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April 24, 2009 |
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| The bottom line on our educational dysfunction |
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In an editorial in The New York Times, columnist Thomas Friedman uses a recent McKinsey & Company report to press his opinion that we are no longer a nation at risk, but one in decline. "The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools" has data that show American youth are no longer on a par with their counterparts in competing countries, and that in the words of the report, "the longer American children are in school, the worse they perform compared to their international peers." Friedman quotes Matt Miller, a co-author of the study, as saying that millions of American kids in modern suburban schools -- putatively the best of our public system -- don't realize how far they lag behind their global cohort: "They are being prepared for $12-an-hour jobs -- not $40- to $50-an-hour." The bottom line is sobering: "If America had closed the international achievement gap between 1983 and 1998 and had raised its performance to the level of such nations as Finland and South Korea, United States G.D.P. in 2008 would have been between $1.3 trillion and $2.3 trillion higher," Friedman writes. A closure of the racial achievement gap would have netted an extra $310 billion to $525 billion, and a closure of the socioeconomic gap would have yielded an additional $400 billion to $670 billion.
Read more | See the report | Back to top
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| NCLB ignores what we know about school change and is motivated by politics |
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A new report from the Civil Rights Project at UCLA finds that some of the basic assumptions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) are not working and may well be making things worse. Researchers Gail Sunderman and Heinrich Mintrop find that NCLB is failing on three fronts. First, there is little evidence that high stakes accountability under NCLB works. It has not improved student achievement, and the sanctions have had limited effects in producing real progress. The law also is not very good at accurately identifying schools in danger of failing and far outstrips the ability of states to intervene effectively in the schools it sanctions. Third, the law has failed to connect in a meaningful way to the educators who must implement it -- they do not see the accountability goals as realistic, and consider the sanctions to be misguided and counterproductive. The most important finding is the damage NCLB is doing to public education. Under NCLB, the system "works" when schools operate within only a basic skills framework and with low test rigor.
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| Public education: under-leveraged? |
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Despite a doubling of per-pupil funding over the past 15 years, U.S. schools have had scant improvement in productivity, writes Tom Vander Ark in a policy paper from the American Enterprise Institute. Vander Ark, managing partner of Revolution Learning and former executive director of education for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, feels non-profits "lack incentives and the ability to aggregate capital for research and development or scaled impact," whereas for-profit enterprises can attract talent and capital, and use business strategies to carry out their agendas. Accordingly, "Private capital and for-profit enterprises will play a vital role in creating tools that increase learning, staffing, and facilities productivity; developing formats and services that leverage these tools; managing high quality, cost effective education networks; and leading the sector transition from batch processing -- in which learning is organized around classes of students of the same age, who progress through material at the same pace -- to personalized, digital, learning services." In plain English, this translates to education being one of very few sectors still untransformed by information and communication technologies, with public education's itself weighed down by inflexibility and bureaucracy, leaving little room for innovation.
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| Giving jokesters a pass in the wake of Columbine |
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In an article in Slate Magazine about school policy changes post-Columbine, Dave Cullen says we've taken the principle of "leakage" too far. Cullen, who wrote a book on the incident, defines leakage as revelations to others of plans by would-be attackers. Their occurrence is common, as it's a rare teenager who can keep a secret entirely to himself. We should believe the potential seriousness of this hearsay, Cullen agrees, but adds that the zero-tolerance policies of most schools will actually sow danger. "While the teenager who says he's going to blow up his school should have his house searched," Cullen writes, "if the search turns up empty -- no explosives, no ingredient, no Anarchist Cookbook, no diagrams, and no manifesto -- the worst thing administrators can do is expel him." Other students are the best early warning system, Cullen says, and if kids think adults will go overboard at the merest hint of danger, they'll be reluctant to turn in a friend who may only be kidding around. "They need to know that if they report a "joke" and it turns out to be a joke, there are no consequences except brief embarrassment. If they're wrong and it's not a joke, they'll save lives. We need to convince them to let adults make that determination. We can only do that by giving the jokester a pass if it's just a joke."
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| Court hears pivotal case on federal oversight of education funding |
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On April 20, the Supreme Court heard a case concerning English language learners (ELL) that may set sweeping new limits on the power of the federal courts over states, The Arizona Republic reports. The 17-year-old legal battle Flores vs. Arizona concerns whether Arizona is in compliance with the federal Equal Education Opportunity Act of 1974 in its funding for ELL programs. The case was brought in 1992 by a Nogales, Ariz., mother whose Spanish-speaking daughter struggled in an English-only classroom. Conservatives on the high court questioned lower-court management of Arizona education funding and policy, traditionally a state and local issue. The court's liberals, however, deemed federal oversight of a civil-rights issue entirely appropriate. The split leaves court watchers uncertain as to the outcome, expected in June. After arguments, Tim Hogan of the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, a longtime participant in the suit, was ambivalent. "[The justices] usually don't take a case to tell the 9th Circuit what a good job they're doing," Hogan said, adding that he hopes the complexity of the case will prevent the court from rushing to conclusions.
