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40 YEARS LATER: REMEMBERING SENATOR ROBERT F. KENNEDY
On the 40th anniversary of the death of Robert Francis Kennedy, the
NewsBlast pauses to remember his legacy of fighting to reduce
poverty and improve the health, education and welfare of children.
Senator Kennedy died in the early hours of June 6, 1968 at the age
of 42 years old, shortly after claiming victory in California's
crucial Democratic primary. He leveraged his political talents and
moral voice to address the needs of the dispossessed and powerless
in America -- the poor, the young, racial minorities and Native
Americans. He sought to bring the facts about poverty to the
conscience of the American people, journeying into urban ghettos,
Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta and migrant workers' camps. "There
are children in the Mississippi Delta," he said, "whose bellies are
swollen with hunger... Many of them cannot go to school because they
have no clothes or shoes. These conditions are not confined to rural
Mississippi. They exist in dark tenements in Washington, D.C.,
within sight of the Capitol, in Harlem, in South Side Chicago, in
Watts. There are children in each of these areas who have never been
to school, never seen a doctor or a dentist. There are children who
have never heard conversation in their homes, never read or even
seen a book." He challenged the complacent in American society and
sought to bridge the great divides in American life -- between the
races, between the poor and the more affluent, between young and
old, between order and dissent.
USING CONSTITUENCY BUILDING TO IMPROVE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Building quality schools for all students requires a public
commitment and a broad, active constituency able to challenge the
status quo and create the conditions for change. The Constituency
Building for Public School Reform (CBPSR) initiative was founded by
the Ford Foundation -- 13 years ago -- to help build such a
constituency. At the heart of this initiative is a conviction that
civic participation is essential to a healthy democracy in general
and to public school improvement efforts in particular. In a new
report, "A Foundation Returns to School: Strategies for Improving
Public Education," Janice Petrovich, director of Education,
Sexuality and Religion, writes that the initiative was based on two
premises. First, that low-income communities -- those most likely to
benefit from school improvement -- are typically excluded from the
school reform arena and need to assume a more active role. This is
particularly important given that the issue of educational equity
often takes a back seat to concerns about educational quality.
Second, that successful reform depends on well-informed and
inclusive coalitions capable of mobilizing a broad cross sector of
the community. Only an engaged public can generate the political
energy to initiate and sustain reform and hold public officials
accountable. Although many efforts have aimed at long-term school
improvement, progress has been elusive. Experience in school reform
has shown that no matter how well crafted or well intentioned
reforms may be, they will not endure without community support --
and that community support is won not through public relations
campaigns, but through active participation. The Ford Foundation's
Constituency Building for Public School Reform initiative has
demonstrated that civil society organizations can provide platforms
for education issues, inform the development of appropriate
interventions, educate the public, increase transparency and
accountability, and enhance democratic participation.
BUILDING THE FUTURE OF FAMILY INVOLVEMENT
Historically, policymakers' and schools' investments in family
involvement have been limited and inconsistent, due to shifting
political ideologies, issues of control and accountability, and the
challenging nature of building and sustaining meaningful family
–school relationships. Today, educators, researchers and parents
alike see the need and opportunity to move beyond individual
programs to continuous and systemic family involvement efforts.
Research is beginning to document what years of field experience
show: Families are involved not just in schools and homes, but in a
variety of settings. From the everyday "teachable moment" to formal
educational institutions, families can encourage learning everywhere
-- in museums, on playgrounds, and in grocery stores, to name just a
few settings. Broadening the concept of family involvement to
include all of these settings provides more opportunities for
families to support learning, reduces or compensates for barriers to
traditional forms of involvement, and promotes continuity of
involvement. Families can and should be a centerpiece of what we
call complementary learning -- a systemic approach that
intentionally integrates school and nonschool supports to promote
educational and life success. This double issue of The Evaluation
Exchange from the Harvard Family Research Project examines the
current state of and future directions for the family involvement
field in research, policy, and practice. Featuring innovative
initiatives, new evaluation approaches and findings, and interviews
with field leaders, the issue is designed to spark conversation
about where the field is today and where it needs to go in the
future.
