GLOBAL SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTOR at OMD (Chicago, Illinois)

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GLOBAL SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTOR (Chicago)
Job Description:
Opportunity to work on an industry leading Fortune 500 technology account thats an innovative leader in social media. The opportunity is based out of Chicago and offers a breadth and depth of opportunity to work with a major brand across the world interacting and strategizing across the full social media landscape and offering access and integration with a wide array of leading social media tools and technology. While the position is based in Chicago, there is a strong need for global understanding and skills to help the client scale across the globe. Further, the roles key function is to bring a deeper integration between all forms of media and social. As a result, the candidate will ideally have familiarity with other channels and experience in connecting and integrating other communications channels. This is a highly strategic position blended with the ability and drive to make things happen. An understanding of how to measure and convey the value of social media is also important.

Key Responsibilities / Performance Requirements:
Work closely with the client Global Social Media Director
Develop and communicate global social media communications frameworks, strategies and integration opportunities
Co-ordinate with agency offices around the world to gather and disseminate social media best practices, trends and innovation
Construct an present global social media landscapes and POVs
Review media plans and engage in early collaboration on connecting media plan ideas and strategies with social media strategy, opportunities and innovation
Work with media agency teams to define, communicate and activate social media strategies into overall media activations
Present social media integration opportunities to client social media teams and other related client centers of excellence
Work with client social media teams on resource needs and allocations to support social media integrations
Participate in communications planning strategy sessions, ensuring social media plays its relevant role
Develop and manage road map regarding social media strategic direction and resource needs related to social media integration
Help define and maintain measurement framework for social media, integrating this into the holistic performance measurement overall
Required Skills:
7-10 years minimum experience working for a client or agency in a marketing communications or media related role, including 3+ years working in the online marketing / social media environment
1+ years global interaction or experience
Understanding of how social media varies or plays out beyond the U.S.
Extensive experience developing and executing social marketing and media strategies, with a focus on integrating marketing, media, PR and content strategy into social media
Demonstrated working knowledge of both the social media and marketing environments
Demonstrated experience creating strategies which result in business results
Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to build effective internal and external relationships, influence change and drive integration
Results and value focused
Strong and persuasive presenter; ability to convey the complex simply
Strict attention to details and the ability to work to tight deadlines
Self-starting with the ability to manage projects autonomously
Budget management
Highly organized and a real team player

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Wealthy Often Win in Merit-Aid Race

A father recently wrote to Dickinson College complaining that although the school admitted his daughter, it did not offer her any scholarship money, which two of its competitors had. The family's income was $250,000 a year, but the father figured that the Carlisle, Pa., college would kick in some financial aid rather than risk losing a student with excellent grades and test scores.

Robert J. Massa, Dickinson's vice president for enrollment and college relations, said the father's request did not surprise him. It was typical of the rising tide of "merit" or "non-need-based" scholarships -- a zero-sum game, Massa said, that is hurting the quality of undergraduate education.

"Family expectations of price incentives are rampant, and my colleagues and I take the bait," he said.

A 2003 study by the Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation for Education reported that from 1995 to 2000, scholarship aid to students from families making $40,000 or less increased 22 percent in 1999 dollars. At the same time, scholarship aid for students in families making $100,000 or more a year increased 145 percent.

Experts have said the growth in merit scholarships -- grants for students with good grades or test scores -- stems from two factors: the escalating competition between private colleges for accomplished students and state efforts to encourage enrollment in public universities by giving scholarships to all residents with decent grade-point averages.

Sandy Baum, professor of economics at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and senior policy analyst for the New York-based nonprofit College Board, said the private colleges' use of non-need-based aid encourages wealthy applicants and discourages those with little money. "If the private colleges don't refocus more dollars on students with high-level needs," she said, "they are going to become places that are totally closed to low-income students."

A few educators, such as Massa, are trying to turn the tide by reducing the number of merit scholarships they give to students, even if that handicaps them in the battle for prime undergraduates. "The bottom line is that society is no better off if a kid goes to Dickinson or goes to the University of Richmond," Massa said.

That quote is not to be found anywhere on Dickinson's Web site, with its pictures of eager high school students touring the campus. But the 2,200-undergraduate institution has a fine reputation and a surplus of good applicants -- it accepts only half of those who apply -- so Massa has been able to cut back on merit scholarships without reducing the quality of his freshman classes.

