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EDUCATION REFORM CAST AS A CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE BY AN UNLIKELY DUO
New York City Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein and the Reverend Al
Sharpton were in Washington, DC, as co-chairmen of a new national
effort to push education issues from the periphery to the center of
the 2008 presidential campaign, writes Bill Turque of The Washington
Post. The Education Equity Project will challenge the presumptive
presidential nominees, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Senator
Barack Obama (D-Ill.), to treat the failure of schools to educate
black and Latino children as the overriding civil rights issue of
the 21st century. Klein and Sharpton endorsed no candidate and
offered few specific policy directives, but said they intend to
drive the debate through position papers, public forums planned at
national political party conventions, and behind-the-scenes advocacy
with the campaigns. Klein said that more than a half-century after
the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, the
promise of equal educational opportunity for minority students has
yet to be realized. "To me this is not just an issue of school
reform," Klein said. "It is a civil rights issue, the civil rights
issue of our time."
FORMER ED OFFICIAL GIVES INSIDE STORY ON NCLB
A former official in President Bush's Department of Education has
lent support to the contention by many early critics of No Child
Left Behind (NCLB) that the law was a cynical plan to destroy
American faith in public education and open the way to vouchers and
school choice, writes Claudia Wallis of TIME magazine. Susan Neuman,
a professor of education at the University Michigan who served as
assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education during
George W. Bush's first term, said there were many in the Department
of Education who saw NCLB as a Trojan horse for the choice agenda --
a way to expose the failure of public education and "blow it up a
bit": "There were a number of people pushing hard for market forces
and privatization." Political pressure to take the hardest possible
line on school accountability in order to avoid looking lax, as they
felt the Clinton Administration had been, overrode arguments by
Neuman and others that many schools would fail to reach NCLB goals
and needed more flexibility while making improvements. Neuman now
believes that the nation has to look beyond the schoolroom, and has
put her name to a nonpartisan document released last week by the
Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank. Titled "A
Broader, Bolder Approach to Education" (profiled in last week's
NewsBlast), the paper lays out an expansive vision for leveling the
playing field for low-income kids, one that looks toward new
policies on child health and support for parents and communities.
Also:
http://www.boldapproach.org/
MISSISSIPPI TOWN HOLDS FIRST INTEGRATED PROM SINCE DESEGREGATION IN 1970
Mississippi integrated its public schools in 1970, but until this
year, the Delta town of Charleston continued a system of separate
proms, organized privately, for black and white students, reports
Catherine Farquharson of National Public Radio. For over a decade,
Academy Award-winning actor and Charleston native Morgan Freeman had
offered to fund the prom if everyone could attend, but this year was
the first time school officials accepted his offer. Farquharson
reports that still, some white parents wouldn't let their children
attend and insisted on holding a private prom. Mostly, though,
students enjoyed themselves. "It was just magnificent," said student
Chasidy Buckley. "That night, when we stepped in that door,
everybody just had a good time. We proved ourselves wrong. We proved
the community wrong, because they didn't think that it was going to
happen." Buckley said the school has decided to host an interracial
prom again next year, giving black and white kids another chance to
dress up and step out.
"HIGHLY QUALIFIED" TEACHERS LESS PREVALENT IN HIGH-POVERTY DISTRICTS
Teachers meeting the "highly qualified" state-set standard were
teaching core subjects in 94 percent of the nation's classrooms in
the 2006-07 school year. But poorer schools were still less likely
than their wealthier counterparts to employ them, writes Vaishali
Honawar in Education Week. In some states, the gap was glaring: 95
percent of elementary classes in low-poverty schools in Maryland
were staffed with highly qualified teachers, compared with only 66
percent in poorer schools. The "highly qualified" teacher
requirement is a provision of the six-year-old No Child Left Behind
Act. All states must report annually the percentage of core-subject
classes taught by highly qualified teachers and break down the
numbers for classes in high-poverty and low-poverty schools. That
said, critics like Heather Peske, the director of teaching quality
for the Education Trust, a Washington-based group that advocates
improvements in the education of disadvantaged students, reiterated
a long-standing complaint from education watchers: The data do not
reflect student-performance gains, which makes it difficult to say
how effective the teachers really are. Moreover, "The way states
define highly qualified teachers and what counts and doesn't count
varies, rendering cross-state comparisons useless," said Barnett
Berry, the president of the Center for Teaching Quality, an advocacy
and research group in Hillsborough, N.C. Only one state -- North
Dakota -- met last year's deadline to have highly qualified teachers
in 100 percent of its core-subject classes.
