Public Education Network Weekly NewsBlast

PEN Weekly NewsBlast for July 27, 2007

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PUBLIC SCHOOLS MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE, AMERICANS SAY
Americans believe public schools must be held accountable for properly educating children and give the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) high marks for its goals, but also think NCLB needs dramatic changes, according to results from three years of nationwide hearings held by Public Education Network (PEN). The results were released by PEN this week in a new report "Open to the Public: How Communities, Parents and Students Assess the Impact of the No Child Left Behind Act, 2004-2007. The Realities Left Behind." NCLB, slated for re-authorization by Congress this year, has been praised, vilified, noted as a well-meaning step in the right direction, and hotly criticized for not doing nearly enough to fix the nation’s public school woes by various sectors of the professional education community. Little has been said about what average, everyday Americans think about NCLB. Overall, Americans do think public schools must be held accountable for properly educating children. Based on the hearing and survey results, PEN recommends that NCLB’s re-authorization include:

However, until the act addresses the realities of inequities, limited expectations of student and teacher capacities, and the isolation of parents and communities from school reforms, it will engender more rhetoric than real difference in the success of all students," said Wendy D. Puriefoy, president and CEO of Public Education Network. "The public voice must be part of the process used by policymakers if they want to be trusted on behalf of the nation’s children."

HOW SCHOOLS GET IT RIGHT
Whether they are in wealthy or poor neighborhoods, schools with lots of high-scoring students share certain characteristics. They have experienced teachers who stay for years, reports Liz Bowie in the Baltimore Sun, and they offer extracurricular activities after school. Sometimes, they have many students in gifted-and-talented classes working with advanced material. These are the schools that families looking for a great public education will seek out and move close to because students are achieving far beyond the basic levels set by state and federal laws. It isn't just experience and tenure that seem to matter in successful schools. Teachers also need to feel they have some say in how their school is run, educators say. When staff members go to the principal with a new idea, they usually will be allowed to try it out. Top-performing schools also have a lot of extracurricular activities. In some cases, the chess club, writing club and geography clubs are run by parents. Principals say the discussion in these high-performing schools has moved away from worrying about how many students will pass to how many students will fly through the test with ease and score in the advanced category.

CORE PRINCIPLES FOR ENGAGING YOUNG PEOPLE IN COMMUNITY CHANGE
Young people are disproportionately involved in and affected by the problems that beset communities and states. Recent research studies suggest that young people are not doing well because communities are not doing well by young people. Young people are not only at the center of many problems, they are the source of many solutions. And studies show that young people want to be engaged as change makers. However, the true engagement of young people in change processes requires a fundamental shift in how decisions are made. Engaging young people as partners in community change is a compelling idea, but translating that idea into effective practice requires focused attention to a range issues. The principles described in this paper by Karen Pittman, Shanetta Martin and Anderson Williams emerged from the commingling of research and practice that occurred when the Forum for Youth Investment merged with Community IMPACT! USA. They are important but simple principles for putting the idea of youth engagement into practice. They can be implemented in a wide range of organizations, including schools, youth organizations or community centers that want to strengthen their commitment to youth leadership, or community-change focused organizations or coalitions that want to strengthen their commitment to youth involvement.

THE QUICK & EASY GUIDE TO SCHOOL WELLNESS
Healthy Schools Campaign and School Health Corp. are pleased to announce the release of "The Quick & Easy Guide to School Wellness", a multimedia how-to guide filled with comprehensive information, practical advice, tools and resources. The guide made its debut at the National Association of School Nurses conference in Nashville, Tenn. with positive and enthusiastic reviews from school nurse leaders in attendance. Nearly 500 school nurses requested the guide in the first two days of its release, and hundreds of additional school stakeholders have ordered the guide since its release. The guide, available free of charge to schools and nonprofits, was developed in response to a need for school stakeholders -- nurses, teachers, parents, administrators and students -- to effectively implement the school wellness policies that became mandatory in fall 2006. The guide includes multiple case studies, bonus tip sheets, and a comprehensive set of documents and resources from leading organizations throughout the country. "We want people to understand that they have the power to make their school wellness policy work, to really change things for the better," said Jean Saunders, director of school wellness for the Healthy Schools Campaign. "It doesn't have to be overwhelming. This guide brings together the most important resources in one place and makes it easy to create healthy change one step at a time."

