| News Articles for October, November & December 2010 |
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The following news articles contain information on educational issues.The views in these articles are not
necessarily those of the Commonwealth Education Organization, but are posted for your information.
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*December 2010
SHUT OUT OF THE MILITARY
“Today’s high school education doesn’t mean you’re ready for today’s army.”
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*December 31, 2010
A WASTE OF MONEY: AP COURSES FOR THE UNPREPARED
A teacher discusses the article below:
*December 27, 2010
AP CLASSES FAIL TO TAKE HOLD AT TWO NEW ORLEANS HIGH SCHOOLS
“Last year, nearly a third of the students at G.W. Carver High School in New Orleans took an Advanced Placement class. Though none passed the year-end AP exam, educators say that just taking the college-level courses raised the self-esteem of teenagers used to the stigma of attending a low-performing school.”
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*December 30, 2010
AS SCHOOLS CONFRONT BULLYING, NO EASY FIX ON THE HORIZON
“...research suggests that despite good intentions and feverish competition to pinpoint a solution, antibullying programs have shown, at best, mixed results, and what has worked in one school has not always worked in another.”
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December 29, 2010
SOME VA HISTORY TEXTS FILLED WITH ERRORS, REVIEW FINDS
This article is a report on the “the dozens of errors historians have found since Virginia officials ordered a review of textbooks”.
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December 27, 2010
3 BRAIN FACTS EVERY EDUCATOR SHOULD KNOW
“Neuroscience can contribute to education—it has already done so, especially in our understanding of reading and why some students have difficulty learning to read....But most of what you see advertised as educational advice rooted in neuroscience is bunkum.”
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December 21, 2010
THE ROAD TO SUCCESSFUL LEARNING
“Stoked by well-meaning but sometimes wrong-headed parents and teachers around them, Gifted and Talented students soon get the idea that they do not have to memorize; unfortunately, intellectual snobbery often sets in.”
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December 19, 2010
MICHELLE RHEE: “I DON’T THINK THERE IS A NEED FOR TENURE”
Interview with Michelle Rhee on some of her reforms in DC.
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December 19, 2010
WESTINGHOUSE’S SINGLE-GENDER ACADEMIES TO BOLSTER OPPORTUNITY
“The district plans to have curriculum in place by spring and provide professional development with a special focus on single-sex instruction over the summer.”
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December 19, 2010
AMERICAN EDUCATION, CURBING EXCELLENCE
“Teaching is not easy, and teaching kids with a wide range of aptitude and interest is even harder. Grouping students by ability allows the tailoring of lessons to match the needs of each group. Putting them all together is bound to fail one group or another.”
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December 17, 2010
MAKING P-16 MEANINGFUL
“The core standards will only be truly effective if ‘higher education is satisfied that the common core is an adequate measure of college readiness,’ Wilhoit said, and school leaders and teachers have much to learn from their colleagues in postsecondary education.”
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December 17, 2010
UNION LEADERS: TENURE AUTOMATIC, EVEN FOR UNSATISFACTORY TEACHERS
“Teacher union leaders have been known to bark back when their strongest job protection – tenure – is referred to as a job for life.”
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December 16, 2010
CHARTER SCHOOLS: A REPORT ON RETHINKING THE FEDERAL ROLE IN EDUCATION
“... the overall body of research on the academic effectiveness of charter schools suggests considerable variability in impact. Thus knowing that a school is organized as a charter school does not, in and of itself, say much about whether the school is good, bad, or mediocre. Some charter schools are unambiguously providing a more effective education for students than is provided by regular public schools serving similar students. Other charter schools are no better than the public schools with which they compete, and some are worse.”
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December 16, 2010
OREGON STUDENTS TO USE SPELL CHECK ON TESTS
“Oregon middle and high school students will be able to use computer spell check on state writing tests starting next month.”
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December 15, 2010
US DOE & PARTNERS TO CONVENE WORLD’S EDUCATION LEADERS FOR SUMMIT ON TEACHING PROFESSION IN MARCH 2011
“The summit will convene education ministers, national union leaders, education organization leaders and accomplished teachers from countries with high performing and rapidly improving educational systems to identify best practices worldwide that effectively strengthen the teaching profession in ways designed to enhance student achievement.”
