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November 14, 2008 |
Click here to read printable version |
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| Public Education Network (PEN) celebrates 25 years of local education funds |
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Just one exciting week away is the launch of PEN's 2008 Annual Conference (November 16-18, 2008) honoring and celebrating 25 years of local education funds by examining the legacy of LEFs, the focus of their resources, and the impact of their transformative work on public education. LEF members and many others will come together to recognize the historic contributions of LEFs to education reform and public engagement, and to look to the future of the field. Selected speakers include: Susan Berresford (Immediate Past President, Ford Foundation), Carlos Garcia (Superintendent, San Francisco Unified School District), Carol Gilligan (Professor of Humanities and Applied Psychology, New York University), and Rudy Crew (nationally renowned public education leader/reformer & 2008 AASA National Superintendent of the Year).
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| Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation releases ambitious new education giving plans |
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The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has announced its intention to refocus its education giving strategy on four core issues, according to The Seattle Times: double the number of low-income students who complete a college or post-high school degree, identify and pay higher salaries for good teaching, help average teachers get better, and create more accurate tests and a national set of learning standards for high schools. The new initiative will increase the amount that the foundation -- already the biggest giver in U.S. education -- spends each year to improve the nation's schools. Foundation officials are not yet saying how much the foundation plans to give, but it spent $4 billion on education in the past eight years -- half on scholarships and half on its work to improve high schools.
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| What do we know about the outcomes at KIPP schools? |
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With its reputation for high standards, highly committed teachers and longer school days, the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) has been widely hailed as a model for urban education. A new policy brief from the Great Lakes Center -- "What Do We Know About the Outcomes of KIPP Schools?" -- concludes that available evidence indicates that KIPP is indeed providing good opportunities for students but it also warns that some claims are exaggerated; the current evidence incomplete and policymakers should proceed with cautious optimism. Among the positive findings of the report are that students who enter and stay in KIPP schools -- most of whom are minorities and many of whom have done poorly in prior schools -- tend to perform better than comparable students in traditional public schools, and this performance does not seem due to selective admissions. On the other hand, student turnover appears selective, with lower-performing students continuing to perform poorly at KIPP and being more likely to leave. Teacher enthusiasm at KIPP is high, but so are the demands and burnout, leading to "an unrelieved pressure to find and train new people." And although KIPP’s extended-day policy has attracted a lot of attention, no hard evidence has linked this policy to the schools’ success.
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| Generation "O": Politics holds new role in high school classrooms |
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Across the country, the day after the election, high school teachers discussed results with a cohort of students who differ from those of the past few decades, according to USA TODAY. Current high school students are said to be more politically engaged and civic-minded than recent predecessors, but they are also better informed, more cynical about government, and less race-obsessed than their parents. This is can be explained by the Internet, with its many channels for information and opportunities such as Facebook for dialogue and political self-expression. "They felt like they were a part of [the election] just because of the connectedness of the back and forth," said Gil Stange, a high school economics teacher in Towson, Md. Beyond this, they may be more engaged because for many of them, their decisions were immediate. For the past 20 years, school districts have pushed parents to hold off registering their children for kindergarten until they're six years old. As a result, nearly half of the country’s high school seniors were eligible to vote on November 4. They heavily favored Barack Obama.
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| NOLA’s charters face closer supervision |
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New Orleans' recent rapid-fire embrace of charter schools propelled the city to the vanguard of national education reform circles. But state and local educators are only now working on a charter-oversight system that demands performance and allows schools autonomy at the same time. In a city where nearly 60 percent of the city's public school students attend charter schools, charter oversight has been spotty, according to The Times-Picayune. State and local educators are working to change that by drafting a set of evaluation guidelines that both allow charters autonomy but enable quick closing of those that fare poorly. Currently, Louisiana law calls for a third-year evaluation of charters and for a decision after five years as to whether a charter will be renewed. Charters must submit audited budgets and participate in the state's standardized testing system, and have contracts with the agencies that granted them charters, stipulating performance goals. Some charter advocates are leery of getting further bogged down in red tape. Charter leaders say the School Board has developed a far more detailed and, some allege, overly bureaucratic review process than the state or the Recovery School District, which have both done less monitoring so far. Whatever form the evaluation ultimately takes, officials hope a more consistent process will help ensure that troubled schools do not slip through the cracks -- giving the entire movement a black eye.
