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PEN LAUNCHES "CIVIC INDEX FOR QUALITY PUBLIC EDUCATION" A national poll and a groundbreaking "Civic Index for Quality Public Education" shed new light on the public's views on school progress, politicians' commitment to education, and the strength of community commitment to helping improve education. Launched by Public Education Network (PEN) and funded by MetLife Foundation, the first-of-its-kind comprehensive, online Civic Index measures public attitudes toward education and assesses 10 categories of community support determined by the public and experts to be critical factors outside the school to support and sustain quality public schools. The research-based index was developed over the past several years in consultation with the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at the University of Maryland and a range of other social scientists and national experts drawn from more than 30 national organizations. The poll reveals that even when other issues are seizing the day, Americans still care deeply about education. Top concerns included gas prices (22 percent) and jobs and the economy (19 percent), followed by education (12 percent), health care (11 percent), crime and drugs (8 percent), taxes (8 percent), the budget deficit (4 percent), and homeland security (4 percent). Six in 10 Americans say that candidates for office are focusing too little on education in election campaigns this year. "Americans care about their schools, but they are not hearing enough about schools and not seeing the changes they would like," said Wendy Puriefoy, president of PEN. "The poll reveals that, as a result, Americans are losing confidence in local and national efforts to improve schools and in the elected and public officials who are in charge of making change happen." Read Article Read Article ATTITUDE DETERMINES SUCCESS IN RURAL SCHOOLS Perri Applegate of the University of Oklahoma K20 Center recently investigated the qualities that differentiate high-achieving and low-achieving rural high schools, reports Science Daily. Applegate found that the top factors that impacted student achievement in urban high schools -- test scores, student-teacher ratio and rigorous curriculum -- did not determine student success in rural schools. Rather, community involvement and the school's commitment to student excellence were the determining factors. "In small-town America, the school and the community are dependent upon each other for success," said Applegate. In rural areas, schools tend to be the center of the community, acting as a gathering place and offering social services. "Rural schools in the study listed the same factors as impacting student achievement: poverty, parental support, community, extracurricular activities and a caring school culture," said Applegate. "The difference between a high- or low-achieving rural school was how they -- both the school and the community -- met those challenges." High-achieving schools had educators that embraced the role of being a rural teacher, which typically means wearing many hats and being creative with necessary resources. Another key factor was that high-achieving schools gave students many opportunities to connect their learning to the well-being of the community, reinforcing the school-community bond. Read Article TEACHERS' WORK DOESN'T ALWAYS END WITH THE SCHOOL YEAR Some teachers never leave the classroom. Some travel well beyond the walls of their schools. Others catch up on sleep or yard work. By the time the summertime comes, most teachers are drained, writes Agnes Jasinski in The Gazette. According to the most recent survey from the National Education Association on how teachers spend personal time, about 35 percent of teachers surveyed nationwide in 2003 said they were participating in courses and activities sponsored by their school systems in the summertime. "Many of them take professional development courses because that's easier to do in the summer," said Daniel Kaufman, a spokesman for the Maryland State Teachers Association. "It needs to be said that most teachers during the school year work much more than just the usual daily schedule. They're usually in the 60-hour per week range." Teachers' opinions vary on the idea of a 12-month academic year, with short vacations scheduled around holidays rather than the traditional summertime block. Proponents argue that children forget much of what they learned during the school year once summer hits. Opponents say the method inconveniences parents and wears out teachers. Read Article NEW YORK STATE SHOWS SHARP GAINS IN READING AND MATH Reading and math scores for New York State students in grades three through eight showed extraordinary gains since last year, with particularly striking leaps in the large urban areas, including New York City. The gains were apparent for nearly every grade tested, in some cases with double-digit increases in the percentage of students performing at grade level or above, according to the scores on the annual statewide exams released by education officials. The scores also will make some teachers and principals eligible for financial bonuses, and affect the letter grades assigned to individual schools. The improvements were so substantial that several education experts expressed skepticism, noting that large gains were posted even by cities like Buffalo, whose