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Second study finds gains in NYC charter students
A new study from a group that had earlier issued a critical report
on outcomes for charters nationally finds that within New York City,
students at 49 charters made bigger learning gains in math and
reading than their regular public school counterparts, reports the
blog Gotham Schools. For the period from school years 2003-04 to
2008-09, the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at
Stanford University matched data from 20,000 charter students in
grades 3-8 to an identical number of students with comparable scores
at district schools. Fifty-one percent of the charter group had
higher math scores than district schools, 33 percent were no
different, and 16 percent had lower scores. On reading tests, 29
percent had higher scores, 59 percent showed no difference, and 12
percent had lower scores. Charter supporters highlighted that this
is the second report to reach the same conclusions, but with
different methodologies. Charter opponents point out that charters
admit fewer students not fluent in English or with severe learning
disabilities. "I am surprised that the charters don't do better,
given their many advantages," said New York University's Diane
Ravitch. "We know they have only 111 of the city's 51,000 homeless
students. We know they have longer hours and their teachers work 50
hours a week or so. We know their sponsors add millions so they can
have smaller classes and better facilities."
Related:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/01/05/18charter.h29.html?tkn=XXBFRGB4j8w%2FOSniw9HBVbY0HNqagc8mAMyd
TFA service not necessarily a lifelong commitment
A new study has found that the dedication of Teach for America (TFA)
participants to improving society at large does not necessarily
extend beyond their service in the program, The New York Times
reports. In areas like voting, charitable giving, and civic
engagement, graduates of the program lag behind those who were
accepted but declined and those who dropped out before completing
their two years, according to research from Stanford University. The
reasons for lower rates of civic involvement include not only
exhaustion and burnout, but also disillusionment with TFA's approach
to educational inequity, among other factors. "There's been a very
clear and somewhat naïve consensus among educators, policy folks,
and scholars that youth activism invariably has these kinds of
[lifelong civic] effects," said Professor Doug McAdam, the study's
author. "But we've got to be much more attentive to differences
across these experiences, and not simply assume that if you give a
kid some youth service experience it will change them." Teach for
America is nearing its 20th anniversary. Of its 17,000 alumni, 63
percent remain in the field of education, 31 percent in the
classroom. The study was conducted at the behest of TFA founder
Wendy Kopp, who disagrees with its findings.
LAUSD teachers compete with charter operators
A plan to let outside charter groups bid for control of dozens of
struggling and new campuses in the Los Angeles Unified School
District (LAUSD) has spurred a new set of competitors, reports The
Los Angeles Times. Groups of teachers from inside the system are
seeking to participate in a reform strategy that would have private
charter operators setting a standard for a district widely seen as
dysfunctional. While the union itself, United Teachers Los Angeles,
is trying to block outside takeovers through litigation,
rank-and-file teachers -- with the blessing of the union and in some
cases the district -- are planning to compete with the charters. But
these teachers, many in a bid to take over their own schools that
have been deemed "failing," worry their home-grown proposals might
not fare well against operators with track records, in-house data
analysts, legal support, and public relations professionals.
Proposals will be reviewed internally and externally, including by
parents and, at high school level, students. Superintendent Ramon
Cortines will make a single recommendation for each school to the
Board of Education, which has final say. Cortines applauds the
teachers' initiative but urged groups to "show some sort of evidence
or I will not recommend them -- evidence of some academic
improvement, evidence that they have been dealing with English
language learners, evidence that special education students are
being taken care of, evidence that parents are involved."
Related:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-utla22-2009dec22,0,4251620.story
AVID for success
Six schools across the country, including one in Baltimore, are
participating in the AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination)
Center's African-American Male Initiative, a national
college-preparatory program for black males capable of challenging
work but needing additional resources to reach their potential,
reports The Baltimore Sun. As part of the initiative, each school
recruited 25 black male students and was required to recruit black
male tutors and teachers as well. The consistent presence of an
adult black male is crucial to the success of the program and its
students, say observers, and James Martin, a program teacher at
Woodlawn High in Baltimore, agrees. The ability to relate to his
students has fostered an environment that enables "man-to-young-man
talks" during class, he explained. "Our relationship is more
personal. Just it being all males, we're a more family-oriented
class, because everything we talk about is as a whole. There's
nothing that's really secretive." The five other schools
participating are in Arlington, Tex.; Fresno, Calif.; Las Vegas; Los
Angeles; and New York City. Woodlawn and Las Vegas' Mojave High
School are the only ones piloting a gender-based classroom; the
others have created mentorships to build relationships between
students and a role-model adult.
