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| Corlea, Cale, Barbara and Mother |
Thank you for the cards, emails, phone calls, flowers and warm thoughts. Your caring has helped me very much! Thank you.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
2012 marks an ending
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Wrapping it up!
From wrapping holiday gifts to wrapping favorite foods, this time of year offers special surprises. I've enjoyed the annual drawing of names for Secret Santa at Society Headquarters this year. As we gathered around the Blanton Room, opened gifts and revealed the Santas, we laughed and groaned at not-so-funny jokes.
Texans finally got a cold spell (if you will count 56 C high and a 29 C low one week) and wrapped pipes, wrapped up pets and wrapped ourselves in warm coats. We began wrapping up the year by trying to finish Do-It lists and clear desks.
We also shared wonderful food throughout December. Cookies, cakes, dip, chips, cheese...all were tasty. Friends sent cards, flowers, pears, fruit, chocolates, and popcorn in all flavors. My neighborhood had its annual cookie exchange Dec. 10. After orange juice/champagne, coffee and breakfast casserole, we chatted and circled the table taking an allotted amount of cookies each time around. Each of us went home with a wonderful variety of six dozen cookies. (Don't count calories!)
On Dec. 3 I opened my home for the Seguin Conservation Society's Heritage Tour of Homes. It rained, but we had more than 300 people (nearly 400 by some counts) come through our homes. Linda, Nita and Phyllis made a special trip from Austin to come to the event!
I received lovely notes from many state organization presidents by telephone, email, internet cards, and regular mail. Each greeting is treasured as are the friends who sent them. I wish you all a thoughtful close to 2011 and a cheerful greeting for 2012.
Texans finally got a cold spell (if you will count 56 C high and a 29 C low one week) and wrapped pipes, wrapped up pets and wrapped ourselves in warm coats. We began wrapping up the year by trying to finish Do-It lists and clear desks.
We also shared wonderful food throughout December. Cookies, cakes, dip, chips, cheese...all were tasty. Friends sent cards, flowers, pears, fruit, chocolates, and popcorn in all flavors. My neighborhood had its annual cookie exchange Dec. 10. After orange juice/champagne, coffee and breakfast casserole, we chatted and circled the table taking an allotted amount of cookies each time around. Each of us went home with a wonderful variety of six dozen cookies. (Don't count calories!)
On Dec. 3 I opened my home for the Seguin Conservation Society's Heritage Tour of Homes. It rained, but we had more than 300 people (nearly 400 by some counts) come through our homes. Linda, Nita and Phyllis made a special trip from Austin to come to the event!
I received lovely notes from many state organization presidents by telephone, email, internet cards, and regular mail. Each greeting is treasured as are the friends who sent them. I wish you all a thoughtful close to 2011 and a cheerful greeting for 2012.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Friends, experiences create 2011 collage of variety
One of many banquets this summer, this dinner table includes friends from Germany, England, Finland and the U.S. The necklace I'm wearing started at the Tennessee Convention, then appeared at the Texas Convention before traveling to all five regional conferences. It was a loan from my generous Tennessee friend, Nancy Davis. I'm still looking for the right thank you gift for Nancy. If you have ideas, give me a call or email.
The summer included training sessions with the 2011-2013 state organization presidents. They are a wonderful group of caring women. They presented me with challenges, meditations, information, and warmth. Workshops, speakers and conversations taught me about using new technology, meeting new demands in the classroom, and seeking personal strengths. I grew in many areas, and I hope your regional conference experiences allowed you the same growth opportunities.
The collage of 2011 included travel, site visits, meetings, quiet talks, passionate discussions, writing, proofing, and lots of thinking. Keeping up with friends via email and cards substituted for short personal visits and telephone conversations. It seems there just enough time in the day or days in the week. But please know that I think of you often, hear your words in my head, and try to represent you, the best of our membership in all I do and say. Thank you for a growing experience in 2011. I look forward to an interesting 2012 with your help.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Is the summer gone?
Song lyrics, the news and chat all say, "We've had fire, and we've had rain."
I hope you have been spared some of these extremes. Our Emergency Fund requests are trickling in, so we know some of you have suffered major damage. Please keep us posted.
Last night I attended my chapter's annual banquet. We initiated four new members into Theta Kappa. As we enjoyed each other's company, caught up on the latest news and planned future events, I was reminded of how much happiness and good we spread throughout our community. I hope your chapter also spreads this positive vibe.