END-OF-YEAR SCHOOL OBLIGATIONS DRIVE PARENTS BATTY
As thousands of working parents across the country know, this can be
the cruelest season of the year, logistically speaking, when dozens
of these end-of-school-year events collide with work obligations,
over and over again. It's not just a matter of having an
understanding employer, although that certainly helps, writes
Jocelyn Noveck for the Associated Press. Even for those in the most
flexible workplaces, a series of three-hour absences can sabotage a
week. "People have been in my office this week in tears," says
Catherine Steiner-Adair, a clinical psychologist in Boston who works
with schools and parents. "There's just way too much stuff. They're
saying, 'I can't handle it all. And I can't handle being seen as a
bad parent if I don't show up.'" Working mothers bear the brunt,
Steiner-Adair says, because in most cases they're the ones suffering
the consequences of taking time from their jobs, not their husbands.
Has the situation gotten worse over the years? Steiner-Adair thinks
so. "It's this crazy culture we have now of anxious parenting," she
says. "This nervous generation of parents is signing kids up for way
too much stuff. And so we have too many rehearsals. Too many games,
too many practices, too many cookies. Too much celebrating!" And all
this can impact kids negatively, she says, by tiring them out and
depriving them of the "chilling-out time" they need to cope with
these transitions in their lives.
SCHOOL LUNCHES SUFFER UNDER PRICE PRESSURE
High food prices are forcing cafeteria managers across the country
to sacrifice fresh produce for canned, fresh eggs for processed, and
"pricier palate-pleasers" for cheaper dishes, writes Nirvi Shah of
the Miami Herald. The money districts receive for each meal they
serve has not changed since last summer, while the costs of staples,
whole grains, and fresh produce have risen dramatically. Districts
are struggling to avoid passing costs to students, but are dismayed
at the sacrifices that must be made to nutritional integrity.
"There's nothing wrong with baked apples, but we've worked hard to
take school lunches to the next level," said Penny Parham, who
oversees the 210,000 lunches that Miami-Dade public schools serve
daily. The cost-cutting measures are seen by many as a retreat from
years of effort to serve healthier choices for students. The problem
is compounded by the fact that most schools already lose money on
the meals they serve: It costs about $3 to produce a school lunch,
but districts don't recoup their costs: the U.S. Department of
Agriculture pays only $2.40 for students eligible for free lunch,
and students who pay full price pay an average of $1.80 nationally.
Cafeteria managers hope that when the amounts districts are paid for
meals are reset this summer, they will better reflect the cost of
food. Managers also suggest that in the current economic climate,
the formula may need adjustment more than once a year.
LOCAL EDUCATION FUND HELPS TEACHERS LEARN TOGETHER
Through a partnership between the Hamilton County School District
and the Public Education Foundation of Chattanooga, Tenn., 550 K-12
educators are teaching each other as part of Math & Literacy
Institutes, a two-day workshop in best teaching methods. "Teachers
learn like all of us, by trying things, and teachers learn, 'gee
this worked really well in my classroom' and they'll share it with
other teachers," said Public Education Foundation president Dan
Challener. According to Challener, teachers jumped at the chance to
participate in the workshop; in fact, he had to turn several
teachers away. This is the fourth year for the Literacy Institute,
the first for the Math Institute. Literacy teacher Jeff Paulson was
enthusiastic about the experience because, "It's not like we have
vendors here that are trying to sell us something. We've got people
using these strategies and sharing them." Challener said that test
scores and graduation rates are improving steadily in Hamilton
County, and feels this is an excellent way to keep up the momentum.
"We know that there's nothing more important than good teaching for
student learning."
OVER-REFERRAL OF BLACK STUDENTS IN FLORIDA UNDER SCRUTINY
State and district profiles compiled by the Florida Department of
Education and released every spring show black students are twice as
likely to be funneled into the state's mentally handicapped and
emotionally/behaviorally disabled categories of exceptional student
education, writes Deidre Conner of the Jacksonville Times-Union.
