Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Data project will track ND students' progress - Boston.com

Data project will track ND students' progress

By Dale Wetzel

Associated Press Writer / July 21, 2010

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BISMARCK, N.D.—North Dakota is developing a statewide data project to track student progress in school and provide information about whether young people are learning skills that the job market demands, officials said Tuesday.

The federal government has pushed states to implement their own "longitudinal data systems" to provide information about each student's progress from kindergarten until they finish high school. The systems also could be used to track students' college work.

North Dakota has already met many of the initiative's goals, according to the Data Quality Campaign, a nonprofit group that monitors how information is used to track student achievement. One of the campaign's principal financial

Colleges Outsourcing the Work of Colleges � The Quick and the Ed

Colleges Outsourcing the Work of Colleges

by Chad Aldeman

The Chronicle reports:

Michael Tricoli was a middle manager looking for a leg up in his career, so he got an online M.B.A. from Northeastern University.
Well, not only from Northeastern. Much of his college experience was outsourced to a private company.
The company, Embanet, put up millions to start the online business program. Its developers

Why 'i3' May Not Have Been Congressional Target - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Why 'i3' May Not Have Been Congressional Target

by Alyson Klein

Back when it was looking like Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, was going to trim unspent funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to pay for edujobs, I thought it was pretty likely he'd take money out of the $650 million Investing in Innovation or 'i3' Fund. Instead, he ended up targeting the $4.35 billion Race to the Top Fund.
The i3 fund, which is meant to scale up promising practices, seemed like a good target because it hasn't been nearly as high profile as Race to the Top, which President Obama has personally championed. And, arguably, the program is a lot more likely to generate cries of conflict of interest, no matter who wins the grants. (Example:

“Common Core” Standards And English Language Learners | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Update On Summer Reading Study

by Larry Ferlazzo

I’ve posted previously about an upcoming study by Richard Allington showing the dramatic effect providing students books of their choice to read over the summer can have on student achievement (wow, that was a long sentence

).
The study is not being published until the fall, but more information on it was released today.
Here’s an excerpt:
Allington compares the slide in reading ability to an athlete’s fitness. “Just like hockey players lose some of their skills if they stay off their skates and off the ice for three months, children who do not read in the summer

“Common Core” Standards And English Language Learners

by Larry Ferlazzo

I’ve previously shared my skepticism about national standards but they do appear to be becoming a reality. Today, even though studies have shown California standards to be “California’s (English) standards are clearer, more thorough, and easier to read than the Common Core standards,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports that California might adopt them within weeks.
There have been some useful recent posts on the Common Core standards, including “Why almost nobody is writing about the Common Core” (make a point of reading the comments there, too) and The problem(s) with the Common Core standards.
Mary Ann Zehr has written about how they relate to ELL’s at Standards Organizers Leave English Proficiency to States.
The Common Core Standards

Low-Income Preschoolers in Freefall | California Progress Report

Low-Income Preschoolers in Freefall

by christine

By Vivian Po
New America Foundation
In a scene that is likely to be repeated in school districts throughout California in coming weeks, teachers and staff at the Helen Turner Children’s Center in Hayward spent last week packing boxes, hugging their colleagues and students goodbye—and collecting their last paychecks.
The center, which provides nearly 12 hours of care a day to 267 low-income preschoolers, was forced to shut its doors on Thursday, a victim of some $1.2 billion in proposed budget cuts to early childcare programs around the state.
In May, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said he would slash spending on extended-care programs by 40 percent, forcing districts to make deep cuts and working parents—most of whom have very limited options—to scramble for new childcare arrangements.
In preparation for the cuts, Hayward’s school board voted to issue pink slips to 48 full-time-equivalent positions last spring.
read more

Earth To California Voters: We Have Created A Train Wreck!

by christine

By Hannah Beth Jackson
Speak Out California
The latest poll shows that Arnold Schwarzenegger now holds the embarassing distinction of having the same 22% favorability rate as Gray Davis had when Davis became the first Governor in modern-day California to be recalled by an angry electorate.
Of course the public is angry again and for good reason: we're at a 12.3% unemployment rate; we have one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country; the Republicans in the legislature continue to demand that we cut the taxes of fat-cat corporations and the well-heeled oil industry and yet demand more from hard-working Californians, while providing us with less.
read more

A City Outsources Everything. Sky Does Not Fall - NYTimes.com

A City Outsources Everything. Sky Doesn’t Fall.

Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times, via Associated Press

Sgt. Enrique Gonzalez, left, and other Maywood, Calif., officers during the department’s last inspection before being disbanded.

By DAVID STREITFELD

Published: July 19, 2010

REPRINTS

MAYWOOD, Calif. — Not once, not twice, but three times in the last two weeks, Andrew Quezada says, he was stopped and questioned by the authorities here.

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J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times

Despite Maywood’s financial difficulties, the opening ceremonies for its Little League program were still held on Saturday.

