John Thompson Research: Cortisol turns some kids into time bombs - NonDoc

Research: Cortisol turns some kids into time bombs - NonDoc:

Research: Cortisol turns some kids into time bombs

I had two big personal takeaways from the Oklahoma Partnership for School Readiness Foundation‘s excellent conference on early childhood education Feb. 9 at the University of Central Oklahoma.

Although much of the discussion was beyond my level of expertise, I was thrilled to hear the presenters’ ideas for improving social work outcomes. The Kaiser Foundation’s Diane Horm, Michigan State’s Sacha Klein and Steve Sturm evaluated what is working in Oklahoma and Los Angeles. Second, Oklahoma State University’s Jennifer Hayes-Grudo’s and Georgetown University’s Deborah Phillips’ synthesis of research on cortisol levels helped me understand a dilemma that bedeviled school-improvement efforts at Centennial High School during the Great Recession.

Ticking time bombs

When our school dropped to the bottom of the state’s secondary schools, our kids got off the busses agitated, responding to one confrontation after another. Within an hour, our halls would be clear, and high-quality instruction was being conducted in many or most classes. It was the fault of neither our teachers nor our students that, about three hours into each day, the kids became overwhelmed.

By fourth period, unresolved disputes from previous days and nights would take priority, Research: Cortisol turns some kids into time bombs - NonDoc:

An ‘F’ for some school-voucher programs even as Trump team pushes choice - MarketWatch

An ‘F’ for some school-voucher programs even as Trump team pushes choice - MarketWatch:

An ‘F’ for some school-voucher programs even as Trump team pushes choice

Voucher success stories are very localized, according to three studies along the political spectrum

 A proposed $20 billion school-voucher program from the Trump administration, and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, a school-choice advocate, may have the most momentum for such a plan in decades. That momentum, critics of market-based education policy worry, may leave three recent voucher-effectiveness studies—from the political left and right—worth little more than spitballs.

Vouchers, which essentially parlay tax money traditionally earmarked for public schools into vouchers that let families opt for certain private schools if they choose, are not new. Free-market extoller Milton Friedman wrote at length about the role of government in education in the 1950s. Friedman said that the government owes its citizens an education but that the government just isn’t the best administrator. “Choice” advocates argue that low test scores bear this out. From the Friedman treatise emerged the voucher concept, used today in small batches and in select areas.

Education experts have fresh data on those voucher programs, and the results, which may be as muddied as the education debate itself, show some programs failing, others pulling C’s and select examples earning top marks. The challenge? Uniform voucher execution and results when applied on a broad basis, wrote education-policy researcher Kevin Carey in a commentary for the New York Times.

‘The results [of school voucher research] are startling — the worst in the history of the field, researchers say.’

Kevin Carey, New America

Here’s an excerpt of findings from the conservative-leaning Thomas B. Fordham Institute, one of the three studies that Carey, who’s with the think tank New America, highlights: The results reported here for Ohio’s EdChoice program—one of the nation’s largest voucher programs—are a mixed bag. The study mirrors important trends that can be seen in other voucher research. The modest, positive competitive effect on public school achievement replicates findings from jurisdictions like Florida, Louisiana, and Milwaukee, findings that also offered evidence that voucher competition improved public school outcomes. These are, of course, encouraging for advocates of competition and choice. Yet this study also extends a recent (and, to us, unwelcome) trend that finds negative effects for voucher participants in large statewide programs. While earlier evaluations of privately and publicly funded scholarship programs—usually administered at the city level—found neutral-to-positive impacts on participants, newer studies of Louisiana’s and Indiana’s statewide programs have uncovered negative results, particularly in math.

Opinion: 5 things Betsy DeVos can do to help students as U.S. test scores decline

Vouchers and charter schools are often lumped together under the push for “choice,” but the different approaches highlight education-policy nuance. “The new voucher studies stand in marked contrast to research findings that well-regulated charter schools in Massachusetts and elsewhere have a strong, positive impact on test scores. But while vouchers and charters are often grouped under the umbrella of ‘school choice,’ the best charters tend to be nonprofit public schools, open to all and accountable to public authorities. The less ‘private’ school-choice programs are, the better they seem to work,” Carey wrote.