PUT PARENTS & COMMUNITIES FRONT & CENTER
In his latest podcast, National Education Association's Joel Packer
interviews Wendy Puriefoy, president of the Public Education
Network, about a new report from the Forum on Education and
Democracy. That report sets out a Marshall Plan for education --
including more investment in teachers and research, and a greater
emphasis on engaging parents and educating communities. "Parents
have to be able to engage with their children's school," Puriefoy
says, and there are various reasons why they don't.
"Psychologically, school was a bad experience for many parents who
were poor and disadvantaged. For some, the traditional involvement
strategy falls outside of a time when they can be involved because
they're at work, either during the day or at night." Parents are the
key link to engaging the rest of the community, she says in the
podcast, so it's essential that school personnel understand that
parents are not an add-on but instead a central part of educating.
Staff need training to learn more effective ways to talk with
parents and elicit feedback from them, she says, adding that
educators must learn to use various means to engage parents besides
coming to the school.
Also:
http://www.forumforeducation.org/foruminaction/index.php?page=31&item=430
CAN LARGE CITY SUPERINTENDENTS SUCCEED?
In an op-ed in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Don Nielsen, a former
president of the Seattle School Board, calls Superintendent of
Seattle Public Schools Maria Goodloe-Johnson "eminently qualified
and may well be one of the best-prepared superintendents this city
has ever had," but because of the constraints inherent to the job of
running a major urban school district, "there is a high probability
she will fail." He goes on to enumerate Goodloe-Johnson's
challenges. Every two years she may have new School Board members
but will have no input as to who they will be or to the skills they
bring to the job. She is also unable to select the best talent,
because all teachers and principals must be "certified," though
certified is no guarantee of qualified. With performance, she cannot
terminate an employee (teacher, principal or staff) without enormous
effort, regardless of the employee's inability to perform his or her
job. She can recommend a standard curriculum, but is virtually
prohibited from enforcing it. Almost all money at her disposal must
be spent in a prescribed manner, regardless of the needs of the
district, school or student, and her funding sources (state and
federal governments) operate on two-year (state) or one-year
(federal) budgets, making long-range planning virtually impossible.
"Is this a job you would take and be held accountable for results?"
Nielsen asks. "I know of no CEO who would even touch a job like
this. Is it any wonder that our schools show little or no
improvement in performance? If we, as citizens of this city and
state, want our schools to improve, we must address the management
constraints put on superintendents."
NEW TRAINING FOR SCHOOL SAFETY OFFICERS IN SCHOOL SHOOTINGS
When there's a school shooting, it can take a SWAT team up to a
half-hour to respond. Dan Gunderson of Minnesota Public Radio
reports that according to John Benner, who runs the Ohio-based
Tactical Defense Institute, that's no longer acceptable. "If you
look at Virginia Tech, that guy shot between seven and eight people
every minute he was in there," Benner said. "How many people are you
willing to wait for this guy to shoot, before you respond to this?"
Benner was in Fargo-Moorhead, N.D. training 26 school resource
officers from seven states in new response tactics and a new mindset
for those trained to wait for backup before facing danger. The
course included taking part in realistic shooting scenarios in a
Fargo school and for target practice using a life-sized picture of a
smiling teenage girl holding a handgun. The National School Resource
Officers organization is sponsoring similar training sessions across
the country.
STUDY SUGGESTS NBPTS CERTIFICATION LEADS TO HIGHER STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
A new congressionally mandated report from the National Research
Council indicates that students taught by National Board for
Professional Teaching Standards-certified teachers make greater
gains on achievement tests than students taught by teachers who are
not board-certified. However, it is unclear whether the
certification process itself leads to higher quality teaching.
