|
THE NATION HAS BEEN AT RISK FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS, TOMORROW
The landmark education report, A Nation at Risk, will celebrate its
25th anniversary tomorrow. The report's disturbing findings kicked
off a nationwide series of major investments and firm commitments to
remedy the nation's public schools. At the same time, the first
local education funds (LEFs) were created and joined many other
organizations committed to community involvement in public
education. Twenty-five years later, LEFs have produced real and
significant progress, progress which continues to be made in almost
every corner of the country. Still, despite the great work that has
already been done, many students, including far too many poor and
minority children, remain at risk. To commemorate A Nation at Risk,
Education Week has begun a yearlong series on the impact of the
report (link below). The series includes commentaries by Howard
Gardner and E.D. Hirsch as well as profiles of the education systems
in China, Japan, India and the European Union.
Also:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/collections/nation-at-risk-25-years/index.html
DID A NATION AT RISK CREATE MORE
HARM THAN GOOD?
The A Nation at Risk report misidentified what is wrong with United
States public schools and consequently set the nation on a school
reform crusade that has done more harm than good, writes Richard
Rothstein for Cato Unbound. He finds the analysis conducted for the
report flawed because it wrongly concluded that student achievement
was declining, placed blame on schools for national economic
problems over which they have little influence and ignored the
responsibility of the nation's other social and economic
institutions for learning. A Nation at Risk based its analysis of
declining achievement entirely on average SAT scores. However, much
of the decline was due to the changing demographics of test takers
that shifted from mostly students planning to apply to the most
selective colleges in the early 1960s to more general college-bound
students in the 1980s. In addition, the report was issued a decade
after the nation's narrowing of social and economic equality ended,
which means income was being less evenly distributed. As research
has shown, social and economic disadvantage contributes in important
ways to poor student achievement, i.e., children in poor health
attend quality schools less regularly and those with inadequate
housing change schools frequently. Paul Houston, who was
superintendent of the Princeton (N.J.) public schools in 1983,
thought the report would be just the thing to get people talking
about education, reports Greg Toppo for USA Today (link below).
However, after reading the report, Houston found that "it was an
overstatement of the problem," which lead to "hysterical responses,"
including "a cottage industry of national reports by people saying
how bad things are." Houston seems to agree with Rothstein that the
report took liberties with the link between economic development and
overall education rates.
Also:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-04-22-nation-at-risk_N.htm
POVERTY CAN STYMIE DEVELOPMENT
Poverty can have negative effects on child and adolescent brain
development which can lead to learning disabilities, behavior
problems and other psychological and emotional problems, reports Lex
Alexander for the Raleigh (N.C.) News and Record. "With our recent
capacity to look at brain development...we're realizing how much
more impactful growing up in poverty is," said Margaret Arbuckle,
executive director of the Guildford Education Alliance, who helped
release the findings. The negative impact of poverty can be seen in
children's complex thinking and reasoning skills, impulse control
and their ability to create relationships and discern social cues.
Unfortunately, this is nothing now, writes George Will in the
Washington Post (link below). In 1966, the Coleman report, the
result of the largest social science project in history, reached a
conclusion so massive that the government almost refused to publish
it. Instead they did the next best thing, and released it over the
Fourth of July weekend. The report's "seismic" conclusion was that
the qualities of families from which children come matter much more
than money as predictors of schools' effectiveness. This means that
in order to improve education, the crucial problems of race and
class (including fractured families) will have to be faced. Yet this
problem has rarely been addressed and in the intervening years has
simply given way to larger teacher salaries, smaller class sizes and
other panaceas. Meanwhile colleges continue to offer more and more
freshmen more and more remediation.
Also:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/23/AR2008042302983.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
KINDERGARTEN HAS GONE THE WAY OF
LITTLE RED WAGONS AND MUD PIES
Katy, a first grader, waltzes into class with a pixie cut and huge
brown eyes, writes M. Jones for Edutopia. As her classmates settle
down, Katy twirls in a dizzying display of excess energy, her bottom
rarely -- if ever -- touching a chair. Her teacher finds Katy a
little young for the first day, and can't help thinking someone
dropped the ball here, so she checks her file. When she does, she's
dumbfounded to find an inch-thick individualized education plan
(IEP). An IEP typically signals a serious area of concern, most
likely that there is something wrong with the student. However,
there is nothing really wrong with Katy, she just has a brother with
a learning disability and overanxious parents who want to make sure
Katy doesn't slip through the cracks. The only thing actually wrong
with Katy is that she is a kindergartener deprived of kindergarten.
Ten years ago she would have been in the dress-up corner draping
feather boas, but now she's a first grader with an IEP and goals
that are unattainable for someone at her stage of development.
She'll go to special classes three times a week to make up for her
"deficiencies" and soon will start to wonder what is wrong. Her
teacher believes it is a major problem that kindergarten has gone
the way of little red wagons and mud pies and wonders how long it
will be before the free-spirited Katys of the world are extinct.
