school.

"We're leaving the Association in good hands,'' say her parents. "My parents have taught me well," adds Laura. "I would encourage all young teachers to get involved.

News
Paying the Price for Professionalism

By sticking together and telling their stories to legislators, Delaware ESP win their largest pay increase in 20 years.

The 10 food service staffers at Middletown High School in Delaware are quite proud of the quality of their baked goods, chicken cheese steaks, and subs--not to mention the fully balanced menus and range of options they offer each day to MHS's 1,200 students.

The meals they serve, these NEA members say, meet recommended dietary guidelines and help develop healthy, lifelong eating habits.

"We're proud that we've reduced total fat consumption to 30 percent of calories in all of our meals," says assistant cook Lynn Lenker. "We provide a wholesome breakfast and lunch."

Hungry children, Lenker adds, are lethargic, irritable, and have shorter attention spans.

"Studies show that children who eat a nutritious breakfast," she explains, "improve their reading skills and test scores."

But MHS's quality cuisine comes at a human price. Middletown district food service employees unionized last year to tackle issues like staffing cutbacks--in the face of booming student enrollment--and working conditions that cause rapid turnover.

"You're constantly moving on this job," says Lenker, president of the 29-member Appoquinimink Food Service Workers Association. "We're always cooking, even during the last lunch, to keep food fresh. After that, we clean trays and utensils, sterilize the serving line, and sweep and mop.

"Even three hours on this job can feel like 10," groans Lenker, a five-hour employee. "Not many people want to do this amount of work for so little pay, plus shell out money up front for a uniform and a $50 state background check."

If anyone needs to hear this message, it's Delaware legislators. Educational support staff are technically employed as a class of state workers, but they get second-class treatment.

Last year, in fact, support staff got lower raises than state employees in comparable civil service job titles.

But legislators are starting to listen, thanks to a two-year grassroots lobbying campaign waged by 2,300 ESP members of the Delaware State Education Association.

In the last legislative session, the Republican-dominated House and Senate approved a new budget, signed into law by Democratic Governor Thomas Carper, that gives many Delaware ESP their largest pay increase in 20 years.

The budget adds $1,000 to the full-time pay scales of secretarial, paraprofessional, custodial, and food service employees, plus another step at the top of each salary lane. The law also mandates a new ESP salary study due in by December 1.

Moreover, the budget increases the state share of funding for local food service salaries, including a boost from 41 to 50 percent for cooks and general workers. Aside from locally bargained pay supplements, that'll mean a raise from $9.72 to $10.61 an hour for a cook/baker at the top of the scale and a boost for a starting general worker from $6.88 to $7.67.

"Delaware ESP clearly still have a long way to go," stresses DSEA Treasurer Julie Coleman, a paraeducator from the Caesar Rodney school district in Camden. "But this raise has increased morale and assured our members that they're not 'forgotten personnel.'"

It's hard to be forgotten when you make so much noise.

In the last session, Delaware's 62 legislators constantly heard from their underpaid ESP constituents--on supermarket lines, via E-mails and phone calls, through a 5,000-signature petition initiated by paraeducators, and through ESP visits to Dover, the state capital.

"Personal contact made a real difference," says Coleman. "During one trip to Dover, four of us showed Joint Finance Committee members our broad job descriptions and introduced them to a teacher, Ginger Pledgi, who described how paras make things run more smoothly in her classroom."

To educate legislators on the growing complexity of educational support jobs, last winter DSEA's eight-member ESP Committee invited legislators to two regional social events to hear support staffers from all job categories describe their work in detail.

"What struck these lawmakers," notes DSEA President Mary Ann Pry, "was the enormous responsibility ESP have, the passion they articulate for children and their jobs, and the disparity between these factors and their compensation."

Count on Diamond State NEA members to keep on telling their stories--with a passion--as they help legislators compile the new ESP compensation report this fall. Above all, these support staffers will be stressing the need to:

• Recognize increased ESP responsibilities. Delaware custodians, say DSEA leaders, must know how to handle hazardous chemicals, operate sophisticated computer controls, and serve as ambassadors to community groups that meet in their buildings after hours. And, because of a substitute teacher shortage, the state's paraeducators are being assigned ever more instructional duties, in both classrooms and Title 1 reading labs.

  "In the last five years," notes DSEA Para Issues Committee Chair Barbara Morris, "more students have come to inclusion classrooms with more disabilities than ever before."

