Creating Sound Policy for Digital Learning
The latest installments of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s Creating Sound Policy for Digital Learning series address the implications of this education revolution for teachers and school finance. The first paper in the series, “Quality Control in K-12 Digital Learning: Three (Imperfect) Approaches” by Frederick M. Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, tackled accountability for digital schools. In a new paper, “Teachers in the Age of Digital Instruction,” Public Impact’s Bryan and Emily Hassel “propose that digital education needs excellent teachers and that the teaching pro... more »
Policy reforms 'demoralizing' teaching profession?
Ω A provocative new article in the American Journal of Education argues that many teachers in the age of rigid curricula, high-stakes testing, and reduced classroom autonomy are finding it difficult to access the "moral rewards" of their profession. This demoralization of teaching threatens to drive away even the most passionate and dedicated of teachers. "The moral rewards of teaching are activated when educators feel that they are doing what is right in terms of one's students, the teaching profession, and themselves," writes Doris Santoro, a professor of education at Bowdoin Col... more »
FOCUS ON TESTING HURTS STUDENTS IN HIGH SCHOOL HEALTH CLASSES
Ω High school health classes fail to help students refuse sexual advances or endorse safe sex habits when teachers focus primarily on testing knowledge, a new study reveals. But when teachers emphasized learning the material for its own sake, and to improve health, students had much better responses. In these kinds of classrooms, students had lower intentions of having sex and felt better able to navigate sexual situations. “A focus on tests doesn’t help students in health classes make healthier choices,” said Eric M. Anderman, lead author of the study and professor of educational... more »
2011 Report on School Progress in Pittsburgh
Ω Achievement Gap Narrows, More Students Show College and Career Readiness A+ Schools, Pittsburgh’s community alliance for public education, today released its Seventh Annual Report to the Community on Public School Progress in Pittsburgh. The report provides parents, community leaders and others interested in public education with a fair and comprehensive look at the progress of each school in the Pittsburgh Public School District. Carey Harris, executive director of A+ Schools, said schools across the district are showing signs of positive change, including an increase in studen...more »
Who Receives Education Tax Benefits and the Effect These Benefits Have on the Price of College Attendance
Ω NCES Releases New Report Nearly one-half (47 percent) of all 2007–08 undergraduates received an education tax benefit (Hope tax credit, lifetime learning tax credit, or the tuition and fees deduction). These benefits reduced recipients’ average college expenses for the academic year by about $700. In addition to providing estimates on education tax benefits for all 2007–08 undergraduates, this Statistics in Brief investigates the ways in which receipt of these benefits, and these benefits’ effect on the price of college attendance, varies by family income. Since student-level dat... more »
The Incredible Years
Ω The Incredible Years is a program that focuses on building the social and emotional skills of children ages 0–12 who are classified as having an emotional disturbance or those at risk for classification. Lessons cover recognizing and understanding feelings, getting along with friends, anger management, problem solving, and behavior at school. Parents are given training on how to provide positive discipline, promote learning and development, and stay involved in children’s lives at school. What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) reviewed 81 studies that investigated the effects of The Inc... more »
Student team reading and writing
Ω Student team reading and writing is an integrated approach to reading and language arts for young adolescents. The program includes cooperative learning classroom processes that integrate reading, writing, and language arts instruction combined with a literature anthology for high-interest reading material. What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) reviewed four studies that investigated the effects of student team reading and writing programs on improving adolescent literacy. Two studies were quasi-experimental designs that meet WWC evidence standards with reservations. The first study ex... more »
How States Are Supporting Local Data-Driven Decisionmaking
Ω The broad implementation of standards-based accountability presents new opportunities and incentives for data use in education. The increase in available data for districts and schools has intensified interest in systematically collecting and analyzing an array of data at all levels of the education system, with the goal of improving student and school performance. This report, What four states are doing to support local data-driven decisionmaking, describes how state education agencies in Arkansas, Florida, Texas, and Virginia are supporting local data-driven decisionmaking thr... more »
Hand Sanitizer in Schools Helps Prevent Some Cases of Influenza
Ω Hygiene Program for Kids Reduces Influenza A and Missed School Days, Study Finds A hand and respiratory hygiene program including frequent use of alcohol-based hand sanitizer helps reduce illness caused by influenza A and missed school days in elementary school children, reports a study in the November issue of The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. "Respiratory hygiene education and the regular use of hand sanitizer can be an important adjunct to influenza vaccination programs to reduce... more »
PARCC Releases Model Content Frameworks
Ω The state-led Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) today released Model Content Frameworks that will be used to inform the development of item specifications and blueprints for K-12 assessments in English and math. The frameworks also provide support and guidance for implementation of the Common Core State Standards. The frameworks were created through a collaborative process that included state experts and writers of the Common Core State Standards. Nearly 1,000 individual comments were submitted from K-12 educators, principals, superintendents... more »
