Big Education Ape

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Education - Everything you need to know about the world of education.

Education- Everything you need to know about the world of education.

College ratings to trust

If you are, as the law school applicant in my family has begun to call them, a prestige whore, then I guess the U.S. News & World Report America's Best Colleges rankings are for you. Those lists are based heavily on what colleges think of each other---what is called the reputational score. The higher the rank, the wider the smile on your grandmother's face when you get in.

But if you want an introduction to a lesser known, but to my mind more useful, rating of undergraduate institutions, take a close look at my colleague Daniel de Vise's examination of the National Survey of Student Engagement, part of washingtonpost.com's new higher education page.

The NSSE, or "Nessie" to its friends, tells you not how much esteem the masses hold for a college, but how much value it has added to its students' lives. It does not ask college presidents at other schools to rate the campus. It asks students who actually studied there. The questions are based on the most extensive research of what makes a valuable college experience: How many short papers did you write? How often did you talk to professors out of class about what you were learning? How much contact did you have with students of different backgrounds?

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Fairfax doublespeak on school openings and MoCo’s gamble

The adults who work in Fairfax County government are allowed to take unscheduled leave today because, presumably, the streets are not plowed well enough for business as usual. Yet kids (and adults) are supposed to get to Fairfax County public schools. How nice: They get two extra hours to get there.

Something is wrong with this picture.

If the roads aren’t clear enough to order all county government employees to go to work, (as emergency service personnel were told to do), how can county officials be confident that the roads are clear enough for school buses to pick up tens of thousands of students?

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Cursive is, like, so last century - San Jose Mercury News

Cursive is, like, so last century - San Jose Mercury News:

"They can type 60 words per minute, text on cell phones in seconds and instant-message endlessly. What teens can't do well, it turns out, is write in old-fashioned cursive.

Ask about 40 high school students to write three sentences, and without exception the assignments come back in printing — neat or scrawled, but not in script.

'I've forgotten how to write cursive,' said Alexis Miller, a sophomore at Los Altos High School.

'Cursive has a lot of unnecessary loops,' said her classmate David Kay. 'It seems to be really inefficient.'

Still taught in third grade and practiced in fourth, cursive then vanishes from state standards, a victim of the push to prepare students for state tests and make them computer literate.

'I think we're seeing the end of pen-and-paper writing, and that makes me sad,' said Amy Gibson, who teaches English at Fremont High in Sunnyvale. Like other teachers, she laments the loss of a medium that has expressed creativity and inspiration. Some say kids are losing the ability to read original sources of poetry and other writing."

voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence.

Bright and Early: The Education Newsblitz

Thanks for the day off, presidents! I am refreshed and ready to serve up a new newsblitz:

Teachers acquitted of sexual misconduct with students rarely return to the classroom, the Union-Tribune reports. The article explains that teachers are faced with a triple threat -- school district disciplinary hearings, criminal proceedings and having their credentials suspended.
KPBS reports that Latino students are increasingly going to college far from home, defying cultural norms.
Vista teachers held a noisy protest as their school district held mediated talks about their contract, the North County Times reports.
SDNN looks at the findings of a national report on what happens when more students take Advanced Placement tests.
Los Angeles Unified may slash the sc

Why Testing Fails: How Numbers Deceive Us All - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

Why Testing Fails: How Numbers Deceive Us All - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.:

"Accountability?

Read This First.

'Tests fail because of an effect I call the 'Numerical Outcome Principle'. . . .
. . .Our leaders need to look beyond the numbers,
and judge the context in which the numbers arose. . . '
- Joe Ganem
-------

Why Testing Fails

By Joseph Ganem Ph.D."

There is broad agreement, that improving education requires assessing student outcomes, and holding those responsible accountable for the results. But, the use of standardized tests, as a tool for assessment and accountability, has resulted in more disillusionment than improvement. The heavy emphasis on testing mandated by the No Child Left Behind Law, has not lead to the sought after gains in educational outcomes.

I believe that the failure of mandated testing is a predictable result. Tests fail because of an effect I call the "Numerical Outcome Principle." Simply put: Once a number is used to judge outcomes, people will adjust their behavior to maximize that particular number.The actual outcome no longer matters. The field of education is rife with examples of the Numerical Outcome Principle in action; instances in which the attainment of lofty goals is undone by the substitution of numbers in place of sound human judgment.