Don’t miss: Parents already face tough ‘school choice’ — they want simplicity

More from MarketWatchAn ‘F’ for some school-voucher programs even as Trump team pushes choice - MarketWatch:

Will Betsy DeVos Kill Sex Ed in Public Schools? - The Daily Beast

Will Betsy DeVos Kill Sex Ed in Public Schools? - The Daily Beast:

Will Betsy DeVos Kill Sex Ed in Public Schools?
Doctors recommend that all teens get vaccinated against the cancer-causing HPV before they are sexually active. But that sort of frank sex-ed talk could be at risk under our new education czar.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a sexually transmitted disease that causes head, neck, anal, and genital cancers. Currently, about 79 million Americans, most in their late teens and early twenties, are infected with the virus. The annual statistics are grim. Every year in the United States:

• 14 million people are newly infected with HPV.
• 19,000 women and 8,000 men develop HPV-associated cancers.
• 5,000 people die from cancers caused by HPV.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that a vaccine is available to prevent it. In 2006, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) licensed an HPV vaccine that will prevent about 70 percent of the cancers caused by this virus; in 2016, the vaccine was replaced by another HPV vaccine that will prevent about 85 percent. The HPV vaccine is now recommended for all girls and boys between 11 and 13 years of age. Unfortunately, although the vaccine has been around for more than 10 years, most teenagers don’t get it. Only about 45 percent of girls and 25 percent of boys have completed the recommended series.

Given current immunization rates, every year in the United States about 2,000 boys and girls are condemned to die from cancer because they haven’t received an HPV vaccine—a remarkable public health failure.

The HPV vaccine isn’t the only vaccine recommended for teenagers in the United States. Vaccines to prevent tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough, and meningococcus (a cause of meningitis and bloodstream infections) are also Will Betsy DeVos Kill Sex Ed in Public Schools? - The Daily Beast:

The Letter You Should Write to Your K-12 Schools | The Huffington Post

The Letter You Should Write to Your K-12 Schools | The Huffington Post:

The Letter You Should Write to Your K-12 Schools

Zach Stafford is a journalist for The Guardian who, after the Trump Administration this week moved to redact Federal enforcement protecting transgender students, called on people to write letters to their alma mater in support of equal protections for the full LGBTQ community in schools.

The following is letter I authored and sent to the Board of Education, senior leaders, and guidance counselors of every school in the district where I grew up. Identifying information redacted (*), as the purpose of this letter is not to incriminate that school district, but to encourage you to write a similar letter.

********************************************************************************************************************

Hello,

As an alumnus of * Schools, I would first like to thank you for your service to the school district and the broader community. Having completed my entire K-12 education at *, *, and *, and having grown up in the home of a public school educator, I am immensely appreciative of the work done by the faculty and staff of the * schools.

Unfortunately, the reason I am writing you now is to address a very serious concern that affects your families and the students of *. As I imagine you know, President Donald Trump this week moved to redact Federal enforcement for the protections of transgender students in public schools. As a matter of government policy, I appreciate that there is room to debate the merits of Federal- versus State-enforced regulation, but I am not inclined to try to persuade you that this is a matter for the Federal government. The truth is that this isn’t even necessarily a matter for the State government. In the end, it is a matter for you. The policies you set forth in the * are what have a direct and meaningful impact on the lives of the students over whom you keep watch and I am writing to ask that you take action to support every member of the LGBTQ community within your schools.

Just as the Civil Rights Movement was not a matter of water fountain segregation, the fight for equal LGBTQ rights is not a matter of bathroom use. According to a 2014 study conducted by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the UCLA School of Law, the general population attempted suicide rate is just under 5%. For gay, bisexual, and lesbian people, this number ranges from 10 to 20%. For transgender people, this number is 41%. It’s nearly 10-times the national average. Furthermore, the study concludes that individuals who are forced to publicly identify themselves as being transgender (for example, by having to use a public restroom in which they feel they do not belong) have a still-higher incidence of suicidality. My reason for referencing these findings is to reinforce the importance of open minds and inclusive policies in public spaces.

I also want to draw to your attention a few anecdotal points, as it can often be difficult toThe Letter You Should Write to Your K-12 Schools | The Huffington Post: 

Parents of transgender children request meeting with Trump, DeVos, Sessions - The Washington Post

Parents of transgender children request meeting with Trump, DeVos, Sessions - The Washington Post:

Parents of transgender children request meeting with Trump, DeVos, Sessions

The parents of eight transgender children from across the country have requested a meeting with President Trump and key administration officials to discuss the effect of their decision to withdraw federal guidance explaining what the nation’s public schools must do to protect transgender students.

“We are heartbroken and scared about what this means,” the parents said Friday in a letter to Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. “This action exposes transgender students to harassment and discrimination in their own classrooms, places they should feel safe and able to learn.”

A White House spokesman could not immediately say whether Trump had seen the letter, but he said the president has made clear that he’s open to meeting with a variety of people to improve Americans’ lives. An Education Department spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

The letter was signed by parents from Texas, Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Maine and D.C. They are members of the Human Rights Campaign’s Parents for Transgender Equality Council, and many of them have become leading voices in the effort to raise awareness about and advocate for the needs of transgender people.