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Mr. Quezada, a high school student who does volunteer work for the city, pronounced himself delighted.

“I’m walking along at night carrying an overstuffed bag,” he said, describing two of the incidents. “I look suspicious. This shows the sheriff’s department is doing its job.”

Chalk up another Maywood resident who approves of this city’s unusual experience in municipal governing. City officials last month fired all of Maywood’s employees and outsourced their jobs.

While many communities are fearfully contemplating extensive cuts, Maywood says it is the first city in the nation in the current downturn to take an ax to everyone

The Sensible Social Security Solution � The Quick and the Ed

The Sensible Social Security Solution

by Chad Aldeman

One of the big problems with teacher pension plans is that they’re not portable. A teacher who works 30 years in the same state can expect to earn retirement benefits that are 30-70 percent higher than a peer who divides that same career into two 15-year stints in different states. The teachers, the salaries, the job, everything can be the same, but the mere fact of moving, even one time, can significantly impact a teacher’s retirement wealth.
This problem is exacerbated in the 13 states where teachers and other government employees do not participate in Social Security. These states, representing about one-third of America’s teaching work force, have made the

National Journal Online -- Education Experts -- Can Communities And Parents Help Turn Around Schools?

National Journal Online -- Education Experts -- Can Communities And Parents Help Turn Around Schools?.

Can Communities And Parents Help Turn Around Schools?

In a speech delivered to the NAACP last week, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called for parents and communities to play a more formal role in the tough work of turning around chronically underperforming schools. The remarks came in the wake of much discussion among educators, policymakers and even some lawmakers that turning around a low-performing school requires a look at circumstances beyond the school building. "Based on your input and the very productive engagement we have had around the school improvement grant program," Duncan said, "we will revise our ESEA reauthorization proposal to require parent and community input."

The required input "means notification, outreach, public input, and honest, open discussion about the right option for each community." Details about how exactly schools would gather input from surrounding communities are unknown.

What do you think is the appropriate way to structure parental and community involvement in the school turnaround program? Is it a meaningful role if they must still choose from the administration's preferred turnaround models?

-- Eliza Krigman, NationalJournal.com

Ellen Winn responded to Can Communities And Parents Help Turn Around Schools? on July 21, 2010 10:47 AM
Parent Empowerment (This entry is co-authored by Ellen Winn of the Education Equality Project (EEP) and Ben Austin, Executive Director of the Parent Revolution, member of the California State Board of Education, and a brand new member of EEP’s Board of Directors .) Parental involvement is no longer the typical site council (i.e., get three parents to sign a grant request) non-involvement. Today, parental involvement is defined by a real transfer of political power to parents – empowerment is a more apt word than involvement. The moral and political imperative is self evident. If we are ever going to upend our country’s broken...
Eliza Krigman responded to Can Communities And Parents Help Turn Around Schools? on July 21, 2010 09:20 AM
Chuck Saylors Responds Families and Schools Must Be Partners in Education Charles J. “Chuck” Saylors, national PTA president, submitted the following: I’m pleased about Secretary Duncan’s recent announcement on strengthening the role of parents in turning around our nation’s lowest-performing schools. So are our five million members. We cannot solve America’s dropout crisis or reverse achievement gaps without powerful, focused partnerships between our families, our schools and the other caring adults in our communities. This can happen if families are provided the tools needed to be treated as equal partners at the education planning table. We already know about...
Michael L. Lomax responded to Can Communities And Parents Help Turn Around Schools? on July 20, 2010 03:57 PM
Only way to make sure reform endures Kudos to Arne Duncan for giving the issue of parental and community involvement the priority and prominence it deserves. There’s been a lot of discussion on this blog and throughout the education policy community on the right components for meaningful reform. But as important as they all are, this may be the most important of all. The great reforms that have been implemented or are under discussion are, by and large, top-down reforms. And what one administration and Congress can give, the next can take away. Only once in the past sixty years, has an administration...

Chad Wick responded to Can Communities And Parents Help Turn Around Schools? on July 20, 2010 03:16 PM
Community engagement must be organic One way not to achieve effective parental and community engagement for school turnarounds is to mandate engagement into public policy. Community participation in school turnarounds needs to be organic. It must rise up from the grassroots to be successful. To be sure, community and parental involvement have been lacking in too many schools in the United States, and that disengagement is certainly partly to blame for our struggling schools. The reasons are numerous and complex – and not necessarily a result of community disinterest. A decades-long disconnect may lie at the root of the problem....