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December 15, 2010
VALUE-ADDED: IT’S NOT PERFECT, BUT IT MAKES SENSE
“We do not advocate using value-added measures alone when making decisions about hiring, firing, tenure, compensation, placement, or teacher development, but surely value-added information ought to be in the mix given the empirical evidence that it predicts more about what students will learn from the teachers to whom they are assigned than any other source of information.”
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December 2010
CHIEFS FOR CHANGE
At least five state education chiefs—from across the country and from both political parties—agree: The focus of education should be the student. That’s why they banded together to form Chiefs for Change, a coalition of state education officials “committed to putting children first through bold, visionary education reform.”
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December 2010
HOW THE WORLD’S MOST IMPROVED SYSTEMS GET BETTER
“New research suggests that common sets of interventions can help systems move from one performance level to the next, without regard to culture, geography, politics, or history.”
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December 14, 2010
POLL: MOST WANT EASIER WAY TO FIRE BAD TEACHERS
“An overwhelming majority of Americans are frustrated that it's too difficult to get rid of bad teachers, while most also believe that teachers aren't paid enough, a new poll shows.”
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December 13, 2010
FALSE CLAIM ON DRILL AND KILL
“Teachers caring about what is bothering students is positively associated with value added just as test prep is. It is just that teachers caring is a little less strongly related than test prep. Caring does not have a negative effect just because the correlation is lower than other observed behaviors.”
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December 13, 2010
SHORTCHANGING AMBERICA’S CHILDREN
“No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is becoming a living proof that federal meddling in education policy is a bad idea. Rather than transferring more power to to the Feds, America's children would be best served if more power were given into the hands of those people who naturally care most about them: parents.”
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December 13, 2010
MICHELLE OBAMA: “WE CAN’T JUST LEAVE IT UP TO THE PARENTS”
“Speaking at Monday's signing ceremony for the ‘Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act-- a law that will subsidize and regulate what children eat before school, at lunch, after school, and during summer vacations in federally funded school-based feeding programs -- First Lady Michelle Obama said of deciding what American children should eat: ‘We can’t just leave it up to the parents.’ “
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December 12, 2010
CORBETT’S EDUCATION VISION INCLUDES SCHOOL GRADING SYSTEM
“Under Republican Gov.-elect Tom Corbett's vision for education reform, Pennsylvania schools would be graded "A through F" so parents can clearly gauge how well their children's schools are performing.”
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December 12, 2010
JUDGE HEARS ARGUMENTS IN REQUEST FOR TEACHER PERFORMANCE SCORES
“It's a high stakes case over whether the public has the right to individual performance scores for government employees, namely teachers. The union sued to stop the city from releasing teacher report cards. City attorneys and lawyers representing NY1 and other media organizations, argued for the information to be released.”
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December 11, 2010
NEW CHALLENGES FOR OBAMA’S EDUCATION AGENDA IN THE FACE OF A G.O.P.-LED HOUSE
“For two years, backed by a friendly Congress and flush with federal stimulus money, President Obama’s administration enjoyed a relatively obstacle-free path for its education agenda, the focus of which is the $4 billion Race to the Top grant program. But with Republican deficit hawks taking control of the House next month, Education Secretary Arne Duncan will no longer have billions of dollars to use at his discretion.”
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December 11, 2010
ADULTS BLAME PARENTS FOR EDUCATION PROBLEMS
“Those who said parents are to blame were more likely to cite a lack of student discipline and low expectations for students as serious problems in schools. They were also more likely to see fighting and low test scores as big problems.”
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December 10, 2010
WHAT WORKS IN THE CLASSROOMS? ASK THE STUDENTS
“Teachers whose students described them as skillful at maintaining classroom order, at focusing their instruction and at helping their charges learn from their mistakes are often the same teachers whose students learn the most in the course of a year, as measured by gains on standardized test scores, according to a progress report on the research.”
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December 9, 2010
HOUSE GOP ELEVATES KLINE TO HEAD ED., LABOR PANEL
>>read more>>
Related article:
February 2009
KLINE: VOLUNTARY STANDARDS OK, BUT FEDERAL STANDARDS AREN’T
(includes link to Republican Education Principles)
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December 9, 2010
REPORT: MANY OFFICIALS WILLIG TO REPLACE HALF OF STAFF TO TUR AROUND SCHOOLS
“School officials were given four options to obtain funding. They could replace staff and give a new principal additional powers, a model known as turnaround. They could shut down a school. They could hand management to an independent operator, such as a charter organization, known as a restart. Or they could replace the principal (with a few exceptions), overhaul instruction, increase lesson time and take other steps to improve academics. That option is known as transformation.”
