Testing Testing
TAP Beneath the feel-good press releases about national education standards lie unresolved policy differences.
New plans for schools Economist TO HEAR Ed Balls, the schools secretary, tell it, the saga of
British education since the Labour Party came to power in 1997 is a
rousing one of derring-do...Another version is that the government has blown £2 billion on
micro-managing teachers, and to little effect.
The secret life of an American schoolteacher.The New Yorker The
title of the new HBO Sunday-night series “Hung” isn’t meant to be a
double entendre of the kind that induces snickers--it’s straightforward
descriptive slang, a reference to the physical endowments of the show’s
main character, Ray Drecker (Thomas Jane).
Sunday Update:
Can Debutante Classes Break Troubled Teens' Cycle of Pregnancy and Poverty? Dallas Observer The
Ladies by Design Junior Debutante Course is part of a trend in programs
springing up to help low-income teens. Often promoted as lessons in
such things as hip-hop dance or engine building, the programs are in
fact holistic youth development gigs.... From Dallas Observer.
No Swimming Pools Or Frisbee Golf Atlantic For the White House, it's
critical that the $787 billion gets spent efficiently and
appropriately, and it's worth noticing that we haven't heard as many
rumblings about ridiculous pork projects as one might expect from a
spending initiative of this size:
What should be done with the stimulus money for education? Teacher Ken "Matches can be purchased to burn all standardized tests, ending the
absurd notion that these exams have anything to do with educating a
child and preparing him or her for life."
New Idea for Stemming Summer Learning Loss? LFA "Hunger can be a positive motivator." -- Missouri State Representative Cynthia Smith, who opposes free school lunches for children during summer months.
Studies Show Pupils Benefit from Tutoring--A Little Inside Research A
trio of recent studies evaluating the impact of the No Child Left
Behind Act's tutoring provision show that students in some districts
are making small, but not great, learning gains.
Oklahoma’s "bubble" or gap between soaring NCLB test scores and flat NAEP scores has been one of the worst in the nation, but Secretary of Education Sandy Garrett just announced that scores are being recalibrated for this spring’s data. We can expect Reading scores, for instance, to drop from passing rates of 77 to 92% to 63 and 70%.
Oklahoma acted because we listened to social scientists, and to Robert Balfanz’s Everyone Graduates Center which just published the brilliant study, "Keeping Middle Grades Students on the Path to Graduate." Sandy Garrett is in the tradition of heroic progressives who have "used smoke and mirrors" to keep Oklahoma from being another Mississippi. State educational leaders mostly have to rely of "the bully pulpit." Garrett has used her pulpit to promote universal pre-school, graduation coaches, and "the Gift of Time." - John Thompson
I know, it's a holiday. But I don't know what else to do with myself.
Mayor says Detroit should be outraged over school shooting DetroitNews.com Mayor Dave Bing on Thursday enlisted federal authorities and
everyday citizens in a community fight against youth violence like
Tuesday's bus stop rampage that wounded seven near Cody Ninth Grade
Academy.
L.A. school board lets Birmingham High go charter
LA Times A newly constituted Los Angeles school board took its
first action Wednesday by giving up control of its largest campus,
allowing Birmingham High to convert itself into a charter.
Duncan Stresses Merit Pay to Teachers Union
Seven-year-old Leilani Granados reads her thank-you card to Education Secretary Arne Duncan during the unveiling of NEA's "teacher thank-you ...
School requests pour in for stimulus building aid Milwaukee Sentinel Journal A
new program that allows school districts to borrow money interest-free
has attracted requests for nearly six times the amount allocated to
Wisconsin.
"I told him that the best
way to raise standards was to pay teachers more but require them to get
a graduate degree similar to the of a lawyer or doctor." (Arne Duncan Really Does Listen PK12)
Another Year, Another NEA Convention Intercepts The
signature media event appears to be U.S. Secretary of Education Arne
Duncan’s “town hall” meeting with the delegates tomorrow morning.
Women on Par With Men in Principalship, Says Report Inside Research More
than half the nation's principals are now women, according to one of
five statistical reports released yesterday by the National Center for
Education Statistics.
State Budget Troubles Worsen CBPP via TAPPED Federal stimulus funding is closing 30 to 40 percent of state budget shortfalls, thanks to its timing and flexibility.
Hidden curriculum Joanne Jacobs
Parents
can’t check out Baltimore County Public Schools curriculum, complains
BaltoNorth. It’s password protected on an intranet.
