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At the Public Education Network, we are always searching for ways to make the NewsBlast more informative, readable and user-friendly. Help us to deepen our understanding of your areas of interest, how you use the NewsBlast and ways that we can improve its quality. Please click below and answer a short survey about what you really like and what you really need from the NewsBlast. The willingness of readers to provide feedback has helped us to expand NewsBlast’s appeal and become one of the eight most influential education information sources available. Thank you for helping improve the content and readability of the PEN Weekly NewsBlast. |
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STUDENTS FEEL LIKE PRISONERS IN SCHOOL, STATES SPEND MORE ON PRISONS |
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Today I have to remind myself that I can't bring my cell phone, shouldn't wear boots and definitely should not carry scissors, writes Donald Moore in New Youth Connections magazine. That’s because every Monday and Wednesday, once class at his regular school ends, he attends evening classes at George Westinghouse Career and Tech High School to catch up on credits. While the school is only 10 minutes away from Brooklyn Tech, which he regularly attends, the two couldn't be more different. When Moore gets to Westinghouse, the first thing he sees is a line of kids waiting outside that continues deep inside the school until it finally reaches the cafeteria where students must go through metal detectors. Students are required to empty all change, take off belts, and place keys in the plastic bin. If a security guard finds a cell phone, it’s confiscated. With 900 kids and only two metal detectors, students can wait in line up to 20 minutes after classes have begun. At Brooklyn Tech, where Moore doesn't have to undergo metal detector searches, 72 percent of the students are white or Asian, while at Westinghouse, 94 percent of the students are black or Hispanic. Still, with all that security at Westinghouse, black and Latino kids are far more likely to get in trouble with the law. As a black teen who has experienced being treated like a criminal while trying to get an education, Moore knows how discouraging the police presence in schools can be for everyone. Every time he is required to pass through security searches, he feels worse about himself and cares a little less about passing a test. According to Chloe Dugger, a field organizer for the New York Civil Liberties Union Police Accountability Project, police surveillance at schools is "moving students, particularly students of color, out of the school system and toward the criminal justice system." This must make it a good thing that for the first time ever, in five states, more is spent on prisons than on colleges, according to a new report from the Pew Project on the States (second link). Last year alone, states spent more than $49 billion on corrections, up from $11 billion spent 20 years earlier. However, the recidivism rate remains virtually unchanged, with about half of released inmates returning to jail or prison within three years. A close examination of the most recent U.S. Department of Justice data found that while one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is incarcerated, the figure is one in nine for black males. For black women in their mid- to late-30s, the incarceration rate has hit the one-in-100 mark. Pew also found that in the last 20 years, inflation-adjusted general fund spending on corrections rose 127 percent while higher education expenditures rose just 21 percent. |
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IS JOEL KLEIN THE BILLY BEANE OF SCHOOL REFORM? |
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In the late 1990s, Oakland A’s general manger Billy Beane revolutionized professional baseball by ignoring what his players looked like and focusing, objectively, on how they performed. Now, New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is trying to do a similar thing for public education, writes Kevin Carey in the New York Daily News. By crunching numbers without prejudice, Beane discovered that certain statistics that really matter on the field (like on-base percentage) were being vastly undervalued in the player job market. While scouts and other executives made decisions based on personal bias and flawed perceptions, Beane kept a team with a huge payroll disadvantage (compared to teams in New York, Boston and Los Angeles) competitive. Meanwhile Klein’s new initiative appears to be based on a comparable insight: teachers who by all appearances are alike (same age, experience, level of education and demeanor) can be hugely different in how well they help students learn. Klein plans to start using "value-added" data (which compare annual test score gains in a teacher’s classroom to statistically predicted gains given backgrounds, academic history and a range of other factors) to figure out the differences among teachers. Initially, there are no plans to attach huge rewards or penalties to the results. To be sure, it is much easier to measure home runs than the growth in appreciation of fine literature and standardized tests have margins of error that need to be considered. It also is fair to caution that value-added statistics should never be the sole way teachers are judged. Yet, at the same time, such statistics should be part of high stakes decision-making processes, used in combination with other factors such as peer and principal evaluations for things like tenure or pay. In the last few years, organizations like the Boston Red Sox have rebuilt their teams based on the ideas Beane pioneered. New Yorkers need not be reminded of how those ideas worked out. |
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ONE SIMPLE REQUEST: EXHIBIT A LASERLIKE FOCUS ON MATH ESSENTIALS |
