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HELPFUL
BACK TO SCHOOL STATISTICS
Nearly 50 million students are heading off to approximately 97,000
public elementary and secondary schools for the fall term. Before
the school year is out, an estimated $489 billion will be spent
related to their education, with an average of $9,969 to be spent
per pupil for fall enrollment in public elementary and secondary
schools. Some 3.2 million teachers are projected to be employed in
public elementary and secondary schools in 2007-08. And more than
1.1 million students -- about two percent of all students -- will be
homeschooled. These are just a few of the statistics contained in
"Back to School Stats," compiled by the Institute of Education
Sciences' research and statistical centers. Follow the link above
for more statistical information about American elementary,
secondary and postsecondary schools, students, and the educational
process.
TEACHERS SPEND OUT OF THEIR OWN POCKETS TO PREPARE CLASSROOMS
Teachers nationwide spend an average of $475 of their own money on
classroom supplies and materials each year, according to a study
prepared by Quality Education Data Inc. for the last school year.
The biggest portion of that spending is for first day of class
preparation, reports Edward L. Kenney in The News Journal (Del.).
When school districts go through tough financial times, especially
in districts facing a triple-punch of spiraling energy and health
care costs and, often, failed referendums, teachers sometimes have
to spend a little more. But veteran educators look for summer sales
to spruce up their classrooms and motivate children, and hoard
supplies during good years to make things last during bad ones. The
lower the grade, the more teachers tend to spend. Some teachers save
receipts because they are allowed to deduct up to $250 on their
federal income taxes.
SCHOOLS
MUST PROVIDE ESSENTIAL SUPPLIES
Teachers can provide parents with lists of supplies their child may
want to have at school, but they can't require them to buy anything
essential to their education, according to a new statewide policy,
reports the Associated Press. The West Virginia Board of Education
outlined the policy in a memo to county school boards just in time
for back-to-school shopping. State Superintendent of Schools Steve
Paine said any textbooks, paper, writing utensils and other
materials that are an "integral, fundamental part of the elementary
and secondary education" must be provided free. Non-essential items
that are commonplace in schools, such as backpacks, tissues and hand
sanitizer, are not considered integral, Paine said. Schools also can
request that any additional equipment needed for performance-based
classes, such as band, orchestra and dance, be provided by parents.
However, if a student can't afford to buy instruments or costumes,
the county school system must have a plan in place to allow the
student to participate. No child, Paine said, can be denied
participation in any curricular offering because his or her family
is poor. Before the policy, use of school supply lists varied from
county to county based on local interpretation of a 1995 state
Supreme Court opinion, Randolph County Board of Education v. Adams.
The state policy is "in alignment" with the high court’s opinion,
Paine said.
FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL: HELPING YOUR CHILD OVERCOME SEPARATION
Clinical psychologist Mark Crawford says separation anxiety is
fairly common among children ages 6 to 10. "It's most often
associated with a child's fear of something happening to a parent if
they are not there to watch over them," Crawford explains. "Children
have this irrational fear that, 'If I can't see Mom or see Dad,
something may happen to them and they may not come back." Crawford
suggests a child doesn't have to be going off to school to
experience anxiety. It can happen at home when a parent leaves a
room for a couple of minutes. "It's pretty dramatic. Typically, what
happens is children will cling onto the parents, quite literally,
they will grab on to their leg or their hand. They'll almost have a
panic response." The behavior usually occurs with one parent and not
the other, Crawford says. "Anxiety in kids can look sometimes like
defiance, rebellion, anger or stubbornness when it's really just
panic, kids panicking because they are so afraid." Children will
eventually outgrow separation anxiety, Crawford says, but there are
many things parents can do to speed up the process. Make sure
children meet their new teacher and see where they'll sit in the
classroom before school starts in order to get familiar with the
environment. Allow the child to pick out a new backpack and school
supplies, reports Judy Fortin for CNN. Sending along a transitional
item like a photo, special toy or note from Mom or Dad can help ease
fears on the first day. Crawford advises parents to model
confidence. "What happens a lot of times -- a parent's anxiety feeds
the child's anxiety. ... Just say 'I'll be fine. You'll be fine.
