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THE NATION HAS BEEN AT RISK FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS, TOMORROW |
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The landmark education report, A Nation at Risk, will celebrate its 25th anniversary tomorrow. The report's disturbing findings kicked off a nationwide series of major investments and firm commitments to remedy the nation's public schools. At the same time, the first local education funds (LEFs) were created and joined many other organizations committed to community involvement in public education. Twenty-five years later, LEFs have produced real and significant progress, progress which continues to be made in almost every corner of the country. Still, despite the great work that has already been done, many students, including far too many poor and minority children, remain at risk. To commemorate A Nation at Risk, Education Week has begun a yearlong series on the impact of the report (second link). The series includes commentaries by Howard Gardner and E.D. Hirsch as well as profiles of the education systems in China, Japan, India and the European Union. |
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DID A NATION AT RISK CREATE MORE HARM THAN GOOD? |
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The A Nation at Risk report misidentified what is wrong with United States public schools and consequently set the nation on a school reform crusade that has done more harm than good, writes Richard Rothstein for Cato Unbound. He finds the analysis conducted for the report flawed because it wrongly concluded that student achievement was declining, placed blame on schools for national economic problems over which they have little influence and ignored the responsibility of the nation's other social and economic institutions for learning. A Nation at Risk based its analysis of declining achievement entirely on average SAT scores. However, much of the decline was due to the changing demographics of test takers that shifted from mostly students planning to apply to the most selective colleges in the early 1960s to more general college-bound students in the 1980s. In addition, the report was issued a decade after the nation's narrowing of social and economic equality ended, which means income was being less evenly distributed. As research has shown, social and economic disadvantage contributes in important ways to poor student achievement, i.e., children in poor health attend quality schools less regularly and those with inadequate housing change schools frequently. Paul Houston, who was superintendent of the Princeton (N.J.) public schools in 1983, thought the report would be just the thing to get people talking about education, reports Greg Toppo for USA Today (second link). However, after reading the report, Houston found that "it was an overstatement of the problem," which lead to "hysterical responses," including "a cottage industry of national reports by people saying how bad things are." Houston seems to agree with Rothstein that the report took liberties with the link between economic development and overall education rates. |
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POVERTY CAN STYMIE DEVELOPMENT |
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Poverty can have negative effects on child and adolescent brain development which can lead to learning disabilities, behavior problems and other psychological and emotional problems, reports Lex Alexander for the Raleigh (N.C.) News and Record. "With our recent capacity to look at brain development...we're realizing how much more impactful growing up in poverty is," said Margaret Arbuckle, executive director of the Guildford Education Alliance, who helped release the findings. The negative impact of poverty can be seen in children's complex thinking and reasoning skills, impulse control and their ability to create relationships and discern social cues. Unfortunately, this is nothing now, writes George Will in the Washington Post (second link). In 1966, the Coleman report, the result of the largest social science project in history, reached a conclusion so massive that the government almost refused to publish it. Instead they did the next best thing, and released it over the Fourth of July weekend. The report's "seismic" conclusion was that the qualities of families from which children come matter much more than money as predictors of schools' effectiveness. This means that in order to improve education, the crucial problems of race and class (including fractured families) will have to be faced. Yet this problem has rarely been addressed and in the intervening years has simply given way to larger teacher salaries, smaller class sizes and other panaceas. Meanwhile colleges continue to offer more and more freshmen more and more remediation. |
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KINDERGARTEN HAS GONE THE WAY OF LITTLE RED WAGONS AND MUD PIES |
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Katy, a first grader, waltzes into class with a pixie cut and huge brown eyes, writes M. Jones for Edutopia. As her classmates settle down, Katy twirls in a dizzying display of excess energy, her bottom rarely -- if ever -- touching a chair. Her teacher finds Katy a little young for the first day, and can't help thinking someone dropped the ball here, so she checks her file. When she does, she's dumbfounded to find an inch-thick individualized education plan (IEP). An IEP typically signals a serious area of concern, most likely that there is something wrong with the student. However, there is nothing really wrong with Katy, she just has a brother with a learning disability and overanxious parents who want to make sure Katy doesn't slip through the cracks. The only thing actually wrong with Katy is that she is a kindergartener deprived of kindergarten. Ten years ago she would have been in the dress-up corner draping feather boas, but now she's a first grader with an IEP and goals that are unattainable for someone at her stage of development. She'll go to special classes three times a week to make up for her "deficiencies" and soon will start to wonder what is wrong. Her teacher believes it is a major problem that kindergarten has gone the way of little red wagons and mud pies and wonders how long it will be before the free-spirited Katys of the world are extinct. |
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QUITE SIMPLY, WHEN COMMUNITIES COME TOGETHER, SCHOOLS IMPROVE |
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For the 2002-03 school year, only 27 of Mobile County's (Ala.) 100 schools met federally mandated adequate yearly progress goals, reports Tiffany Ray for the Birmingham News. Yet in just four years, 85 schools met their targets. The key to this turnaround was community ownership of schools, says Carolyn Akers, executive director of the Mobile Area Education Foundation. Success was achieved when community groups came together and combined resources, which allowed them to maximize the impact of individual successes. |