Consider the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), which is a widely used instrument for college admission decisions. The original purpose of the SAT was to provide a level playing field for admission to college. The intent of the test was to identify the students most likely to succeed in college, without regard to social and economic background. In theory, a student from a poor inner city school district, and a student from an expensive private prep school, who have

National Journal Online -- Education Experts -- Houston's Teacher Evaluation Policy

National Journal Online -- Education Experts -- Houston's Teacher Evaluation Policy

Despite fierce opposition from the local teachers union, the Houston Independent School District approved a policy last week to use value-added test scores, a statistical method used to measure teachers' and schools' impact on students' academic progress rates from year to year, as one of the criteria for teacher evaluation and teacher dismissal (some details about the policy are available here and here). This means that roughly 400 of the district's 13,000 teachers may be eligible for dismissal as a result of their students' poor performance on tests.

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RESPONDED ON FEBRUARY 16, 2010 9:44 AM

Students Need Evaluation Too

Diane Ravitch

Research Professor Of Education, New York University

If Houston has some really awful, ineffective teachers, they should be removed.
It is not clear that their intention to use value-added scores will necessarily be the right way to do it. As Randi Weingarten said, value-added scores should measure students at the beginning of the school year and the end of the school year to see how much progress they made in the classroom of a specific teacher of a specific subject. If Houston is comparing cohort to cohort, then they don't have accurate information because students are not randomly assigned, and cohorts are not necessarily comparable. The information will also be flawed unless it takes into account progress over three years. There is a solid body of research showing that value-added scores are not stable from year to year. A teacher who is the "best" one year may not be in the top category a year or two later; conversely, a teacher who got very low value-added scores one year may get very good results the next year or the one after. It would be interesting to see if there is a district anywhere in the U.S. that has used value-added scores to evaluate teachers and actually improved student performance. Tennessee has been doing it for some 20 years, and I can't see any big improvement in the state's performance on NAEP. Now, would Terry Grier, the superintendent in Houston, please come up with a plan to hold students accountable for doing their homework, showing up in class everyday, and taking their studies seriously? And while he is at it, how about an accountability plan for parents? Give them grades based on whether their children go to school ready to learn. Did they get breakfast? Do they have a quiet place to study? Are their TV and computer habits monitored? If we are serious about student performance, we must evaluate the teacher, but also the student and his or her family. Teachers are important but they are not the sole source of student performance.

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RESPONDED ON FEBRUARY 16, 2010 9:31 AM

Groping Our Way to the Future

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

President, Thomas B. Fordham Institute

Honestly, the big point isn't the relative strengths and weaknesses or technical features of Houston's particularly approach. It's that Houston is now one of the pioneer cities that is helping to blaze a trail into the education future. It seems to me self-evident that twenty years from now we will take for granted in the United States that one key element in teacher evaluations (and sundry HR decisions affecting teachers) will be classroom effectiveness and that one key metric for gauging that effectiveness is going to be student academic achievement. This would be happening with or without Race to the Top but obviously the RTT competition is lending additional oomph. Sure, there will be a hundred different ways of doing this, sundry false starts and myriad technical issues to be worked through. But Randi Weingarten has already "recognized" in her way that this is part of the future of American public education and it's only a matter of time til it becomes ubiquitous. Hurrah for Houston--and its excellent new superintendent and board--for helping to blaze this trail.

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Stimulus law’s futile goal of reform The Educated Guess

The Educated Guess
Stimulus law’s futile goal of reform

Posted in Race to the Top, Teacher Development

In directing $80 billion in stimulus dollars over two years to the nation’s elementary and secondary schools, the Obama administration made a big deal about tying the money to school reform. States were required to make four assurances in accepting the money, including, most importantly, a commitment to make progress in producing more effective teachers and seeing that they are equitably distributed in low-income schools.
But those assurances, it turns out, were vague and unenforceable. California got 90 percent of the money without having to tell the feds what steps it planned to take, and the Obama administration had no way to hold it accountable anyway.
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Three charter schools expected to receive millions in city money, Education Dept. plan shows

Three politically connected charter schools are expected to receive millions in city money for new buildings, an Education Department plan shows.

In the city's capital plan, two charter schools with ties to Mayor Bloomberg - Brooklyn's PAVE Academy and Harlem Promise Academy - are slated to receive a total of $72 million for new buildings, about a third of the city money available for charter construction.

