John Thompson: The Corporate Makeover of Tulsa University | Diane Ravitch's blog

John Thompson: The Corporate Makeover of Tulsa University | Diane Ravitch's blog

John Thompson: The Corporate Makeover of Tulsa University

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, writes here about the philanthrocaptalist makeover of Tulsa University. A tale of our times.

Surely we can agree with The Tulsa World’s Randy Krehbiel, who says that the faculty and administration “disagree bitterly … about whether that transformation will be good or bad for the university.”

Krehbiel provides plenty of space for the case made by T.U. President Gerry Clancy and the city’s philanthropists. Its supporters cite economic challenges, as well an opportunity for new revenue from courses that include cyber and health sciences. They claim that the plan is “not etched in stone,” and that it can evolve as the faculty weighs in.

Even so, Kreibiel reports, “a large number of students and alumni are furious about not only the plan itself but the manner in which it was developed … The Arts and Sciences faculty voted 89-4 not to implement True Commitment.” He also cites the participation of EAB, an education consulting firm. EAB’s role is unknown, but such secrecy is likely to be one reason why Krehbiel closed with a faculty member’s words, “I don’t think anyone is really optimistic.”

To get really pessimistic, read Jacob Howland’ articles in the Nation and City Journal magazines. He CONTINUE READING: John Thompson: The Corporate Makeover of Tulsa University | Diane Ravitch's blog

The Need for School Psychologists at this Critical Time

The Need for School Psychologists at this Critical Time

The Need for School Psychologists at this Critical Time

Public schools provide support staff that help teachers consider the whole child. This includes the role of the school psychologist. These professionals are the experts that make a school and school system complete. They provide children and teens the mental health support they need.

Since the corporate school reform march to privatize public education, those in supportive school roles have been under attack. Budget cuts to public schools means the loss of critical support positions that make public schools comprehensive. Privatization supporters want parents to pay for these services.

Today, most public schools have shortages when it comes to counselors, librarians, nurses, and the school psychologist. In some schools, these positions are replaced by volunteers who have little training.

The ACLU found that while 14 million students have police officers in their schools, the schools lack counselors, nurses, social workers, and school psychologists.

It’s unconscionable at a time when worry surrounds school shootings, that there continues to be a shortage of school psychologists. Money is poured into school CONTINUE READING: The Need for School Psychologists at this Critical Time

White Teachers, Here’s How You Can Successfully Partner With Black Families - Philly's 7th Ward

White Teachers, Here’s How You Can Successfully Partner With Black Families - Philly's 7th Ward

WHITE TEACHERS, HERE’S HOW YOU CAN SUCCESSFULLY PARTNER WITH BLACK FAMILIES

The show was going really well. We were in Pittsburgh, taping a live 8 Black Hands podcast episode at the State of Black Learning Conference, and we were just wrapping up the Q&A.

Then, a White woman stood up and explained that she worked really hard and was often blamed for the shortcomings of her students and families. She finished by asking a question that I had heard many times before: “How do we make families accountable to us?!”

I JUST KEPT THINKING OF HOW MANY WAYS THIS WOMAN’S DAMAGING MINDSET MUST BE MANIFESTING ITSELF IN HER LIFE AND IN HER WORK WITH CHILDREN.

Her frustration was real. But so was mine from hearing it. The crowd was mixed—some of her colleagues appeared aghast, while others vigorously nodded affirmation. My co-host Charles Cole went in and gave her a piece of his mind. My other co-host Chris Stewart was more restrained, and reframed the question. I just kept thinking of how many ways this woman’s damaging mindset must be manifesting itself in her life and in her work with children.

Later, we would be told it wasn’t her question—she was asking for a neighbor—and another colleague acknowledged that she shared these negative mindsets about her students of color. And it’s something I’ve seen countless times in schools that serve Black and Brown kids: classrooms led by educators CONTINUE READING: White Teachers, Here’s How You Can Successfully Partner With Black Families - Philly's 7th Ward

No time for passive parenting: Show your kids how to stand up to bullies | Salon.com

No time for passive parenting: Show your kids how to stand up to bullies | Salon.com

No time for passive parenting: Show your kids how to stand up to bullies
I work with kids across the social spectrum, and I know the harms of being passive. Here's what parents can do

I t’s September and the digital grapevine is abuzz trying to figure out who’s in which classroom this year. Parents all over the country have Google docs and white boards mapping class lists to try to figure out who is in our children’s classes—hoping they haven’t been assigned to a group, team, or classroom with “those” kids—the mean ones, the cliquey ones, the ones who dictate the terms of how the year will go. Kids know who they are, and so do parents. We all know but we don’t really stop the problem. We talk around it.