schools have struggled for years. They also said the statewide results were not in line with the relatively static performance of New York students on federal tests. "They are on the order of what you might see in a 25-year trend on the national assessment," said Andrew D. Ho, an assistant professor of educational statistics at the University of Iowa. Michael J. Petrilli, a researcher at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, said patterns of significant gains "can mean that they are teaching to the tests, and it's also certainly possible that the tests got easier." The results were also inconsistent with New York City's scores last year on the National Assessment of Educational Progress: since the federal scores were stagnant, critics said, it seemed unlikely that the state scores would increase so much. State Education Commissioner Richard P. Mills said the testing system had been reviewed by the federal Department of Education and had also been vetted by a group of outside experts, and provided a letter from federal officials stating that New York had an "assessment system that produces valid and reliable results." Read Article FUEL COSTS FOR YELLOW BUSES CUT INTO OTHER PROGRAMS The 2007-08 school year has come to a close, but as superintendents across the country finalize their budgets for the fall, many are projecting major spikes in a number of areas, the greatest being diesel for yellow buses that bring kids to school, writes Anne Marie Chaker of The Wall Street Journal. Some 475,000 school buses transport 25 million students -- more than half of the country's schoolchildren -- each day, and cover 4.3 billion miles a year, says the American School Bus Council. And the cost of fueling all these vehicles has a direct impact beyond the bus. Faced with budget shortfalls, many administrators will try to avoid cutting back "core" subject areas, such as math and reading, and turn to slashing "enrichment" programs -- like field trips to the theater. School budgets are already reeling from projected shortfalls in state revenue, which can typically make up anywhere from about one-third to two-thirds of district budgets. This coming fiscal year, 23 states are projecting gaps -- where revenues are expected to be lower than expenditures -- compared with 16 last year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Local revenue sources, often tied to property-tax revenues, are also suffering from the real-estate slowdown. In the 2001 recession, when school districts faced slackening state revenues, they could coast from the run-up in real-estate values, which translated into higher property-tax receipts. Today, real-estate values are falling in much of the country, leaving no safety valve for schools. "I've never seen anything escalate this quick [as diesel costs have]," said Hank Hurd, chief operating officer of the Durham, N.C., school district. "There's no way for a school district to absorb those kinds of increases." Read Article OHIO TEACHER BURNED CROSS ON KIDS' ARMS A public school teacher preached his Christian beliefs despite complaints by other teachers and administrators and used a device to burn the image of a cross on students' arms, according to a report by independent investigators. Mount Vernon Middle School teacher John Freshwater also taught creationism in his science class and was insubordinate in failing to remove a Bible and other religious materials from his classroom, the report said. The report comes one week after a family filed a federal lawsuit in Columbus against Freshwater and the school district, saying Freshwater burned a cross on their child's arm that remained for three or four weeks. Freshwater used a science tool known as a high-frequency generator to burn images of a cross on students' arms in December, the report said. Freshwater told investigators he simply was trying to demonstrate the device on several students and described the images as an "X," not a cross. But pictures show the images depict a cross, the report said. Other findings show that Freshwater taught that carbon dating was unreliable to argue against evolution. Read Article HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS CANCELS READING FIRST Under a fiscal 2009 spending measure approved unanimously last week by a House Appropriations subcommittee, the controversial federal Reading First program would be eliminated, writes Alyson Klein of Education Week. Explaining the decision to zero out the program, Representative David R. Obey (D-Wis.), the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, cited the results of a preliminary federal evaluation of Reading First released May 1 that found the program has had no impact on students' reading comprehension. Reading First "has been plagued with mismanagement, conflicts of interest, and cronyism, as documented by the inspector general," Representative Obey said, referring to a series of reports by the federal watchdog that suggested conflicts of interest among officials and contractors who had implemented the program in its early years. The Reading First program was created as part of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002, and state grants were funded at about $1 billion annually until last December, when lawmakers, citing the allegations of mismanagement, slashed it to $393 million for fiscal 2008. President Bush's budget request for fiscal 