education

Politics K-12 reports on the Administration’s pushback on tutoring.  I’m not sure how a blanket ban makes any more sense than a blanket requirement to provide tutoring.  Provider quality is very mixed and states generally do a lousy job screening and certifying providers.  Seems like fixing those problems are a better use of effort than fighting over this.

I want to believe!  David Kirp turns in a long op-ed in The Times about the benefits of school integration but then concludes with this:

In theory it’s possible to achieve a fair amount of integration by crossing city and suburban boundaries or opening magnet schools attractive to both minority and white students. But the hostile majority on the Supreme Court and the absence of a vocal pro-integration constituency make integration’s revival a near impossibility.

I’m all for it, but, to put it plainly, it’s as likely to snow Hershey’s Kisses as for this to happen at scale given politics, housing patterns, city and town boundaries, and school boundaries. So doesn’t this make those pursuing other strategies to improve school quality for low-income and minority kids, you know, pragmatists?  Even within jurisdictions with great racial and economic diversity (and liberal voting records) there is a lot of resistance to just changing school boundaries and enrollment patterns. Meanwhile, many schools that are integrated on paper are much less so within classrooms.

More Promise? If you want to be a peer reviewer for the Promise Neighborhood’s competition, here’s your big chance.

Those who read more (fiction), know more. Stephen Krashen The recent insistence that English Language Arts standards include more nonfiction and less fiction is based on the assumption that nonfiction reading will better prepare students for the rigors of the real world. There are no studies I know of that compare fiction and nonfiction reading in terms of knowledge development, but a number of studies done by Stanovich and his colleagues show that those who read more fiction know more about a variety of subjects. “Reading” in these studies included a great deal of fiction reading. Stanovich and his colleagues used the Author Recognition Test (ART) in several of these studies, a measure in which subjects indicated which authors’ names they recognized (West and Stanovich, 1991; Stanovich and Cunningham, 1992, 1993; West, Stanovich and Mitchell, 1993). The ART was “dominated by ‘popular authors’ as opposed to ‘highbrow’ writers who would be known by only the most academically inclined readers” (Stanovich and Cunningham, 1993, p. 213). Although the ART included different genres, most of the authors were fiction writers (e.g. 36 out of 40 in Stanovich and Cunningham, 1993), and subjects clearly did better recognizing the names of fiction writers (in Stanovich and Cunningham, 1993, the best-recognized non-fiction author was recognized by only 5.2% of the subjects). Data from Ravitch and Finn (1987) also suggests that a great deal of reported reading is fiction: About 44% of those who were readers said they preferred to read fiction, and about 29% said they read both fiction and nonfiction, a total of 73% (figures derived from p. 163). Stanovich and Cunningham (1992) confirmed that college students who reported reading more did better on a test of history (from Ravitch and Finn, 1987), and this relationship held even when nonverbal ability factors were controlled. Those who read more also do better on various measures of cultural knowledge. West and Stanovich created a cultural literacy test, a checklist of 30 names of artists, entertainers, explorers, philosophers, and scientists. Those who had more print exposure did better on this test, even when other factors, such as SAT scores (West and Stanovich, 1991), age, education, exposure to television (West, Stanovich and Mitchell, 1993), and nonverbal abilities (Stanovich, West, and Harrison, 1995) were controlled. Stanovich and Cunningham (1993) found similar results for a test of “practical knowledge,” and a test of science and social studies. Ravitch and Finn (1987) reported that those who reported reading more did better on a test of literature, but this result is probably irrelevant for many fans of the English Language Arts Common Core standards. References Ravitch, D., and C. Finn. 1987. What do our 17-year-olds know? New York: Harper and Row. Stanovich, K., and A. Cunningham. 1992. Studying the consequences of literacy within a literate society: the cognitive correlates of print exposure. Memory and Cognition, 20(1): 51-68. Stanovich, K. and A. Cunningham. 1993. Where does knowledge come from? Specific associations between print exposure and information acquisition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 85(2): 211-229. Stanovich, K., R. West, R., and M. Harrison. 1995. Knowledge growth and maintenance across the life span: The role of print exposure. Developmental Psychology, 31(5): 811-826. West, R., and K. Stanovich. 1991. The incidental acquisition of information from reading. Psychological Science 2: 325-330. West, R., K. Stanovich, and H. Mitchell. 1993. Reading in the real world and its correlates. Reading Research Quarterly 28: 35-50.