I work extensively with kids from across the social skills spectrum — kids who’ve been called bullies or bossy, kids who always seem to be victims, bystander kids who’ve learned to look the other way. I know the kids who are rude and unthinking who, after years of being miserable, have learned to go on the offense, making some other kid miserable first. The victims feel trapped and helpless. So do other kids who witness hurtful behavior and remain silent.

There are three misconceptions about social cruelty and bullying that I hear from parents all the time as a social skills coach and a mother. First, that “kids will be kids” and all kids “can be mean”—overlooking that the level of cruelty dealt out by some is markedly different and hurtful. Second, that we should wait to talk to the teachers, the school or the parent of a child who treats others this way, hoping time will resolve the problem. And finally, that parents of a child who bullies, as well as parents of children who are victims or silent bystanders, have little or no influence over their child’s behavior and there is nothing they can do. All of these things are untrue. The idea that kids will just figure it out on their own—that they need to do so—has a long, miserable and misguided history. When we believe CONTINUE READING: No time for passive parenting: Show your kids how to stand up to bullies | Salon.com

Playing Class Clown Could Cost Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin His Job – Mother Jones

Playing Class Clown Could Cost Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin His Job – Mother Jones

Playing Class Clown Could Cost Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin His Job
Educators are organizing to teach the state’s Trump-loving governor a civics lesson in November.

Gov. Matt Bevin was praising Kentuckians as “the most hospitable people on the earth,” but you could barely make out his remarks over the chorus of boos. He was speaking in May at the Kentucky Derby’s trophy presentation, and observers would later debate whether the jeers were intended for Bevin, who polls show is the nation’s most unpopular governor, or for race officials, who had disqualified the favorite and Triple Crown contender, Maximum Security. The answer, it seemed, was a little of each.

Bevin had revved up his reelection campaign earlier that day, airing his first ad during the Derby coverage, a prime way to reach a wide swath of his state. As Churchill Downs, the site of the famous horse race, faded to commercial, viewers received one clear message: If you’re for President Donald Trump, you should back Matt Bevin. “President Trump is taking America to new heights, but it hasn’t been easy. People are afraid of change, but I’m not. Neither is the president, and together our changes are working,” Bevin said in the ad, as images of the two flashed across the screen, culminating with Bevin flashing a thumbs-up next to a smiling Trump.

For Bevin, winning a second term should be a breeze. He’s running in a state Trump won by 30 percent. Trump still gets high marks in polls there, and Republicans fully control the state government. But as Election Day nears, Bevin is flailing. In May’s Republican primary, he won just 52 percent of the vote in a race against three nominal challengers, a paltry showing for a sitting governor.

Bevin’s unpopularity appears to be less about Kentuckians rejecting his conservative agenda than voters growing tired of their governor’s unfiltered, Trumpian persona and penchant for generating headlines with ill-advised remarks. “Many Kentuckians see their governor as the personification of the state,” says Al Cross, the longtime dean of the state’s political press at the Louisville Courier-Journal and now a journalism professor at the University of CONTINUE READING: Playing Class Clown Could Cost Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin His Job – Mother Jones

Evidence points to charter schools having lower performance

Evidence points to charter schools having lower performance

Evidence points to charter schools having lower performance

A new study released by EdSource last week points to a new threat to teacher salaries, graduation rates, and student outcomes: charter schools. With unchecked expansion, charter schools have spring up in every corner of San Diego, promising a “unique” learning experience while aggressively marketing to steal state funds from public schools.

Why is this important? At a time when California legislators are questioning the high costs of charter schools and scrambling to reform many, most, if not all, of them, some local journalists continue promoting an institution backed by some of the state’s richest and most powerful interests, which is throwing down the gauntlet against public schools and attacking teachers.

The Pioneer Poway Awards Dinner takes place each year in August at Biltmore Hotel in downtown San Diego. Every one of the six sponsors of the event ($12,000 plus) is a charter school, either run by for-profit, for-profit partnerships, which generate high-profit contracts and have bankrupted virtually every one of their allies, or owned by people like Tim Leiweke, who supports charter schools that keep salaries in line with those of rich nonunion CEOs. He’s even donated $25,000 to the event.