In search of a redesign for teacher college accreditation
The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE)
has convened a panel on Clinical Preparation, Partnerships, and
Improved Student Learning to look at scalable ways to improve
in-the-classroom training, Inside Higher Ed reports. The panel will
also examine ways to strengthen relationships between districts and
the colleges and universities that prepare their teachers. The NCATE
accredits more than 600 colleges and programs nationally that
graduate two-thirds of new teachers, and the panel's recommendations
will form the basis for revisions to the council's accreditation
standards. NCATE is undertaking what its president James Cibulka
called a "redesign and transformation" aimed at making teaching a
more respected profession, with heightened preparation standards.
The panel, he said, will "identify what the best practices are in
strong clinical preparation and in preparing teachers to more
effectively teach diverse learners." After this week's sessions, the
panel will meet again in April before issuing a final report, a
timeline Cibulka said is accelerated because change is badly needed
and the national environment is "ripe for change." Among the ideas
under consideration: career-long professional development, and the
restructuring and rebranding of teaching as a practice-based
profession like medicine or nursing, with an induction period akin
to a doctor's residency.
Related:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/01/05/18ncate.h29.html?tkn=OYBF19jttoWeajyBnvYHNthv7uqjoAlRWamq
Duncan's Chicago legacy under scrutiny
Results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
for Chicago from 2003-2009 show that the city is "nowhere near the
head of the pack in urban school improvement," writes The Washington
Post. This period was during Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's
tenure as schools chief, and he frequently cites its successes to
underscore ideas he is pushing in national public education. True,
the federal test is just one measure of Duncan's record, and other
metrics show advances on various fronts, but "Chicago is not the
story of an education miracle," said Chester E. Finn Jr. of the
Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Finn added, however, that Chicago is
"the story of a large urban system that has made some gains and has
made some promising structural changes." From 2001-08, Duncan fired
staff, hired turnaround specialists, and shut down schools. He
spearheaded a back-to-basics curriculum, encouraged dozens of
charter schools, and experimented with performance pay. State and
federal test scores and graduation rates rose on his watch, and the
school system, which is the nation's third largest, became a
laboratory for innovation. Yet questions have arisen this year about
the extent of Duncan's accomplishments. "There's been this rhetoric
about dramatic gains, dramatic success, that we have to replicate
this model because of its dramatic success," said Julie Woestehoff
of the advocacy group Parents United for Responsible Education. "And
here in Chicago, we're looking at these schools and going, 'Uh . . .
'"
Rhee victorious, but at what cost?
Chancellor Michelle Rhee has definitely had an impact on the D.C.
public schools, but are her efforts improving them, asked PBS's
NewsHour. One solid piece of evidence is the district's results on
the National Assessment of Educational Progress, in which D.C. was
one of only five school systems that showed significant gains in
both fourth and eighth grade math on results that came out this
fall. On the other hand, among personnel, strife is up and morale is
down. Her most salient effects on the city and nation have been that
merit pay is now a frequent part of discussions about public
education, teacher tenure is under more rigorous examination, and
charter schools are fixed in the public consciousness. Still, other
superintendents such as Andres Alonso in Baltimore and Robert
Bennett in Denver (before he became U.S. senator) have achieved
remarkable things under the radar, without the furor and alienation,
the NewsHour notes. Rhee has paid a price for what she has
accomplished; she has won on a number of issues, but debate is
ongoing and contentious, and if she falls, she will fall hard.
Related:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/july-dec09/dc_12-22.html
An overlooked pathway to employment and career cultivation
The after-school workforce lacks a well-accepted system of formal
instruction, curriculum for preparation, and system for crediting
workers for training, perhaps because many positions are part-time
and low-wage. A new policy brief from The After-School Corporation
(TASC) posits that the after-school field could be part of a
national strategy to boost employment and create new career paths.
