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February 17, 2011 |
Click here to read printable version |
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| Of no small consequence |
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Recent scholarship suggests the achievement gap between rich and poor children is widening, The New York Times reports. It is well known that children from affluent families generally do better in school; however, the income divide has received far less attention than racial achievement gaps. "We have moved from a society in the 1950s and 1960s, in which race was more consequential than family income, to one today in which family income appears more determinative of educational success than race," said Sean F. Reardon of Stanford University. His analysis found the gap in standardized test scores between poor and higher-income students has grown by 40 percent since the 1960s. Another study found imbalance between rich and poor children in college completion has grown by 50 percent since the late 1980s. One explanation could be that wealthy parents now invest more time and money than ever before in their children, while lower-income families are increasingly stretched for time and resources. In 1972, affluent Americans were spending five times as much per child as low-income families. By 2007, that gap was nine to one. There are no easy answers, said Douglas Besharov of the Atlantic Council, in part because the problem is complex. Blaming the rich ignores an important driver: two-earner household wealth has lifted the upper middle class ever further from less educated Americans, who tend to be single parents.
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| Experiential learning at the core |
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In a profile in The New York Times of P.S. 142 in Manhattan, Michael Winerip writes that reading with comprehension assumes a shared prior knowledge, yet many of the school's children have never been to a zoo, say, or to New Jersey; some think the emergency room of New York Downtown Hospital is the doctor's office. One solution is pushing children to decode and read sooner, but Principal Rhonda Levy has instead made real-life experiences the center of academic lessons. The hope is that broadening a child's frame of reference will buoy math and reading skills. Several times a month, students take "field trips to the sidewalk." Teacher Dao Krings's second grade recently visited an auto-repair shop where, for the first time, student Tyler Rodriguez sat in a car. In another trip, students strolled the block to study Muni-Meters and parking signs, learning new vocabulary like "parking," "violations," and "bureau. After four years of lessons built around these trips, Krings said she is moved by how much learning occurs. Daniel Feigelson, who heads the network of 30 schools that includes P.S. 142, said he wished more principals adopted the approach, but they're fearful: "There's so much pressure systematically to do well on the tests, and this may not boost scores right away. To do this you'd have to be willing to take the long view."
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| Money can't buy it, foreigners seem to realize |
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A significant majority of wealthy foreign-born New Yorkers are sending their children to public schools, in contrast to the city's native-born affluent, reports Kirk Semple in The New York Times. An analysis of recent census data shows there are roughly 15,500 households in the city that have school-age children, a total income of at least $150,000, and both parents born abroad. Of these, 68 percent use only the public schools. (The data include immigrants and those temporarily in the city for work.) Even more striking, for foreign-born parents with household incomes of $200,000 or more, 61 percent send their children only to public schools, compared with 28 percent of native-born couples in the same income bracket. Nationally, the groups show little difference, since wealthy families outside urban areas are more likely to use public schools: 73 percent of native-born couples and 76 percent of foreign-born couples send their children only to public school. In interviews, affluent foreign-born New Yorkers said they weighed various criteria in choosing schools, including quality, cost, and location. But many were also swayed by the greater ethnic and economic diversity in public schools. "It was not the question if we could afford it or not," said Miriam Rengier, whose husband was transferred to the city because of his job. "It was a question of whether it was real life or not."
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| On the contrary |
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A new report from the Brown Center for Education at the Brookings Institution examines the state of education in the United States, focusing on education policy, student learning measures, trends on achievement test scores, and education reform outcomes. The author, Tom Loveless, predicts the Common Core Standards will have little effect on student achievement, since rigor of state standards has been unrelated to state NAEP scores. He also finds the Main NAEP consistently reports larger socioeconomic-status achievement gaps than the Long Term Trend NAEP. In terms of international test scores, Loveless finds educators and policymakers often misinterpret these. They draw "dubious conclusions of causality," since the PISA data, for instance, do not allow any reform to be singled out from reforms adopted simultaneously and judged to have had the greatest positive impact. Close international rankings are often not truly different in terms of statistical significance, of fundamental importance in interpreting international scores. Finally, Loveless laments "The A+ Country Fallacy." In this formulation, someone asserts, "Country x is doing something I favor, and Country x scores at the top on TIMSS and PISA; therefore what I favor is a good idea." Yet to truly assess a policy, the policy must have variation across observable units, i.e. if everyone is doing the same thing, you cannot tell whether that thing is good or bad. This thinking has led to, among other things, what Loveless characterizes as "the recent outbreak of Finland-worship in the United States."