This is where you're supposed to be, and I will be here, and
everything will be OK.' "
OVERWEIGHT KIDS MISS MORE SCHOOL
The more overweight a child, the more likely he or she is to be
absent from school, a new report suggests. Researchers studied 1,069
fourth- to sixth-grade students in nine schools in Philadelphia.
They recorded height, weight, sex, race and days absent for each.
The study appears in the August issue of Obesity, reports Nicholas
Bakalar in The New York Times. The scientists classified each child
in one of four weight categories by body mass index: underweight,
normal, overweight and obese. On average, underweight children were
absent 7.5 days, normal weight children 10.1 days, overweight
children 10.9 days and the obese 12.2 days. Even after adjusting for
race, ethnicity, age, sex and school attended, being overweight
remained a significant predictor of absences. Statistical analysis
showed that weight, sex, age, school and race accounted for 11
percent of the variance in absences, meaning unknown factors are
involved. The authors acknowledge that it is unclear whether the
increased absences significantly affect overweight students’
performance. Andrew B. Geier, the lead author and a doctoral
candidate in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, doubts
that sickness among overweight children causes absences. "Even in
fourth grade," he said, "I believe that psychosocial factors, not
physical ones, are keeping overweight kids from going to school."
STUDENTS PAY FOR LUNCH WITH THE SWIPE OF A FINGER
Parents in the central Ohio town of Circleville may not have to
worry about lost or misspent lunch money any more. This week,
Circleville schools are joining Akron, Huron, Rocky River and at
least five other school districts in Ohio in implementing new
fingerprint technology, which allows students to pay for lunch with
a touch. The cost of the meals is then deducted from prepaid
accounts. Schools who use the fingerprint software system, called
biometrics technology, say swiping fingers increases speed in lunch
lines and helps schools keep a more accurate count of how many
students are served meals. Distributors of the software say the
systems typically cost between $1,000 and $5,000 per cafeteria line
register. Critics have raised questions about the security and
privacy of the technology, reports Emily Zeugner for the Associated
Press. Fingerprints are serious and should not be used for something
as trivial as purchasing school lunches, said Carrie Davis, staff
attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio. If prints
are stored with a student's file -- which might contain grades,
contact information and medical records -- any security breach could
be dangerous for the children, Davis said. "Fingerprinting students
is another troubling sign of our surveillance society," she said.
Schools have turned to the technology as part of a growing trend
nationwide to get cash out of schools entirely. Other systems allow
students to pay for lunch using PIN numbers, their last names or
with special prepaid credit cards. Schools also are eager to
maximize their students who receive free or reduced-price lunches,
which bring federal and state aid into schools, he said. High school
students who are eligible to receive federally subsidized lunches
often do not enroll because of the stigma of carrying around a free
lunch ticket.
SCHOOL
TEST GAP: NOT JUST ECONOMIC
When the first wave of state achievement test results are released
every year, educators have a stock answer for the vexing disparity
in achievement between African-American and Latino students and
their white and Asian counterparts: poverty. But this year, new data
in the Standardized Testing and Reporting program (STAR) shows that
even when poverty is not a factor, the performance of black and
Latino students still lagged behind. "These are not just economic
achievement gaps. They are racial achievement gaps," said Jack
O'Connell, state superintendent of public instruction. "We cannot
afford to excuse them. We must take notice and take action."
Overall, students across California showed slight progress,
improving their scores in science and reading, while holding steady
in math. And, just as in years past, the results once again
underscored the achievement gap, reports Jessie Mangaliman in the
San Jose Mercury News. But new data in a recently released STAR
report -- the cornerstone of the state's standardized testing
program designed to measure the performance of public schools and
individual students in math, reading and science -- only deepen the
questions about why that gap exists. Statewide results show
African-Americans and Latinos who are not poor perform at lower
levels in math than white students who are poor.