QUITE SIMPLY, WHEN COMMUNITIES COME
TOGETHER, SCHOOLS IMPROVE
For the 2002-03 school year, only 27 of Mobile County's (Ala.) 100
schools met federally mandated adequate yearly progress goals,
reports Tiffany Ray for the Birmingham News. Yet in just four years,
85 schools met their targets. The key to this turnaround was
community ownership of schools, says Carolyn Akers, executive
director of the Mobile Area Education Foundation. Success was
achieved when community groups came together and combined resources,
which allowed them to maximize the impact of individual successes.
THE FEDERAL ROLE IN EDUCATION SHOULD
FOCUS MORE ON COMMUNITIES
A new report from the Forum for Education and Democracy has found
that federal education policy is inconsistent and shortsighted. In
fact, the report finds that the United States' education system and
democracy are even more at risk than they were 25 years ago. The
report's authors intend it to be a guide for a new president,
education secretary and Congress as they attempt to renew the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act/No Child Left Behind Act. To
reinvigorate public schools, the report contends the federal
government should engage in a coordinated offensive that makes
schools the center of communities and a pathway to essential social
services for students.
COIN TOSS DECIDES RE-HIRE ORDER OF
RECENTLY LAID OFF TEACHERS
Often coin tosses are seen as the deciding factor in an overtime
National Football League contest, even though they really aren't as
much. However, for the Gilroy (Calif.) Unified School District, a
coin toss really could seal the fate of one teacher. When the school
district deemed two teachers identical in every way in terms of
qualifications, a judge flipped a coin to break the tie and
determine which teacher was more "senior." The all-important
"decision" affects the order in which teachers who already received
layoff notices will be hired back if the district has the resources
to do so, reports Sara Suddes for the Gilroy Dispatch. Couldn't they
just have done a teach off?
SCHOOL CHOICE SURGES IN STATES
Despite states' growing budget woes and Utah voters' repeal of the
nation's first universal state voucher program, the school choice
movement is gaining ground, reports Michele McNeil for Education
Week. In fact, state legislators are advancing proposals that would
indirectly funnel taxpayer money to families who want to send their
children to private schools. For instance, in Georgia, a tax credit
has been created for families and companies that donate to private
school voucher funds, while Louisiana approved a new tax deduction
for families that pay private school tuition. The activity suggests
that choice advocates are avoiding the divisive issue of universal
vouchers, which allow any public school student to receive state aid
to attend private school. Instead choice advocates are sticking to
targeted voucher programs for at-risk students and tax credits that
promote donations to privately run voucher programs. Meanwhile, in
Ohio, more students are seeking, and more schools are accepting
taxpayer-funded tuition vouchers, reports the Associated Press
(link below). The Educational Choice Scholarship Program allows
students at low-performing public schools to attend private or
parochial schools with tax dollars. This year, more than 10,000
applications were submitted, which is triple the number that arrived
in the first year.
Also:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/23/AR2008042302983.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
URBAN STUDENTS ACHIEVEMENT INCREASES,
NO MATTER THE TEST
Students who attend public school in the United States' major urban
school districts continue to advance in math and reading on federal
and state tests. According to a new report from the Council on the
Great City Schools, state test trends coincide with the federal
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) gains made by
urban students. However, there were lower percentages of students
scoring at or above proficient on the more difficult NAEP. While
most urban schools showed gains in math and reading performance, the
districts generally lagged behind state and national averages in
fourth and eighth grades. Still, there are exceptions to every rule.
A total of 22 percent of urban school districts scored as high or
higher than their respective states in fourth grade math and 16
percent scored as high or higher at the eighth grade level.
NEW REPORT PROVIDES CHARACTERISTICS
OF 100 LARGEST SCHOOL DISTRICTS
A new annual report from the Common Core of Data provides insights
into the nation's largest public school districts. The data include
everything from the number of high school completers and averaged
freshman graduation rate to revenues and expenditures. The study
finds that the 100 largest districts enrolled 23 percent of all
public school students and employed 20 percent of all public school
teachers in 2004-05. Still, the largest districts produced only 20
percent of all high school completers (both diploma and other
completion credential recipients) in 2003-04. Across these
districts, the averaged freshman graduation rate was 70.2 percent.
THE POWER OF ANIMALS: ASSISTANCE
DOGS MAKE DREAMS COME TRUE
Canine Companions for Independence (CCI) is working to make the
implementation of assistance dogs more prevalent because they
provide companionship, support independence and act as a social
bridge for children with autism. For example, Nancy knew that her
son T.J., age seven, would benefit from an assistance dog, but as a
single mom, she was unsure if it was possible. She then hooked up
with CCI, and the dream became a reality in the form of a dog named
Kermit. Within a week after Nancy and T.J. graduated the canine
companions program, T.J. said "fetch" to Kermit. This marked the
first time in her life Nancy heard T.J. speak spontaneously. Now, in
less than a year, Kermit has helped T.J. go from being almost
completely non-verbal to stringing up to three words together. And,
of course, there is lots of "fetch."