Peninsula Preparatory Academy in Queens, which state Senate President Malcolm Smith helped found, will also receive funds, though an exact amount has not been settled on.

Critics say with limited resources for school construction, the city should build public schools where they're most needed - not where elected officials have pet schools.

"It pays to have friends," said Community Education Council 15 Co-President Jim Devor, criticizing the choice to spend public dollars on a new school for Red Hook, Brooklyn, which doesn't have an overcrowding problem.

Less talk, more action from Department of Education on 'rubber room' problem - NYPOST.com

Less talk, more action from Department of Education on 'rubber room' problem - NYPOST.com:

"'Rubber rooms' don't work.

They don't work for schools, students or taxpayers. They especially don't work for teachers, who have no desire to have incompetent or misbehaving colleagues but who also insist that the discipline process be fair and objective.

What's more, the rubber rooms are a problem that can be solved.

The UFT has offered many ways to streamline and expedite the process.

There is no reason most investigations cannot be completed in 30 days, and we have urged the hiring of more investigators to speed this part of the process.

In 2002, we negotiated an expedited process for lesser misconduct. That agreement permitted the Department of Education -- with the teacher's agreement -- to limit the total time for a hearing to three days. In the last eight years since this procedure was agreed upon, the DOE has used it twice.

In 2008, we worked with the DOE to increase the number of arbitration-panel members dedicated to these cases."

NY's slap at schools that work - NYPOST.com

NY's slap at schools that work - NYPOST.com:

"Gov. Paterson proposes another 'freeze' in charter- school funding for next year -- at the same levels in place two years ago. Why discriminate against schools that work?

Now, money isn't everything. New York's charters -- independent, public schools -- have regularly produced better results for less: Despite never receiving close to the funding spent by regular, 'district' schools, they have raised the achievement of their students -- and outperformed test scores in the surrounding districts.

But the funding gap between charters and district schools -- already wide -- is growing worse with the state-imposed ceiling on charter funding -- and now the governor means to keep it in place for next year."

What school district or local government, pray tell, is forced to live on funding levels from two years ago? In fact, New York districts brought a lawsuit when the state merely delayed paying a fraction of this year's amount.

For the current school year, the Legislature severed the link between school-district spending and charters' funds by keeping charter-funding levels to last year's amount. This meant a nearly $50 million loss to charter schools ($29 million to charters in New York City) -- losses that will increase next year.

The Legislature imposed this freeze at the urging of the teacher unions, which wanted the cash to instead go to the coffers of school districts where the bulk of their members work. (Those teachers in nearly two dozen New York charters who are union members evidently don't matter much to the unions.)

But, you might ask, shouldn't charters share in the pain from government funding cuts in tough economic times? In fact, they already are, since they automatically see lower funding whenever district schools do -- so the funding freeze is effectively a double cut.

Education Week: Union, parents fight closure of older NYC schools

Education Week: Union, parents fight closure of older NYC schools:

"NEW YORK (AP) — Christopher Columbus and Thomas Jefferson have been deemed historical relics.

Columbus High School and Jefferson High School are among 19 schools to be closed for not making the grade in the nation's largest school district. The closures announced last month are part of an aggressive city plan to shut down low-performing schools in favor of smaller, more specialized ones.

Students and the teachers' union have fought back against the closures, the most ever in an academic year, filing a lawsuit that says the targeted schools were overloaded with high-needs students and set up to fail.

For 16-year-old Ferona Bryan, Columbus' closure will shut a 71-year-old school with a legacy: Her mother and two aunts attended and still feel connected to it."

They must make the grade: DOE will finally use test scores to grant teacher tenure

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is about to consider how well probationary teachers have proven themselves in the classroom before granting them the lifetime job protection of tenure.

Sound like common sense? Sure does.

You thought chancellors already checked teacher quality in making tenure decisions? Silly you.

Only in recent years has the school system had the test-score data necessary to gauge whether individual teachers were raising student achievement. One result was that tenure decisions, made when instructors have completed three years on the job, were pretty much rubber-stamped.

In 2009, fully 93% of the teachers up for tenure got it, including many who had been given unsatisfactory performance ratings.