THE
QUALITY OF SCHOOL-AGE CHILD CARE IN AFTER-SCHOOL SETTINGS
Emerging research indicates that regular attendance in quality
after-school programs can yield a range of positive developmental
outcomes for school-age children, but many after-school programs
struggle with understanding and improving the quality of their
programs. While only a handful of developmental research and program
evaluations have rigorously tested the relations between
after-school program quality and child outcomes, there are dozens of
program quality assessment tools to help after-school programs
improve the quality of their programs. Most of the research on
quality of school-age care settings, as well as most of the federal
investments in school-age quality improvements, have been confined
to school-based and center-based care. This brief, by the Harvard
Family Research Project’s Priscilla Little, identifies the features
of high-quality after-school settings that have emerged from the
research and are reflected in program quality tools. It also
examines key research linking program quality to positive
developmental outcomes; it reviews current practice in program
quality assessment; and, it offers considerations for policymakers
regarding future school-age care decisions in order to promote
high-quality programs. The brief includes a listing of program
quality assessment tools.
CREATING SAFE SCHOOLS IS EVERYONE’S BUSINESS
Bullying in schools is a long-standing, widespread problem, yet
parents and school leaders often overlook the harassment occurring
in their own communities. Many adults imagine bullying to be the
noticeable intimidation of a child by a physically more powerful
peer. While such harassment certainly occurs, the overwhelming
majority of bullying involves a variety of behaviors that are not
physical in nature, such as gossiping, spreading rumors, and
name-calling. These anti-social behaviors are often dismissed as a
normal part of growing up by many adults, but they have highly
detrimental effects on students’ well-being and academic
performance. To learn how to create a more respectful and healthy
school culture, the adults in childrens’ lives must understand what
contemporary student harassment looks like. The popular image of the
physically more powerful child beating up a weaker peer makes
identifying a "bully" and a "victim" seem easy. While some youth may
be seen as more aggressive and hostile than others, both research
and conversations with students show that nearly all students have
had experiences bullying and being bullied. A child who is visibly
teased, for example, also may be spreading rumors and hurting other
students. Realizing this, schools are moving away from
"zero-tolerance" policies of identifying "bullies" and removing them
from the classroom. Instead, many school leaders have begun focusing
on the way their school environment can encourage respectful
behaviors among all students. Even when an actual act of bullying is
addressed, write Ryan Schwartz and Debra Chasnoff, in PTA’s Our
Children magazine, the underlying factors that lead to negative
behavior are rarely acknowledged. Children in all grade levels use
difference as a reason to discriminate, exclude, and make fun of
their peers. Perceived distinctions based on race, class, religion,
gender, sexual orientation, body type, and physical or mental
abilities are the main foundation for harassment, especially in
middle school.
NCLB USES A FLAWED MEASURING STICK TO JUDGE SCHOOL PERFORMANCE
The federal law No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is using the wrong
measuring stick to identify failing schools, says Harvard
University's Paul E. Peterson in the new issue of Education Next. To
make the law’s accountability system work, he proposes two fixes:
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1.
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Using a more accurate method to measure schools’
academic progress; and |
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2.
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Holding students, teachers, and administrators -- not
just schools -- accountable for improvement. |
Rep. George Miller
(D-Calif.), chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee
on Education and Labor, has announced that Congress will consider
changes to NCLB’s method of measuring schools’ progress this fall.
Currently, NCLB looks not at how much individual students learn from
one year to the next but at whether a school’s students are making
adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward full proficiency -- a standard
each state sets individually -- by 2014. Peterson proposes moving to
an A to F scale that focuses strictly on student growth. This was
not possible when NCLB was originally enacted because most states
had no way of tracking student progress over time. However, since
2002, states including North Carolina, Texas, and Florida have put
such systems into place. Peterson recommends that Congress mandate
tracking systems in all states as a way of identifying those schools
that are effective and those that are not. States that have both
tracking systems and high proficiency standards could have the
option of using the A to F scale as another way of showing that its
schools are making AYP. As the distortions brought about by NCLB’s
current method of measuring progress intensify, states will be
motivated to move to the new system sooner rather than later.
