Public Education Network Weekly NewsBlast

PEN Weekly NewsBlast for February 2, 2007

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HOW PUBLIC SCHOOLS HAVE PROMOTED THE COMMON GOOD IN THE UNITED STATES
Public education plays a vital role in America’s democratic society, and the public spirited missions of public schools remain essential today, according to a new report by the Center on Education Policy. The report, "Why We Still Need Public Schools: Public Education for the Common Good," highlights the history and importance of public education in the United States, dating back to its establishment as a necessary institution for the young republic and Horace Mann’s efforts to promote a common school for all. The report focuses on:

The report is part of the Center’s ongoing efforts to help Americans better understand the role of public education in a democracy and the need to improve the academic quality of public schools.

THE PUBLIC SEEMS TO GET IT
While poring over the data from the latest Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools, analysts were amazed, as they are every year, at the public’s ability to separate myth from reality and arrive at accurate assessments of their public schools. When asked how to improve public education in America, seven of 10 Americans said "reform the existing public school system" rather than "find an alternative system." Alternative opportunities don't command much interest, writes William J. Bushaw in The School Administrator. Five of 10 Americans graded their community schools with an A or a B. It seems the public and particularly public school parents aren't ready to buy the notion that schools don't work. Further, over last three years, the PDK/Gallup poll documents that the American public increasingly opposes the use of vouchers for children to attend private schools. We find ourselves wondering why the public understands this while our leaders in Washington, D.C., do not. Added to this disconnection between policymakers and the public is the unfolding tragedy of the No Child Left Behind Act. Praiseworthy goals are encased in an implementation plan so ill-conceived that the public overwhelmingly rejects every strategy used. Even more damning, this year six of 10 Americans say NCLB is either hurting or making no difference in their community’s schools. That this reality is being ignored makes it likely that NCLB, for all its bright promise, will lead to limited gains and may actually do harm to our schools. Bushaw wishes the policymakers in Washington would acknowledge that the American public likes its community schools and that the key to helping our nation’s schools get even better is to develop policies that build on this existing base of public support. Our political leaders ignore the public’s desires, inflict punitive strategies on the public schools and promote alternatives that lack public support.

IVAN PRAYS FOR A SUPERMAN TO FIND HIM A HOME
For a special report, ABC News "20/20" followed the lives of three children growing up in Camden, N.J.: Billy Joe, Moochie and Ivan. In a public park, Diane Sawyer met Ivan Stevens; his mother, Precious; and his little brother, Imere. Sometimes they spent the whole day dirty, hungry and homeless, with no place to go. The owner of an illegal boarding house occasionally gave them a place to sleep. He padlocked the refrigerator to keep them from taking food, and all three of them slept on one chair, surrounded by clutter and roaches. Ivan wished he could be Superman and fly on someone's back to find his family a home. "Superman" had also heard of kindergarten. "I wanna go to school so bad. I wanna read," Ivan said excitedly on the first day of school. On the way to school, though, reality set in, and Ivan realized that for the first time he'd be without his mother's protection. He was also afraid that the other kids would be mean to him, and he started to cry. "It's alright. ... You can be scared," his mother said. "But you gotta be a big boy. I'm not going to ever leave you where you [are] not welcome." The teacher welcomed Ivan to the class, and he reluctantly said goodbye to his mother. A school administrator sat down and helped him get started. "Do you know your threes?" asked the school district supervisor. Ivan easily counted the three wheels on the tricycle, but he was stumped when asked how many meals you are supposed to eat in a day. Ivan, who has gone to school without eating breakfast, was puzzled. The words "lunch" and "dinner" seemed foreign to him. In fact, at the end of the day, when commenting on how great kindergarten was, he proudly showed the extra juice box he was able to take with him. "I'm not going to cry no more, and I'm going to be a big boy," he said, noting that he also had eaten cheese with bread and applesauce. The bravery of these children fighting poverty and fear everyday will both amaze and enrage you.