2009, which begins October 1, proposes to restore the funding to $1 billion. Read Article Read Article CALIFORNIA PRESCHOOL MISSES THOSE WHO NEED IT MOST In a report by the RAND California Preschool Study, researchers estimate that only 15 percent of those who would benefit most are in high-quality programs that prepare them for success in K-12, reports the Associated Press in The San Francisco Chronicle. "We can't close the achievement gap unless we close the preparedness gap before kindergarten," said Debra Watkins, founder of the California Alliance of African American Educators. "As a former high school teacher of nearly 30 years, I certainly see what happens (to students who) did not have high-quality preschool by the time they reach high school, where we have a dropout problem." Researchers found that just under half of 3- and 4-year-olds in economically disadvantaged families are in preschool programs of any quality, compared to 70 percent of children whose families are better off. The study also found that parental education played a role: 45 percent of children whose mothers didn't finish high school were enrolled in preschools, compared to 80 percent enrollment for children whose mothers have a graduate or professional degree. Access was also found to be an issue for black, Hispanic and low-income parents, who reported the most difficulty finding the care they wanted, the report said. Read Article UTAH MOVES TOWARD PAY FOR PERFORMANCE Utah leaders are working to join a nationwide trend toward paying teachers based on performance in the classroom, writes Lisa Schencker of The Salt Lake Tribune. The idea is to both ease the teacher shortage and to improve instruction, and would be a huge change from the current system in which teachers are paid based on years of experience and educational backgrounds. Robert Stonehill, a national expert on performance pay, said such programs in other parts of the country have struggled for three main reasons: They were based mainly on subjective teacher evaluations by administrators; the rewards were too small to matter; or they were poorly designed and under-funded, pitting teacher against teacher. However, many Utah teachers are concerned a new pay program would create more problems than it would solve, and worry about basing pay on test scores. "You get a whole different mix of children each year," said Kevin Ball, a sixth-grade teacher with 30 years of experience. "I can't think of a fair way they could try and make a pay system like that work." Stonehill said Utah might want to look to Minnesota's pay plan, which allows districts to design their own programs, and student academic achievement and progress account for only 60 percent of pay increases. Teachers get the rest of their money based on their responsibilities, professional development and other evaluations. Stonehill added that other modern pay programs, such as the one in Denver, seem to have helped schools fill hard-to-staff positions. State leaders say Utah's time for teacher pay reform has come. "Whether we are for or against it, at some point, is largely irrelevant," said Larry Shumway, state associate superintendent. "The winds are blowing." Read Article OHIO GOVERNOR EMPHASIZES CREATIVITY OVER TESTING TO BOOST COMPETITIVENESS Governor Ted Strickland (D) of Ohio hosted a three-day summit in Columbus this week to promote a new classroom environment, one that is more adaptable and less focused on high-stakes testing, reports Catherine Candisky of The Columbus Dispatch. The system is one the governor believes will help Ohio graduates succeed in an increasingly competitive global economy. The Governor's Institute for Creativity & Innovation in Education will bring teachers and education advocates together to share ideas and come up with new ones. "It is an attempt… to talk about how we can have a system of education that does in fact encourage and foster creativity and innovation," Strickland said. "Because we have become scared and frightened that we have fallen behind, there has been a tendency to emphasize sameness in curriculum. We are trying to force some students into a mold, and we perhaps neglect to appreciate or understand the full array of abilities and potentials that exist within a student." Read Article UNDER NEW POLICY, FAR FEWER GIFTED SLOTS GO TO DISADVANTAGED STUDENTS IN NEW YORK CITY When New York City set a uniform threshold for admission to public school gifted programs last fall, it was a crucial step in a prolonged effort to equalize access to programs that critics complained were dominated by white middle-class children whose parents knew how to navigate the system, report Elissa Gootman and Robert Gebeloff of The New York Times. The move was controversial, with experts warning that standardized tests given to young children were heavily influenced by their upbringing and preschool education, and therefore biased toward the affluent. An analysis by The New York Times shows that under the new policy, children from the city's poorest districts were offered a smaller percentage of entry-grade gifted slots in elementary schools. The disparity is so stark that some gifted programs opened by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in an effort to increase opportunities in poor and predominantly minority districts will not fill new classes next year. In three districts, there were too few qualifiers