Even Senator Richard Roth of Riverside County, a charter supporter, expressed his views when he complained in The Press-Enterprise of Riverside in June that current countywide school rankings are “pathetic” and that the county district does not know how many people go to local schools.

The Pioneer Poway dinner, with its admission of a minimum of $2,500, is a major event for most charter schools. It draws such a combination of legislators and the rich and powerful that a number of private schools in the area utilize it for their own fundraisers and recruiters. The event has a huge star presence. Each of the six sponsors who support this event has strong connections with its special guests: former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and County Supervisor Ron Roberts.

In 2017, this was the budget they held the Pioneer Poway fundraiser off of, which was $750,000, and by 2018, they had added another $200,000. For how many years have they been holding the event off of countywide school funding?

Scholarships were generously given out for students pursuing academic degrees — but they accounted for less than 10% of funds raised. The other 90% of money raised went straight into the charter schools’ pockets.

What are the causes of the Pioneer Poway event? Here, a brief hint. Private charter schools and most public schools are more unequal than ever.

Fewer than 20 percent of the public schools in San Diego are charters, but the research evidence about what’s happened suggests that, even with CONTINUE READING: Evidence points to charter schools having lower performance

Matt Bevin's actions show his disdain for public education, democracy

Matt Bevin's actions show his disdain for public education, democracy

Matt Bevin's dismantling of education committees shows his disdain for democracy

Recently, Gov. Matt Bevin issued an executive order that disbanded and reconstituted seven education committees. I have served for several years on one of those, the Committee for Mathematics Achievement. The committee was what its name would indicate: a group ofshareholders working to advise policymakers and develop plans to improve mathematics achievement in Kentucky.

Bevin’s dissolution and reconstitution of this committee is a setback to the worthwhile work it was doing to help students in Kentucky. His executive order is not just reckless executive decision making. More significantly, it is further evidence of his disdain for democracy and one of its most vital institutions: public education. More than a simple abuse of power, Bevin’s actions are a multi-layered dismantling of and disregard for the democratic values and processes that are the foundation of our government and society.

Ryan Davis (Photo: Courtesy Ryan Davis)

First, unlike many state committees, the Committee for Mathematics Achievement was established through the legislative process. In other words, Kentuckians democratically elected representatives who then democratically voted this committee into law (KRS 158.842). Bevin’s executive order subverts both the voice of the people who elected those representatives and the voice of the representatives themselves.   

Opinion: Bevin's shameful treatment of Hampton should disqualify him from reelection

CONTINUE READING: Matt Bevin's actions show his disdain for public education, democracy

Betsy DeVos: The Musical! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Betsy DeVos: The Musical! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Betsy DeVos: The Musical!

Quinn Strassel, a drama teacher at Ann Arbor Community High School has written a music about Betsy DeVos, the arch-for of America’s public schools. The Michigan media took note.

Strassel recruited Diane Hill, his former Ypsilanti High School drama teacher, to take on the role of Betsy DeVos, while he played husband Dick DeVos and brother Erik Prince.

The cast also included some of Strassel’s former students and fellow school teachers and staff.

As the fictitious storyline in the play goes, DeVos makes an appearance at a Grand Rapids charter school, “Future Business Leaders of Tomorrow Academy,” and enlists the help of six students of color in putting on a musical. She promises to personally give them $200,000 to renovate the school theater if they do a good job.

As the musical progresses, things go wrong and DeVos upsets and frightens the children. Guns enter the picture, one student is worried a family member may be deported, and another student has his brains scrambled by “Neurocleanse,” a mockery of the real-life Neurocore, a DeVos-backed, brain-performance company.

Another student complains about his family falling victim CONTINUE READING: Betsy DeVos: The Musical! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Are Charter Schools Public Schools? | Dissident Voice

Are Charter Schools Public Schools? | Dissident Voice

Are Charter Schools Public Schools?

Charter school advocates have always desperately sought to convince themselves and the public that privately-run nonprofit and for-profit charter schools that operate like businesses are actually public and similar in many ways to public schools.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Charter schools are not public schools.

In reality, privately-operated nonprofit and for-profit charter schools differ in many profound ways from public schools that have been educating 90 percent of America’s youth for more than a century.

Below is an abbreviated list of the many ways in which privately-operated nonprofit and for-profit charter schools differ significantly from public schools.