For example, men of color are active in the after-school workforce
but under-represented among certified teachers. After-school jobs
are frequently based in communities where meaningful work can be
hard to find. Many of these jobs carry few specific experience or
education requirements, making the field an accessible entry point
into the workforce. After-school workers often live in the
neighborhoods where they work and invest their wages back into these
communities. Given the chance to earn college credits and develop
professionally, after-school educators can be powerful role models
for young people in their programs. The corporation proposes that
leaders in after-school and workforce development collaborate to
create a system that clearly articulates the path from part-time
entry-level work through core occupations in after-school. Workers
should be able to earn recognized credentials and higher wages
through systems that link on-the-job training and credit-bearing
courses. This system will both enhance the quality of programs and
help trained workers build careers in after-school and important
related fields like teaching.
Chance squandered to eliminate low performers
An investigation by The Los Angeles Times has found that the Los
Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) routinely grants tenure to
all new teachers after cursory or nonexistent reviews. Once teachers
have been evaluated and gained permanent status, they are almost
never fired for performance alone. This two-year probationary period
when teachers can be fired at will is a "singular opportunity" to
weed out poor teachers, one that LAUSD "all but squanders," writes
The Times, based on interviews with more than 75 teachers and
administrators, analyses of district data covering the last several
years, and internal and independent studies. The paper found that
fewer than two percent of new teachers are denied tenure, and the
reviews "are so lacking rigor as to be meaningless," in the view of
instructors. School administrators are required to conduct only a
single, pre-announced classroom visit per year, and half of these
last 30 minutes or less. Principals are rarely held responsible for
how they perform reviews. The district's evaluation of teachers does
not take into account whether students are learning, and principals
are not required to consider testing data, student work, or grades.
Like other districts in California, LAUSD essentially ignores a
state law that since the 1970s has required districts to weigh pupil
progress in assessing teachers and administrators.
Building new theories about the preschool brain
For much of the past century, educators and scientists believed that
children could not learn math before the age of five because their
brains simply were not ready, according to The New York Times.
Recent research has overturned this assumption, along with other
conventional wisdom about the acquisition of geometry, reading,
language, and self-control skills in class. The findings from a
branch of research called cognitive neuroscience are helping to
clarify when young brains are best able to grasp fundamental
concepts. Teaching of basic academic skills, once based in tradition
and guesswork, is now giving way to approaches based on cognitive
science. In several cities including Boston, Washington, D.C., and
Nashville, schools are experimenting with curricula to cultivate
math skills in preschoolers. In others, teachers are using
techniques developed by brain scientists to help children overcome
dyslexia. And schools in a dozen states have begun to use a program
intended to accelerate the development of young students' frontal
lobes, improving self-control in class. "Teaching is an ancient
craft, and yet we really have had no idea how it affected the
developing brain," said Kurt Fischer, director of the Mind, Brain,
and Education program at Harvard. "Well, that is beginning to
change, and for the first time we are seeing the fields of brain
science and education work together."
BRIEFLY NOTED
NGA kicks off dropout prevention initiative
The National Governors Association Center has announced that
Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Tennessee, and
West Virginia will develop comprehensive state dropout prevention
and recovery policies through the State Strategies to Achieve
Graduation for All initiative.
Subtle stereotypes with unsubtle effects
Former astronaut Dr. Sally K. Ride is serving as a visible emissary
for President Obama's push to improve science and math education by
engaging all genders and ethnicities.
Clawbacks hit the teaching profession
Two former LAUSD teachers are being asked to give back salary
overpayments of more than $148,000, the result of an accounting
software glitch.
Go green, young man (and woman)
In Westfield, Mass., 120 eighth-graders drew up proposals to
redesign their school's classrooms, auditorium, cafeteria, library,
gymnasium, and the entry hallway stairwell to be green.
Florida and Minnesota unions reject RttT proposals
Teachers' unions in at least two states are threatening to withhold
endorsements of their state's Race to the Top applications, which
could jeopardize the states' chances of winning the federal dollars.
Neither toxins nor 'geek gene'
Concentration of autism diagnoses in Silicon Valley are due to
parent education, researchers posit.
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