Counselors, classroom teachers and school administrators could distribute this list to their students and their parents.
Franklin Schargel’s Blog
Using Electronic Books in Schools
E-books have hit a significant milestone. In each of the last three months, Amazon reports that sales of books for Kindle have outpaced the sale of hardcover books, and that growth is only accelerating.
In a statement, Amazon says that, “over the past three months, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 143 Kindle books. Over the past month, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 180 Kindle books.” Six months later, the shift has apparently become the norm.
While part of that shift has to do with reading trends in general “” Amazon notes that e-book sales grew 163 percent in the month of May and 207 percent year-to-date through May “” Kindle book sales (and other devices like Barnes & Noble’s Nook) has been aided in recent months by price cuts getting e-readers into the hands of more consumers. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says that “the growth rate of Kindle device unit sales has tripled since we lowered the price from $259 to $189.”
Those price reductions, of course, have been triggered in large part by new competition in the form of iPad. As much as anything else, Amazon is once again reminding us that Kindle is far from dead in the wake of Apple’s tablet, although with Kindle now offering apps for Windows, Mac, and most mobile operating systems, its long-term success may ultimately be much more dependent on its e-book store across platforms as opposed to physical device sales.
Electronic books offer schools several advantages. First, students will not have to lug heavy textbooks around. A large number of books can be stored on an electronic book. The price of these electronic books continues to fall while the price of a written book continues to rise. Schools will be able to save substantial funds by using electronic books. New additions to e-books can immediately be downloaded to class sets negating the need to purchase updates.
Employment Up For Those with Some College Education
You might want to inform your students of the following:
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employers added 216,000 new jobs since last May. While employment has grown by 512,000 jobs for people with a bachelors degree it has fallen by 318,000 jobs for those with only a high school diploma.
It used to be that to qualify for a job you had to have a high school diploma. It now appears that even having a high school diploma will not even get you through the employment door. Students who are considering leaving school before getting a high school diploma are having a difficult today and will have an even more difficult time tomorrow.
Does Criticism of Teachers Constitute Free Speech?
Students are using the internet to complain about teachers, principals and the schools they attend. The vastness of the Internet and MySpace, Facebook and personal blogs permit them to vent about real or perceived complaints.
Some schools have taken have taken disciplinary steps against students posting critical content such as suspending students from the National Honor Society or banning the students from clubs or teams. There’s no question that attacks on principals and teachers are abrasive, degrading, racist, sexist opinions, sophomoric and insulting. We tend to forget that students also have rights. Exactly how much free speech is really free?
The issue of free speech in the schools seemed to be settled. In a landmark case in 1969, the Supreme Court upheld the First Amendment rights of public school students to wear black armbands to protest the war in Vietnam. The high court asserted that young people have First Amendment rights, noting “it can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Short of a substantial disruption of school operations, the kids could have their say, the Supreme Court concluded. The black armband has been supplanted by the Internet, a potent tool for information, education and character assassination.
The two cases involving Pennsylvania school principals and MySpace could hold the key to the future of free expression for public school students. The cases ended up before separate panels of judges of the 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which reached opposite conclusions. One panel concluded that the student had a First Amendment right to publish his parody because the school district did not demonstrate that the outrageous (and unbelievable) statements about the principal would significantly disrupt the teaching environment. The other panel justified the school’s actions as a way to preserve the principal’s authority and avert future disruption.
It’s tough to defend insults by teens, but check out the comments section of any online publication and you’ll find adults posting, all with the full protection of the First Amendment.
The best legal path in these cases is to treat young people posting ugly and potentially defamatory content the way we would adults. If the content is illegal or threatening, charge them. If the content is libelous, sue them, as some teachers and principals have done. And if the content is neither criminal nor libelous, accept a provocative posting as the free speech that it is.
When school administrators become aware of postings that malign teachers or principals, they should call the parents and let them mete out punishment.
National Dropout Prevention’s National Conference
The National Dropout Prevention Conference has invited Franklin to deliver a pre-conference presentation as well as a breakout session. Franklin’s 3 hour pre-conference will address the implementation of the 15 Effective Strategies where the participants will learn not only “what to do” but “how to” implement the strategies. The breakout session will address the issues of school leadership and school culture. The conference will be held in Schaumburg, IL at the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center Hotel. For additional information and registration instructions visit, www.dropoutprevention.org
Premier Speakers Bureau
Franklin has joined the Premiere Speakers Bureau. The Premier Speakers Bureau, begun in 1994, has grown into one of the most respected speakers bureaus employing some of world’s best, and most compelling speakers. Franklin joins a number of outstanding presenters including:
Mike Huckabee, Presidential Candidate
Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Olympic Gold Medalist,
Anderson Cooper, Host of Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN
Ron Clark, Disney 2000 American Teacher of the Year.
For more information, visit their website, https://premierespeakers.com/
Calgary Canada Teachers Conference
Franklin will be delivering the keynote address at the 2012 Calgary Teacher’s Conference. The theme of the Conference is Relating, Engaging and Empowering: THIS TIME I’S PERSONAL.
School Budgets That Make Sense
Can any business function with a one year budget? Can any school?
Imagine you were the Chief Executive Officer of a corporation and you went to your board of directors and asked them what was the budget you had to work with during the next business year? How many workers would you have in order to complete the work necessary? And imagine the answer you received was, “we don’t know! You will have to wait until next year.”
Stupid? You bet it is. But that is the situation that happens every school year for school boards, superintendents and school principals. Until state legislatures, local city mayors, the U.S. Department of Education and the federal government decides how much funding to give to education everyone in the field is in the dark.
Superintendents and principals are asked to develop long-term (3 to 5 year) strategic plans with answers as to how they are going to achieve improved academic success. They have to do so while looking into a crystal ball and using previous budgets to give a “guesstamate”. Superintendents are given a 3 or 5 year contract but only a one-year budget. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
Their assumptions are predicated on the success of the economy, tax revenues maintaining their same levels, having the same number of classroom instructors, maintaining the same number of support personnel and that the price of fuel for school buses will remain the same. They have to predict that the weather for the following year will be the same weather for this year so that the price of heating and cooling the schools and offices will not go up.
And legislatures do not always pass budgets in a reasonable time or in accordance with mandates. Legislatures have demonstrated the ability to “pull the plug on the clock” before the midnight mandatory deadline so as to meet their requirement to have a budget in place before the start of the new budget year.
Schools need to benchmark businesses and begin to develop multi-year budgets. But it is not up to them. It is up to the state legislatures and governors. I guess we are in for a long wait.