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The National Mathematics Advisory Panel, which has warned that a "broken" system of mathematics education threatens United States preeminence in mathematics, says the fix is a laserlike focus on the essentials, reports John Hechinger for the Wall Street Journal. The group’s draft report recommends educators focus on "critical" topics, a practice that has become commonplace in high-performing countries. The panel also is expected to urge the nation’s teachers to promote "quick and effortless" recall of arithmetic facts in early grades, mastery of fractions in middle school and rigorous algebra courses by high school. In addition, the group says students should be proficient with the addition and subtraction of whole numbers by the end of third grade and with multiplication and division by the end of fifth, as well as able to work with fractions in fourth grade and, by the end of seventh grade, be able to solve percent, ratio and rate problems. Targeting such key elements of math would mark a sharp departure from the diverse priorities that now govern mathematics teaching in public schools. |
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BEING GREEN, EASY FOR WRITING IMPLEMENTS, NOT SO EASY FOR SCHOOLS |
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A movement in the education community to make school buildings energy efficient is sparking a battle over wages among some education and labor groups, reports Erika Lovely for Politico. The desired upgrades are all designed to reduce energy costs and save taxpayer money for teacher salaries and school supplies. However, lobbyists for the Associated Builders and Contractors say that if federal prevailing wage requirements aren't waived, school districts will be unable to build due to inflated costs. While no interest groups have flatly denounced the green school initiative, labor lobbyists say the issue could be an opportunity to chip away at the Davis-Beacon Act, a Depression-era law that mandates workers be paid the prevailing wage for federal projects. The Associated Builders say the law hampers small and minority construction businesses from bidding on federal projects because they are unable to pay workers the higher wage (which can be several times normal salaries). Still, the Davis-Bacon fight is not a new one. In the past year alone, lawmakers have tried repeatedly to remove prevailing wage requirements for federal spending projects. So far, every attempt has been shot down. In addition, there have been a handful of bills introduced to upgrade schools. The U.S. House of Representatives Education and Labor Committee has held some early hearings, but so far, none of the measures has made serious headway. On a different front, Pilot Pens is doing its part to make back to school more green by introducing the Mercedes Benz of the green writing utensil, reports Sarah Mahoney for Marketing Daily. Americans spend anywhere from $4.8 billion to $5.2 billion on writing implements a year, and the hope is that the new BeGreen pen line will account for at least 15 percent of Pilot’s sales. |
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STAY IN SCHOOL, AVOID RISK BEHAVIORS, AND THEN RIDE IN A TANK |
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Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.) has a new rewards program for students: if you stay in school, you'll get to take a tank for a spin, reports Kevin Yamamura for the Sacramento Bee. The governor is bringing home an Austrian army tank he loaned the Motts Military Museum. He said recently the he plans to use it to drive around inner-city children who do well in school, say "no" to drugs and avoid gangs in the Los Angeles area. |
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HAPPY ARTS EDUCATION MONTH |
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Welcome to Arts Education Month (also NCAA Tournament Month, Opening Day Month and Hello Spring Forward Month). To celebrate (the arts thing), Keep Arts in Schools has released a new set of tools that enables advocates to voice their support. The resources also help educators and organizations take effective steps toward ensuring every child gets the well rounded, quality education they deserve. Meanwhile, a new book (second link), "Transforming Arts Teaching: The Role of Higher Education," examines innovations in arts teacher training because, when well taught, the arts transform students and schools. The book argues that while the nature of high quality teaching has received significant attention in recent years, little has been paid specifically to the role of arts teachers. It follows that when arts teachers receive top notch preparation, they gain the capacity to make transformative experiences possible for more students. When discussing arts education, it is important to remember that for students who face barriers to fully engaging in school, the arts present the "languages" that reveal their abilities and potential, writes Richard Deasy in The School Administrator. Still, for the arts to truly make this contribution, administrators and policymakers need to understand the value of moving them from the margins to a more substantive role in the lifeblood of a school. Administrators can draw confidence in this aim from a growing body of research that clarifies the nature of learning in the arts and the intellectual, personal and social skills arts education nurtures. During the course of a three-year study, the Arts Education Partnership looked at 10 high-poverty, high-performing schools. The seminal finding of that research is that arts education created positive and empowering learning environments that emerged as the result of new relationships between and among students and teachers. |
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GROW YOUR OWN TEACHERS AND CULTIVATE HOPE FOR A COMMUNITY |