  Teachers, she adds, require discipline and translation assistance from paras on a constant basis.

  "Paras are making more decisions on their own," says Morris, "either while taking students into the community or coming up with materials or programs to help kids reach their IEPs."

• Recruit and retain qualified support professionals. "I could walk out of my job today and make $5,000 more working in Delaware's banking industry," declares Pat Downes, a 15-year secretary in the Christina school district. "We stay here because we love being with the children. But because we don't get tuition reimbursement, the banks are taking a lot of younger secretaries who want to get credits or complete college."

  Severe understaffing, in the face of a growing workload, is making bank jobs even more attractive.

  School office tasks in Christina , says Downes, include completing "accountability" paperwork, recording student moves, composing detailed reports with charts and graphs, and interacting with a broad range of visitors, from social workers to probation officers--many of whom require more paperwork.

• Value ESP's contribution to student achievement. "I love seeing the kids every day and making them happy and healthy," says assistant cook Lynn Lenker. "We all feel we're their substitute moms while they're in school. We feed them, listen to problems, give them encouragement in making healthy decisions, wipe tears, clean up messes, and love them all!"

For more on ESP developments in Delaware, go to the DSEA Web page at www.dsea.org. To contact Lynn Lenker, send an E-mail to lynnlenk1@cs.com.

More to the Story
Delaware Paras Push for Training

Helping make Delaware's $1,000 ESP raise possible last spring was the NEA state affiliate's 12-member Para Issues Committee, which initiated a successful community petition recognizing paraeducators' link to student achievement.

But winning that raise was only half the battle for paras.

"Last year, the state added two extra days for teacher professional development, but nothing for us," says para committee chair Barbara Morris. "Districts aren't providing training programs for paras, yet paras need to know how to set up disciplinary programs, manage classrooms, deal with technology, and work with students with special needs."

The committee has been meeting for over a year with state education department officials to hammer out a statewide para licensure program. But there's still more work to do.

Not content to wait around for professional recognition, the 110-member Colonial Paraprofessional Association in New Castle recently negotiated Delaware's first para professional development program, with extra pay for successfully completed training, along with two new para salary lanes.

Upon completion of training, Colonial's Level I paras receive a $750 salary adjustment, while Level IIs receive a $1,000 adjustment, for a total of $1,750 after both courses.

Morris, the CPA president, says the Level I training course, planned in cooperation with the district, was "wonderful," with lots of detailed presentations.

"We learned," she notes, "lots about communications skills, special education terminology, classroom management, and student behavioral goals."

For more, contact Barbara Morris at colpara@prodigy.net.

The Steadiest Folks Around
On average, NEA's K-12 ESP members have nearly 11 years of experience with their current employer. This employment stability means that education support personnel really know their schools.

(Source: NEA National K-12 Educational Support Personnel Membership Study, 1997.)

When they say: "Food service workers don't need a union."

Think about this: "The first place a school district looks to cut money is the path of least resistance, which is non-union employees," stresses Lynn Lenker, president of the Appoquinimink Food Service Workers Association in Delaware. "Without a union supporting us, we would never have the respect, a voice in decision making, or benefits or pay increases we deserve."

AFSWA members, who organized last year, "now have representation, a binding contract--no more changing district policy--and, most importantly for me," Lenker points out, "liability insurance."

You never know when an accident might happen and you seriously burn a child with a hot pan," she explains. "If parents were to sue you for injuring their child, do you think your school district would pay for the legal fees and settlement?"

News
Double Standard to New Standard

Alabama NEA members win historic legislation to boost teacher pay to the national average. The keys: unity and bipartisan political action.

In Alabama, there are standards and double standards. Teachers in the state are routinely held accountable for making sure students produce "national average" test scores. Yet experienced Alabama educators average only $36,500 a year, far below the $42,000 national teacher average, or even the $41,000 averaged by experienced educators in neighboring Georgia.

That double standard has a double edge in northeast Alabama's DeKalb County, where you either stay put and teach--for less--on your home turf or commute across the state line for a decent paycheck.

This tough choice disturbs DeKalb fourth grade teacher Anita Gibson, who teaches Alabama history and reading in rural Rainsville, just a short drive from the Peach State.