Merit aid recipients in Dickinson's freshman class of 600 decreased from 104 in 1999 to 64 last year. At the same time, the average SAT scores of those freshmen increased from 1189 to 1274, and minority enrollment increased from 4 to 15 percent.

Supporters of merit scholarships say students' high school academic accomplishments deserve the same kind of financial recognition that heavily recruited athletes get. They also note that state-sponsored merit programs appear to be persuading more students than ever, including low-income students, to give college a try.

In a chapter of a new book, "College Choices: The Economics of Where to Go, When to Go and How to Pay for It," Susan Dynarski, assistant professor of public policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, said that "since the early 1990s, more than a dozen states have established broad-based merit aid programs." The typical program gives tuition and fee money to residents who have at least a "B," or 3.0, grade-point average.

One of the most successful programs, the HOPE Scholarships in Georgia, paid $277 million in state lottery proceeds to 75,000 students from 2000 to 2001, Dynarski said.

Baum said such programs are good at persuading low-income students to think about college because the money is guaranteed, although many fail to get the required grades. Still, the programs appear to increase by 5 to 7 percent the probability that students in those states will attend college, Dynarski said.

"In fact," she said, "the merit programs appear to be more effective than need-based aid at achieving this goal," in part because need-based scholarships, unlike merit aid, require families to fill out very complicated forms.

Those results have convinced many governors and state legislatures that merit aid is a good idea. Many private college educators agree, even if it seems that they are sometimes subsidizing the wealthy. Much private-college merit aid goes to families that are making financial sacrifices, even if they don't qualify for need-based aid, college administrators have said.

Nancy Y. Bekavac, president of Scripps College in Claremont, Calif., said she still remembers the impact that a merit scholarship to Pennsylvania's Swarthmore College in 1965 had on her: It boosted her confidence to know she was joining a community of scholars. In a published remembrance of her college days, Bekavac recalled learning that the scholarship committee did not know until after it made its decision that her father had just died. "That meant that I was judged more or less on my own merit and that the scholarship was not a kind of consolation prize," she said.

But such good feelings do not justify the financial damage from the merit-aid arms race, some educators have said. Michael McPherson, president of the Spencer Foundation in Minneapolis, has a slide-show scenario, based on research, in which four colleges battle for the same students. At the end, the schools have lost a total of $1.6 million that might have been used to improve teaching and learning and instead have improved their average verbal freshman SAT scores by one point -- from 597 to 598.

Critics point out that Dickinson reduced its need-based aid, as well as merit aid, to stop the financial bleeding. But Massa said the college cut those scholarships in part because some need-based aid was spent on students who did not meet the college's goals of more diverse and better-quality students.

In 1999, 52 percent of Dickinson tuition revenue was spent on financial aid, Massa said, but that portion is down to 35 percent. Massa said that 48 percent of Dickinson students receive need-based scholarships and that 10 percent get non-need-based aid. And unlike in 1999, the scholarships provide for the full financial need for those students and have helped increase the percentage of students that stay at Dickinson.

Still, the competition continues. Massa admitted that he gave a $6,000 merit scholarship to the student whose affluent father suggested Dickinson might lose her if she didn't get some money. That leveled the playing field in the still-not-settled contest for that student, he said, but "who really wins here?"

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Community/Forum Manager at Houzz (Palo Alto, California)

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Houzz.com, the premier online platform for the home design industry, is looking for a smart and energetic community manager rock star to join our downtown Palo Alto, CA, office.

The community manager will become a hands-on leader for Houzz's community within our Q&A and messaging board, including managing a team of professionals and moderators and the associated budget.

This is a unique opportunity for the right individual to become an early member of a unique and winning team. Houzz, a venture-backed company, has been featured in CNN, the WSJ, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, TechCrunch and others (see houzz.com/press). The Houzz web site serves a fast-growing community of home owners and home improvement professionals. The Houzz app is a leading home design app on the iPad and iPhone. Both the web site and the app provide access to the largesthome designdatabase on the web- over 175,000 photos uploaded by more than 25,000 design professionals.

