Outstanding Teacher and Principal of the Year Win Free Trips to Austria

Outstanding Teacher of the Year Margaret Breen of Seward Park High School, New York and Jeanette Sosa, Principal of PS 151 Brooklyn won free trips to Austria sponsored by Austrian Airlines at the 2004 Education Update Outstanding Teacher ceremony. Education Update interviewed them about their experiences. READ MORE

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The Bard College Prison Initiative
By Nazneen Malik
The brainchild of Max Kenner, the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI), was created in 1999 to address the educational needs of prisoners and to provide them with the opportunity and the means to attain higher education while remaining within the correctional system. READ MORE

School Programs at Bedford Correctional Facility
By Michelle DeSarbo
All students at Bedford must first take the Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE). Based on their TABE scores, the women are then placed into one of four basic education levels. READ MORE

Schools Behind Bars:
Prison College Programs Unlock the Keys
to Human Potential
By Gillian Granoff
Despite the obvious advantages, the movements away from prison reforms that educate and rehabilitate have been cut severely in the past ten years. The concept of prison reform has been replaced by policies that are punitive and in favor of permanent incarceration.
READ MORE

A Glimpse into the Imprisonment of Jean Harris
By Richard Kaga
Jean Harris served 12 years at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for the murder of her long-time significant other, Dr. Herman Tarnower, author of  the best-seller, The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet.
READ MORE

Prison Teachers
By Nazneen Malik
I could not help but notice some of the prison inmates lingering behind, asking their teachers last minute questions as they put their notebooks away into transparent school bags. READ MORE

SPOTLIGHT ON SCHOOLS

Math Lessons to Use in the Classroom
Rule of 72
What could be more relevant that showing how math helps us estimate the number of years it would take to double your money in your bank account? READ MORE

From the Principal’s Desk
Corinne Rello-Anselmi, PS 108, Bronx
When I became the Principal of PS 108 Philip J. Abinanti School eight years ago, we were making only moderate gains in literacy and were struggling to meet the needs of all of our students. READ MORE
Rosa Arrendondo, PS 128, Manhattan
What does it take to improve academic achievement in New York City’s public schools? As more and more educators are learning, building effective private sector partnerships is key to helping students reach their full academic potential. READ MORE

The Center for Arts Education Showcases
Students’ Work
A gala benefit for the Center for Arts Education (CAE), a premiere public/private partnership founded to restore, stimulate and sustain quality arts programs in the New York City public schools was held recently at Christie’s. READ MORE

A Look at French Education:
Interview with Principal Kerloch
By Myriam Pinchon
Mr. Kerloch has a double responsibility because he is the head and three days a week he is their teacher too. READ MORE

The National Education Association Foundation’s Grants for Schools & Districts Nationwide
The NEA Foundation’s next round of Innovation Grants and Learning & Leadership Grants is right around the corner. READ MORE

Hunter HS Intel Winner Goes to CCNY
By Michelle Desarbo
David L.V. Bauer, a 17-year-old senior from Hunter College High School, recently won first place in the Intel Science Talent Search for his work on neurotoxins in humans. READ MORE

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein Delivers Rudin Lecture at CCNY
By Liza Young
Delivered by Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, the lecture addressed one of the most critical issues of the day, the reform of the New York City public schools. READ MORE

Olympics of the Mind: Engaging Young Black Youth
By Nazneen Malik
Recently, The NAACP New York City chapter of the Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) hosted its 18th annual awards ceremony marking the culmination of its local Olympics of the Mind. READ MORE

An Interview with Preston Robert Tisch
By Joan Baum, Ph.D.
In an extraordinary life of public service and philanthropy, including serving as Postmaster General of The United States, being the city’s Ambassador to Washington in the `90s... READ MORE

Trevor Day School Students’ Entrepreneurship Raises $8,500 for Tsunami Relief
The bazaar is the culmination of a unique 3-month entrepreneurship learning experience whose sophisticated concepts of cost margins, market pricing, sales and marketing the students applied to address a charitable need. READ MORE

OUTSTANDING TEACHERS OF THE MONTH

May 2005
In 2003, Education Update began the tradition of honoring teachers each month for their outstanding work on the “frontiers” of education.We are now continuing the tradition which will culminate in a ceremony in June 2005 with Chancellor Joel Klein in attendance.
READ THIS MONTH'S HONOREES

COLLEGE & GRADUATE SCHOOLS

An Inside View into a Dean’s Advisory Council
By Adam Sugerman
In the fall of 1999, with a somewhat demoralized faculty, having been humiliated by their graduates’ poor performance on the New York State teacher certification test, the establishment of a Dean’s Advisory Council proved to be a breath of fresh air... READ MORE

The City College of New York Hosts Einsteins
in the City Conference
By Nazneen Malik
Students at the undergraduate, masters, and PhD levels had the opportunity to present their research during poster sessions and received positive feedback from Nobel Laureates, Dr. Herbert Hauptman, and Dr. Jerome Karle, who also acted as judges in the poster competition. READ MORE

