Newspapers are used as teaching tools in Kentucky classrooms: A Kentucky elementary-school teacher uses newspapers to teach her students math, literacy and current events. Teacher Ruthie Miller says her students "buy" advertised items in the paper to learn math, write stories based on news photos and point out articles that are relevant to them. Miller receives the newspaper as part of the Newspapers in Education program, which distributes close to 10,000 papers to area classrooms each week to use as a teaching tool. (The News Enterprise)
Secret Supt Eval Alive in the Senate: A measure that would allow part of the school superintendent evaluation process to be closed cleared the Senate Tuesday. The vote on Senate Bill 178, which now goes to the House, was 38-0. SB 178, sponsored by Sen. David Givens, R-Greensburg, would allow preliminary evaluations involving school boards and superintendents to be closed to the public. The bill requires that final evaluations be discussed and voted on in public. School boards also would have the option of holding the preliminary sessions in public. (C-J)
Super's Principal Selection Bill Dies in House: A bill to give superintendents more say in hiring principals died in the House Education Committee Tuesday and is not expected to be revived this session, committee Chairman Carl Rollins said. A different version of House Bill 322 passed the committee last month and was sent to the full House. But it was referred back to the committee so changes could be made in an attempt to gain the support of the Kentucky Education Association, he said. “We did make it better, I believe we made the bill better,” said Rollins, D-Midway. “But we didn't get an agreement with KEA.” (C-J)
Etown Rep's HB 397 aimed at more options in evolution, global warming theories: State Rep. Tim Moore has filed a House bill meant to give public school educators more options when discussing scientific theories such as evolution and global warming. The Kentucky Science Education and Intellectual Freedom Act — which has been in the Education Committee since Feb. 10 — was one of several such measures featured in a recent New York Times article: “Darwin Foes Add Warming to Targets.” House Bill 397 would encourage teachers and administrators to “foster an environment promoting objective discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories.” In addition to evolution and global warming, specific theories mentioned in the proposal include “the origins of life” and human cloning. (News Enterprise)
Pellet gun fired at Clark County school bus: A juvenile may be responsible for shooting at a Clark County school bus Monday afternoon with a pellet gun. Clark County Sheriff Berl Perdue Jr. said this morning that the shot was fired about 4:10 p.m. Monday near the Yorktowne Trailer Park. No one was injured on the bus, Perdue said. The bus monitor was struck by an object. The monitor, though, was wearing a heavy coat and was not hurt. (Winchester Sun)
Social networking: A new tool allowed in the classroom: After spending the day practicing cursive writing and discussing how money moves through a community, Mike Ice's second-graders at Dunn Elementary took out their notebooks and described what they'd learned — in 140 characters or fewer. Then he selected a few students to type their abbreviated reports on the classroom's Twitter page — so that all the parents following their progress would receive a “tweet” about their day. “We did cursive morning work, it was the letter ‘D',” wrote Jenna Sexton, 8. Updating the classroom's Twitter page has become a daily practice for Ice's students. (C-J)
Not all agree with raising dropout age: One of four proposed pieces of legislation Kentucky’s education commissioner would like to see state legislators support requires students to stay in school until they are at least 17, unless the student has already completed high school. The legislation, which passed the state House of Representatives with a vote of 94-6, is House Bill 301. If adopted, the law would go into effect July 1, 2013. Beginning July 1, 2014, the age would increase one year to 18. While some legislators like the overall concept of encouraging students to stay in school and get a high school diploma, some disagree with the proposed legislation. One such legislator is Sen. David Givens, R-Greensburg. “Based on what I know, I am opposed to forcing students who don’t wish to be in school beyond the age of 16 to stay in school,” he said. “What it does for the classroom environment, for the students who wish to be there and who wish to get an education, [is] to suffer through the torment of students who don’t want to be there. I can’t see that helping the learning environment.” (Glasgow Daily Times)
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