Betty Peters

AL State School Board Member on National Standards

July 17, 2010 – 10:02 pm
Dear Editor, The American public is alarmed over the federal takeover of so many facets of our economy including the auto industry, financial institutions, and healthcare. Strangely, one of the largest sectors of our economy– public education–is being taken over with almost no public awareness. Congress and the state legislatures have been left out of the loop as have parents, educators and other taxpayers. However, the significance of this total federalization of our schools will be felt by parents as soon as they have a problem with school curricula or testing and can no longer appeal to locally accessible authorities, but instead they will have to look to faraway Washington for assistance from a faceless bureaucrat. Americans have always considered education to be under state and local authority by virtue of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.. Even the controversial “No Child Left Behind” law acknowledged state authority by prohibiting “national standards” ...

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State education officials discuss core standards

June 25, 2010 – 6:42 pm
Alabama educational offi­cials started the ball rolling on what education might look like if the state Board of Education decides to join other states in adopting nationwide standards for core courses in English and math. But at least one board mem­ber was concerned at a Thurs­day meeting that the process of developing recommendations presupposes that the board wants the state to follow the same standards as other states. The Alabama Department of Education is putting together a task force to review the stan­dards, which have been devel­oped by the National Governors Association's Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers over the last two years with the input of Alabama and 47 other states. Read more...

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University Had Short Attention Span for Superteaching

May 28, 2010 – 1:45 pm
USA TODAY The University of Alabama in Huntsville recently dissolved a contract with a self-styled business guru — who had a history of fraudulent business practices — to help develop a piece of teaching technology aimed primarily at K-12 students. But some observers are wondering why it took the university six months to terminate the relationship after unsavory details of the entrepreneur's past came to light — and why due diligence did not stop the university from signing the contract in the first place. The university went into business in 2007 with Bernard Dohrmann — an entrepreneur who has a long history of run-ins with federal watchdogs, including two convictions — to help monetize a tool called Super Teaching. It entered into a contract in December of that year with a company called Life Success Academy, headed by Dohrmann and his wife, as well as another company called Monte Sano Associates, to ...

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Know Your Consultants

September 4, 2009 – 12:06 pm
September 2, 2009 Flashpoint Blog The University of Alabama in Huntsville has put up its credibility as an institution of higher learning as collateral to develop and market the invention of a twice convicted con man — and no one seems to be paying attention. The “invention” in question is called Super Teaching (interchangeably used as one or two words). Here is the description of this revolutionary learning system from the UAH website: SuperTeaching is a multi-sensory instructional system designed to utilize computer generated audio and imagery in order to engage learners. The SuperTeaching system includes three screens positioned at the front of the room, which display images in a seemingly random pattern. The images included in the pattern roll are those of the instructor, learners, course content, and nature scenes. Read More...

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State school board member calls on AG to investigate campaign finance

August 31, 2009 – 6:21 pm
August 31, 2009 Dothan Eagle State school board member Betty Peters asked Attorney General Troy King for help Monday night. Betty Peters believes that if you’re going to get something done, you’ve got to take it to the top. The district 2 state school board member did just that last night, calling on Alabama Attorney General Troy King to investigate what she labeled as wrongdoing by a candidate for the district 3 state school board seat in last year’s election. Peters said that Skip Smithwick, who ran for Stephanie Bell’s seat, has not properly filled out campaign finance reports detailing from where he received all of his campaign contributions. Read More...

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