What's New...Resources/Articles/links

Below you will find a press release on this important article on “The Pseudoscience of Single-Sex Schooling”, a link to the article and a podcast.
  
Thanks greatly to our colleagues on the board of the American Council for CoEducational Schooling www.coedschools.org <http://www.coedschools.org>  for this excellent work!

(See http://feminist.org/education/pdfs/RescissionFlyer9-30-09f.pdf or pdf which outlines legal and economic reasons as well as the critically important research evidence against sex segregation detailed in this 2 page science article.)

Male and female ability differences down to socialisation, not genetics:
Behavioral differences between trhe sexes are not hard-wired at bith but are the rresult of society's expectations say scientists. Robin McKie, The Observer, Sunday 15 August 2010.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/15/girls-boys-think-same-way/print

Spyros Konstantopoulos “Do Small Classes Reduce the Achievement Gap between Low and High Achievers? Evidence from Project STAR” Elementary School Journal 108:4

Do smaller classes help students?  Yes...and no. Konstantopoulos finds that “although all types of students benefited from being in small classes, reductions in class size did not reduce the achievement gap between low and high achievers”  He concludes by calling for more observational studies of classrooms themselves, as we still do not know how to address one of the most vexing problems—the achievement gap between students—facing educators and policy-makers, today.  See more:

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/action/showStoryContent?doi=10.1086%2F%2Fpr.2008.02.28.1308

NEW REPORT ADDRESSES REASONS FOR 41 PERCENT DROPOUT RATE AMONG LATINA HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS. NWLC and MALDEF survey Latinas about their aspirations and unique challenges to reaching their goals
Latinas have high aspirations.
Almost every Latina surveyed, 98 percent, reported that they want to graduate from high school, and 80 percent said they want to graduate from college and perhaps go further. Read the Article

The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools
“ These educational gaps impose on the United States the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession.”

“ The wide variation in performance among schools serving similar students suggests that these gaps can be closed. Race and poverty are not destiny.”
Read the Article

GESA Stories:

Implementing GESA in Small Town and Urban Contexts
Dennis Parsons, Tania Ramalho, Barbara Beyerbach, Marcia Burrell

Syracuse Teacher Center, Syracuse, NY
We are doing some exciting stuff that I want you to know about.

Wanting to touch base as the school year winds down and to let you know that we -Maribeth DiFlorio and I-  have had another very positive GESA course run this spring. This was our third training with a small group of Syracuse City School teachers- running the gamut from PreK-12.
Over the past three semesters we have taught the course as an inservice professional development class, granting 3 credit hours towards salary increment for our Unit 1 teachers.

What we want you to know is that we have universally positive, enthusiastic responses from our teachers, across grade levels, unanimously!  The teachers credit the GESA course with strong impact on their teaching practice!
We have kept copies of the evaluations the teachers submit at the end of the course and would be very happy to share them with you.

We have our teachers sign up for the course with a partner (or two) from their school. They agree to observe each other and collect the tally data on the teacher-student interactions for all five units. We structure the 30-hour course with 21 hours of class time and the remaining 9 hours for outside reading, response journals,  preparation and time from their own planning periods for the observations.

Maribeth and I love the co-teaching! We enjoy planning our sessions together and the interplay of our varied experience and perspectives that emerges as we teach together. We have had positive feedback from our participants about the positive modeling and differentiation that we can offer in this model.

Ellen Murray Thornton
Professional Development Specialist
Syracuse Teacher Center
1153 W. Fayette St.
Syracuse, NY 13204
Phone: 315-435-6360 or 4217
Fax: 315-435-4218
email: ellen@syracusetc.org
email:ethornton@scsd.us

 

This page is still under construction. Stories will be added periodically. If you wish to submit a story please email it to graymill@iinet.com.

Upcoming Trainings:

This page is still under construction. Upcoming trainings will be added periodically. If you wish to advertise an upcoming training, open to those outside of your agency, please email the dates and details to graymill@iinet.com.

How To Set Up A Training:

We present where districts/agencies host our trainings.  Then, usually the host site will open up the training to teachers outside of their district if they have the room. If the host site has a hard time getting together the minimum of 20 teachers it takes to put on the training, then it helps  to have “outside” teachers join.  The outside teachers pay GrayMill directly – no cost to the host site. If you would be interested in hosting a GESA Facilitator training (providing the space and helping to advertise it), we could help spread the word outside of your district and that way provide training for your team of teachers, as well as a few other teams from elsewhere.

If your agency chooses to host a three day GESA Facilitator training the cost is $350.00 per participant, with a minimum of 20 people or $7,000 (with maximum participation limited to 50), plus expenses. The training includes the full GESA Teacher Handbook (3rd ed.), the GESA Facilitator publication, the new 4th edition of the GESA Participant Booklet and additional training materials. Expenses include airfare, ground transportation, meals, lodging, cost for shipping materials and airport parking for the day(s) involved.

Should you want Dr. Grayson (Dee) for a one-day or half-day presentation, (perhaps, a motivational kick-off or one-day overview with as many participants as possible for awareness purposes) her daily fee is $1,500, including master copies for a handout packet. The new GESA Participant booklet (a condensed version of the GESA Teacher’s handbook) is $25 ea., plus shipping and would be required for an overview session.

Please contact GrayMill if you want to set up a training or overview session.