"Many teachers in this area go to Georgia or into other fields of employment that are more financially rewarding than teaching," laments this NEA activist. "We need their expertise to help prepare our students for careers in the latest technology."

"Teachers need more pay, or we'll lose more good people," agrees Virginia Bailer, a parent and school lunchroom manager in neighboring Jackson County, Alabama.

"For my money," says this ESP activist, "I want the best for children. Teachers can influence kids both inside and outside of school."

Bailer feels so strongly about teacher pay that last spring she collected letters from teacher colleagues at Section High School in Jackson, took a personal day, and rode to the state Capitol with Anita Gibson to lobby legislators for a bill to increase Alabama teacher salaries to the national average.

This precedent-setting legislation, jointly drafted and promoted by the Alabama Education Association and Democratic Governor Don Siegelman, wouldn't even have surfaced for a committee vote if teachers like Gibson and support staffers like Bailer had refused to join forces. The bill was fiercely opposed by powerful interests like the higher education establishment, school boards, and big-city newspapers.

But teachers, ESP, and retired Association members stuck together, refusing to buy the opponents' claim that more money for teachers meant less money for universities, other educators, and public school needs.

Their unity and lobbying skills eventually yielded legislation that will raise the salaries of Alabama teachers, counselors, and librarians to the national average in this decade.

The new pay hike law, signed by the governor in May, provides a 4 percent increase for teachers, ESP, and retirees in 2000-2001.

Then, starting in October 2001, just over 41 percent of the annual growth in the state's Education Trust Fund will be dedicated to teacher raises until the national average is reached in 2006 or 2007.

Should annual trust fund growth fall below 3.5 percent, teacher raises will be subject to the normal give-and-take of lobbying. But, based on recent annual fund growth of 5 percent or better, Alabama teachers can expect annual raises of 1 percent to 5.5 percent, based on experience.

"Before this, trust fund growth was divided up without a real purpose," stresses AEA Executive Secretary Paul Hubbert. "This is the first time our state has committed itself to a long-term goal in any area of education."

Much of the credit for this historic legislation goes to AEA's 83,000 members. Throughout this lobbying battle, they used the power of:

• Teacher-ESP solidarity. Many Alabama ESP used up personal days to participate in the teacher pay campaign, because they remembered the support certified staffers had given them in successful battles over issues like subcontracting and ESP professional development.

  "We get teacher help any time we ask," says Virginia Bailer, an executive board member of AEA's ESP Organization. "And we know that whatever teachers get, ESP will eventually get, too."

  Rosemary Wright, a special ed secretary in the Morgan County schools, says on-the-job connections help explain why she made three trips to the Capitol.

  "I work with teachers every day," says Wright. "They're my friends, and I wanted them to get the national average."

  One May morning--at 4 a.m.--this ESP local vice president squeezed into a carload of teachers bound for Montgomery, determined to occupy the Senate gallery until midnight--or however long it took to pass the teacher pay bill.

  "When this bill finally passed, I thought it was good for teachers, for industry, and the state--a nice day for Alabama," says Wright. "We're all here for the same thing: the children."

• Lobbying in numbers. At about the same time educators and community supporters back home were deluging legislators with phone calls and faxes, close to 900 grassroots AEA members visited the Capitol on three different lobby days to buttonhole lawmakers over salaries.

  "We brought different members each time, to show that it wasn't just a few people fighting for this, and we lobbied in a very professional manner, without attacking or demanding," reports AEA activist Anita Gibson. "We stressed that this bill was important not as a raise, but for the children of Alabama, who deserve the best people we can put in the classroom."

• Bipartisan politics. AEA worked closely with Republican Lieutenant Governor Steve Windom, who presides over the state Senate, to win support for the teacher pay bill in the Republican Caucus.

  By exhibiting a willingness to compromise and helping opponents understand the issues, AEA lobbyists won some surprising converts--and a 34-0 "yes" vote on the very last day of the legislative session.

  "Republican senators could have killed this bill on the last day," notes AEA Executive Secretary Hubbert, "but many realized that this Association works with them at election time. AEA contributes equally to both parties and we began this teacher pay campaign by visiting both party caucuses.

  "We don't put all our eggs in one basket," Hubbert concludes. "We've worked with Democrats and Republicans alike to build a legislature that is strongly committed to public schools and opposed to vouchers."

For more information, go to the Alabama Education Association Web site at www.alaedu.org.

