Let's Celebrate the Private Sector!

It's not news that California schools have suffered massive budget cuts. Many schools are getting by on $1000 less per student, along with increased class size and staff cuts. Not an easy environment to learn in. This week, report cards arrive in our local schools, with parent conferences following. What that means for the Golden Apple Learning Store is business! Parents will turn out in droves for flashcards, workbooks and games. This first report card is always an eye-opener, and this year there will be lots of open eyes. The only way to assure personalized instruction is to do it yourself, and that's our chance to shine!
I would prefer better schools. Happy engaged teachers, small class sizes, and excited students would be as good or better for our business. I would rather have kids excited about reading, math and science - oh the things I could sell! Bring back the days of energized teachers with money to spend!
Instead we sell lots of remedial materials. When report cards arrive this week we will all learn the real-world effects of budget cuts.

Top-Notch Teachers Found to Affect Peers

From Education Week:

Teachers raise their games when the quality of their colleagues improves, according to a new studyoffering some of the first evidence to document a “spillover effect” in teaching.

Authors C. Kirabo Jackson and Elias Bruegmann based their findings on an analysis of 11 years of data on North Carolina schoolchildren. The study is due to be published in October in American Economics Journal: Applied Economics, a peer-reviewed journal.

The authors and some independent experts said the study results are important, because they carry implications for school staffing practices and debates going on now at the national level over how to structure merit-pay plans for teachers.

Best Sellers for Back to School

We've always made lists of the things teachers loved most during our back to school rush. Everyone likes to know what's popular, and this year, through the magic of social media we are able to post our best seller list for the world to see, or at least a few more teachers than we see in the store on a regular basis. We've added these items to our web store, but keep in mind that some of them were so popular that we sold out - the Multi-Color kids for example. They'll be back in stock in a week or so. The partial list in no particular order:

• Grammar Minutes from CTP
• The No Yell Bell from EI
• Dots on Black Anything! CTP
• Multi-Color Kids Cut-Outs
• Smencils from EI

I left off the old favorites like All-About-Me posters and Happy Birthday Charts. Teachers were in a good mood, despite the junk that got thrown at them this year. We're hoping this school year brings a little balance back to the curriculum - and allows teachers some job security and freedom to teach.

Teacher Gifts

Bill Harley talks about schools as a gift giving culture:

The good learning places I go to are filled with evidence of their being gift-giving cultures. Children bring in cupcakes and teacher presents. They happily wipe the blackboards or write get-well cards to sick teachers or other students. Math teachers show up at piano recitals; English teachers give books from their own libraries to interested students. All teachers buy supplies for which they aren’t repaid. These are all gifts, given freely, without thought of compensation. There is no way we can untangle the web of relationships that form in a learning environment.

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