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U.S. FOURTH-GRADERS STALEMATED ON
INTERNATIONAL READING TEST
A new report from the National Center for Education Statistics shows
that, on average, United States fourth-graders scored higher than
their international peers on the 2006 assessment of the Progress in
International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). The assessment had
previously been administered in 2001 and, in that year, the U.S.
scored higher than 23 education systems, lower than three and not
significantly different from eight. In 2006, the U.S. scored higher
than 22 education systems, lower than 10 and not significantly
different from 12 others. Additionally, the average score for U.S.
students was not significantly different overall in 2006 than it was
in 2001. Still, a greater percentage of U.S. students reached each
achievement benchmark compared to the international median
percentage: 12 percent of U.S. students were advanced, 47 percent
met the high benchmark and 82 percent met the intermediate level.
REINVENTING THE BOOK BY MAKING IT
DIGITAL TO ENCOURAGE READING
As the world becomes increasingly technology driven, with new
gadgets coming out every season, it is easy to forget the book, an
object which, thanks to Gutenberg, is superbly designed, completely
functional and has thus far stood the test of time. In fact, books
remain a more reliable storage device than any external hard drive,
are easily "turned on" (just open it up) and unless it is one,
require no instructional manual, reports Steven Levy in Newsweek.
According to Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon.com, "books are the last
bastion of analog," as long-form reading has failed to conform to
digitization. To fill this market niche, Amazon has released the
Kindle, an electronic device that has the dimensions of a paperback
with a tapering of width to simulate binding, does not run hot or
make electronic beeps, mimics the clarity of a printed book and
allows for 30 hours of reading on a single charge. In addition, the
Kindle enables users to change the font size and stores 200 books
"onboard," with space for hundreds more on a memory card. Another
added amenity is that the Kindle lets owners subscribe to
newspapers, so when issues go to press the virtual publications are
atomically beamed (thank you, Scotty) to their Kindle. As newspaper
circulation numbers dwindle and Americans of every age are reading
less and less for pleasure (as reported by Greg Toppo in USA Today
-- second link), the Kindle just might be one way of increasing
reading. Visit the link above and click
here for more information.
HBO PROGRAM, "THE WIRE," TRIES TO
SHOW HOW TO REACH THE UNREACHABLE
The fourth season of the HBO television series, "The Wire," which
focused on trouble-making students who can derail entire classes,
show tremendous gains for weeks then backtrack in an instant and
everyday experience events that make academic problems seem minute
in comparison. This aspect of the expansive show centers on West
Baltimore’s "corner kids" who are defined by contrast to the "stoop
kids," who grow up in the ghetto but are still cared for by family,
writes Lisa Morehouse in Edutopia. While both stoop and corner kids
grow up in the same neighborhood, corner kids are abandoned by
families and left to fend for themselves in the inner city. If these
kids attend school, they often create great disruptions which affect
the stoop kids. "The Wire" attempts to answer the question of how
best to deal with the children. In the show, the most disruptive
corner kids are separated from the rest of the students and sent to
their own classroom in the school’s basement. This division might
not be the stretch it seems, as research has documented the great
numbers of African American boys who are shuffled into special
education classes even though they present no evidence of learning
disabilities. The troublesome students attend classes led by
multiple adults, including mental health professionals, who try to
get at the causes of the disruptive behavior and the students’
subsequent disengagement from school. Of course, the show doesn't
arrive at an answer -- just as the adults reach some level of
understanding of the kid’s values and fears, the program is
terminated because of standardized testing pressures. The show
provides an interesting take on how best to work with the minority
of the student population whose problems are so great that they
can't be solved merely by tutors and computer access.
X, Y AND Z: THE STEPS THAT HELP
STRUGGLING MATH STUDENTS ACHIEVE
Marilyn Burns was asked by Paul’s math teacher to work with him
because he struggled with multiplication and typically worked slower
than his peers. Burns, the founder of Math Solutions Professional
Development, began by speaking with Paul and found that he could
multiply correctly 6 x 8 but couldn't do the same for 6 x 9. He knew
the right answer was 48 because "goin’ fishing, got no bait, 6 x 8
is 48" but couldn't figure out 6 x 9 because "[he] didn't learn it
yet." This exchange reminded Burns of key issues intrinsically tied
to teaching math, which include the need to help students make
connections among mathematical ideas, to build student’s new
understanding on the foundation of previous learning and to remember
that correct answers, without accompanying explanations of how they
were arrived at, are not sufficient for judging understanding.