They include Debi and Tom Jackson, whose daughter Avery appeared on the cover of National Geographic in January, and Ron Ford Jr. and Vanessa Ford, who have written about their daughter, Ellie, in The Washington Post.

[Parents of transgender child: Our magnetic 5-year-old is not a threat to anyone]

“We are continuing to fight,” Ron Ford Jr. said Wednesday, the day Trump withdrew the guidance, at a rally in support of transgender children in front of the White House. Ford’s short speech was captured on video and posted to Facebook. “Everyone needs to be protected in school, in their communities. Just because they rescinded the guidance … doesn’t meant that Parents of transgender children request meeting with Trump, DeVos, Sessions - The Washington Post:

Education or indoctrination? Civil rights seminar at renowned high school sparks controversy. - The Washington Post

Education or indoctrination? Civil rights seminar at renowned high school sparks controversy. - The Washington Post:

Education or indoctrination? Civil rights seminar at renowned high school sparks controversy.

New Trier High School, a nationally recognized school in suburban Chicago with an affluent and mostly white student population, has been planning a day-long seminar on civil rights for nearly a year. Set to take place Tuesday, the seminar, “Understanding today’s struggle for racial civil rights,” has now become the subject of a controversy that reflects America’s deep political divide.

Students will spend the day listening to keynote speakers — one at each of the school’s two campuses — and participating in a common lesson session designed to frame the discussion on race and civil rights.

Then students can choose to attend a few of the more than 100 workshop sessions being presented by teachers and outside presenters, which, according to the school website, are “on topics ranging from racial housing patterns and Native American civil rights to gospel music and civil rights activism in sports.” The keynote speakers are Colson Whitehead, National Book Award winner for “The Underground Railroad,” and Andrew Aydin, National Book Award winner for “March.”

The seminar programming was developed by a committee of more than 30 teachers, administrators and students. It has been attacked by critics, including the Wall Street Journal’s opinions section, which ran a critical piece about it with a headline that called it “racial indoctrination day” meant to “foist ‘social justice’ on the school’s 4,000 students. School and district officials say that’s nonsense, and that the seminar is meant to educate students on an issue that is roiling U.S. society and that can’t be ignored by educators.

Greg Robitaille, president of the New Trier Board of Education, said in a statement:

“The notion that this day somehow advances an agenda or point of view is just not borne out by the goals and structure of the sessions. Where appropriate, topics will be covered from multiple perspectives. However, we are not going to, for example, question the very existence of racism in furtherance of some extreme notion of balance.”

New Trier is one of the country’s highest-performing high schools and one of its best known, the setting for scenes from a number of films, including “Home Alone” and “Ferris Bueller’s Education or indoctrination? Civil rights seminar at renowned high school sparks controversy. - The Washington Post:

Winner of NEPC's 2016 Bunkum Award | National Education Policy Center

Bunkum Awards | National Education Policy Center:

Winner of NEPC's 2016 Bunkum Award

The Bunkum Awards highlight nonsensical, confusing, and disingenuous education reports produced by think tanks. They are given each year by the Think Twice Think Tank review project to think tank reports judged to have most egregiously undermined informed discussion and sound policy making.

Bunkum Background

According to the MacMillan English Dictionary Magazine, the word bunkum became synonymous with "nonsense" around 1820.  It was originally spelled "buncombe," after Buncombe County, North Carolina, home of Representative Felix Walker, who delivered a seemingly endless speech which many in his audience felt to be meaningless and irrelevant.  Walker refused to stop talking, declaring himself to be determined to deliver a speech "for Buncombe."  Thus, bunkum became a term for long-winded nonsense of the kind often seen in politics, and from there progressed to the more general meaning of just plain "nonsense."

Learn more about the history of the Bunkum Awards by reading these Education Week Commentaries:

• Truthiness in Education: Why the Bunkum Awards Were Created
• The Privatization Infatuation

Bunkum Awards | National Education Policy Center:



Winner of NEPC's 2016 Bunkum Award | Benzinga - https://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/17/02/p9089096/winner-of-nepcs-2016-bunkum-award

To help the public determine which elements of think tank reports are based on sound social science, NEPC's "Think Twice" Think Tank Review Project has, every year since 2006, asked independent experts to assess strengths and weaknesses of reports published by think tanks.

Few of the think tank reports have been found by experts to be sound and useful; most, however, are found to have little, if any, scientific merit. At the end of each year NEPC editors sift through the reviewed reports to identify the worst offender. We then award the organization publishing that report NEPC's Bunkum Award for shoddy research.

