Hillsborough looking out of state for math and science teachers

Fox 13 News in Tampa is reporting that the Hillsborough County school district is sending recruiters out of state – way out of state – to recruit teachers in critical needs fields, including math and science.  Fox 13 reporter Doug Smith related conversations he had with James Goode, chief teacher recruiter for Hillsborough County, and Mark West, Principal at Bloomingdale High School:

“We are looking for the best and the brightest, and in those critical shortage areas, sometimes it’s difficult to find,” offered Mark West, the principal at Bloomingdale High School and a recruiter for Hillsborough County. He defined critical shortage areas as math, science, and reading.

“Do we really need to go out of state to recruit these people and potentially take away jobs?” Doug Smith asked him.

“I think, in some areas, the answer is yes,” he replied.

West was one of five recruiters to travel to Purdue University for a teacher recruiting trip back in May at a total cost of $3,497. He characterized the trip as successful.

“We don’t technically hire up there and say, ‘Come down and you have a job.’ We go up and basically advocate for Hillsborough County.”

West was looking for a physics teacher but didn’t find one, and doesn’t know if any prospective teachers he met at Purdue were hired by Hillsborough County.

Is this really necessary?

“I think it is,” Goode insisted. “You’re going to cut yourself off from a valuable supply of teachers that have double majors. Colleges of education in Florida don’t normally put out that kind of a product.”

Dr. Goode says the district spent just half of the money budgeted for out-of-state recruiting and the trips produced positive results. He says the district has hired 620 new teachers so far this year and 121 are from outside Florida and came from areas and colleges where Hillsborough County recruiters had visited.

When will the State of Florida decide to concentrate scarce teacher education resources in the emergency needs fields of chemistry and physics?  Or will we continue to fly to Purdue University (and elsewhere) to recruit these teachers?

Lesson from Texas: Is an Algebra I EOC meltdown coming in Florida?

Hat tip to Jeff Solochek at Gradebook for this bit of cheer:

Texas has had a meltdown in its first crack at an Algebra I end-of-course exam.

Is Florida next?  We’ll see in the spring.

Biology by Inquiry?

Brandon Haught – a new science teacher and (incidentally) Communications Director and blogger for the Florida Citizens for Science – asked, “By any chance is there a Biology by Inquiry for high school?”

I’m not aware of such a curriculum, although I wouldn’t be since I’m a physicist and physics educator (but not a physics education researcher!).

However, I happen to be aware of an important project that addresses Brandon’s concerns.  A group of FSU researchers, led by College of Education Assistant Professor Victor Sampson, is developing an instructional approach called “argumentation-driven inquiry” (ADI).  And they have a pile of federal dollars to do so.  Here is a press release on the new federal grant, and a link to Vic Sampson’s personal web site that includes more descriptions and some video.

ADI is being applied in some of FSU’s biology classrooms, as well as in high school classrooms.

Showing my cards: Inquiry in my classroom

Since there is a bit of commenting going on about Ellen Granger’s talk, I thought that – in the interest of transparency – I’d show you what I’m up to.  A look at my 72-student classroom will make it pretty clear.

I should also admit that I’m using the Physics by Inquiry curriculum developed at the University of Washington (Mc Dermott et al.).  It’s foolproof inquiry designed for instructors like me who aren’t inquiry experts.  It’s very carefully scripted, and it even tells me when to talk to the class and what to talk about.

I’m also using undergraduate learning assistants for the first time.  For those who are not familiar with this, the idea is to give pre-service physics teachers some experience in inquiry instruction.  I have two this semester.

Rick Scott on education

Commenter Paul Ruscher got me straightened out on Rick Scott’s education views.

Here ya go.

Inquiry-based science teaching tested in Central Florida district

An FSU researcher yesterday reported on the results of a large scale study of inquiry-based teaching in space science conducted in 4th and 5th grade classes in elementary schools in an unnamed Central Florida school district from 2007 to 2009.  The report was given in a talk to the FSU Biological Sciences Department on Thursday.

The study was conducted in the form of a “randomized-cluster experimental field trial”, in which teachers and their classes were sorted into two groups and the performance levels of the two groups compared.  In one group, called the “treatment group”, teachers were trained to use a progressive inquiry-based curriculum developed at the Lawrence Hall of Science located at the University of California, Berkeley during a four-day summer workshop and several follow-up sessions.  In the second group, called the “control group”, teachers were constrained to use the district’s adopted space science text and not allowed to use inquiry strategies in their teaching.  In fact, the researcher, Dr. Ellen Granger, pointed out that the careful monitoring of both groups of teachers and classes and the prohibition of the use of inquiry strategies in the control group was an important feature of the FSU study.  There were about 60 teachers and 1200 students in each group, and 29 schools were involved.

Student testing performed right at the completion of the unit demonstrated that students in the treatment group had a significantly higher level of achievement in both the understanding of the specific space science content taught during the unit and a more general understanding of how science is practiced than students in the control group.  A retesting of the students five months later showed that the difference between the treatment group and the control group in the specific understanding of the space science content had disappeared, but that the treatment group maintained an advantage in its understanding of how science is practiced.

The use of large-scale experimental field trials has been pushed by federal education officials as the only valid way of testing educational innovations.

The results of the study have not yet been published.

RTTT and STEM in Florida: Will it matter?

Curriculum Matters published a summary of the STEM initiatives in the winning RTTT Round 2 proposals.  CM blogger Erik Robelen pronounced all the winning states’ STEM plans “substantive.”  Here is how he summarized Florida’s initiative:

Florida will hire 20 STEM coordinators who will be “strategically assigned” to persistently low-performing schools and will work with school-site math and science coaches assigned by the districts.  The state will create a competitive program for rural district consortia to build and implement model high school STEM programs for gifted and talented students.  Also, a state advisory group will work to produce a Florida STEM plan by this December that will include strategies to increase enrollment in STEM curricula, increase student-achievement goals in math and science, and boost the percentage of Floridians who are STEM “literate.”

The reader can take a look at the entire Curriculum Matters post to see what other states’ plans are.

Here is the magnitude of the science challenge in Florida:

From Closing the Talent Gap, the January 2010 report from the Florida Council of 100 and the Florida Chamber of Commerce:  “…within five years [Florida] will need at least 100,000 more science and technology professionals than we are on track to produce.”

From an official in the Florida Department of Education:  “Florida students are pretty much last in the nation for science.”

Aside from providing financial support for the same folks who brought you PROMiSE, does Florida’s RTTT STEM piece meaningfully address the magnitude of the science and engineering challenge facing the state?

Public education: Does Rick Scott get it?

Honest – I had no intention of posting a snotty anti-Rick Scott message this morning.  I really just wanted to link to his plan for public education.

But this is what I found:  Go to Mr. Scott’s “Issues” page here.  Now click on “Educating Florida’s Workforce”.  At 6:45 am on “The Morning After,” August 25, this is what I got:  “Not Found”.  As in, Mr. Scott’s staff forgot to post an education plan.

For comparison, check Ms. Sink’s education plan.  It seems roughly congruent to Florida’s winning RTTT Round 2 proposal.

Update (6:00 pm): Still no education plan on Rick Scott’s web site.  I must be missing something…

Florida wins RTTT Round 2

Florida joins Massachusetts, New York, Hawaii, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C. as 2nd round winners.

Florida’s prize is $700 million.

Coverage from the Orlando Sentinel.

RTTT Round 2 winners to be announced today – and it’s Florida Election Day!

Two big events today:

The Round 2 Race to the Top winners will be announced in a press conference at 1:00 pm.

And today is Florida’s Election Day, Round 1.