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THE FEDERAL ROLE IN EDUCATION SHOULD FOCUS MORE ON COMMUNITIES |
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A new report from the Forum for Education and Democracy has found that federal education policy is inconsistent and shortsighted. In fact, the report finds that the United States' education system and democracy are even more at risk than they were 25 years ago. The report's authors intend it to be a guide for a new president, education secretary and Congress as they attempt to renew the Elementary and Secondary Education Act/No Child Left Behind Act. To reinvigorate public schools, the report contends the federal government should engage in a coordinated offensive that makes schools the center of communities and a pathway to essential social services for students. |
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COIN TOSS DECIDES RE-HIRE ORDER OF RECENTLY LAID OFF TEACHERS |
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Often coin tosses are seen as the deciding factor in an overtime National Football League contest, even though they really aren't as much. However, for the Gilroy (Calif.) Unified School District, a coin toss really could seal the fate of one teacher. When the school district deemed two teachers identical in every way in terms of qualifications, a judge flipped a coin to break the tie and determine which teacher was more "senior." The all-important "decision" affects the order in which teachers who already received layoff notices will be hired back if the district has the resources to do so, reports Sara Suddes for the Gilroy Dispatch. Couldn't they just have done a teach off? |
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SCHOOL CHOICE SURGES IN STATES |
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Despite states' growing budget woes and Utah voters' repeal of the nation's first universal state voucher program, the school choice movement is gaining ground, reports Michele McNeil for Education Week. In fact, state legislators are advancing proposals that would indirectly funnel taxpayer money to families who want to send their children to private schools. For instance, in Georgia, a tax credit has been created for families and companies that donate to private school voucher funds, while Louisiana approved a new tax deduction for families that pay private school tuition. The activity suggests that choice advocates are avoiding the divisive issue of universal vouchers, which allow any public school student to receive state aid to attend private school. Instead choice advocates are sticking to targeted voucher programs for at-risk students and tax credits that promote donations to privately run voucher programs. Meanwhile, in Ohio, more students are seeking, and more schools are accepting taxpayer-funded tuition vouchers, reports the Associated Press (second link). The Educational Choice Scholarship Program allows students at low-performing public schools to attend private or parochial schools with tax dollars. This year, more than 10,000 applications were submitted, which is triple the number that arrived in the first year. |
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URBAN STUDENTS ACHIEVEMENT INCREASES, NO MATTER THE TEST |
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Students who attend public school in the United States' major urban school districts continue to advance in math and reading on federal and state tests. According to a new report from the Council on the Great City Schools, state test trends coincide with the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) gains made by urban students. However, there were lower percentages of students scoring at or above proficient on the more difficult NAEP. While most urban schools showed gains in math and reading performance, the districts generally lagged behind state and national averages in fourth and eighth grades. Still, there are exceptions to every rule. A total of 22 percent of urban school districts scored as high or higher than their respective states in fourth grade math and 16 percent scored as high or higher at the eighth grade level. |
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NEW REPORT PROVIDES CHARACTERISTICS OF 100 LARGEST SCHOOL DISTRICTS |
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A new annual report from the Common Core of Data provides insights into the nation's largest public school districts. The data include everything from the number of high school completers and averaged freshman graduation rate to revenues and expenditures. The study finds that the 100 largest districts enrolled 23 percent of all public school students and employed 20 percent of all public school teachers in 2004-05. Still, the largest districts produced only 20 percent of all high school completers (both diploma and other completion credential recipients) in 2003-04. Across these districts, the averaged freshman graduation rate was 70.2 percent. |
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THE POWER OF ANIMALS: ASSISTANCE DOGS MAKE DREAMS COME TRUE |
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Canine Companions for Independence (CCI) is working to make the implementation of assistance dogs more prevalent because they provide companionship, support independence and act as a social bridge for children with autism. For example, Nancy knew that her son T.J., age seven, would benefit from an assistance dog, but as a single mom, she was unsure if it was possible. She then hooked up with CCI, and the dream became a reality in the form of a dog named Kermit. Within a week after Nancy and T.J. graduated the canine companions program, T.J. said "fetch" to Kermit. This marked the first time in her life Nancy heard T.J. speak spontaneously. Now, in less than a year, Kermit has helped T.J. go from being almost completely non-verbal to stringing up to three words together. And, of course, there is lots of "fetch." |
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LOW-INCOME RURAL STUDENTS NEED EXTENDED LEARNING TIME PROGRAMS |
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Rural, low-income students are more at risk of dropping out than their city and suburban peers. This alone should provide sufficient reason to address the challenges facing rural schools that serve low-income areas. However, rural schools, especially those in poorer areas, do not receive the attention they deserve, argue researchers in a new brief from the Center for American Progress. One promising strategy that should be considered by policy makers is the expansion of learning time for all students attending schools with large concentrations of low-income students. Research has shown that a comprehensive approach to school reform that adds time to school days and weeks/years for all students can result in significant gains. The problem with implementation is that extended learning time (ELT) programs have been quite difficult to execute in rural areas because those schools tend to be resource poor. Consequently, according to the brief, increasing access to ELT programs is not currently feasible in rural areas without a significant new investment by all levels of government. |