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| S.C. student challenges governor on education funding |
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A high school senior in Columbia, S.C., has asked the South Carolina Supreme Court to intervene in the ongoing struggle between the U.S. Department of Education and Gov. Mark Sanford (R) over whether he will accept education stimulus funds, The Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C. reports. Casey Edwards, 18, has asked the court to let the legislature bypass the governor and take $700 million from the federal government. Her stated motives are that she wants every student in South Carolina to receive the same quality education she has received, and she is represented by attorneys who include a former state Democratic Party Chairman. The governor has said he will accept the $700 million in federal money only if the legislature puts an equal amount toward state debt. In a statement, he dismissed the lawsuit as without merit and as the work of longtime political insiders who, he said, have made millions at taxpayer expense. The $700 million is a portion of the $2.8 billion in stimulus cash that South Carolina stands to gain, and the only portion in dispute.
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| California's exit exam disproportionately snares non-whites and girls |
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A study by Stanford University and UC Davis has found that California's mandatory exit exam is disproportionately barring girls and non-whites from graduating high school, The Los Angeles Times reports. Although just as capable and qualified by every other measure, affected students are probably failing due to the so-called stereotype threat, in which negative stereotypes impede actual achievement, researchers said. In other words, co-author Sean Reardon explained, girls and students of color may be tripped up by the expectation that they cannot do as well as "white boys". He added that the exam is keeping as many as 22,500 students a year from graduating who would otherwise fulfill all requirements. California Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, who spearheaded the exam, defended it in a statement, saying the test "plays an important role in our work to ensure that a high school diploma has meaning." Students can take the exit exam multiple times beginning in their sophomore year, and it includes math and English portions, with math aligned to eighth-grade standards and English to 10th-grade standards. The study analyzed data from districts in Fresno, Long Beach, San Diego, and San Francisco. Reardon said the results were similar for all four districts, suggesting that the study's conclusions had broad application for all California schools.
Read more | See the report | Back to top
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| A key interval in the achievement gap |
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A study from the University of Illinois has identified middle-school math classes in city schools as a crucial point at which the racial achievement gap takes hold, according to Science Daily. "For kids in predominantly black urban schools, the biggest predictor of the math course they took in high school was the math course they took in eighth grade. For all other students, the biggest predictor was their prior achievement, not the course they took," said Professor Christy Lleras, an author of the study. In an effort to pare down the gap, educators have focused on test scores, which Lleras feels is misguided. Instead, educators should examine what she describes as a "feedback loop." Over time, the factors of math placement, student effort, and academic achievement reinforce each other either positively or negatively. Increased access to more rigorous math classes in high-minority urban schools early on can significantly intervene in a negative loop. These conclusions are based on data from the U.S. Department of Education's National Educational Longitudinal Study, which was used to track effects of math placement, school-related behaviors, and achievement in more than 6,500 public school students as they progressed from the eighth to the tenth grade.
Read more | See report abstract | Back to top
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| Some easing of the dropout crisis |
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A new report from America's Promise Alliance shows that while the nation's dropout rate is abysmal -- one in four of all American kids fails to graduate -- some cities with dire records have made great progress, according to The Associated Press. The study, which looked at data from 1995 to 2005, found that 13 cities saw double-digit improvement in their graduation rates, with Philadelphia; Tucson, Ariz.; and Kansas City, Mo., boosting rates by 20 percent or more. Christopher Swanson, director of the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, which prepared the report, said he was "surprised" at some of the gains. "That's something you wouldn't necessarily get if you've been listening to this debate recently," Swanson remarked. Still, urban districts in general struggle with daunting statistics: On average, only half the kids graduate in the 50 biggest U.S. cities, according to the report. Nineteen large cities lost ground, with Las Vegas dropping 23 percentage points to 44.5 percent, Wichita, Kan., dropping 18 percentage points to 54.5 percent, and Omaha, Neb., dropping 15 percentage points to 50 percent.
Read more | See the report | Back to top
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| Evolving an understanding of bullying |
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A new report from the Association of Childhood Education International has practical steps that teachers can follow to implement anti-bullying programs and stem "the tide of the international plague known as bullying." Bullying should not be considered a normal stage of child development, but a precursor for more serious violent behaviors that need immediate and appropriate intervention by a caring adult. Children who bully are four times more likely than non-bullies to be convicted of a serious crime by age 24. The first step is to recognize characteristics of bullies, who may be physically, emotionally, or verbally abusive. Once teachers and other administrators understand some of the complex causes of bullying and learn to identify bullying characteristics, they can move forward. The next step is training, after which point teachers can establish anti-bullying methods in the classroom. Teachers must establish clear rules on behaviors and consequences, and work with bullying victims to prevent the cycle from repeating.
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| Isn't every child special? |
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In CommonWealth magazine, Jack Sullivan and Bruce Mohl take a hard look at special education in Massachusetts. They find that more and more money is being funneled into special education, particularly for tuition to high-priced private schools, even as regular education students face big spending cuts. The story also documents how special education children as a group are falling further behind their regular education peers every year, and how an achievement gap of large proportions has opened between special education students in wealthy and poor communities.