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| Smarter, balanced |
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American students have been called the most tested and least examined of any in the world, writes Linda Darling-Hammond in an op-ed in The Sacramento Bee. This is especially true in California, where students take 35 tests before they take the SAT and AP exams. Darling-Hammond therefore applauds the state's joining the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium -- a group of 20 states creating new tests. Currently, most of California's tests are limited to multiple-choice rather than asking students to write well-defended responses, research and present information, solve complex problems, or use new technologies. The Smarter Balanced tests will be computer-assisted assessments that include more written responses from students, plus tasks that require engaging in research, solving complex problems, and using technology. The tests will be designed to measure student growth accurately and return results quickly to teachers, students, and parents. Districts will be able to support teaching with formative instructional lessons and interim assessments, which will be less costly and more aligned to the Common Core standards than most current products. California can replace up to 18 of its tests with fewer of these new assessments. Darling-Hammond recommends California reconsider its other 17 tests as well, especially those for science.
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| How all that data can make a difference |
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From the moment children enter kindergarten, school districts begin collecting information, writes Michelle Davis in Education Week. Many districts built data systems to organize that information and make sense of it, and some districts and states finally have systems mature enough to use complex analytics to predict which indicators mean students may go off track down the line. Some districts use predictive analysis as an early-warning system to identify those who may not graduate. Others try to gauge which students are unlikely to be college-ready by graduation. North Carolina's Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district, for instance, is scrutinizing habits and grades of elementary school students, using a "risk-factor scorecard" to help spot children in jeopardy of dropping out in a decade, then deploying resources to help them change course. "Schools are kind of on overload when it comes to collecting data and talking about data," says Mindee O'Cummings of American Institutes for Research and co-team leader for the National High School Center's early warning system. "But when they can really apply that knowledge to make a difference, I see a kind of rejuvenation of energy around using data."
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| AP scores improve, participation falls far short |
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The eighth annual Advanced Placement Report to the Nation from the College Board breaks down results and demographics of AP test-takers nationally and by state, finding a 7.3-point increase since 2001 in the percentage of public high school graduates earning AP scores of 3 or higher. Twenty-two states had a larger percentage point change than the national average, with Maryland leading with a 13.1-point increase. Yet the report also found hundreds of thousands of students were either left out of an AP subject for which they had potential or attended schools that didn't offer the subject. An analysis of nearly 771,000 graduates with AP potential found 478,000 (62 percent) did not take a recommended AP subject. Underserved minorities were disproportionately in this group: 74 percent of Indian/Alaska Native students, 80 percent of African-American students, and 70 percent of Latino students did not take a recommended AP subject. In addition, just 612,282 AP exams out of a total of 2,720,084 were taken by low-income graduates in 2011; of these low-income students, 59.4 percent were from underserved minority groups. The report adds that 27.6 percent of AP exam-takers in 2011 scored a 3 or higher on a STEM exam. It concludes with recommendations to schools and districts for increasing rigor of academic standards, promoting equity in terms of AP participation and support, and supporting STEM excellence.