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Leaders of Grow Your Own (GYO) Illinois rallied this week at the state’s General Assembly in the hopes of receiving the funding necessary to sustain the program, which has performed beyond expectation. GYO was originally charged with preparing 1,000 new teachers by 2016, but, after only two years, has 545 teacher candidates. The program has been so popular because it unites community groups, higher education institutions and school districts to recruit candidates -- especially minorities -- from lower-income neighborhoods. The state funds provide forgivable loans that help the candidates finish college and earn their teaching certificates. In exchange, the candidates agree to teach for at least five years in neighborhood schools. Said teacher candidate, Tiana Camphor, "GYO means hope for the community." |
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THE EDUCATION PROBLEMS FACING UNITED STATES NATIVES |
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A new report, produced through a partnership between the National Indian Education Association and the National Education Association, provides a glimpse into problems faced by Native Americans in schools, by explaining the variety of laws that form a bureaucratic labyrinth education advocates must learn to navigate to help students succeed. The report finds that the languages and cultures of American Indians, Alaskan natives and native Hawaiians are in jeopardy of disappearing. The report’s findings show that policy measures and appropriate resources are crucial to restoring and preserving indigenous languages and cultures. In addition, there is a need for quality teachers in all public, federally funded and tribal schools where native children are enrolled. Due to rural isolation, low teacher salaries, high poverty rates and differences in languages and cultures, it is quite difficult to retain such teachers. Native schools also continue to be plagued by safety concerns. They exhibit the second highest suspension and expulsion rates and have the highest percentage of all groups to report injuries with weapons and fights on school grounds. In 2004, 22 percent of American Indian and Alaska native high school students reported being threatened or injured with a weapon on school grounds compared to 11 percent of African American, 9 percent of Hispanic and 8 percent of white students. |
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LGBT PARENTS MORE INVOLVED IN SCHOOL, THEIR KIDS HARASSED MORE OFTEN |
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The first comprehensive report on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) families’ experiences in education, released this week, finds that LGBT parents are more likely to be involved in their children’s K-12 education. In fact, LGBT parents are more likely to attend a parent teacher conference (94 percent to 77 percent) and more likely to volunteer (67 percent to 42 percent). However, both LGBT parents and their children often report harassment because of their family structure. The report finds that 42 percent of students said they had been verbally harassed at school because their parents were LGBT. In addition, 37 percent of students reported they had been verbally harassed because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation. Still, parents whose child’s school had a comprehensive safe school policy that protected students from bullying and harassment reported the lowest level of mistreatment. Meanwhile, there was no difference in harassment levels between the no-policy and generic-policy groups. |
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THE EL DORADO PROMISE: PROVIDING THE ONE THING THAT WILL CHANGE LIVES |
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Claiborne Deming, one of the founders of the El Dorado Education Foundation (a local education fund in El Dorado, Ark. that has put more than $12 million into the local school district) made his hometown a major promise this year, reports Bob Dotson for the Today Show. All the high school graduates who have been in the El Dorado school system since ninth grade can attend any college in the country on his company’s dime. This guarantee comprises the El Dorado Promise, a challenge to students to dream big. To collect the dough, Deming persuaded his company, Murphy Oil, to invest $50 million -- enough to keep the promise for 5,000 kids for 20 years. Says Deming, "education is the one thing that you can provide people that permanently changes their lives." |
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DIPLOMA BUT ONLY THIRD GRADE READING LEVEL: LAWSUIT |
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The West Virginia Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of a functionally illiterate high-school graduate who says the Kanawha County school system failed him, reports the Associated Press. Thomas Sturm, who suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, graduated from Sissonville High School in 2004, but can only read at a third grade level said his attorney. It is Sturm’s contention that the school board failed to abide by state and federal laws meant to monitor and protect the rights of students with disabilities. A Kanawha judge dismissed the 2006 lawsuit last year saying Sturm didn't exhaust other remedies available. The school board’s general counselor agrees, saying Sturm could have complained about his lack of education or requested a hearing with officials. The original lawsuit sought $1 million in punitive damages. |
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BULLYING VIDEO GAME IRKS TEACHERS AROUND THE GLOBE |
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A coalition of groups representing four million teachers in several countries is urging retailers to refuse to sell a controversial video game about school bullying, reports Jill Mahoney for the Globe and Mail (Canada). The game, "Bully: Scholarship Edition," features a shaven-head teenager who adjusts to life at a new boarding school by harassing others, which the organization says glorifies bullying. The group spearheading the call to ban sales says there is a link between violent video games and aggressive behavior in children, with some studies support this conclusion while others do not. However, calling for a ban is like "flailing at windmills" when it comes to actually confronting bullying, said Michael Hoechsmann, an assistant professor at McGill University and an expert on the role of violence in video games. "As tempting as it may seem, I'm not so certain that banning this will somehow result in a more peaceful and more loving school population," he thinks. In addition, Hoechsmann noted that he hasn't found any evidence suggesting that playing a violent video game results in violent actions. |