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Oral sex is the new goodnight kiss for some teens
She really began to believe that being a sexual object was her identity. She became divorced from her body. Anything she could do to get attention made her feel good and powerful, even if she didn't know the guys' names.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090423.lsexweb24/EmailBNStory/lifeFamily/home
Is the teaching profession an employment refuge in a time of massive layoffs?
On The New York Times' "Room for Debate" blog, a discussion of teaching as a fallback career for former private-sector types.
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/teaching-no-fallback-career/?em
Older hands plant seeds of literacy
Research indicates that students who worked with Experience Corps tutors made 60 percent more progress in sounding out new words and in reading comprehension than similar students not served by the program.
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/mcas/articles/2009/04/08/older_hands_plant_seeds_of_literacy/
Your free, one-stop shop for education issues under the stimulus
Learning Point Associates has refined the tools on its Education Recovery and Reinvestment Center site to serve the education community.
http://www.learningpt.org/recovery/index.php
Broader parental license for sex-ed in North Carolina
The North Carolina House of Representatives has narrowly approved a bill that allows parents to choose between an abstinence-only curriculum and a "comprehensive" course of instruction for their children.
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1487591.html
Grades in Texas might now reflect student mastery
The Texas Senate has voted for the elimination of a "no-fail" grading policy in school districts.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/DN-grading_21tex.ART.State.Edition1.4a61d85.html
Study finds race-based performance gap narrowing in Louisiana
The Education Trust has found that gaps in reading and math scores between black and white students have narrowed in Louisiana, though statewide student performance still lags behind most states.
http://www.nola.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/national-6/1240225656161760.xml&storylist=louisiana |
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| NEW GRANT AND FUNDING INFORMATION |
Amgen/NSTA: New Science Teacher Academy
The New Science Teacher Academy is a professional development initiative created to help promote quality science teaching, enhance teacher confidence and classroom excellence, and improve teacher content knowledge. Maximum award: program expenses. Eligibility: middle or high school science teachers entering their second or third year of teaching, working a schedule with 51 percent of their classes in science. Deadline: May 30, 2009.
http://www.nsta.org/academy/
The Graffiti Hurts National Grant Program
This program aims to help communities kick-start or add to local graffiti prevention programs. Grant funds may be used for one-time projects with the potential to reduce graffiti in the community. Maximum award: $2,500. Eligibility: 501(c)3 organizations, including neighborhood groups, crime prevention associations, civic clubs or organizations, and other nonprofit groups; youth groups/schools; police departments or other law enforcement agencies; city, county, state and federal government agencies, or subdivisions within these agencies. Deadline: June 5, 2009.
http://www.graffitihurts.org/grant_program/index.cfm
CVS: Caremark Community Grants
The CVS Caremark Community Grants program awards funds to nonprofit organizations for programs targeting children with disabilities; programs focusing on health and rehabilitation services; and public schools promoting a greater level of inclusion in student activities and extracurricular programs, and initiatives that give greater access to physical movement and play. Additionally, some contributions are made to organizations that provide uninsured individuals with needed care, in particular programs where the care received is of higher quality and delivered by providers who participate in accountable community health care programs. Maximum award: $5,000. Eligibility: public schools with programs for children under age 18 with disabilities. Deadline: October 31, 2009.
http://www.cvscaremark.com/community/our-impact/community-grants
Campbell's, Inc.: Labels for Education
The Labels for Education Program gives schools free educational equipment in exchange for labels from Campbell products. Maximum award: varies. Eligibility: Schools or parents can coordinate label drives to raise resources for schools. Deadline: N/A.
http://www.labelsforeducation.com/about.aspx
National Audubon Society: Pennies for the Planet
Pennies for the Planet helps young people get involved with conservation by taking part in local conservation action projects, and by collecting, saving, and sending in pennies for national and worldwide conservation projects. In this year's Pennies for the Planet campaign, students and their families can learn about three conservation projects around the U.S. that need help. Each Pennies project represents a conservation effort that will leave a legacy for future generations. Maximum award: National Audubon Society staff will visit prize-winning school to create a program about wildlife and wild places. Eligibility: kids working in classrooms, clubs, Scout troops, other groups, and on their own. Deadline: N/A.
http://www.togethergreen.org/p4p/Educators.aspx
For more grants, see http://www.publiceducation.org/newsblast_grants.asp
"Bail out the savings and loan corporations. Bail out the banks. Bail out the automotive industry. Bail out Wall Street. OK, that's all well and good, but who is bailing out the American family? I mean, seriously, is there an institution in greater trouble in the country today than the family? I doubt it. So, where is the family bail out? Where is the big push to get families back on track? Where are the family advocates who voice concerns for children and their parents? Do you hear the silence? I do."
-Chick Moorman (author/educator)
http://www.chickmoorman.com/newsletters/indexPar.html
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