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The long shadow of Columbine, 10 years later
Though fewer than half of the country's 50 million public school
students are old enough to have been in school on April 20, 1999,
the effects of the shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton,
Col., are far-reaching, writes USA TODAY. The attacks spurred
widespread introduction of in-school safety measures such as
surveillance cameras, limited entrances and exits, and lock-down
drills, all of which middle- and high-school students have come to
accept as a way of life. As Cedric Drew, a seventh-grader in
Roanoke, Va., observed, "You never know when somebody's going to
come into school with a machine gun." Since Columbine was in a
prosperous town with little violence, and because the attackers
seemed clean-cut, not troublemakers, the killings brought new focus
to the effects of bullying and school climate. "These are rage
shootings," explains Harvard Medical School psychologist William
Pollack, "kids suffering from depression, largely creating public
suicides in school environments where they feel alienated." Across
the nation, he says, beneath "that iceberg of shootings, is
bullying, disconnection, and just cold, unconnected school climates
of a certain sort, in which, if kids don't feel frightened, they
feel turned off."
Related:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-04-13-columbine-myths_N.htm
Additional Resources:
http://www.colorado.edu/cspv/safeschools/
One in 50 children homeless
A new report from the National Center on Family Homelessness finds
that one in every 50 American children is now homeless,
approximately 1.5 million. "America's Youngest Outcasts: State
Report Card on Child Homelessness" offers a comprehensive,
state-by-state analysis of child homelessness, ranking the 50 states
in terms of severity. "Children without homes are on the frontline
of the nation's economic crisis," says Ellen L. Bassuk, president of
the National Center on Family Homelessness and associate professor
of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She added that as numbers
of home foreclosures rise, child homelessness will rise
correspondingly. According to the report, children experiencing
homelessness have twice the rate of moderate-to-severe health
conditions compared to middle-class children, and twice the
incidence of emotional problems. Homeless children struggle in
school, with an average of 16 percent lower proficiency in math and
reading, and an estimated graduation rate below 25 percent overall.
It's possible to end child homelessness within a decade, the report
says, using dedicated funds from local, state, and federal
governments, combined with reallocated dollars. Making homeless
children a priority must come from the top, and "this is a perfect
opportunity for President Obama to ensure that the Interagency
Council on Homelessness expands its focus to include children and
families," and coordinates its efforts with similar congressional
activities.
Incorporating 'executive control' into playtime for Pre-K
In an article in The Wall Street Journal, Sue Shellenbarger
describes the "Tools of the Mind" curriculum, which, along with
other new teaching programs, is positively impacting behavior issues
in preschool children. According to Shellenbarger, the rise in
problem behaviors in small children has been variously attributed
to: pressure on teachers to stress math and reading over emotional
skills; family instability; a decline in playtime; heavy use of
child care; and a rise in learning problems like attention-deficit
disorder. These new programs give children more time for dramatic or
pretend play, and build lessons in self-control into the school day.
Playtimes incorporate training in "executive function," or the
mental ability to control impulses and focus on new information.
"It's the kind of play you and I engaged in during the summer, when
you'd play the same thing for a month," says Deborah Leong,
psychology professor at Metropolitan State College, Denver, and
co-creator of the "Tools of the Mind" curriculum. Today, Leong
points out, few parents open their doors in the summer to let
children rove around the neighborhood. The Tools curriculum is in
use in about 400 mainstream and Head Start classrooms in seven
states, and 400 more teachers will be trained this year.
Philly's district-run schools outperform privatized schools
A new study from Johns Hopkins University has found that pupils at
district-run schools in Philadelphia outpaced privatized peers on
state exams, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. The report in
the May issue of The American Journal of Education looked at test
scores of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders at 88 city schools from
1997 through 2006. "By 2006, the achievement gap between the
privatized group and the rest of the district was greater than it
was before the intervention," states Vaughn Byrnes, author of the
study. This jibes with earlier studies, and comes at a critical
moment for Philadelphia's privatization experiment, largest of its
kind in the country. Of the 18 school contracts due for renewal, 12
are managed by for-profit EdisonLearning. Jeanne Allen,
school-choice advocate, says the study should be looked at in
context -- outside managers took on the lowest-performing schools.
Helen Gym, a founder of Parents United for Public Education,
disagrees: "Philadelphia is probably the last major urban city
that's experimenting with [privatization] -- it's on the tail end,
not the cutting edge," she said. "We don't think these managers have
given us the result they promised, despite millions of dollars and
years and years of time."
Community organizing on education breeds comprehensive change in
Oakland
A six-year study by the Annenberg Institute documents how low-income
communities of color have organized to improve their local schools.
In the first of seven case studies, Annenberg's research team
describes the success of Oakland (Calif.) Community Organizations
(OCO) in building a district-wide movement that's created 48 small
schools dedicated to student achievement. "Building a Districtwide
Movement for Small Schools Reform" analyzes documents, surveys,
interviews, and student performance measures. As a result of OCO's
organizing efforts, it found, both teachers and principals in
Oakland conclude that small schools give students more
individualized academic supports. Both teachers and parents say
school climate -- school safety in particular -- has improved, and
say parent-teacher relationships, and (for teachers) shared faculty
decision-making have been positively affected. In the view of the
Annenberg's researchers, OCO's organizing gives important lessons on
community- and educator-generated reform, and illustrates the
challenges and opportunities associated with these reforms.