AFTER-SCHOOL OFFERINGS DECLINE IN URBAN SCHOOLS
As another school year approaches, many of the extracurricular
activities that have long interested Milwaukee students are relics
of the past. Although there are notable exceptions, gone are the
days when city high schools had an array of sports, a drama club, a
school musical, a band, an orchestra, a choir, an active yearbook
and an assortment of other organizations. The gap in test scores and
graduation rates between the city and suburban high schools has
attracted the most attention from policy-makers and the media in
recent years. But others worry that there's another gap that's just
as meaningful: the difference in the richness and breadth of the
high school experience available to children in cities and suburbs
as urban districts slice after-school activities and clubs. "No one
is measuring the importance of extracurriculars in keeping kids in
school," said David Powell, a Vincent High School teacher who has
worked to build strong forensics teams. "You go to Marquette
(University) High School, to Brookfield East and other schools with
high ACT scores, and there is a high value, and a powerful emphasis,
on academic extracurriculars." There's no single reason why the
decline in extracurricular activities has been more severe in
cities, reports Sarah Carr in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Some
blame budget cuts or the back-to-basics emphasis of the federal No
Child Left Behind Act. Others point to the shift toward smaller high
schools, which often cannot offer a full range of activities.
Regardless of the cause, educators and students worry that the glue
that held some kids to school has disappeared.
STUDENT BACKLASH BREWS
AGAINST UNTIMED TEST TAKERS
The practice of giving students with learning disabilities more time
to take their tests has become so common at top private schools in
New York City and across the country that students say it carries
nearly no stigma. For everything from the SAT to weekly math
quizzes, reports Elizabeth Green in the New York Sun, a growing
number of students will get as much as double the standard time
allotment, and no one pays much attention. Disability rights
activists describe the trend as an important victory for students
with difficulties such as dyslexia and attention deficit disorder,
but a small number of students are waging a battle against the
accommodations, a struggle that could intensify when the SAT season
begins again this fall. Their target audience: college admissions
officers, who they say risk being hoodwinked into admitting students
with artificially impeccable transcripts. "Close to half of the
students in my grade with extra time are going to Ivy League
schools, and they're all going to some of the top schools in the
nation," said student Sara Katherine Paxton. "If they can compete at
that level, they shouldn't need extra time."
JONATHAN KOZOL: STILL NATIONAL CONSCIENCE ON EDUCATION
Jonathan Kozol is still pursuing his crusade for fairness in public
education. In his books and classroom research, Kozol spotlights,
relentlessly, the things we'd rather forget, like the shameful
inequality in funding and educational opportunity among school
districts across the nation. Next month, it will have been 43 years
since he first stepped into a Boston public school as a young
teacher to discover, and then uncover, scandalous conditions. He has
been our national conscience and scold about public education ever
since that time. If he didn't exist, we'd have to invent him. Kozol
is as out of vogue in education today as John O'Hara is in fiction.
He still believes in integrated schools. His answers to the problems
of public education cost large money, and he thinks the federal
government should run the whole thing. He is better at identifying
problems than solving them, which can be maddening. He still leads
with his heart. He sees red when the rest of us see pink, writes Sam
Allis in The Boston Globe. His emotionally powered arguments never
change, which is both his strength and weakness. To fans, he is the
patron saint of teachers, a man who will not compromise his values.
To others, he is a relic of the '60s, a man given to the cri de
coeur over economic reality. A man rather like Ralph Nader without
the ego disorder. Love him or hate him, few whites today dare as he
does to challenge the position held by many black urban families
that good neighborhood schools, even if they are overwhelmingly of
color, are the answer. |