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| Milwaukee voucher program pressures its conventional schools |
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The Journal Sentinel reports that the number of Milwaukee children attending private schools using publicly funded vouchers has exceeded 20,000 for the first time, while the number of students in the main roster of Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) elementary, middle and high schools has fallen below 80,000 for the first time in over a decade. Milwaukee’s voucher program is the largest and oldest urban school voucher program in the United States. Its success, and declining enrollment in the MPS, has put financial pressure on the district, forcing school closings and pushing the district to find new ways to attract students and raise overall levels of achievement. Wisconsin officials estimate that $128.8 million, approximately one tenth the MPS budget, will be paid to 127 schools that enroll voucher students this year. Participation in the Milwaukee voucher program has risen every year since 1998, when the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled it was legal to include religious schools.
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| The kids are alright |
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In an opinion piece in The Boston Globe, Jay Mathews takes exception to the idea that American students are falling behind the students of our nation’s competitors, especially those in Asia. Mathews, an education reporter for The Washington Post, spotlights the documentary "Two Million Minutes," which compares two students from Carmel, Ind., unfavorably with their dedicated and industrious counterparts in India and China. The film’s message, which Mathews sums up as "Beware, the rising Third World powers are going to eat our lunch," is in his view overblown. The top 70 percent of US public high schools, he writes, are still quite good compared with the rest of the world, and graduate more excellent students than our elite universities can accommodate. The problem lies with the bottom 30 percent of schools, which serve urban and rural low-income children. "Not only are we denying the children who attend them the equal education that is their right, but we are squandering almost a third of our intellectual capital. We are beating the world economically, but with one hand tied behind our back," Mathews writes.
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| Pittsburgh makes moves toward merit pay |
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Pittsburgh school officials are considering merit pay for high-performing teachers who switch to low-performing schools, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Linda Lane, deputy superintendent for instruction, assessment and accountability in the Pittsburgh Schools, is said to be exploring federal funding for the initiative, which would shore up instruction in some of the city’s failing schools. Lane said she intends to discuss the incentive plan with the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers and its parent union, the American Federation of Teachers. As in many urban districts, under collective bargaining agreements, teachers with seniority -- generally the most experienced and effective instructors -- are able to transfer away from difficult schools, leaving novice instructors to teach the most struggling students. Pittsburgh currently has a five-year, $7.4 million grant that pays performance bonuses to principals districtwide.
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| Concern over math basics brings specialists to early grades |
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Many elementary schools are turning to math specialists or coaches to add expertise to a teaching workforce dominated by generalists who, studies show, are vastly under-prepared in math. In light of widespread struggles by many students in the middle grades over math, and with an eye toward the high-stakes tests that these same students are failing, new focus is being turned toward the building blocks of complex math in younger grades, The Washington Post reports. Competence in high-level math like calculus is not necessary to teach multiplication, but elementary teachers need to understand enough algebra, geometry and probability to see how beginning skills link to more complex ones. Many elementary-level educators lack confidence in these areas, a problem compounded by weak math training and requirements in teacher colleges.
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| Texas pre-K reform program draws fire |
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Controversy has engulfed a Texas pre-K program that cost $80 million -- three times the normal pre-K cost per student -- to implement and has netted its administering staff $500,000 in royalties from participating vendors and book publishers. The Houston Chronicle reports that the Texas Early Education Model (or TEEM), which evolved from a 2003 state law to improve pre-kindergarten coordination among public schools, Head Start programs, and child-care centers, raises conflict-of-interest issues for the staff at Texas’s State Center for Early Childhood Development, which administers it. TEEM’s proponents say that it stresses teacher training and early literacy development, but its critics feel it’s an effort to market research and products through a variety of commercial vendors, and that it tests, rather than educates, very young children in anticipation of standardized assessment. "It's a very narrow perspective on how children learn and, particularly, how they learn early literacy skills," according to Samuel Meisels, a leading authority on the assessment of young children. The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, which oversees the State Center, requires disclosure by its faculty, but has not yet released program financial records requested by the Chronicle since third parties, the vendors and publishers, are involved.