Signals from the White House on NCLB
Provisions for education funding in the stimulus bill may give
"clues" as to the position of the Obama administration on the
impending overhaul of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), according
to The New York Times. To receive federal education aid, the bill
dictates that governors must raise statewide standards to a new,
tougher benchmark: High school graduates must succeed without
remedial classes in college, the workplace, or the military.
Governors must also ensure that the most effective teachers will be
assigned equitably to all students in their states, rich and poor,
and governors must commit to building statewide data systems to link
teachers with student test scores. In theory, this last component
will help administrators identify effective and ineffective
teachers, but is unpopular with teacher unions, who have otherwise
been generally supportive of the president's vision for reform of
the country's schools. Currently, 6,000 of the nation's 95,000
schools are designated as needing corrective action or restructuring
due to falling short of testing targets under the present terms of
NCLB.
An urgent need for national accounting
A recent policy brief from the Alliance for Excellent Education
calls for a national accounting of graduation rates, currently
absent in American public education. "At a time when a delivery
package can be tracked from one side of the country to the other,"
writes author Eric Richmond, "students continue to disappear from
schools without anyone noticing." Richmond makes a strong call for
overall transparency, with graduation rates made available to
students, parents, policymakers, and other stakeholders. Graduation
data must also affect adequate yearly progress. Accountability for
student subgroups is important, so schools don't sacrifice some
student outcomes for higher average test scores. The brief also
recommends that federal policy set "a high, universal graduation
goal, such as 90 percent of students graduating in four years, and
an aggressive but attainable minimum growth target," rather than
allow weak, state-proposed graduation goals, as is now the case.
Minimum growth targets should obtain to all schools, not just
higher-performing ones, and every state must have the capacity to
calculate a four-year adjusted cohort rate by SY 201011. Accurate
and transparent coding practices are critical for comparable
implementation of graduation rates across states. The Department of
Education must also ensure that schools don't improperly exclude
students, or count as graduates students who don't meet national
definitions.
Getting at the underlying structure for better math comprehension
New research from Vanderbilt University finds that students better
internalize math when taught concepts over procedures, according to
Science Daily. The findings give new insight as to effective math
instruction, and add to the growing body of research that indicates
students are better taught through conceptual instruction versus
simple procedural direction. "With conceptual instruction, teachers
explain a problem's underlying structure. That type of instruction
enables kids to solve the problems without having been taught
specific procedures, and also to understand more about how problems
work," said Percival Matthews, co-author of the study and doctoral
student at Vanderbilt. "When you just show them how to do the
problem, they can solve it, but not necessarily understand what it's
about. With conceptual instruction, they are able to come up with
the procedure on their own."
See the report at
http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/news/releases/2009/04/10/you-do-the-math-explaining-basic-concepts-behind-math-problems-improves-childrens-learning.77421
Born citizens, but still impoverished and fearing deportation
A new report from the Pew Hispanic Center highlights a growing
dilemma in the immigration debate, according to The Associated
Press. Growing numbers of children of illegal immigrants are born in
this country, and are nearly twice as likely to live in poverty as
those with American-born parents. These children struggle and face
uncertainty alongside parents who fear deportation, toil largely in
low-wage jobs, and suffer layoffs in an ailing economy. Pew's
analysis estimates that 11.9 million illegal immigrants were living
in the United States as of March 2008 -- 5.4 percent of the U.S.
work force. In 2003, 2.7 million children of illegal immigrants, or
63 percent, were born here. Children of illegal immigrants hold a
delicate place in the United States. On the one hand, the Supreme
Court ruled in 1982 that these children, citizens or not, were
entitled to a public school education. On the other hand, immigrants
and their families are among the poorest in the country, easily
exploited by employers and subject to arrest at any time. Children
who are U.S. citizens cannot petition for their parents to become
legal U.S. residents until they are at least 21.
BRIEFLY NOTED
Golf and therapy
dogs help sick kids
Two cuddly canines help kids afflicted with all kinds of physical
and emotional problems.
Hungry children in Vermont prompt concern
Alarmed by reports of hunger signs, Vermont's legislature has
proposed a bill that automatically would enlist lower-income
children for school lunches, and provide nutritious snacks and meals
during after-school and summer programs.
This beat is his recital, he thinks it's very vital...
Stanford biologist uses rap music as teaching aid.
Mean, green, school bus fleet
The U.S. EPA has awarded nearly $2 million to the Wyoming Department
of Environmental Quality to support a clean-diesel project, which
includes school buses.
On yet another side of the spectrum, more cutbacks
Across Connecticut, funding for gifted students is another casualty
of the recession.
'Science princess' studies brain metabolism and Alzheimer's Disease
Fifteen-year-old Jasmine Roberts advances to the Intel International
Science Fair in Reno, Nevada.
Sour economy places athletics in jeopardy
Many school districts are discarding sports programs or considering
painful cuts, despite the broad popularity of those activities.
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