THREE WOMEN, THREE SCHOOLS, TWENTY YEARS OF INFLUENCE
Karin Chenoweth, Stephanie Jones and Alies Muskin have been heavily involved in their children’s education and the community since their oldest daughters entered kindergarten more than 20 years ago. Each has a career background in social work or education, but the dedication to the school system came from a desire to make sure the community was a good place for the children and their neighbors. ‘‘We got involved because it was important for our kids, important for us and important for our communities," Chenoweth said. ‘‘Whatever power we have was because we did not go in thinking we were going to make a difference for our kids only." Even while their children were learning the ABCs and basic math skills, the mothers were asking about what programs would be available at the high school level, reports Kristina Gawrgy in The Gazette (Maryland). Although a lot of the women’s work centered on bettering the school system, they also made an effort to show parents how they could get involved. Most importantly, the women provided a network of people willing to fight for the children and the community.

NO SCHOOL, NO DRIVING, SAYS ILLINOIS
Driving a car ranks near the top of many teenagers' wish lists; school, for some, doesn't make the list at all. So this fall the secretary of state's office and state education officials will try to use that desire to get behind the wheel as leverage to keep more of them in the classroom. A state law that went into effect July 1 will revoke the licenses of students who have more than 18 unexcused absences from school, are expelled or drop out, reports Carlos Sadovi in the Chicago Tribune. It's part of an effort to stem the statewide dropout rate, which topped 24,000 students last year. The number has declined from more than 36,000 five years ago, but education leaders and lawmakers think the new law can help bring it down further. Under the law, teenagers under age 18 are required to attend school to get their licenses or learner's permits. If they don't, their licenses could be revoked until they are 18. Illinois students have to attend school until they are 17.

KIDS COUNT DATA BOOK
The Annie E. Casey Foundation has released the 18th annual KIDS COUNT Data Book, a national and state-by-state effort to track the status of children in the U.S. By providing policymakers and citizens with benchmarks of child well-being, KIDS COUNT seeks to enrich local, state, and national discussions concerning ways to secure better futures for all children. This year's essay examines the child welfare system and challenges the country to focus on the 726,000 children who spend time in foster care each year and to build and strengthen family relationships. Taking up the challenge of protecting these most-at-risk children requires a re-examination of the purpose and goals of the nation’s child welfare systems. The goal of getting vulnerable children "out of harm’s way" remains central to the public’s understanding of what the child welfare system does. This task is enormously difficult, as we are all too often reminded by the highly publicized tragedies of children known to local protective services -- or even removed from their families and placed in foster care -- who nevertheless come to grave harm. Child welfare practitioners and researchers continue their struggle to improve the likelihood that we can accurately identify dangerous situations and intervene to protect children when, if not before, they are in serious danger. But the harsh truth is that simply removing children from dangerous homes does not, by itself, ensure that they will receive the protection, nurturing, structure, and stability that they need to grow up healthy and successful. Too often, the opposite is true. For many children, family separation is hurtful and traumatic -- even when the family has consistently not met their needs. And for far too many, their experience in the child welfare system only compounds this trauma. Child welfare systems too often make placement decisions that unnecessarily add to the confusion, insecurity, and isolation felt by kids removed from their families.