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| What effective principals do |
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If principals impact student achievement, as a recent study by economist Eric Hanushek concluded, it is worthwhile to understand what effective principals do that matters, writes Karin Chenoweth in The Huffington Post. When Chenoweth and colleague Christina Theokas studied the practices and beliefs of 33 high-performing principals working in schools with substantial populations of low-income students and students of color, they found consistent patterns despite a wide variety of situations: rural, suburban, and urban; elementary and secondary; in helpful districts and not-so-helpful districts. All principals excelled at hiring and keeping strong teachers; structured the school's work in a way that ordinary teachers could improve and be successful; and established a climate that encouraged teachers to try new things, but discontinued practices that weren't successful. They also instituted systems that allowed teachers to focus on instruction instead of problem-solving crises. "In general, [the principals'] schools are not expected to perform well on standard achievement measures because of the demographics of their students," Chenoweth says. "And yet, they all perform about as well -- or better -- than do white, middle-class schools." These are therefore schools worth paying attention to, for anyone interested in helping all students learn.
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| Not just sub-, but super- |
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Waivers granted to [11] states for flexibility under NCLB will allow potentially broad changes in how school performance and the performance of student subgroups are judged under the decade-old law, reports Education Week. Some advocates for disadvantaged students question whether waivers will make it easier for states to ignore lagging student performance among various subgroups, but in announcing the waiver plans, the Obama administration argued the opposite: An increased number of students in those populations will be counted within states' testing and accountability systems in the years ahead. A Department of Education official estimated that at least nine of the [11] states getting waivers were granted power to create a "super-subgroup" -- or combined subgroup category, separate from individual subgroups of minority, special education, or English-language-learner students -- within their accountability systems. Critics say these super-subgroups could render individual categories of students invisible in state accountability systems. However, the Education Department official said states creating super-subgroups under the waivers still will be held to standards as high as under NCLB when it comes to individual subgroup performance, and will still face sanctions under their new accountability systems if they fail to hit academic targets for those populations.
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ED gives us RESPECT
The Obama administration has proposed a $5 billion competition aimed at overhauling how America's teachers are trained, paid, and granted tenure, the latest sign of the growing focus on the quality of teaching in public schools.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204062704577223582956163916.html?mod=dist_smartbrief
Front and center
Education takes a central spot in President Barack Obama's election-year budget request, with his spending plan calling for new investments in community colleges, money to prevent teacher layoffs, investment in school facilities, and funds to spur state action on teacher quality.
http://tinyurl.com/7w7587q
Number 11
New Mexico is the 11th state to receive a waiver from No Child Left Behind.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/02/15/New-Mexico-receives-No-Child-waiver/UPI-16681329344665/?spt=hs&or=tn
A waiver waiver
States that need more time to develop their proposal for a waiver under NCLB can now request a one-year freeze in their annual achievement targets to keep the list of schools not making adequate yearly progress from growing.
http://tinyurl.com/8yjs3hg
That's one way to shrink public school payrolls
A report finds that voucher student enrollment in Wisconsin grew significantly as a result of legislation signed by Gov. Scott Walker that relaxed income limitations and eliminated enrollment caps in the school choice program.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/voucher-enrollment-jumps-after-rules-are-relaxed-98457h4-139198094.html?page=1
No done deal
Cobb County, Georgia's second largest school district, has declined to consider the superintendent's request to hire 50 Teach for America (TFA) participants.
http://tinyurl.com/8ycb3yo
The Energizer Bunny of school reform
Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is calling on legislators to link teacher tenure to student performance and teacher evaluations, and to apply the measures both to new teachers and those who already have tenure.
http://ctmirror.com/story/15375/malloy-teacher-tenure-will-have-be-earned-and-reearned
Stemming the tide
The Virginia Senate has narrowly rejected a bill to end tenure-related job protections for public school teachers, dealing a significant setback to Gov. Robert F. McDonnell's education agenda.
http://tinyurl.com/72w9zow
City limits
The Georgia Department of Education wants to spend up to $3.6 million on bonuses for high-quality educators willing to relocate to rural areas of the state.
http://onlineathens.com/local-news/2012-02-14/ga-spend-36m-recruiting-rural-educators
Sailing through
Rules that change how teachers and principals will be evaluated -- and how they will earn or lose tenure -- have been signed into law by Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper.
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_19975327#ixzz1mZlSipX0
Race to the Top, Jr.