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| One step toward closing the achievement gap |
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In a post in NCCREST’s Leadscape blog, Dr. Donna Y. Ford asks why it is that despite their qualifications, educators have been unable to close the persistent and troubling achievement gap between black and white students. Ford, a professor of Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University in the Department of Special Education, points out that this gap, which in the early grades is a one-year disparity, widens to four years by the time black students reach high school, indicating a failure on the part of schools and in fact an exacerbation the disadvantage that many lower-income black students enter school with. In Dr. Ford’s opinion, the explanation may lie in the training of teachers in this country, who are overwhelmingly white (and female). Writes Ford, "too few courses and programs have been created and designed to equip future and current educators/professionals with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to work with our nation’s increasing diversity. This increasing diversity cannot be ignored or trivialized in any way -- especially given that over 40 percent of public school students are Black, Hispanic, Asian, or American Indian."
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A significant family choice for the Obamas
The Washington Post speculates whether the new First Daughters will attend private school, as Chelsea Clinton did, or public school, like Amy Carter.
School district tries to lure Asian parents
The new diversity of the Jericho High School (NY) has revealed a cultural chasm over the meaning of parental involvement. Jericho now offers free English classes and a multicultural advisory committee that, among other things, taught one Chinese mother what to wear and what to bring to a bar mitzvah. The P.T.A. has been trying to recruit more minority members and groom them for leadership roles.
South Carolina sees jump in high school proficiency scores
Four out of five South Carolina high school sophomores passed both the math and English/language arts portions on the state’s High School Assessment Program test, with an average pass rate of 80.8 percent.
Colorado rejects affirmative action ban, but Nebraska ratifies it
Colorado voters are the first in the nation to reject a ban on state affirmative action programs, narrowly defeating a measure that California businessman Ward Connerly has helped pass in four other states.
Making sure student data reach all who need it
Education Sector blog The Quick and the Ed explains how parents can ensure that all non-school actors who keep a student on the path to success can access student data when it’s made available online. |
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| NEW GRANT AND FUNDING INFORMATION |
The Terri Lynne Lokoff Childcare Foundation: Children’s Tylenol National Child Care Teacher Awards
The Terri Lynne Lokoff/Children’s Tylenol National Child Care Teacher Awards acknowledge the critical role of child care teachers in providing quality early care and education. Applicants are asked to design an enhancement project for the children in their classroom illustrating the educational, social, and emotional benefits from the project. Maximum Award: $1,000. Eligibility: teachers of infant, toddler, or preschool age children employed in a home, group, or center-based program that is fully compliant with local and state regulations for operating child care programs, who have been working in their current regulated program for a minimum of 36 months by December 5, 2008. Deadline: December 5, 2009.
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation: J-Lab Institute for Interactive Journalism
The Institute for Interactive Journalism and John S. and James L. Knight Foundation New Voices grants provide funds to seed innovative community news ventures in the United States. Maximum award: $25,000. Eligibility: 501(c) 3 organizations and education institutions, including civic groups, community organizations, public broadcasters, schools, colleges and universities; some preference will be given to projects from former Knight newspaper communities. Deadline: February 12, 2009.
The American Historical Association: Beveridge Family Teaching Prize
The American Historical Association Beveridge Family Teaching Prize recognizes excellence and innovation in elementary, middle school, and secondary history teaching, including career contributions and specific initiatives. Maximum award: $1,500, plus travel expenses for group leader to travel to annual meeting in January 2010 to accept award. Eligibility: K-12 teachers in groups. Deadline: March 16, 2009.
Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams: High School Invention Grants
Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams grants foster inventiveness among high school students. InvenTeams composed of high school students, teachers and mentors are asked to collaboratively identify a problem that they want to solve, research the problem, and then develop a prototype invention as an in-class or extracurricular project. Maximum award: $10,000. Eligibility: High school science, mathematics and technology teachers--or teams of teachers--at public, private and vocational schools; intra- and inter-school collaborations are welcome. Deadline: April 24, 2009.
For more grants, see http://www.publiceducation.org/newsblast_grants.asp
"As the nation works to overcome that [achievement] gap, we believe it is critical to keep the Deweyan view of education firmly in mind. Research has repeatedly shown that children from disadvantaged circumstances simply do not come to the starting line equally matched to compete; that they are handicapped by poorer health care, unsafe neighborhoods and unstable housing, broken families and language deficits that stem from parents who themselves are typically products of poor education. These issues become compounded as they attend schools that have fewer qualified teachers and offer less challenging curricula."
-Susan H. Fuhrman, President of Teachers College, Columbia University
http://www.tc.columbia.edu/news/article.htm?id=6605
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Kate Guiney
Contributing Editor
PEN Weekly NewsBlast
Public Education Network
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