SACRAMENTO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell today applauded the selection by the U.S. Department of Education of three California organizations that will each receive grants of up to $500,000 to transform distressed communities into neighborhoods of hope and empowerment for families, children, and students.
Among the 21 Promise Neighborhoods planning grants recipients announced Tuesday by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, were California State University, East Bay; Proyecto Pastoral at Dolores Mission in Los Angeles; and Youth Policy Institute, also in Los Angeles.
"This is an extraordinary day for each of these entities that assist families in their communities to overcome barriers that have been set in place by poverty and circumstance," O'Connell said. "These cradle-to-career services aimed at improving the education and health of children certainly will go a very long way to erode the link between poverty and the achievement gap.
"With help and support from entire neighborhoods, children will be able to go to school ready to learn without feeling the chronic pangs of hunger, fatigue, or fear."
Promise Neighborhoods are modeled after the Harlem Children's Zone, a successful program that closed the black/white achievement gap in one of New York's poorest communities.
The U.S. Department of Education announced that a total of $10 million in awards would go to the 21 Promise Neighborhood communities. Promise Neighborhoods is the cornerstone of a broader White House Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative that focuses and coordinates federal resources in order to build communities that promote cradle to career success.
For more information on Promise Neighborhoods, please visit the U.S. Department of Education's Web site at:U.S. Department of Education Awards Promise Neighborhoods Planning Grants | U.S. Department of Education (Outside Source).
For more information on California State University, East Bay, please visit California State University, East Bay - Where all your possibilities come into view (Outside Source).
For more information on Proyecto Pastoral at Dolores Mission, a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization working in the economically and politically disenfranchised community of Boyle Heights, please visit:Proyecto Pastoral (Outside Source).
And for more information on the Youth Policy Institute, also a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization that provides education, training and technology services to lift low-income families out of poverty at 95 program sites throughout Los Angeles, please visit:Youth Policy Institute (Outside Source).
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Jack O'Connell — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5206, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100
 | FILE - In this Sept. 11, 2010 file photo, billionare Bill Gates poses for a portrait while promoting the film "Waiting For 'Superman' " at the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto. (AP Photo/Carlo Allegri, file) |
TORONTO—Bill Gates had the good fortune to attend private school, and he sends his children there, too. Yet the Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist has a passion to fix America's public schools.
Gates has been on a road show this year to promote the education documentary "Waiting for `Superman,'" talking it up at its January premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and elsewhere, including the Toronto International Film Festival, where the film played ahead of its theatrical release Friday.
"I certainly owe all my success to having had a great education. I went to an incredible school, and I remember the teachers who encouraged me. I'm so lucky. I had what every kid should have, honestly," Gates said in an interview.
"We're a country that talks about equal opportunity, but without a great education, there is no equal opportunity. And we're a country that talks about
City officials are planning to hire “talent coaches” for principals of a handful of struggling schools that received federal grants to improve student performance.
Department of Education officials said they want to hire three or four coaches to observe the city’s 11 “transformation” schools as they begin to pilot a new teacher evaluation system this year.
Web Tool will Help Teachers Close the Achievement Gap
SAN DIEGO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell today unveiled a new Web 2.0 tool designed to encourage teacher collaboration and innovation called Brokers of Expertise (Outside Source).
"The Brokers of Expertise Web site is like Facebook for teachers," O'Connell said. "Educators can use this site to innovate and collaborate. Through this virtual social network teachers may share and learn about strategies that improve student achievement. Through the Broker's Web site, we will create a community of newly credentialed and experienced teachers who are empowered to further their own professional development and growth. This exciting tool is the latest in our arsenal to narrow the pernicious achievement gap that currently leaves too many students unprepared for success in the hypercompetitive global economy."
Brokers of Expertise is a dynamic Web site that allows educators to search for,and follow colleagues across the state who have had success in teaching specific strands of California's content standards, or are working with similar types of students, and thus make their own experience in the classroom more effective. Teachers can use the site to form customized online groups to share experiences and challenges they face in the classroom and collaborate on ways to improve instruction. Users can share instructional practices through links, video, pictures, or documents that can make it easier for other teachers to replicate innovation in their own classrooms. The Web site also lists where each resource came from and provides a blog where educators may share their thoughts on the resource's effectiveness.
The Brokers of Expertise Web site was seeded with high-quality content from partners including, The Big Read, Calisphere, Edutopia, The Exploratorium, Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE), the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the National Science Digital Library (NSDL), Smithsonian Education, and Thinkfinity.
Educators who used the Broker's Web site in the beta testing phase improved the site by recommending additional functionalities and features that make the site more useful for classroom teachers.
The development of the Brokers Web site closely aligns with the Obama Administration's push to spur innovation in the classroom to dramatically accelerate student achievement.
"Smart innovation will help dramatically accelerate achievement and attainment," said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan when he recently challenged public school educators to think creatively and implement innovative classroom ideas to help students succeed. "Without it, we will surely fall short of our goals to prepare all of America's students for success in the global economy."
The Brokers Web site is just the latest tool introduced by O'Connell as a result of 14 recommendations made by the California P-16 Council in its report submitted in 2008. Other tools include the California Distinguished Schools Signature Practices Web site, the Workbook for Improving School Climate & Closing the Achievement Gap publication, and the Resource Kit for Developing Partnerships to Close the Achievement Gap Web site.
One of the 14 recommendations that resulted in the Brokers Web site suggested the state should take a leadership role in creating a system for the identification, collection, and dissemination of a comprehensive body of knowledge and expertise, including resources and effective instructional strategies. Another recommended that the state needed to define more clearly what constitutes a rigorous instructional program, and to develop an online system for providing best practices for educators that can be used in the classroom. Both of these recommendations are accomplished through the Brokers of Expertise Web site.
The Brokers Web site was created through the support of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, the Stuart Foundation, the Verizon Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation. Funding was also provided from the state's General Fund, and the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act's Title I and Title V programs.
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Jack O'Connell — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5206, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100
A rigorous experimental study of an incentive-pay program for teachers finds no effects on student achievement, an indication that teachers didn't change their practice in such a way as to cause student scores to rise.
The study was explicitly designed to answer the question of whether monetary incentives alone can spur improvements to teaching. The answer, by this study at least, appears to be no. Read my full Education Weekstory for the details of the study, the findings, and how they fit within the body of experimental research on merit pay.
But equally as important as the findings are how they're interpreted in our little corner of the edu-policy world, and how they might shape future policymaking—what we in the journalism profession call the "day two" story.