Two unions say they are willing to negotiate a cut in the L.A. Unified school year - latimes.com

Two unions say they are willing to negotiate a cut in the L.A. Unified school year - latimes.com:

"Other labor chiefs don't like Cortines' proposal to trim six days to help balance a projected $640-million shortfall."

Esther Lee says she plans every minute of her seventh-grade science classes at Berendo Middle School in Koreatown.

"For a lot of my students, their only connection to academics is in school . . . so I feel I can never waste time," she said.

But under a plan proposed by Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, Lee could be chopping a week off her schedule as early as this spring to help district officials balance a projected $640-million shortfall.

California school districts have the option of shortening the school year without losing key state funding for the next several years, and at least one other district has moved to shorten its calendar. Others, up and down the state, are considering the option.

Cortines had said he wanted to preserve, if not extend, the school year, but he said he is unable to balance the budget without major concessions from employee unions, whose leadership has generally resisted furlough days and pay cuts. In a news release Friday evening, he made the proposal to shave five school days and one noninstructional day off the calendar.

Leaders of both the teachers and administrators unions said they are fully aware of the financial crisis and are willing to negotiate.

Student Suspended for Facebook Page Can Sue - NYTimes.com

Student Suspended for Facebook Page Can Sue - NYTimes.com:

"MIAMI — A South Florida teenager who sued her former principal after she was suspended for creating a Facebook page criticizing a teacher can proceed with her lawsuit, a federal judge has ruled.

The student, Katherine Evans, is seeking to have her suspension expunged from her disciplinary record. School officials suspended her for three days, saying she had been “cyberbullying” the teacher, Sarah Phelps. Ms. Evans is also seeking a “nominal fee” for what she argues was a violation of her First Amendment rights, her lawyers said, and payment of her legal fees.

The former principal, Peter Bayer, who worked at the Pembroke Pines Charter High School, had asked that the case be dismissed. But Magistrate Judge Barry L. Garber denied Mr. Bayer’s petition and rejected his claims of qualified immunity."

Charter School May Replace Trades at Alfred E. Smith High - NYTimes.com

Charter School May Replace Trades at Alfred E. Smith High - NYTimes.com:

"Citing academic failures, the city has proposed closing the construction trade program at Alfred E. Smith Career and Technical Education High School, a 78-year-old vocational school in the South Bronx."

But the school the Department of Education plans to put in place of the program, the 18-month-old New York City Charter High School for Architecture, Engineering and Construction Industries, has had its own issues. Its founder is facing federal charges that he embezzled from a nonprofit company. Thirty percent of the students left after the first year, as did most of the teachers. And despite its name, it has no experience running hands-on vocational programs.

Supporters of Smith, the Bronx’s only high school with state-approved construction trade programs, fear its technical shops will suffer under the charter school’s management and wonder why the city would eliminate an established school only to put an untested school in its place.

Epoch Times - San Francisco Schools Face Massive Budget Cuts

The San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) has been hit hard with budget cuts that will leave it with a $113 million shortfall, which it will need to bridge in the next two years.

According to a Jan. 20, 2010, letter, Superintendent Carlos A. Garcia informed employees that the projected shortfall for the fiscal year 2011-2012 would be $30 million more than the expected $83 million shortfall originally calculated, due to unforeseen reductions in the Revenue Limits and the State Fiscal Stabilization Funds.

The letter outlines some possible routes of action to bridge the shortfall. Garcia notes increases in class size, which are expected to reduce expenditures by $300,000 to $500,000 for each one-student increase per grade-level as one among other possibilities.

He noted five other ways to reduce costs. Reducing summer school programs is expected to yield $4.6 million in savings through fiscal year 2011-2012. Reducing general transportation, is expected to cut $1.5 million a year. Suspending sabbaticals, which currently cost approximately $2 million per year is another proposed cut. Freezing step & column increases could save $5.8 million a year, and suspending and reducing Advanced Placement preparation are other possible ways of bridging the shortfall.

Superintendent Garcia wrote, “Prior to the release of the governor’s proposed budget, SFUSD staff projected a shortfall through the Fiscal Year (FY) 2011-2012 of $83 million in the Unrestricted General Fund (UGF). The governor’s just-released proposed budget includes significantly reduced amounts for the Revenue Limit and State Fiscal Stabilization Funds. Staff now projects a UGF shortfall through FY 2011-2012 of $113 million.”