Here are some links to magazines and sites I don't check during the week, in Twitter form, plus whatever else I come across along the way or missed during the week:

 

Come across something I've missed? Put it in comments or tweet it out using #thisweekined and it will show up above. Links and retweets aren't necessarily endorsements, you ungrateful wretches, just an effort to give you a range of interesting news and opinion with which to challenge your knee-jerk view of the world.

Waiting for "Superman" would have audiences believe that free-market competition, standardized tests, destroying teacher unions, and the proliferation of charter schools are just what this country needs to create great public schools. — Grassroots Education Movement Today Grassroots Education Movement (GEM) announced their landmark picture released last year, "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For Superman," was now available online. Don't forget to visit the website for a wealth of resources to accompany the film, like a brochure for showings. This is such an important film. It speaks truth to power on so many levels. Moreover it dismantles the disgusting right-wing charter-voucher propaganda piece by the slick mendacious hipster Davis Guggenheim. His dishonest, despicable and duplicitous film was probably the most pernicious documentary since Birth of a Nation. I've organized screenings of "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For Superman" at Union Avenue ES and Micheltorena ES, the former with guest Professor Stephen Krashen. Parents and community members at both showings were transformed watching the film. I for one realize how much hard work GEM put into the film. They provided a great gift for all of us that still believe in social justice and public education. Please share this film with everyone you know. Discuss it. Create school projects based on it. Write about it. Do everything you can to get the truth, however inconvenient, about corporate reforms and charter-voucher schools into the mainstream dialog. La lucha para escuelas publicas y liberación para el todos gentes continua. En solidaridad.

Enjoy the newest from Deborah Kenny and her team at HVA.  Direct link here.

Submitted to Florida Today, May 18, 2012 US Education Secretary Arne Duncan urged Florida to adopt new textbooks, because “content is changing not annually but weekly if not daily.” (“Florida's education secretary questions state's textbook plans,” May 18). In other words, Secretary Duncan agrees with Yogi Berra: "It's hard to predict, especially about the future." If this is true, why is the Secretary insisting on common standards that lock a curriculum in place for years? Stephen Krashen original article: http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20120518/NEWS13/305180023/Florida-s-education-secretary-questions-state-s-textbook-plans NOTE: I kept this one short but of course it doesn’t present the full extent of the problem. Arne et al will respond by saying that content will be updated constantly thanks to our brave new computerized system that deliver tests and instruction on line. But even so: what sixth graders study today will be obsolete by the time they are in college or even high school. So the only solution is to promote flexibility, “generic skills that allow students to adapt” (Martin, 2009) and encourage students to “pursue their strengths": " … it is … difficult to predict what new businesses will emerge and what will become obsolete. Thus, what becomes highly valuable are unique talents, knowledge, and skills, the ability to adapt to changes, and creativity, all of which calls for a school culture that respects and cultivates expertise in a diversity of talents and skills and a curriculum that enables individuals to pursue their strengths" (Yong Zhao, 2009, p. 156). Martin, M. 2009. Eggs or eggheads: Which does the U.S. economy really need? Arizona School Boards Journal, Winter. Available at: http://www.susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=688 Zhao, Y. 2009. Catching Up or Leading the Way? American Education in the Age of Globalization. ASCD: Alexandria, VA.

"After Gyllenhaal’s daughter is punched by a teacher (seriously), the single mom recruits Davis, a mother and educator, to help take back the school. The idealistic women run into obstacles, including a sassy woman who wonders, “What qualifies you to run a school?” and a doubting union rep, played by Holly Hunter." (WP)

Comments posted on my recent piece at The Answer Sheet, "What teachers don’t need (but are getting anyway)," include a typical refrain best confronted by this posting from jdman2:

"Doesn't it seem strange that the issue always degenerates into the question of 'accountability' when those that do the questioning will never be held accountable if their --opinion-- is proved wrong?"