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder's plan for districts to compete for $70 million in extra state money is part of a growing trend in performance-based education funding as cash-strapped states look for ways to do more than just spread scarce dollars around.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/7nzpwqp
(Yet another) shot over the bow
Los Angeles teachers have approved a much-watched initiative that calls for a moratorium on layoffs as well as a new teacher-evaluation system.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/02/teachers-want-moratorium-on-layoffs-and-new-evalutation-system.html
Lurid tabloid headlines to follow
The United Federation of Teachers has lost what appeared to be its final chance to block the release of thousands of New York City teachers' ratings, and school officials said they would make the reports public within a couple of weeks.
http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/02/14/city-to-release-teacher-ratings-after-union-loses-suit/ |
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| NEW GRANT AND FUNDING INFORMATION |
Do Something Awards
Since 1996, DoSomething.org has honored the nation's best young world-changers. Maximum award: a community grant of $100,000, media coverage, and continued support from DoSomething.org. Eligibility: youth ages 25 and under. Deadline: March 1, 2012.
http://www.dosomething.org/programs/awards
ESU: Fellowships for American high school teachers
English-Speaking Union of the United States British Universities Summer School fellows have the opportunity to perform on the stage of the Globe Theatre during Teaching Shakespeare in Performance at Shakespeare's Globe, London, England. The University of Oxford offers a variety of English Literature courses, as well as courses in Creative Writing and History, Politics and Society. Scottish Universities International Summer School (SUISS) program, based in Edinburgh, offers Literature in Twentieth-Century Britain and Creative Writing. Maximum award: full or partial scholarship to study in Britain, which includes tuition, most meals, and dorm room with shared bath. Eligibility: high school teachers with five to fifteen years of experience who will teach the following year. Deadline: March 2, 2012.
http://www.esuus.org/programs_British_Universities_Summer_Program.htm
NABT: Evolution Education Award
The National Association of Biology Teachers Evolution Education Award, sponsored by the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) and National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), recognizes innovative classroom teaching and community education efforts to promote the accurate understanding of biological evolution. Maximum award: $1,000 cash prize; recognition; and a one-year complimentary NABT membership. Deadline: March 15, 2012.
http://www.nabt.org/websites/institution/index.php?p=132#award3
NABT: Ron Mardigian Biotechnology Teaching Award
The National Association of Biology Teachers Ron Mardigian Biotechnology Teaching Award (sponsored by Bio-Rad Laboratories) recognizes an educator who has demonstrates outstanding and creative teaching of biotechnology in the classroom. The award may be given for either a short-term series of activities or a long integration of biotechnology into the curriculum. The lessons must include active laboratory work and encompass major principles as well as processes of biotechnology. Topics may include any aspect of basic DNA or protein biotechnology or immunology or applied biotechnology in areas such as medical, forensic, plant and environmental biotechnology. Criteria for selection include creativity, scientific accuracy and currency, quality of laboratory practice and safety, ease of replication, benefit to students, and potential significance beyond the classroom. Maximum award: recognition; a one-year complimentary NABT membership; and $1,500 (up to $500 toward travel to the NABT Professional Development Conference, $500 in Bio-Rad materials, and $500 toward general science supplies). Eligibility: secondary school teachers or undergraduate college biology instructors. Deadline: March 15, 2012
http://www.nabt.org/websites/institution/index.php?p=132#award10
For more grants, see http://www.publiceducation.org/newsblast_grants.asp
"Today, what we have is top down funding and we know many of the challenges that come with top down funding. HB123 is what I call grassroots funding where we fund the student rather than institutions." -- Utah state Rep. John Dougall (R), promoting a bill that would put funding for public education directly in the pockets of students instead of schools.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/15/utah-bill-would-give-publ_n_1279978.html
The PEN Weekly NewsBlast, published by Public Education Network, is a free electronic newsletter featuring resources and information about public school reform, school finance, and related issues. The NewsBlast is the property of Public Education Network, a national association of 79 local education funds working to improve public school quality in low-income communities throughout the nation. Please forward this e-mail to anyone who enjoys free updates on education news and grant alerts.
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