Responsibilities:
Manage remote staff of design professionals and moderators to ensure consistent processes for community outreach, development, moderation and policies.
Oversee department budget, moderator recruitment and hiring.
Collaborate closely with editorial to create community-focused editorial content, discover new opportunities for engagement, and increase flow between content and community.
Collaborate with social marketing team to build engagement and audience through social media outreach.
Collaborate with PR and marketing team to increase user acquisition, retention and increase brand awareness.
Oversee first-response community support efforts.

Qualifications:
Deep knowledge of and passion for online communities & social media including best practices and the latest tools.
3+ years of onlinecommunity management experience.
Proven record of successfully building and growing a forum/ Q&A communityfrom an early stage.
Strong sense of personal ownership/stewardship for the community
Multidisciplinary approach to problem-solving and ability to work with cross-functional teams.
Leadership and project management experience.
Editorial instincts on turning community conversations and contributions into clicky, viral content with a knack for identifying and pieceing together trends.
Proven track record of planning and achieving measurable goals.
Ability to work well under pressure and proven ability to meet deadlines.
High energy personality and a strong desire to achieve top results with a charismatic, positive attitude.
Strong communication & writing skills.
Experience with lifestyle/interest consumer communities, in particular home improvement and home furnishing communities is a plus.

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A D.C. Teacher's Day in the Rose Garden

By Manny Fernandez and V. Dion Haynes

The sixth-graders were hunched over their desks behind the metal-screened windows of the middle school -- still digesting the difference between similes and metaphors -- as the limousine carrying their school's best teacher pulled up to the northwest gate of the White House yesterday.

Welcomed at the gate, Jason Kamras made his way up the driveway flanked with red tulips and walked into a limelight that falls sparingly on the weathered urban school where he has taught math for close to a decade.

"My children simply want the opportunity to pursue their dreams," Kamras said as he stood in the Rose Garden beside the president and first lady.

The ceremony recognized Kamras, 31, as the National Teacher of the Year. He is the first winner from a D.C. public school in the contest's 53-year history.

"He's usually at work at 7 a.m., and he rarely leaves before 7 p.m.," President Bush said as bright sunshine streamed down on those who gathered for the event. Kamras receives great joy, Bush told them, "when a student proclaims, 'Mr. Kamras, I get it.' "

Kamras smiled.

At that moment -- six miles and a world away -- students in Room 120 at John Philip Sousa Middle School had their rulers out, drawing rectangles, some of them quiet and studious, others loud and distracted.

Sousa sits at the edge of a park east of the Anacostia River, on the poorer side of Washington's dividing line between the haves and the have-nots. With its tall chimney, the 50-year-old, red-brick building looks more like a factory than a school.

The white flag pole has no flag, and a sign near the entrance declares that firearms are banned within 500 feet. Two women were shot to death down the street several years ago, and the metal detector that students walk through each morning has turned up several knives.

All but 40 of the roughly 380 students qualify for a free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly used indicator of poverty. A year ago, 46 percent of the students scored "below basic" on reading tests, and 73 percent scored below basic in math.

Kamras said he doesn't dwell on the negative. His focus is on the faces in his classroom.

"They inspire me every day with their intelligence, creativity and humor," he said in the Rose Garden yesterday. Teachers "can and do make a dramatic difference in their lives every day."

He was fresh out of Princeton almost nine years ago, and the middle school was showing signs of age, when he first laid eyes on it.

Sousa's principal, William Lipscomb, had fetched him from the Minnesota Avenue Metro station in Northeast, and the two men immediately found common ground.

"We both are from New York and we instantly bonded on that," Kamras said.

Two sixth-grade teachers, Carol Taylor and Elaine Stewart, supplied Kamras with construction paper for his classroom and a bit of an introduction to the school.

"Some of the things they raised were the lack of resources. They talked about the socioeconomic challenges that some students at Sousa face," Kamras recalled in an interview this week. "Some students here have encountered violence personally."

But from the start, he said, he was determined to "never use the negative factors as predictors of ability or potential."

During his first year of teaching, Kamras said, he sought to get to "know the students as individuals, taking the time to learn who they are, what they care about, what their needs are as learners."

Kamras made bridging the inequities in staffing and other resources between urban and suburban schools a priority. He got creative. He brought a cookie with colorful frosting to class to illustrate circumference, diameter and radius. He took his students to outings at the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials and made time after school to encourage their hobbies. He encouraged his students to take photographs of community life, and their prints were put on display in city offices at Judiciary Square and other places in the city.