STATUS OF EDUCATION IN RURAL AMERICA
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has just released the report "Status of Education in Rural America." This report presents a series of indicators on the status of education in rural America based on their actual geographic coordinates into one of 12 locale categories and distinguishes between rural areas that are on the fringe of an urban area, rural areas that are at some distance, and rural areas that are remote. The findings of this report indicate that in 2003-04, over half of all operating school districts and one-third of all public schools in the United States were in rural areas. However, only one-fifth of all public school students were enrolled in rural areas. A larger percentage of public school students in rural areas attended very small schools than those in any other locale. A larger percentage of rural public school students in the 4th- and 8th-grades scored at or above the Proficient level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading, mathematics, and science assessments in 2005 than did public school students in cities at these grade levels. However, smaller percentages of rural public school students than suburban public school students scored at or above the Proficient level in reading and mathematics. In 2004, the high school status dropout rate (i.e., the percentage of persons not enrolled in school and not having completed high school) among 16- to 24-year-olds in rural areas was higher than in suburban areas, but lower than in cities. Current public school expenditures per student were higher in rural areas in 2003-04 than in any other locale after adjusting for geographic cost differences. Racial/ethnic minorities account for a smaller percentage of public school teachers in rural schools than in schools in all other locales in 2003-04. In general, smaller percentages of public school teachers in rural areas than across the nation as a whole reported problems as "serious" and behavioral problems as frequent in their schools in 2003-04. Likewise, a larger percentage of public school teachers in rural areas than in other locales reported being satisfied with the teaching conditions in their school in 2003-04, though a smaller percentage of rural public school teachers than suburban public school teachers reported being satisfied with their salary. Public school teachers in rural areas earned less, on average, in 2003-04 than their peers in other locales, even after adjusting for geographic cost differences.

REFUSING TO LEAVE DESEGREGATION BEHIND
In light of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on two racial integration cases from Louisville, Ky. and Seattle, Amy Stuart Wells, Jacquelyn Duran and Terrenda White explore the mismatch between the rationale of the Court's majority in declaring these desegregation plans unconstitutional and the social science research on the long-term effects of such plans on the adults who had desegregated school experiences as children. They conclude that two powerful and intertwined themes found in both new and existing research -- that racial discrimination and its legacies still exist in the form of "structural inequality" and the "diversity rationale" for bringing children of different backgrounds together to learn -- both support the efforts of the two school districts in these cases.

LATINO VOTERS MOST IMPACTED BY CANDIDATE EDUCATION POSITIONS
A new poll shows that a candidate’s position on education will have a greater impact on Latino voters than their position on any other issue -- including immigration and health care -- and that Latinos are nearly unanimous (89 percent) in saying that improving public education should be a "very important priority" for the next president. The poll surveyed 1,026 registered Latino voters. "The Latino community is increasingly showing its desire to help shape the future of our country at the ballot box," said Janet Murguia, president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza, the largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S. and steering committee member for ED in ’08, a nonpartisan campaign to raise awareness of education issues in the 2008 presidential race campaign. Other key findings include:

The poll was co-sponsored by ED in ’08 and the National Council of La Raza.

TESTED: ONE AMERICAN SCHOOL STRUGGLES TO MAKE THE GRADE
A new book by Linda Perlstein chronicles a year with the teachers, principal, counselors, and students from a high-poverty Maryland elementary school, from the release of a set of amazing test scores until the time a year later when the school finds out if the achievement has been repeated. The book explains, through a set of dynamic characters, the benefits and costs of the apparent success, what works and what doesn't in school reform, and what it looks like when educators must not just teach children but in many ways raise them. Parents will appreciate learning what goes on behind classroom doors and how public policy has changed what children learn -- not always for the better. Policymakers should learn about the consequences of their decisions and the high costs, not just financial but human, of implementing them. Teachers and administrators might find comfort that someone has chronicled the challenges they face in a system that keeps getting more complicated. This book will school reform advocates fodder to help explain their many concerns to the general public, especially as the No Child Left Behind Act comes up for renewal. An excerpt can be found at the above link.

TOO MUCH DUE PROCESS FOR A FELON PRINCIPAL
Sometimes, the law’s an ass, write the editors of the Tacoma (Wash.) News Tribune. As when it becomes nigh-unto-impossible to quickly fire a principal after he’s convicted of a serious felony -- because state law requires that he first be offered elaborate due process. That’s the predicament the Tacoma School District finds itself in with Harold Wright Jr. He was principal of Baker Middle School before July 12, when he was found guilty of third-degree rape, a felony. He remains principal today, because he has refused to give up his position as expected. In the meantime, Wright, 36, continues to collect his $8,245-a-month salary, something he’s been doing since February, when he was first charged. So far, the district appears to have paid him at least $45,000 for time he wasn't working. There are not many other jobs where commission of a felony can earn the perpetrator a sweet paid vacation. But in all Washington’s public schools even convictions for grave crimes do not permit administrators to simply fire the convicts. State law explicitly gives all educators the right to a potentially lengthy process of responses, hearings and appeals. This is not a quarrel with due process in general. The law protects educators and other public employees from arbitrary, groundless firings by vindictive or incompetent administrators. School districts should not be able to dump employees without good reason and without the employees being allowed to defend themselves. But a rape conviction -- by a jury, beyond a reasonable doubt -- is plenty good reason.

