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May 27, 2011 |
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| Parlaying civic support into civic investment |
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Civic investment in public education in the 21st century must have two goals: to ensure quality public education as a civil right for every child, and to elevate public education as a fundamental institution of democracy. For over 25 years, non-profit, community-based public education support organizations -- local education funds (LEFs) and public education funds (PEFs) -- have provided billions of private dollars to support local school projects and implement systemic reform strategies in districts. A new report from the National Commission on Civic Investment in Public Education indicates how these organizations -- which number over 19,000 across the nation -- can operate in a transparent and ethical manner, and describes what districts, prospective donors, and the public can expect from them. It outlines a set of common operating standards to guide their work and allow community members to hold them accountable. It also addresses the broader accountability of governments for the current state of public education, and discusses what policymakers can do to ensure that public schools are educating all students equitably and well. Setting policymakers' priorities straight will take public will, and policymakers must see their constituents demand equity and excellence in education opportunities and outcomes. LEFs and PEFs can lead the advocacy efforts, but can only do so effectively if they have the strong support of the public they represent.
See the report | Back to top
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| Where (we hope) it's all leading |
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American schools won't achieve their goal of "all students at proficiency" unless they attend to nonschool factors, write Jeffrey R. Henig and S. Paul Reville in an opinion piece in Education Week. The nation is in denial about this, but the authors project a shift as a result of the same hard-nosed, pragmatic, evidence-based orientation that supports the idea that schools can do it alone. The continuing focus on outcomes and evidence will reveal the limitations of the schools-only mentality, since the no-excuses accountability approach, born in the late 1980s, has now had a long time in the field and failed to raise achievement levels or substantially narrow achievement gaps. In addition, attention to the bottom line and return on investment will expand to critical spillovers among schools, social service agencies, health care, and other policy venues when public-health initiatives reduce community levels of diabetes, asthma, lead-paint exposure, and obesity; attendance rates increase; and evidence shows that school attendance has a strong relationship to student gains. If these cross-sector effects are left out of cost-benefit analyses, the bottom line easily underestimates the return on public investments. Finally, major shifts in information technology and education governance will facilitate a broader-base framing and analysis.
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| Long arm |
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With a new ambitious strategy of overhauling the nation's education policies, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is financing educators to pose alternatives to union orthodoxies, according to The New York Times. In some cases, the foundation is creating entirely new advocacy groups, and placing data specialists to work inside school districts, evaluate data, and help to change practices. The foundation also underwrites analysts of education issues, and gives grants to media organizations. The foundation spent $373 million on education in 2009, the latest year for which its tax returns are available, of which $78 million was devoted to advocacy -- quadruple the amount for 2005. Over the next five or six years, the foundation expects to pour $3.5 billion into education, according to Allan Golston, president of the foundation's United States program. "We've learned that school-level investments aren't enough to drive systemic changes," Golston explained. "The importance of advocacy has gotten clearer and clearer." Few policymakers, reporters, or members of the public realize that pundits such as Frederick M. Hess of the American Enterprise Institute are partially funded by the foundation. "As researchers, we have a reasonable self-preservation instinct," Hess said. "There can be an exquisite carefulness about how we're going to say anything that could reflect badly on a foundation." He added, "Everybody's implicated."
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| Running down the clock |
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A bipartisan, comprehensive overhaul of the ESEA is far from realization, according to the Associated Press. "I've been very, persistently clear that we cannot get this done by summer," said Rep. John Kline of Minnesota, chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee. Republicans are divided between new lawmakers, who tend to oppose any federal role in education, and fiscal conservatives, who want greater efficiency but are open to Washington input. On the Democratic side, some favor incentives like merit pay for teachers, while others advocate for the traditional education establishment. Both parties agree the law is flawed, and two approaches have emerged for restructuring it. The House plans to introduce targeted fixes through multiple bills, starting with the elimination of 43 federal K-12 education programs. The Senate wants more comprehensive legislation. "We will have a bill that may not be what everybody wants, but I hope it will be broadly supported," said Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Harkin anticipates the bill will be in committee before the July recess and will include systems for teacher and principal evaluations; metrics for success that include student growth and school gains; and some federal accountability and intervention in the bottom 5 percent of schools, as well as those with significant achievement gaps. The president has set an August deadline for reauthorization.
Read more | Related | Back to top
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| Time to integrate the conversation |
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New technologies hold extraordinary promise for increasing student achievement, but attention should be paid to the human capital required for any innovation, writes Nick Ehrman on the Blue Engine website. Technologies are not solutions, Erhman says: "New technologies depend, inherently, on the web of human relationships that govern their use." Mechanisms that have helped kids in one classroom can gather dust in another. We must consider the impact of new technologies on teachers. Do they want them? Will they use them? Ehrman would like to see "tech evangelists" grapple as much with behavioral economics -- why people do what they do -- as with the gadgetry behind the next big product. As Ehrman points out, some of the most promising and talked-about technology innovations in education all require reconfigurations of human capital. At School of One, for instance, teachers still teach, but are supported by a range of other actors, including teaching assistants and tutors, both online and in-person, and software-based lessons. If the goal is to accelerate academic performance for all -- or, more realistically, to achieve dramatically greater good for greater numbers -- Ehrman says we must find ways of moving beyond the current, industrial-era, 30:1 student-teacher ratio in brick-and-mortar classrooms.
