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January 23, 2009 Inaugural reflections: public education is testing ground for national 'unity of purpose' In a special post-inaugural message to NewsBlast readers, PEN's president, Wendy D. Puriefoy writes, "Of the many challenges and opportunities that President Obama highlighted in his historic and inspiring inaugural speech, the summons to a national "unity of purpose" resonates deeply within me as an advocate for high-quality public education. America's public education system remains the intersection where the promises of equality and freedom must be ultimately tested and proved... At Public Education Network, we believe that access to a high-quality public education is a civil right. Securing this right for all children demands of our nation and each citizen an inviolable resolve to directly address the educational disparities and inequities that we have too long suffered and tolerated -- which are an ongoing, yet preventable, national tragedy. Only a democratically informed process of school improvement will deliver the desired results of improved academic achievement, provision of necessary resources, and the creation of safe and healthy learning environments which our nation must hold itself accountable to secure for all children." Read the complete message: http://www.publiceducation.org/20090123_Inauguration.asp Work hard. Be nice. Don't sort. In an essay in The Washington Post, Jay Mathews weighs the imperatives of teaching versus sorting, and asks which will win out in this era of accountability. "Is it best to strain ourselves and our children trying to raise everyone to a higher academic level," he asks, "or does it make more sense to prepare each child for a life in which he or she will be comfortable?" The preferable alternative is clear to Mathews, who argues that sorting out the high achievers from the low, whom he characterizes as "less-advanced" or "later-maturing," is tantamount to racism, since these categories frequently organize themselves along racial and socioeconomic lines. What is less clear to him is which impulse will win out. His antidote to "sorting" or what used to be known as "tracking" is the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), a network of 66 schools, mostly public charters, in 19 states and the District of Columbia, which he profiles in his new book "Work Hard. Be Nice: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America." Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/18/AR2009011802345.html An education system increasingly segregated A new study finds that black and Latino students are more segregated from white students than at any time since the Civil Rights movement, and are more often educated at failing schools, reports Reuters. The trends are "the result of a systematic neglect of civil rights policy and related educational and community reforms for decades," said Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, which issued the findings. Orfield gave several demographic explanations for the trend. As the percentage of white students shrinks -- whites now make up 56 percent of the U.S. school population -- they are less integrated with students who are nonwhite. In addition, increasing residential segregation in the country dictates racial composition of schools unless education authorities take specific measures to create and maintain integration. According to Orfield, residential segregation has intensified due to lax enforcement of the Fair Housing Act, which forbids discrimination in housing and was set up to foster equality in the housing market. The overall segregating trend was strengthened due to the 2007 Supreme Court decision on voluntary desegregation, which removed pressure on local authorities to foster integration. The report calls on President Obama to address these issues. Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE50D7CY20090114 See the report: http://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/deseg/reviving_the_goal_mlk_2009.pdf Historic swearing-in spurs a national teach-in The inauguration of President Barack Obama prompted a teachable moment nationwide that outstripped previous ceremonies, The New York Times reports. Television sets were pulled into classrooms, students bused to huge viewing venues, and spiritual retreats interrupted, all so that students could witness and participate in the historic inauguration of the country's first African-American president. "We are totally committed to reading, writing, science and history," said Linda Lane, deputy superintendent of instruction in Pittsburgh. "But we also know that some history doesn't come out of a book. Some history you get to be part of." Many school districts issued teaching guides for the occasion, and schools in Montgomery County, Md., had the day off. While schools in districts that voted heavily for John McCain, such as those in Oklahoma, didn't plan to take particular note of the event, enthusiasm was found in some Republican strongholds. "Partisanship, that's over," said Martha McIntosh, chairwoman of the social sciences department at Dana Hills High School in Orange County, Calif., "All my little McCain-ites are excited about the inauguration." Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/education/16school.html Recipe for disaster In an essay in The Washington DC Examiner, Erica Jacobs considers the rigidities of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which she says has been applied like a baking recipe -- i.e. as if various properties and ingredients, properly mixed, will produce a uniform result of 100 percent proficiency each time. Since this approach has led to widespread instances of good schools labeled underperforming because of the struggles of one small subgroup of students, states have argued they need more flexibility in applying the formulas for adequate yearly progress. In its waning days, the Bush Department of Education announced pilots in nine states that would permit "Differentiated Accountability," which will allow states to "target resources and interventions" in innovative ways to lowest-performing schools. "NCLB now grants that there's more than one way to make a cookie," Egan writes, "yet some of their stipulations, released last week in the form of letters to all state governors, have the mysterious sound of a recipe calling for 5/9 of a teaspoon of vanilla or 3/10 of a cup of sugar." This is all for naught, in Egan's opinion, since what the recipe promises -- 100 percent proficiency by 2014 -- is