THE CASE FOR TEACHING THE BIBLE
Public school courses on the Bible are growing nationwide. There aren't that many. But they're rising in popularity. Last year Georgia became the first state in memory to offer funds for high school electives on the Old and New Testaments using the Bible as the core text. Similar funding was discussed in several other legislatures, although the initiatives did not become law. Meanwhile, two privately produced curriculums crafted specifically to pass church-state muster are competing for use in individual schools nationwide. Combined, they are employed in 460 districts in at least 37 states. The numbers are modest, but their publishers expect them to soar. The smaller of the two went into operation just last year but is already into its second 10,000-copy printing, has expressions of interest from 1,000 new districts this year and expects many more. The larger publisher claims to be roughly doubling the number of districts it adds each year. These new curriculums plus polls suggesting that over 60 percent of Americans favor secular teaching about the Bible suggest that a public school teacher may soon be talking about Matthew or Genesis in a school near you. To some, this idea seems retrograde. Citing a series of Supreme Court decisions culminating in 1963's Abington Township School District v. Schempp, which removed prayer and devotion from the classroom, the skeptics ask whether it is safe to bring back the source of all that sectarianism. But a new, post-Schempp coalition insists it is essential to do so. It argues that teaching the Bible in schools -- as an object of study, not God's received word -- is eminently constitutional. The Bible so pervades Western culture, it says, that it's hard to call anyone educated who hasn't at least given thought to its key passages. The "new consensus" for secular Bible study argues that knowledge of it is essential to being a full-fledged, well-rounded citizen. In TIME Magazine, David Van Biema examines that argument and asks "Is it constitutional?"

NIPPING BIAS IN THE BUD
Some preschools are using a special program to teach their students, before prejudices take hold, to respect cultural, racial and religious diversity, reports Carla Rivera in the Los Angeles Times. Sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League's Miller Early Childhood Initiative, "A World of Difference Institute", is one of the few anti-bias programs specifically for preschoolers, drawing on research showing that children begin to perceive differences and attach negative or positive values to them as early as age 3. Now operating in 14 cities, the program trains teachers in strategies to confront prejudice and uses specially designed materials developed with the characters from "Sesame Street." The goal is to teach tolerance, respect and inclusion in a way that is geared to young minds. "We really wanted to focus on building the right foundations," said Lindsay Friedman of A World of Difference Institute. "We know that biases and stereotyping are seeping in even at this age, but this is meant to be a preventive approach, not as much countering negative messages as building positive ones." One of the strongest aspects of the program is the outreach to parents, who also are encouraged to attend workshops and use the curriculum at home. Studies have shown that children learn social cues at an early age from their environment, the media, and especially from the behavior and words of caregivers and family members. About 85 percent of the brain develops during ages three to five, and impressions formed after age two are lasting, said Linda A. Santora of the Anti-Defamation League. One study found that 50 percent of children formed racial biases by age six, she said.

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QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"We cannot continue to think of schooling and learning as bounded by what we call our education systems -- four walls, traditional text books, teachers standing in the front of classrooms, grades, exams, all carried out within highly scheduled fixed amounts of time. We have tried improving almost every aspect of the current education system -- better, required curricula, more exams, more accountability, more professional development, better alignment of resources -- yet we have made only incremental improvements on learning outcomes. … For us to expect significant improvements, we need to consider breaking down the constraints of our current education system. Powerful improvement sometimes requires disruptive change in the conventional order."

 - Marshall "Mike" S. Smith (Program Director for the Education Program, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation)
http://www.educationevolving.org/pdf/Learning_revolution.pdf

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