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THE BEGINNING OF LIFE APPEARS TO BE GETTING BETTER |
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A new report from the Foundation for Child Development finds that overall improvements in the well-being index are reflected across all age groups. However, the health domain is on a dramatic decline because of obesity rates and the number of babies born at lower weights. The prevalence of obesity among children ages six to 11 is nearly four times what it was in the 1960s, while for children ages two to five, the rate is three times more. Still, some areas of child health show steady improvement, mostly driven by declining infant and child mortality rates and increased vaccinations. Education attainment is also on the rise because of the dramatic increase in the number of children ages four to six in full-day kindergarten. In addition, the report found more parents are reading to their children and setting limits for television watching. |
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MORE AND MORE PARENTS EXPECT THEIR CHILDREN TO GO TO COLLEGE |
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A new report from the National Center for Education Statistics looks at the relationship between the educational expectations of parents and the postsecondary planning families and schools engaged in. The results show that 91 percent of students in grades six through 12 had parents who expected them to continue their education beyond high school, and 65 percent have parents who expect them to finish college. In addition, among students whose parents expected them to continue their education after high school, 82 percent had parents who reported that the family was planning on helping to pay for their child's postsecondary education costs. |
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EXAMINING THE EARLY COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOL INITIATIVE |
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Early college high schools combine a regular high school with college courses in a rigorous but supportive program, thereby compressing the amount of time it takes to complete both a high school diploma and the first two years of college. In addition, early college high schools are based on the concept that academic rigor combined with the opportunity to save time and money in post-secondary education can be a powerful motivator for students to work hard. Typically, these schools are intended for low-income youths to increase the college attendance rates of underrepresented populations. A new case study from Jobs for the Future (JFF) examines the features of the Georgia College Early College (GCEC), which deliberately recruits students from the community who perform below grade level. The college-going culture, small class sizes and other support structures enable students to believe in themselves and raise their aspirations. The JFF case study goes on to explain how GCEC achieves its mission of college success for all. |
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NEW GRANT AND FUNDING INFORMATION |
"LIVE GREEN Teacher Grant Program"
General Motors and Discovery Education LIVE GREEN Teacher Grant program challenges middle school teachers to develop innovative ideas for furthering environmental and energy sustainability. Teachers will identify an issue or problem, create a plan to address it, and integrate the topic into classroom teaching. Maximum Award: $1,000. Eligibility: U.S. residents who are 18 years of age and older and who are employed as middle school teachers for grades five to nine in accredited public schools in the United States. Deadline: May 15, 2008.
"MetLife Partners in Arts Education Program"
The MetLife Foundation Partners in Arts Education Program enhances arts learning in K-12 public schools by supporting exemplary Community School of the Arts/public school partnerships that: serve large numbers of public school students during the school day; exemplify best practices in creating and sustaining effective partnerships; provide pedagogically-sound arts education experiences; prioritize student learning and achievement; and address national, state, and/or local arts education standards. Maximum Award: $20,000. Eligibility: organizations that are full members in good standing of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts. Non-member organizations should submit a membership application and first-year dues payments at least one week prior to submitting an application. Must be located in certain cities -- see application guidelines. Deadline: May 23, 2008.
"Grants for Innovative Solutions to Tobacco Control"
American Legacy Foundation Small Innovative Grants Program supports projects that advance creative promising solutions based on sound principles of tobacco control to remedy the harm caused by tobacco use in America. The program must demonstrate an element of creativity, ingenuity or innovation. Maximum Award: $100,000. Eligibility: 501(c)3 organizations. Deadline: May 23, 2008.
"Live Monarch Educator Outreach Program"
The Live Monarch Foundation Educator Outreach Program provides funding for teachers throughout the United States to enroll in the National Campaign to bring monarch butterflies into the classroom. This program provides education and materials to strengthen the monarch's 3,000-mile migratory route within North America by creating self-sustaining butterfly gardens and refuges. Materials will be provided for each participant to raise a virtual butterfly and start a real butterfly garden with professional instruction on each level of its maintenance and care. Maximum Award: n/a. Eligibility: teachers and classrooms in areas on the monarch migratory route. Deadline: rolling.
"CVS Community Grants"
CVS Pharmacy Community Grants are currently accepting proposals for programs targeting children under age 18 with disabilities that address: health and rehabilitation services; a greater level of inclusion in student activities and extracurricular programs; opportunities or facilities that give greater access to physical movement; and play. Maximum Award: varies. Eligibility: Public schools with programs for children under age 18 with disabilities. Deadline: applications accepted through October 2008.
"Let us not think of education only in terms of its costs, but rather in terms of the infinite potential of the human mind that can be realized through education. Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation."
- John F. Kennedy (U.S. president, 1961 - 1963)
http://www.finaid.org/educators/quotes.phtml
"Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable human development."
- Kofi A. Annan (Nobel Peace Prize recipient/former secretary-general of the United Nations)
http://thinkexist.com
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