Resources for English Teachers

Reading and Writing sources:
http://www.webenglishteacher.com/index.html

Achievement Gap Persists Between Hispanic and White Students | StudentsFirst.org

Achievement Gap Persists Between Hispanic and White Students | StudentsFirst.org

Please Help -Students in Texas in big trouble.

Look at these alarming facts about the little importance we place on education in Texas and this is prior to the republican majority and Perry cutting funds for our children's education by over $4  billion this year.  And this is also prior to the republican majority and Perry, this past week, refusing to vote yes on using the rainy day fund to help alleviate the pain students and schools will feel from the large cuts. -Many elementary schools in San Antonio are forced to get rid of vice-principals. -How do you run a school without vice-principals?!  In fact the rainy day fund was established many years ago just for this very reason - to help education in the time of a budget crisis.  Texas students were already in trouble prior to this year's Texas govenor's and  senate's neglect to support the education of our children and the future of Texas:
Read some of these very disturbing facts:
Texas is #49 in verbal SAT scores in the nation (493) and #46 in average math SAT scores (502). 
  Texas is #36 in the nation in high school graduation rates (68%).
  Texas is #33 in the nation in teacher salaries. Teacher salaries in Texas are not keeping pace with the national average. The gains realized from the last state-funded across-the-board pay raise authorized in 1999, which moved the ranking from 33 to as high as 26th in the nation, have disappeared over the last five years.
  Texas was the only state in the nation to cut average per pupil expenditures in fiscal year 2005, resulting in a ranking of #40 nationally; down from #25 in fiscal year 1999.    Texas is #6 in the nation in student growth. The general student population in Texas public schools grew by 11.1% between school years 1999 and 2005, with the largest percent of growth seen among low income and minority children.
  Between school years 1999 and 2005, the number of central administrators employed by Texas public schools grew by 32.5%, overall staffing in public schools grew by 15.6%, while the number of teachers grew only 13.3%.

  -Facts from the website of the Texas State Comptroller -Susan Combs @ http://www.window.state.tx.us/comptrol/wwstand/wws0512ed/

What will we do in Texas when are children do not have the knowledge and skills to go to college and to become the leaders of tomorrow or just support themselves?  How will we support the many students who are dropping out and will drop out and their children as well?  Who will pay for their trips to the emergency room because they cannot afford health insurance? Of course we will and this will be in the tens of billions of dollars. 
Support education -call your congressman or write to your local newspaper editorial.  We need to spread the word and begin to realize education as our number one state priority. Without education - we have no future.
”Nothing is more important than education. Our state‘s future tax base and fiscal well-being depend directly on a highly educated work force."
—Carole Keeton Strayhorn, Texas Comptroller

Research finds middle school students want online activities

Article from Texas Library Journal pg. 132-135
http://www.txla.org/sites/tla/files/pdf/TLJ86_4.pdf

Free Technology for Teachers: Wikihood - A Wikipedia and Google Maps Mashup

Free Technology for Teachers: Wikihood - A Wikipedia and Google Maps Mashup

Great tool to view places and get info from Wikipedia on the place. Just be careful with info for not all wkipedia is secure. Thanks freetech4teachers for the headsup.

Free Technology for Teachers: 3 Ways to View Historical Images on Google Maps

Free Technology for Teachers: 3 Ways to View Historical Images on Google Maps

A Texan worth $5.3 billion speaks on education and our future!

From: http://www.facebook.com/RaiseYourHandTexas

Dear Gov. Perry,

Our company has been serving Texans since 1905 and this recession isn't our first rodeo!

We kept adding people and stores right through the Great Depression of the 1930s until building materials became unavailable due to World War II. Company growth continued through the recessions of 1973-75 and the 1980s and we are building and hiring aggressively today.

For Texas to cut $4 billion from public school funding now, when a better-educated Texas can be a bulwark against future recessions, seems unwise, not conservative and, in fact, very risky for the state. Falling back isn't the way Eisenhower and Patton won World War II.

This isn't about political parties or national issues; it's about the future of Texas.

As business people investing annually, we are worried about the state's future if we start cutting education funding — lower per capita income and higher crime rates are almost certain to result. An educated workforce is essential to all industries.

With 160,000 children joining the system in the next biennium we at least need to fund at 2010-2011 levels.
In March 2011, the Financial Times reported Texas to be 44th out of 50 states in funding per student and said Texas had "one of the most underfunded - and needy - education systems in the U.S." Let's move forward (as Texas always has), not back.

I urge you to consider these views for the future good of the state we all love.
Thank you for your public service!

Respectfully,
Charles C. Butt, chairman and CEO, H.E. Butt Grocery Co., San Antonio

Texas Assault rifles used to kill our own people.

The FBI has traced 90% of all assault rifles used my Mexican drug cartels to American gunshops etc.  And most of these assault rifles come from our own state of Texas!  Why do we not ban the sale of assault rifles in Texas?  The blood of the Mexican people and the blood of our own people is on our hands and the hands of Texas representatives.  No one uses an assault rifle to kill breakfast.  Contact your representative.