Public Education Network Weekly NewsBlast

PEN Weekly NewsBlast for June 8, 2007

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SCHOOLS’ DEEP-POCKETED PARTNERS
In the last decade, a growing number of parents, alumni and corporations have been donating private money to public schools for a wide range of school equipment, educational supplies, artists-in-residence and accouterments that go beyond the traditional PTA gifts and what may otherwise be outside the local school board’s spending plan. Some schools have used the donated money to provide basics, at a time when many districts are facing ballooning instructional costs coupled with taxpayer fatigue. Other districts, reports Alison Cowan in the New York Times, have used educational foundations to help add frills: greenhouses and weather stations, climbing walls and film libraries, and in one case, a quilting machine. Some school districts have set caps on how much donors could collectively give to a single school, all in the name of fairness. Consultants estimate that more than 5,000 such foundations exist nationwide, roughly equal to one out of every three school districts. The foundations seem to thrive best in well-off towns, whose residents are eager and able to support the schools, and in distressed cities that can attract traditional grants aimed at easing poverty. That leaves many districts muddling along without a strong financial partner. The real value of education foundations, some observers note, is to sustain public and community funding by becoming permanent partners and bridge builders with school districts.

HELPING IMPOVERISHED PARENTS BECOMING INVOLVED IN SCHOOLS
For schools struggling to help at-risk children, it is essential to reach out to parents. But simply wanting "parent involvement" is not enough. Indeed, the families that stand to benefit most from closer school ties -- families living in poverty, English language learners, and others who find themselves marginalized by any number of misfortunes -- are usually the hardest to attract. Districts, especially those serving low-income families, need comprehensive outreach plans to strengthen family ties and provide parents with the skills and information to help their children succeed. Improving the academic performance of at-risk children requires more than raising standards and monitoring test scores: It means reaching out to families and communities and engaging them in the difficult work of education, writes Lawrence Hardy in American School Board Journal. While disadvantaged communities may, by definition, have the highest levels of stress, no family or school system is immune. Under the old model of parent involvement, a few parents might sit on an advisory committee or volunteer at school. While that might have been fine for 1965, it won't work in 2007, says Joyce L. Epstein, director of the Center on School, Family and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University. "That is not teamwork," Epstein says. "It’s not comprehensive. It’s not goal oriented. It’s not research based." A more dynamic strategy -- what Epstein calls "the new way" -- is to make parent and community involvement an integral part of the school improvement process.

$1,100 FOR A GLASS OF LEMONADE AT SCHOOL FUNDRAISER
For $1,100, you could buy 44 lemon trees, 183 lemon meringue pies, or 738 bags of lemons. Or you could buy one glass of lemonade in Ross, Calif., reports Gary Klein in the Marin Independent Journal. The Ross School Foundation will offer the high-end lemonade as part of a fundraiser at the post office. The catch is that an $1,100 glass of lemonade also comes with a round of golf for four at the foundation's fourth annual benefit golf tournament. For anyone low on cash, there's a more economical option -- a medium glass of lemonade goes for $300 and includes golf for one. Visitors also can donate a buck and get a small glass of lemonade, or sink a putt and get one for free. Kevin Buckholtz, who is organizing the fundraiser, said the gimmick seemed like a good way to raise money for the foundation, which supports the one-school Ross School District. "We're still trying to attract teachers and we're competing with other districts, but we're small," Buckholtz said. "We spread all our costs across a small population." Tammy Murphy, superintendent of the 385-student district, said the foundation plays a huge role in the district, contributing about 20 percent of the $5 million operating budget each year. For the current school year, the foundation donated more than $1.3 million. "When you think about that from 240 families, that's pretty amazing," Murphy said. "We don't have the commercial base that other districts do. A large part of our budget comes from generous and giving families."