I hope you have been spared some of these extremes. Our Emergency Fund requests are trickling in, so we know some of you have suffered major damage. Please keep us posted.
Last night I attended my chapter's annual banquet. We initiated four new members into Theta Kappa. As we enjoyed each other's company, caught up on the latest news and planned future events, I was reminded of how much happiness and good we spread throughout our community. I hope your chapter also spreads this positive vibe.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Information You Requested
From Virginia Breakfast (or as close as I can remember):
I’ll start with my elevator speech: We are an honor society of approximately 95,000 women educators…with 2,600 chapters in 17 countries. Each year we donate nearly $3 million to support education and educators.
Our members range from pre-Kindergarten teachers to university presidents. In (this state) we have # members. Locally we have # chapters/members.
Through a partnership with ECOSOC, the Public Relations arm of the United Nations, we have seven members of the Non-Government Organization. Our representatives have participated in the steering committee for Danny Kaye’s Fund Drives and the Conference for Teaching about the United Nations (CTAUN). Our international project is Schools for Africa…through the US Fund for UNICEF and with Nelson Mandela’s Project.
Working with the Fulbright Foundation and selected Canadian universities, we grant aid to women to come to Canada or the US to work on master’s programs. We have helped women in more than 100 countries earn their degrees. Many returning to villages to change their way of life…even own a goat!
Local, state organization and international scholarship programs for members, high school students and college students help educators and future educators continue their schooling. We help early career educators so they will remain in the profession.
We excel in leadership training at the state organization and international levels. We have an updated website—scheduled to be even more improved in 2012 when we move it to the cloud and save even more money.
We have received 501(c) 3 status for eight of our Society funds, so contributions will be tax deductible. We have updated/revamped our Constitution and International Standing Rules. We are revising our Handbook as a Go-To Guide. We have a family of literature with the design of our NEWS, Bulletin and Society brochures. These have come about with the help of a Marketing consultant.
We have an excellent staff at Society Headquarters to serve members quickly and efficiently. Our Administrative Board is hard working: they have continually updated the Strategic Action Plan, meet twice a year and have homework. The state organization presidents leadership development training during this pre-conference was packed with about as much work as the board meetings.
While we have suffered some membership loss, we are thriving. We have hard working chapters, international committees and dedicated members. You are preparing us for our future and from the looks of this group this morning, we are in for an excellent ride!
I’ll start with my elevator speech: We are an honor society of approximately 95,000 women educators…with 2,600 chapters in 17 countries. Each year we donate nearly $3 million to support education and educators.
Our members range from pre-Kindergarten teachers to university presidents. In (this state) we have # members. Locally we have # chapters/members.
Through a partnership with ECOSOC, the Public Relations arm of the United Nations, we have seven members of the Non-Government Organization. Our representatives have participated in the steering committee for Danny Kaye’s Fund Drives and the Conference for Teaching about the United Nations (CTAUN). Our international project is Schools for Africa…through the US Fund for UNICEF and with Nelson Mandela’s Project.
Working with the Fulbright Foundation and selected Canadian universities, we grant aid to women to come to Canada or the US to work on master’s programs. We have helped women in more than 100 countries earn their degrees. Many returning to villages to change their way of life…even own a goat!
Local, state organization and international scholarship programs for members, high school students and college students help educators and future educators continue their schooling. We help early career educators so they will remain in the profession.
We excel in leadership training at the state organization and international levels. We have an updated website—scheduled to be even more improved in 2012 when we move it to the cloud and save even more money.
We have received 501(c) 3 status for eight of our Society funds, so contributions will be tax deductible. We have updated/revamped our Constitution and International Standing Rules. We are revising our Handbook as a Go-To Guide. We have a family of literature with the design of our NEWS, Bulletin and Society brochures. These have come about with the help of a Marketing consultant.
We have an excellent staff at Society Headquarters to serve members quickly and efficiently. Our Administrative Board is hard working: they have continually updated the Strategic Action Plan, meet twice a year and have homework. The state organization presidents leadership development training during this pre-conference was packed with about as much work as the board meetings.
While we have suffered some membership loss, we are thriving. We have hard working chapters, international committees and dedicated members. You are preparing us for our future and from the looks of this group this morning, we are in for an excellent ride!