an impossibility. Read more: http://www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/columns/EricaJacobs/NCLB_Recipe_for_success_or_failure.html 'Prom Night Mississippi' Fifty-four years after Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas and 30 years after black students began attending its high school, Charleston, Miss., had its first integrated prom. The event, which took place last year and was fully funded by Charleston native and actor Morgan Freeman, is the subject of a new documentary that premiered at Sundance and was also funded by Mr. Freeman, The Associated Press reports. "Prom Night Mississippi" chronicles the prom from its initial pitch by Freeman to the town school board through its acceptance by the students and its planning to the night itself. Director Paul Saltzman interviewed students, parents, and townspeople as the prom took shape, even as a separate, white-only prom was planned by a small number of families (which Saltzman was not allowed to film). The integrated prom cost Freeman $17,000 and was "money very well spent," the actor said. "The kids are not going to want to go backwards. They've got their toe in the water, and the water's warm." Another integrated prom is planned for this year. Read more: http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20090116/ENT/90116023/-1/frontpagetabmodule-1V School climate: a critical component An article in Education Leadership outlines ways that educators can assess their school's climate, which a growing body of research has confirmed is crucial to students' academic achievement and healthy development. "Although No Child Left Behind is full of rhetoric about the importance of character education and supportive learning environments," the authors state, "it only requires accountability systems to measure reading, math, physical violence, and (recently) science scores. These are all meaningful indicators of education quality, but education policymakers have become increasingly aware that NCLB-type accountability is too narrowly focused." School climate data, they argue, are not only complementary to academic assessments, but measure and support learning. They report that researchers and the National School Climate Council (2007) agree that four major factors shape school climate: safety, relationships, teaching and learning, and the institutional environment, and the article lists the dimensions of these four major factors, excerpted from the Center for Social and Emotional Education's (CSEE) Comprehensive School Climate Inventory, for which they provide a link, as well as additional resources. Read more: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/dec08/vol66/num04/The_Challenge_of_Assessing_School_Climate.aspx Free tutoring yields negligible benefit, according to analyses Free tutoring available to struggling students is having little impact in Michigan or nationally, according to analyses by The Detroit Free Press, the state of Michigan, and the Center for Education Policy. "It's not being taken advantage of by students, those who are taking advantage of it are not showing improvement in test scores, and the providers are not being rigorously monitored," said Jack Jennings, president of the Center for Education Policy, whose study assessed free tutoring programs across the country. The results for Michigan were similar, but described as having neither a negative nor a positive impact by Nancy McCrohan of Public Policy Associates, the firm hired by the Michigan Department of Education to conduct a student-by-student study of the Michigan tutoring program. "It's very hard to impact a standardized test like MEAP [Michigan's assessment test] with a short-term intervention," she explained, adding that students typically receive only 20 to 40 hours of tutoring in a school year. The Free Press reviewed fifth-, eighth- and ninth-grade MEAP results for 2005, 2006 and 2007 in selected subjects for schools required to provide tutoring, and found that these schools showed improvements that were less than the statewide average. Read more: http://www.freep.com/article/20090120/NEWS06/901200384/Tutoring+effort+failing+in+Michigan++nation For reading problems, think globally but act locally "While a deficiency in reading may look like an across-the-board failure, it is often a local problem in just one or two of the components that add up to the ability to read," write Alan Kazdin and Carlo Rotella in Slate Magazine. "Reading, like golfing or playing the guitar, is not one big global skill but a constellation of many smaller ones." The authors narrow the culprit skills to several overlapping components: vocabulary, comprehension, phonological awareness, decoding, and fluency. Their recommendations for beefing up these skills are the now commonplace instructions for parents of young children: talk to your child, encourage speech-like sounds, read to your child and have books around, and make reading a peaceful, enjoyable exercise. A parent-child reading routine should continue through elementary school, and should include asking the child anticipatory and inferential questions. "Parents should take heart in remembering that mundane low-pressure practice during games and other activities with you can make an enormous difference," the authors counsel. "Even a slightly increased sensitivity to breaking down sounds or rhyming, even a slightly heightened familiarity with books and motivation to engage with them, can provide a significant boost at school." Read more: http://www.slate.com/id/2206105/ Significant scientific learning takes place outside the classroom A new report from the National Research Council stresses that scientific learning undertaken in informal settings like museums or through educational television can significantly contribute to scientific understanding, according to Science Daily. "Learning is broader than schooling, and informal science environments and experiences play a crucial role," said Philip Bell, co-chair of the committee that wrote the report, and associate professor of learning sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle. "These experiences can kick-start and sustain long-term interests that involve sophisticated learning." The study notes that these types of informal experiences can have a particular impact on groups that are typically underrepresented in science, such as women and certain minorities. For those who design scientific experiences in non-academic settings such as museums, the report offers a number of guidelines for engaging visitors, and also