Created in 1987, the nonprofit National Board for Professional
Teaching Standards (NBPTS) developed standards for what effective
teachers should know and be able to do, along with a process to
evaluate whether individual teachers meet these criteria. To earn
certification, a teacher must complete six computer-based exercises
and assemble a portfolio that shows how his or her teaching meets
the standards. From 1993 through 2007, approximately 99,300 teachers
applied for NBPTS certification and 63,800 earned the credential.
"Earning NBPTS certification is a useful 'signal' that a teacher is
effective in the classroom," said Milton Hakel, chair of the
committee that wrote the report. "But we don't know whether the
certification process itself makes teachers more effective -- as
they become familiar with the standards and complete the assessment
-- or if high-quality teachers are attracted to the certification
process." The report recommends further research to investigate this
question, as well as to determine whether NBPTS certification is
having broader effects on the educational system beyond individual
classrooms. Studies so far suggest that many school systems are not
supporting or making the best use of their board-certified teachers.
MEMPHIS CITY COUNCIL VOTES TO CUT SCHOOL FUNDING ENTIRELY
If the Memphis City Council doesn't reinstate $73.3 million in
funding to city schools, the Tennessee Department of Education is
going to withhold $423 million from the district, writes Dakarai
Aarons of The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tenn.). Last week, council
members slashed the school district's anticipated $93.5 million city
allocation to $20.2 million, which allowed them to reduce the
property tax rate by 18 cents. Council members hope to eliminate all
city funding to the district in the 2009-10 budget. The city first
provided money to city schools in 1937. The city is not required,
under its charter or by state law, to fund the city schools,
according to council attorney Allan Wade. He claims state law
requires only counties to fund schools. Tennessee school districts
have until October 1 to present a balanced budget before the state
starts withholding money, said Rachel Woods, spokeswoman for the
state education department.
NEW GROUP LAUNCHES THE HUMAN RESOURCES SIDE OF SCHOOL REFORM
Lesli A. Maxwell of Education Week reports that two longtime
education experts, Allan R. Odden, director of the Consortium for
Policy Research in Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
and James A. Kelly, founding president of the National Board for
Professional Teaching Standards, have launched Strategic Management
of Human Capital, an organization that will push for transforming
how the nation's largest school districts recruit, retain, develop,
and evaluate the teaching and school leadership talent. "This is the
[human resources] side of education reform," said Mr. Odden. "The
goal is to improve student performance through redesigning and
restructuring the way districts, particularly the large urbans,
recruit for and manage teacher and principal talent." The project
will have a high-profile task force charged with drawing attention
to the importance of recruiting top talent into school districts and
putting that strategy into practice in their own districts, agencies
and organizations that work with schools. The project also includes
a website where educators can engage in dialogue with one another
and swap ideas, and will have an inaugural conference for invited
district leaders, scheduled for November 2008.
FTA CLAIMS SPECIAL PUBLIC BUS ROUTES SHUT OUT COMPETITION
The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) is clamping down on special
transit bus routes that were created to shuttle schoolchildren,
writes Ben Arnoldy of The Christian Science Monitor. The agency
wants to be sure that federal dollars to city transit systems aren't
subsidizing school busing, harming private bus companies' ability to
compete. The push for private competition could burden some of the
country's struggling inner-city school systems with a huge new bill,
say transit and school officials. Schools without private bus
services say they would be "beside themselves trying to establish a
bus service this late in the year," says Jim LaRusch, chief council
for the American Public Transportation Association. For instance,
the Oakland Unified School District in California estimates that
switching to private busing for all children would run into tens of
millions of dollars. It already costs $8 million a year to privately
transport the district's 1,500 special needs students -- a sliver of
the roughly 20,000 students that travel daily by public bus. "It
would mean tremendous and unwarranted expense that jeopardizes
access to schools for people from underserved communities," says
Troy Flint, Oakland schools spokesperson. It's not clear, he adds,
if private contractors would provide the same "depth and range of
services." Robin Leeds, spokesperson for the National School
Transportation Association, maintains that a private company can't
match a federally subsidized transit agency when the agency is
"essentially using taxpayer dollars that are intended for
transportation of the general public." Private operators would be
interested in serving inner-city routes if they can do so on a level
playing field, says Ms. Leeds, pointing out that yellow buses have
more child-safety features than city buses. The National School
Transportation Association represents private bus companies and
supports the FTA clampdown.