LOCAL EDUCATION FUND SAYS SCHOOLS MUST PAY MORE ATTENTION INSIDE CLASSROOMS
More attention should be paid to what happens inside Wake County’s classrooms, and not only to how or where more classroom space is built, according to an annual independent review of the public’s schools from Wake Education Partnership, a local education fund. The annual Quality Matters report has been issued annually since 2001. "Most of our community’s attention in 2006 centered on constructing schools and adding seats for new students," said Jay Silver, chair of the Quality Matters Committee and partner with Kilpatrick Stockton. "While these issues are important, they draw public attention away from critical issues related to student performance. The next level of success will not come easily. The challenges on the horizon require time, attention, and even money -- all of which are in limited supply." Despite past successes in Wake County public school performance, significant challenges continue to confront public schools, including enrollment growth, student achievement and school funding. Quality Matters is the result of a year-long study of key issues related to academic performance and funding of the Wake County Public School System. It provides data, research and recommendations for what must be done by the community to ensure that students can learn better, teachers can teach better, and how school leaders can be more effective in building a system where quality truly continues to matter. The report is a collaborative advocacy effort researched and written by business, civic, and education leaders convened by Wake Education Partnership

ACADEMIC GAINS NOT SUPERIOR AMONG STUDENTS ENROLLED IN PRIVATELY RUN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Academic improvement among students attending Philadelphia public schools managed by private operators kept pace, but did not exceed, the achievement gains of students in the rest of the district in the past four years, according to an analysis issued today by the RAND Corporation and Research for Action. While significant academic gains were made from 2002 to 2006 by students across Philadelphia, private managers who were given extra funds to run 45 elementary and middle schools did not achieve additional gains exceeding district-wide trends, according to researchers. Researchers say that their findings have implications for other regions that are considering private management of public schools and that the effort in Philadelphia suggests the challenges of implementing private management on a large scale. Philadelphia is the site of the largest experiment in the private management of public schools in the United States. "Schools in Philadelphia have shown strong improvement that has been reflected widely across the district," said Jolley Christman, a co-author of the report. "But our findings show the investment in private management of schools has not paid the expected dividends." Advocates of private management of public schools say the approach works best when private managers have full control of campuses and parents decide where to enroll their children -- measures that were not fully implemented in Philadelphia. Funding for the study was provided by the Annenberg Foundation, the William Penn Foundation and the Accountability Review Council for the School District of Philadelphia. The presentation of findings was hosted by the Philadelphia Education Fund, a local education fund. The report, "State Takeover, School Restructuring, Private Management, and Student Achievement in Philadelphia," was co-authored Ron Zimmer of RAND and Suzanne Blanc of Research for Action.

WHY I WON'T GO TO THE PROM
April Daley, a high school senior, writes in New Youth Connections that she doesn't plan to attend her prom. Her friends have tried to convince her that prom is pivotal in a teen's life, a rite of passage, and that there will never be an event like prom ever again. She doesn't see her prom as a rite of passage into adulthood. Prom was created to teach teens the poise and composure they would need as adults. But it has evolved into a night that's often devoid of poise and composure. Since the 1980s, prom has been less about learning manners and more about celebration, drinking and sex. Instead of celebrating their readiness to take on adult responsibilities, teens now seem to celebrate the freedom to not be responsible for their actions. When prom first started, teens wore their Sunday best, which they usually already owned. They didn't go out to buy dresses or rent tuxes or limos. It was more about the event than what you wore to the event. But now, there are seating charts for the limo. There are nails to be painted, time to be spent under the hair dryer for elaborate up-dos, prom tickets to buy, corsages and boutonnieres to color-coordinate and accessories to pull it all together. Prom may have its merits, but it is no longer a rite of passage, it is just a fancy party.

