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Are you interested in health care? Have you ever thought about working in a doctor’s office? Are you good with people, organized, responsible and able to take on new responsibilities? If the answer to these questions is “Yes,” then a medical assistant career might be right for you. And if you live in or near Arlington, Va., you can get the training you need to enter this exciting and rewarding field at the Arlington campus of Everest College.

Everest College in Arlington is part of the Everest family of colleges, universities and institutes that has nearly 100 campuses throughout the United States. Its Medical Assistant program is one of the largest and most successful programs of its kind in America. In fact, over the last 10 years, Everest has graduated more medical assistant students and has placed more medical assistants in health care jobs than any other school in the nation.

Why is Everest’s Medical Assistant career education program so successful? Here are some of the key factors in the program’s success:

• The Instructors — At Everest College, the Medical Assistant program instructors are former medical assistants. They know the business. They speak the language. They’ve mastered the skills. But even more important than their professional excellence is their caring attitude. Medical Assistant instructors come to Everest because they’re passionate about their profession and want to share that enthusiasm with young people. They’re eager to see their students succeed and will go that extra mile to give each student the individual support he or she needs.

• The Facility — Everest College is designed to give students the kind of real-world education that will serve them best once they leave school. Students work in small, intimate groups that promote communication and the sharing of ideas, while a simulated health care office setting allows for true hands-on training that promotes quick learning and personal confidence.

• The Follow-Up — Everest College is first and foremost a career education institution. Training for post-graduation employment begins on day one of classes and continues even after a student has graduated. Our dedicated Career Services staff works with each student to make sure he/she has a strong resume, knows effective interviewing techniques and is put in touch with local employers in need of their skills.

About the Arlington Campus

Everest College’s Arlington campus is located at 801 N. Quincy Street in Arlington, VA 22203. The campus is within easy walking distance of several bus stops and is just a few blocks south of the Ballstrom and Virginia Square Metro stations. Numerous childcare facilities are just minutes away, and a variety of restaurants and shopping options can be reached by foot.

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Certified to operate by State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve run editorials urging the Dallas school district to look for a superintendent who knows how to innovate, develop talent and manage an operation. No small feat, to be sure. And the Dallas school district has its list of priorities , some of which match up with those editorial suggestions.

But now we’re getting to the point where the district needs to start naming names. Or at least developing a serious list of candidates.

So, here’s my question: Who would you like to see on that list?

Teaching ideas whose time has come…and gone? Courtesy of yours truly and Alice Wiggins, who oversees the Core Knowledge Foundation’s Schools Department, here are common classroom practices that need to go away, be rethought, or curtailed:

1.      Data Driven…What?

An increasingly common feature in classrooms are data walls—bright, cheerful displays that show if students are advanced, proficient, basic or below basic in ELA and math.  As Rick Hess has written, schools have gone from not using data to inform decision making, to using data in half-baked or simplistic ways. Displaying decontextualized data is a prime example.  What exactly do we expect a third-grader to do with the knowledge that he or she is “approaching proficiency” in reading?  If data isn’t being used to drive instruction thoughtfully, what’s the point?

2.      Fiction Only Read-alouds

Fortunately, very few elementary school teachers need to be sold on the .  They’re great for language development and exposing kids to rich vocabulary, since a child’s ability to read with comprehension doesn’t catch up with listening comprehension until about 8th grade. But if teachers aren’t devoting significant class time to nonfiction readalouds, they’re missing out on a golden opportunity to build background knowledge, which is essential for reading comprehension.

3.      Dumb Test Prep

Decrying test prep as a misuse of class time is a little like complaining that your kids are watching Fear Factor when they could be reading Chaucer. It’s true, but it’s not likely to change anytime soon.  But if we have to waste devote precious class time to test prep, let’s stop trying to teach and reinforce like making inferences and finding the main idea that are content-specific, and cannot be mastered in the abstract.  More effective might be what Dan Willingham calls practice that reinforces the basic skills required for the learning of more advanced skills, protects against forgetting, and improves transfer.

4.      Reciting Lesson Aim and Standard

There’s nothing wrong with standards for planning and focusing lessons.  However, the idea of standards-based instruction is often misinterpreted.  Sure, students should be introduced to what they are about to learn, but having kindergarteners recite, “Through this lesson I will develop phonemic awareness and understanding of alphabetic principles” does nothing to support attainment of this standard or develop these students reading achievement.  In other cases, rather than using the standards to guide instruction on meaningful content, the standards become the instruction. Neither practice is an effective use of limited instructional time.

5.      Overusing Teaching Strategies

Too many classrooms seem to function on the principal that if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing.  Group work and differentiated instruction are two prime examples.  In Teach Like a Champion, Doug Lemov writes that group work is “as likely to yield discussions of last night’s episode of American Idol as it is higher-order discussions of content.”  Asking frequent, targeted, rigorous questions of students, Lemov believes, “is a powerful and much simpler tool for differentiating.”  Too many classroom practices are used based on a compliance mentality—students are in groups because “that’s what administration wants to see”—rather that because it makes sense for a particular unit, lesson or activity.  Like using data to drive instruction rather than as bulletin board fodder (see above) there needs to be a sound instructional strategy underlying pedagogical choices.  And let’s not even talk about learning styles.

6.      The “Theme of the Month”

It’s standard practice to organize instruction by “themes,” such as holidays, seasons, my neighborhood or foods of the world, for example.  Organize units around knowledge “domains” instead.  A teacher might use the theme “Our Great Big World” in kindergarten to invite children to explore the setting of a story.  But since every story has a setting, that “theme” is arbitrary and doesn’t coherently build background knowledge.  A domain-based approach to “Our Great Big World” might include teaching children about continents, countries, climates and land forms in a coherent fashion.