Through her work, Burns discovered several essential strategies
necessary to help struggling math learners succeed, beginning by
identifying the concepts and skills that students should learn and
discarding the extraneous. At the same time, teachers need to build
in a routine of support to reinforce concepts and skills before
students are expected to perform independent work. In addition, when
working with struggling kids, teachers need to help them build upon
what they already know, which makes explicit connections between
knowledge.
ROCK AND ROLL: IT CAN SAVE LIVES AND
HELP SCHOOLS
Just when you thought music education was out of schools, Steven Van
Zandt pulls it back in, reports Mary Beth Marklein in USA Today. Van
Zandt, of E Street Band and "The Sopranos" fame, says rock ‘n’ roll
saved his life and now he wants to pay homage to the art form as
best as he is able. He recently unveiled his Rock and Roll Forever
Foundation’s first project, a middle- and high-school curriculum
designed to introduce a new generation of teens to the music. The
project was created in partnership with Scholastic’s InSchool
division and, through this work, the materials have met national
standards, allowing them to be used for both humanities and social
studies courses in addition to music classes. The plan is to
distribute a 40-chapter curriculum, a teachers’ guide, lesson plans,
DVDs and CDs free beginning in the 2008-09 school year. And the
effort is endorsed by the National Association for Music Education.
Through his efforts, Van Zandt has joined the ever-increasing line
of artists who are rallying to keep music education from
disappearing as a result of budget cuts and a national focus on math
and reading. However, Van Zandt is a bit different from fellow
artists, as he wants to explore the cultural and historic impact of
rock, beginning with the pioneers. "Only sports really equals [rock]
in terms of the empowerment of the typical blue-collar,
working-class kid," Van Zandt says.
10-YEAR-OLD WOULD (AND DOES) WALK 280
MILES TO HELP THE HOMELESS
When Zach Bonner was six, he collected water for the victims of
Hurricane Charley. Now 10, he continued his altruistic nature by
recently completing a 280 mile-walk from Tampa to Tallahassee, Fla.
to draw attention to the estimated 20,000 to 40,000 kids who are
homeless throughout Florida. When interviewed by Mike Vasilinda for
WJHG News Channel 7 in Panama City, Fla., Zach said that the walk
was "really tiring and exhausting. But whenever [he got] really
tired [he] just thought of all the homeless kids that have to live
through all the bad weather." Zach, perhaps showing wisdom beyond
his years, thinks you can blame a lot of people for being homeless,
but you can't blame children. Next on Zach’s altruistic agenda is
planning a dinner for 1,000 families affected by Hurricane Katrina.
And next year, he wants to build a house for the homeless. Wouldn't
it be great if more kids walked a mile in Zach’s shoes?
INTEREST-BASED BARGAINING HELPS
DISTRICTS AND UNIONS IMPROVE SCHOOLS
Sometimes groups with similar goals can find themselves
diametrically opposed on an issue. To an education system’s
detriment, this tends to be no different, as there often exists an
adversarial relationship between district officials and the local
teachers’ union and this poor relationship can only harm student
progress. Yet there are exceptions to every rule. In Clark County,
Nev. and Hamilton County, Tenn., school leaders have worked
collaboratively with the local teachers’ unions to develop
strategies to retain quality teachers and close achievement gaps,
according to a recently released report. The report, funded by the
NEA Foundation and released by the National Commission on Teaching
and America’s Future, shows that it is possible for unions and
districts to coexist and work together toward improving instruction
and student achievement. Both districts studied found that the best
practice for bringing both diverse groups to the table was
implementing the Interest-Based Bargaining negotiation strategy,
whereby parties collaborate to reach a "win-win" solution to
disputes. The partnerships collectively resulted in expedited
hearing processes to resolve contract disputes, an enhanced support
system for new teachers, principal networks and teaching teams
across grade levels, to name a few.
BIGGER THAN BAKE SALES...FUNDRAISERS
CHASE HIGH STAKES DOLLARS
Long ago, it seems, sales of homemade brownies and cupcakes were the
in vogue school fundraisers. Today, organizations are getting
creative to lure the large dollars needed for programs and resources
that have been cut from school budgets. For Newton North High
School, in Newton Mass., this means inviting members of the New
England Patriots to play parents in a football fundraising game. The
event was organized to provide new exercise equipment for the
school, and typically an event of this magnitude can raise $20,000,
reports Megan Woolhouse in the Boston Globe. Fundraising efforts on
this grand scale have become more of a norm than an outlier as
communities continually ramp up efforts through parent teacher
organizations and education foundations. Arnold Fege, the director
of public engagement for Public Education Network, said that there
is a serious need for outside dollars as funding has been
increasingly redirected to core subjects and standardized testing,
placing a greater onus on communities. These outside organizations
and foundations provide necessary resources like computers,
software, music programs, professional development opportunities and
much more. In fact, the Newton city education foundation has a $1.6
million endowment that goes to these ends, which is all the more
necessary as the city considers a tax override because of an
anticipated budget shortfall.
INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE ACCESS
COMPARISONS NOT GOOD EITHER
The Making Opportunity Affordable initiative has been hard at work
and this week posted state profiles of college access and attainment
(first link) and also released "Good Policy, Good Practice" (second
link), which highlights policies and programs that have made strides
in increasing the numbers of students graduating from college. The
profiles focus on several key indicators associated with
post-secondary access and success and seem to indicate that most
states face large gaps in degree attainment with top-performing
nations. The worse news is that these gaps are expected to widen. In
fact, only eight states are on track to reach the level of
educational attainment needed by 2025 to compete with the
best-performing nations. The second report could provide a piece to
the puzzle for alleviating the concerns raised in the state profiles
because it organizes state and institutional initiatives by key
strategies aimed at increasing educational attainment. The document
also allows one to identify model programs and serves as an
indicator of improvement efforts throughout the country. Visit
the above link and click
here for more information.
NEW TOOL TO INCREASE THE AMOUNT &
QUALITY OF REPORTING ON TEACHING
The Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media and the Costen
Family Foundation launched a website for journalists that will help
them cover one of the most important aspects of education: teaching
and learning. The website, "Tools for Reporting on Teaching: What to
Look for in Classrooms," provides classroom videos and commentaries
from teaching and journalism experts in the hope of helping
reporters ask better questions and increase their visits to
classrooms. In addition, the site offers summaries of research on
the importance of good teachers and how teachers improve their
craft. Teaching and learning is perhaps the most challenging and
complex issue in education, which makes it all the more difficult to
capture in a news story. Hopefully this new tool can help media
encapsulate what good teachers do and as a result increase the
admiration society has for teachers.
DOING AS WE DO PROMOTES QUALITY
CHARACTER EDUCATION
The Character Education Partnership has developed 11 principles to
assist in planning and evaluating character education programs
because young people have increasingly hurt themselves and society
and have grown less concerned about the welfare of their communities
and fellow human beings. Quality character education holds as a
general principle that there are widely agreed upon core ethical
values (caring, honesty, fairness, responsibility and respect) that
form the basis of good character. When constructing education
programs, character must be comprehensively defined to include the
cognitive, emotional and behavioral aspects of a moral life.
Students are typically hands-on and constructive learners, so a good
program needs to reside in the ethical domain but also in the
intellectual one. Additionally, a school, which itself must embody
good character, should be committed to continually looking at itself
and growing since everything about a school affects student values
and characters. Consequently, it is important to engage students on
a variety of levels to promote good character, but a school and its
staff cannot take the stance of "do as I say, not as I do." In fact,
all staff must be involved in learning about, discussing and taking
ownership of the character education effort.
SPICING UP NCLB WITH EARLY EDUCATION
INITIATIVES
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) requires states to test children
annually beginning in the third grade and then, based on the
results, build systems of accountability and intervene in
low-performing schools. While this may or may not be all well and
good, research has shown that academic success or failure begins
before students even enter the third grade. In addition, as much as
half of the black-white achievement gap already exists before
children become first graders. It follows that to narrow the
pervasive achievement gaps, NCLB must support state and local
efforts to improve education in the preschool and early elementary
years. To ensure that NCLB is capable of increasing the rigor of
early childhood education programs, Sara Mead, a senior research
fellow at the Education Policy Program of the New America
Foundation, has outlined several ideas to consider for
re-authorization. These ideas include providing high-quality
pre-kindergarten to children who live near low-performing schools,
require pre-kindergarten programs operated in public schools or with
Title I funds to employ "highly qualified early educators," creating
a "Pathways to Pre-kindergarten Teaching" alternative certification
program and many others. By incorporating these policies, Congress
has the opportunity to make NCLB a catalyst for state, district and
school level initiatives that build high-quality systems of
pre-kindergarten through third grade. This should give children the
best chance to succeed when NCLB accountability kicks in.
YOU PLAYED A LOT AS A KID? THAT’S
PROBABLY WHY YOU ARE SO SUCCESSFUL
The education of young children has gained attention in recent years
as new research on brain development suggests brain structure is
powerfully shaped by early experiences. According to a policy brief
from the Action Alliance for Children, there has been a consensus
among early childhood professionals that play should be a vital part
of any high-quality early education program, because play benefits
cognitive, social, emotional, physical and moral development. While
many associate play with a break from curriculum, the fact is that
play-centered preschool curriculum is not a laissez-faire approach
but actually a main conduit to reinforcing instruction. High-quality
preschool programs do not only benefit children and families, as
they potentially save taxpayers between $2.69 and $7.14 for every
dollar invested by reducing special education, law enforcement and
other costs. It is clear that when children play they have the
opportunity to apply mental representation of the world to new
situations, integrate all types of learning, and can become engaged
in things that interested them, which fosters a natural motivation
to learn. So go outside and play already.