1. Charter schools are exempt from dozens, even hundreds, of state and local laws, rules, regulations, policies, and agreements that apply to all public schools.
2. At least 90% of charter schools have no teacher unions—the opposite of public schools.
3. Some charter school owners-operators openly and publicly insist that charter schools are private entities.

1. Unlike public schools, charter schools are not governed by a publicly elected school board, but by a self-selecting, corporate-style board of CONTINUE READING: Are Charter Schools Public Schools? | Dissident Voice

Bill Gates REFUSES to reveal why he flew on Lolita Express with Jeffrey Epstein after prison release | Daily Mail Online

Bill Gates REFUSES to reveal why he flew on Lolita Express with Jeffrey Epstein after prison release | Daily Mail Online

Bill Gates REFUSES to reveal why he flew on Lolita Express with Jeffrey Epstein four years AFTER his release from prison while the billionaire was still chairman of Microsoft

• Bill Gates and his spokespeople refuse to explain why he flew from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey to Palm Beach on March 1, 2013 with Jeffrey Epstein 
• Epstein told people in the past that he was a financial adviser to Gates, who was still the chairman of Microsoft at the time
• A rep for Gates' humanitarian foundation denied that Epstein ever worked for billionaire founder of Microsoft, but would not comment on the 2013 flight
• Gates' spokesperson also stated that there were no financial or charitable ties between the two men 
• Epstein had just been released from prison four years prior after pleading guilty to two counts of soliciting a minor under the age of 18 for sex 

Bill Gates is hoping to ride out the storm, one week after it was revealed he had hitched a ride on Jeffrey Epstein's plane.

The billionaire was the chairman of Microsoft at the time he traveled with Epstein on the Lolita Express in 2013, four years after the pedophile served time for soliciting a minor under the age of 18 for sex. 

Flight records reveal that Gates flew with Epstein from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey to Palm Beach on March 1, 2013, one of the few flights that year where pilot Larry Viskoski recorded the name of a passenger.

A representative for Gates has not responded to requests for comment, beyond claiming that the once-richest man in the world never had any financial or charitable ties to Epstein.

The pairing is an odd one given the work Melinda Gates and the couple's foundation does for young women around the world.

And it is known that the two had spent time together previously, most notably at the annual Edge Dinner, which each year welcomes billionaires from around the world to come together and discuss advancements they are working in on the worlds of math, science and technology. 

Scroll down for video  CONTINUE READING: Bill Gates REFUSES to reveal why he flew on Lolita Express with Jeffrey Epstein after prison release | Daily Mail Online

Seating Charts and the Grammar of Schooling | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Seating Charts and the Grammar of Schooling | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Seating Charts and the Grammar of Schooling

In EdSurge, Kevin Behan, a product manager at GoGuardian (a for-profit software company creating programs for classroom management and other educational tasks)  wrote an opinion piece (August 17, 2019) about the importance of seating charts. He (or EdSurge) titled the op-ed: “Create a Culture, Not a Classtoom: Why Seating Charts Matter.”

After all it is the beginning of another school year and one of the early tasks every teacher in the age-graded school is to determine where students will sit. Those decisions have to do with a mix of questions circulating in a teacher’s head: Where do I seat kids who I think need close supervision? Should I separate close friends? Or should I let students choose where to sit in the spirit of giving students agency?

The fact remains that it is the teacher who decides. Just as the teacher determined the arrangement of furniture in the room from rows of desks to horseshoe half-circles with tables facing one another across an empty space in the center–I could go on since there are many variations of these desk patterns but I won’t.  Arranging furniture and seating students are important early decisions in establishing the teacher’s authority and ground rules for appropriate student behavior.

Thus, the classroom seating chart is one of the plethora of rules that govern the grammar of schooling embedded within the age-graded school. This larger framework of  seeing teaching in public schools as part of a complex system of norms for both teachers and students does not appear in this op-ed.

Using the seating chart to fashion a classroom culture is surely useful advice. Yet not seeing how the age-graded school as an organization imposes boundaries and rules within which both teachers and students work misses the teacher’s limited autonomy–after all, no teacher is allowed to pick the students she has in her fourth grade classroom–that teachers do have. Teachers have constrained discretion in deciding how desks are arranged and CONTINUE READING: Seating Charts and the Grammar of Schooling | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Sad News (and Please Talk to Your Children)

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Sad News (and Please Talk to Your Children)

Sad News (and Please Talk to Your Children)

I have learned that an Ingraham student died before school started from an accidental overdose Apparently the student thought he had bought one drug but it also may have been laced with fentanyl.  Principal Floe is sending out a letter to the school community.

