Gene V Glass: Education in Two Worlds: How Much Academic Growth?

Gene V Glass: Education in Two Worlds: How Much Academic Growth?

How Much Academic Growth?

Recently, a colleague in England very politely called me on the carpet for something I wrote in 1981 that did not mercifully die in the interim. Here is his question.

Dear Dr. Glass As you may know, the Education Endowment Foundation in England, in order to help with interpreting effect sizes in education, has suggested to teachers that an effect size of one standard deviation is approximately equal to one year’s progress, and they cite the following from page 103 of your 1981 book ‘Meta-analysis in education’ in support:

It is also known, as an empirical—not definitional—fact that the standard deviation of most achievement tests in elementary school is 1.0 grade-equivalent units; hence the effect size of one year’s instruction at the elementary school level is about +1, for example,

∆ = (4.0 - 3.0) / 1.0 = +1.

I asked one of your co-authors, Barry McGaw (whom I know well) if he could recall where this figure came from and he could not, hence this email to you.The reason I ask is that for many of the tests currently in use in CONTINUE READING: 

Gene V Glass: Education in Two Worlds: How Much Academic Growth?

Sacramento City Unified School District Board Votes To Lay Off Dozens - Elk Grove Tribune

Sacramento City Unified School District Board Votes To Lay Off Dozens - Elk Grove Tribune

Sacramento City Unified School District Board Votes To Lay Off Dozens

Sacramento City Unified School District Board of Education voted to eliminate dozens of positions within its district. Last year, more than 100 employees were laid off.

On Friday, the board voted for approval of 82 layoffs for full time positions. Of those being cut, 54 are K-12 teachers and four are adult education teachers. Twenty-four cut positions were vacant.

The decision comes as an attempt to keep the district from falling into bankruptcy. In December, a state audit of Sacramento City Unified School District’s finances revealed the district’s inability to address its financial crisis. Because of this, the district is increasingly close to insolvency.

Officials say the cut comes because of a lack of funding and work available for the next school year as the district continues to struggle with declining enrollment.

Layoff notices will be issued before May 15.

Sacramento City Unified School District Board Votes To Lay Off Dozens - Elk Grove Tribune

Women Read. Women Write. Women Vote. | Teacher in a strange land

Women Read. Women Write. Women Vote. | Teacher in a strange land

Women Read. Women Write. Women Vote.

One of the more extraordinary end-of-2019 retrospective/resolution columns was Leonard Pitts’s announcement of his decision to read only female authors in 2020. Pitts, a self-proclaimed avid reader, realized, a couple years back, that he’d read 48 books that year—and only one of them was written by a woman.

What made the piece memorable was not Pitts’s determination to read more women writers; it was his utter surprise, having done the math, at his gendered reading habits. I am a huge fan of Leonard Pitts and his writing—and reading this passage made me admire him and his work even more:

Without realizing it, I had been filtering female authors out of my reading list. It was a jolting discovery for an avowed feminist, but it reminded me how insidious biases can be. And that, for as much as people love to proclaim their absolute lack of prejudice, what they usually mean is that they do not go around thinking mean thoughts about racial, religious or gender Others. Which is well and fine, except that our most powerful and consequential prejudices tend to be the ones we carry without even knowing we do. They lead us to assumptions we make without realizing we’ve made them, actions we CONTINUE READING: Women Read. Women Write. Women Vote. | Teacher in a strange land

Column: You'll need a shower after reading about this school board race that's descended into the gutter - Los Angeles Times

Column: You'll need a shower after reading about this school board race that's descended into the gutter - Los Angeles Times

Column: You'll need a shower after reading about this school board race that's descended into the gutter

By Steve Lopez

latimes.com — There she was, sitting right in front of me. Evil in the flesh, or so you’d believe from the fliers now landing in mailboxes across a wide swath of Los Angeles. She stands accused of discriminating against Latino families, putting children in the line of fire because she’s sold out to the NRA, and being responsible for L.A. Unified’s horrible Miramonte Elementary School molestation scandal. Who is this wretched, reprehensible person? CONTINUE READING: Column: You'll need a shower after reading about this school board race that's descended into the gutter - Los Angeles Times

CAN'T GET PAST THE PAYWALL @ LA TIMES

MORE EDUCATION NEWS ON THE 

Los Angeles Education Examiner – News and views on public education in and around Los Angeles. - https://wp.me/bFuBr

CURMUDGUCATION: Social and Emotional Learning Is Drawing Fire

CURMUDGUCATION: Social and Emotional Learning Is Drawing Fire

Social and Emotional Learning Is Drawing Fire

I told you so.