Florida ranks among the worst in the nation for over-representation
of minorities in those categories, according to statistics from the
National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems,
funded by the U.S. Department of Education. Professor Janette
Klingner says the reasons that disparities exist are complex, and
range from poor instruction to cultural misunderstandings. There are
also subconscious prejudices, at times. School personnel have wide
latitude to determine whether children should be labeled with
disabilities. A student viewed as normal in one teacher's classroom
may be seen as mentally or behaviorally deficient in another's.
Often, districts with high proportions of white teachers and
students have some of the worst disparities. Early intervention
services, such as small group tutoring sessions or one-on-one
counseling, may be one way to address the labeling issue. Others
include having teams of educators, psychologists and behavioral
specialists work with at-risk kids, and giving students extra help
in the classroom before referring them for disabilities testing. The
federal government has promised to crack down on districts with
major racial disparities in labeling students with a disability,
sending states a warning letter in 2007 and dictating that problem
districts must divert 15 percent of federal funds to early
intervention. There can be a catch to intervention, however.
Districts get more funding for each special education student, so if
they provide extra help to keep students from being labeled as
disabled, they lose out on the money.
ISLAM IN THE CLASSROOM: WHAT THE TEXTBOOKS TELL US
In this highly critical survey of ten widely used secondary school
history textbooks, Gilbert Sewall of the American Textbook Council
finds that "the deficiencies in Islam-related lessons are uniquely
disturbing ... and present an incomplete and confected view of Islam
that misrepresents its foundations and challenges to international
security." Deficiencies present in textbooks published prior to 2001
have either not been corrected or have gotten worse, Sewall writes.
He lays particular blame on the publishing corporations, whose
executives and boards of directors decide editorial policies. Sewall
feels that publishers have had time, at this point, to correct
imbalances in perspective and review contested facts, but haven't
done so. His contention is not that the textbooks are biased against
Islam, but overly favorable in the name of multiculturalism. He
feels that in covering Islam, textbooks should explain that "Islam
is aggressive in a post-colonial world," and that "Islam's ability
to embrace modernity and secular society remains an open question."
TELL YOUR STORY OF COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN PUBLIC EDUCATION
The Learning First Alliance recently interviewed best-selling author
Dave Eggers about the urban tutoring centers he has helped establish
in 7 major cities nationwide. Those centers focus on student writing
for children aged 6 to 18, and they also work with teachers to
promote better writing instruction in schools. Eggers describes the
centers' success in engaging communities in public education. The
centers operate behind storefronts that draw people off the streets
and help program directors recruit volunteer tutors -- who now
number in the thousands. The centers also encourage strong family
involvement. Eggers describes his new site --
www.onceuponaschool.org
-- which encourages people to tell their stories of successful
community involvement in public schools. Eggers also describes his
forthcoming documentary on the challenges faced by public school
teachers. He's working with Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker
Christine Roth to create a film that will do for public education
what "An Inconvenient Truth" did for the environmental movement. He
plans to release a film trailer next week and to begin final
production in the fall.
IDAHO PROPOSES BOLD MOVE ON AYP
The Idaho State Board of Education has asked the U.S. Department of
Education to "wipe away" student progress requirements under the No
Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) for the years 2002 to 2006, writes Bill
Roberts of the Idaho Statesman. Board members argue that the state's
education standards were poorly written and that statewide exams
were not aligned with curricula. Mike Rush, executive director of
the State Board, asked that the Department of Education "reset the
NCLB clock" for Idaho beginning with spring 2007, after which point
schools and districts would be subject to restructuring if they
failed to improve. "It is unreasonable to label schools and
districts based on student achievement data that were measured with
an invalid and unreliable tool," Rush said. In 2005, the U. S.