As well, there have been a spate of young people with breathing problems from the use of street Jule product who are streaming into hospitals across the country. From PBS:

Americans should not smoke e-cigarettes, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Friday, as they investigate how hundreds of people became sick, and at least three people died, after using them.

From CNBC:

They look like the e-cigarette Juul. They taste sort of like Juul. But they’re not Juul.

The market-leading e-cigarette company stopped selling fruity flavors of nicotine pods in retail stores last fall amid pressure from the Food and Drug Administration to stem what it declared an “epidemic” of teen vaping. Yet mango, fruit and creme pods continue to line store shelves — presumably many of them fake.

Juul users have been deluged with a variety of alternatives since then. Some companies have rushed in to make “compatible” pods CONTINUE READING: Seattle Schools Community Forum: Sad News (and Please Talk to Your Children)

Expanding Student Opportunities, Improving Adult Background Checks – Education Town Hall Forum

Expanding Student Opportunities, Improving Adult Background Checks – Education Town Hall Forum

EXPANDING STUDENT OPPORTUNITIES, IMPROVING ADULT BACKGROUND CHECKS

Our Education Town Hall show for Thursday September 12 will consist of two parts, both of which will feature activists in DC education: Danica Petroshius, of Ward 6 Public School Parent Organization, and Maurice Cook, of Serve Your City DC.

Listen at 11 a.m. EASTERN on Thursday, September 12, via TuneIn or by visiting We Act Radio and clicking on arrow at upper left (NOTE: Not all “listen” buttons are working at present).

11-11:30: DCPS parent and Ward 6 Public School Parent Organization officer Danica Petroshius will come into the studio to discuss her work in getting attention for, and a city-wide policy addressing, sexual assaults in our schools—and how her experiences as a parent have informed her work. We will discuss current parent efforts to implement timely background checks for all staff in the the light of allegations of sexual assaults by an employee of a widely used aftercare provider in DC and the revelation that nearly a third of employees at DCPS lacked background checks.

11:30-noon: Maurice Cook, founder and executive director of Serve Your City, will be in the studio to talk about his organization and his work as an activist in DC serving children. Serve Your City is a local nonprofit that works with DC kids and community members to provide enrichment and service opportunities that they would not otherwise have, including free after school tutoring, athletics, and service projects. He will be joined in studio by one of the students he works with, 10 year old Sophia Crawford.

The Education Town Hall with Thomas Byrd
broadcasts from Historic Anacostia
in Washington, DC, on We Act Radio,
Thursdays at 11:00 a.m. Eastern
New programming 2nd and 4th Thursdays, alternating with classic shows.
Listen live via TuneIn.
Shows are archived for convenient listening shortly after broadcast.

After years of weekly broadcasts, the program now focuses one show each month on local CONTINUE READING: Expanding Student Opportunities, Improving Adult Background Checks – Education Town Hall Forum

THIS WEEK Education Research Report

Education Research Report

THIS WEEK 

Education Research Report

Analyzing Youth Civic Writing Within the 2016 Letters to the Next President Project

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 19h

This article investigates the civic writing practices of more than 11,000 students writing letters to the next president in the lead up to the 2016 U.S. election. The authors analyze how letter topics are associated with socioeconomic factors and reveal that 43 topics—including ones prevalent among students such as immigration, guns, and school costs—were significantly associated with socioeconom

Teachers are not being provided with the knowledge and evidence to make their teaching truly effective.

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 22h

Complete report Scientists know a lot about effective learning and teaching. In the past several decades, cognitive psychologists and other learning researchers have performed thousands of studies on effective learning and teaching practices. In some cases, research findings have gone against conventional wisdom or common practice. For example, varied practice (in terms of the variety of problems

Research on the Leadership of Black Women Principals: Implications for Black Students

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 1d

This exploratory review considers research on Black women principals for the period 1993 to 2017, using 57 research reports obtained from dissertations, journal articles, and a book chapter. This exploration is of particular significance given the continuous disenfranchisement and subsequent underachievement of Black children in U.S. schools and the importance of black women principals in address

SEP 05

Students who do not date are not social misfits

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 1d

Prior research identified four distinct dating trajectories from 6th to 12th grade: Low , Increasing , High Middle School , and Frequent . In a new study published in the Journal of School Health , researchers found that adolescents who were not in a romantic relationship had good social skills and low depression, and fared better or equal to peers who dated. The study included 594 10th graders.