SCHOOLS SUFFER AS HIGH HOME PRICES DRIVE FAMILIES FROM SAN FRANCISCO
Public education is in danger of sinking along with the fortunes of its departing middle class. By now, most San Franciscans are familiar with the dismal litany: the soaring cost of housing, the resulting loss of some 800 kids from the public school system each year, the constant battles over school closures. As they compete for a dwindling number of children, San Francisco's public schools are making heroic efforts to survive. At the core of every up-and-coming school that's blossoming with arts and other enrichment programs is a core group of parents who have the motivation and the ability to raise funds for those extra programs. One principal calls them her "fundraising machine," reports Tim Holt in the San Francisco Chronicle. They're the ones who raise money for improved playgrounds, expanded libraries, school gardens, the ones who organize PTAs and potlucks. Unfortunately, many of these dynamic folks are leaving the city and taking their kids with them, these middle-class parents of all races who value education as the key to upward mobility and a better life, a value they pass on to their children -- and, through their active involvement, their children's schools. That is what is being lost as those U-Hauls pull out of the city: a sharing of values that's at the core of this great liberal experiment known as public education. Its fate is tied directly to the city's ability to muster the resources and political will to come up with yet another program with widespread benefits, one that would provide affordable housing for all its families.

STATES SATISFY NCLB BY EXPECTING LESS OF STUDENTS
According to a Gannett News Service analysis of test scores, many states have taken the safe route, keeping standards low and fooling parents into believing their kids are prepared for college and work. Federal education officials have released a report that is expected to reach the same conclusion: Many states hold students to a relatively low standard. Critics say states are more worried about creating the appearance of academic progress than in raising standards. The Center on Education Policy recently issued a report saying student achievement on state tests has risen since 2002. But it said "it's very difficult, if not impossible" to credit those gains to No Child Left Behind because states and districts already were making improvements before the law took effect. Critics of the law say it has forced schools to drill kids and emphasize testing at the expense of other learning, reports Ledyard King in USA TODAY. States and some independent experts say comparing scores on the federal and state tests isn't valid. The national exam, they say, was never designed to compare standards from state to state. It's administered only to a sample of students, each of whom takes only a portion of the test. And teachers and students are far more focused on the state tests because those tests determine whether their schools make adequate progress and, in some cases, whether seniors receive a diploma.

GULF COAST CHILDREN SEEK SAFE HARBOR DURING SUMMER
Katrina took a lot of Hancock County, Miss., children on a wild spin. Most of them are still trying to adjust to life after a catastrophe. When asked where he lives now, 7-year-old Jack Mitchell said, "In a FEMA trailer." He says it feels, "Squinched up, like in a tuna can." For the next eight weeks, the kids can take a vacation from their storm worries. The Safe Harbor Summer Camp at Bay-Waveland Middle School offers all sorts of activities for preschoolers to ninth graders. Best of all, the camp is free. "There's a huge need," said camp director Angela Benvenutti. "We don't have a movie theatre. We don't have skating rinks. We don't have any place for these children to go. So this allows us to take care of these children during the summer." While the children play and learn, they also can seek comfort from adults, who help them cut through stress and depression. "Sometimes they just break down. Sometimes they just need someone else to talk to," Benvenutti said. "We also hire certified teachers. They're here. They're trained and they know what to do when children start having these moments." Katrina may have turned their lives upside down, but this summer, reports Trang Pham-Bui for WLOX-13 News, the children are learning to bounce back.

WHEN SHOULD A CHILD START KINDERGARTEN?
According to the apple-or-coin test used in the Middle Ages, children should start school when they are mature enough for the delayed gratification and abstract reasoning involved in choosing money over fruit. In 15th- and 16th-century Germany, parents were told to send their children to school when the children started to act "rational." And in contemporary America, children are deemed eligible to enter kindergarten according to an arbitrary date on the calendar known as the birthday cutoff -- that is, when the state, or in some instances the school district, determines they are old enough. The birthday cutoffs span six months, from Indiana, where a child must turn 5 by July 1 of the year he enters kindergarten, to Connecticut, where he must turn 5 by Jan. 1 of his kindergarten year. Children can start school a year late, writes Elizabeth Weil in the New York Times, but in general they cannot start a year early. Increasing the average age of the children in a kindergarten class is a cheap and easy way to get a small bump in test scores, because older children perform better, and states’ desires for relative advantage is written into their policy briefs. In this lengthy article, Weil examines the increasing demands of kindergarten in the new age of top-down federal accountability, the desire of some wealthy parents to hold back their child for a year to give them a competitive academic advantage, and research on the impact that early and late school matriculation has on achievement scores for low-income children.