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| Lengthy matters |
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A recent conference held by the Wallace Foundation on extended-learning time examined issues that arise in lengthening the school day or year, and underscored the continuing need to measure effectiveness of extended-learning on student achievement, reports Francesca Duffy in Education Week. The goal of the forum was to look at additional learning opportunities both inside and outside the traditional six-hour, 180-day school year. Some 2,000 schools already have some version of extended-learning in place, though there are no isolated interventions that can be studied or tracked. Sue Bodilly, formerly of RAND Education, says that while many districts have initiated extended-learning programs out of concerns about student achievement, the initiatives aren't just about raising scores. "It's also about the creativity and behavioral skills learned during this time that could pay off dividends for the students," she explained. Mary Ronan, superintendent of the Cincinnati Public Schools, outlined CPS's non-mandatory program called the "Fifth Quarter" in the month of June. Students have academics in the morning and enrichment activities in the afternoon. Instead of remediation, the extra month aims to transition students to the next grade. Ronan also said additional learning time in the summer works better for students and teachers than an extra hour every day during the traditional year.
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| A proven method for a precious resource |
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We urgently need a new model for how we prepare STEM teachers, according to Arthur Levin in a piece on The Washington Post's Answer Sheet blog. He says it is paramount that we successfully recruit, prepare, and retain career-changers and other nontraditional candidates who are deeply knowledgeable and prepared to hit the ground running on their first day of class. The proven model for prepping and placing these teachers in some of the hardest-to-staff schools already exists: The Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellows program uses state, philanthropic, and other resources to support, prepare, and place recent graduates and career-changers with strong STEM backgrounds in classrooms where they'll do the most good. Each fellow receives a $30,000 stipend to use during a year of master's-level teacher preparation at a designated university. In exchange, fellows commit to teach in a high-need urban or rural secondary school for three years, with ongoing mentoring. All told, with Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan participating, more than 500 new math and science teachers will be teaching in high-need schools, and more than 50,000 students annually will directly benefit. But we need more states in this effort to fill the gap between the number of STEM-minded graduates and the inadequate supply of our "precious few" STEM teachers.
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| Then, as now |
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In a commencement speech given on May 18 at Teachers College at Columbia University (TC), Linda Darling-Hammond related that when TC was founded in 1887 as the New York School for the Training of Teachers, it was intended to provide a new kind of schooling for the teachers of the poor in New York City, one that combined a humanitarian concern for helping others with a scientific approach to human development and learning. Then, as now, the creation of truly professional educators was subversive, Darling-Hammond said, since scientific managers were looking to make schools "efficient" in the early 20th century, managing schools with tightly prescribed curricula, teacher-proof texts, extensive testing, and rules and regulations. These managers consciously sought less well-educated teachers who would work for low wages and go along with the new regime. During that decade 100 years ago, nationally distributed tests of arithmetic, handwriting, and English were put into use. Their results were used to compare students, teachers, and schools; to report to the public; and to award merit pay -- a short-lived innovation due to the many problems it caused. At this same time, TC faculty were creating progressive schools that engaged students in intellectual inquiry, hands-on projects, and activity-based curricula. These schools practiced "democracy in action and provided a counterpoint to the factory model schooling that John Dewey called 'mechanical, dull, uninteresting, and hardly educative in any meaningful sense.'" In Darling-Hammond's view, this same counterpoint is more important now than ever before.
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| Opposition brewing |
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A broad push-back has surfaced this spring against changes to the way schools are run in New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana, according to The Times-Picayune. The new Coalition for Louisiana Public Education, which includes leaders of both major state teachers' unions as well as organizations representing principals and local superintendents, has injected itself into the political fray. It's too soon to tell how elections to the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will shake out in November, the newspaper says, but if coalition members win a seat, it could undo the 6-to-5 majority that has ratified the conversion of most New Orleans schools into charters. The coalition also plans to lobby the state legislature to block implementation of the latest statewide reforms: performance-based letter grades for schools and teacher evaluations that take standardized test scores into account. It is also pushing for a sympathetic candidate to take over the recently vacated job of state superintendent. Paul Pastorek left the job with praise from reform proponents but hostility from the opposition. Given that Gov. Bobby Jindal is a reform proponent and has support in the legislature, it's unlikely that the coalition will be able to roll back much of what's been done, but it could slow further overhauls.