IN SOME SCHOOLS, iPODS ARE REQUIRED
LISTENING
Schools in New Jersey are buying into a new program that gives
bilingual students with limited English ability iPods, reports
Winnie Hu in the New York Times. The hope is that by singing along
to popular English songs, students will sharpen their vocabulary and
grammar skills. The program has already had an effect on Stephanie
Rojas, who moved to New Jersey from Puerto Rico last year, as she
now prefers to sing in English. Incorporating the devices into
instruction began when Grace Poli, a media specialist, approached
the district three years ago about buying 23 iPods for an
after-school bilingual program. She then compiled an eclectic mix of
music, typed out the lyrics and deleted the nouns -- and in turn the
verbs and adjectives -- to force the students to fill in the missing
words and thereby learn their meanings. Poli said her
Spanish-speaking students were able to move out of bilingual classes
after just a year of using the digital devices, compared to an
average of four to six years for most bilingual students. After
viewing the successes, the district plans to try iPods with students
who have learning disabilities and behavioral problems. In addition,
one of New Jersey’s poorest urban districts, Union City District,
will give out 300 iPods as part of a $130,000 experiment.
BROOKLINE HIGH RACING TO CLOSE
TESTING GAPS
With every positive educational announcement comes the inevitable
negative: there is a persistent gap between white and minority
student achievement, reports Dan Devine in the Boston Bay State
Banner. Brookline (Mass.) High School Headmaster Dr. Robert
Weintraub is sick of the "achievement gap," and he and his staff
have created the African American Scholars program to help close it.
In the program, 60 of the school’s highest-achieving black students
meet frequently in peer groups and with the program’s director. This
increased focus on the best and brightest is critical, serving to
transform a school’s culture to one where kids are respected, not
denigrated, for their intellect. The results are promising, as 74
percent of African American students scored advanced or proficient
on the 2007 English exam and 67 percent scored in those categories
in math, compared to 32 percent of black students who scored
advanced or proficient in English and 36 percent in math just three
years ago. Dr. Weintraub sees this program shifting a paradigm, to
one where now "we're going to talk about African American scholars
as exemplary citizens and leaders of our country."
PACKED CLASSES HINT AT POSSIBLE PEACE
IN BATTERED IRAQ
Children, who had been too scared to attend classes, are now
returning to al-Gazaly school in southern Baghdad, Iraq, reports
David Smith in the Observer (United Kingdom). The school, located in
a once murderous area where people moved away in droves because of
violence, has seen incredible turmoil, including a physical
education teacher shot dead while getting a haircut because he was a
Christian in a predominantly Sunni area. Yet one by one, children
and families are returning and have brought the school back from the
brink of closure. Khaled Nuge, the determined head of the al-Gazaly
school and the adjacent Shams al-Mahaba school, just three months
ago faced a combined enrollment of 250, but now has seen attendance
rise to 900 pupils. According to Nuge, "terrorists want to push
education aside and go backwards, but now it is much better and the
number of pupils is increasing."
HOW TO BEST IMPACT POSITIVE YOUTH
DEVELOPMENT
Recognizing that societal responses to youth problems have lacked
comprehensive planning and have been disjointed and fragmented,
policymakers across the country are looking to new research on how
best to address the challenges associated with youth development.
These new approaches are supported by an evolving body of research
that indicate a positive correlation between youths who feel safe,
valued and connected to caring adults and their feelings about life,
emotional health and enjoyment in school. These children are also
less likely to take part in risk behaviors, according to a research
brief from the West Virginia-based Education Alliance. Consequently,
adopting positive youth development models has a beneficial impact
on youths, as they will perform better in school and demonstrate
academic gains and improved personal and social development.
TUXEDO TUESDAYS RAISE THE BAR FOR
SCHOOL FASHION
Andy Dey, assistant principal at Thurston High School in
Springfield, Ore., started wearing a tuxedo to work after he grew
concerned about the way some people dressed for school. Who would
have thought he'd start a school fashion revolution? Now, more than
100 members of the school’s staff wear tuxedo T-shirts for "Tuxedo
Tuesday." It’s worth clicking on the link to check out the
photograph in the Register-Guard, printed in Eugene, Ore.
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