TEACHERS CAN SAY NO TO STUDENT BATHROOM BREAKS
Two attempts this spring to limit students' bathroom breaks have led to shame and controversy, reports G. Jeffrey MacDonald in USA TODAY. In late April, a sixth-grader in Ohio wet his pants during a standardized test after a teacher refused to let him use the bathroom. In early May, a California eighth-grader said he urinated into a Gatorade bottle in a classroom corner because his teacher had refused to dismiss him. Such cases, though perhaps extreme, highlight a daily challenge for teachers. They must balance classroom control with a duty to accommodate the varied and hard-to-predict biological needs of their students. In seeking that balance, should they ever say no when a student asks permission to use the bathroom? That's a matter of debate among teachers, administrators and medical professionals. "Students make requests frequently to use the restroom when they really have intentions to do other things," says Peter Reed, associate director of professional development services at the National Association of Secondary School Principals. "The real key is for every student to expect, when he or she is in (a teacher's) class, that the full amount of time needs to be devoted to the learning activities for that day. You don't have time for anything else." But some urologists worry about the consequences of waiting too long between trips to the bathroom. "Responding to your body's need to urinate or defecate is a basic human right, or even one step below that, it's a basic animal right," Dr. Christopher Cooper says. "I don't think we would (restrict) animals, yet we do restrict the kids." Complicating matters is the reality that some students avoid bathrooms because they're dirty, smelly havens for bullies.

FROM PROM TO GRADUATION PARTIES, COSTS CLIMB FOR PARENTS
From senior photos to college application fees, campus visits, prom, senior trip and graduation open house, parents of this year's seniors say they're spending upwards of $3,000 or more. Some event planners say graduation parties are becoming more elaborate and expensive, with catered meals and disc jockeys. Coming in the midst of skyrocketing gas prices, layoffs and a sluggish economy, senior costs could be a burden for some parents. Most expect to spend extra to get their seniors into college and send them off in style, but others bristle at the escalating expectations of some teens -- from a limo for prom to a DJ at their graduation party. The graduation party is no longer the simple backyard barbecue it used to be, writes Karen Bouffard in The Detroit News.

CALIFORNIA SCHOOL DISTRICT ADOPTS POLICY ON GIFT-TAKING
Prompted by a family's allegation that they were forced to shower teachers with lavish gifts so their autistic son would get the care he needed, Irvine, Calif., schools trustees voted unanimously to adopt a policy that encourages students and families to write personal notes and letters of appreciation to district employees instead of giving them presents. The policy does not forbid Irvine Unified School District teachers and staff to accept gifts, reports Seema Mehta in the Los Angeles Times, but states that they are not required and that district employees should use "sound professional judgment" when deciding whether to accept a gift. Trustees decided to create a gifts policy after a controversy in which Thomas and Liya Lin alleged they were forced to give diamonds, Coach bags, Chanel perfume and other extravagant gifts to employees at Canyon View Elementary School to ensure that their severely autistic son received proper schooling. The Irvine couple, who alleged that they spent $100,000 on the presents, dropped their legal claim against the district after the district agreed in January to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on the boy's care.

WHY DISSECTION IS A DYING ART IN SCHOOLS
Generations of biology pupils have learned the marvels of nature by dissecting specimens ranging from rabbits to worms. But the skill is dying out in schools because of health and safety red tape, concerns over animal welfare and pupil squeamishness. A survey by the Institute of Biology shows that 85 percent of teachers believe dissections are far less common in schools than 20 years ago. The packed curriculum and lack of funding are partly blamed for the decline, but 22 percent of respondents cited confusion over health and safety regulations and 28 percent said many students were too squeamish to carry out dissections. Twelve per cent reported pressure from parents -- and even other teachers -- not to use animal material in class while 14 percent cited pressure from students themselves. For some teachers, dissections are too dangerous because disruptive pupils could harm others with scalpels and scissors. The rise of interactive whiteboards, which allow pupils to view images on screen, has led some staff to show children 'virtual' dissections instead. However, an overwhelming majority of the 220 teachers who took part in the survey are convinced dissections are valuable and enhance pupils' understanding. The threat to dissection has been intensified by a lack of specialist teachers, according to London’s Evening Standard. Graduates in other sciences, such as physics and chemistry, are now allowed to take biology lessons.

