Volume II
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Feature
Chandler Unified School District-Intel Technology Partnership
What's New
Secretary Paige introduces Teacher-to-Teacher initiative; National Charter Schools Week will kick off with a live webcast; the National Charter Schools conference will convene in Miami, June 16-18; Virginia Governor Warner officially approves the Charter School Excellence and Accountability Act; the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation is accepting nominations for excellence in education awards; reports are issued on America's Choice program; the NewSchools Venture Fund launches the Pacific Charter School Development partnership; Burris Laboratory School students help make electronic field trip to Washington, DC possible.
Innovations in the News
Colorado has received a grant for Princeton Review to provide supplemental college counseling to help students prepare to go to college, plus information on arts in education, charter schools, and technology.
Technology Training Partnership Links Chandler Schools to Intel
Technology has electrified our culture and changed how we receive and retrieve information forever. The switch to technology as the major information tool in our society has expanded the options for how education is delivered, creating limitless resources and redefining what it means to teach. As a result of this switch, Intel offers professional development in technology for teachers around the world.
One school district, Chandler Unified in Maricopa County, Arizona, has recognized the need to bring technology and education together in a nexus of opportunity for both teachers and students, and has built a dynamic partnership with Intel.
Intel has donated $5 million to the school district to 1) improve teachers' instructional practices, 2) increase student achievement in literacy, math, science, and technology, 3) establish a technology-based learning community, and 4) increase the participation of girls and minority students in science, math, and technology.
Toward these ends, the school district, Intel, and the City of Chandler formed a Management Review Committee to determine specific ways that technology could be integrated meaningfully into schools. The results include two teacher professional development strands: staff development programs and a "buddy" program.
Staff development is implemented through Intel's Teach to the Future Program, which helps teachers integrate technology into their classes by instructing them to become trainers on Microsoft Office software. The program is based on a "teachers-teaching-teachers" model with a Master Teacher, who has extensive experience integrating technology into the curriculum, working with at least ten Participant Teachers, who receive 40 hours of instruction on effective pedagogical applications of computers with students. During the course of the program, the district can measure its effect using online evaluation tools.
The buddy program matches Intel volunteers with Chandler School District employees for individualized instruction and training. In addition to donating this expertise, Intel pays the school $200 for every 20 hours that volunteers work at a school.
How has this partnership affected students? Teacher involvement in technology has spawned a science and engineering fair for students from all 27 schools in the district. Student projects have earned national and international recognition. In 2003, for example, a group of students was chosen to travel to Moscow to share the project, "Mass Production of Biodiesel, Nysee 100% with Use of Microbes."
While there is not necessarily a clear correlation between the program and student test scores on standardized tests, district students in grades 3, 5, and 10 perform higher than the state averages in mathematics, with 73% of third graders, 60% of fifth graders, and 56% of tenth graders meeting or exceeding state standards on the Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS) results for 2002-2003. And these percentages are higher than the scores from 2001-2002.
In addition to the Chandler School District project, Intel's Teach to the Future program has trained more than one million teachers in 30 countries around the world. The Education Development Center of the Center for Children and Technology has evaluated the program, finding that it "is closely aligned with NCLB's criteria for high quality professional development and with the goals and objectives of NCLB's technology programs." Maricopa County recently recognized the partnership between Intel and Chandler Schools for one of its "most innovative school programs of Maricopa County" awards.
For more information, please view: OII Technology grants: Note: The featured program is interesting and innovative, but does not necessarily have evidence of general effectiveness from a rigorous evaluation. The success of the program described may not be replicable, depending on unique conditions in differing locations.
