News Release - Winner of California Association for Bilingual Education Award Uses Carousel of IDEAS from Ballard & Tighe

LONG BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--When Boronda Meadows Elementary School was recently named the winner of the 2009 Seal of Excellence by the California Association for Bilingual Education, Ballard & Tighe, Publishers (www.ballard-tighe.com) celebrated along with the school. Boronda Meadows Elementary School of Salinas, Calif. uses Ballard & Tighe’s Carousel of IDEAS in some of its classrooms and believes the curriculum played a role in helping them earn the honor.

“Carousel of IDEAS is an important part of our district’s curriculum for English Language Learners,” said Mary Pritchard director of bilingual-migrant services for Salinas City Elementary School District. “Carousel helped us improve our instruction, gave us a good basis for staff development and gave our students an effective method to improve their English skills. We are proud of Boronda Meadows Elementary School and the teachers who have worked so hard to give students every opportunity to succeed.” MORE

Utah is Spending its Stimulus money

This excerpt is from an eSchool News compilation of news stories.

This is exactly what I have been talking about for weeks. The money is coming and the education companies who are out in front, taking a risk in ad dollars and trade show presence-- will reap the benefits.

Utah will use some of its federal stimulus money to
pay for high-tech teaching software and new computer labs in the state's poorest schools as part of an effort to use new technologies to boost test scores, reports the Salt Lake Tribune. Utah schools superintendent Patti Harrington and
Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. are still working out the details of how the state will spend its $500 million in emergency education funding. But after a White House meeting Feb. 25 with education leaders from each state, Harrington promised big
changes. MORE

Obama's Budget - the Education Part

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/fy2010_new_era/Department_of_Eduction.pdf
This is the link to the four pages in Obama's budget that are dedicated to education.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/ This is the link to the entire 140+ page document.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=57488 Here is an article in eSchoolNews

http://www.convergemag.com/story.php?catid=231&storyid=108534 This is an excellent compilation of sites and information regarding education stimulus from Converge magazine.

WSJ Article - Experts Wonder How Education Goals Will Be Met - Feb. 25, 2009

I appreciated this article from the Wall Street Journal with insight about potential education funding in the new administration. http://online.wsj.com/wsjgate?subURI=%2Farticle%2FSB123561145508077643-email.html&nonsubURI=%2Farticle_email%2FSB123561145508077643-lMyQjAxMDI5MzI1NjYyMTYxWj.html

This link will be valid for only seven days unless you are a subscriber to the WSJ so download it now.

The Marketing and PR Mix - Podcasts, too!

Have you noticed how there is a lot of real estate available in our education magazines? This may be a good time to advertise and not have a lot of competition. I realize no one really knows how much money will be coming to the schools to purchase curriculum, technology and supplementary materials but I would rather be in front of the buyers with some ads than playing catch up in May and June.

I have always been a firm believer in multiple impressions. Public relations efforts coupled with advertising and the rest of the marketing mix help put your products in front of school buyers. Furthermore, advertising ensures PLACEMENT and MESSAGE. We can try to achieve this with pitching products to the trades (PR lingo for magazines) but nothing guarantees you will get across your intended message like pure old ads.

So this is my advice for today…revisit those trades and pick the ones that are getting to your buyers. Then dig out some money to place a series of ads this spring. Work with your PR people to tie in the news release campaign and product pitches. NECC is coming up very fast and my guess is that there will be educators at the conference who have a pocketful of money and not a lot of time to make choices.

This week’s tidbit -- Create a series of podcasts to place on your website. Then populate those on at iTunes, PodcastAlley.com, Education Podcast Network( http://epnweb.org/), or Podfeed.net (there are many others). Interview your customers on the phone and record the conversation. Interview your marketing people, your editors, your CEO. Let your prospects hear first-hand, your passion for your products (and something about the pedagogy as well). Build up the personal connection to your products and your company.

The last word...While at NECC, give away an iPod or two and populate the iPods with your collection of podcasts to get them started on learning about your products.

News Release - Case Study Examines Effectiveness of Ballard & Tighe Materials

Out on Business Wire this morning. Lots more news coming out from Ballard & Tighe in the next few weeks. We have three more news releases in the queue (mostly for CA education news).

Case Study Examines Effectiveness of Ballard & Tighe Materials for English Language Learners in Florida Schools

INVERNESS, Florida – February 11, 2009 – Ballard & Tighe, Publishers (www.ballard-tighe.com) announced today that it has published a case study about the use of the IPT® Testing System to evaluate and place English language learners in Florida schools.

The case study, about Citrus County School District (www.citrus.k12.fl.us), examines how the district is using assessment data to give teachers more information about the learning needs of their ESOL students (English for Speakers of Other Languages). Citrus County School District uses IPT tests for placement and progress evaluation of English learners as well as in their three-pronged exit assessment that includes the FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test) and the state-mandated CELLA (Comprehensive English Language Learning Assessment).

The case study along with others that discuss the use of Ballard & Tighe instructional materials can be found at: www.ballard-tighe.com/resources/MarketingResources/successStories.asp.

Learning Plans on Demand - Official Launch

This news release was issued on Monday, February 9, 2009 via BusinessWire.

STUART, Florida – February 9, 2009 – Few students are exactly “on grade level” and in fact, most are either above or behind their current grade level by a significant amount. Up until now, teachers had little help to remedy this problem and instead had to rely on stacks of textbooks, folders filled with lessons and scores of disconnected resources to build individual learning plans. Now that daunting task is being made easier with a new product called Learning Plans on Demand™ ( http://www.learningplansondemand.com/ ) (more)

See Learning Plans on Demand at the ASCD Conference in booth 1046.

Donner Summit Public Utility District

I have a new client as of a few weeks ago. The Donner Summit Public Utility District needs some assistance with public outreach and building relationships with their constituency. The district provides water treatment and wastewater treatment for an area in the Sierra Nevada mountains (including one of my favorite ski resorts, Sugar Bowl). We are reworking their website to follow a standard navigation structure. I'll be helping to open up two-way communication between the district and the general public; this is critical in today's climate.

Wastewater treatment (in California in particular) is a onerous process not only from the difficulty in treating the waste properly but in adhering to the requirements of the California Regional Water Quality Control Board which issues permits for wastewater treatment plants. Most of us, myself included, agree that regulation is important to protect the environment and human/animal health. In fact, nearly everyone associated with this industry that I have met has a full commitment to doing the right thing. It is just a bit of a challenge for the plants to keep up with strict discharge requirements while not breaking the back of the rate payers who absorb the costs.

Thankfully, good research and the efforts of bright people and companies has created exciting treatment options to help treatment plants comply. The sticking points are time and money.

In any event, I am excited to work with another utility district that is doing their best to provide service while maintaining healthy waterways and watersheds. A little money from the government certainly would help...