Delaware and Tennessee cross the finish line
According to The Wall Street Journal, the Obama administration has "delivered a jolt to U.S. public education" by selecting only two out of 40 applicant states, Delaware and Tennessee, to receive $600 million in Race to the Top funds ($100 million and $500 million, respectively). In selecting the winners, the Department of Education used a complicated scoring system that weighted various factors, from states' willingness to track student and teacher performance and adopt uniform standards to an openness regarding turning around or closing their worst schools. Delaware garnered 454 out of a possible 500 points, while Tennessee accrued 444. The District of Columbia, which came in last among the 16 finalists, received 402 points. Other finalists had been Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and South Carolina. Education experts and administration officials say two factors set apart the winning states' plans: their coherence, and their likelihood of implementation. All local unions in Delaware backed their state's bid, while 93 percent lent support in Tennessee. The administration still has $3.4 billion to award in a second round, with that announcement expected in late September.
Read more:
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052702304370304575151682457897668-lMyQjAxMTAwMDIwOTEyNDkyWj.html
Related:
http://www.eduwonk.com/2010/03/rtt-scoring.html
See the applications and scores:
http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/phase1-applications/index.html
Cutting out the middleman
As part of his sweeping healthcare overhaul, President Obama has made the federal government primary lender to students, the Associated Press reports. A final set of tweaks to the healthcare bill created an opening for the far-reaching legislation, the largest rewrite of federal college assistance programs in four decades. About half of undergraduates receive federal student aid, and nearly 8.5 million students attend college with the help of Pell Grants. Under the measure, private banks will no longer get fees for acting as middlemen in federal student loans, and the government will use the savings to boost Pell Grants and make it easier for loan repayment. In addition, some borrowers could see lower interest rates and easier approvals. The president has promoted the changes as a way to make college more affordable for students, with a debt load more manageable after graduation. "This reform of the federal student loan programs will save taxpayers $68 billion over the next decade," Mr. Obama said in his weekly address. "And with this legislation, we're putting that money to use achieving a goal I set for America: By the end of this decade, we will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world."
Read more:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/mar/30/obama-to-sign-student-loan-legislation-in-virginia/
Didn't win? Consider the progress, regardless
Despite what many saw as its flaws, the Race to the Top competition spurred tremendous change in reform climates across the country, according to a new monograph from the Policy Innovators in Education Network. The brief finds "important victories" in many states, whether selected as finalists, first-round winners, or neither. The initiative prompted regulatory changes in California, Illinois, Washington, and Tennessee, where until recently there had been "impenetrable legal barriers to education reform." The competition also proved a "ready vehicle" for comprehensive efforts for widespread overhaul in states like Delaware, Florida, and Tennessee. The second round of the contest yields ongoing opportunities to leverage tougher reforms in states like California, Connecticut, Oklahoma, and Oregon, none of which advanced to the first round, and also challenges states like Washington, one of 10 that didn't apply. The monograph examines 12 states. Of these, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, and Ohio were all finalists for round one; California, Connecticut, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Washington "remind us that the race is still on... that successive rounds of this competition will continue to provide advocates with unique opportunities to advance reform."
See the brief:
http://www.pie-network.org/web/guest/home
The evolving roles and views of teachers
The MetLife Foundation has released the third and final report based on its 2009 Survey of the American Teacher, and finds teachers are reporting significant shifts in their profession. Career pathways in education are changing, with the role of the teacher evolving and with collaboration more strongly emphasized than before. The survey indicated 75 percent of teachers want to work in education beyond traditional retirement from classroom teaching. One-third worked outside of education before becoming a teacher, and "career-changer" colleagues are more common among secondary school teachers and teachers in schools with high proportions of low-income students. More than half of teachers and half of principals said some in their school had so-called hybrid teaching roles. Thirty-seven percent of teachers expressed interest in such a role, particularly new teachers and those dissatisfied with their current career. Highly satisfied teachers are more likely to work in schools with higher levels of collaboration, and to strongly agree that teachers in a school share responsibility for achievement of all students. Satisfied teachers are also more likely to strongly agree that other teachers contribute to their success in the classroom, and that teachers, principals, and other school professionals at their school trust each other. They are more likely to report a range of collaborative activities at their school, including structured time for teachers to work together.
See the report:
http://www.metlife.com/about/corporate-profile/citizenship/metlife-foundation/metlife-survey-of-the-american-teacher.html?WT.mc_id=vu1101
Some things never change?
This year's Brown Center Report on American Education from the Brookings Institution takes "the long view" on student data, writes author Tom Loveless. Part I looks at national test data going back to 1971 from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), placing the 2009 scores in the context of the 19-year history of the main NAEP. After comparing the latest scores with results from other "equally trustworthy" tests of U.S. math achievement, Loveless "concludes that the [national] hand-wringing is unwarranted." Part II asks the question: Do schools ever change? It compares the 1989 test scores of 1,156 schools in California that offered an eighth grade in 1989 and 2009, finding the scores "remarkably stable" -- depressing, when you consider that of schools in the bottom quartile in 1989, nearly two-thirds scored in the bottom quartile again in 2009. Part III compares test scores of conversion charter schools from 1986 when they operated as traditional public schools to those from 2008, when they operated as charter schools. Loveless cautions that this "analysis is exploratory and mainly descriptive. No causal conclusions can be derived from the data." However, he stresses that future evaluations of charter schools must differentiate between start-ups and conversions, since significant institutional differences exist between the two types of charters.
