Study debunks myths about gender and math performance
Ω A major study of recent international data on school mathematics performance casts doubt on some common assumptions about gender and math achievement — in particular, the idea that girls and women have less ability due to a difference in biology. "We tested some recently proposed hypotheses that try to explain a supposed gender gap in math performance and found they were not supported by the data," says Janet Mertz, senior author of the study and a professor of oncology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Instead, the Wisconsin researchers linked differences in math performan... more »
Autism researchers make exciting strides
Ω Teaching young children with autism to imitate others may improve a broader range of social skills, according to a new study by a Michigan State University scholar. The findings come at a pivotal time in autism research. In the past several years, researchers have begun to detect behaviors and symptoms of autism that could make earlier diagnosis and even intervention like this possible, said Brooke Ingersoll, MSU assistant professor of psychology. “It’s pretty exciting,” Ingersoll said. “I think we, as a field, are getting a much better idea of what autism looks like in infants a... more »
Is it possible to learn high-performance tasks with little or no conscious effort?
Ω New research published today in the journal Science suggests it may be possible to use brain technology to learn to play a piano, reduce mental stress or hit a curve ball with little or no conscious effort. It's the kind of thing seen in Hollywood's "Matrix" franchise. Experiments conducted at Boston University (BU) and ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, recently demonstrated that through a person's visual cortex, researchers could use decoded functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to induce brain activity patterns to match a previously known targe... more »
Reading, Math Focus Crowding Out Other Core Academic Subjects
Ω New research reveals that two-thirds of educators in the nation's K-12 public schools believe that an overemphasis on English-language arts and mathematics has resulted in denying students a proper focus on other core academic subjects, such as social studies, science, foreign languages, and the arts. Conducted by the Farkas Duffett Research (FDR) Group on behalf of Common Core, the research is based on a survey of 1,001 third through 12th grade public school teachers that gathered data about teacher behavior and classroom practice. The research was funded by the Ford Foundation... more »
Supplemental reading programs work better when aligned with core curricula
Ω Students who struggle with reading get an extra benefit from a supplemental reading program when its content is aligned with the students' core reading curriculum, according to a study published in the December issue of the Elementary School Journal. The findings suggest that supplemental reading programs work best when they mirror core curricula in scope and sequence rather than simply being "layered on top," write the study's authors, Carla Wonder-McDowell, D. Ray Reutzel (Utah State University), and John A. Smith (University of Texas-Arlington). The study focused on 133 secon... more »
2,000,000+ in Charter Schools
Ω The number of students attending public charter schools across the nation has surpassed two million according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS). Over 500 new public charter schools opened their doors in the 2011-12 school year, an estimated increase of 200,000 students. This year marks the largest single–year increase ever recorded in terms of the number of additional students attending charters. There are now approximately 5,600 public charter schools enrolling what is estimated to be more than two million students nationwide. The numbers equate to a 13... more »
States Need to Improve the Middle Grades
Ω States across the South need to take steps now to improve student achievement in the middle grades — considered by many experts to be a critical weak point in public education — or else risk creating a generation of high school students ill-prepared for the 21st century and its changing work force demands, a major new report from the SREB Middle Grades Commission asserts. Although SREB states have made good progress in early grades achievement in recent years, "when students reach the middle grades, they start to lose momentum — especially in reading and also in math — and often ...more »
Middle-class elementary students ask for help more than working-class peers
Ω Middle-class children ask their teachers for help more often and more assertively than working-class children and, in doing so, receive more support and assistance from teachers according to a study from the University of Pennsylvania. The findings are reported in the December issue of the American Sociological Review in a paper entitled, "I Need Help!" Social Class and Children's Help-Seeking in Elementary School" by Jessica McCrory Calarco, a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology in Penn's School of Arts and Sciences. The paper is based on Calarco's dissertation research, a longitudinal... more »
STUDENT SCIENCE ACHIEVEMENT THREATENED BY ALARMING STATE VARIATIONS IN MEASURING LEARNING
Ω Lack of consistency across states creates patchwork of “proficiency” requirements and misleading information on how well students are being prepared for high school, college and careers U.S. students risk falling behind in science education due to radically inconsistent state definitions of proficiency. While teachers and parents are being told that students are meeting the standard for eighth-grade proficiency set by their state, they may actually be performing at levels substantially below their international counterparts and go on to struggle in high school, college and care... more »
Results From the 2011 NAEP Trial Urban District Assessments (TUDA) in Mathematics and Reading
Ω Data from the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show that students from large cities nationally have made gains since 2009 at both grades 4 and 8 in mathematics and at grade 8 in reading. The Nation’s Report Card: Mathematics 2011 TUDA and The Nation’s Report Card: Reading 2011 TUDA present results for public school students from 21 participating urban districts and from large cities nationally. District results are compared to results for all students attending public schools in the nation and large cities (i.e., cities with populations of 250,000 or more) ... more »