LOW-INCOME RURAL STUDENTS NEED
EXTENDED LEARNING TIME PROGRAMS
Rural, low-income students are more at risk of dropping out than
their city and suburban peers. This alone should provide sufficient
reason to address the challenges facing rural schools that serve
low-income areas. However, rural schools, especially those in poorer
areas, do not receive the attention they deserve, argue researchers
in a new brief from the Center for American Progress. One promising
strategy that should be considered by policy makers is the expansion
of learning time for all students attending schools with large
concentrations of low-income students. Research has shown that a
comprehensive approach to school reform that adds time to school
days and weeks/years for all students can result in significant
gains. The problem with implementation is that extended learning
time (ELT) programs have been quite difficult to execute in rural
areas because those schools tend to be resource poor. Consequently,
according to the brief, increasing access to ELT programs is not
currently feasible in rural areas without a significant new
investment by all levels of government.
THE BEGINNING OF LIFE APPEARS TO BE
GETTING BETTER
A new report from the Foundation for Child Development finds that
overall improvements in the well-being index are reflected across
all age groups. However, the health domain is on a dramatic decline
because of obesity rates and the number of babies born at lower
weights. The prevalence of obesity among children ages six to 11 is
nearly four times what it was in the 1960s, while for children ages
two to five, the rate is three times more. Still, some areas of
child health show steady improvement, mostly driven by declining
infant and child mortality rates and increased vaccinations.
Education attainment is also on the rise because of the dramatic
increase in the number of children ages four to six in full-day
kindergarten. In addition, the report found more parents are reading
to their children and setting limits for television watching.
MORE AND MORE PARENTS EXPECT THEIR
CHILDREN TO GO TO COLLEGE
A new report from the National Center for Education Statistics looks
at the relationship between the educational expectations of parents
and the postsecondary planning families and schools engaged in. The
results show that 91 percent of students in grades six through 12
had parents who expected them to continue their education beyond
high school, and 65 percent have parents who expect them to finish
college. In addition, among students whose parents expected them to
continue their education after high school, 82 percent had parents
who reported that the family was planning on helping to pay for
their child's postsecondary education costs.
EXAMINING THE EARLY COLLEGE HIGH
SCHOOL INITIATIVE
Early college high schools combine a regular high school with
college courses in a rigorous but supportive program, thereby
compressing the amount of time it takes to complete both a high
school diploma and the first two years of college. In addition,
early college high schools are based on the concept that academic
rigor combined with the opportunity to save time and money in
post-secondary education can be a powerful motivator for students to
work hard. Typically, these schools are intended for low-income
youths to increase the college attendance rates of underrepresented
populations. A new case study from Jobs for the Future (JFF)
examines the features of the Georgia College Early College (GCEC),
which deliberately recruits students from the community who perform
below grade level. The college-going culture, small class sizes and
other support structures enable students to believe in themselves
and raise their aspirations. The JFF case study goes on to explain
how GCEC achieves its mission of college success for all.
|
|
The PEN Weekly NewsBlast is a free e-mail newsletter featuring school reform
and school fundraising resources. The PEN NewsBlast is the property of the
Public Education Network, a national association of 83 local education funds
(LEFs) in 32 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico and five
foreign countries.
There are currently 42,585 subscribers to the PEN Weekly NewsBlast. Please
forward this e-mail to anyone who enjoys free updates on education news and
grant alerts. Some links in the PEN Weekly NewsBlast change or expire on a daily
or weekly basis. Some links may also require local website registration.
Your e-mail address is safe with the NewsBlast. It is our firm policy never
to rent, loan, or sell our subscriber list to any other organizations, groups,
or individuals.
**UPDATE OR ADD A NEWSBLAST SUBSCRIPTION**
PEN wants you to get each weekly issue of the NewsBlast at your preferred e-mail
address. We also welcome new subscribers. Please notify us if your e-mail
address is about to change. Send your name and new e-mail address to
PEN@PublicEducation.org.
Be sure to let us know your old e-mail address so we can unsubscribe it. If you
know anyone who is interested in receiving the NewsBlast, please forward this
e-mail to them and ask them to e-mail us and put "subscribe" in the subject
field or visit:
http://www.publiceducation.org/subscribe.asp
To view past issues of the PEN Weekly NewsBlast, visit:
http://www.publiceducation.org/newsblast_past.asp
To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit:
http://www.publiceducation.org/subscribe.asp
To read the NewsBlast submission policy, visit:
http://www.publiceducation.org/newsblast_submission_policy.htm
If you would like an article or news about your local education fund, public
school, or school reform organization featured in a future issue of PEN Weekly
NewsBlast, send a note to:
PEN@PublicEducation.org
Albert Lang
Senior Associate, Communications & Editor, NewsBlast
Public Education Network
601 Thirteenth Street, NW #710S
Washington, DC 20005
PEN@PublicEducation.org
Howard B. Schaffer, Founding Editor
|