STUDENT EDUCATIONAL & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FOR SUCCESS
A school security initiative and enhanced teacher pay were among several new education programs outlined by Gov. Joe Manchin III in his recent State of the State address. Gov. Manchin, a Democrat, said that West Virginia should focus its attention on improving its response to school emergencies. He is requesting $10 million for the creation of a school-access safety-grant initiative, headed by the School Building Authority, to better secure and monitor access to public schools. Overall, the governor is proposing to spend $1.81 billion on K-12 education in a fiscal 2008 state budget of $3.87 billion. The governor also recommended a 2.5 percent across-the-board pay raise for all teachers, a minimum salary of $30,000 for all full-time teachers, and an increase in the salary bonus for teachers who earn certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. In addition, he outlined a new project called Student Educational and Economic Development for Success, or SEEDS, a public-private partnership between the state and the Education Alliance, a local education fund. SEEDS aims to help struggling schools through the use of established business practices, such as time management, goal-setting, and performance measurement, reports Laura Greifner in Education Week.

CHILDREN LEFT BEHIND: HOW METROPOLITAN AREAS ARE FAILING AMERICA’S CHILDREN
The DiversityData project identifies metropolitan area indicators of diversity, opportunity, quality of life and health for various racial and ethnic population groups. This website is now available to a wide variety of potential users interested in describing, profiling and ranking U.S. metros in terms of quality of life. The indicators provide a scorecard on diversity and opportunity, and allow researchers, policymakers and community advocates to compare metro areas and to help them advocate for policy action and social change. The choice of indicators was grounded in recent work on urban inequality and health inequality, which points to the significance of racial/ethnic disparities in health, educational, employment and housing opportunities across metro areas. The project challenges urban researchers, policymakers and activists to define quality of life and health broadly -- to include opportunities for good schools, housing, jobs, wages, health and social services, and safe neighborhoods -- to compare achievement across metros, and to make continuous changes to keep metropolitan life healthy for all populations. Public policies may enhance or harm the well-being of diverse populations. Important policy areas include neighborhood integration, residential mobility, anti-discrimination in housing, urban renewal, school quality and economic opportunities. A new report from the Harvard School of Public Health scores the living conditions experienced by children in the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas. It reveals a consistently bleak picture for black and Hispanic children compared to white and Asian children and suggests approaches to address some of the factors behind whether or not a child thrives.

REVIEWING THE SCHOOL CUPCAKE BAN
For several months now, many schools have been taking a hard line on hard candy -- as well as the cookies and cream-filled confections that used to seem like harmless splurges in the course of a child's day. But many parents and health advocates wish schools would devote as much energy to reforming the quality of lunch fare as they've invested in ridding campuses of sodas and snacks. The controversy over contraband foods is the result of a federal law requiring every school system in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs to write a "wellness policy" by July of last year. Washington, D.C.'s Board of Education still has not adopted final rules codifying its wellness policy, although officials insist that many of the programs are already taking place in the schools. Spotsylvania County (VA) schools have crafted what is perhaps the most comprehensive wellness policy in the region, ranging from curbing what's sold in vending machines to providing nutritional counseling. Implementing that detailed action plan keeps Nancy Farrell, the school system's full-time "wellness dietitian," on her toes. Instead of teachers having ice cream parties or giving out candy bars or pizza coupons as rewards, reports Karen Pallarito in The Washington Post, Farrell encourages them to hold class outdoors, hand out homework passes or offer verbal praise. She also adorns school hallways with posters featuring kids, teachers and principals eating healthy food. Those things are all well and good, school health advocates agree, but they remain frustrated by the slow pace of achieving broader school lunch reforms.