"In other words, 'I don't need to be accountable to anybody, including the parents of my children, the principal of my schools, or the taxpayers who fund my salary.' "Sorry, that's just not acceptable."

Ed Week takes a multi-pronged look at new education advocacy groups, solid overview of the landscape and more to come.  Pat McGuinn takes a look at the same, a breaks a bit of news.

After yesterday’s important speech by New York Chancellor Dennis Walcott you sure get the sense that resolution of the “absent teacher reserve” issue is now one of when and how, not if.

Where are they now?  Here’s the Renegade Ohio school choice mom Kelly Williams-Bolar edition.  No one wants to work in education?  Ed Pioneers hits 10K applicants.  Mark Nadel proposes a ‘rate my teacher’ style online approach – but one with a long view.

And June Kronholz takes a look at A-Net in Ed Next.

In case you missed it, student loans are a problem but there is a lot of hype, too.  And the weather is supposed to be great this weekend, so take a kid fishing.

Want to help raise money for cancer research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute?  Bill Phillips and I are working on that in our spare time and you can help us.

Disc - BW works with A-Net and I’m a board member for EP.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I have to admit I'm addicted to the NBC education RSS feed -- for the visuals as much as for the content.  Do any of the other broadcast or cable news channels do as much or better on education coverage?  ABC?  CBS?  Fox? Please let me know, and I will become addicted to their RSS feeds, too.  

Duncan to Florida: Tutoring Doesn't Work Politics K12: U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said today he doesn't understand why Florida passed a law requiring districts to continue offering free tutoring to students in struggling schools.

NCLB waiver bid stalled by Ed Dept. concerns Washington Post: The city’s poor record of handling and accounting for federal grants, and its difficulties staying in compliance with special education laws. Both were inherited by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education when it was formed in 2007, but they remain obstacles.

Chancellor Proposes Plan to Remove Unassigned and Unsatisfactory Teachers NYT: Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott proposed on Thursday to offer buyouts to teachers in the "absent teacher reserve pool'' and to get rid of those teachers who receive unsatisfactory ratings two years in a row. ALSO City Moving To Strengthen Teacher Pool WSJ

MORE NEWS ITEMS INSIDE

New Coalition to Challenge Bloomberg’s Education Policies NYT: A coalition of labor unions and liberal advocacy groups is planning an ambitious effort to support mayoral candidates who pledge to reverse some of the Bloomberg administration's more-contentious public education policies.

Son Fulfills Dream Racism Denied To His Mother NPR: Friday, Terry Walls is graduating from the same university that rejected his mother because of the color of her skin. Mary Jean Price Walls hadn't spoken about her application to Missouri State University in six decades, until her son uncovered letters in university archives.

A Year Later, Joplin Continues To Bounce Back NPR: A year after a devastating tornado ripped through Joplin, Missouri, President Obama is set to go back and deliver Joplin High School's commencement speech. Host Michel Martin speaks with Joplin High Principal Kerry Sachetta for an update on how the school and the town are recovering.

Florida Journalism Program Gives Students Reason to Stay in School PBS: Davis and his classmates at John Hopkins Middle School examined how violence affects students' ability to learn. They produced a video as part of a communication magnet program -- known as Journeys in Journalism -- in the Pinellas County School District.

 

 

 

Here, MA high school teachers engage in an elaborate teacher-on-student prank, which is the reverse of the usual practice:

 

"Dance bombing," like photo bombing, is an Internet fad (sort of like planking was back in 2011). I associate it with Ellen Degeneres. Beware, the music associated with this video is loud and somewhat uncool.  

