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PISA: AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH FOR U.S.
MATH AND SCIENCE ACHIEVEMENT
It must be "International Assessment Month" or something as the
results from the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment
(PISA) were released this week. The test, which measures the
performance of 15-year-olds regardless of grade level, found that
students in a majority of industrialized nations showed greater
scientific understanding than their United States peers, reports
Sean Cavanagh in Education Week. In fact, U.S. 15-year-olds ranked
lower, on average, than their international counterparts in 16
countries in science (30 "developed nations" took part in the exam).
American students faired far worse in mathematics as international
students greatly surpassed U.S. achievement levels. Top-scoring U.S.
students’ averages were statistically worse than those of 23 nations
and equivalent to two others (Spain and Portugal). Internationally,
PISA included a reading assessment. However, domestic reading scores
were invalidated by printing errors, leaving the Progress in
International Reading Literacy Study (second link) as the latest
international literacy comparison. On PISA, U.S. students scored
best, only seven points lower, than the international average on
questions that asked them to identify scientific issues. The results
paint a truly inconvenient truth for education policy going forward.
Visit the above link, and click
here for more information.
DOCUMENTARY COMPARES U.S. STUDENTS
LIVES WITH THOSE IN INDIA, CHINA
The ED in ’08 people have forged a partnership with Broken Pencil
Productions to promote the documentary "Two Million Minutes: A
Global Examination," which tracks two high school students each from
India, China and the United States. The film attempts to underscore
the different direction the U.S. education system is going in
relation to those in India and China (combined the two countries
have over 400 million students in K-12 education). The
film’s trailer
provides a vivid, compelling and almost frightening account.
FEED YOUR BRAIN AND WHILE YOU DO IT
THE WORLD’S STARVING POPULATION
John Breen originally designed an online vocabulary test for his son
to use in preparing for the SAT, reports Caitlin Carpenter in the
Christian Science Monitor. Now, about 500,000 people visit the site,
http://www.freerice.com/, daily to take the vocabulary quizzes, but
also to help combat world hunger. Every time a player gets a correct
answer, 20 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World
Food Program (WFP). People from across the globe have written to
Breen to express their appreciation for the game, with one child
writing, "I really enjoyed playing this game in my English class. My
teacher organized a spelling bee using it." Since October, four
billion grains of rice have been "won," which is just enough to feed
20,000 people for one day. Breen, who finances everything through
advertising revenue, has already sent $113,000 to the WFP and will
send increments of $10,000 to $15,000, as the advertising dollars
roll in. In addition, he donates his time and pays the costs of
leasing the site’s servers himself. So, the site obviously helps
fight hunger across the globe. But what did it do for his son’s SAT
score?
STATES WILL FACE TIGHTER FISCAL
CONDITIONS IN 2008
While states have experienced stable finances lately, overall
revenue growth has slowed and consequently, tighter fiscal
conditions are expected for 2008, according to a recently released
report, "The Fiscal Survey of States." The report notes that some
states have seen a significant deterioration of fiscal conditions
and can expect revenue and spending growth to slow significantly
next year. Still, state revenue collections were up 5.6 percent in
2007 as 38 states exceeded budget projections, four states met their
projections and eight states were below. A main cause for concern
for state funding will be health care, which constitutes nearly
one-third of total state spending. The report claims that states
will face significant challenges in funding and providing health
care next year, especially when trying to expand the State
Children’s Health Insurance Program, but also because of federal
spending reductions and aging populations. Unfortunately, as has
happened in the past when state budgets shrink, education dollars
tend take the brunt of it. In addition, with the economy not
performing well (thanks, subprime mortgages), some school funding is
on the precipice of precarious investments (click
here). In a story from Marketplace’s Dan Grech, Peter Morici, a
University of Maryland economist, says state governments nationwide
have invested in subprime securities and now find themselves
suddenly broke.
DO WELL ON YOUR TESTS, KIDS, AND
WE'LL GIVE YOU FAST FOOD AND MONEY
Seminole County, Fla. students will receive a McDonald’s Happy Meal
as a reward for scholastic achievements (a report card consisting of
all A’s and B’s or sterling attendance records, for instance),
reports Stuart Elliott in the New York Times (first link). The
report card incentive is nothing new, as it replaces a decade-old
Pizza Hut-sponsored program. Programs similar to this have been in
place for some time now, as schools think creatively to satisfy
funding for sports and extracurricular activities without raising
taxes (billboards at sporting events, ads on the sides of school
buses, etc.). The report card incentive is a type of performance pay
for children, rewarding them for diligent study and attendance with
something they find appealing, and there is a different kind of
performance pay emerging in New York, reports Jennifer Medina in the
New York Times (click
here). New York City is expanding the use of cash rewards for
students, with a $1 million effort financed by philanthropists that
will go to students who do well on Advanced Placement (AP) exams.