Facing Deficits, Some States Cut Summer School NYT Thousands
of school districts across the country have trimmed or eliminated
summer classes, ignoring pleas from the Education Department to use
stimulus money to retain them.
L.A. Group in Talks to Run D.C. High School Washington Post
This summer, Friends of Bedford will
take over operation of Coolidge and Dunbar high schools. Friendship
schools will
assume control of Anacostia High School this summer.
N.J. has school districts without schools -- but not for much longer
USA Today The
school districts in such New Jersey hamlets as Hi-Nella (population
1,029), Teterboro (population 18) and Victory Gardens (population
1,546) will be history by the time schools open in fall 2010 under a
bill signed by the governor Tuesday.
Expert Panels Named in Common-Standards Push EdWeek One
group will draft standards for the initiative being led by governors
and state schools chiefs, and the other will critique their work.
Graduation for autistic kids CNN Graduation day at a New York City school for autistic children is a coming-of-age moment years in the making.
"Human capital (e.g., TFA), charter, and
gap-closers, with support from the business lobby, need to get their
act together--and push." (Tom Vander Ark)
“I’m pleased to announce today that the Department of Education will be making over $2.5 billion in Recovery Act funds available to states in the coming days to support state education budgets, thereby helping states in fiscal distress...I applaud Secretary Arne Duncan and his team for moving so quickly, and will continue to press the Cabinet to find ways to accelerate the pace of Recovery Act spending.”
Another TV show with a (tangential) connection to education. This one is HBO's NSFW show, "Hung" (An early look): "The new HBO dramedy is set in Detroit against the backdrop of a
financially ruined automotive industry skyline, and as the world
crumbles around him, Ray is forced to re-evaluate his life while
everything he cares about slowly slips away. It's unsettling and sad,
but in some ways, fortuitous ... at least for HBO anyway. Considering
the current economic crisis many Americans are experiencing, a lot of people are going to relate to this show."
Have you seen it? Does it look any good? My guess is no. Sad that in the world of pop culture working in a school is still considered to be such a horrible thing that it might justify an illegal job on the side. Hung is not to be confused with Breaking Bad, the AMC drama about (sort of) a high school chemistry teacher, which just finished its 2nd season (Walter White's Report Card).
Civic Committee stabs Duncan in the back Small Talk A flabbergasted Duncan, who rode the myth of the Chicago turnaround miracle all the way to Washington, tried to defend his record. But, well, 8th grade test scores did rise by a few points, was the best he could do.
U.S. Ed Secretary Refining Postion on Charters? Peter Murphy
Richard
Iannuzzi, the head of the state teachers union, NYSUT, told the School
Boards Association blog, On Board, that Arne Duncan "may be refining
his position" on tying charter caps to a state's chances of being
awarded "Race to the Top" funds.
In the Same Boat LFA The
education “establishment” and education “reformers” are not so
different from one another after all. Just ask the Fordham Foundation’s Mike Petrilli.
What's Missing from National Journal's New Education Blog? Sara Mead Mainstream outlets tend to treat early childhood education as
a sub-component of the lifestyle/parenting/mommy
wars/let's-debate-feminism genre, while more policy-oriented outlets
tend to view it from a childcare or even welfare reform lens.
Glasnost Big Charlie Believe it or not, several states including New
York, Wisconsin, and California, have laws that create a firewall
between students and teacher data.
The best thing about Linda Lutton’s series on Robeson High School in Chicago is that it dared to quote an eminent scholar with the courage to say, "They should kick them (disruptive students) out ... If they don’t want to learn. ...Start writing more people up." Just kidding! That sentiment was expressed by a student named Sarah.
Only 150 of the incoming freshmen were identified as at-risk due to academic and/or absenteeism issues, but apparently, little attention is paid to the other 250. Just having good "soft skills" is enough for A’s. Consequently, only 17 graduates of the 2004 class attended college and only four of them remain on track to graduate. One teacher explained, "My standards have gone down so much since teaching here. Part of me, when kids show up and sit down and write - anything ... I want to pass them. Which is really unfair to them ..."
Los Angeles superintendent Ramon Cortines doesn't think this was very funny. Seems pretty harmless to me, considering all the other issues that LA has to worry about -- including the secession of this very same high school from LAUSD.