Your Dues Did It

• Speaking out for retirees: In June, NEA submitted testimony to the House Subcommittee on Social Security calling for repeal of the "government pension offset," a provision that imposes severe losses on public employees who are not covered by Social Security and who survive their spouses. These retirees can keep only a fraction of their Social Security survivor benefits. The offset primarily affects NEA members in the 13 states where school employees are not covered by Social Security. To read NEA's testimony or for more information on the offset's impact on retirees, go to www.nea.org/lac/socsec/.

• REACHing out to educate: NEA's Health Information Network is sponsoring Project REACH, a pilot program to train teams of school employees to plan and implement breast and cervical cancer education programs in their school communities. Seven Project Reach teams are already participating in a pilot program in and around Sioux Falls, South Dakota. For more information, contact HIN staffer Rena Large at Rlarge@nea.org.

"Our classroom teachers have the most important responsibility in our state, and that is to train our children to the best of their ability. We must encourage and reward our teachers."

--Alabama Governor
Don Siegelman (D)

"In private industry, we talk about the need for recruitment and retention of quality personnel. It's time we apply the same principle to our classrooms."

--Alabama Lieutenant Governor
Steve Windom (R)

. . . Members of the Pinellas (Florida) Classroom Teachers Association have ratified a 2000-2001 contract with raises ranging from 5.5 percent to 13.5 percent. The "average" increase is about 6.2 percent. Pay for two added training days brings the average to 7.7 percent, and $7 million in employer benefit contributions pushes the net close to 9 percent.

. . . Trenton (New Jersey) Education Association members have bargained a 6.1 percent raise in 2000-01, followed by a three-year contract with increases of 4.8 percent, 5.8 percent, and 5.1 percent. Other gains include higher tuition reimbursement, increased prep time, more release time for Association leaders, and full family medical coverage for new members.

. . . A team of paraeducators and teachers at Fair Haven (Vermont) High School has settled a three-year contract with a $1.95 boost in hourly pay for paras and secretaries by 2002-03. The pact also increases base teacher pay from $22,465 to $27,500 by 2002-03, boosts the maximum teacher salary from $43,321 to $53,488 over the same period, and improves health insurance coverage.

. . . Backed by parents, students, and picketers from other unions, members of the Riverside (Washington) Education Association staged a one-day strike in June to protest the leadership of Superintendent Jerry Wilson--whose budget decisions have left students with inadequate supplies, outdated textbooks, and no coherent plan to meet tough state academic standards.

News
Social Security: Let's Keep It Secure!

'Voucherizing' Social Security could rip the system apart.

When author and investment firm executive William G. Shipman discussed the Social Security system last year with a group of Florida investors, he warned of a long-term funding shortfall. His solution, the Naples Daily News dutifully reported, was to give "individuals the freedom to invest all or part of their payroll taxes into individually owned, privately invested accounts. Otherwise the system as it exists today will go broke."

During this year's Presidential campaign, you'll hear more about this solution for a "failing" Social Security system. But before you invest in this idea, ask detailed questions about the real state of Social Security, who would benefit from handing the system, or part of it, to the financial industry, and who's pushing hardest to make that happen.

Who beside your banker or broker, that is.

"Lobbyists for Wall Street are trying to stay behind the scenes as they argue for Social Security privatization," the Washington Post has noted, "because they and their firms stand to profit by the changes they are promoting."

But you can expect to hear lots from folks like Shipman, co-chair of the Cato Project on Social Security Privatization, part of a network of ultraconservative think tanks busy promoting everything from social service privatization to school vouchers.

Yes, vouchers.

"Simply put, American schools are failing because they are organized according to a bureaucratic, monopolist model," declares Cato Briefing Paper #25. "The simplest way to create a system of educational choice is a voucher plan or a tax credit system."

The Cato Institute is now working "choice" into the Social Security "reform" debate.

The Cato credo: Individual accounts funded by the Social Security payroll tax will "give workers ownership and control over their retirement funds, allowing them to accumulate wealth...and pass that wealth on to heirs."

Presidential candidate George W. Bush has adopted Cato's model as his own.

"One of the things I'm proposing," Bush told Fox News in May, "is to allow younger workers to invest a percentage of their payroll tax in private-sector investment vehicles, whether it be equities or bonds or T-bills, so that they own their own assets, an asset that they can pass from one generation to the next."

