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And the envelope, please...
Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia,
Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North
Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and
Tennessee are the finalists in Round One of the competition for $4
billion in Race to the Top funds.
Central Falls: Bellwether?
Pressure from the Obama administration and the incentive of federal
dollars may cause more wholesale firings like those at Central Falls
High School in Rhode Island to occur across the country in the
coming year, reports The Christian Science Monitor. Such moves will
proliferate as "an increasing crop of no-excuses superintendents and
state commissioners" take the view that "it's essential to clean
house," according to Frederick Hess, director of education policy
studies at the American Enterprise Institute. The turnaround plan in
Central Falls arose when negotiations between the district and local
union over alternate approaches broke down. The five other worst
schools in Rhode Island are in Providence, which faces a March 17
deadline to submit improvement proposals. While it's important to
address the problem of persistently failing schools, after "the big
dramatic gesture -- fire the teachers -- the next step is equally or
more important," in the view of Jack Jennings, president of the
Center on Education Policy. "Are better teachers going to be hired?
Are kids going to learn more?" President Obama recently held up
Central Falls as an example of the "accountability" needed to solve
chronic underachievement in certain schools.
Related:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jQe6oVWR8RCYpv36bVIUomkB09NgD9E61RTO0
President unveils School Turnaround Grants
President Obama has proposed $900 million next year in new grants
for school systems that commit to improving their struggling schools
through turnaround programs, The Los Angeles Times reports. In an
address to a coalition of education advocates at the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, the president said he wants states to use "last resort"
strategies for their lowest-performing schools, which could
translate into staff dismissals and closed campuses. To receive
turnaround grants for their districts, state officials must draft a
set of criteria to determine their lowest achievers. To be
considered, a school must have state test scores in the bottom five
percent or high school graduation rates below 60 percent. Once the
Department of Education has approved the assessment criteria,
schools can compete against other schools within their state for
funds. Winners will be chosen by officials in each state based on
the strength of respective turnaround plans. Although administration
officials don't know which schools will get the money, they said
many of those targeted are inner-city schools. There are about
25,000 public high schools in America, but fewer than one-tenth of
them -- approximately 2,000 -- produce half the dropouts.
A high-profile change of heart
In her latest book, education historian and former federal official
Diane Ravitch renounces many of the market-oriented policies that
she herself once promoted, according to The Washington Post. "In
choosing his education agenda, President Obama sided with the
economists and the corporate-style reformers," Ravitch writes in The
Death and Life of the Great American School System, whose title
echoes a seminal 1961 critique of urban planning by Jane Jacobs.
Ravitch defends teacher unions, questions the value of standardized
test data, and calls the president's support for independently
operated charter schools "puzzling." She explains, "I wanted to
believe that choice and accountability would produce great results.
But over time, I was persuaded by accumulating evidence that the
latest reforms were not likely to live up to their promise." She
sharply criticizes No Child Left Behind, though The Post writes the
initiative "is an easy target because it lost political luster years
ago." Ravitch also faults major education philanthropies, including
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, for relying too heavily on
business principles for school improvement. In large part because of
her prominence and policy involvement, Ravitch's critique of the
prevailing reform ideas in government, philanthropies, and think
tanks "is reverberating in the world of education," The Post
reports.
Related:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/education/03ravitch.html?hpw
Related:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124209100
Collaboration and support over pay
According to a massive new survey underwritten by the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation and Scholastic, Inc., American teachers are more
interested in school reform and student achievement than their
paychecks, reports the Associated Press. The national poll, the
largest of teachers ever completed, includes the opinions of
teachers in every grade, in every state, and across every
demographic, and was conducted to keep teachers' voices in the
debate over education reform, according to the Gates Foundation's
director, Vicki Phillips. Most teachers surveyed said they feel
students in their states are doing okay in school, but believe fewer
than 75 percent will graduate from high school ready to succeed in
college and work. More value non-monetary rewards like collaboration
time with other teachers and a supportive school leadership over
higher salaries. Only 28 percent felt performance pay would have a
strong impact, with 30 percent feeling it would have no impact at
all. A majority of teachers said they would like to see tougher
academic standards common to every state, despite the extra work
these could create for them. Teachers are not opposed to
standardized tests, despite union lobbying against them in states
like Washington. But instead of yearly tests, teachers would prefer
formative, ongoing assessments to help them understand how much
their students are learning over time.
Read More:
http://www.scholastic.com/primarysources/download.asp
Positive feedback for D.C.'s IMPACT
Though far from perfect, teachers have told Jay Mathews of The
Washington Post that D.C.'s new teacher evaluation system is the
best they have ever participated in. IMPACT requires that each
teacher be observed twice yearly by an outside evaluator called a
"master educator," and three times by an administrator at his or her
school. Five observations are more than most teachers in the
District have ever experienced in a single year. Diana Suarez, a
first grade teacher, praised IMPACT's post-observation conferences.