Want to know what #ewa12 education reporters think is interesting and important? They're all gathered here at Penn, tweeting like mad.  Check out the stream below:

The Philadelphia Schoool Reform Commission (SRC) said that their schools might not even have enough money to open their doors next fall without huge budgetary cuts and additional resources, as it also unveiled a radical education plan. It would close 64 schools in the next five years and divide the rest among “achievement networks” and charter management organizations. The implication, of course, is that the risky plan is necessary because of the district's immense financial challenges. The Philadelphia Inquirer's "Crisis Opens a Window to School Reform," by Patrick Kerkstra, explained that that is not true. He cited the mayor's chief education officer who admitted, "the academic reorganization is completely cost-neutral." Kerkstra , a former reporter for the Inquirer, then explained that reformers, "want to blow the district up."  They would have had a tough time persuading the public that the solution is "closing public schools en masse, enrolling about 40 percent of all students in charters by 2017, and busting the district up into 20 to 30 networks." He then cited a founder of Parents United for Public Education. "We got the bait and switch. We were promised a fiscal plan, and we got a complete academic overhaul."

Regular readers of the Inquirer and the Philadelphia School Notebook have already been told how the Philadelphia's schools got into this mess. 

The Inquirer, for instance, earned a Pulitizer Prize for its series, Learning Under Attack which documented the system's "climate of violence," the attacks on teachers and staff, and the damage done to students, as well as the school system's underreporting of violence. But former Superintendent Arlene Ackerman ignored the pleas of bruised and bullied children.  Now, Lorene Cary of School Reform Commission says that what is needed to bring out the "exquisite" in disruptive children is a three-day workshop for principals and a day of consciousness-raising for teachers.

The Notebook, which just won its second legal battle for the right to access information considered by the reform commission, has been equally effective in explaining the contradictions in the school system's rushed reforms. The Notebook's  Dale Mezzacappa reported that the district wants to implement the SRC plan, even though Chief Academic Officer Penny Nixon could not say if it would result in "better outcomes for children," because the plan isn't complete. 

Perhaps the best single account of the "dismantling of the school system" is Daniel Denvir's "Who's Killing Philly Public Schools?" in the City Paper.  Denvir, like the Inquirer and the Notebook,made it clear that the city's problems did not start with the disastrous "reform" administration of Arlene Ackerman.  For instance, Philadelphia led the way in contracting out schools to Edison Schools. After posting a record of lackluster performance, for-profit organizations threw in the towel. He then concluded:

 As Philadelphia schools cut past the bone and spin beyond crisis, the movement to privatize them has grown fat. After 15 years of pellmell growth, 82 charter schools now educate 25 percent of district students, and will this year receive $525 million. The flight of children to charters has increased the price of educating those who remain in the district — a key reason the district is now pushing to close under-attended schools. Charters have also siphoned off many Catholic-school students, according to a Pew Foundation study, prompting a similar enrollment crisis for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Denvir then recounted the authoritarianism and the grandstanding of Superintendent Arlene Ackerman. He recalled the low points of her administration, including:

Accusations launched against Asian student victims at South Philly High, retaliation against whistleblowers speaking out on improper contracting, tumult following the removal of a popular principal at West Philly High, the persecution of Audenried teacher Hope Moffett, who spoke out against charter conversions, and, of course, the propaganda machine.

In the wake of the infamous cheating scandal which broke in 2011 and the district's buy-out  Ackerman's contract, the School Reform Commission took only "five weeks of 'intense' work starting immediately to help design a decentralized academic model, identify operational savings, and find new reductions and efficiencies." It paid $1.4 million to the Boston Consulting Group which was hot off its miraculous transformation of Chicago's schools. Denvir cited a former Boston employee who "described the company's approach as merely 'force-fit[ting] analysis to a conclusion.'" Sure enough, Boston produced a "cut and paste" plan

 Denvir suggested that "another goal of Boston could be enriching its allies, or scoring them political victories. Former Boston executives and consultants now hold senior posts at charter-school networks like KIPP — which could well apply to manage a Philly achievement network — and [the]Broad Center."

Old-fashioned journalism and schools have a lot in common. Both are being battered by the technological, social, and economic forces known as disruptive innovation.  The leaders of Philadelphia schools have not risen to the challenges. As shown by the coverage of the city's schools, Philadelphia journalists have.

And in a fitting update, the Notebook's Mezzacappa reports that SRC has now redefined the "Blueprint" as a "concept," while its contributer, Ron Whitehorne, explains that the SRC rushed ahead before understanding the definitions of the terms they were using. - JT (@drjohnthompson) image via.