And he played chess with student Wendall Jefferson once a week. "He would routinely defeat me, and I was trying my hardest," Kamras said.

During those games he learned about the student and his family, and he sought to inspire him to "focus in class and tap into the fullness of his potential."

"I think I was learning as a first-year teacher how to engage students and bring their natural love . . . for their hobbies into the classroom," Kamras recalled. "I wanted to use that as a catalyst."

Jefferson graduated from Sousa in 1999 as valedictorian, and Kamras regularly tutored him in math and science when he went on to high school. Now Jefferson is studying electrical engineering at Morehouse College in Atlanta. He is the first in his family to go to college.

"He said, 'Wendall, you have great potential,' " recalled Jefferson, 20, who attended the Rose Garden ceremony yesterday. "I said, 'I'm destined to do great things.' He said, 'Always keep that dream.' "

Kamras began "early bird" advanced math classes before the regular school day began, working to prepare students for the standardized test known as the Stanford 9.

He also came up with an idea that doubled the amount of math instruction by providing two teachers -- teaching separate classes -- for every student. The program was started for seventh-graders and then expanded to other grades.

"Our Stanford 9 scores went from approximately 80 percent below basic to 40 percent below basic in one year," he said.

Though the program continues in other grades, it was discontinued for seventh-graders because there weren't enough qualified teachers.

Kamras said he steadfastly refused to let "negative factors shape my perspective."

At the White House, Kamras, who with his boyish looks could have been mistaken for a student all dressed up, heard Bush say, "Your students are fortunate to have you in their lives."

He shook hands with Bush and -- holding his teaching award, a glass apple on a plaque -- posed for photos with the president and first lady Laura Bush.

Next year, he plans to travel the country to promote innovative teaching techniques. He's taking today and tomorrow off. But he plans on being back in the classroom, as usual, first thing Monday morning.

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FBI Takes Inquiry To Hornsby's Staff

FBI agents questioned Prince George's County school staff members and seized records in two administration buildings yesterday in connection with an investigation of schools chief Andre J. Hornsby, a development that intensifies scrutiny of the leader of the state's second-largest school system.

School system spokesman John White and Board of Education Chairman Beatrice P. Tignor (Upper Marlboro) disclosed the surprise FBI visit early yesterday evening, several hours after agents arrived at school headquarters in Upper Marlboro and a building in Landover to question Hornsby's staff.

The FBI visit sent tremors through a school system that serves 136,000 students. The school board and Hornsby have sought in recent years to quell political turmoil, reshape staff and curriculum and focus on improving test scores. They have scored some gains but earned mixed reviews, with Hornsby attracting criticism for a hard-charging, no-apologies leadership style.

Yesterday, the school system referred questions about the inquiry to a spokesman for the FBI in Baltimore. That spokesman, FBI Special Agent Barry Maddox, declined to comment.

Hornsby, 51, has been the focus of a federal inquiry since at least late last year after the revelation that he had overseen the purchase of about $1 million in software and other products from LeapFrog SchoolHouse while living with a saleswoman for the Emeryville, Calif., company. He did not disclose the relationship with the saleswoman to the school board before the deal was made. Subsequently, he denied wrongdoing and said he had acted only to obtain the latest technology to help students master basic skills.

The school system did not publicly discuss the subject of yesterday's questioning and records search. However, a source directly familiar with the search, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said agents appeared to focus on information related to LeapFrog and other matters.

The source said agents had two search warrants and combed through computer files, including those on Hornsby's office computer, in addition to questioning at least two school system employees, one at each site. About a half-dozen agents were in Upper Marlboro, the source said, and more at the Bonnie F. Johns Educational Media Center in Landover, starting about 9 a.m.

"They were there all day long," the source said.

Tignor and White said they did not know whether any employees had been given subpoenas to appear before a grand jury. White said the FBI visit was the first since Hornsby took office in June 2003.

The schools chief was traveling yesterday as the school system announced the FBI visit, White and Tignor said. He had been attending an educational leadership conference in San Diego with four school board members.

Hornsby did not issue an immediate public comment on the FBI visit through his aides. White said he believes that Hornsby has a private attorney, but he did not know the lawyer's name.