"These conversations were positive, encouraging, and focused on
practical solutions for me as a teacher," Suarez said. Alicia
Hervey, a master educator in English, said the system "provides
teachers with timely, specific feedback that they might use to make
adjustments to their delivery of instruction." But George Parker,
president of Washington Teacher's Union, criticized IMPACT as having
no "appropriate system of support to improve instruction" and being
"bad for kids." For his part, Mathews concedes the evaluation system
could fail for many reasons, but "what happens to teachers who don't
meet the standards will be crucial. Many smart people in the
District like what they see so far. Columnists and union presidents,
along with everyone else, ought to wait for results from the
classroom before we make up our minds."
New York City as a case model for reform
As federal policymakers consider reauthorization of the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act, they are looking to districts
undergoing major reform to understand implications for supporting
and encouraging these reforms at scale, especially at the high
school level where need is urgent. The first in a series of policy
briefs from the Alliance for Excellent Education looks at the
efforts of New York City, a district it calls "extremely relevant"
as the nation's largest and most diverse. New York is notable, the
authors write, both for the breadth of the changes implemented and
for preliminary indications of success in improving student
outcomes. Most promising has been the increase by as much as 15
points of four-year graduation rates since 2002, following a decade
of stagnation. The Bloomberg administration undertook several
system-wide strategies that have affected all schools and students:
bringing coherence to the system; shifting decision-making to the
schools; developing and supporting effective teachers and leaders;
and holding educators responsible for results. The district-wide
changes were supplemented with two specific high school initiatives.
First, the NYCDOE aggressively closed the lowest-performing high
schools and replaced them with higher-quality options for students.
Second, the NYCDOE created new targeted programs and schools to
address the needs of over-age and under-credited high school-aged
youth.
An opportunity lost in L.A.
Los Angeles school officials have lost a chance to test whether the
charter movement can tackle the problems of the district's
traditional (and often troubled) schools, according to The Los
Angeles Times. The Board of Education denied proposals from three
major charter organizations that had sought to run newly built
neighborhood schools and would have included substantial numbers of
limited-English speakers, special education students, foster
children, and low-income families -- populations that charters are
often criticized for not serving. The charters had agreed to operate
by more inclusive rules in exchange for access to state-of-the-art,
multimillion-dollar campuses. In the end, the board turned down all
but four charter bids, opting instead for internal, teacher-led
proposals. Though the district has struggled most with improving
secondary education, no charter received a high school and only one
will run a middle school on a campus shared with a separate,
teacher-run school. The union fought hard to limit new charters,
since each one would have effectively reduced its membership and
potentially corresponded to more layoffs during the current district
budget crisis. A growing nonunion charter workforce would also
gradually reduce union clout, not only on pay and benefits issues
but on matters of class size and the direction of future reforms.
Bipartisan support spreads nationally for vouchers
The move in Florida to expand one of its voucher programs is "a
subtle but significant sign that such programs, which have been
anathema to many Democrats, are beginning to win bipartisan support
in a number of states," according to Education Week. In Florida,
favor is growing for new legislation that would increase the value
of the state's tax-credit vouchers, which are funded by private
corporations that, in exchange for their contributions, receive
dollar-for-dollar tax credits. The legislation in Florida -- a state
that has done more than any other to provide publicly funded
vouchers to pay tuition at private schools -- comes as a similar
measure has been introduced in Illinois, and as school choice
advocates see what they deem promising signs in New Jersey. It's a
remarkable political shift in Florida, writes Education Week, where
few Democrats backed three separate voucher programs, including the
tax-credit vouchers, when they were launched by then-Gov. Jeb Bush,
a Republican. Florida's tax-credit vouchers are currently worth
$3,950, and the program serves roughly 25,000 low-income students
statewide. About 80 percent of the 1,000 or so schools that
participate in the tax-credit voucher program are affiliated with a
church or other religious organization.
Little guidance
A new report from Public Agenda, financed by the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation, suggests that high school counselors may be a
"weak link in the chain needed to get more students into college,"
according to Inside Higher Ed. The findings are based on a national
survey of 614 individuals aged 22 through 30 who had attended
college (although not necessarily for long or long enough to earn a
degree). Among the findings were that 48 percent had felt like "just
another face in the crowd" in dealing with their guidance
counselors. Sixty-seven percent said they would rank their
counselors as fair or poor in helping them find an appropriate
college. Sixty-two percent said that they would rank their
counselors as fair or poor in helping them find ways to pay for
college. While the report concedes that tight budgets have resulted
in student-to-counselor ratios well beyond those recommended by
experts, it also stresses its findings don't merely point to hurt
feelings from those who didn't connect with their counselors.