to fill a single class. Joseph S. Renzulli, director of the University of Connecticut's National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented and a consultant to a city task force on the gifted, said he admired Chancellor Joel Klein's intentions but felt that children should be judged against others in their neighborhoods, not by a citywide cutoff. Read Article MIDDLE SCHOOLS TONE DOWN GRADUATION CEREMONIES In recent years, schools throughout the country have eliminated or scaled back eighth-grade graduations, concerned that over-the-top ceremonies too closely resemble high school graduations and imply finality rather than a mere transition to further education, writes Tony Barboza of The Los Angeles Times. The implication is a serious concern in cities such as Los Angeles with dismal high school graduation rates. More than one-third of the students in the Los Angeles Unified School District -- about twice the state average -- will not make it through their senior year. The ceremonies take on a deeper significance and sometimes become a source of pride in cities with large Latino immigrant communities, where many parents did not make it past eighth grade themselves. In Santa Ana, officials have tried to temper the occasion by no longer referring to it as graduation. Instead, said Spurgeon High School Principal Robert Laxton, it is called "promotion," because "this isn't the end of the line; we are promoting them to high school. Read Article IS GOOGLE MAKING US STUPID? "Is Google making us stupid?" asks Nicholas Carr of The Atlantic Monthly. "The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I've got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after." But, he writes, "That boon comes at a price… What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski." He says he's not alone. His friends agree that the more they use the Internet, the harder it is to concentrate on long passages of writing. Carr also cites a recently published study of online research habits from the University College London that examined computer logs documenting the behavior of visitors to two popular research sites that provide access to journal articles, e-books, and other sources of written information. The researchers found that people using the sites exhibited what they called "‘a form of skimming activity,' hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they'd already visited. They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would ‘bounce' out to another site." Read Article LATINO STUDENTS LACK CHANCES TO LEARN ABOUT COLLEGE About half of Hispanic high school students in Indiana would be the first in their families to attend college, and most feel they can't afford higher education, according to Learn More Indiana's annual survey of high school freshmen and juniors, reports Deanna Martin of the Associated Press. "The majority of students are saying they want to go to college," Crouch said. "When asked if they have a plan or way to pay for it, they don't know." Following the road map to college -- a path filled with tests, applications and deadlines -- can be more difficult for students without family members who have gone to college. About a quarter of black and white 9th-grade students in the 2007-08 school year said no one in their household attended college, compared with 50 percent of Hispanic freshmen. Potential first-generation college students often face more obstacles than others in high school. Researchers say those teenagers frequently lack the rigorous academic preparation and family encouragement that others have. Sometimes parents without college degrees urge their children to get a job instead of continuing their education. But some Hispanic parents -- especially those who have recently immigrated to the country -- often push their children to get a college education, said Lisa Sandoval, director of communications at the Hispanic College Fund. "Parents realize they're exposing their children to opportunities they didn't have," Sandoval said. "The main barrier is knowing how and having the resources to actually pursue that education." Read Article TEXAS DISTRICTS SHUN MERIT PAY, LEAVING MORE FOR DISTRICTS THAT DON'T As more and more school districts in Texas bail out of the state's new merit pay plan for teachers, those remaining -- including 15 districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area -- are reaping a financial windfall from the $148 million program, writes Terrence Stutz of The Dallas Morning News. Fewer than one in five districts in the state have decided to participate in the much-touted plan, leaving more money on the table for the 192 school districts that want to reward their best teachers based on test scores and other factors with bonuses of at least $3,000. In all, the 15 Dallas-area districts have picked up an extra $11.3 million -- for a total of $36.4 million -- because of other districts dropping out. That means an additional 3,800 teachers in the Dallas area could get bonuses under the District Awards for Teacher Excellence program. Most of the districts that have stayed clear of or dropped out of the incentive pay plan have cited financial concerns, including the requirement that districts put up 15 percent of their own money to qualify for a state grant. Others have cited sharp opposition from their teachers. "I don't see much desire to make the stakes any