STUDENTS GET MORE NEWS IN CLASSROOM FROM INTERNET THAN TV OR NEWSPAPERS
A new survey by the Carnegie-Knight Task Force at Harvard University shows a strong movement in America’s classrooms toward the use of Internet-based news and away from the use of newspapers and television news, a trend that is virtually certain to continue. The study also shows that teachers, as they have moved to the Internet, have switched from using hundreds of local news outlets to making use of a small number of national ones. Internet-based news in the classroom is dominated by the websites of a few top news organizations including CNN, PBS, and The New York Times. In fact, the classroom use of non-U.S. websites, such as BBC’s, even exceeds the use of local TV or newspaper sites. The report is based on parallel national surveys of over 1,250 social studies, civics, and government teachers in grades 5 through 12, as well as several hundred Newspaper-in-Education (NIE) program directors at daily newspapers. The survey of teachers showed that half are making greater use of news today than they were a few years ago, an increase attributable to developments outside the school such as the war on terrorism and the fighting in Iraq. For over 20 years, hundreds of large and small U.S. dailies have provided free or reduced rate copies of their newspapers for classroom use by students through the Newspapers-in-Education program. Touted as a means of improving students’ reading, spelling, and writing skills as well as contributing to civic education, it has also been a way to encourage students to become lifelong newspaper readers. Most newspapers continue to promote hard-copy newspapers at a time when teachers and students are moving online.

LIVING NEAR BUSY ROADS TIED TO KIDS' LUNG RISK
Growing up near a freeway stunts a child's breathing capacity for a lifetime, significantly increasing the risk of serious lung and heart diseases later in life, according to researchers who monitored thousands of Southern California children for up to eight years. The landmark study, led by a team of University of Southern California scientists and released Thursday, delivers a sobering answer to a long-standing question about the health effects of being raised near a busy roadway where air is chronically polluted. These children not only are more likely to develop asthma, but their lung development can be permanently cut short, increasing their odds of having a heart attack or a life-threatening respiratory condition, starting as early as their 50s. The findings carry profound policy implications nationwide for agencies that monitor and regulate air pollution, for locally elected officials who determine where to place new roads and housing tracts, and for education officials who buy property for new schools, reports Chris Bowman in The Sacramento Bee.

CALIFORNIA ARTS EDUCATION HANDBOOK NOW ONLINE
The purpose of The Insider’s Guide to Arts Education Planning is to provide a hands-on, how-to planning process for schools, districts and counties. Field tested best practices, innovative ideas, templates and strategies are offered here as a guide to navigate arts education planning. The California Alliance for Arts Education is pleased to offer this guide as a tool and catalyst for strategic thinking and district wide planning. The Guide grows out of the Community Arts Education Project (CAEP), a 2001 jointly sponsored initiative of the California Alliance for Arts Education (CAAE) and the California State PTA. The original project was conceived as both a guidebook and a hands-on technical assistance process that enables districts to assess current arts learning programs and funding allocations, identify gaps in delivery, and create strategic plans that will ensure equitable access for all students in each of the four arts disciplines.

NEW STUDY OF GATES SMALL HIGH SCHOOL IN NYC
In 2002, New York City initiated an ambitious campaign to transform its public high schools, which, on average, had been graduating only half their students. The lowest performing high schools in the City were replaced with new, smaller schools intended to prepare students for successful postsecondary study or work. But, have smaller high schools worked? A new WestEd study, prepared for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, examines 14 of the new, smaller high schools that graduated their first class in June, 2006. Data indicate that attendance is high, ninth grade promotion rates are high, and a majority of students are graduating. A significant number of those graduates are applying to and being accepted by postsecondary institutions, over half of whom will be the first in their family to attend college. The report, "Rethinking High School: Inaugural Graduations at New York City's New High Schools," provides a snapshot of the promise and impact of these small high schools in the lives of adolescent learners from some of New York's most underserved communities.