I had all but given up on mainstream coverage of Arne Duncan's lackluster record "turning around" the Chicago Public Schools, but now a report from a business group long allied with the Mayor on school reform issues has come out slamming the district's record of achievement -- and Crain's Chicago has picked it up.
Chicago Public School reform largely has failed, reports Crain's political reporter Greg Hinz, based on a just-release report from the Civic Committee of the
Commercial Club -- a longtime ally of the city in its reform efforts.
"The
report directly challenges widespread claims by current and former CPS
officials that local students have shown substantial progress over the
last decade on standardized tests."
In response, spokespeople
for Arne Duncan cited improvements in 8th graders' performance, even
after adjusting for the changes in the tests, and increases in ACT
scores. Really? That's all they have.
In high-dropout Camden, Big Picture kids prep for college
USA Today In
a city where dropout rates are consistently among New Jersey's highest
and test scores are among the lowest, there were no dropouts at MetEast
-- not a charter school, but one run by the city's school district,
established with the help of nonprofit Big Picture Learning.
Birmingham High's charter-conversion struggles show difficulty of reform
LA Times Few chapters in recent Los Angeles public school history
have been uglier than the one that is expected to culminate today with
a Board of Education vote on whether to allow Birmingham High School to
effectively secede and become a charter school.
There are lots of goofy quizzes on Facebook these days, and this one is probably no better or worse. Except it's about schools: What kind of teacher are you?. I know! I haven't taken it but 57,000 others have. Give it a try and tell us what you find out. Maybe this is something districts could use instead of all that pricey Haberman stuff. Or, even better, maybe we can work it into someone's teacher evaluation or performance pay program.
The Revolving Door of Teachers In Chicago Liam Goldrick While these
statistics are slightly worse than Illinois as a state and the nation
as a whole, CPS is not a huge outlier with regard to teacher mobility.
It is a problem across the board.
The Firefighters' Case and the Schools
Mark Walsh
What
are the lessons for schools and school employees in the decision today
in favor of white and Hispanic firefighters in New Haven?
Find the typo! and other national-stage blogging Sherman Dorn The
National Journal unveiled its new education policy blog yesterday. My
first response has an embarrassing writing goof; see if you can spot
it!...
Simple Math Change.org "Everyone knows," he said, "that the subject matter itself isn't that
hard. What's hard...is beating it into the heads of youngsters who hate
every step.
It's a slow week in DC but the FritzWire is on fire. The new version is formatted and (generally) nice-looking. Plus it still has all the reports, events, jobs it always had. (Not that there's much going on this week.) And Fritz is getting paid. Check out today's version below -- sponsored by Widmeyer! -- and sign up at the bottom if you want to get it daily.
Robeson High School in Chicago has 400 incoming freshmen, with 150 already identified as "at risk." Despite having 17 pregnant freshmen, the school’s options are constrained by the lack of counselors and the district only has one alternative school for young mothers. Not surprisingly, many of the younger students have limited educational horizons, thinking that they just need "Food. Water. Place to Live. (and) You gonna need weed."
Thanks to Dana Truby at Scholastic Professional Media for passing along this favorite education blogs list, which includes a number that are new to me (10 education blogs I've been reading). It's easy to let things get stale, and high time for some new voices and ideas. Some of the new names on the list:
Chief Justice Roberts: High court not setting school rules
USA Today At a judicial conference, Roberts was asked how school
administrators should interpret seemingly conflicting messages from the
court in two recent decisions, including one Thursday that said Arizona
officials conducted an unconstitutional strip-search of a teenage girl.
In Hartford, Stimulus Funds for Schools Leveraged for State Budget Crunch
PBS John
Tulenko of Learning Matters reports on how one school district in
Connecticut is weathering the recession, and how the state is using
stimulus funds to close budget deficits rather than increase education
spending.
A meeting to discuss locating a school
for at-risk youth at the corner of Florin Road and 24th Street took an
uncomfortable turn Thursday afternoon when Sacramento Vice Mayor Lauren Hammond refused...
One College Sidesteps the Crisis WSJ Harvard University put the brakes on a major campus expansion.
Wellesley College froze salaries and laid off employees. Middlebury
College cut financial aid for international students. But one private
college is quietly skirting the ...
Montgomery, Md., Schools Made Teen Wait and Wait to Go to School WP Jeff
Sukkasem is a U.S. citizen and legal resident of Montgomery County,
with a passport, a library card and a volunteer job at a local Thai
Buddhist temple. For the past two years, however, he essentially has
been barred from public school.