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Big of him
Gov. Christie will comply with a New Jersey Supreme Court decision ordering the state to spend an additional $500 million on education, even though he considers it an "unconstitutional breach" into legislative and executive powers.
http://articles.philly.com/2011-05-24/news/29578072_1_senate-president-stephen-sweeney-christie-abbott-districts
A few suggestions
Chiefs for Change, which is allied with Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education, has outlined principles it feels should be reflected in the reauthorization of the ESEA.
http://tinyurl.com/3d9fgff
The fun never ends
The L.A. teachers' union has sought a court order to, among other things, block a voluntary pilot program to evaluate teachers in the LAUSD.
http://tinyurl.com/3nbn6h3
Questionable boundaries
The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights is investigating whether the Gwinnet County, Georgia school system discriminated against African-American and Hispanic students in the redrawing of attendance zones in the Peachtree Ridge and Duluth school clusters.
http://www.ajc.com/news/gwinnett/federal-officials-to-look-952751.html
1989 settlement overturned
The Little Rock School District has asked a federal judge to stay his ruling that allows Arkansas to end most desegregation funding for three Little Rock-area school districts, but lets "majority to minority" transfers stand.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/LR-schools-ask-judge-to-stay-desegregation-order-1392036.php
They'll get feedback, for sure
Wake County, North Carolina has unveiled two plans that offer the choice to families of largely leaving the current plan -- with diversity busing -- in place, or moving to an approach based on family preference.
http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/05/23/1219695/wake-reveals-student-assignment.html#ixzz1NSNyVKZC
See above
In a largely symbolic but intensely debated move, the Los Angeles Board of Education has narrowly voted to end elections that allowed parents, high school students, school employees, and community members to choose among different reform plans for schools.
http://tinyurl.com/3qk4bd9
RttT, the sequel
Education Secretary Arne Duncan will divvy up the $700 million in additional Race to the Top money Congress gave him this year between a new contest focused on early education and the nine runners-up that lost in last year's high-profile state competition, the Education Department has announced.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2011/05/race_to_top_500m_for_early_ed.html |
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| NEW GRANT AND FUNDING INFORMATION |
State Farm Foundation: Grants
State Farm is committed to meeting the needs of our communities by focusing our giving in three areas: Safe Neighbors (safety), Strong Neighborhoods (community development), and Education Excellence (education). Maximum award: varies. Eligibility: nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations under Section 501(c)3 of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, Canadian charitable organizations, educational institutions, and governmental entities. Deadline: October 31, 2011.
http://www.statefarm.com/about/part_spos/grants/cogrants.asp
NCTM: PreK-6 Classroom Research Grants
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics PreK-6 Classroom Research Grants support and encourage classroom-based research in precollege mathematics education in collaboration with college or university mathematics educators. The research must be a significant collaborative effort involving a college or university mathematics educator (a mathematics education researcher or a teacher of mathematics learning, teaching, or curriculum) and one or more grades PreK-6 classroom teachers. The proposal may include, but is not restricted to, research on curriculum development and implementation, involvement of at-risk or minority students, students' thinking about a particular mathematics concept or set of concepts, connection of mathematics to other disciplines, focused learning and teaching of mathematics with embedded use of technology (any acquisition of equipment must support the proposed plan but not be the primary focus of the grant), and innovative assessment or evaluation strategies. Maximum award: $6,000. Eligibility: classroom teachers currently teaching mathematics at the grades PreK-6 level who are current (as of October 14, 2011) NCTM members or who teach in a school that (as of October 14, 2011) has a NCTM PreK-8 school membership. Deadline: November 11, 2011.
http://www.nctm.org/resources/content.aspx?id=1330
NSTA: Wendell G. Mohling Outstanding Aerospace Educator Award
The Wendell G. Mohling Outstanding Aerospace Educator Award recognizes excellence in the field of aerospace education. The recipient of the award will be honored during the Awards Banquet and the Aerospace Educators Luncheon at the annual NSTA Conference. Maximum award: $3,000, and $2,000 in expenses to attend NSTA's National Conference March 29 - April 1, 2012 in Indianapolis. Eligibility: K-12 teachers of science in formal education settings (e.g., elementary, middle, high school); Individuals must be nominated for this award and have a minimum of three years teaching experience. Self-nominations will be accepted. Deadline: November 30, 2011.
http://www.nsta.org/about/awards.aspx?lid=abt#aerospace
For more grants, see http://www.publiceducation.org/newsblast_grants.asp
"The administration has not shown that certain essential components of its RttT models are 'available,' 'effective,' 'fair' and 'democratic;' indeed, as to key components, there is strong evidence to the contrary. Thus, there is no likelihood that the four models, as currently written, will succeed in turning around the 5,000 lowest-achieving schools in the next five years, (nor any reasonably foreseeable period thereafter.) On these bases, Congress could entirely remove the deficient requirements on staff replacement, conversion and closure from RttT grants."
-- Gary Ratner in The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-m-ratner/wheres-the-evidence-serio_b_865955.html
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