State laws mandating P.E., recess linked with increased in-school physical activity among children
Ω State and school district-level policies mandating minimum requirements for in-school physical education and recess time are associated with increased odds of schools in those states and districts meeting physical activity recommendations for students, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "Children spend the majority of their waking hours in school, thus schools are important locations to focus obesity prevention activities, such as increasing physical activity opportunities," the authors ... more »
Growing income and gender gaps in college graduation
Ω A new study shows that the gap in rates of college completion between students from high-and low-income families has grown significantly in the last 50 years. "We find growing advantages for students from high-income families," said University of Michigan economist Martha Bailey, who conducted the study with U-M economist Susan Dynarski. "And we also find that increases in educational inequality are largely driven by women." Bailey and Dynarski analyzed nearly 70 years of data on postsecondary education from the U.S. Census and the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth. Their f... more »
Health care, home, school differ for children with special health care needs
Ω The first federally funded report to compare children with special health care needs to children without reveals 14 percent to 19 percent of children in the United States have a special health care need and their insurance is inadequate to cover the greater scope of care they require for optimal health. The report, Children with Special Health Care Needs in Context: A Portrait of States and the Nation 2007, provides an enhanced view of children by illustrating their health, health care, home and family environments, and school and neighborhood environments compared with their pee... more »
Few Doctors Follow Sudden Cardiac Death Screening Guidelines for Athletes
Ω According to a state survey, fewer than 6 percent of doctors fully follow national guidelines for assessing sudden cardiac death risk during high school sports physicals, researchers said at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2011. The study was based on responses of 1,113 pediatricians and family doctors and 317 high school athletic directors in Washington state. Less than half of the doctors and only 6 percent of the athletic directors reported that they were even aware of the guidelines. None of the athletic directors said their schools required physicals to ... more »
Economic Impact of Virginia Beach City Public Schools
The Virginia Beach, Va., school district asked a university economist to calculate just what it brings both to the city and the Hampton Roads region in southeastern Virginia. Here is the Executive Summary of that report with slight edits: The Virginia Beach City Public School System (VBCPS) has large and significant economic impacts on the economy of the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News Metropolitan Area. Every $1.00 spent and retained in the regional economy from the VBCPS operating budget results in total regional spending of $1.53, and every one direct VBCPS job is associate... more »
More Student Data Compiled, Access Still An Issue
Ω How can states allocate scarce resources AND improve student achievement without data? The answer is simple: They can’t. States cannot inform these critical policy conversations, or any others for that matter, without effective data use. This study, States Could Empower Stakeholders To Make Education Decisions with Data . . . but They Haven‘t Yet, by the Data Quality Campaign, points out that while states have built longitudinal data systems and established governance bodies, but these bodies have not yet tackled the full scope of turf, trust, technical and time issues.
Kindergarten Literacy Program: Impacts End 1st Grade
Ω Improving the ability of at-risk children to read and comprehend text has been a high priority in education policy over the last two decades. Low levels of reading achievement have been related to low academic performance. One critical factor in reading achievement is adequate vocabulary knowledge. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds often lack general and academic vocabulary to enable them to acquire knowledge and comprehend text when they learn to read. A study conducted by REL Southeast has found that the positive impacts of a kindergarten vocabulary intervention (PAVEd fo...more »
State Standards, the SAT, and Admission to the University of California
Ω A new PACE policy brief, by Michal Kurlaender, University of California Davis, Eric Grodsky, University of Minnesota, Samuel J. Agronow, Saint Mary’s College of California and Catherine L. Horn, University of Huston. Like most other universities in the country, the University of California (UC) requires that students submit scores from either the SAT or ACT exams as part of their application package. These tests have their origins in the efforts of a handful of elite colleges and universities to expand the socioeconomic diversity and enhance the academic promise of their admissio... more »
15,740 pupils in St. Louis would transfer to a County school district if given their choice
Ω A recent study completed on behalf of the Clayton, MO School District indicates that about 15,740 (27.8%) of K-12 pupils living in the City would transfer to a St. Louis County school district if given their choice and assuming there was no charge for tuition. The report was completed by Dr. Terry Jones, a noted political scientist and researcher on public policy from the University of Missouri - St. Louis. More than 3,500 of those students would list Clayton as their first choice on where to enroll. Additionally, more than 3,100 of 15,000+ who would transfer have IEPs and would... more »
New Report: State Oversight of For-Profit Schools Needs Major Improvement
Ω As for-profit post-secondary schools have rapidly expanded throughout the United States, state government has frequently failed to challenge for-profit school abuses and fraud. One result? Increasingly, students are left buried under mountains of debt with no prospect for gainful employment. Yet most states have substantive legal recourse against fraud if they choose to step up to the plate to protect citizens. These are some of the major findings of State Inaction: Gaps in State Oversight of For-Profit Higher Education, a report issued today by the National Consumer Law Center'... more »