White said Shauna Garlington Battle, the school system's legal officer, spoke with agents at headquarters. Another attorney from a law firm under contract with the school board also was present.

Tignor said Hornsby got word of the FBI visit from his staff soon after agents arrived at his office. Hornsby called the board chairman shortly before 10 a.m. EST to relay the development.

"I said, 'Do you know what this is about?' " Tignor recalled yesterday evening in a telephone interview. "He said, 'Absolutely not.' "

Tignor said the nine-member school board would convene as soon as possible to discuss the matter, probably tomorrow.

"Anytime the FBI's involved, you always take it seriously," Tignor said. She added: "This is a challenge."

The school board has been a focus of public attention. Its members were appointed by the governor and county executive in 2002 after the state abolished an elected board widely viewed as dysfunctional. The caretaker board is scheduled to give way to a new panel after elections next year.

The latest development in the investigation of Hornsby comes as the school system -- second largest in Maryland after Montgomery County's -- faces complex fiscal and educational challenges. An audit of the school system's 2004 finances, which was due last fall, is not complete, and the state is withholding tens of millions of dollars in funding until that matter is resolved. The school board fired its first auditor in February and replaced it with one that is expected to finish work by the end of May. Separately, the board has hired a consultant to review purchasing and contracting under Hornsby.

Meanwhile, Hornsby this year has set in motion systemwide curriculum changes -- including a back-to-basics focus on reading and mathematics -- that he hopes will raise student achievement in a system that ranks among the lowest in the state on standardized tests. The state has rated 73 of the system's 196 schools as needing improvement. Several are in advanced stages of corrective action.

Hornsby led the Yonkers, N.Y., school system -- he was fired amid controversy -- before he came to Prince George's. His blunt style was considered an asset by a school board that sought a dynamic leader to drive improvements.

Staff writers Ovetta Wiggins and Nancy Trejos contributed to this report.

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Report Tracks Effects of SOL Tests

A study commissioned by the Virginia Department of Education has found that high school graduation rates held steady for white students in 2004 -- the first year in which Standards of Learning exams were required for a diploma -- but dropped significantly for black and Hispanic students.

According to researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University, the on-time graduation rate for white students last year was 77.4 percent, compared with 61.3 percent for black students and 66.5 percent for Hispanics. Those figures represented a drop of 4.9 percentage points from 2003 for black students and of 11.6 percentage points for Hispanics.

The researchers concluded that "while there may be some negative consequences for graduation associated with high-stakes testing for specific groups of students, there is little evidence that there have been dire consequences for most students."

They also estimated that the percentage of students who dropped out of school during the four years of high school, 10 percent, was lower for the Class of 2004 than for past classes.

Starting in 2004, seniors had to pass SOL exams in reading and writing, as well as four other subjects of their choice, or tests from a list of accepted alternatives to receive a standard diploma. The department contracted with the Commonwealth Educational Policy Institute at VCU, paying $48,000 to study how students met the requirements.

Charles B. Pyle, spokesman for the Virginia Education Department, said officials were not surprised by the results for minority students. But he said they are determined to give them more help rather than back away from the tests.

"It clearly shows that the increasing focus of this agency on closing the achievement gap is vital," he said. "That's where the battle is today in Virginia's standards and accountability program."

Among other conclusions, the researchers found that, overall, 5.6 percent of last year's graduates received a "modified standard" or "special" diploma, categories reserved for special education students, compared with 3.2 percent the year before. It was more pronounced for black and Hispanic students: The percentage of black graduates earning modified or special diplomas rose from 5.5 percent in 2003 to 10.1 percent in 2004, and among Hispanic students it rose from 2.9 to 4.9 percent.

Department officials had contested several major components of the report, rejecting two previous drafts. They accepted the final version, submitted April 8, but attached a letter from State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jo Lynne DeMary explaining some areas of continued concern.

They had objected strenuously to a finding that the graduation rate for students who participated in the department's Project Graduation, which provides extra tutoring for struggling students, was only 58 percent. The finding was the result of a survey of school systems that DeMary said vastly overestimated the number of participating students.

In fact, she wrote, 75.3 percent of the 2,893 students who participated in the program graduated. The issue was particularly sensitive because the department and Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) had touted the program's support for students as standards were raised.