If you are of a Certain Age, you remember Outcome Based Education, the Next Big Education Thing of the 1990s. Its basic idea was to reduce education to observable behaviors-- all those lesson plans with "The Student Will Be Able To...," are artifacts of OBE. The architects were intent on reducing all learning to something cold, hard and observable instead of fuzzy objectives like "After we've covered this unit, the students will kn ow stuff."

This was not necessarily a terrible thing. But the architects made one crucial mistake. They decided that they would include non-cognitive objectives-- having self-esteem, making sound decisions, tolerance, all that good soft skill squishy stuff.

Social conservatives freaked out. Phyllis Schafly, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, and a host of others sounded the alarm about government indoctrination, and ultimately, OBE was stomped into the dirt.

This stuff-- what we now call social and emotional learning-- is a really hard needle to thread in education policy. Almost like someone took a third rail and bent it into an eye-of-a-needle shape.

On the one hand, it's absolutely necessary stuff. Young humans have to learn how to interact with other humans, and many of them, for reasons ranging from family of origin to simple biology, aren't very good at it. This becomes a problem in life that overwhelms other issues (I once had a student CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Social and Emotional Learning Is Drawing Fire

Detroit: Why Are School Closures Concentrated in Black and Brown Communities? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Detroit: Why Are School Closures Concentrated in Black and Brown Communities? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Detroit: Why Are School Closures Concentrated in Black and Brown Communities?

In this study of school closures in Detroit, the authors note that the closures were concentrated in black and brown communities. Terrance L. Green, Joanna D. Sanchez, and Andrene J.Castro note this spatial concentration of closures and point out that it typically has negative effects on students.

It reads in part:

Between 2006 and 2013, >1,200 traditional public schools were closed across 26 states in the United States.² These closures disproportionately occurred in urban school districts that predominantly serve Black and Brown³ students, such as Detroit, Chicago, and New York City (Deeds & Pattillo, 2015; Ewing, 2018).⁴ In each of these districts, >100 schools have been closed in recent years (Journey for Justice, 2014). According to research, schools that serve larger populations of Black and Brown students with economic need are more likely to be closed than schools with fewer students of color, even when the schools have similar academic performances (Center for Research on Education Outcomes, 2017). Research also indicates that schools CONTINUE READING: Detroit: Why Are School Closures Concentrated in Black and Brown Communities? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Cartoons on Old Technologies for Nostalgic Readers | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Cartoons on Old Technologies for Nostalgic Readers | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Cartoons on Old Technologies for Nostalgic Readers

Anyone under the age of 35, do not look at these cartoons. I target the middle-aged and elderly viewers of this blog for a trip down a memory lane of old technologies.

Wait. Maybe for those under 35, take a look. I have also included some that may skewer them. Enjoy!

MORE CARTOONS: Cartoons on Old Technologies for Nostalgic Readers | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

California’s $53 Million Lawsuit Settlement to Improve Reading | Ogo Okoye-Johnson

California’s $53 Million Lawsuit Settlement to Improve Reading | Ogo Okoye-Johnson

California’s $53 Million Lawsuit Settlement to Improve Reading

On Thursday February 20, 2020, in the Los Angeles Superior Court, 75 elementary public traditional and charter schools won a $53 million lawsuit settlement against the State of California for violating the students’ civil rights. The Ella T. vs. the State of California, lawsuit filed by students and their teachers two years ago claimed that the state denied the students their constitutional right to an equal access to a quality education because the students did not meet state standards in reading.

The lawsuit was filed by Public Counsel, a pro bono public interest law firm and the law firm of Morrison & Foerster. “We shouldn’t have to be filing lawsuits to establish a right to read. Achieving literacy for all children is one of the single most urgent issues in California, “This settlement is a milestone in that struggle,” said attorney Mark Rosenbaum from the Public Counsel law firm.