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FANTASY SPORTS MAKE MATH FUN. GO FIGURE |
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Teachers are always looking for new and engaging ways to teach the hardest of subjects. Across the country, math teachers are turning to fantasy sports to increase the achievement of their students. For instance, an Oregon high school special education teacher uses fantasy basketball to teach algebra to severely learning-disabled and autistic students. As well, administrators are discussing in increasing amounts how fantasy sports enable teachers, eliminate behavior problems and motivate students who previously were bored with math. According to data collected by the University of Mississippi, 75 percent of 144 teachers who were surveyed agreed that students understood mathematical concepts more than they did before they worked with fantasy sports. In addition, 79 percent of teachers agreed that students liked learning math more, with 81 percent of teachers agreeing that students came to math class with more enthusiasm. While interest in sports remains somewhat a male domain, playing fantasy sports has empowered girls. Teachers report that girls who play fantasy sports are engaging in more conversations with their fathers and brothers. |
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COLLECT 1.5 MILLION POP TOPS, EARN $400 FOR A GOOD CAUSE, AND LEARN MATH |
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Francesca Simon, 13, began collecting pop/soda can tabs in kindergarten for a math project, reports Shawn Lewis in the Detroit News. By adding Francesca’s pop can tabs to those collected by schoolmates, neighbors and parishioners, a mountain of 1.5 million tabs has been amassed. The collection is part of the decade-long "What is a Million?" project. Along the way to collecting a million tabs, Francesca’s school created innovative ways of teaching math. As students benignly collected, they learned how to estimate, use decimal points and calculate percentages and averages. The tabs fate: they will be delivered to a scrap yard that accepts aluminum in exchange for $400, which will be donated to the local Ronald McDonald House. |
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NEW GRANT AND FUNDING INFORMATION |
"High Tech Camp for Girls"
Microsoft DigiGirlz High Tech Camp for girls works to dispel stereotypes of the high-tech industry and gives young people a chance to experience firsthand what it is like to develop cutting-edge technology. During the camp, girls are exposed to executive speakers, technology tours and demonstrations, networking and hands-on learning workshops. Maximum Award: camp attendance. Eligibility: girls grades 7-12; must be 13 at the time of attendance. Deadline: varies; see website.
"Grant for Geographic Literacy"
The National Council for the Social Studies Grant for Geographic Literacy is awarded in order to: promote geography education in the schools; to enhance the geographic literacy of students at the classroom, district, or statewide level; and, to encourage the integration of geography into the social studies curriculum/classroom. Maximum Award: $2,500. Eligibility: Programs, not individuals, individual lessons or units, which will enhance the geographic literacy of students at the classroom, district, or statewide levels. Recipients may be individuals or groups in school districts, public institutions, or universities. Deadline: Postmarked by March 21, 2006.
"2008 Tech Museum Awards"
Nominations are being accepted for the Tech Museum of Innovation's 2008 Tech Museum Awards: Technology Benefiting Humanity. The intent is to honor innovators from around the world who are applying technology to benefit humanity. Maximum Award: $50,000. Eligibility: Individuals, nonprofit, for-profit and government organizations. Deadline: March 24, 2008.
"Captain Planet Foundation Grants for Youth"
Captain Planet Foundation Education Grants fund and support hands-on environmental projects for children and youths that encourage innovative programs and empower children and youth around the world to work individually and collectively to solve environmental problems in their neighborhoods and communities. Maximum Award: $2,500. Eligibility: 501(c)3 organizations. Deadline: March 31, 2008.
"The Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes"
The Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes seeks nominations for its 2008 awards. The Barron Prize honors young people ages 8 to 18 who have made a significant positive difference to people and our planet. The award hopes to support their service work or higher education. Maximum award: $2,000. Deadline: April 30.
"Case Study Contest"
In connection with the Effective Education Partnerships Conference (EEPC), DeHavilland Associates is presenting a case study competition. The company has published three hypothetical case studies: one for businesses, one for schools and one for partnership organizations. Entrants must identify key issues and describe how they would resolve the challenges being presented. Maximum Award: $500 and recognition at the EEPC conference. Eligibility: anyone working in the field of community/school partnerships; entrants do not need to attend the July 10-11 conference in Fairfax, Va. to participate. Deadline: May 15, 2008.
"If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the highest return."
- Ben Franklin (founding father/polymath/author/painter/politician/scientist/statesman/diplomat)
http://www.verityinvcounsel.com/fav_quotes.htm
"A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad."
- Teddy Roosevelt (United States president, 1901 - 1909)
http://www.party411.com/graduation-quotes.html
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