offers recommendations for professional and volunteer staffs of institutions and programs that interact with the public about science. Read more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090114114934.htm See the report: http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12190#toc BRIEFLY NOTED Assessments now count toward GPA in Missouri Under a new system in Missouri, student scores on state assessment tests in certain subjects will comprise from 10 to 25 percent of a student's final grade. http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/education/story/575D44359455C4ED8625753F00050452?OpenDocument Budget cuts will cripple districts in Mississippi The Mississippi Education Superintendent says more than 20 school districts won't be able to absorb the budget cuts Gov. Haley Barbour is making for K-12 public education. http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/01/15/ap5925614.html KIPP charters to unionize in NYC Teachers at two Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) middle schools in New York City have voted to unionize, according to The New York Times. Teachers said the organizing drive came about because they wanted a stronger voice on the job, because the demands on them were so rigorous, and because they wanted to insure a fair discipline and evaluation system. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/education/14charter.html Recovery School District widens Louisiana's board of education has given approval to a state takeover of 10 low-performing schools in East Baton Rouge and Caddo parishes, expanding the state's Recovery School District beyond the boundaries of New Orleans. http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/capital/index.ssf?/base/news-6/123211441659990.xml&coll=1 Cultivating minority youth in the sciences The Saturday Science Academy at Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science in South Los Angeles gives minority youth of all incomes the opportunity to realize their dreams of becoming physicians, scientists or engineers. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-whitecoats18-2009jan18,0,6081121.story NEW GRANT & FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES American Association of School Librarians: Collaborative School Media Library Award The AASL Collaborative School Library Media Award recognizes and encourages collaboration between school library media specialists and teachers in meeting goals through joint planning of a program, unit, or event in support of the curriculum and using media center resources. Maximum award: $2,500 to the recipient's school library media center. Eligibility: school library media specialists and teachers who have worked together to execute a project, event, or program to further information literacy, independent learning, and social responsibility using resources of the school library media center. The library media specialist must be a personal member of the AASL. Deadline: February 2, 2009. http://www.ala.org/ala/aasl/aaslawards/collaborativeslm/aaslcollaborative.htm Humane Society of the United States Youth: KIND Teacher Award The Humane Society Youth National KIND Teacher Award recognizes an outstanding teacher who consistently incorporates humane and environmental education into his or her curriculum. Maximum award: recognition. Eligibility: teachers K-6. Deadline: February 15, 2009. http://www.humanesocietyyouth.org/awards/national_kind_teacher_award.asp BP: A+ for Energy Grants BP's A+ for Energy program gives grants for implementing creative and innovative educational programs to teach students about energy use, alternative and sustainable energy types and sources, and energy conservation. Maximum award: $10,000. Eligibility: teachers K-12 in Alabama, California, Illinois, Indiana, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, and Texas. Deadline: March 9, 2009. http://www.aplusforenergy.org U.S. Dept. of Education: Teaching Ambassador Fellowship The U.S. Department of Education is accepting applications for the 2009-2010 Teaching Ambassador Fellowship program, which offers highly motivated, innovative public school teachers the opportunity to contribute their knowledge and experience to the national dialogue on public education. Washington Fellows become full-time federal employees at the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C., participating in policy discussions and working alongside staff on education programs and strategies aimed at educational improvement. Classroom Fellows remain in their local schools under their regular teaching contracts and provide their experience and perspectives to the Department through various assignments and part-time projects. Maximum award: fellowship compensated at the federal GS-12 level. Eligibility: state certified pre-K-12 public school teachers of all subjects who have spent at least three years in the classroom. Deadline: March 16, 2009. http://www.ed.gov/programs/teacherfellowship Nike: Jordan Fundamentals The Jordan Fundamentals Grant Program recognizes outstanding teaching and instructional creativity in public secondary schools that serve economically disadvantaged students. Maximum award: $10,000. Eligibility: public K-12 teachers in the U.S. Deadline: April 15, 2009. http://www.nike.com/jumpman23/features/fundamentals/overview.html QUOTE OF THE WEEK "Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions -- who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage." -Barack Hussein Obama, 44th President of the United States, January 20, 2009. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090120/ap_on_go_pr_wh/inauguration_obama_text 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. Some links in the PEN Weekly NewsBlast may change or expire after their initial publication here, and some links may require local website registration. People wishing to add a NewsBlast subscription can go to PEN's website (http://www.publiceducation.org) and follow the instructions in the lower left-hand section of the homepage. Current subscribers can unsubscribe by clicking the appropriate link near the bottom of the NewsBlast mailing. If you use spam filters to protect your inbox, you may wish to take a moment right now to add PEN@publiceducation.org to your e-mail address book, spam-software whitelist, or mail-system whitelist. Adding the address will help ensure that you receive the NewsBlast and that your e-mail software displays HTML and images properly. Public Education Network |
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