See the report:
http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2010/0317_education_loveless.aspx
Ravitch, redux
In a conversation with U.S. News & World Report, education historian Diane Ravitch broaches many of the topics in her best-selling book The Death and Life of the Great American School System. She feels that the fervor for "accountability" brought on by NCLB has translated into districts and schools producing numbers over outcomes, "and one thing we know from the market sector is that when the numbers are what counts, people meet the numbers, even though they sacrifice the goals of the organization." Ravitch explains that reform shifted from the curriculum-focused and content-focused ideas of the late '80s and '90s to standardized testing and accountability in two ways. In part, it was reaction to the political furor over history standards during the first Bush administration: "People in political life said, 'Back off; don't have anything to do with content. It's dangerous. Keep the standards vague.'" The second President Bush brought the Texas plan to Washington, premised on the idea that if you test kids every year, hold people accountable, everybody will make progress. "[But] by putting in place a regime devoted solely to basic skills, [those skills] would [become] the focus of everyone's attention because the regime was loaded with incentives and sanctions -- mostly sanctions. Teachers would find it hard to do anything other than basic skills, and that's not a good education." Ravitch decries what she sees as the current trend, every family for itself, which will return us to the early 19th century. Some people had private tutors, some sent their kids to religious schools, and some got together and created little schools. She also thinks leadership should work with teachers rather than coerce them. "Forcing people to do something they think is wrong is not a successful tactic," she says. "If you're going to be the general, it's a bad idea to turn your heavy weaponry on your own troops."
Read more:
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2010/03/25/diane-ravitch-no-child-left-behind-reform-killing-public-education.html?PageNr=1
Related:
http://www.publicschoolinsights.org/lessons-bestseller
Community colleges: factors of success and failure for men of color
A new report from MDRC draws on the experiences of African-American, Hispanic, and Native American men enrolled in developmental math courses in community colleges, examining what affects their success in these institutions. The 87 men in the study participated in the Lumina Foundation's Achieving the Dream initiative, a national effort to improve student outcomes and reduce achievement gaps at community colleges. The fieldwork explored how students' experiences in their high schools and communities, as well as their identities as men of color, influenced decisions to go to college and engage in school. The study found no common upbringing among participants, but many shared common motivations, often to increase earning power and act as role models for their children. These men had encountered low expectations and negative stereotypes based on their race, ethnicity, and gender in their high schools and communities. Though most initially found their community college more welcoming, they reported negative encounters over time with some faculty and staff, though they explicitly rejected these. Norms related to their identity as men -- characterized principally by self-reliance -- exerted a powerful influence on their ability to engage. Whether prioritizing paid work over school, avoiding making friends on campus, or failing to seek out academic or financial help, these men frequently acted in ways that reinforced their masculine identities but hindered their chances of academic success.
See the report:
http://www.mdrc.org/publications/547/overview.html
Teacher contracts made simple(r)
More than ever, teacher contracts are the center of the education reform debate, with widespread calls for greater flexibility in how teachers are hired, fired, evaluated, and paid. Despite increased attention to these issues, the public knows little about a typical teacher contract. They are public documents, but often hard to locate on school district or teachers union websites. Newspapers and local media do not publish them, and negotiations around them are often out of public view. The documents themselves can be cumbersome, lawyerly, heavily influenced by side agreements and addendums, and generally hard for non-experts to understand. As a remedy, Education Sector has issued an "Explainer" on contracts that seeks to improve transparency and understanding about them. It lays out two teacher contracts side by side so that readers can both familiarize themselves and compare key dimensions such as teacher pay, evaluation, the rights of the teachers union, and teacher transfers. The contracts are between the San Diego Unified School District and the San Diego Education Association, which was ratified in 2006 and is still in use, and an early contract used by Green Dot Public Schools in Los Angeles. San Diego is a K-12 school district serving almost 131,000 students through 205 schools, and the 18th largest school district in the United States. Green Dot, founded in 2000, is a network of public charter schools serving more than 10,000 students across 18 campuses.