College President’s Series
Queens College: President James L. Muyskens
By Joan Baum, Ph.D
The articulate, reflective and measured-toned president is anything but complacent, however, as he carefully considers Queens’s strengths as a 70-year-old liberal arts college and his vision for the next few years. READ MORE

SPECIAL EDUCATION

Annual Blackman Lecture at Teachers College Focuses on Downs & Alzheimer’s
By Richard Kagan
Dr. Warren B. Zigman, a researcher in the field of Mental Retardation and Development Disabilities, spoke at the recent Leonard and Frances Blackman Lecture held at Teachers College, Columbia University recently. READ MORE

FEATURE

Interview With Senator Edward Kennedy:
National Center for Learning Disabilities Awardee
By Pola Rosen, Ed.D.
The most important pending legislation in this Congress is the Family Opportunity Act. For more than five years, Senator Grassley and I have been committed to this legislation to give parents of disabled children the opportunity to purchase Medicaid coverage for their children. READ MORE

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Salk Vaccine With Jonathan Salk
By Joan Baum, Ph.D
The extraordinary success of the Salk Vaccine, Jonathan Salk points out, and the campaign launched by the March of Dimes, “dramatically” changed perceptions of science and medicine. READ MORE

The Ethics Guy: Doing Well By Doing Good
By Jacob M. Appel, J.D.
Conventional wisdom argues that ethical decision-making is exceedingly difficult—but according to Bruce Weinstein, Ph.D, better known as “The Ethics Guy,” it is actually quite easy. READ MORE

Former Prime Minister John Major of the United Kingdom at Oxonian Society
By Pola Rosen, Ed.D.
In a serious vein the Minister advised that we must combine the war on terror with the war on poverty. READ MORE

METROBEAT

Helping to Make Our City Even Better
By Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
The truth is that money is not the only way to give back; all of us have the ability to give something just as valuable: our time. There are many organizations and groups in—every community, in every borough—looking for a helping hand. READ MORE

The Glory of Mother’s Day
By Matilda Raffa Cuomo
It was springtime in ancient Greece when the “Mother of the Gods,” Rhea, was first celebrated. READ MORE

Assistant Principals: Crisis Management to Instructional Expertise
By Jill Levy, President, CSA
Recently, it has been my pleasure to work with Assistant Principals through the Executive Leadership Institute, and be exposed to their enthusiasm and intelligence. READ MORE

Bill Would Guarantee Education of
Incarcerated Youth
By Assemblyman Steven Sanders
I am proud to be the prime sponsor of legislation, Assembly bill 6009, which would amend the State’s Education Law and the Executive Law to guarantee the provision of educational services to youth confined in detention facilities. READ MORE

MUSIC ART & DANCE

Folksbiene Presents World-Class Klezmer Group Brave Old World
At the heart of “Song of the Lodz Ghetto” (“Duz gezang fin geto Lodzh”) are rare songs performed in the streets of the Lodz Ghetto between 1940 and 1944, part of an oral legacy that was preserved by ethnomusicologist Gila Flam in the late 1980’s. READ MORE

Guarneri Quartet: Michael Tree Continues to Branch Out Performing and Teaching
By Joan Baum Ph.D
It’s relatively rare that famous musical artists credit their audiences and students for helping to educate them, but then Michael Tree seems to be an unusually humble and gracious musician. READ MORE

Theater Reviews
Bad Tots Plot: Schockheaded Peter
By Jan Aaron
In Shockheaded Peter at the Little Shubert badly behaved Victorian tots come to nasty ends. READ MORE

Wild Sendak Show at the Jewish Museum
By Jan Aaron
Original drawings, happy, sad and introspective are on display as are preliminary sketches, artwork for posters, theater and opera sets, and costumes created from Sendak designs. READ MORE

Violinist Forges New Paths in Music
By Joan Baum, Ph.D
The group will strive for “broad appeal and varied programming,” for example, and audiences will see and hear a standard chamber orchestra, in addition to fine instrumentalists playing solo and in quartet. READ MORE

MEDICAL UPDATE

Breakthrough for Kids with Epilepsy:
Surgery Reduces Seizures and Increases IQ
A study on 50 preschool-aged children with epilepsy who underwent surgical treatment showed significant improvements on overall cognitive development and left many seizure-free. READ MORE

The Case for State-Funded Stem Cell Research
By New Jersey Acting Governor Richard J. Codey
As a society and a government, we have an obligation to help those among us who are suffering. READ MORE

CAREERS

Staci Hatch, Pilot for Jet Blue
By Michelle DeSarbo
After working as an instructor at a the C-21 located in Biloxi, Mississippi, the Columbus, Georgia native left the military and began working as an Airbus First Officer with US Airways. READ MORE

BOOKS

Choral Singer’s Handbook:
Best Manual for Amateurs & Pros
by Joan Baum, Ph.D.
Although the first two notes of his big hit “Red Roses for a Blue Lady,” which he wrote with long-time collaborator Sid Tepper, constitute a “descending minor second,” Roy C. Bennett modestly doesn’t offer up his own songs as examples in his Choral Singer’s Handbook, arguably the best such manual around for both amateurs and pros. READ MORE