When you hear George Bush-or any candidate-advocate this approach to "saving" Social Security, ask these five probing questions:

1) Is the Social Security system really near collapse? Using federal projections of a future funding shortfall, Governor Bush has warned that if "we don't think differently" about Social Security, "by the year 2037 the system is going to be broke."

But Bush overlooks the fact that official projections are "based on extremely pessimistic economic assumptions-that growth will average just 1.8 percent over the next 20 years, a lower rate than in any comparable period in U.S. history," notes economist Dean Baker.

"Social Security is projected to pay all promised benefits for the next three and one-half decades without any changes," stresses U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio). "Indeed, Social Security's financial solidity is improving, even as Congress does nothing. We don't need the stock market to solve the system's projected shortfalls-we only need to strengthen the economy and raise wages."

Regardless of the state of the economy, the U.S. continues to operate Social Security on a "partial reserve" basis, with more money coming in than going out. Tax revenues not needed to pay benefits are invested daily in low-risk U.S. government bonds.

2) What will happen to Social Security if part of the payroll tax goes missing? No one denies that Social Security may need some fine-tuning to meet future obligations, and no one knows how economic factors-including higher real incomes, productivity growth, and immigration-will impact tax collection before then.

But diverting billions of dollars from the Social Security trust fund to private investment accounts "will shorten the time it takes the fund to run out of money," points out Nebraska NEA member John Jensen, a 21-year trustee of the 7,000-member Omaha School Employees Retirement System. "The solution to that problem could involve raising taxes and reducing benefits."

3) What are the other hidden costs of Social Security privatization? "For those who are retired or near retirement, there will be no changes at all to your Social Security," Governor Bush assured a group of retirees in May.

That's the humane thing to do, but switching to a system of personal accounts will impose "transition costs," according to a recent report from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute. Additional money will be needed to continue to pay traditional Social Security benefits for the "next 30 to 40 years," the EPI report points out.

"Creating a large number of small accounts is the costliest way of handling the nation's retirement savings," the report emphasizes. "Annual administrative fees on mutual fund accounts average 1.5 percent of the value of the account. Over the 40 years of someone's working life, a 1.5 percent annual fee reduces the total value of his or her account by 30 percent. By contrast, Social Security's administrative overhead is less than 1 percent."

4) What guarantees come with private Social Security accounts? A payroll tax-funded, worker-controlled retirement account is a "very popular idea with young people," concedes Jensen, who teaches science research at Omaha South High School.

"But privatization advocates forget to tell young workers that in return for a possibly higher rate of return they'll lose a large portion of their Social Security benefits," Jensen adds. "The greater the return on any private investment, the greater the risk. Who will protect these employees from investment fraud? And who will protect them if, through a bad investment or a depression, their private accounts go way down in value?"

5) Are we willing to scrap America's social insurance program? Social Security is a social insurance plan, not an "asset-building" plan.

"Any kind of insurance spreads risk across the whole population," says NEA staff economist Stan Wisniewski. "As a nation, we've made a philosophical decision to share the risks of old age and disability through Social Security, which, unlike a private account, is a guarantee of benefits for life."

Take a couple of payroll tax percentage points away from Social Security, and you start to dismantle the whole system-just like what private tuition vouchers do to public schools.

"Instead of looking out for those in need, you start looking at 'rates of return' and subtracting resources from the existing plan," Wisniewski stresses.

This isn't just an issue for senior citizens. Social Security can impact you at any point in your life, be it as a survivor, a retiree, or a person struck with a disability. In fact, young people whose parents both die can use Social Security benefits to get through college.

"My parents were kept out of abject poverty through Social Security, like millions of others," concludes John Jensen. "This basic benefit can't be jeopardized for the benefit of political careers."

For more on Social Security, go to www.nea.org/socialsecurity.

My Turn
Harvesting Success for Migrant Students

Growing up as a migrant laborer gave this Texas elementary teacher insight into the influence educators have on their students' futures.

By Rosa Maria Rodriguez

First days of school always used to intimidate me growing up, because I knew the teacher would make us write about our summer vacation.

What summer vacation? Getting up at 5 a.m. to help my mother make tortillas. Working the fields 10 hours a day. This is summer vacation for many migrant students.

I was in third grade the first time my family took me north from Weslaco, Texas. The pattern was the same for years.