Find Documents: 
Press Release: http://nepc.info/node/8504 
NEPC Review: http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-CAP-standards

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC) Think Twice Think Tank Review Project (http://thinktankreview.org) provides the public, policymakers, and the press with timely, academically sound reviews of selected publications. The project is made possible in part by support provided by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice: http://www.greatlakescenter.org

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, produces and disseminates high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. Visit us at: http://nepc.colorado.edu 

Betsy deVos, feeding children is not a joking matter. She says “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” | Educate All Students: Larry Miller's Blog

Betsy deVos, feeding children is not a joking matter. She says “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” | Educate All Students: Larry Miller's Blog:

Betsy deVos, feeding children is not a joking matter. She says “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Betsy DeVos is in charge of a system that literally serves millions of free lunches. She opened remarks to the ultra-conservative CPAC on Thursday with a joke about free lunch.

Betsy DeVos Means It!

Andy Martino

Feb—24—2017 02:11PM EST

The new secretary of education stepped to the mic at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, and warmed up the crowd with a joke that played well in that particular room.

“I’m Betsy DeVos,” the secretary, who arrived at the job with no experience in the public school system, said. “You may have heard some of the wonderful things the mainstream media has called me lately. I, however, pride myself on being called a mother, a grandmother, a life partner, and perhaps the first person to tell Bernie Sanders to his face that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Hahaha, Bernie Sanders. Whatever on that. It’s a speech at CPAC, where he’s an obvious target, and this was an apparent reference to DeVos’ back-and-forth with Sanders during her confirmation hearing last month. And maybe DeVos just didn’t consider the impact of the phrase “free lunch” in the context of her new job. But here’s the problem: She’s now in charge of a school system that serves free and subsidized lunches to more than 30 million students every day. While the Department of Agriculture actually pays for this program, DeVos’ tone-deaf joke made her appear oblivious to the fact that free school lunches are often the only thing that keep many low-income kids from going hungry.

According to government statistics, 15.8 million, or 12.5 percent, of U.S. households were “food insecure” in 2015, meaning they were unable to acquire enough food to meet the needs of all family members. Multiple studies have shown that hungry children struggle in school, with demonstrably lower math scores, and a greater likelihood of having to repeat a grade.

I spent three years teaching in a public middle and high school in Brooklyn, and saw this play out on a human level: If a kid eats, he or she has a chance to be engaged in class. If a kid is hungry, he or she will probably stumble through the day, a weak and grumpy zombie, head down on desk, no chance to learn.

But as LeVar Burton would say, don’t take my word for it. Here are some facts that might help the billionaire secretary realize that there is, in fact, such a thing as a free lunch, and it’s important.

The National School Lunch Act came into being in 1946,Betsy deVos, feeding children is not a joking matter. She says “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” | Educate All Students: Larry Miller's Blog:

 

Schools Matter: GOP Voucher Plan Provides NPE Fundraising Opp

Schools Matter: GOP Voucher Plan Provides NPE Fundraising Opp:

GOP Voucher Plan Provides NPE Fundraising Opp

DeVos confirmed. NPE will fight her agenda.

After Obama brought Arne Duncan to DC to replace the toxic Margaret Spellings as Secretary of Education, a howl went up from racist states rights advocates against any kind federal intervention in education.

The whining and yipping continued, in fact, until Lamar Alexander and the Clintons came up with a plan to replace NCLB with a states rights version of ESEA that was labeled ESSA. ESSA left in place the annual testing empire, neutralized the role of the Secretary of Education, and gave the states rights advocates greater control of federal education dollars.

ESSA is chocked full of charter school stimulus provisions and incentives for more depersonalized computer screen time for kids that, in good Orwellian fashion, is known as "personalized" learning.

With continuing provisions in ESSA to incentivize annual conversions of the poorest and poorest-scoring five percent of schools, everyone at the RNC and DNC expected the gradualist approach to school privatization to rock along until all poor black and brown children were once again entirely segregated, this time in corporate welfare charters free to impose dehumanizing, paternalistic cultural sterilization methods that public schools with public oversight could never condone.

Even though the Alexander/Clinton plan became law, it could be interrupted by the election of insane clown, Donald Trump, who has his own privatization agenda that replaces DNC gradualism with undisguised Bannonist blitzkrieg.

