Public Education Network Weekly NewsBlast

PEN Weekly NewsBlast for April 13, 2007

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WHY WE VOTE: HOW SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES SHAPE OUR CIVIC LIFE
Why do more people vote -- or get involved in other civic and political activities -- in some communities than in others? The new book, "Why We Vote," demonstrates that our communities shape our civic and political engagement, and that schools are especially significant communities for fostering strong civic norms. Much of the research on political participation has found that levels of participation are higher in diverse communities where issues important to voters are hotly contested. In this well-argued work, David Campbell finds support for this view, but also shows that homogenous communities often have very high levels of civic participation despite a lack of political conflict. Campbell maintains that this sense of civic duty springs not only from one's current social environment, but also from one's early influences. The degree to which people feel a sense of civic obligation stems, in part, from their adolescent experience. Being raised and thus socialized in a community with strong civic norms leads people to be civically engaged in adulthood. Campbell demonstrates how the civic norms within one's high school impact individuals' civic involvement -- even 15 years after those individuals have graduated. Efforts within America's high schools to enhance young people's sense of civic responsibility could have a participatory payoff in years to come, the book concludes; thus schools would do well to focus more attention on building civic norms among their students.

MORE PARENTAL POWER IN REVISED NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND URGED
Advocates want the federal law to give states the power to enforce the parental-involvement sections of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), reports David J. Hoff in Education Week. The No Child Left Behind Act has expanded parents’ power over their children’s education and given them more information about student achievement than ever before. But Congress ought to take further steps to promote parental involvement when it reauthorizes the five-year-old law, parent activists told a Senate panel last week. The federal law should guarantee funding for parent resource centers, authorize schools to spend federal money to hire family-service coordinators, and give states the power to enforce the parental-involvement sections of the education law, the advocates told the Senate health, education, labor, and pensions committee on March 28. "Schools are not taking these provisions seriously enough," Wendy D. Puriefoy, the president of Public Education Network, said of the law. "Significant changes are needed." Under the NCLB law, districts are required to involve parents when they are writing their plans to comply with Title I and other programs in the law. They also must develop a parental-involvement policy and hold regular meetings with parents explaining what the district is doing to meet the law’s achievement goals for students in reading and mathematics. Although parental advocates considered those requirements to be significant improvements over previous versions of the law authorizing the Title I compensatory education program, they suggested that Congress should do more. In addition to Puriefoy’s request for states to be given the power to ensure districts are fully complying with the parental-involvement measures, other experts suggested that portions of the $12.7 billion Title I program be set aside to pay for services to help parents.

EXPERT TEACHERS CALL FOR PERFORMANCE PAY
A group of expert teachers from across the country is calling for radical changes in the way teachers have traditionally been compensated, saying teachers are ready for performance-pay that truly advances student achievement and the teaching profession. Their report, Performance-Pay for Teachers: Designing a System that Students Deserve, is the first from TeacherSolutions, an initiative of the Center for Teaching Quality to bring the views of expert teachers to bear on critical issues facing public education. The teachers’ recommendations include replacing the traditional teacher-pay structure that rewards only seniority and advanced degrees with a comprehensive new framework that would allow all teachers to earn more through a variety of incentives as they progress from "novice" to "expert." Incentives would be tied to student progress, relevant professional development, school and community leadership, and collaborative work, including mentoring and coaching, that extends teacher expertise beyond a single classroom.

SCHOOL PLANS FIRST NON-SEGREGATED PROM
Breaking from tradition, high school students in a small Georgia town are getting together for this year’s prom. Prom night at Turner County High has long been an evening of de facto segregation: white students organized their own unofficial prom, while black students did the same. This year’s group of seniors didn't want that legacy. When the four senior class officers -- two whites and two blacks -- met with Principal Chad Stone at the start of the school year, they had more on their minds than changes to the school’s dress code. They wanted an all-school prom. They wanted everyone invited. On April 21, they'll have their wish. The town’s auditorium will be transformed into a tropical scene, and for the first time, every junior and senior, regardless of race, will be invited. The prom’s theme: Breakaway. Students say the self-segregation that splits social circles in school mirrors the attitude of this town of 4,000 people. So getting every student to break from the past could be a difficult task. With prom night about two weeks away, only half of the 160 upper-class students have bought tickets. And there’s talk around the school that some white students might throw a competing party at a nearby lake.

COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS ON STUDENT ENROLLMENT, RECRUITMENT & RETENTION
With a long tradition of serving as a bridge between the community and public schools, the San Francisco Education Fund, a local education fund, is experienced in engaging individuals, organizations and institutions in positive action around public education. A new report -- "Student Enrollment, Recruitment and Retention: Community Conversations about San Francisco Schools" -- is the culmination of a six-month public engagement effort jointly led by the San Francisco Education Fund (Ed Fund), the San Francisco Board of Education Parent Advisory Council (PAC) the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), Parents for Public Schools-San Francisco (PPS), María-Fernanda Gonzalez, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, and Collaborative Communications Group. The report shares what the working group heard about community members’ values, hopes and goals for San Francisco public schools. The more they talked with students, parents and community members, the louder they heard that, while we all might differ on the details, we share a sense of what matters, as articulated in six priorities:

This report provides the most definitive feedback on what the San Francisco stakeholders need, want, and expect for the future of San Francisco public schools.

TRENDS IN POLITICAL VALUES AND CORE ATTITUDES: 1987-2007
Changes nationally in the beliefs of Americans on social, political and religious values tell a revealing but incomplete story. The proportion of voters who hold certain politically relevant core beliefs varies widely from state to state, further complicating an already complicated 2008 election campaign. Even more striking than the changes in some core political and social values in the United States is the dramatic shift in party identification that has occurred during the past five years. In 2002, the country was equally divided along partisan lines: 43 percent identified with the Republican party or leaned to the GOP, while an identical proportion said they were Democrats. Today, half of the public (50 percent) either identifies as a Democrat or says they lean to the Democratic Party, compared with 35 percent who align with the GOP. Yet the Democrats' growing advantage in party identification is tempered by the fact that the Democratic party's overall standing with the public is no better than it was when President Bush was first inaugurated in 2001. Instead, it is the Republican party that has rapidly lost public support, particularly among political independents. Faced with an unpopular president overseeing an increasingly unpopular war, the proportion of Americans who hold a favorable view of the Republican Party stands at 41 percent, down 15 points since January 2001. But during that same period, the proportion expressing a positive view of Democrats has declined by six points, to 54 percent. The study of the public's political values and attitudes by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press -- the most recent in a series of such reports dating back to 1987 -- finds a pattern of rising support since the mid-1990s for government action to help disadvantaged Americans. More Americans believe that the government has a responsibility to take care of people who cannot take care of themselves, and that it should help more needy people even if it means going deeper into debt.

BASEBALL STAR ROGER CLEMENS PITCHES PUBLIC EDUCATION
Roger Clemens and several Texas business leaders appear with schoolchildren in new, statewide TV spots designed to increase support for public education. "Our public schools are at their best when students, parents, teachers, principals and business and community leaders work together," said former Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff, board chairman of "Raise Your Hand." Ratliff, a retired Republican state senator from Mount Pleasant, and others formed the group to counter what they perceived were negative and false perceptions of public education. In the TV spots, several children affirm belief in their teachers and schools and ask Texans to "raise their hands for us", reports Gary Scharrer in the Houston Chronicle. Clemens and the others ask Texans to raise their hands "to celebrate, defend and support our public schools" and "to show teachers and the administrators that we believe in them." School administrators came under fire from some legislative leaders two years ago for helping block school funding bills. Ratliff's group opposes school vouchers and supports expanding kindergarten to full day and offering pre-kindergarten programs to all children. Raise Your Hand's Lynda Rife wouldn't specify how much the group is spending on a blitz that includes ads in newspapers, billboards and radio spots. "We're spending enough to make sure that most Texans have heard of our name and know that we have influential people across the state that support our schools," she said. "We feel that someone needs to stand up" for public schools.

WORK FOR REAL EDUCATION REFORM
The new education reform report called "Tough Choices or Tough Times" is the first national report of its kind in recent years to truly address and challenge the deeply entrenched and systemic factory-model nature of our educational system. Our traditional time-defined paradigm of "school" has become so legalized, institutionalized, internalized and continuously reinforced that it is ingrained in our culture and way of thinking. That's why virtually all other major educational reform reports or initiatives have either reinforced this outdated and counter-productive paradigm or simply tried to apply Band-Aids to it. Since most Americans love the image of the school they attended, they can't imagine anything else and don't want to see it changed. That's a key reason why real educational change proceeds at a snail's pace, gets blocked or never really materializes, writes Bill Spady in the Denver Post. The changes needed in education should be far broader than the report's focus on math, technology and literacy. Educators of all stripes should support a vision for educational outcomes that include abilities to synthesize, creative imagination, motivation, social skills, leadership abilities, decision making, teamwork, and what is generally called "emotional intelligence." The "Tough Choices" report also has an enormous business bias and urges education to yet again to operate more like modern business -- a notion that has both merit and enormous dangers, depending on how its complex (and vague) vision of performance standards and enlightened instructional practices are, in fact, applied.