National School Lunch Program = healty outcomes
Ω The federally funded National School Lunch Program (NSLP) provides free and reduced-price meals to more than 31 million children every school day. (http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/lunch/). A recent study by current and former Iowa State University researchers has confirmed that school lunches improve the health outcomes of children who reside in low-income households. The researchers analyzed data from nearly 2,700 NSLP children (ages 6-17) taken from the 2001-04 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Their study finds that the NSLP reduces the prevalence of food insecurity... more »
Big, Little, Tall and Tiny: Words That Promote Important Spatial Skills
Ω Research shows learning words about size and shape improve readiness for STEM education Skills that physicists and engineers rely on can be taught to young children. Preschool children who hear parents use words describing the size and shape of objects and who then use those words in their day to day interactions do much better on tests of their spatial skills, a University of Chicago study shows. The study is the first to demonstrate that learning to use a wide range of words related to shape and size may improve children's later spatial skills, which are important in ma... more »
Banning Sugar-Sweetened Beverages in Schools Does Not Appear to Reduce Consumption Among Adolescents
Ω State policies banning all sugar-sweetened beverages in schools are associated with reduced in-school access and purchase of these beverages, however these policies are not associated with a reduction in overall consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "In the past 25 years, sources of energy intake among youth have shifted toward greater consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, such as soda, sports drinks, and high-calorie fruit drinks," the authors ... more »
Cooking in the classroom to fight childhood obesity
Ω Based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other reports that childhood obesity has tripled over the past 30 years, we recognize the importance of reaching our children early to form good food habits. However, with teachers having to incorporate more and more learning standards into their already packed curricula, where does that leave room for nutrition education in elementary schools? Perhaps by putting it into school subjects like geography and the study of other cultures, math, and science. A study in the November/December 2011 issue of the Journal of Nutrition E... more »
Abused Students Can Return To School and Thrive With Educator Help
Ω Study of math and reading scores indicate daily focus can bring success A new study from the University of Missouri shows that children who are abused can return to school and do well academically if teachers can help them control their emotions, pay attention to detail and stay motivated. “The first step, of course, is for teachers to watch for signs and stop the abuse to the child,” said Stephen Whitney, associate professor in the Department of Educational, School and Counseling Psychology in the MU College of Education. “My colleagues and I worked with Child Protective Service... more »
Video-chatting may be the answer to literacy problems for rural and isolated students
Ω Distance may no longer be an obstacle for struggling students living in rural and isolated areas. According to the new study "Voice-over-the-Internet-Protocol as a Medium for Delivering Reading Intervention: Evidence from a Single Case Study," published in SAGE Open, video-chatting technology is an effective way for educators to teach their students from remote locations. Authors Craig Wright, Elizabeth G. Conlon, and Michalle Wright set out to determine if voice-over-the-Internet Protocol (VoIP), internet-based systems that allow for two or more individuals from remote locations ... more »
Nearly Half of Students Experienced Sexual Harassment at School Last Year
Ω The American Association of University Women (AAUW) has released Crossing the Line: Sexual Harassment at School, the most comprehensive, nationally representative research conducted in the past 10 years on sexual harassment in middle and high schools. Sexual harassment pervades the lives of students in grades 7–12. Nearly half of those surveyed reported that they had been harassed in the 2010–11 school year. Of that number, a majority (87 percent) said that being harassed had a negative effect on them. Among the responses, one-third said they did not want to go to school as a res... more »
Public Education Finance Systems and Policies for Funding Special Educational Needs
Ω Although education is the largest share of state and local government budgets, very little comprehensive information has been available on all 50 states related to state financing policies and programs for public elementary and secondary education. A new study provides comprehensive information on public K-12 education finance systems in each state, presented in themes such as funding for special student populations, accountability and equity issues. Deborah Verstegen, University of Nevada, Reno professor of education finance, policy and leadership in the College of Education, c... more »
Body weight, sleep-disordered breathing and cognition
Ω Researchers at the University of Chicago have found important new relationships between obesity, sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) and cognitive processing among elementary school children. "The intricate interdependencies between BMI, SDB and cognition shown in our study are of particular importance in children, as their brains are still rapidly developing," says study author Karen Spruyt, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the Pritzer School of Medicine. "Rising rates of obesity in children may amplify these relationships. Public health campaigns targeti... more »
Sports and child development
Ω This is one of the first empirical studies on the effects of sporting activity on the cognitive ability of children. The results reveal that active sport participation leads to improvements in children's cognitive and non-cognitive skills. The latter effect is mainly driven by a reduction in emotional problems and in peer problems. The fact that children who engage in sport also fare better in terms of health and general wellbeing support these findings.