High schoolers who score a five, the highest grade, will receive
$1,000, while a score of four will earn $750 and a three will net
$500. The program will be in 25 public and six private schools, all
of which serve high proportions of low-income black or Latino
students, and have at least 15 students taking AP exams. In addition
to rewarding individual students, the initiative will donate $2,000
to each participating school and invite them to apply for a grant of
up to $10,000. Schools are increasingly getting creative when it
comes to motivating learning.
STUDY QUESTIONS WHETHER FAILING
SCHOOLS LOSE THEIR BEST TEACHERS
Some studies that have focused on teacher attrition and sorting
suggest that the most qualified teachers are leaving the poorest
schools in droves. Yet, a new report from the Urban Institute finds
that it is premature to jump to strong conclusions about teacher
quality based solely on teacher attributes (credentials, test
scores, etc.) because past research has shown that teacher
contributions to student achievement are only weakly correlated to
these attributes. The report’s researchers examined the attrition
and mobility of early-career teachers through value-added measures
in North Carolina public schools from 1996 to 2002, and found that
the most-effective teachers tend to stay in teaching and in specific
schools. This is contrary to commonly held beliefs that
more-effective teachers are not more likely to leave
more-challenging schools.
BLOOD SPATTER AND A TELEVISION SHOW
TO MAKE SCIENCE AND MATH FUN
Troy Athens High School in Troy, Mich. has offered students an
engaging and interesting science elective, reports Shawn Lewis in
the Detroit News. Students who sign up for this elective learn
science and math almost by accident. The class is part of the
school’s plan to teach traditional subjects in unconventional ways,
with this particular elective using methods made popular in the
television series "CSI." In examining fake crime scenes, students
learn trigonometry by studying angles of fake blood spatter,
chemistry when they analyze the blood, and physics when they study
the velocity and force with which blood spatters. Students pay
tremendous attention to faux crime scenes and scribble notes because
future cases (classes) are based on this information. "I love
learning in this class," said one student.
FOR-PROFIT CHARTER SCHOOLS TEND TO
OPEN IN ADVANTAGED COMMUNITIES
Most school choice proponents believe that choice will forge an
educational marketplace and generate competition between schools,
resulting in the creation of new and improved opportunities for
disadvantaged students. While the movement is decades old, there is
little research concerned with how competition affects entire
populations of schools, or different types of schools, when
educational opportunities are distributed across communities. A new
research paper, "Choice, Competition, and Organizational
Orientation: A Geo-Spatial Analysis of Charter Schools and the
Distribution of Educational Opportunities. 2007" attempts to chart
the different educational options for families, as charter schools
respond to market competition. The paper offers dynamic mapping,
which illuminates the kinds of charter schools that have opened,
relocated and closed relative to racial and ethnic distributions in
neighborhoods and thus provides a picture as to how charters respond
to competition. The initial findings suggest that for-profit
educational management organizations (EMOs) tend to, over time, open
charter schools in areas with lower concentrations of disadvantaged
students relative to nonprofit choice operators. It appears that
EMOs do so to reduce potential risks and operational costs by
limiting their exposure to "at risk" students who require more
costly educational interventions and strategies.
IF YOU PUT IT ONLINE, THEY WILL LOOK
AT IT
The San Diego Unified School District, which just last year
exhibited the artwork of more than 1,000 students in a traditional
gallery-type setting, looked to increase their arts programmatic
reach even further, reports Kurt Dryli in District Administration.
To increase involvement and scope, the district created an online
gallery to display photos of student work in a variety of different
media. More school districts are following suit and turning to
online galleries because they permanently hold more artwork than
schools have space. Still, since they are relatively cheap to
maintain, online galleries are not just for the big districts. The
Ontario (Ore.) School District, with just 2,800 students, has a
substantial online gallery. One tool that helps districts move to
the web to boost arts education is Artsonia, a free website focused
on creating online galleries. Through Artsonia, family members and
friends can join artist "fan clubs," post comments and purchase
merchandise emblazoned with images from the galleries. A total of 15
percent of the proceeds are contributed to the school’s art program.
"There isn't a downside to it," says Judith Davidson, who teaches
art at Rocky Ridge (Ala.) Elementary (the top-ranked school for
community involvement on Artsonia). "It gets the parents involved,
and the students’ portfolios can grow."
PROGRESS: SCHOOLS SOMEWHAT SAFER THAN
IN 1992
A new report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National
Center for Education Statistics examined crime that occurred in, and
on the way to and from, school. The study found that the
victimization rate of 12- to 18-year-olds at school declined between
1992 and 2005, yet violence, theft, drugs and weapons continue to
pose major problems. During the 2005-06 school year, 86 percent of
public schools reported that at least one violent crime, theft or
other crime had occurred at school. In addition, eight percent of
students in grades 9-12 reported being threatened or injured with a
weapon in the previous nine months, while 25 percent reported that
drugs were available on school property. It also appears that school
crime and violence affect minority students more than their white
peers. For instance, African American and Latino students were more
likely to fear for their safety in 2005. Furthermore, nine percent
of African American students and 10 percent of Latino students
feared being attacked by another student, while only four percent of
white students reported such fears. Accordingly, Latino students
were more likely to report being threatened or injured with a weapon
on school property.