ANALYSIS CHALLENGES CONVENTIONAL WISDOM IN INFANT BRAIN GROWTH
Over the past decade, it has become conventional wisdom in many education circles that sufficient stimulation in the first three years of life can go a long way toward hardwiring the brain for success. Lawmakers have been swayed by the argument that if they invest in building brainier babies, they'll collect dividends later in the kids' lives in the form of savings on job training, corrections and welfare. Following conventional wisdom that the first three years of life are the most important for children's development, parents are spending millions of dollars each year supporting a booming baby toy industry and other products and services aimed at unleashing a baby's inner genius. As well, state and federal policymakers have poured millions of dollars into programs focused on the first three years. But much of this conventional wisdom is based on misinterpretations and misapplications of brain research, according to a new report from Education Sector. Sara Mead explains what existing evidence really does -- and does not -- say about brain development from ages zero to three. Mead points out some of the problems caused by the overselling of the importance of the first three years and argues for a more reasoned approach to early childhood development.

WHO IS IN CHARGE OF PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS?
Citing irrefutable harm to children from toxic chemicals, rising chronic health care costs, and lack of coordinated, preventive agency responses, leading New York state disability rights, environmental and education organizations joined with the Learning Disabilities Association and Healthy Schools Network to release a new, landmark report about children’s health, "Unwanted Exposure: Preventing Environmental Threats to the Health of New York State’s Children." Moved by the undeniable correlation between the growth of learning and developmental disabilities and the proliferation of harmful toxins in the environment, representatives of the disability advocacy, environmental health, children’s health and education communities joined together to call on Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the legislature to address this growing public health problem.

GETTING TO THE HEART OF THE HOMELESS PROBLEM:
Children experiencing homelessness face severe challenges. High mobility, unstable living conditions and poverty combine to present significant educational, health and emotional difficulties. The federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act guarantees homeless children important rights, but identifying and serving these at-risk children can be difficult. Marsha Boutelle reports on the challenges, as well as some resources available to help meet them, for the California School Boards Association's "California Schools" magazine.

EDUCATION LEADERSHIP POLICY TOOLKIT NOW AVAILABLE
The Education Commission of the States (ECS) announces the release of the Education Leadership Policy Toolkit, a comprehensive online toolkit that provides information on effective education leadership policies and practices. The toolkit was created through the generous support of MetLife Foundation and is designed to provide information to state policymakers and school district leaders -- as well as principals and teachers -- with the goal of increasing leadership capacity in schools, districts and states. Information on the site was gathered and synthesized from a series of case studies conducted around the nation in districts with strong student learning, often in challenging contexts. The Education Leadership Policy Toolkit organizes information into eight key categories that represent the common leadership factors in all the studied districts: Vision, Governance, Relationships, Culture, Human Development, Instruction, Evaluation and Resource Allocation. Within each category, users can find example policies and practices, recommendations and key elements of effective leadership at three different levels: state, district and school. Additional resources for each leadership factor are provided as well. Additionally, the site features case studies on the challenges and successes of three different districts: Boston; National City, Calif.; and Memphis, Tenn. Each case study features the perspective from a teacher, a principal and the district superintendent about how change was implemented, and what conditions and beliefs are essential for effective and successful leadership. The toolkit provides online audio clips of interviews with a teacher, principal and superintendent from each district.

USEFULNESS OF EDUCATION RESEARCH QUESTIONED
More than five years after President Bush's No Child Left Behind law told educators to rely on "scientifically based" methods, the science produced is often inconclusive, politically charged or less than useful for classroom teachers. And when it is useful, it often is misused or ignored altogether, reports Greg Toppo in USA TODAY. As the 88th annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) takes place this week in Chicago, critics say the USA's huge community of education researchers -- 14,000 are attending -- often studies topics that do little to help schools solve practical problems such as how to train teachers, how to raise skills, how to lower dropout rates and whether smaller classes really make a difference. Others defend AERA's work and that of researchers in general but say the patchwork system of public schools makes it hard even for relevant research to reach the classroom.

STRATEGIES FOR SUSTAINING ARTS EDUCATION IN PUBLIC HOUSING COMMUNITIES
The National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts has released the Creative Communities Initiative Summary Report. The report summarizes strategies for successful arts education partnerships with public housing communities. Findings were gleaned from an extraordinary three-year, $4.65 million partnership between the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and National Guild. Many of the findings are relevant to a wide range of cross-sector arts education partnerships. The Initiative was successful in delivering high-quality arts instruction to more than 7,000 children and youth. Of these students, 94 percent reported feelings of safety and belonging in their classes, more than 90 percent reported wanting to learn more about the arts, and more than 75 percent felt that their capacity for self-expression increased. Evaluation results indicated that the Initiative had limited success in achieving its goal of fostering sustained partnerships between community schools and public housing communities. Only five of the 20 partnerships were able to continue their programs beyond the three-year term of the initiative. Even so, a great deal was learned about what it takes to establish sustainable partnerships between community-based arts education organizations and public housing authorities. The report highlights successful strategies such as planning collaboratively so that both partners are engaged from the outset; ensuring ongoing communication across multiple levels at each partner organization; publicly championing the partnership project; conducting evaluation; getting to know the population being served; and understanding the protocol, rules and regulations affecting your partner.

