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Check out our latest Improve Groove newsletter! In it, you’ll learn ways to measure what can’t be measured. Sound impossible? Not after you ready Marian’s article!
The newsletter also features lessons learned from Leah’s sabbatical, and tips for making evaluation as painless as possible for staff.
When the boys were little I took them to a kids’ seminar on what to do to be “stranger safe.” I have tried to find repeated messages throughout their growing years to continue to instill wise choices. Recently, I went to a cyber-bullying and internet safety forum with my 12 year old. Here at the Improve Group we have conducted evaluations for several Safe Schools/Healthy Students grant sites. Child safety is important to my highlighted funder as well as they encourage educators to help spread the message.
This week’s pick: Honeywell and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children are teamed up for a grant contest called the Got 2B Safe! Awards. The Got 2B Safe program works to encourage the teaching of potentially life-saving personal safety skills to elementary children. The awards are intended for classroom teachers at schools (K-12) who have lesson plans emphasizing Got 2B Safe’s rules for personal safety. Five award winners will receive a $10,000 classroom makeover. Applications are due by March 23, 2009. For more information, click here.
FYI: Teachers may go to their site to download a Got 2B Safe Educational Kit for your classroom.
You may have noticed a familiar face on the 10:00 news this Monday! Our very own business manager, Samantha Hagel, was interviewed about the growth of crafty businesses in the troubled economy. It’s a little known fact that when she’s not at the Improve Group, Samantha can be found running her business Truly… in White Bear Lake. Click here to learn more about the growth of the craft industry and see Samantha at her shop!
It’s been a busy week getting our February newsletter together so I apologize for Grant Gazing coming our so late in the week. Another part of my busy week was running between my sons two schools to assist with various programs and events. I am always struck by the colorful art in the hallways or the excitement of the school jazz band playing for the crowd. This access to artistic achievement and enjoyment is something we must never take for granted – my highlighted funder certainly feels that way too.
This week’s pick: The Challenge America: Reaching Every Community Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts would like to expand access to the arts to underserved populations. The NEA is offering grants of up to $10,000 each for professional arts programming and “projects that emphasize the potential of the arts in community development.”
Organizations may receive an expedited “fast track” grant in the following project areas:
• An arts event that will feature one or more guest artists
• The creation of professionally directed public art projects
• Civic design activities that involve the renovation, restoration, or adaptive reuse of cultural facilities or spaces
• The unified promotion of community-wide arts activities and resources
Applicants are encouraged to form partnerships with other organizations when applying. May 28, 2008 is the deadline to apply. Please go the NEA website for more application information.
A recent study released by Mathamatica Policy Research finds that students who have teachers certified through alternative-training programs do no worse in mathematics or reading achievement than students whose teachers have been certified by traditional teacher education programs.
The study, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, also found no correlation between teacher effectiveness and the amount of coursework that teachers received as part of their alternative or traditional teacher-training programs.
The Mathematica study compared students from the same schools who were randomly assigned to teachers from alternative-certification programs or regular teacher education programs. It tracked 2,600 students in 63 schools in six states.
The researchers stated that since most alternative-certification programs are not very selective in picking candidates, they chose to examine those types of programs. Similarly, most traditional teacher education programs are not very selective.
The study found that while the amount of coursework required by training programs varies greatly within alternative-certification programs and within traditional programs, the number of course hours did not affect student achievement. In fact, students of alternative-certified teachers scored higher than students of their traditionally certified counterparts as often as they scored lower.
It is clear that more evaluation work will be needed to examine the diversity in the coursework and the uniqueness of teaching candidates of specific programs. For example, a recent study of teacher education of New York City programs finds that while there are many programs, the characteristics of the programs are quite similar. It will be interesting to learn what specific characteristics lead to effective teachers, especially in measuring the effectiveness of well-known alternative certification programs such as Teach For America and the New Teacher Project. Join in the debate on the effectiveness of particular teacher certification programs by sending us your opinions and ideas.
I spent last night at my sons Junior High as Parent Association Co-President for the 7th grade. We went over issues on internet safety and cyber-bullying and received proposal requests from teachers for funding needed for items and projects in their classrooms.
Concerns on important issues like education and health care are way up on the list of things our school addresses. I hope it is safe to say that we would all like healthy families with good opportunities for a great education. To make this possible we all need to get involved as individuals. The following couple of funders are getting involved by helping our kids get access to education.
This week’s picks: Through the Looking Glass (TLG) and its National Center for Parents with Disabilities and their Families have two new scholarship opportunities for students. To be eligible you must be:
1. A high school senior who is a graduate by the summer of 2009 and have at least one parent with a disability.
2. A college student currently enrolled in a college or university, 21 or younger as of March 16, 2009, and have at least one parent with a disability.
Five separate $1,000 awards are available for each of the two scholarship categories. Part of the application is an optional survey about young adult children of parents with disabilities. Applications must be completed and postmarked by March 16, 2009. For more information, visit the TLG Website.
Kohl’s Kid’s Who Care gives a scholarship award to over 2,000 children who are exemplary volunteers in their communities. This giving program from the Kohl’s Corporation grants $350,000 in scholarships and prizes. The volunteer efforts must have happened within the last 12 months to be eligible.
Nominations for youth volunteers ages 6 through 18 are excepted now through March 15, 2009. Grant winners will be announced in June. Click here to read the official rules for entering.