Department of Education fined Idaho $103,000 for not having an
adequate testing system in place. While the Idaho Board of Education
sees this as a justification for invalidating state test results,
critics view their move as skirting accountability altogether. The
U. S. Department of Education is currently reviewing the request.
MATH & SCIENCE TEACHERS FROM INDIA HELP REDUCE U.S. SHORTAGE
In Bridgeport, Conn., science and math teachers recruited from India
are finishing up their first year, writes Linda Conner Lambeck of
the Connecticut Post. The teachers are part of a deal struck with
India by the state of Connecticut to stem the critical shortage of
teachers in both disciplines. Indian teachers will teach here for
several years before returning to their native country. Despite
challenges and cultural differences, 13 of the 14 recruited will
remain in Bridgeport for 2008-2009, more savvy now their first year
is behind them -- and more confident. "Some call me bad," said Dr.
Satya Mohan, a science teacher at Bassick High School. "I make them
do a lot of work. They don't do the work, I say ‘don't expect a pass
from me.'" His students appreciate him, despite his tough stance,
though. "He explains things to us," one freshman student said. Of
the three Connecticut cities offered the chance to receive the
recruited teachers, only Bridgeport opted in. New Haven and Stamford
declined. Many Indian teachers had a hard time adapting and lacked
the classroom management skills needed to cope with middle-school
students. Director of human resources for Bridgeport Schools Carol
Pannozzo called the effort to bring over the teachers and help them
adjust "worth it."
RESEARCH QUESTIONS QUALITY OF TEACHER TRAINING
A growing body of research suggests that teacher training in
America's 1,200 college- and university-based programs inadequately
prepares the country's new teachers, write Scott Stephens and Edith
Starzyk of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Critics of these programs
point to low admission standards, non-publishing and untenured
faculty, and weak quality control. Many curricula are disconnected
from actual classroom situations, and the hours required by some
programs for student teaching can be as low as 30. Currently, few
programs track data on how well students fare under their graduates;
they only monitor whether graduates pass certification tests.
Stanford University professor Linda Darling-Hammond has pointed out
that students taught by three ineffective teachers in a row will
score up to 50 percentage points lower on standardized tests than
students taught by three effective teachers in a row. "That's the
difference between being ready to go to an Ivy League college and
not finishing high school," she said.
PARENTS PUSH FOR FOOD ALLERGY STANDARDS
Montgomery County, Md., parents are pushing for state and federal
standards to help schools manage food allergies, regulations that
vary by county and school system, reports Meghan Tierney of The
Gazette. ‘‘[Schools] have come a long way already, but they're kind
of dealing with it on an individual basis," said Kari Keaton, whose
15-year-old and 10-year-old have food allergies, along with roughly
2.2 million other American school-aged children. A bill introduced
into the Maryland legislature last session outlining specific
standards for schools in dealing with anaphylactic allergies passed
in the House but stalled in the Senate. If passed, schools would
have had to maintain health plans for allergic students, disseminate
information throughout the school, designate a nut-free table in the
cafeteria and train staff to treat students having an anaphylactic
reaction. Civil liability immunity would also be provided to school
employees acting in good faith to help a student during an allergy
emergency. Supportive legislators say they will try again next year.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill last month to create
voluntary allergy guidelines for schools, according to published
reports, and a Senate committee considered the issue last week, also
the 11th annual Food Allergy Awareness Week. Food allergies occur
when the body's immune system mistakenly attacks certain kinds of
foods, triggering a variety of symptoms that can include swelling of
the tongue or throat, difficulty breathing, a drop in blood pressure
or even death. A food allergy is different from a food intolerance,
which is less severe and causes symptoms such as bloating, gas and
cramping. ‘‘The mentality with food allergies is, ‘Oh, you'll get
stuffy and sneezy,' but no, you could die," said Justine Beachley,
whose seven-year-old son has a peanut allergy. Food allergies cause
30,000 emergency room visits and between 100 and 200 deaths in the
U.S. each year.
LOW-INCOME STUDENTS WORK TO EARN THEIR PRIVATE SCHOOL TUITION
In her article "When School Works" in DoubleThink (published online
by America's Future Foundation), Laura Vanderkam profiles the Cristo
Rey Network, 19 urban Catholic high schools in which students
combine demanding academic work with part-time jobs in the corporate
world to defray the cost of tuition. At the Cristo Rey Jesuit High
School of Chicago, for instance, 525 students share 130 jobs, which
include working for hedge funds, lawyers' offices and consulting
firms. Their wages are then channeled to the school, which keeps
tuition low -- $2,700 -- a third of what it would otherwise cost.