7.      Reading Comprehension Skills

We can’t say it enough and Dan Willingham said it best:  .  The most overused tool in the box in elementary school is reading strategies.  Yes, there are benefits to reading strategies, but there’s no evidence that repeated practice yields additional benefits.  Comprehension typically breaks down and test scores plummet because of a lack of background knowledge, not because kids have failed to master reading strategies.

Para Jones will tread on very familiar ground come Feb. 6. She will return to an employer for whom she has worked for 22 years – but this time as president.

Jones said she is delighted to become the fourth president of the tax-supported Stark State College.

“To say that I have goals would be presumptuous,” said Jones, 56. “I do know what’s most important to us – access, affordability and, increasingly, accountability.”

Stark State hired Jones away from Spartanburg Community College, near Greenville, S.C., where she has been president for two years. But Ohio apparently was never far from her mind.

She was a finalist in 2010 for the presidency at Owens Community College near Toledo. That didn’t happen, so she applied to Stark State when John O’Donnell quit to accept a similar post at MassBay Community College in Wellesley Hills, Mass.

Stark State trustee chairman Dr. Michael L. Thomas said the search committee whittled the applicants from 35 to four and then to Jones, Stark State provost Dorey Diab and Quintin Bullock, president of Schenectady County Community College in Schenectady, N.Y.

Thomas won’t confirm written reports that trustees were divided over the selection of the president. “All three had avid supporters,” is all Thomas would say.

Jones emerged the victor because she had “the necessary charisma,” he said. “Her intellect and philosophy are aligned with the community and the school.”

Outside experience

Jones also comes to Stark State’s top job with more outside experience than many in higher education.

After graduating from the University of Mount Union, she edited books and manuals for flight simulators at Goodyear Aerospace, then went on to public relations and marketing posts at the city of Canton and Roadway. She spent a semester in journalism school before deciding that wasn’t for her.

Her interest in higher education administration was piqued when she joined Stark State in 1987 as head of public relations.

She earned an M.B.A. from Ashland University in 1994 and a doctorate from the University of Nebraska in 2008, the latter while vice president for advancement, planning, college and community relations at Stark State.

Along the way, she raised twin sons who are now 26, wedging study into the early morning hours before she went to work.

Expanding institution

She will rejoin an institution that’s been successful in many ways.

A surge of students propelled college enrollment to more than 15,500 last fall — an 82 percent increase since 2007 and the fastest rate of growth among Ohio’s two-year colleges.

As enrollment has grown, so has the number of students graduating with certificates and associate degrees – from 582 in 2001 to 1,084 in 2010, an 86 percent increase, according to the Ohio Board of Regents.

Stark State has kept a lid on tuition, which at $4,215 a year is less than half that of the University of Akron ($9,500) or Kent State’s main campus ($9,300).

Jones will oversee the largest college in Stark County — 73 acres in Jackson Township plus seven satellite locations. The college employs 428 full-time faculty and staff and hundreds of part-timers on a $70 million operating budget.

Fair offer

At the same time, though, Jones will not make as much as her predecessor or colleagues at other two-year institutions.

Her three-year contract calls for a salary of $225,000 a year plus standard Stark State benefits, while O’Donnell, her predecessor, made $284,000 plus fringes such as allowances for housing and personal travel and a $50,000 performance bonus in 2010.

In contrast, Cuyahoga Community College’s Jerry Sue Thornton makes $259,000 plus $44,000 for housing and $25,000 each for longevity and performance. And Roy Church, president of Lorain County Community College, made $256,500 plus a $76,000 longevity supplement in 2010, six weeks of vacation and up to four weeks of sabbatical leave yearly.

Thomas, the Stark State trustee chairman, said Jones is being paid “appropriately to her level of experience. We’re trying to be cost conscious with the taxpayers’ money.”

Jones implied that money is not her goal.

“The trustees made me an offer and I thought it was fair,” she said.

Now, she’ll return to the Tudor home in Jackson Township that she shares with her husband, Greg, who is the general manager of an industrial and commercial roofing company.

He stayed in Ohio to try to sell their home when she moved to Spartanburg.

Jones may be able to pursue her hobbies — reading and gardening — after she settles in. But she said she will spend the first three months conducting listening sessions with students, community leaders, employees and others.

Then she said she will come up with a plan.

The ultimate goal will be to help students to find employment and “earn a good, solid living. That’s what we’re about,” she said.

Decisions are a part of everyday life. The only thing is, we make decisions in a landscape that may not be the most rational place  We may all display messy emotions, imperfect memories and short attention spans on occasion.

There’s always hope.

1. Listen to your instincts. Listen, but don’t let them boss you around. Avoid making snap decisions without the necessary information. Allow things to flow, but respect your instincts.
2. Make a list of alternative actions. If your decision doesn’t have to be made on the spot, write down a number of options and spend quality time analyzing each one.
3. Think ahead. Ask yourself what will happen if you do or don’t take action. Weigh your actions against any similar challenges in your past.
4. Look at things from a distance. Distance can quite often give you a better perspective on matters. Step back and put a little time and space between now and when the decision must be made.
5. Make a concrete decision. Once you’ve decided on a course of action, stick to it with gusto. Otherwise, it’s easy to over analyze your own decisions to the point of not being able to act.

Are you contemplating the decision to attend school? If so, Everest can help you choose a program that matches your career goals and allows you to finish your program in less than a year.* This means you can get the education you need and get on with your life in as little time as possible.

The best decisions are usually made when we have the right information and support structures in place. Everest can help.