FREE HIGH-QUALITY TEACHING & LEARNING RESOURCES
The Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education has just released OER Commons, the first comprehensive open learning network that enables users to find freely available high-quality teaching and learning materials. Created with and for educators, students, and self-learners, this broad selection of open educational resources for K-12 and higher education can be browsed, searched, and enhanced using collaborative social networking features, such as tags, ratings, and reviews. The goal of OER Commons is to bring innovation to teachers and learners around the world. Within its first month, OER Commons has forged alliances with over 60 major content partners in order to provide a single point of access through which educators and learners can search across collections to access over 9,000 open educational resources, read and provide descriptive information about each resource, and retrieve the ones they need. There are a wide range of educational resources, from complete courses to learning modules to library documents, and from algebra to zoology, all in one place. Many of the resources use one of the popular Creative Commons licenses.

INVESTOR ED 101: BEST CLASSROOM TOOLS
If you are a teacher who has had a hard time finding quality investor education content for your middle school or high school classroom, your search is over! The nonprofit Alliance for Investor Education (AIE) today is highlighting ten of the best available investor education classroom resources for teachers and students. AIE is a 22-member organization of the United States’ leading financial-related foundations, nonprofit organizations, associations and governmental agencies.

KEY STATE EDUCATION POLICIES ON PK-12 EDUCATION: 2006
This CCSSO report informs policymakers and educators about the current status of key education policies across the 50 states that define and shape elementary and secondary education in public schools. The report is part of a continuing biennial series by the Council’s state education indicators program. CCSSO reports 50-state information on policies regarding teacher preparation and certification, high school graduation requirements, student assessment programs, school time, and student attendance. The report also includes state-by-state information on content standards and curriculum, teacher assessment, and school leader/administrator licensure.

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"Innovation Grants for Individual Teachers"
Jordan Fundamentals Innovation Grants are available to individual teachers or paraprofessionals to support development of more effective approaches of traditional strategies to engage students and foster improved outcomes in classrooms. Maximum Award: $2,500. Eligibility: public school teachers or paraprofessionals grades 1-12. At least 50 percent of the school's student population must be eligible for the free or reduced school lunch program. Deadline: May 1, 2007.

"Inspiration Grants for Teams of Teachers"
Jordan Fundamentals Inspiration Grants will be awarded to teams of teachers to support scaling-up implementation of approaches developed with Jordan Fundamentals Innovation Grants that hold promise for scalability and replication. Multi-year funding for Inspiration Grants will require evidence of sustainability. Maximum Award: $10,000. Eligibility: public school teachers or paraprofessionals grades 1-12. At least 50 percent of the school's student population must be eligible for the free or reduced school lunch program. Deadline: May 1, 2007.

"Grants to Improve Teaching and Learning in the Arts"
The National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts and the MetLife Foundation Partners in Arts Education Project aims to improve teaching and learning in the arts by advancing high-quality, sustainable partnerships between community-based arts education organizations and public schools. Maximum Award: $20,000. Eligibility: organizations that are Full Members in good standing of the National Guild of Community Schools may apply. Non-member organizations should submit a membership application and first-year dues payments at least one week prior to submitting an application; Partnerships must serve K-12 public school students in one of the 33 cities listed on the website application guidelines. Deadline: May 25, 2007.

"Grants for Accelerated Learning & Academic Enrichment Programs for Low-Income Youth"
The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation seeks nonprofit providers of accelerated learning or academic enrichment programs for grants (over a period of three years) to increase access to such programs for low- to moderate-income students ages 5 through 12 with exceptional academic promise. Maximum Award: $600,000. Eligibility: Nonprofit providers of accelerated learning or academic enrichment programs. Since proposals for these grants are solicited by invitation only, those who wish to apply for a grant but have not received an invitation must first submit a letter of interest and receive an invitation. Unsolicited applications will not be accepted. Deadline: June 1, 2007.

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

QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"Success in kindergarten depends on more than the ability to tie shoelaces or recite the alphabet. A warm bed, a full stomach and supportive parents are just as critical to a good start in school.’"

 - Staci Hupp (reporter)
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070221/LOCAL18/702210464/1195/LOCAL

"Louis Armstrong was a major financial supporter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists, but mostly preferred to work quietly behind the scenes, not mixing his politics with his work as an entertainer. The few exceptions made it more effective when he did speak out; Armstrong's criticism of President Eisenhower, calling him ‘two-faced’ and ‘gutless’ because of his inaction during the conflict over school desegregation in Little Rock, Ark. in 1957 made national news. As a protest, Armstrong canceled a planned tour of the Soviet Union on behalf of the State Department saying ‘The way they're treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell’ and that he could not represent his government abroad when it was in conflict with its own people.’"

 - Wikipedia

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