SOCIAL GATHERING--Mark your calendar! The LFT will be hosting a gathering at Hazel Park Racetrack September 28. The price is $16 per person which includes admission, a program and a buffet dinner. Spouses and friends are welcome to join us.

LFT Scholarship Winner--Graduating senior, Melissa Tremblay received this year’s LFT scholarship awarded to a student pursuing a degree in education. Melissa will attend Michigan State University where she will major in elementary education.

Congratulations--Best Wishes to High School Math teacher, Bill Leddy who will be retiring this year. Bill began teaching in Lamphere in 1967. Enjoy.

Thanks--A sincere thanks to all of the LFT members who volunteered to donate a day to Bob Fuchs, Hiller Social Worker. It is good to know that in a time of need there are so many people willing to help.

Calendar--LFT Members will be receiving a calendar before leaving for the summer. The required hours for instruction is 1098. The elementary work day for full days is 6 hours and 10 minutes. Half days will be 3 hours and 7 minutes. The calendar is on the LFT webpage at http://www.lft1614.calendar.htm. The calendar is not the same as what is printed in the contract. Please make a note of that.

Michigan's 184 charter schools often come up short when it comes to access and equity, student achievement, efficiency and oversight, say researchers Gary Miron and Christopher Nelson, authors of the new book "What's Public about Charter Schools? Lessons Learned about Choice and Accountability." For the past five years, Miron and Nelson, based at Western Michigan University's Evaluation Center, have been analyzing evidence from charter schools in Michigan, home to one of the nation's most permissive laws. The experts also weigh in on whether Michigan should lift its cap on the number of university-authorized charters, now limited to 150 schools. The charter school movement in Michigan grew too quickly to allow school founders and authorizers to get it right, the authors say. And legislators should not be quick to lift the cap. Instead, policymakers ought to examine carefully the reasons for poor performance in charter schools and close weak schools to make room for others with promising ideas. "What we've learned is that charter schools, on the whole, are not working well in Michigan," says Miron. "This doesn't mean categorically, however, that charter schools don't work." Instead, the problems with Michigan's charter schools--from a lack of diversity among students to paltry gains on standardized tests--are ones that can be fixed. Copies of Miron and Nelson's state evaluations of charter schools can be downloaded from the evaluation center's Web site at www.wmich.edu/evalctr.

NAEP SCORES ON U.S. HISTORY SHOW IMPROVEMENT

A new report released May 8 from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) shows that average scores of the nation's fourth-, 8th-, and 12th-graders on U.S. history are low but have shown improvements in the fourth and 8th grade from 1994. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) survey, "The Nation's Report Card: U.S. History 2001," lower-performing students at grade 4 and both lower- and higher-performing students at grade 8 showed an increase in average scale scores, whereas no overall changes were seen for 12th-graders. The rise in student scores on the NAEP history test should encourage teachers, parents and administrators who--through the use of standards-based reform--have been making extraordinary efforts to improve student achievement, says the AFT. The NAEP results, which show a smaller white-black gap among fourth-graders and a smaller white-Hispanic gap among 12th-graders, suggest that our schools are making some progress in this area. Despite the progress, however, more needs to be done to close the achievement gap and ensure that all students are meeting high standards in social studies.

AFT Summer Learning Calendar--The AFT Summer Learning calendar is available at www.aft.org/calendar. Teachers are encouraged to create a link to the calendar. The theme for the summer activities is the arts.

Track Changes--If you anticipate a track change on the pay scale you must notify the Human Resources Office by August 1st. Supporting evidence of the change must be given to the Human Resources Office by October 1st.

Summer Contact--If you need to reach me during the summer, my e-mail address is Jschram@juno.com. I am also listed in the staff directory.

LFT Webpage--The LFT Webpage will be updated during the summer months. The URL is http://www.lft1614.org.

Have a restful and safe summer break.

Respectfully submitted,

Judy Schram, LFT President

click here for past newsletters