ADE Briefs

The Arkansas Department of Education’s Office of Teacher Quality is making a special effort to reach out to individuals who have either been laid off or face the possiblity of being laid off from their jobs to encourage them to look at teaching as a new career. There is still time this year to complete the requirements to enter the Non-Traditional Licensure Program for secondary teachers. If you are a school administrator, anticipate openings on your middle school or high school teaching staff next year and know of someone in your community who is both qualified and possibly facing a job change, this would be a fantastic time to visit with them about either the Non-traditional Licensure Program or a master’s in arts in teaching or master’s in education. Those without a bachelor’s degree may qualify to pursue for a vocational teaching permit. Individuals interested in the NTLP should schedule an appointment with the Office of Teacher Quality as soon as possible by calling 501-371-1580. Additional information is available at www.teacharkansas.org.
Posted by JJT.

Dr. Ken James will join other state school chiefs in Washington, DC, this afternoon for a meeting with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to discuss stimulus monies targeted toward education and how they may be spent. After the conference, Dr. James, Gene Wilhoit, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, and perhaps a few other state chiefs will meet with media on the White House lawn to answer questions. The press conference is set for 3 p.m. Central Time.
Posted by JJT.

Middle school and high school teachers will have the opportunity to hear Ken Bain, a leading educator and change agent, when he speaks at UALR’s Dickinson Hall Auditorium at 1:15 p.m. Friday, Feb. 27. Bain, who received a Ph.D. in history at the University of Texas at Austin, has been the founding director of four major teaching and learning centers: the Center for Teaching Excellence at New York University, the Searle Center for Teaching Excellence at Northwestern University, the Center for Teaching at Vanderbilt University, and the Research Academy for University Learning at Montclair State University. Internationally recognized for his insights into teaching and learning and for a 15-year study of what the best educators do, he has been invited in recent years to present workshops or lectures at over 250 universities and events across the world. His learning research has concentrated on a wide range of issues, including deep and sustained learning and the creation of natural critical learning environments. The lecture is free and open to the public.
His recently-published book, What the Best College Teachers Do (Harvard University Press, 2004) won the 2004 Virginia and Warren Stone Prize for an outstanding book on education and society, and has been one of the top selling books on higher education. It has been translated into eight languages. He has won four major teaching awards, including a teacher-of-the-year award, faculty nomination for the Minnie Piper Foundation Award for outstanding college
teacher in Texas in 1980 and 1981, and Honors Professor of the Year Awards in
1985 and 1986. A 1990 national publication named him one of the best teachers
in the United States.

Bain has received awards from the Harry S Truman Library, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the International Studies Association, among others. He is currently completing his third book on U.S. relations with the Middle East, The Last Journey Home: Franklin Roosevelt and the Middle East.

The Arkansas Department of Information Systems (DIS) announced in a news release today that a vendor providing secure off-site storage for electronic records and computer files was unable to locate a DIS computer tape in its inventory. The tape contained information from criminal-background checks run on approximately 807,000 people over at least 12 years.
The tape is missing from Information Vaulting Services (IVS) but an investigation by the Arkansas State Police has found no evidence of wrongdoing. IVS believes there is litte risk that the information on the tape has been compromised, but anyone who has undergone a criminal-background check in Arkansas since the mid-1990s and wants to know if his or her personal information was included on the lost computer tape can find out either by calling 888-682-0411 or by going online to notify.arkansas.gov.
Posted by JJT.

The U.S. Department of Education issued a press release today about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) that can be found on an ARRA web page created by USDOE. In addition to the press release, you’ll find a more detailed fact sheet, links to budget information — including state-by-state allocations for formula-based programs — as well as a brief “video statement” by Secretary Arne Duncan.
Posted by JJT.

SayGoCollege week begins Monday, and we hope all Arkansas high school students have the opportunity to experience it.
All Arkansas high schools should have received the SayGoCollege toolkits that were delivered to them earlier this month from the Arkansas Department of Higher Education. While we know every school may not want to follow these ideas to the letter, we at ADE hope that you will incorporate some of these ideas for daily activities — or come up with ones that will work better at your schools — to spur students to think seriously about going to a two-year or four-year college.
Remember, we have a lot of students who are quite capable but who may never have been encouraged to go to college. And even with encouragement, the application and financial process can seem daunting. The week’s activities are designed to alleviate some of that angst as well as create a fun focus on a very serious goal.
Post a comment and let us know some of the activities you have planned for the week. We’d also love to hear some of your success stories. To post a comment, link to this blog item through the headline and then click “comment.”
Posted by JJT.

The College Board hosted an event at the Governor’s Mansion for Arkansas legislators Thursday night to share with them how well the state is doing in regard to Advanced Placement classes.
Governor Mike Beebe, Education Commissioner Ken James and Higher Education Director Jim Purcell all spoke breifly to the crowd, which included several superintendents and representatives from education-related organizations.
The highlight was the unveiling of a color-coded map of the United States in which Arkansas was the only state almost completely filled with green, with green representing the highest AP participation rates. To see where Advanced Placement is being implemented well, look for the green on the map, the College Board told the Arkansas audience. Arkansas, which has received recognition each year for the past several years for both increased participation and increased scores in Advanced Placement, is one of only a handful of states where the College Board is hosting similar celebrations.
Advanced Placement classes are rigorous courses for high school students that are approved by the College Board. As of last year, all Arkansas public high schools must offer at least one AP class in each of the four core subject areas: science, mathematics, social studies and English.
Posted by JJT

Arkansas high school students across the state will be focusing on all things college next week: how to apply, how to sign up for financial aid and how to prepare academically. It’s all part of SayGoCollege week, made possible by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education to the Arkansas Department of Higher Education. In addition to participating in activities at the high schools and at area colleges, students (or, for, that matter, anyone who’s gone to college or who hasn’t but wanted to) are encouraged to participate in a video contest. They may upload videos on YouTube through February 22. To see videos already uploaded or to see the contest entry rules, visit the SayGoCollege site.

The Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) learned yesterday that the U.S. Department of Education has awarded the state a $5 million grant for technology and data systems. The money will be given to the state over the next three years. Jim Boardman, ADE assistant commissioner for research and technology, said plans for the grant include upgrading the data warehouse system. For more complete details, link here.
Posted by JJT.

To keep you as up to date as possible with news in education and happenings at the Arkansas Department of Education, we are creating a new electronic publication, ADE Briefs. This blog-type feature will replace Arkansas Education Matters, our monthly electronic newsletter, and it will be updated as needed (so often, but not necessarily daily!) That way, we can provide information on a more timely basis.

We’ll also provide links from here to news releases, PowerPoints and video presentations as soon after they are presented as possible. ADE Briefs will not take the place of Commissioner’s Memos, though, so remember to check those out daily.

Another bonus is that you can provide us with feedback by posting your comments to the site. A few rules though: comments must be accompanied with your full name and the ADE Office of Communications also has the right to approve comments before they are published to the site. And, we’ll keep the same commitment by putting a “posted by” tagline at the end of our entries.

We hope you enjoy ADE Briefs. Let us hear from you!
Posted by Julie Johnson Thompson
Director of Communications, Arkansas Department of Education