TO GET KIDS LEARNING, ONE MATH
TEACHER GETS THEM PLAYING
Fourth-graders at Forest Lake Elementary in Forest Lake, Minn. are
learning and loving chess and cribbage. Teachers have incorporated
the games into instruction as part of a new program intended to put
lessons into practice and thereby reinforce them, reports Ben
Goessling in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Julie Larson and Jill
Atchison started the program with the hope of strengthening their
students’ computation and strategic thinking skills. The plan has
worked, as whenever the kids have free time, they pull out the games
and unintentionally practice addition and multiplication by scoring
the cribbage game, while chess brings a study of risk and reward
strategies. The benefits have gone far beyond what the teachers’
expected, as some students have asked their parents for chess sets
and then taught them how to play.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR
STATE’S AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAMS
Education stakeholders across the country have begun to recognize
the value of quality after-school programs, and are consequently
taking steps to increase the access to these programs. The
After-school Investments State Profiles Series highlights the ranges
of policies and practices that support after-school programs, most
of which are publicly financed. The group finds that high quality
after-school programs can have significant positive effects on
student outcomes, while at the same time low-quality programs can
have negative impacts. In light of this research, states have begun
to develop definitions of quality, create measures of program
quality and improve programs through licensing, accreditation,
professional development and incentives. States are also able,
through a tiered reimbursement system, to tie higher rates of
subsidy reimbursements to high levels of program quality. The
profiles provide a snapshot of the state of after-school in every
state.
LEARNING TO FORGE QUALITY
AFTER-SCHOOL SETTINGS: CHECK!
A new checklist from After-school Investments serves as a companion
to their report, "Promoting Physical Activity and Healthy Nutrition
in After-school Settings: Strategies for Program Leaders and Policy
Makers," which provided frameworks of financing strategies, ideas
for after-school programming and additional resources. The new
toolkit allows stakeholders to gauge how best to improve childhood
nutrition and physical activity and summarizes strategies and
resources that can guide discussions and planning around policy and
program options.
THE MUSEUM WAS NOT BORING AND IT
HELPED BOOST ACHIEVEMENT
A new book by Linda D’Acquisto, an experienced curriculum director,
teacher and museum educator, outlines how to plan creative museum
projects that target content standards and develop students'
understanding of required subject matter, and thereby foster
creativity and help raise test scores. The book uses photographs and
classroom examples to guide the reader through every step of
designing museum projects focused on teaching students core content.
To help a museum project along, D’Acquisto provides classroom-proven
plans, which include worksheets and rubrics and advice on how to
select museum topics related to standards-based curricula and to use
the project and experience to define learning targets and assess
achievement.
PINK HAIR BENEFITS A CHARITY AND
INCREASES INTEREST IN MATH
Kim Yuretich, who teaches math at Mesabi East High School in Aurora,
Minn. recently challenged her students to raise $5,000 for St. Jude
Children’s Research Hospital. If they met that goal, she would show
up at school with pink hair. The students raised money by
participating in a math-a-thon and completing 200 math problems in
addition to their regular school work, reports the Associated Press.
The students raised $2,600, eclipsing the halfway point, and, being
a good sport, Yuretich showed up to school with pink-streaked hair.
Yuretich has received a few strange looks (like across the
Thanksgiving table), but it was well worth it, as "(the students)
usually don't get that jazzed about math."
'NO CHILD' MAY STRENGTHEN ENGLISH
LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY TESTS
It appears the No Child Left Behind Act has had a beneficial impact
on standardized tests that measure English language proficiency. The
findings of a new report from the University of California at Davis
suggest that tests attempting to measure students’ English
proficiency have improved significantly, nationwide, since 2001. The
federal law mandates that reliable and valid assessments of English
proficiency be conducted, and to that end, the U.S. Department of
Education has awarded grants to states to create and field-test
cutting edge assessment systems. The ramped up accountability
resulted in significantly upgraded English language proficiency
tests and the creation of completely new tests benchmarked to NCLB
Title III requirements.
MORE EVIDENCE THAT PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
HELPS SCHOOLS
Increased attention has been paid to district reform, representing a
burgeoning recognition that efforts must focus on whole school
systems instead of a school-by-school approach, writes Warren
Simmons in Voices in Urban Education. Simmons believes that
alliances between schools and community groups are key to improving
the educational opportunities of all students, particularly the most
disadvantaged. Still, for these alliances to reach their goal, they
require support infrastructures that will sustain their diligent
work. Regrettably, while these efforts at reforming schools are
vital, they are not sufficient to turn around failing systems, as
the vast majority of disadvantaged students do not receive the
necessary resources and instruction to move beyond basic skills.
More advantaged students spend time traveling and attending music
lessons, sports leagues and museums -- activities which reinforce
and accelerate school-based learning. To help disadvantaged
students, districts have brought community resources into the mix to
supplement services and have also collaborated with colleges, reform
groups and community development organizations to forge support
networks. The shift of emphasis to a partnership places the
community at the center for learning as it encourages families,
cultural institutions, businesses and others to become more involved
in education.
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