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December 9, 2010
PILOT PROGRAM TO MODERNIZE GED’S ANNOUNCED
“Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, United States Education Secretary Arne Duncan and New York City Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein today announced a pilot program in the Department of Education’s District 79 schools to develop an accelerated learning program that will prepare more General Educational Development (GED) candidates for careers and college.”
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December 9, 2010
IS THE GOLDEN AGE OF EDUCATION SPENDING OVER?
“As America starts to grapple with its out-of-control spending habits, we as a nation really should reckon with our education costs.”
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December 7, 2010
NINE CITIES COMMIT TO NEW PARTNERSHIPS BETWEEN LOCAL SCHOOL DISTRICTS AND PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOLS
“Leaders in nine communities across the U.S. have signed on to a District-Charter Collaboration Compact, an initiative to highlight new ways that public charter schools and traditional public schools are working to provide high-quality education for all students. Cities committed to the Compact include Baltimore, Denver, Hartford, Conn., Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Nashville, Tenn., New Orleans, New York City, and Rochester, N.Y.”
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December 7, 2010
INTERNATIONAL STUDY EXAMINES PARENT ACTIONS, ATTITUDES ON MATH LEARNING
“Parents in Singapore are far more likely than those in the United States and England to engage a math tutor to help their child, they're more likely to get assistance from teachers and others in how to help their child, and their children more often take part in math competitions and math/science camps.”
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December 7, 2010
CALIFORNIA’S PARENT REVOLUTION
“The biggest obstacle to education reform has long been overcoming the inertial forces of unionized bureaucracy. Parent trigger is a revolutionary shortcut, and bravo to the parents in Compton for making the leap.”
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December 7, 2010
TOP TEST SCORES FROM SHANGHAI STUN EDUCATORS
“With China’s debut in international standardized testing, students in Shanghai have surprised experts by outscoring their counterparts in dozens of other countries, in reading as well as in math and science, according to the results of a respected exam.”
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December 6, 2010
BACK TO BASICS FOR THE “DIVISION CLUELESS”
“Wilson says he wouldn’t be so against calculator use if teachers still taught multiplication and division by hand as well, regardless of the fact that few will ever do math that way as adults.”
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December 6, 2010
PA TEACHERS AT HEAD OF CLASS FOR WALKOUTS
“Contract negotiations between public school unions and school boards get under way in earnest at this time of year, and it's a process that inevitably raises the prospect of strikes -- something that happens more often in Pennsylvania than in all other states combined.”
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December 6, 2010
CLOSE TO A MAGIC BULLET
“No one talks about “magic bullets” in education, except to warn that something is not one. Recent work in social psychology may bring us as close to a magic bullet at we’re likely to get. The intervention concerns gender and achievement gaps, those groups of students who persistently perform worse than we would expect.”
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December 6, 2010
PAYING SOME TEACHERS MORE THAN OTHERS ISN’T A RADICAL NOTION
“Teacher unions insist that it would be something akin to the end of Western Civilization should we venture to pay history teachers more than gym teachers, or math and science teachers more than history teachers…..The notion that some teachers should be paid more than others is certainly not new, and it's puzzling-- in a nation that casually accepts paying quarterbacks more than their blockers-- why anyone should think it radical.”
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December 5, 2010
LITERATE MOMS
“Which factor in a family's life best predicts a child's achievement in reading and math? Is it a family's income? The type of neighborhood the family lives in? The family's net worth? The amount of schooling the mother has? Or the mother's reading level?...You may be surprised by the result. Among the five factors listed above, the one that best predicts a child's achievement is the mother's reading level, her score on a standardized reading test. Interestingly, there is no direct relationship between family income and children's achievement in reading or math.”
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December 2010
YOUR CHILD LEFT BEHIND
“For years, poor performance by students in America relative to those in other countries has been explained away as a consequence of our nationwide diversity. But what if you looked more closely, breaking down our results by state and searching not for an average, but for excellence?