"WHICH former elected official has been cheating on her husband? This wife and mother was spotted going into a Midtown hotel with the head of a group pushing school reform, who's also married. Said our source, "Not the first time and not the last time" . . ." (NY POST JUST ASKING)
Stim 2: The Stimulus Strikes Back? PK12 Another stimulus package could very possibly be Coming Soon to a Congress Near You, at least if Warren Buffett has his way.
Never Can Say Goodbye Charlie B. No one
booed when Arne Duncan said: The "charter movement is putting itself at
risk by allowing too many second-rate and third-rate schools to exist."
Don't Mess With Success at This High-Achieving Charter Middle School Uncle Jay Mathews Sometime
last year, while negotiating a teacher contract for the KIPP Ujima
Village charter middle school in Baltimore, founder Jason Botel pointed
out that his students, mostly from low- income families, had earned the
city's highest public school test scores three years in a row.
You want coverage of Malcolm Gladwell? We got it. Dangerously Irrelevant If you can’t figure out what Gladwell talked
about after looking at all of these, there’s no helping you! The
Twitter hashtag for Gladwell’s talk was #necc09mg...
The week before I began teaching in an alternative school for juvenile felons, NPR introduced me to Richard Price and his novel Clockers. A decade of living in a neighborhood devastated by the Reagan/Bush recession and crack and gangs had taught me what happens when the fragile wiring of our brains and the fabric of our social institutions are unraveled.
Price’s Clockers, and afterwards The Wire, were able to articulate the human struggle for survival and dignity in a thrown-away community. Soon, I intimately knew students like the "Buffalo," who was a teenaged version of Price’s character, Rodney, who knew every species of tree in the neighboring nursery and loved to watch the backhoe in operation. And I understood the logic of my scarred, brain-damaged young sociopath destined for life in prison, who was the spitting image of the character in The Wire, who in the last episode accepted a sweet deal and traded murder for legitimate profits.
A few more folks are heading to East, according to Catalyst, including staff for John Easton's IES communications office and new early childhood analyst for AIR. Check it out here.
Meanwhile, Duncan's former Chief of Staff is headed to HHS, according to Lynn Sweet (here).
There's a new education blog out there, starting today. (Just what the world needs, I know.) This one's being hosted by the National Journal Group, and it's main appeal seems to be that it's somehow enticed all sorts of folks who aren't known to blog (Duncan, Paige, Spellings, Bennet, Kline, etc.) to give blogging a try in addition to the usual set of blowhards and know-nothings (myself included). Hell, the NEA's even going to be there. Of course, staffers will do most of the actual writing, and it remains to be seen whether anyone says anything interesting or new. But I will do my best to call out any Beltway BS that I find, and urge you to check it out. It's being hosted by NJ's education reporter, Lisa Caruso.
Urban high school's rare feat: No dropouts MSNBC Angelo
Drummond wears a pressed white shirt and a red power tie for his
two-hour presentation to his harshest critics — a panel of fellow
students at Camden's MetEast High School.
Mom charged with changing daughter's grades MSNBC A
high school secretary illegally changed grades in a school computer
system to improve her daughter's class standing, according to criminal
charges filed Thursday.
How Should We Teach English-Language Learners?
NPR The
Supreme Court last week ruled that Arizona has not violated federal
laws that require schools to help students who do not speak, read or
write English. The decision raises a bigger question about why these
students have been so poorly served to begin with.
States Should Decide How Tests Work Under NCLB PK12 The
brand-new top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee,
Rep. John Kline of Minnesota, said this morning that he's not wedded to
the idea that states should test their students in reading and math
once a year...
The Mod Squad Eduwonk
Dem
moderates in the Senate weigh-in on the Obama education agenda with a
letter to the President (pdf). Depending on how all this goes down
they could prove to be a key voting block for reform.
What School Choice Looks Like Dana Goldstein Doing
away with school choice entirely seems like a bad idea...And yet, through both "choice" enrollment
and neighborhood sorting, we are creating segregated mini-systems
within larger school districts.
The Trouble With School Choice Ezra Klein It's crucial not to leave behind the schools with little potential
for excellence. Those, after all, are where the children will need the
most help, and where we can't rely on their parents to give it.
Better organized free stuff
Tom Vander Ark Just a few years ago we had to rely on our weekly fix from
EdWeek and now our inboxes and twitter boxes are full of news and
views—a storm of info.
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