Rather, there appears to be a correlation between the degree to
which students have a good counseling relationship and whether they
make decisions that land them at the right institutions and with a
plan to pay for college.
See the report
http://www.publicagenda.org/theirwholelivesaheadofthem?qt_active=1
Collaborating to drill down, child by child
Ten New Orleans charter schools have joined ranks to share data and
test score results over the school year, with the goal of better
gauging their strengths and weaknesses, The New Orleans
Times-Picayune reports. The consortium will contract with the
Achievement Network, an organization that presently works in Boston
and Washington, D.C., to create a series of tests for schools to
administer every six to eight weeks. A school can then analyze its
results classroom by classroom, comparing its overall results with
those of the other nine schools, allowing administrators to pinpoint
areas of concern well before students take the state's standardized
exams. "This allows you to drill down and look teacher by teacher
and child by child," said Patty Glaser, director of curriculum and
development at one charter. "It gives you time to make a difference
for the kids." This collaboration represents one of the few
cross-school collaborations in an "increasingly decentralized school
landscape," according to The Times-Picayune, where nearly two-thirds
of the public schools in New Orleans are charters. The Achievement
Network hopes to expand its work in New Orleans, adding more schools
each year.
BRIEFLY NOTED
The driving force behind the Central Falls decision
Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist, who approved
the firings at Central Falls High School, has said she will "do
whatever it takes to create better schools."
Scrappy ed fight in Jersey
The powerful state's teacher union is "fighting back -- hard"
against perceived attacks by Gov. Chris Christie.
Nearly two-thirds of Denver schools sub-standard
About 57 percent of Denver Public Schools' 75,000 students attend
schools that fail to meet district performance standards, according
to a study by a charter school organization.
An end to creative accounting in Alabama
A new way to calculate graduation rates that will be used by all 50
states as of 2012 will reduce the graduation rate reported by the
Alabama Department of Education by 20 percent.
IEPs for everyone
This year, all 428 sixth graders at Linwood Middle School in North
Brunswick, N.J., are charting their own academic path with
personalized student learning plans -- electronic portfolios
containing information about their learning styles, interests,
skills, career goals, and extracurricular activities.
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"NCSS:
Grant for Geographic Literacy"
The National Council for the Social Studies Grant for Geographic
Literacy is awarded in order to promote geography education in
schools; to enhance the geographic literacy of students at the
classroom, district, or statewide level; and to encourage the
integration of geography into the social studies
curriculum/classroom. Maximum award: $2,500. Eligibility: programs
-- not individuals, individual lessons, or units -- that will
enhance the geographic literacy of students at the classroom,
district, or statewide levels. Recipients may be individuals or
groups in school districts, public institutions, or universities.
Deadline: March 21, 2010.
"SolidWorks:
STEM Educators Grant"
The SolidWorks STEM Educators Grant will award SolidWorks
Student Edition CAD software to individual U.S. educators in an
initiative aimed at improving students' math skills and their
interest in technology-related careers. The grant includes training
and lesson plans to help teachers and faculty from middle school
through college integrate the four separate disciplines of science,
technology, engineering, and math for more effective education.
Maximum award: SolidWorks Student Edition CAD software, plus
training and lesson plans. Eligibility: middle school teachers
grades 6-8; high school teachers; community college professors;
university and college professors. Deadline: April 1, 2010.
"Entertainment
Software Association: Grants for Youth Programs"
The ESA Foundation is dedicated to supporting geographically diverse
projects and programs that benefit American youth of all races and
denominations to make a difference in the quality of their life,
health, and welfare. The foundation seeks to harness the collective
power of the interactive entertainment industry to create positive
social impact in our communities. Maximum award: varies.
Eligibility: 501(c)(3) organizations with programs that serve youths
ages 7-18. Deadline: April 15, 2010.
"American
Honda Foundation: Grants for Youth Science Education"
The American Honda Foundation makes grants to K-12 schools,
colleges, universities, trade schools, and other youth-focused
nonprofit organizations for programs that benefit youth and
scientific education. Maximum award: $60,000. Eligibility: schools
and youth-focused nonprofit organizations. Deadline: May 1, 2010.
"Dominion
Foundation: Education Partnerships"
The Dominion Foundation is currently accepting applications for
Education Partnership grants to encourage the development of new
programs to strengthen math and science education in kindergarten
through grade 12. Maximum award: $10,000. Eligibility: accredited public
and private elementary and secondary schools and public school divisions
in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Virginia.
Deadline: May 1, 2010.
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