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December 4, 2010
WHAT I LEARNED AT THE EDUCATION BARRICADES
“Our embrace of charter schools was especially controversial. But why should any student have to settle for a neighborhood school if it's awful? The debate shouldn't be about whether a school is a traditional or charter public school. It should be about whether it's high-performing, period. Low-income families deserve the ability to make the best choices for their kids, as more financially secure families always have.”
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December 3, 2010
TEACH FOR AMERICA RECRUITS PRODUCE HIGHER TEST SCORES, GET BETTER RESULTS
“Teach for America, which recruits high-performing college graduates to the classroom from all disciplines, racked up the highest student scores among new teachers in reading, science and social studies.”
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December 3, 2010
TEACHER RATINGS GET NEW LOOK, PUSHED BY A RICH WATCHER
“In most American schools, teachers are evaluated by principals or other administrators who drop in for occasional classroom visits and fill out forms to rate their performance. The result? More than 9 out of 10 teachers get top marks…Now Bill Gates…is financing research by dozens of social scientists and thousands of teachers to develop a better system for evaluating classroom instruction.”
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December 3, 2010
VIDEO EYE AIMED AT THEACHERS IN 7 SCHOOL SYSTEMS
“As part of the project to develop new ways to evaluate teachers, researchers have recruited 3,000 teachers in seven school systems — Dallas; Denver; Charlotte, N.C.; Hillsborough County, Fla.; Memphis; New York; and Pittsburgh — who allowed themselves to be videotaped in their classrooms.”
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December 3, 2010
TESTY
Two leaders in education — Magaly Lavadenz and J.E. Stones — to address the question, “Should value-added assessments be included in teacher evaluations?”
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December 3, 2010
FOR THE BOYS’ SAKE, DON’T KILL THE SAT
“It may be the significant attention the educational establishment has lavished on girls, the lure of video games, the lack of fathers in so many homes, the fact that boys mature more slowly than girls, or maybe none of those. But we do know that whatever may be inhibiting them from excelling in high school as much as girls, boys do score proportionately better on the SATs.”
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December 2, 2010
FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE….OR BULLYING WITH BULLYING
“…bullying is absolutely wrong and should be immediately stopped and prevented by the school. The student at issue in this case should have been protected from harm. But the answer to the problem of bullying is not to introduce another form of it…. favor anti-bullying programs that emphasize strong, across-the-board protection for all students against any form of bullying for any reason. All bullying is wrong no matter what the motivation or excuse is.”
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December 2, 2010
A MISSION TO TRANSFORM BALTIMORE’S BEATEN SCHOOLS
“In 2007, the school board hired Andres Alonso, a Cuban immigrant with a Harvard degree and strong views on how to change things…..Since he was hired, the dropout rate has fallen by half, more students are graduating and for the first time in many years, the system has gained students instead of losing them.”
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December 1, 2010
ARNE DUNCAN TALKING TOUGH
“In one speech, this (Democratic) secretary of education came out swinging against "last hired, first fired," seniority-based pay raises, smaller class sizes, seat time, pay bonuses for master's degrees, and bloated special-education budgets. Which means he just declared war on the teachers' unions, parents' groups, education schools, and the special-education lobby.”
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November 11, 2010
TEACHERS’ $500 BILLION (AND GROWING) PENSION PROBLEM
“Today there is an almost $500 billion shortfall for funding teacher pensions, and that gap is growing. Why should you care? Because ultimately taxpayers are on the hook for that money.”
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November 2010
TEACHING GENERAL PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR, OR A VIABLE ADDITION TO TEACHING MATHEMATICS
The main idea of this article is that problem solving skills are taught by showing students how to solve problems, not by making them struggle with problems by themselves. Additionally, problem solving is NOT the same as mathematics.
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November 30, 2010
STAKES ARE HIGH FOR NEW STATE LAWMAKERS TO IMPROVE EDCATION LAWS
“New report finds that even with federal prodding, most states have failed
to enact successful state charter laws.”
>>read more>>
Read the report:
CHARTER SCHOOL LAWS ACROSS THE STATES
“Even with federal incentives and tremendous media attention over the past year, weak laws in a majority of states continue to be the greatest barrier to charter school success, according to a new CER (Center for Education Reform) analysis.”