What's New
Teachers to Listen, Learn, Share Practices to Improve Student Achievement
Secretary of Education Rod Paige has introduced the Teacher-to-Teacher initiative, which will engage the nation's best teachers and education experts in sharing teaching techniques to raise student achievement. (April 21)
National Charter Schools Week
On Monday, May 3, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., National Charter Schools Week will kick off with a live webcast that all charter schools can watch and participate in via the Internet. For technical questions, contact Jeff Fissel at jeff@kidsonline.org or 703-655-4004. (April 22)
National Charter Schools Conference
The National Charter Schools conference will be held in Miami, Florida, June 16-18. Keynote speakers will be television star Laura San Giacomo and former U.S. Congressman, the Rev. Dr. Floyd H. Flake. The deadline for registration is May 25. (April 23)
Virginia HB 380 Charter School Excellence and Accountability Act; changes in provisions
Virginia Governor Mark Warner has officially approved the Charter School Excellence and Accountability Act, HB 380, which builds on the state's current charter school laws, increasing the maximum charter term from three to five years and removing a 10% cap on charter schools in a district. (April 20)
Thomas B. Fordham Foundation
The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation is accepting nominations for awards in excellence in education. The two awards of $25,000 each are for distinguished scholarship and leadership in education reform. The deadline for nominations is May 14. (April 19)
Consortium for Policy Research in Education
A report from the Consortium for Policy Research in Education, "Evaluation of the America's Choice Comprehensive School Reform Design," shows that this school improvement model can help improve student performance. Another report from the National Center on Education and the Economy, (PDF, 1MB) which operates America's Choice, describes the program's success in such places as Rochester, NY. (April 21)
NewSchools Venture Fund Announces Launch of Pacific Charter School Development
The NewSchools Venture Fund has announced the launch of Pacific Charter School Development--a public/private partnership that will help solve the charter school facilities challenge in California. (April 13)
2003 - 2004 Electronic Field Trip Series
Students can now participate in electronic field trips. Students from Burris Laboratory School, located on Ball State University's (IN) campus, flew to Washington, D.C. to visit the Udvar-Hazy Center, the new addition to the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum, and took 15 million others along through an interactive Internet and satellite broadcast that was available to students in more than 40 countries. (April 20)
Innovations in the News
Supplemental Educational Services
Colorado has received a grant to conduct a 3-year pilot program for The Princeton Review to provide supplemental college counseling specialists to help students take classes and go through the application process to be admitted to college. Colorado is the state with the lowest number of students going to college. [More-Denver Post] (April 22)
Arts Education
A live chess game is one way students at Lincoln Jackson Elementary School (NM) demonstrate a lesson in geometry that connects with understanding the history of the Middle Ages. The chess game is part of a program of the Institute for Education in the Arts that has received an OII grant. [More-Clovis News-Journal] (April 17)
Charter Schools
More Cincinnati parents are turning to charter schools--enrollment in charters has grown from 250 to 5,500 students in six years. [More-Cincinnati Enquirer] (April 18)
Charter schools, one of the fastest growing innovations in education today, still face challenges. DC Council member Kevin Chavous, however, has been influenced by the successful charter schools he has visited and is writing a book, Serving Our Children: Charter Schools and the Reform of American Public Education, to be released in June. [More-Washington Post] (April 21)
Technology
Monroe County (GA) is using Wyse technology to provide equal access to educational computing resources in all schools, regardless of location or workstation, so that computing acts "like plumbing"-- it works without being noticed. [More-Yahoo Finance] (April 19)
Ha Noi Open University (Vietnam) has inaugurated a television station for distance learning that networks to 21 cities and provinces to train 8,000 students in six subjects. [More-Vnanet] (April 19)
New teachers at Gallup-McKinley County Schools (AZ), where 80 percent of students are Native American, will get instructional CDs developed by the Navajo Education Technology Consortium to give them a better grounding in Navajo tradition, beliefs, and history. [More-Azcentral] (April 19)
PBS is launching two new children's programs this year, including Postcards from Buster, funded by a grant from OII. Postcards will follow Arthur's friend, Buster Baxter, as he travels across North America with his father who is a pilot. The first episode will air in the fall. [More-Globe and Mail] (April 8)
Schools in Leon County (FL) are working with Apple and Dell on the "Laptop Initiative for Education," a program that enables teachers to use computers to teach math and science while learning technology skills. [More-Tallahassee Democrat] (April 19)
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Last Modified: 06/27/2007