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
2011 State Organization Conventions Provide More Variety for Members
Since visiting NV, MD, GB and TN state organization conventions (TX in progress now), I am stunned by the number of similarities and often surprised at the differences. Some of our traditions build the similarities, but area and cultural differences allow for some interesting practices. Not everyone ends with a banquet on Saturday night. Workshops may vary from one choice to 40. Speakers, panels and planned discussions vary with the locale. All were interesting and enjoyable. Thank you for the chance to share and listen. If you took pictures at any of these events, please send them to me!
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Read this in the NY Times
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries
By DAVE EGGERS and NÍNIVE CLEMENTS CALEGARI
Published: April 30, 2011, NY TIMES
WHEN we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, theJoint Chiefs of Staff. No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition.
And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources.
Compare this with our approach to our military: when results on the ground are not what we hoped, we think of ways to better support soldiers. We try to give them better tools, better weapons, better protection, better training. And when recruiting is down, we offer incentives.
We have a rare chance now, with many teachers near retirement, to prove we’re serious about education. The first step is to make the teaching profession more attractive to college graduates. This will take some doing.
At the moment, the average teacher’s pay is on par with that of a toll taker or bartender. Teachers make 14 percent less than professionals in other occupations that require similar levels of education. In real terms, teachers’ salaries have declined for 30 years. The average starting salary is $39,000; the average ending salary — after 25 years in the profession — is $67,000. This prices teachers out of home ownership in 32 metropolitan areas, and makes raising a family on one salary near impossible.
So how do teachers cope? Sixty-two percent work outside the classroom to make ends meet. For Erik Benner, an award-winning history teacher in Keller, Tex., money has been a constant struggle. He has two children, and for 15 years has been unable to support them on his salary. Every weekday, he goes directly from Trinity Springs Middle School to drive a forklift at Floor and Décor. He works until 11 every night, then gets up and starts all over again. Does this look like “A Plan,” either on the state or federal level?
We’ve been working with public school teachers for 10 years; every spring, we see many of the best teachers leave the profession. They’re mowed down by the long hours, low pay, the lack of support and respect.
Imagine a novice teacher, thrown into an urban school, told to teach five classes a day, with up to 40 students each. At the year’s end, if test scores haven’t risen enough, he or she is called a bad teacher. For college graduates who have other options, this kind of pressure, for such low pay, doesn’t make much sense. So every year 20 percent of teachers in urban districts quit. Nationwide, 46 percent of teachers quit before their fifth year. The turnover costs the United States $7.34 billion yearly. The effect within schools — especially those in urban communities where turnover is highest — is devastating.
But we can reverse course. In the next 10 years, over half of the nation’s nearly 3.2 million public school teachers will become eligible for retirement. Who will replace them? How do we attract and keep the best minds in the profession?
People talk about accountability, measurements, tenure, test scores and pay for performance. These questions are worthy of debate, but are secondary to recruiting and training teachers and treating them fairly. There is no silver bullet that will fix every last school in America, but until we solve the problem of teacher turnover, we don’t have a chance.
Can we do better? Can we generate “A Plan”? Of course.
The consulting firm McKinsey recently examined how we might attract and retain a talented teaching force. The study compared the treatment of teachers here and in the three countries that perform best on standardized tests: Finland, Singapore and South Korea.
Turns out these countries have an entirely different approach to the profession. First, the governments in these countries recruit top graduates to the profession. (We don’t.) In Finland and Singapore they pay for training. (We don’t.) In terms of purchasing power, South Korea pays teachers on average 250 percent of what we do.
And most of all, they trust their teachers. They are rightly seen as the solution, not the problem, and when improvement is needed, the school receives support and development, not punishment. Accordingly, turnover in these countries is startlingly low: In South Korea, it’s 1 percent per year. In Finland, it’s 2 percent. In Singapore, 3 percent.
McKinsey polled 900 top-tier American college students and found that 68 percent would consider teaching if salaries started at $65,000 and rose to a minimum of $150,000. Could we do this? If we’re committed to “winning the future,” we should. If any administration is capable of tackling this, it’s the current one. President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan understand the centrality of teachers and have said that improving our education system begins and ends with great teachers. But world-class education costs money.
For those who say, “How do we pay for this?” — well, how are we paying for three concurrent wars? How did we pay for the interstate highway system? Or the bailout of the savings and loans in 1989 and that of the investment banks in 2008? How did we pay for the equally ambitious project of sending Americans to the moon? We had the vision and we had the will and we found a way.