Less than a week after the Trump inauguration, Steve King introduced H.R. 610 in the House, which replaces ESSA with Schools Matter: GOP Voucher Plan Provides NPE Fundraising Opp:

Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION - WI: State Superintendent Vs. Voucher$ + Deserving

CURMUDGUCATION:

Catch up with CURMUDGUCATION

WI: State Superintendent Vs. Voucher$

10by Peter Greene / 4h

On April 4, two former school superintendents will square off for the state superintendent spot . The shape of that race tells us a lot about what the new politics-as-usual will look like in the years ahead. Wisconsin state animal. She is not rich, either. In one corner, we find Tony Evers . Evers has been the state superintendent of public instruction since 2009; before that he was deputy superin

YESTERDAY

Deserving

22by Peter Greene / 22h

One of my regular reads is Blue Cereal Education, a blog that regularly makes me say, "Gee, I wish I'd written that." Just this week, the post " It's Not About Them (It's About Us )" gave me both that feeling and a wave of flashbacks to when my children were young. The point is deceptively simple-- we should treat people based on our understanding of the right way to treat people, not based on wha

FEB 23

DeVos Folds

78by Peter Greene / 2d

It was pretty much zero surprise that the Trump administration chose to undo the Obama protections for transgender students (despite his vociferous campaign assertion that he would be a far better friend to LGBT folks than Clinton). Thank you to the LGBT community! I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldT

FEB 22

The Decline of Accountability

48by Peter Greene / 2d

It was just a few years ago that outcomes were all the rage with the reform crowd. The problem with public schools, they said, was that we focus too much on inputs. Outfits like the Rand Corporation produced big reports on giving more weight to outputs. Or here's a paper by Mike Petrilli (Fordham Foundation) telling the state of Wisconsin how to look at those all-important outputs for quality cont

The Lessons of Fordlandia

16by Peter Greene / 2d

This week in the New York Times, Simon Romero took a fascinating visit (with photos) to one of Henry Ford's most monumental failures. It's reminder that billionaires who want to remake the world in their own preferred image are nothing new-- and their failures frequently come back to the same old lessons. In the 1920s, Fordlandia was going to be Ford's solution to several problems. It would help b

FEB 21

Free Market vs. The Poor

40by Peter Greene / 3d

Some people just aren't worth the trouble and expense. That's the underlying message that comes through repeatedly as GOP legislators across the country line up to cut the foundations out from under public education and the ACA. Sometimes they're pretty transparent about it. Pat Toomey just compared sick people to burned out houses to make the point that it's just unfair to ask insurers to cover t

FEB 20

Barber: Let It All Burn

21by Peter Greene / 4d

On Valentine's Day, Sir Michael Barber (the head education honcho at Pearson) took to the74 to offer a rather odd and ultimately confused metaphor for education reform by walking us through the story of St. Paul's Cathedral . It's the test from his speech at the 2016 Global Google Education Symposium. Yikes. The problem, he asserts, began with the construction of the original St. Paul's, a classi

FEB 19

Toomey Doesn't Get It

76by Peter Greene / 6d

Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey's office was one that was bombarded with phone calls, faxes, texts, tweets, emails, and messages strapped to the backs of delivery hamsters during the run up to the Betsy DeVos confirmation. At one point he was targeted as one of the GOP senators who might change his mind, which struck me as odd because I've met Toomey and heard him talk about school choice and I do

ICYMI: Extra Homework Edition (2/19)

7by Peter Greene / 6d

It's a big list this week. As always, remember to share, pass on, and amplify what speaks to you and provide that writer with a wider audience. Betsy DeVos Broke the Ed Reform Coalition-- For Now Daniel Katz with a good historical overview of how we ended up where we are in the ed debates, and what a DeVos ed department means to reformsters. Stop Learning To Read From Blue Cereal Education, a refl

FEB 18

Evidence

28by Peter Greene / 6d

This work is Romantic because the author used lots of Romantic ideas, and the characters behave in a Romantic way that captures just how very extremely Romantic the work really is. The author has really infused Romanticism into the whole writing in a way that makes in undeniably Romantic. Welcome to my world. While this is not a direct quote of an actual student essay, it's of a type that English

FEB 17

PA Senate Ed Chair Wants To Trash Education

200+by Peter Greene / 7d

John Eichelberger has been a Pennsylvania state senator for over a decade, and during those years, he has been no friend to public schools or the teachers who work in them. Seriously-- this is District 30. Eichelberger is a Republican upstart who was swept into office on the wave of voter anger over the infamous late-night pay raise of 2005 . He was supported by an assortment of conservatives incl

PA: How Much Does Your District Pay in Charter Costs

73by Peter Greene / 7d

An extremely handy spread sheet has been circulating lately, and if nothing else, I want to put a link here so that I can more easily find it. If you're in Pennsylvania, you'll want to look at this, too. Yes, 502 districts is a lot. The 

CURMUDGUCATION: