COVER STORIES

Making History:
Honoring Outstanding Teachers in New York City Public Schools to Become Annual Event
The Department of Education, as the Board of Education is now known, is over 100 years old. During that time, the pendulum has swung from centralization to decentralization and back, from teaching reading via phonics to the whole word approach and now back to phonics again, from bilingual education to immersion and back. READ MORE

Awards Ceremony on WB11 READ MORE

SPECIAL EDUCATION

New Dyslexia Study at NYU Child Study Center
by Adam Koplewicz
A research study of teenagers with dyslexia has begun at the New York University Child Study Center. This study is attempting to shed new light and understanding on a common but disabling condition.
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Special Education in New York City
by Jill Levy
Thirty-five years ago, many children, including my own, did not have the right to attend public schools. They were children with “problems”—disabilities that prevented them from learning or attending school as easily as other children. READ MORE

EDITORIALS

Money the Root of Regent Problems?
by Dr. Alfred S. Posamentier
Two recent events making education headline news seem to be unrelated but, in fact, are quite closely related. The New York State Regents examination for Math A was deemed to be flawed. The New York State Court of Appeals ruled that education in New York City was under funded. READ MORE

SPOTLIGHT ON SCHOOLS

Creating Community at Baruch College Campus HS
by Rob Luchow
It was still hot outside by 6 PM on June 24, but the heat didn’t stop all 97 students of the Baruch College Campus High School Class of 2003 from wearing their caps and gowns. In high spirits, students, faculty, and family members packed the Baruch College auditorium to witness the sixth graduating class in the high school’s history. READ MORE

Summer Adventures at the New York
Botanical-Garden
Children and their families double their fun this summer at the two gardens designed especially for children: the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden and the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden.
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High School Student Wins 1st Prize
in Marymount Essay
Every year, Lewis Frumkes, Director of the Writing Center at Marymount Manhattan College, holds the Mortimer Levitt Contest for high school students around the city. READ MORE

Special To Education Update:
Unrest in Education in France: Teachers on Strike
by Sarah Elzas
Paris, France
Recently, thousands of people, mostly teachers, marched through the center of Paris from Bastille to the Assemblée Nationale to protest, among other things, the decentralization of part of the French national education system. READ MORE

What Do Superintendents Do In the Summer?
by Dr. Carole G. Hankin with Randi T. Sachs
It’s certainly quieter here in the summer, but that doesn’t mean that a superintendent can relax. For a superintendent, students or not, school is a twelve-month a year experience. READ MORE

Summer Internships and Study
Compiled by Katarzyna Kozanecka and Rob Luchow READ MORE

SIR: A Unique Program for Private and Public Schools
by Joan Baum, Ph.D.
According to Professor Emeritus Jed Luchow of the College of Staten Island, the four-year phonics-based teacher training literacy program he directs—called Success in Reading or SIR—is not only having “dramatic” effect in the Hebrew day schools where it has been introduced, but holds out extraordinary promise for the public schools. READ MORE

High School Students Bridge
United States - Israel Relationships
by Rob Luchow
United States and Israel relations may appear linked only by an older generation of politicians. However, one organization understands that the future stability of this relationship relies on its youth. READ MORE

COLLEGES

CCNY Art Professor Named “Distinguished Alumna”
At Berkeley
Michi Itami, a Professor of Art at City College and 1971 graduate of the University of California-Berkeley, has been named a “Distinguished Alumna” by her alma mater. READ MORE

Con Edison Awards Grant to College of New Rochelle
Funds Will Benefit Rosa Parks Campus in Harlem
The College of New Rochelle's School of New Resources (SNR) announced that the Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. has awarded a grant to the Access Center at the Rosa Parks Campus in Harlem. READ MORE

Monroe College Offers New Degree Program
in Criminal Justice
Monroe College President Stephen J. Jerome announced that the college will begin offering the Associate in Science and the Bachelor of Science degrees in criminal justice beginning with its fall semester in September, 2003. READ MORE