Exposure to multiple languages may make it easier to learn one

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 1d

Learning a new language is a multi-step, often multi-year process: Listen to new sounds, read new word structures, speak in different patterns or inflections. But the chances of picking up that new language -- even unintentionally -- may be better if you're exposed to a variety of languages, not just your native tongue. A new study from the University of Washington finds that, based on brain acti

Financial education programs, income-based repayment plans promote prosperity

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 1d

Young adults with student loans who participate in financial education programs become better financial managers who are able to build their personal wealth after college, researchers at the University of Illinois found in a recent study. Social work professor Min Zhan and graduate student Gaurav Sinha analyzed data on 1,924 young adults in the U.S. to explore which factors helped those with stud

Students in 'active learning' classrooms learn more than they think

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 1d

For decades, there has been evidence that active learning - classroom techniques designed to get students to participate in the learning process - produces better educational outcomes for students at virtually all levels. And a new Harvard study suggests it may be important to let students know it. The study, published September 4 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , shows tha

States’ Intervention in School Districts’ Finances

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 1d

In recent years, state takeovers of local school districts have become both increasingly common and prominent. Districts including Newark, Detroit, and Harrisburg are among those that have met this fate. Each of these takeovers—as well as many state interventions of a more limited nature in districts across the country—occurs pursuant to state law. In fact, each state has one or more laws that al

Females show more sustained performance during test-taking than males

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 1d

Females tend to perform worse than males on math and science tests, but they perform better on verbal reading tests. Here, by analyzing performance during a cognitive test, we provide evidence that females are better able to sustain their performance during a test across all of these topics, including math and science (study 1). This finding suggests that longer cognitive tests decrease the gende

In National Ranking of School Systems, New Jersey takes the top spot

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 1d

The third and final installment of “Quality Counts 2019” offers a comprehensive report card on the nation’s K-12 system, including A-F grades and rankings for each of the states based on a wide range of academic, school finance, and socioeconomic factors. The report, based on analysis by the Education Week Research Center, sums up how well the nation and the states do on assuring bright prospects

Preparing Students for Learning, Work and Life Through STEAM Education

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 1d

This Policy Brief explores new pathways to guide future practice, research and policy work to support access to STEAM education for all students.

SEP 04

School district secessions in the South have deepened racial segregation between school systems

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 2d

Since 2000, school district secessions in the South have increasingly sorted white and black students, and white and Hispanic students, into separate school systems, weakening the potential to improve school integration, according to a new study published today in AERA Open , a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association. The study, conducted by Kendra Taylor (Sanametri

SEP 03

Student body diversity goals & giving parents a say in where their child goes to school

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 3d

Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences INFORMS Journal Operations Research New Study Key Takeaways: A new algorithm achieves school diversity goals while allowing parents to still have a say in where their child attends. The only caveat with the model is there is no way to control the size of a school, so diversity changes may have more of an impact on smaller schools. In o

Black Teachers' Share Fell as Southern Schools Desegregated

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 3d

School boards' efforts to make sure white students had white teachers appear to explain a sharp decline in the share of black teachers in the Deep South. In 1970, more than 90 percent of African American students in the 11 states of the former Confederacy attended integrated schools, compared with fewer than 5 percent in 1964. But as the student bodies became more diverse, the percentage of black

Addressing Literacy Needs of Struggling Spanish-Speaking First Graders

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 3d

Given the growing number of Latino English learners and the lack of evidence-based educational opportunities they are provided, this study investigated the impact of one potentially effective literacy intervention that targets struggling first-grade Spanish-speaking students: Descubriendo La Lectura (DLL). DLL provides first-grade Spanish-speaking students one-on-one literacy instruction in their

SEP 02

A Deep Exploration of School Improvement Strategies

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 5d

Although program evaluations using rigorous quasi-experimental or experimental designs can inform decisions about whether to continue or terminate a given program, they often have limited ability to reveal the mechanisms by which complex interventions achieve their effects. To illuminate these mechanisms, this article analyzes novel text data from thousands of school improvement planning and impl

AUG 28

More than 60 percent of Pell Grants cover the total price of college attendance

by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 9d

More than 60 percent of Pell Grant recipients at 4-year institutions received federal student loans to cover the total price of college attendance in four academic years between 2003-04 and 2015-16. A new NCES Data Point 

Education Research Report