PUBLIC SCHOOL PRINCIPALS REPORT ON THEIR SCHOOL FACILITIES
This new report from the National Center for Education Statistics provides information about principals' satisfaction with various environmental factors in their schools, and the extent to which they perceive those factors as interfering with the ability of the school to deliver instruction. The report also describes the extent of the match between the enrollment and the capacity of the school buildings, approaches for coping with overcrowding, the ways in which schools use portable (temporary) buildings and reasons for using them, and the availability of dedicated rooms or facilities for particular subjects (such as science labs or music rooms) and the extent to which these facilities are perceived to support instruction. Major findings (from latest 2005 data) include: More than half of the principals reported that their school had fewer students than the school’s design capacity: 21 percent said their school was underenrolled by more than 25 percent, and 38 percent said their school was underenrolled by between 6 and 25 percent. The remaining schools included those that had enrollments within 5 percent of their capacity (22 percent) and those that were overenrolled (10 percent were overenrolled by between 6 to 25 percent above their capacity, and 8 percent by more than 25 percent of their design capacity). Those schools that principals described as overcrowded used a variety of approaches to deal with the overcrowding: using portable classrooms (78 percent), converting non-classroom space into classrooms (53 percent), increasing class sizes (44 percent), building new permanent buildings or additions to existing buildings (35 percent), using off-site instructional facilities (5 percent), or other approaches (12 percent).

DOES SCHOOL CHOICE INCREASE PARENT INVOLVEMENT?
Choice proponents argue that allowing parents to choose schools that match their preferences reduces local conflicts and encourages effective school management practices. As a result, parents are more willing to participate in school activities. A new paper by Jack Buckley uses data from the National Household Education Survey (NHES) to compare parent involvement in four types of schools: assigned public, chosen public, non-religious private, and religious private. Descriptive statistics suggest that attendance at school meetings and events and participation in volunteering and fundraising is greater in schools of choice. However, more advanced statistical methods that control for family background characteristics produce different outcomes. Public schools of choice appear to have no effect on parent attendance at school meetings and events, but provide a substantial boost to parent volunteering. Private secular schools show a decline in parent attendance at school events, but an increase in parent volunteering. Most interesting, private religious schools are found to decrease parent involvement across all measures.

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"Community Schools National Awards for Excellence"
The Coalition for Community Schools has established a national awards program to highlight the expansion and effectiveness of community schools, which it defines as any school or initiative that is both a place and a set of partnerships between the school and other community resources, whose integrated focus on academics, youth development, family support, health and social services and community development leads to improved student learning, stronger families and healthier communities. Maximum Award: recognition on Capitol Hill. Eligibility: individual community schools and community-wide initiatives that have been operating for three or more years. Deadline: March 22, 2007.

"Student Poetry Contest"
The Sarah Mook Memorial Poetry Contest acknowledges, encourages, and rewards the efforts of student poets. Maximum Award: $100. Eligibility: students K-12. Deadline: March 31, 2007.

"Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching"
The Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching are among the Nation's highest honors for teachers of mathematics and science and recognize highly qualified teachers for their contributions in the classroom and to their profession. Maximum Award: $10,000. Eligibility: teachers 7-12 with 5 years experience teaching Math or Science. Deadline: May 1, 2007.

"Equipping High-achieving Low-income Students to Apply Successfully to Leading Schools"
Questbridge, a non-profit organization dedicated to giving high-achieving low-income students resources during the college application process, is accepting applications for its College Prep Program for High School Juniors. Maximum Award: full scholarship to summer program, college admissions counseling, and attendance at college preparatory conferences. Eligibility: Qualified low-income High School Juniors. Deadline: May 31, 2007.

For a detailed listing of EXISTING GRANT OPPORTUNITIES (updated each week), visit:
http://www.publiceducation.org/newsblast_grants.asp

QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"Listening is the most effective persuasive strategy in existence. Nothing builds trust, loyalty, commitment, and action like feeling heard. We live in a society of unaccountable government and corporate power, where people's everyday experience is akin to talking to a telephone company's customer ‘service’ department. In this context, civil society organizations can be a breath of fresh air. The Internet represents an opportunity for scaling up listening to our stakeholders that we haven't seen since the intimate life of villages. In so doing, our organizations will raise more money, mobilize more volunteers, and build vastly greater capacity to pursue our missions."

 - Michael Gilbert (innovator/researcher/consultant)
http://www.gilbert.org/

"Today, there is overwhelming statistical evidence that rather than leveling the playing field, schools actually accentuate the inequities and injustices of society."

 - Daniel Baron (educator)
spotted in Marshall Memo: http://www.marshallmemo.com

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