Marlene Seltzer responded to Can Communities And Parents Help Turn Around Schools? on July 20, 2010 03:05 PM
A Community Approach Civic involvement—from teachers and parents and from other stakeholders in a community—is essential to turning around schools. The question, of course, is how to structure meaningful involvement, and one answer comes from Philadelphia, where a sustained cross-sector collaborative—Project U-Turn—has made significant advances in heightening the public’s awareness of Philadelphia’s dropout crisis and improving options for struggling students and out-of-school youth. Today, other cities look to Philadelphia, where Project U-Turn has coordinated more than 50 organizations to galvanize the Philadelphia community to address the dropout crisis. It has gathered data on the size and scope of the dropout...

Ellen Winn responded to Can Communities And Parents Help Turn Around Schools? on July 20, 2010 01:45 PM
Parent Empowerment (This entry is co-authored by Ellen Winn of the Education Equality Project (EEP) and Ben Austin, Executive Director of the Parent Revolution, member of the California State Board of Education, and a brand new member of EEP’s Board of Directors .) Parental involvement is no longer the typical site council (i.e., get three parents to sign a grant request) non-involvement. Today, parental involvement is defined by a real transfer of political power to parents – empowerment is a more apt word than involvement. The moral and political imperative is self evident. If we are ever going to upend our country’s broken...

Delia Pompa responded to Can Communities And Parents Help Turn Around Schools? on July 19, 2010 05:08 PM
Community Engagement Programs That Work It is encouraging to hear Secretary Duncan talk about the need for more community and parental involvement. He is right when he says that turning around low-performing schools is tough work and teachers and administrators need the support from the community to achieve that. However, the administration proposed to eliminate funding for Parent Information and Resource Centers which provide necessary tools for parents and families to understand the education system. Requiring family and community input and providing the right tools and resources for ensuring that critical input is a step in the right direction. One...

Monty Neill responded to Can Communities And Parents Help Turn Around Schools? on July 19, 2010 03:40 PM
Duncan plan not meaningful Secretary Duncan’s proposal for parent involvement will not produce meaningful parental or community engagement and seems primarily designed to help salvage his sinking “Race to the Top” approach to school “turnarounds.” In particular, his four models for turnarounds – closing a school, turning it over to a private operator (e.g., charters), firing the principal and at least half the staff, or merely firing the principal – appear to be going nowhere in Congress. Some of these components may show up as allowable options, and some of the options do include some useful elements, but the...

Sandy Kress responded to Can Communities And Parents Help Turn Around Schools? on July 19, 2010 10:39 AM
Watch What You Ask For Just asking for more input doesn't move the dial. Just creating more "parental involvement" doesn't move the dial. Research does show, however, that when parents set higher expectations for their own children, establish the discipline for more work and effort, and follow through with their children and teachers in the work - this can make a real difference in student and school performance. (Making this happen is a lot easier said than done.) Also, my experience tells me that parents sometimes can easily be shmoozed by friends and acquaintances in school management in poor performing...

Frederick M. Hess responded to Can Communities And Parents Help Turn Around Schools? on July 19, 2010 09:32 AM
“Frog, I Said Stay in that Wheelbarrow!” Duncan’s notion is a fine one. Community and parental involvement are enormously important. And low-performing schools often suffer from a paucity of both. Neither the value of involvement nor the lack of it is new, however. It's not like others haven't tried to previously address this. So, I love Duncan’s pledge to have the feds “require” parent and community input. Not only that, but Uncle Sam will require “honest, open discussion” as well. Man, what a great idea. Here are a few other suggestions, while Duncan’s on a roll. Let’s require colleges to get input as to how...

Lisa Graham Keegan responded to Can Communities And Parents Help Turn Around Schools? on July 19, 2010 09:26 AM
When They Talk, Do We Listen? While I appreciate the Secretary’s continuing attention to the importance of parents, I have to agree with Bill Jackson that this should not have to be a federal requirement. Seeking input from families at your school is the obvious and reflexive behavior of every quality school in the country. And frankly, where you have to mandate it, no law will be enough to make "parental input" matter. I get tired of hearing that parents can and should be actively involved enough to improve their schools. Let's just agree that you can't out-parent a very bad...

Bill Jackson responded to Can Communities And Parents Help Turn Around Schools? on July 19, 2010 08:38 AM
Involve Community & Let Them Lead Of course community stakeholders should have a say in school turnaround decisions. When I read that we need a Federal law mandating this, I wonder: Do we also need a Federal law mandating that students should tie their sneakers before running around at recess? I his speech, Secretary Duncan also said: “The fight for education reform will be won school-by-school, and community-by-community. But it will only be won if leaders are demanding it and defending it.” I agree. And, given this, I believe the theory behind this re-authorization of ESEA is that we...

School Tech Connect: Game Changer

Game Changer

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)

I've decided that, moving forward, anyone who uses the phrase "game-changer" is a dunce.

“This has been the third rail of education, and the fact that you’re now seeing half the nation decide that it’s the right thing to do is a game-changer. NYT

The game will remain the same. Trust me. And listen to Chester Finn:

“The heavy lifting is still ahead, and the cynic in me says that when 20 states don’t get Race to

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