Up to 15 Percent of Students Chronically Skip School, Johns Hopkins Finds NYT: A study by researchers at John Hopkins University found that as many as 15 percent of students miss at least one school day in 10, and have gone undetected because of the way attendance is measured. ALSO Chronic Absenteeism Hurts Millions Of Students HuffPost, Study: 7.5 million students miss a month of school each year USAT

Fla. Students Crash After State Raises Bar On Test NPR: The Florida Board of Education has voted to temporarily lower the passing grade for its state writing test after a dramatic drop in scores on this year's exam. The state had made the test more difficult and raised the passing grade in an attempt to upgrade standards. But education officials were stunned when preliminary results showed the passing rate for 4th graders this year had plummeted from 80 percent to less than 30 percent.

House Panel Takes A Look at School Choice, Parent Triggers Politics K12: Parent trigger laws have gotten a lot of attention lately—and they're about to get even more when theHollywood version comes out later this year.

MORE NEWS ITEMS INSIDE

What Does a First-Grade Journalist Look Like? PBS: When my colleague Mike Fritz and I headed down to St. Petersburg, Fla., recently, we knew we were going to see young journalists at work. It's not too hard to imagine that middle school students with a bit of training can write for a newspaper or even shoot video; plenty of kids have cellphones with cameras these days. But birthing journalists from first grade? I couldn't imagine how it was done -- until we arrived at Melrose Elementary, a journalism magnet school.

CPS plans 60 more charters in 5 years Chicago Tribune: Chicago Public Schools plans to create 60 more charter schools over five years, which would increase the share of privately run charters to about a quarter of all schools in the district.

OSSE report: District pays at least $10 million to educate non-resident students Washington Post: The District has been trying to save a few dollars by reducing the number of special education students in expensive private schools at public expense.

Some elementary foreign language programs losing ground as budget cuts take toll Boston Globe: Biting into foreign tongues Traditional foreign language classes have been stripped from Massachusetts elementary schools over the past decade, forced out by tight budgets and high-stakes testing.

99 Percent of N.Y. School Budgets Meeting Tax Cap Pass NYT: School officials said the high passage rate reflected tight budgets and staff cuts as most districts fought to stay under the new limit.

 

I'm on Twitter today -- @alexanderrusso.

You can do it.  It's not too scary.  

To understand what’s happening with student loans you need to keep two things in mind at once:  There is a problem, yes, but there is also a lot of hysteria. And increasingly lost in the hysteria are the students we should worry about most – those making poor choices based on bad information or attending for-profit colleges that are ripping them off.  But the focus on overall debt is obscuring much of what’s really happening – median debt for students who borrow is less than $13K, for instance.  That’s what I look at in this week’s TIME column.

Student debt is completely out of control, right? The more than $1 trillion in outstanding college loans is front-page news and is pretty much the only educational issue the presidential candidates are talking about. Yes, ballooning student debt is causing real hardship for some Americans. But as with many educational flare-ups, the public debate is giving us more noise than signal. So before you decide to skip college based on the hysteria, here are a few things to keep in mind.

The interest rate to read the entire column? 0% with no origination costs.  You can’t beat that.  Just click here.

You rarely know exactly what's going to make it worthwhile to go to a conference, and occasionally there's nothing much that comes of going.  But often there's at least someone, or something, who emerges as a key contact, or source, or an idea that helps improve your understanding or your thinking.

At this year's EWA conference, some of the people and events that might prove most helpful to me include a site visit to Mastery, a chance to see New America's Lisa Guernsey on a panel, and Roxanna Elden, and Ted Mitchell (again).  I always love the advocates' sessions (which most reporters avoid like the plague).  I always stay away from the data panel though I'll probably go to the session about new media tools if only to see Joshua Benton do his schpiel. It's always good to see old friends and acquaintances, and make new ones.  I'll try my best to pay attention.  Michael Bennet.  Cory Booker.  Tom Kane.  Jim Shelton.  Steve Brill.  Can we heckle?

Anyway, you get the idea.  Come up and say hi if you're here.  Tell me what to go to or whom to avoid if I've got it totally wrong.