LOVE OF EDUCATION LIVES ON IN TEACHERS’ BEQUESTS
The president of the San Diego Education Fund figured the nonprofit organization would get a few thousand dollars when he learned that the estate of two teachers had left some money for local scholarships. What the Education Fund got was two checks totaling $687,766 from the estate of late math teacher Virginia Mashin and her husband, Jack, a legendary coach. In the past, the Education Fund has given out as much in scholarships as it has been able to raise. Thanks to the bequest, the fund now has enough cash to establish an endowment, reports Helen Gao in the San Diego Union-Tribune. The gift will fund scholarships in perpetuity. The San Diego Education Fund has awarded more than 100 scholarships since 1989, helping many students become teachers. It has two advisers to mentor winners, many of whom are the first in their family to attend college.

DISABLED ACCESS IN SCHOOLS FAULTED
An audit of the Los Angeles Unified School District's progress in building and remodeling schools to make them accessible to the disabled found chronic problems in the design of parking, restrooms, ramps and drinking water fountains, as well as a troubling lack of documentation and misstatements of accomplishments. "We find this to be really offensive and frankly kind of squandering limited tax resources that are designed to build schools for everyone," said Catherine Blakemore, a lawyer with the public interest law firm Protection and Advocacy. The audit, performed by Disability Access Consultants, found ramps with handrails that stopped short, new bleachers without wheelchair seating and outdoor lunch tables without wheelchair access. Bathrooms or stalls marked for use by the disabled did not provide proper clearance or the appropriate height for wheelchair users. Auditors found numerous problems in each of the 19 schools selected randomly for compliance, including four new campuses, reports Evelyn Larrubia in the Los Angeles Times. It was the latest audit in a series commissioned by the monitor, but the first to tackle disabled access. In a scathing letter to the school board and superintendent, monitor Frederick Weintraub said the district had failed so dismally that it "appears indicative of a systemic problem in the management and oversight of the district's facilities program."

THE NATION, NOT SCHOOLS, TAKES LOUSY CARE OF OUR CHILDREN
Educators know first hand that less-privileged students -- an ever-growing number, seemingly -- enter school at a significant disadvantage compared to their more privileged peers. That gap opened up long before the school bell tolled. Even in schools where low-income children have made strong gains, the gap persists. Schools have little impact on poverty or the lack of good health care, decent jobs for parents, affordable housing and other social factors that contribute to a child’s readiness to learn. Educators who voiced these concerns were often chastised as racist, class-biased or indulging in the "soft bigotry of low expectations." Schools may exacerbate the achievement gap, but they didn't create it in the first place. As a nation, writes Julia Steiny in The Providence Journal, we are shockingly content to tolerate widespread poverty among our fellow citizens. We are the richest country in the world, but one in five children is brought up in a family living at the federal poverty line. The quintile above them is not much better off. In short, we take lousy care of our kids, but find it convenient to blame the schools.

NCLB: A DIMINISHED VISION OF CIVIL RIGHTS
Once upon a time, civil rights advocates were united in pursuing the goal of equal educational opportunity. They fought against racial segregation in public schools and demanded equitable resources for all students. Their focus was on "inputs," pushing state and local officials to provide adequate school facilities, well-designed instructional programs, effective teachers, and attention to the effects of poverty -- such as parental illiteracy, poor health, and malnutrition -- that pose obstacles to learning. In those days, the enemy was clear: a two-tier system that provided an inferior education to many children on the basis of skin color, language background, class status, and place of residence. But in the No Child Left Behind era, the words "equal educational opportunity" have largely faded from the public discourse. In their place, there is talk of eliminating the "achievement gaps" between various groups of students. The latter term was seldom heard in the 1980s or 1990s, writes James Crawford in Education Week. What’s the significance of this shift in terminology? Achievement gap is all about measurable "outputs" -- standardized-test scores -- and not about equalizing resources, addressing poverty, combating segregation, or guaranteeing children an opportunity to learn. The No Child Left Behind Act is silent on such matters. Dropping equal educational opportunity, which highlights the role of inputs, has a subtle but powerful effect on how we think about accountability. It shifts the entire burden of reform from legislators and policymakers to teachers and kids and schools. By implication, educators are the obstacle to change. Every mandate of No Child Left Behind -- and there are hundreds -- is designed to force the people who run our schools to shape up, work harder, raise expectations, and stop "making excuses" for low test scores, or face the consequences. Despite the law’s oft-stated reverence for "scientifically based research," this narrow approach is contradicted by numerous studies documenting the importance of social and economic factors in children’s academic progress. Yet it has the advantage of enabling politicians to ignore the difficult issues and avoid costly remedies.
 

|---------------GRANT AND FUNDING INFORMATION--------------|

"Grants to Strengthen Education Through Podcast Technology"
Tool Factory, in partnership with Olympus America, Inc., is sponsoring a podcasting grant designed to strengthen education through the use of podcasting technology. Maximum Award: $3,000. Eligibility: K-12 and special education schools in the US, its territories, and Canada. Deadline: June 30, 2007.