Starting in March, I would plant, prune, tie tomatoes, and complete my school year in Virginia. In June, we would migrate to Michigan, where I would pick cucumbers, tomatoes, strawberries, and eventually start school again.

In October, I would return to Weslaco for the winter term, my only chance to focus only on my studies.

I received an education in the fields. At an early age, I became the family translator. I learned how to add up the money I earned each day and how many buckets of tomatoes we picked.

I also learned about injustice--picking tomatoes while crop dusters flew over spreading pesticide, wondering helplessly why I got 25 cents for a bucket of tomatoes filled above the rim, the same tomatoes that sold at the grocery store at five for a dollar.

Injustices like these helped me realize the importance of education. One early morning, after the first freeze, I shivered as I began to pick the first tomato. I vividly remember crying, wishing I was home with a warm blanket.

"I will go to college," I decided on the spot, "and get a better life."

College was a luxury my parents could not possibly afford, but a school counselor convinced me I had many opportunities.

My senior year, my parents left me behind to graduate with my class. I did, without my family cheering for me.

I remember taking days to open a package from St. Edward's University, for fear of finding a rejection inside. Instead, there was a scholarship offer for the first year.

I now teach second grade in an air-conditioned room, away from the sun and the torturous field work I endured. I look back and wonder why I became a success while some of my friends still toil for minimum wage.

The difference? I had compassionate, caring teachers who saw my potential and kept encouraging me --an English teacher who tutored me before school, a counselor who helped me find a scholarship.

Teachers play such an important role in our students' lives. We influence their love or hate for school.

We need to understand our students. Many come from impoverished homes. Some must work to help the family make ends meet. They see work as their first priority.

As a teacher, I understand the concern about getting a new student. Have they learned what I've already taught? How far behind are they? Can they write? Several of my migrant friends left school for that exact reason. Falling behind every year, some students are waiting for their 16th birthday to quit.

We need to reach out and motivate these students to continue education.

That motivation might be as easy as allowing a student extra time to turn in assignments or providing some one-on-one tutoring before school and during lunch.

Many migrant parents have little or no education. They don't understand the support a teacher needs from home. Many don't speak English.

Some take their children out of school when harvest season starts in order to survive.

They feel forced to put the education of their children on the back burner. We can't afford to.

Rosa Maria Rodriguez teaches at Hermelinda Rodriguez Elementary in Austin, Texas. She can be reached via E-mail at rrodrig3@austin.isd.tenet.edu.

Editor's Note

No one would blame Buffalo school bus aide Mary Byrd if she decides not to return to work this fall.

On a warm spring day last May, the veteran bus aide was struck in the ankle by a stray bullet as she escorted the last of her charges off the bus.

"I didn't know what was going on,'' Byrd told NEA Today. "I heard parents yelling, 'They're shooting! They're shooting!' And then I just screamed for my children to get back up on the bus. Everything was happening so fast, I didn't know where I was shot. Then I just lost consciousness."

Byrd, a bus aide for many years, had volunteered to travel with a bus that was missing an aide. It was not her normal route,but the bus was filled with kindergarten children and she thought they might need her. She was right.

As Byrd walked into the middle of the street to stop traffic for the children, a 17-year-old opened fire at another man down the street. Byrd was caught in the middle.

"I was standing down in the street and my children were getting off," Byrd said. "Whoever it was started shooting. I remember a child lying over this woman on the sidewalk. I didn't know if they were dead. And that is the last thing I remember."

In fact, colleagues recall Byrd's first words at the hospital after regaining consciousness were, "Are the children okay."

Byrd was standing only a foot away from the closest child. Luckily, none of the children was injured in the gunfire.

"I feel safe, because I have someone looking out for me. When you are on the job, you are not alone, no matter what the circumstances are," Byrd says. "We know that our jobs can be dangerous, but we are there for our children, because we love our children.

"Come next fall, I'll be back on the bus route."

—Bill Fischer

Departments: Money
Should Kids Work? Timing the Stock Market

Q: I think teenagers should work. My husband says he worked too hard as a kid and he doesn't want our two girls working. What do you think?

A: I'm with you. The first time I really thought about this question was 10 years ago when I was writing a story for Money magazine about how to teach your kids about money. I was pregnant at the time and so I was paying special attention.

We interviewed lots of people and one guy said: I don't see that my kids are going to learn anything from flipping hamburgers at McDonald's. I'd rather see them out having a good time.

