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Learning
& Education
Links to Learning & Education
On-Line
. Vermont
Educational Standards In conjunction with this month's Focus
On: How Are Vermont's High School Students Doing?,
DownStreet is offering these links to Vermont Educational Standards
materials from the State Department of Education. ... Unlike our
usual format, in which we present only a few sites and rate them from one to
five stars, this month we are providing a lengthier list without ratings, but
with briefer comments to give you some idea of what you'll find at each link..
 Vermont
Education Matters
This is the Site Content page for the
Dept.. ... Many of the links which appear below we got to
beginning from this page, so if you prefer to browse on your own, you can
start here.
Vermont's
Framework of Standards and Learning Opportunities
This document
is available for download in two versions: Microsoft Word of Adobe
Acrobat [*.pdf]. There is no actual write-up on this page. School
Quality Standards
The original Public School Approval Rules
[2100-2193] of the Vermont State Board of Education Manual of Rules and
Practices were repealed and replaced by these School Quality
Standards. The statutory authority is derived from 16 V.S.A. §§164
and 165; Sections 13(b) and (c) of Act 60 of the 1997 session of the General
Assembly, and Section 96 of Act 71 of the 1998 session of the General
Assembly. ... If you want to know how -- and how high -- the bar
is set, read them. VT
Department of Education: School Report
The latest version
of the School Report was not available when we went to press. But it
will be by November 13th. You can access it here, as well as find lots
of links to accompanying resources. Simply drop down the page where
you'll see a pick-list by town. Pick your town {or any other}, and
you'll be taken to a fairly comprehhensive bit of info on local and district
schools. Equal
Educational Opportunity Act (Act 60): Measuring Equity Report 2001
However
you may feel about Act 60, it's intent was to equalize educational
opportunity, an obvious need with respect to quality education for all
Vermont's kids. This page take you to a link where you can download
the latest report in Adobe Acrobat [*.pdf] format. The
Guide for the Operation of Local and Regional Standards Boards
For
LSB's and RSB's, as well as others interested in professional licensure and
development. See especially the "Policy on Standards for Vermont
Educators: A Vision For Schooling." Also available via a link
to a downloadable Word document. Wired
for Learning - Standards Into Action
This is a jump page from the
Vermont/IBM Reinventing Education Partnership, on-line materials that are
intended to help Vermont's teachers more quickly and easily develop content
for their classrooms based on standards. We have to say, we were not
that impressed. There were a couple of "Applications"
available, which actually linked to other sites for science and
geography. Ok. But the News page was blank, and the School
Directories link didn't function properly. ... Action
Planning Guide
"Successful
schools do not happen by accident ..." Thus begins the intro to
the State's step-by-step Action Planning Guide, designed to help local
schools and districts, as well as interested community members, to organize
their ideas in ways that will get at the outcomes they're after. Action
Planning Guide: Data Access
This site used to take
you to a great interactive area where you could chart data for your school
or district, and make use of the Action Planning Guide in connection with
the data. The link now takes you to a page entitled The School Improvement
Support Guide, but we're not sure what's happened to the data or the
interactivity. We include it in the hope that it will come back with
the new edition of the School Report {see above.} School
Finance [lots of good data on more than money]
Lacking
the functionality of the link above when we visited, we found this page with
lots of links to all sorts of education data and info. Of course, as
the State's site says elsewhere, learning matters. So, too, does
money. And you'll find that info here, too. Teacher
Licensing Regulations
If good school depend upon good teachers,
then you may want to know what it takes to become one here in Vermont. Vermont's
Results Oriented Program Approval Process – Revised
A
"guide for higher education institutions and educator preparation
programs." Vermont's
Alternative Licensure Program (Peer Review) Handbook
A
direct link to an Adobe Acrobat [*.pdf] file on alternative paths to
licensing. Commissioner's
Comments
He's on his way to Castleton, but if you
want to see the highlights of what he's had to say since February of last
year, this is the page to go to.
About Links to Learning & Ed On-Line
The
amount of info on the web is enormous, as anyone who's ever tried to run a
search can attest to. To put it all in context, best estimates say that
only a fraction -- maybe 20 - 40 % of what's out there -- is actually making its
way to the search engines. Well, here at DownStreet,
we'd like to try to help. So each issue, we post a few links in Learning
& Ed to sites that might interest you. Sometimes the links will be
related to one another ... sometimes we'll just offer up a somewhat
random sampling. Sometimes they're about Vermont sites, sometimes
not. Of course, while we can't vouch for the fact that
every link we provide will be of interest to everyone, we do our best to filter
out the noise and the bustle and focus on quality sites. ... In that
light, we hope you enjoy these sites as much as we have. . .*******
******* If you know of any
links that you think are worthwhile, why not send them along to ...
links@downstreetmagazine.com
... If we agree, we'll be happy to include
them in an upcoming issue to pass the word along. ...
Thanks. *******
******* .
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