Math Teacher

Former Washington schools chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, known for her crusade to use standardized test scores to help evaluate teachers, is facing renewed scrutiny over her depiction of progress that her students made years ago when she was a schoolteacher. A former D.C. math teacher, Guy Brandenburg, posted on his blog a study that includes test scores from the Baltimore school where Rhee taught from 1992 to 1995. The post, dated Jan. 31, generated intense discussion in education circles this week.

Second-year chemistry teacher Mark Wilcox has never had a lot of colleagues at Patterson High School who could help him think up lesson plans or new approaches to a topic. But he has imagined the benefits of reaching across the city and state to those who might have created a better way to teach a chemistry concept. State education officials and business leaders put Wilcox and 29 other teachers in a room and asked them to dream up an online network that would help them be better teachers.

Frances K. "Kay" Colley, a retired Howard County mathematics teacher and volunteer, died Monday of breast cancer at her Westminster home. She was 83. Frances Kathleen Sparling, the daughter of a Lehigh Valley Railroad engineer and a homemaker, was born in Bethlehem, Pa. Mrs. Colley was raised in Hazelton, Pa., and Leighton, Pa., where she graduated in 1945 from Leighton High School. She was a 1949 graduate of what is now East Stroudsburg University in East Stroudsburg, Pa., where she majored in both math and English.

Ronald H. "Ron" Sanders, who successfully combined a career as a Baltimore County public school educator and restaurateur who owned and operated Sanders' Corner, died Wednesday of non- Hodgkin's lymphoma at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The longtime Timonium resident was 72. Born in Baltimore, the son of a businessman and a homemaker, Mr. Sanders was raised in West Arlington. After graduating from the Polytechnic Institute in 1956, he earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1961 from Western Maryland College, and a master's degree in education and supervision in 1966 from Loyola College.

Sidney Carton, a popular city high school math teacher who made sure his students understood the difference between the Pythagorean theorem, pi r squared, a hypotenuse and other math concepts before leaving his classroom, died Aug. 11 from kidney failure at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The Pikesville resident was 92. Mr. Carton, the son of a retail clothing salesman and a homemaker, was born in Philadelphia, where he spent his early years. He moved in 1923 with his family to the city's Pimlico neighborhood.

My plea to save Cardianl not about sentiment; this is about a school that is successful. Struggling financially is not about success. Aren't we all struggling financially? Cardinal Gibbons School takes in boys, wild and excited about the freedoms of adulthood, and produces men, men who are disciples of Christ. The soccer coach preaches brotherhood to them. The lacrosse coach teaches them that God and family come first. The math teacher models service to the community and dedication to God by serving as the deacon at Gibbons and at St. Agnes Church.

At a Baltimore County school board meeting packed with dozens of people opposed to the use of a new student tracking system, leaders representing teachers, principals and parents asked the board for more public input into the review of the process. The tracking system, called the Articulated Instruction Module, has come under fire in recent weeks from teachers, who say it is burdensome and redundant. The system, developed by a county school administrator, would require teachers to grade students on their mastery of about 100 skills in each subject.