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November 29, 2010
STRAIGHT A’S: PUBLIC EDUCATION POLICY & PROGRESS
“More than 60 percent of the nation’s high school seniors fail to read at a proficient level, according to the results from the 2009 grade twelve reading assessment from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as The Nation’s Report Card. Of those students, 26 percent fail to read at even a basic level. In math, nearly 75 percent of twelfth graders fail to perform at proficient level; 36 percent of those students perform below the basic level.”
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November 28, 2010
A CASE OF SENIORITIS GATES TACKLES EDUCATION’S TWO-HEADED MONSTER
“Seniority is the two-headed monster of education—it’s expensive and harmful. Like master’s degrees for teachers and smaller class sizes, seniority pay, Gates says, has ‘little correlation to student achievement.’ After exhaustive study, the Gates Foundation and other experts have learned that the only in-school factor that fully correlates is quality teaching, which seniority hardly guarantees.”
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November 30, 2010 RAVITCH ANSWERS GATES Diane Ravitch responds to Jonathan Alter’s article in this interview. |
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November 24, 2010
SCHOOLS CHIEF RETURNS RACE TO THE TOP MONEY
“A number of school districts in states that won money in the Education Department's $4 billion Race to the Top competition have decided they don’t actually want the money because, in most cases, officials think it is more trouble to accept it.”
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November 22, 2010
THE FAILING PROMISE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION
“American taxpayers have been sold on a triad of public policy fixes for public education. In order to improve student performance, state and federal governments must dedicate a greater portion of their budgetary dollars to education; class sizes must be reduced, and there must be greater oversight by the federal government. So fervent is the belief in this holy trinity of education, that to even ponder the efficacy of the federal Department of Education is seen as heresy.”
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November 22, 2010
IT’S TIME FOR SCHOOL CHOICE
“The U.S. has the best higher education system in the world in great part because universities compete for survival. It’s time we do so for the primary and secondary level. Instead of forcing our children to stay in expensive, public schools run by slow-moving bureaucracies that face little competition, let’s let our children follow and develop their dreams, whether than means going to college or becoming a mechanic or fashion designer. Let’s fund dreams, not school districts and teachers’ unions who refuse to hold their own accountable!”
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November 20, 2010
SCHOOLS THAT SERVE
Tooley's crucial conclusions: "In these genuine markets, educational entrepreneurs respond to parental needs and requirements. . . . Their quality is higher than that of government schools provided for the poor."
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November 19, 2010
REFORM MATH
“Pay attention to what our children are being taught. Not even simple arithmetic is safe from progressive stupidity.”
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November 17, 2010
EVALUATING TEACHERS: THE IMPORTANT ROLE OF VALUE-ADDED
“Teaching is a complex task and value-added captures only a portion of the impact of differences in teacher effectiveness. Thus high stakes decisions based on value-added measures of teacher performance will be imperfect. We do not advocate using value-added measures alone when making decisions about hiring, firing, tenure, compensation, placement, or developing teachers, but surely value-added information ought to be in the mix given the empirical evidence that it predicts more about what students will learn from the teachers to which they are assigned than any other source of information.”
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November 17, 2010
MOMENTUM BUILDS TO RESTRUCTURE TEACHER EDUCATION
“The general message is that teachers have not been prepared well—or enough—and we need to make changes both on the front end, with preparation, and at the back end, with accountability.”
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November 16, 2010
PA HOUSE OVERRIDES RENDELL VETO OF SCHOOL-CODE BILL
“In a surprise move late Monday, the state House of Representatives voted to override Gov. Rendell's veto of a school-code bill that he contended gave unfair tax breaks to certain charter-school landlords. If the Senate follows suit, it would mark the first time the legislature has overridden a Rendell veto, sending the governor off with a parting slap as he wraps up his second and last term.”
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November 16, 2010
TRAINING BETTER TEACHERS
“The bulk of U.S. teachers receive training that is disconnected from what they will experience in actual classrooms. That must change.”
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November 16, 2010
PITTSBURGH SCHOOLS’ RACIAL ACHIEVEMENT GAP NARROWS
“The difference between the percentage of black and white students who scored at or above state standards in reading and math on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment test is shrinking in every grade except the third grade, said the group's sixth annual report on Pittsburgh Public Schools.”