See the explainer:
http://www.educationsector.org/research/research_show.htm?doc_id=1178962
History repeating on history
Education Week reports that several states are wrestling with rewrites of standards in a content area largely absent from national discussion—social studies/history. Texas is the highest-profile example, but other states are encountering their own share of controversy. Many squabbles are throwbacks, Ed Week writes, repeats of those around voluntary national standards a decade and a half ago (see Ravitch, above), when critics found ideological biases and argued over omissions of various historical symbols and figures. "This is probably the hardest set of standards to get right, because you're getting into social debates about whose history matters," said Terry Ryan, the vice president for Ohio programs and policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. North Carolina's state education agency has committed to rethinking its recent draft of social studies standards in the face of complaints that in high school, American History would have begun in 1877, after Reconstruction. In Ohio, a number of groups have expressed concerns over the lack of a required course in modern world history. And Oregon and South Carolina are currently revising social studies standards, though both are early in the process and have yet to release a draft for public comment.
Read more:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/03/25/27socialstudies_ep.h29.html?tkn=ZVZF2sMzgu6xGwysKJS2xIzmzzeaxPiZL4Tj&cmp=clp-sb-ascd
BRIEFLY NOTED
End of an era in Wake County, N.C.
After a raucous meeting in which police expelled protesters and arrested three people amid accusations of segregation and Jim Crow, the county school board has reversed three decades of busing designed to achieve diversity.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-raleigh-schools25-2010mar25,0,2627270.story
Domino?
A failing Savannah high school is firing its entire staff in an effort to avoid further sanctions from the state, and to make the school eligible for up to $6 million in federal money.
http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/struggling-georgia-school-firing-404386.html
Pushback for Klein and Bloomberg
A judge from the State Supreme Court in Manhattan has blocked the closing of 19 New York City schools for poor performance, finding the city engaged in "significant violations" of the new state law governing mayoral control of city schools.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/nyregion/27close.html?ref=education
Related:
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/03/28/2010-03-28_19_schools_are_saved_now_others_play_musical_chairs.html
That's one way of finding new revenue streams
By day, Philadelphia children came to the building to attend the charter school. On weekend nights, the cafeteria turned into Club Damani.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/89491237.html
Using the stick and the stick
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he will offer more state aid to school districts whose teachers agree to a wage freeze for the 2011 fiscal year.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/03/gov_chris_christie_offers_more.html
Death of a master
Jaime Escalante, the math teacher who transformed a tough East Los Angeles high school and inspired the movie "Stand and Deliver," died March 30. He was 79.
http://www.apnews.com/ap/db_45578/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=ffZ9o7Lp&src=cat&dbid=45578&dbname=Top+News&detailindex=7
GRANTS AND FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
Harvard Kennedy School: Innovations in American Government Award
The Kennedy School of Government Innovations in American Government Award is given annually to programs that serve as examples of creative and effective government at its best. This year the Innovations program has also launched a new initiative, Bright Ideas, designed to recognize and promote promising government programs and partnerships. Maximum award: $100,000 to support replication and dissemination activities. Eligibility: all units of government -- federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial -- from all policy areas. Deadline: April 7, 2010.
http://www.innovationsaward.harvard.edu/
NCTE: Early Career Teacher of Color Award of Distinction
The National Council of Teachers of English Early Career Teacher of Color Award of Distinction gives early career teachers of color a national forum for professional collaboration and development by attending the NCTE convention (year one) and by presenting an NCTE convention session (year two). The general purpose is to support teachers of color as they build accomplished teaching careers as active NCTE members. Maximum award: programmatic -- two years of support from a mentor who can help the scholarship recipient plan his or her convention experience and to use NCTE resources to enhance professional growth; the opportunity to present or co-present at the NCTE convention (year two); an opportunity to collaborate with NCTE leaders; a plaque to recognize the recipient's participation. Financial -- round-trip airfare, complimentary registration at the NCTE convention, two nights lodging expense, and a $50 per diem for three days at two consecutive NCTE conventions. Eligibility: practicing pre-K to university-level literacy educators of color in the first five years of a paid teaching career who aspire to build a career in literacy education. Deadline: May 1, 2010.
http://www.ncte.org/awards/distinction
Dollar General Literacy Foundation: Back-to-School Grants
Dollar General Literacy Foundation Back-to-School Grants assist schools in meeting some of the financial challenges they face in implementing new programs or purchasing new equipment, materials, or software for their school library or literacy program. Maximum award: $5,000. Eligibility: public and private schools within Dollar General's 35-state market area; public school libraries recovering from major disasters. Deadline: May 21, 2010.
http://www.dgliteracy.com/grant-program/back-to-school-grants.aspx
Discovery Education 3M: Young Scientist Challenge
With the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge, students have the opportunity to create an engaging one- to two-minute science video that communicates one of the following scientific concepts: preventing the spread of germs/disease; food safety; sun protection; or wind-resistant structures. Maximum award: $50,000 in U.S. Savings Bonds; a trip to 3M's World Headquarters in St. Paul, MN; contest trophy; and the title of "America's Top Young Scientist." Eligibility: all legal U.S. residents who are students enrolled in 5th through 8th grade at a public, private, parochial, or home school located in one of the 50 states or the District of Columbia. Deadline: May 27, 2010.
http://www.youngscientistchallenge.com/10challenge/student_rules.html
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their own." -- Nikos Kazantzakis, poet and novelist (1883-1957).