This is critical for the population that the schools serve:
economically disadvantaged and often desperate to find a way out of
dangerous neighborhoods and low-functioning high schools, but unable
to afford private tuition. Apart from the economic benefits,
educators in the Network have found that exposure to the
responsibilities and expectations of the corporate world radically
reorganize students' worldview and idea of what is possible. The
majority of students come from households where no one has attended
college, but acceptance to two- and four-year institutions
network-wide for 2006 was 99 percent. Not all students will complete
their post-secondary education, but this college-going rate is a
radical improvement on statistics for disadvantaged Latino and
African-American students nationally.
FREEING PRINCIPALS FROM ADMINISTRATIVE TASKS
In her paper "Out of the Office and Into the Classroom" for the
Center of the Study of Teaching and Policy, Holly Holland looks at
the use of SAMs, or School Administration Managers, in schools. SAMs
are trained professionals who take over administrative tasks for
school principals and allow them greater time to spend in
classrooms, focused on instruction and assessment. The Wallace
Foundation-funded SAM project, currently underway in nine states,
reassigns responsibilities for school operations either by hiring
someone new or reallocating an existing administrator, tracks a
principal's time, and engages a coach to work monthly with the
principal to encourage effective and reflective leadership. In one
elementary school in La Rue County, Ky., the SAM-supported principal
found herself spending 30 percent more time in the classroom.
"Through the SAM initiative, principals learn how to deepen their
conversations with teachers, shifting from an evaluative role to a
collegial and supportive role," Holland writes.
CALIFORNIA BUDGET CUTS CREATE TEACHER SURPLUS
In the face of deep education budget cuts this year in California,
new teachers hoping to find positions near their homes are being
forced to seek work in other parts of California, across the United
States, even overseas, and some are applying to private and charter
schools, writes Seema Mehta of the Los Angeles Times. "I can't
remember a worse time. It's desperate," said John Eichinger, an
education professor who has taught at Cal State L.A. for 16 years
and taught in public schools for 15 years before that. His students
"are very excited and idealistic, and they can't wait to get out
there, and there's no place to go." School districts issued layoff
warnings in March to as many as 24,000 teachers, librarians, nurses
and others in the wake of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's (R)
January budget proposal, which would have cut billions in education
funding for 2008-2009. His revised budget proposal, unveiled May 14,
improved education spending, although many districts still
anticipate multimillion-dollar shortfalls. Although the number of
layoffs and job openings won't be known until this summer, the
proposal has already had a chilling effect on the hiring process. UC
Irvine canceled its annual spring job fair for teaching graduates
because so few California districts were interested in recruiting.
"I'm worried," said Jack O'Connell, state superintendent of public
instruction. "Many of these individuals have the potential to be
outstanding teachers. Yet if they're not hired, or if there's not an
economically viable option, they'll leave the teaching profession."
NC COLLEGE GRADS MAY BE REQUIRED TO SERVE K-12 SCHOOLS TO GET DIPLOMAS
Under legislation proposed by North Carolina State Senate Majority
Leader Tony Rand, all students seeking bachelors' degrees in the
state's public and private colleges and universities would be
required to spend 20 hours a semester tutoring or mentoring students
in North Carolina public schools, writes Dan Kane of The News &
Observer. The program would be named in honor of two students
randomly murdered this year, Abhijit Mahato of Duke University and
Eve Carson of UNC-Chapel Hill. "In our public schools, we always say
that if we could get the family involved, how much better everything
would be," said Senator Rand. "Well, some of children in public
schools don't have families. Sometimes the family doesn't want to be
involved. And so programs involving these college students would be
a real boost." If the legislation passes, all bachelor's degree
recipients would have to complete this community service requirement
in order to graduate. Some universities and colleges already have
such programs, but do not require participation to graduate. Other
programs, such as N.C. Central University in Durham, require 120
hours of community service to graduate; officials there announced
they will now steer their students toward helping public school
students within a two-mile radius of their campus.
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