STATES FIND TUTORING PROVISION DOES NOT IMPROVE TEST RESULTS
In the 2006-07 school year, $595 million went to the fast-growing
industry of for-profit and nonprofit tutoring providers, writes
Maria Glod of The Washington Post, but it remains unclear whether or
how much those extra lessons are boosting student performance.
Researchers from the Virginia Department of Education released a
report in April that compared the performance last year of students
with identical or very similar math scores in 2006 and found that
those who were tutored did no better than their peers. Studies in
Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Michigan and Kentucky also showed that
the mandated tutoring, known as "supplemental educational services,"
didn't bump up test scores. "This isn't helping poor kids," said
Jack Jennings, president and CEO of the Center on Education Policy,
which monitors implementation of the federal law. "All it's doing is
taking money out of classrooms and putting it into the hands of
private companies." Turning to private tutors when public schools
fall short is a key provision of the 2002 No Child Left Behind law.
Under the law, schools that don't meet test performance goals for
two consecutive years must allow students to transfer to
higher-performing schools, and if they fail for three years, must
offer private tutoring to children from low-income families.
BOSTON'S TEACHER "RESIDENCY" RECOGNIZED AS NATIONAL INNOVATOR
From almost 1,000 applicants, the teacher preparation program
created by the Boston Public Schools (BPS) was named one of 15
finalists for Harvard Kennedy School's Innovations in American
Government award. Soon to graduate its fifth cohort and with a
retention rate of 90 percent, Boston Teacher Residency (BTR) moves
preparation from the university to the school and classroom, giving
aspiring teachers intensive year-long experience with a skilled
mentor teacher and coursework tailored to the priorities of the BPS.
Taking control of the pipeline of new teachers to improve quality,
readiness, and retention is a responsibility few districts have
assumed, although other urban districts are adopting the approach.
The residency model has been endorsed by Senator Barack Obama, who
sponsored legislation that made it eligible for federal teacher
training funds and who has pledged to create residencies to prepare
30,000 new teachers for high-need schools. Started with public and
private funds, BPS's partner in starting and managing BTR is the
Boston Plan for Excellence, the city's local education fund. On June
12, the 15 finalists were presented to the National Selection
Committee. Six winners will be announced September 9, each receiving
$100,000 for dissemination and replication.
NATIONAL PTA NAMES FIRST MALE AFRICAN-AMERICAN CHIEF EXECUTIVE
In a move that it says symbolizes the vision of the national
organization and the changing role of parents, the PTA will name its
first-ever male, African-American CEO next week. Byron V. Garrett
will be introduced to attendees at the 112th Annual PTA National
Convention & Exhibition. "I am thrilled to have the opportunity to
introduce new, cutting-edge methods of connecting families and
schools in underrepresented communities to better the lives and
futures of our nation's children," said Garrett. "This position
offers me a new avenue to work on behalf of the issues that lie
closest to my heart -- families, children, education, and youth
development." The announcement comes on the heels of a PTA national
poll that shows more men are getting involved in their child's
education than ever before.
FEDERAL GRANT MAKES MORE CHARTERS POSSIBLE
Idaho is one of five states getting federal government dollars to
further develop charter schools as an alternative to the traditional
public school system, the Associated Press reports. Funds will also
go to Oregon, New York, Utah, and Florida. Along with promoting
higher-quality charter school proposals, the grant will allow the
state to study successful charter schools and determine if they are
using teaching methods that can be replicated in public schools,
according to Shirley Rau, Idaho's school choice coordinator. "It has
been difficult for us to isolate those things that are
transferable," Rau said. Federal assistance has become crucial to
the financial success of charter schools, said Tamara Baysinger,
charter schools program manager for the Idaho Department of
Education. There are charter schools in Idaho that have been
established without the federal assistance, "but it's nearly
impossible," Baysinger adds. Idaho State law caps the number of
start-up charter schools to six per year. About half of the 32 Idaho
charter schools were authorized by local school districts, the other
16 schools authorized by the Idaho Public Charter School Commission.
The seven-member commission was created in 2004 to provide charter
school oversight, also allowing local school districts to relinquish
responsibility and authority over the schools.
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