"National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year Award"
The Newspaper Fund will select a National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year based on his or her work during 2006-2007. The winning teacher will deliver a keynote address to scholastic and collegiate journalism educators and professional journalists. The teacher may attend a seminar at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Florida. Maximum Award: various, including a newsroom laptop; see website. Eligibility: high school journalism teachers with at least three years experience. Deadline: July 2, 2007.

"Fellowships & Professional Development Opportunities for New Science Teachers"
First- and second-year science teachers can apply to become an Associate Fellow at the National Science Teachers Association New Science Teacher Academy for a yearlong term with access to a wide array of professional development opportunities (see website for more information). Maximum Award: yearlong fellowship. Eligibility: first- and second- year science teachers with U.S. residence. Deadline: September 30, 2007.

"Broad Center Recruits for 2008 Superintendents Academy Class"
Wanted: The nation's most talented executives to run the business of urban education. The Broad Center is now accepting resumes for application consideration for the 2008 Broad Superintendents Academy. They are seeking: (1) Educators with a proven track record of success: superintendents from rural and suburban communities; deputy, associate and area superintendents from medium and large urban districts; executives from private school and charter school systems; (2) Outstanding senior executives from education, business, government, the military and nonprofit organizations who have had a successful career managing complex organizations, overseeing multimillion-dollar budgets and leading sizeable teams of people; and (3) Dynamic entrepreneurs and risk-takers who challenge the status quo. Know someone who fits this profile? Nominate them. Click the link below for admissions information. The final application deadline is September 16, 2007. Questions? Email academy@broadcenter.org or call (310) 954.5080.

"Awards Recognized School District Best Practices"
American School Board Journal (ASBJ) is accepting nominations online for the 2008 Magna Awards through October 1, 2007. Presented in cooperation with Sodexho School Services, winners of the Magna Awards receive national recognition in a special supplement to ASBJ and are honored at a luncheon at the National School Boards Association’s annual conference. Awards are handed out in three enrollment categories -- under 5,000 enrollment, 5,001 to 20,000, and more than 20,000. Grand prize winners in each category receive a $3,500 cash award from Sodexho. Nominations this year are being accepted only online. For more information, call (703) 838-6739.

"Wachovia Foundation Grants Support Educational Improvement"
The Wachovia Foundation is interested in working with non-profit organizations that are implementing and/or developing tailored approaches to improving education in their communities. Programs must support pre-K – 12 public education and address the systemic issues related to teachers and teaching, such as professional development, school support, recruitment or retention. Maximum Award: $500,000. Eligibility: 501(c)(3) organizations with a mission to improve public education in AL, CA, CT, DE, FL, GA, MD, MS, NC, NY, NJ, PA, SC, TN, TX, VA, or Washington, D.C. Deadline: n/a.

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

QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"For too many communities, the school improvement process has felt like an exercise in labeling and public humiliation, without accompanying help or support. And while it is not wrong to expect school districts and states to take responsibility for helping in their struggling schools, there has not been adequate energy or resources dedicated to building capacity in this area. States, districts and schools desperately need more federal help -- in the form of solid, widely disseminated research and financial support -- about what it takes to turn around chronically low-performing schools, as well as what it takes to boost the academic achievement of students who enter school behind or fall behind over the course of their academic career. Especially high priority should be devoted to answering fundamental questions about best practice for teaching Limited English Proficient students."

 - Kati Haycock, (president, The Education Trust), "Testimony Before The No Child Left Behind Commission On NCLB Reauthorization," September 25, 2006.
http://www2.edtrust.org/EdTrust/Federal+and+State+Policy/NCLB+Reauthorization+Testimony.htm

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