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November 16, 2010
SCHOOL CHOICE BILL PROMISED FOR NEXT STATE LEGISLATURE
"The nation is in trouble," said Williams, a panelist at a forum sponsored by the Commonwealth Foundation, a Harrisburg-based policy group. "The nation is losing a war because academically it's falling behind, woefully behind."
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November 15, 2010
PEREMPTORY CHALLENGES
“We hear about our students doing more poorly in international academic competitions the longer they stay in school, but we prefer to think that our American character and our creativity will carry us through somehow.”
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November 10, 2010
FISCAL COMMISSION CALLS FOR ELIMINATION OF SAFE SCHOOLS CZAR’S OFFICE
“A draft report by the president’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform calls for, among other items, eliminating a division of the Education Department run by one of the most controversial appointees in the Obama administration: Kevin Jennings, the safe schools czar.”
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November 10, 2010
NEW BODY OF RESEARCH ON TEACHER RETIREMENT SYSTEMS TIMELY FOR REFORM EFFORTS
“A newly published journal issue offers analyses of how reform of teacher retirement benefit systems could affect not only school finance, but also teacher quality.”
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November 10, 2010
WAS GALILEO WRONG?
“In Galileo’s day, his critics didn’t listen to him either because his ideas literally turned their world upside down. In our time, the American educationists can’t ever seem to shake their attachment to the faddish notion that STEM education should be “hands on,” “skills and project based,” and should never, ever include “strict memorization” of knowledge and facts. This ed school theory is called “constructivism” and the evidence makes clear it’s the source of America’s decline in math and science, but, oddly enough, it still has its proponents.”
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November 10, 2010
FISCAL COMMISSION CALLS FOR ELIMINATION OF SAFE SCHOOLS CZAR’S OFFICE
“A draft report by the president’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform calls for, among other items, eliminating a division of the Education Department run by one of the most controversial appointees in the Obama administration: Kevin Jennings, the safe schools czar.”
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November 9, 2010
PARTIAL PLEDGE HAS SOME SEEING STARS AT NEW YORK SCHOOL
“Rosemarie Troidl … resigned as a member of the North Collins School Board after her fellow board members refused to order students to recite the entire Pledge of Allegiance together -- not just the opening line.”
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November 9, 2010
PROFICIENCY OF BLACK STUDENTS IS FOUND TO BE FAR LOWER THAN EXPECTED
“An achievement gap separating black from white students has long been documented — a social divide extremely vexing to policy makers and the target of one blast of school reform after another. But a new report focusing on black males suggests that the picture is even bleaker than generally known.”
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November 9, 2010
POLLS SHOW PENNSYLVANIANS
“Pennsylvania voters elected a Governor last Tuesday who is committed to school choice, sending a message that our children's right to an excellent education is one they are not willing to compromise.”
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November 8, 2010
DRAWING OUR BEST MATH AND SCIENCE MINDS INTO THE CLASSROOMS
“There is no substitute for a gifted teacher who knows and loves his or her subject. And, short of repealing the law of supply and demand, the normal workings of our public education establishment cannot solve the problem.”
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November 7, 2010
FIRST THINK INSIDE THE BOX!
“As a teacher, I want my students to know what is inside the box. This is not because I am a defender of the academic or intellectual status quo. It is because knowing what is inside the box is the only way to get outside the box in a useful way once the basics are mastered.”
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November 7, 2010
DANGEROUS AGENDA SWEEPING OVER OUR SCHOOLS Donna Garner has written three timely articles on the issue of bullying in schools.
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November 5, 2010
SUPREME COURT CONSIDERS SCHOOL CHOICE
“With conservatives sweeping up record-setting governorships and congressional seats in the elections, it seems the climate is highly favorable for school choice measures—which would empower parents and rescue more kids trapped in failing schools.”
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November 4, 2010
ARE PITTSBURGH SCHOOLS LURCHING TOWARD A FISCAL NIGHTWARE
“As the Pittsburgh Public School District Board prepares to release its proposed budget for 2011, they are quick to point out there will be no tax increase for the tenth consecutive year. Supporters applaud this move and offer it as proof the District is fiscally responsible. But lost in the hype is the fact that revenues have been increasing to cover rising expenditures, thanks in large part to state and Federal funds. However, as the state
grapples with its own budget shortfalls and the Federal stimulus money dries up, the District could face serious budget problems in the near future.”