It made me think about some of the jobs I'd done, planting and picking beans for 10 cents a pound, waitressing, washing dishes. What I learned was how to work hard and that employers are not always fair. I was hired to work in a bakery and the owner paid me less per hour each week for three or four weeks until I screamed about it.

Kids can't learn these kinds of lessons by sailing and water skiing, although having fun is certainly important, too. But all jobs have their drudgery. Mine does. I'm sure yours does too. How will our kids learn how to deal with that if they never do menial work?

I've worked with kids just out of college who felt they were ready to run the place. I don't want my kids to have that attitude when they start working. Being a parent isn't easy. But we do have to try to teach our kids the most important lessons we learned ourselves.

Q: I'm the executor of my mother's estate. What does that mean?

A: It means your mother chose you to carry out the provisions of her will. The person who makes the will is called the "testator." It's common to name a spouse or a child as executor. But sometimes the testator names a neutral expert like a bank trust department, an attorney, or a financial consultant.

Your first job as executor is to get the will probated. This means presenting it to probate court, which declares it valid.

Once you've done that, you are to administer the estate, which includes paying debts, taxes, and other expenses and, ultimately, settling the estate according to the terms of the will.

This is a big job. You must find all the assets, including pension benefits and other business termination agreements, and value those that don't have a ready value. You must collect appraisals for homes or other real estate and for valuables like art and jewelry. You must also file the final tax return for the decedent.

Most people don't even make wills. I'm guessing that because your mother made a will, she also probably talked to you about some of the details such as where she kept her life insurance policies and lists of other assets.

The best time to get started on these responsibilities is while the estate owner is still alive. It's wise to ask him or her to make a list of assets with their location and to ask about disposal of personal property that's not itemized in the will.

Q: What's the best day to buy stocks?

A: I've been getting this question a lot lately, and it delights me because it shows how sophisticated investors have become. What you are doing when you put a specific amount of money into the market at regular intervals is called dollar cost averaging. That is the very best way for most investors to get started.

Studies show that investors who make regular investments, preferably once a month like you do, buy more shares of a stock when the market is down, fewer when it is up.

If the stock mutual fund you invest in is selling at $25 a share, you buy four shares that month; at $20 you buy five shares. Over time, this strategy works extremely well.

But your question is specifically about timing. It seems to you--and to many people who start using this strategy--that they end up buying at the high for the month.

It may seem that you're unlucky in the purchase price because you are watching the fund so closely and you notice that there are other times during the month when it trades lower.

But give it time. Studies show that getting the absolute low of a month isn't that important over time. It's the regular, disciplined investing that makes the difference.

--Mary Rowland

Rowland is an author and
contributor to several financial
planning magazines.

Thrifty Educator

This month's tips come from Amy Graff, a first, second, and third grade special educator at the Stapleton School in Framingham, Massachusetts, and from Verlee Owens, a special education and English teacher at West High School in Sioux City, Iowa.

Graff: "I incorporate many academic areas into my lessons by studying plants. We grow them from cuttings, seeds, and bulbs. We start at the beginning of the year and hold a Mother's Day plant sale in May. Students compare the plants' growth rates and record observations in their writing journals. They sell the plants, so collecting money and making change become part of the project. They calculate how much was spent on supplies and how much profit was made. We buy books for the school library with the proceeds."

Owens: "Your chamber of commerce and state tourism office may offer wonderful, free teaching resources. They usually have books, maps, and brochures available in classroom sets. Use them across the curriculum and grade levels, to encourage creative writing, im-prove map skills, and practice skimming/scanning for information."

If you have a favorite money-saving tip that you apply in your workplace, please send your idea along to neatoday@nea.org.

Heads Up from NEA Member Benefits

The NEA Valuebuilder Program is an outstanding way to prepare for your retirement, and NEA Member Benefits has selected a new company to administer the program, the Security Benefit Group.

Security Benefit maintains an extensive network of independent financial advisors, and as many as 500 agents will be working with NEA members. NEA Member Benefits also plans to develop a qualified tax-deferred mutual fund 403(b)(7) program, an after-tax mutual fund program, and a retirement rollover product.

Questions? Just call 1-800-637-4636, Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. (Saturday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.) ET. Or visit www.neamb.com.

NEA Member Benefits can save you money on magazines wi