higher than they already are on standardized testing," said Richard Kouri of the Texas State Teachers Association. In addition, he noted that teachers were supposed to be consulted before a local plan was implemented. "If teachers have an option, most don't have a favorable opinion about merit pay," he said. Read Article NEW GRANT AND FUNDING INFORMATION "Grants for School Partnerships Around the World" The National Association of Independent Schools Challenge 20/20 Program provides an opportunity for schools to develop globally-based, experiential curricula and to build educational partnerships with schools around the world. Challenge 20/20 students form authentic bonds with students from across the globe and learn firsthand about cross-cultural communication; together, teams tackle real problems. Maximum Award: N/A. Eligibility: elementary and secondary schools, public or private, located anywhere in the world. Deadline: August 15, 2008. http://www.nais.org/conferences/index.cfm?ItemNumber=147262&sn.ItemNumber=148035 "Disney Grants for Youth-Led Service Projects" The Walt Disney Company and Youth Service America, through Disney Minnie Grants, are supporting youth-led service projects that are planned and implemented in communities. Service can take place between October 15 and November 15, 2008, and projects can address the environment, disaster relief, public health and awareness, community education, hunger, literacy, or any issue that youth identify as a community need. Maximum Award: $500. Eligibility: teachers, older youth (15-25), youth-leaders, and youth-serving organizations that engage younger youth (5-14) in planning and implementation. Deadline: August 30, 2008. http://ysa.org/AwardsGrants/tabid/58/Default.aspx "Siemens High School Competition in Math, Science & Technology" The Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology recognizes remarkable talent early on, fostering individual growth for high school students who are willing to challenge themselves through science research. Through this competition, students have an opportunity to achieve national recognition for science research projects that they complete in high school. Maximum Award: $100,000. Eligibility: U.S. high school students. Deadline: October 1, 2008. http://www.siemens-foundation.org/en/competition.htm "Grants for Native Plant Landscaping" The Lorrie Otto Seeds for Education Grant Program gives small monetary grants to schools, nature centers, or other non-profit educational organizations for the purpose of establishing outdoor learning centers. Funds will be provided only for the purchase of native plants and seed. Eligibility: Schools, nature centers and other non-profit and not-for-profit places of learning including houses of worship with a site available. Deadline: November 15, 2008. http://www.for-wild.org/sfecvr.html "Grants for Nonprofit Music Programs" The Guitar Center Music Foundation's mission is to aid nonprofit music programs across America that offer music instruction so that more people can experience the joys of making music. Maximum Award: $5000. Eligibility: 501(c)(3) organizations. Qualifying applicants are established, ongoing and sustainable music programs across the United States that provide music instruction for people of any age who would not otherwise have the opportunity to make music. Deadline: N/A. http://www.guitarcentermusicfoundation.org/grants/index.cfm?sec=info QUOTE OF THE WEEK "The paradox of education is precisely this -- that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated." - James A. Baldwin (author) http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/baldwin.htm ===========PEN NewsBlast========== The PEN Weekly NewsBlast is a free e-mail newsletter featuring school reform and school fundraising resources. The PEN NewsBlast is the property of the Public Education Network, a national association of 82 local education funds working to improve public school quality in low-income communities nationwide. There are currently 42,585 subscribers to the PEN Weekly NewsBlast. Please forward this e-mail to anyone who enjoys free updates on education news and grant alerts. Some links in the PEN Weekly NewsBlast change or expire on a daily or weekly basis. Some links may also require local website registration. Your e-mail address is safe with the NewsBlast. 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If you know anyone who is interested in receiving the NewsBlast, please forward this e-mail to them and ask them to e-mail us and put "subscribe" in the subject field or visit: http://www.publiceducation.org/subscribe.asp To view past issues of the PEN Weekly NewsBlast, visit: http://www.publiceducation.org/newsblast_past.asp To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit: http://www.publiceducation.org/subscribe.asp To read the NewsBlast submission policy, visit: http://www.publiceducation.org/newsblast_submission_policy.htm If you would like an article or news about your local education fund, public school, or school reform organization featured in a future issue of PEN Weekly NewsBlast, send a note to: PEN@PublicEducation.org Albert Lang Senior Associate, Communications & Editor, NewsBlast Public Education Network 601 Thirteenth Street, NW #710S Washington, DC 20005 PEN@PublicEducation.org Howard B. Schaffer, Founding Editor |
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