Reflections on English Language Learners
by Adam Sugerman
Our city’s education leaders made the correct decision in rethinking a one-sided approach to the city’s English language learners. We hope that common sense, rather than political pressure, helped Chancellor Klein and his team decide to use a variety of proven approaches in making sure this growing student population is capable of surviving the realities of adult society. READ MORE

MEDICAL UPDATE

Protect your Eyes During Long, Summer Days
There’s so much to see and do in the summer. At the same time, there are many things about summer that could get in the way of seeing anything all year around. READ MORE

Reflections of New Physicians
Close to one in four newly trained physicians would select a field other than medicine if they could begin their careers again, according to a survey by Merritt, Hawkins, & Associates, a Dallas-based physician search and consulting firm. READ MORE

Silver Hill Hospital Names New President &
Medical Director
Sigurd H. Ackerman, M.D. has been named President and Medical Director of Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, CT. In announcing the appointment, Steve Stillerman, Board Chairman of the nationally recognized psychiatric hospital, noted Dr. Ackerman’s distinguished career in the practice of psychiatry. READ MORE

BOOKS

Logos Bookstore’s Recommendations
by H. Harris Healy, III, President, Logos Bookstore READ MORE

Prodigal Sons & Material Girls:
How Not To Be Your Child’s ATM
Did you know there are 80 million young people under age 25 in the U.S.? That’s nearly one-third of the population. Even more, that they spend or influence the spending of $1 trillion year in this $10 trillion economy? Or that young people today spend 5 times more money—adjusted for inflation—than their parents did at the same age? READ MORE

Books & Basketball:
Summer Reading Program
Opens in Red Hook, Brooklyn
This summer, on every Saturday, children ages 8-11 in the Red Hook Rise League will enjoy reading and storytelling before a basketball game. READ MORE

MUSIC, ART & DANCE

Imagination Conversation
by Scott Noppe-Brandon
During an Imagination Conversation, organized last fall by Lincoln Center Institute in 11 cities across the country, visionary thinkers from the arts and education, the sciences, public policy, business and the humanities, explored the role imagination plays in their personal and professional lives. READ MORE

MOVIES AND THEATER

Summer Family Films:
Sinbad; Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde
by Jan Aaron
DreamWorks’ “Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas,” loosely follows the adventures of the notorious Arabian sailor-thief born over one thousand years ago in “The Arabian Nights.” READ MORE

METROBEAT

Summer at Mentoring USA
by Matilda Raffa Cuomo and William Baker
Summer is here, so it’s time to take a break? Not really! At Mentoring USA (MUSA), we see summer as a perfect time to strengthen some of the connections that the mentors and mentees have established during the school year, while working on establishing new agendas.
READ MORE

End of School Letter to Parents
by Chancellor Joel I. Klein READ MORE

A New Day is Arriving For New York City’s Schools
by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
Recently state law finally giving New York City voters direct control over our public schools went into effect. That ended a school governance structure that was notorious for its unresponsive bureaucracy, waste and endless red tape. READ MORE

Victory in CFE Case Should Bring
Vast New Resources for City Schools
by Assemblyman Steven Sanders
The landmark ruling by the New York State Court of Appeals in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case—in which the Court held that New York State’s school aid formula unconstitutionally denies New York City students a sound, basic education and directed the Legislature to revamp the formula to redress the injustice by July 2004—is a huge victory for New York City students and a ringing defeat for Governor George Pataki. READ MORE

TECHNOLOGY

Product Review:
Arco Duplidisk 3
by Mitchell Levine
Mathematics teachers perennially complain that students lack statistics literacy. Here’s some scary ones: an estimated 1 in 500 data centers will experience a critical hardware failure serious enough to cause a severe “data disaster.” READ MORE

Product Review:
Zero Toys’ Zero Launcher
by Mitchell Levine
Common sense tells us that students find physics boring, dry, and difficult. Labs are tedious. Equations are excruciating. Newton’s laws might as well be in the Principia Mathematica’s original Latin for all that today’s high school Regents students care. READ MORE