The Answer - A blog about Education, Preparation, and Commitment.

Students Present Bids for the World Cup

December 07, 2009 by Jeremy Jones

On Thursday, December 3^rd, the high school students at YES Prep East End all gathered in the Great Hall to advocate for their group’s country to be the host country of the 2018 World Cup.  Parents, teachers, community member and peers walked around the room and perused each group’s World Cup bid before the expert panel, which was composed of two representatives from Houston’s professional soccer team – the Houston Dynamo – announced the winners. 

In the weeks prior, the 9^th and 10^th grade Explorers dropped their normal schedules, formed groups of six or seven, and chose a country to represent in the contest.  Each day for a week, they met with a faculty advisor in the morning to set goals and deadlines, both for the group and for individual members.  This involved creating an action

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Building Excellent First Year Teachers

December 05, 2009 by Jeremy Jones

YES Prep hired 95 teachers for the 2009-2010 school year and just about half of those teachers were brand new to education. We love recruiting leaders from all academic and professional backgrounds and we can do so without fear or insecurity because of our outstanding first year teacher support, development and training program that ensures brand new educators will have immediate success with their students. 

Our year-long, new teacher development program, Teaching Excellence, was recently recognized by the Texas Education Agency as a model teacher preparatory and training program for young educators.  Teaching Excellence pairs new teachers with an instructional coach and facilitates relevant and applicable professional learning experiences on classroom management and culture,

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YES Prep Celebrates Teachers: Eric Newcomer

December 02, 2009 by Jeremy Jones

Teacher Spotlight: People are the Source of our Strength

Eric Newcomer, YES Prep Southwest, 7th Grade English

Where did you grow up and where did you go to college?

I grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and I went to college at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. I’m still a student now as I’m working on a masters in the teaching of English from Columbia University Teachers College.

What brought you to teaching?

As a senior in college, I worked as a teacher’s assistant at low-income public middle school. I was surprised by the discrepancy between the quality of education that the kids were receiving and the quality of education that I thought they should receive. I talked about this with a professor, who introduced me to Teach for America. The mission of that program

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Texas Education Commissioner Deserves Kudos for Promoting Charter School Growth

November 30, 2009 by Jeremy Jones

Read David Dunn's editorial in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on the Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott's support to help effective charter schools expand. What do you think of charter school growth in Texas?

David Dunn is executive director of the Texas Charter Schools

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November Edition of English Insider: A Newsletter for Teachers Of English and Reading

November 30, 2009 by Jeremy Jones

Best Practices for English, Literature and Reading Instruction

• Put up posters with prompts for students to use academic language.Include sentence stems to help students build academic vocabulary and encourage them to use such vocabulary in whole class and small group discussions. (Kyrlyn Chatten, 10th grade EE)

• Use a word wall color coded by part of speech (for example, nouns in blue, verbs in green, etc.) or by theme (for example, character traits in red, words that connect to social studies in yellow) (Natalie Lund, 7th grade EE)

• Use “high impact” visuals to help our English Language learners grasp vocabulary words and concepts. (Nella Garcia, Director of Teacher Deveopment)

• Use quick, high interest movie clips to illustrate concepts and

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