Dave Eggers and Nínive Clements Calegari are founders of the 826 National tutoring centers and producers of the documentary “American Teacher.”
The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries
By DAVE EGGERS and NÍNIVE CLEMENTS CALEGARI
Published: April 30, 2011, NY TIMES
WHEN we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, theJoint Chiefs of Staff. No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition.
And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources.
Compare this with our approach to our military: when results on the ground are not what we hoped, we think of ways to better support soldiers. We try to give them better tools, better weapons, better protection, better training. And when recruiting is down, we offer incentives.
We have a rare chance now, with many teachers near retirement, to prove we’re serious about education. The first step is to make the teaching profession more attractive to college graduates. This will take some doing.
At the moment, the average teacher’s pay is on par with that of a toll taker or bartender. Teachers make 14 percent less than professionals in other occupations that require similar levels of education. In real terms, teachers’ salaries have declined for 30 years. The average starting salary is $39,000; the average ending salary — after 25 years in the profession — is $67,000. This prices teachers out of home ownership in 32 metropolitan areas, and makes raising a family on one salary near impossible.
So how do teachers cope? Sixty-two percent work outside the classroom to make ends meet. For Erik Benner, an award-winning history teacher in Keller, Tex., money has been a constant struggle. He has two children, and for 15 years has been unable to support them on his salary. Every weekday, he goes directly from Trinity Springs Middle School to drive a forklift at Floor and Décor. He works until 11 every night, then gets up and starts all over again. Does this look like “A Plan,” either on the state or federal level?
We’ve been working with public school teachers for 10 years; every spring, we see many of the best teachers leave the profession. They’re mowed down by the long hours, low pay, the lack of support and respect.
Imagine a novice teacher, thrown into an urban school, told to teach five classes a day, with up to 40 students each. At the year’s end, if test scores haven’t risen enough, he or she is called a bad teacher. For college graduates who have other options, this kind of pressure, for such low pay, doesn’t make much sense. So every year 20 percent of teachers in urban districts quit. Nationwide, 46 percent of teachers quit before their fifth year. The turnover costs the United States $7.34 billion yearly. The effect within schools — especially those in urban communities where turnover is highest — is devastating.
But we can reverse course. In the next 10 years, over half of the nation’s nearly 3.2 million public school teachers will become eligible for retirement. Who will replace them? How do we attract and keep the best minds in the profession?
People talk about accountability, measurements, tenure, test scores and pay for performance. These questions are worthy of debate, but are secondary to recruiting and training teachers and treating them fairly. There is no silver bullet that will fix every last school in America, but until we solve the problem of teacher turnover, we don’t have a chance.
Can we do better? Can we generate “A Plan”? Of course.
The consulting firm McKinsey recently examined how we might attract and retain a talented teaching force. The study compared the treatment of teachers here and in the three countries that perform best on standardized tests: Finland, Singapore and South Korea.
Turns out these countries have an entirely different approach to the profession. First, the governments in these countries recruit top graduates to the profession. (We don’t.) In Finland and Singapore they pay for training. (We don’t.) In terms of purchasing power, South Korea pays teachers on average 250 percent of what we do.
And most of all, they trust their teachers. They are rightly seen as the solution, not the problem, and when improvement is needed, the school receives support and development, not punishment. Accordingly, turnover in these countries is startlingly low: In South Korea, it’s 1 percent per year. In Finland, it’s 2 percent. In Singapore, 3 percent.
McKinsey polled 900 top-tier American college students and found that 68 percent would consider teaching if salaries started at $65,000 and rose to a minimum of $150,000. Could we do this? If we’re committed to “winning the future,” we should. If any administration is capable of tackling this, it’s the current one. President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan understand the centrality of teachers and have said that improving our education system begins and ends with great teachers. But world-class education costs money.
For those who say, “How do we pay for this?” — well, how are we paying for three concurrent wars? How did we pay for the interstate highway system? Or the bailout of the savings and loans in 1989 and that of the investment banks in 2008? How did we pay for the equally ambitious project of sending Americans to the moon? We had the vision and we had the will and we found a way.
Dave Eggers and Nínive Clements Calegari are founders of the 826 National tutoring centers and producers of the documentary “American Teacher.”
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