Read more here and here!

California’s $53 Million Lawsuit Settlement to Improve Reading | Ogo Okoye-Johnson

We Don’t Need Charter Schools in New York City – the Affinity District is a Far Better Model for Children and Teachers | Ed In The Apple

We Don’t Need Charter Schools in New York City – the Affinity District is a Far Better Model for Children and Teachers | Ed In The Apple

We Don’t Need Charter Schools in New York City – the Affinity District is a Far Better Model for Children and Teachers

The New York State charter school law begins by differentiating charter and traditional public schools,

Provide parents and students with expanded choices in the types of  educational opportunities that are available within the public school system; and    (f)  Provide  schools  with  a  method  to  change  from rule-based to  performance-based  accountability  systems  by   holding   the   schools  established  under  this  article  accountable  for  meeting  measurable  student achievement results.

In the twenty plus years since the law was passed the school system across New York State has undergone dramatic changes; all schools are held to performance-based accountability  systems, all schools are assessed by measurable  student achievement results. If schools fail to meet goals set in federal law and state regulation they are placed in oversight categories, Targeted School Improvement (TSI) or Comprehensive School Improvement (CSI), and, if they continue to fail to meet goals they risk a state takeover or closing. Charter schools must meet the same goals and risk the non-renewal of their charter, effectively closing the schools.

Charter schools are either community charter schools, individual or a small number of schools tied to a specific neighborhood or network charter schools, such as Success, KIPP, Ascend or a few others, larger numbers of schools run by CONTINUE READING: We Don’t Need Charter Schools in New York City – the Affinity District is a Far Better Model for Children and Teachers | Ed In The Apple

James Baldwin (1979): “you can’t change a school without changing the neighborhood” – radical eyes for equity

James Baldwin (1979): “you can’t change a school without changing the neighborhood” – radical eyes for equity

James Baldwin (1979): “you can’t change a school without changing the neighborhood”

Every time I make the case that in order to offer every child the very highest quality education all children deserve, we must address the socioeconomic inequity of homes and communities as well as the schools that serve them, I am chastised by some that teachers and schools cannot control any of those out-of-school conditions.

Yet there remains a historical and current fact that social inequity is almost always reflected in educational inequity; schools, then, mostly perpetuate inequity, but they almost never fulfill their promise as the great equalizer.

In California recently, we see this in action: California students sued because they were such poor readers. They just won $53 million to help them.

Students and teachers have won a lawsuit that exposes political negligence, a failure to fully fund the most burdened schools serving students most burdened by inequity, as Kohli and Lee report:

A Los Angeles Times analysis of the 75 lowest-performing schools on the state’s English language arts test, based on California’s Common Core standards, illustrates the depth of the reading problem. Seven out of 10 third-graders in these schools did not meet the standards, according to state data from 2018 and 2019. The schools have about double the English learners of other elementary schools, and more than 90% of students at those schools qualify for free or reduced-price lunch — a poverty indicator.

While this is now, we must not ignore that social and educational inequity is a CONTINUE READING: James Baldwin (1979): “you can’t change a school without changing the neighborhood” – radical eyes for equity

Fifth National Conference on School Integration - Education Law Prof Blog

Education Law Prof Blog

Fifth National Conference on School Integration

Join over 400 people from across the country to discuss and strengthen strategies for promoting racial and socioeconomic integration in elementary and secondary schools at our fifth national conference:

National Conference on School Integration

March 26-27th, 2020

JW Marriott

Washington, DC

• Register for NCSD2020
• Book your hotel room today – $299 a night plus taxes and fees
• Conference schedule and confirmed speaker bios – additional information will be posted as it is confirmed 

NCSD’s national conference provides a space for parents, students, educators, researchers, advocates, activists, policymakers (from federal, state and local levels), and other supporters to coalesce around a shared commitment to integrated education. Attendees exchange best practices; discuss and generate tools and ideas aimed to introduce, enhance, or protect school diversity initiatives in their communities across the country; and build supportive relationships. It is the largest cross-sector school integration convening in the nation.

Based on feedback from our members and partners, our 2020 conference will continue to center youth voices and leadership; describe and embody the relationship between local, state, and national efforts; and provide space for collaboration and skill-building.

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Education Law Prof Blog

CATCH UP WITH NEWBLACKMAN (IN EXILE)

NewBlackMan (in Exile)

CATCH UP WITH NEWBLACKMAN (IN EXILE)

After 40 Years, 'A Soldier's Play' Finally Marches Onto Broadway

by Mark Anthony Neal / 1d

'In 1981, Charles Fuller 's A Soldier's Play premiered in New York City, featuring actors who would go on to become household names, like Samuel L. Jackson and Denzel Washington . The following year, Fuller became the second African American in history to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. But, at the time, the play did not transfer to Broadway. Now, though, it's happened: A Soldier's Play opened

Ways & Means S5E1: Reparations -- How it Could Happen with Sandy Darity

by Mark Anthony Neal / 1d

'When it comes to studying the feasibility of reparations in the U.S., no name is more called upon than Sandy Darity . Darity is a Duke University professor who has studied reparations for over 30 years. “The idea is that wealth begets wealth. That wealth is something that is acquired cumulatively. And so you can either get on the path of accumulation or you can be on the path of decumulation.” D

Stop Wasting Money - This App Finds Every Promo Code Online

by Honeysponsored

If you aren't using this tool when you shop online, you're probably wasting money.

FEB 18

Depth, Complexity and Beauty: Princeton Professor Imani Perry Urges us to Reclaim Black History

by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

'Born to social activist parents in Birmingham, Alabama, just nine years after the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, scholar and author Imani Perry grew up during a time of great change. At age 7, her family relocated to Cambridge, Massachusetts; her mother earned a Harvard doctorate while Perry’s own academic and literary ambitions took root. Today, Perry is the Hughes-Rogers Professor of Afri

Daina Ramey Berry on the Courageous and Complex Contributions of Black Women

by Mark Anthony Neal / 3d

'On this episode of National Podcast of Texas , Daina Ramey Berry discusses Texas’s role in black women’s history, how understanding black women’s history adds to our larger understanding of American history, and how black women’s history might inform the way we look at the 2020 election. Professor Berry is coauthor, with Kali Nicole Gross , of A Black Women’s History of the United States .'

FEB 16

Nina’s Anthem: “Young, Gifted and Black”

by Mark Anthony Neal / 6d

by Mark Anthony Neal | @NewBlackMan | NewBlackMan (in Exile) For many, Tryon, NC native Nina Simone was the voice of the Civil Rights Movement. A playlist of the most significant songs of the 1960s protest movement would have to include Simone’s “ Four Women ” (1966), “ I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to be Free ”, (composed and initially recorded by fellow North Carolinian Dr. Billy Taylor), an

Dawoud Bey on Visualizing History

by Mark Anthony Neal / 6d

'Photographer Dawoud Bey ’s work grapples with history. The artist asks, “How can one visualize African American history and make that history resonate in the contemporary moment?” Here he discusses several series, sited from Harlem to Birmingham to the Underground Railroad routes of northeastern Ohio, each of which works to make histories visible.' -- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

What Makes Black Gospel Musicians So Skilled? (feat. Donald Lawrence and Tye Tribbett)

by Mark Anthony Neal / 6d

' Sound Field host LA and Nahre travel to Chicago, the birthplace of gospel music. There they meet gospel artist, Donald Lawrence and LA introduces Nahre to drum shed culture at a shed session on the south side. Later LA travels to Orlando to meet singer Tye Tribbett at his church. They talk about the shared exchange between secular and non secular music.'

FEB 15

'Ghost' DNA In West Africans Complicates Story Of Human Origins

by Mark Anthony Neal / 7d

'Modern genomes from Nigeria and Sierra Leone show signals that scientists call "ghost" DNA — from an unknown human ancestor. That means that prehistoric humans likely procreated with an unknown group.' -- Morning Edition

FEB 13

#BackChannel: ‘Hair Love,’ Remembering Kobe Bryant & Michael Vick’s Road To Redemption

by Mark Anthony Neal / 8d

In this edition of #BackChannel , State of Things contributors Natalie Bullock Brown and Mark Anthony Neal join host Frank Stasio to discuss the Academy Award winning animated short Hair Love , the legacy of Kobe Bryant , and later 

NewBlackMan (in Exile)