Hartford Supporters Call 'Parent Trigger' Long Overdue - Courant.com

Hartford Supporters Call 'Parent Trigger' Long Overdue - Courant.com:

"HARTFORD —. - A group of city parents supporting the 'parent trigger' provision in education reform legislation to be considered by the General Assembly had one principal reaction Monday.

What took so long?

The provision was part of a 10-point plan proposed last week by the legislature's Black & Puerto Rican Caucus to address the state's achievement gap between white and minority students'This should have been done a long time ago,' said Millie Arciniegas, president of the Hartford Parent Organization Council. 'We don't have a voice.'

The council supports the parent trigger as a way to give parents power to change the direction of failing city schools.

If passed, the legislation would allow 51 percent or more of parents from a school that has failed to make progress for three consecutive years under the national No Child Left Behind guidelines to petition for intervention.

The remedies proposed could force dramatic changes, including closing a school altogether. One plan, called the 'turnaround model,' would include replacing the principal and 50 percent of the staff. A 'restart model' would include converting to a charter school."

The Daily Aztec - FLAMING LIBERAL: Education candidates essential

The Daily Aztec - FLAMING LIBERAL: Education candidates essential:

"This year, students have taken a stronger interest in learning who their representatives are and trying to influence the way those elected officials vote.
This is a worthy and logical battle to fight. We need to hold our representatives accountable to the students and the people who benefit from higher education funding.
More importantly and strategically, we should be focusing our energy on getting to know the candidates who are running to be our representatives and helping elect those who are in alignment with our values.
If students want to see more funding for higher education, then we need to do our research to find out which candidates support education and put our resources behind electing them.
We have this opportunity right now.
Assemblymember Mary Salas has already thrown her hat into the state senate race to replace current Sen. Denise Moreno Ducheny who is leaving her assembly seat open. Two Democrats have entered the race and will definitely give each other a run for their money."

Starr set to become Baylor president on June 1 | Religion | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Starr set to become Baylor president on June 1 | Religion | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle:

"Kenneth Starr, the prosecutor whose investigations into the administration and behavior of former President Bill Clinton made him a lightning rod for partisan politics, has been named president of Baylor University.

The announcement ended an 18-month search that began after regents fired former president John M. Lilley in 2008, saying they had lost confidence in his ability to serve Baylor's many constituencies.

Starr, 63, has been dean of Pepperdine University's law school since 2004. He is scheduled to be introduced on the Baylor campus Tuesday afternoon and starts work June 1. Baylor is the nation's largest Baptist university.

Monday, he was praised for his academic and administrative credentials — the Pepperdine law school vaulted up more than 150 spots in the U.S. News and World Report rankings during his tenure — and for his potential to pull together the sometimes-fractious"

School suspensions: Are they effective? - Bakersfield.com

School suspensions: Are they effective? - Bakersfield.com:

"Kim Baker's son was supposed to be sitting out recess. But, according to a notice sent home, he cut in front of other students waiting to play tetherball, then kicked another's shin and 'punched his hand into his other hand in a threatening manner.'

He was sent home and suspended from school the next day for disrupting school activities and defying authority of supervisors, the notice said. A week later, he was suspended again for throwing pencil lead at another student.

Baker's beef? His son is only in the first grade."

Schwarzenegger threatens to suspend tax breaks to help close the budget gap | CAIVN

Governor Schwarzenegger’s independent streak, celebrated by some as a sign of his nonpartisan and judicious political philosophy, and lamented by others as an inability to deal harshly with people outside his own party, has once more begun to reappear. In his most recent budget plan, the Governor warns that, if federal bailouts are not forthcoming, he will intentionally delay the implementation of several tax breaks/credits which California has otherwise promised to extend, to the dismay of all voters for whom tax hikes are seen as correlating with economic downturn. In other words, the Governor has abandoned his party’s traditional base once more, and as always, his motives are elusive.

The hard facts, however, are not. It is surely true that, whatever Schwarzenegger’s wisdom in suggesting what amounts to a tax hike during fragile economic times, desperate times call for desperate measures, and something must be done to soothe the State’s unsustainable financial course. Unfortunately, it is also surely true that Schwarzenegger is ignoring options, though whether he is doing this purely because of outside political pressure, or because of a genuine ideological commitment to ignoring those options is up for debate.

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