She also wrote that the report omitted context about the different kinds of diplomas, including the fact that more students with disabilities, including black and Hispanic students, completed high school in 2004 than in previous years. That suggests that the modified standard diploma, introduced in 2000, has provided such students an incentive to finish school, she said.

VCU researchers studied graduation rates by examining the size of each freshman class compared with the number of diplomas handed out four years later, a method called for in the federal No Child Left Behind law. Several researchers contend that the technique skews results because many students are held back after completing the ninth grade, meaning that the class is abnormally large.

Jay P. Greene, who has studied graduation rates for the Manhattan Institute, said he has found that exit exams in other states have had little impact on graduation rates when they are calculated differently. He said it is common to find an inflated ninth-grade class in the years after tests are introduced because teachers hold students back so they can master basic skills before facing the exams.

Walt Heinecke, an associate professor of research, statistics and evaluation at the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education, contested that claim. He said other studies have found that exit exams encourage students to drop out. Heinecke studied drafts of the VCU report and faulted it for not examining whether students who drop out leave school because of the SOL tests.

In addition, he said the study could have examined why rates vary widely in different parts of the state. Fairfax County had an on-time graduation rate of 86.4 percent last year, while in Norfolk the figure was 39.3 percent.

"If it's important for the state to find out whether these exams are having an effect on graduation rates, particularly for minority students, then it's important to spend some more money on this," he said.

James McMillan, lead researcher for the study, said asking those questions would "probably be very appropriate" but said this study was not intended to ask them and called for continued research.

Pyle said that the department plans to continue studying graduation rates but that there is no plan to contract with an outside group next year.

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D.C. Math Educator Named Nation's Best

A math instructor at the District's John Philip Sousa Middle School has been named the National Teacher of the Year, the first time in the contest's 53-year history that a D.C. educator has won.

Jason Kamras will receive the award, considered by many teachers as their profession's most prestigious, at a White House Rose Garden ceremony tomorrow. He will serve as a national and international spokesman on a broad range of public education issues.

As part of the program, Kamras will take a year off with pay to fulfill the responsibilities of the title. He said he is particularly interested in using his platform to plead to policymakers that urban school systems be funded at the same levels as their suburban counterparts.

"I want to galvanize support for all resources and policies to ensure equity in public education to eliminate the achievement gap," said Kamras, 31, who was chosen from a field 55 finalists.

President Bush also will recognize the State Teachers of the Year, including Bradford Charles Engel, a social studies teacher at Kent Island High School in Stevensville, Md., and Joseph Hills, a social studies teacher at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke. The award, which aims to promote teaching excellence, is distributed by the Council of Chief State School Officers and sponsored by Scholastic Inc.

Kamras was born in New York, grew up in Northern California and has a bachelor's degree from Princeton University and a master's in education from Harvard University. He came to the Southeast Washington school in 1996 through a program that places recent college graduates in under-funded urban and rural schools.

"I'm incredibly proud to be a DCPS teacher," said Kamras, who hopes the award will "bring recognition to the excellent teaching going on in D.C." and in other urban schools.

"Jason is very bright, energetic and forward-looking," said Jon Quam, director of the National Teacher of the Year program. "He has committed himself to schools with difficulty in attracting large numbers of high-qualified professionals and to under-resourced schools."

The principal of Sousa, William Lipscomb, said Kamras has initiated several innovative programs that have helped boost math scores, cutting the number of students scoring below basic comprehension from 80 percent to 40 percent.

Kamras, Lipscomb said, makes himself available before and after school and on Saturdays to tutor students. He pressed Lipscomb to double the instructional time for math, from one to two 50-minute periods a day.

"It is an honor to have a teacher like Jason in our school system because he not only serves to inspire students to academic excellence, but he can be an inspiration for his colleagues," Superintendent Clifford B. Janey said in a statement.

The award comes as school officials in the District are reviewing preliminary budget proposals from schools that call for the elimination of 395 teaching and other staff positions. Teachers also are working under an expired contract with little promise of raises as they negotiate a new one.

George Parker, president of the 5,400-member Washington Teachers' Union, said that "it's wonderful" a D.C. educator was selected for the award.

"In spite of all the negativity in the school system, we still have a teacher succeeding. This is good for our teachers' morale."

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