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October 30, 2010
THE EDUCATION MANIFESTO
“Public education in America, particularly in our most troubled urban neighborhoods, has been broken for a long time, and nowhere more so than in our nation's capital.”
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October 25, 2010
STUDY SAYS CHARACTER EDUCATION DOESN’T IMPROVE BEHAVIOR OR GRADES
“Tolerance, kindness and caring are just some of the values students learn at school as part of their character education. One federal study says the program falls short.”
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October 21, 2010
IF NEW MATH JUST WON’T DO
“We have come to associate doing well at math with innate intelligence, as opposed to other countries who equate it with hard work,’’ the former middle school math teacher said. “We talk about math as if there is a math gene and you are born with it or not. As educators, we can do more in terms of emphasizing habits of mind, like persistence, believing that math makes sense, and that if you work hard it will pay off.’’
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October 21, 2010
COURT: NO TEACHER SPEECH RIGHTS ON CURRICULUM
According to the US Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati, OH, “Teachers have no First Amendment free-speech protection for curricular decisions they make in the classroom, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday. Only the school board has ultimate responsibility for what goes on in the classroom, legitimately giving it a say over what teachers may (or may not) teach in the classroom.
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October 20, 2010
PARENTS UPSET ABOUT SEX TEST GIVEN TO 7TH GRADERS
“It’s happened again. Another disturbing example of public schools and advocacy groups intruding into areas they shouldn’t without parental notification and permission. This time a Washington, D.C., middle school (Hardy Middle School) is eliciting heartfelt, and even tearful, complaints from parents for distributing a sexually graphic survey to kids as young as 11 or 12 years old. (Parents found out about the survey too late to ask for permission to exempt their children from taking it.)”
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October 20, 2010
NEW YORK SCHOOLS TO RELEASE VALUE ADDED TEACHER SCORES
“Value-added analysis <http://projects.latimes.com/value-added/> uses past student performance on standardized tests to estimate teacher effectiveness. It has been embraced by some districts and policymakers as a way of bringing some objectivity to teacher evaluations, which mostly depend on subjective assessments.”
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October 19, 2010
THERE IS NO ‘WAR ON TEACHERS’
“All sides of the educational policy debate now accept that the key determinant of school effectiveness is teachers—that effective teachers get good achievement results for all children, while ineffective teachers hurt all students, regardless of background. Also increasingly accepted is that the interests of teachers unions aren't the same as the interests of children, or even of most teachers.”
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October 19, 2010
DISRESPECT CREATES CLASSROOM DISASTERS
“Certainly, the litigious atmosphere in schools is partly to blame—teachers have few options for dealing with unruly students. (Typical classroom “behavior contracts ” offer rewards for good behavior but no consequences for bad behavior.) But a large measure of responsibility falls on our shoulders as parents. When even good students text during class, talk out loud, or speak disrespectfully to teachers, it’s a failure of parenting more than a failure of the schools. It’s up to us to hold our children to a higher standard, one that shows respect in dress, tone of voice, words, and actions. And it all starts at home.”
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October 18, 2010
HOW MUCH DOES NEA SPEND ON POLITICS?
“Therein lies the main difficulty with placing an indisputable figure on the cash amount. One man’s “politics” is another man’s “member communication.” Some think “political spending” is limited to donations to candidates. Others think it’s every dollar not directly related to bargaining contracts for local teachers.”
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October 15, 2010
NAS UNEARTHS CENSORED STUDY ON HIGH SCHOOL RESEARCH PAPERS
“The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has published <http://www.nas.org/polPressReleases.cfm?Doc_Id=1600> a long-buried study on the state of the history research paper in American high schools. The 2002 study sponsored by The Concord Review (TCR) went unpublished when its benefactor, the Albert Shanker Institute, found the results unflattering to high school teachers.”
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October 14, 2010
CHARTER SCHOOLS: THE GOOD ONES AREN’T FLUKES
“In particular these schools — which, in some states, have opened reverse achievement gaps with low-income minority students outpacing state averages — have tight controls over who teaches in them, a relentless focus on results, and an intense use of data to inform decisions.”
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October 2010
THE PRICE OF A GOOD EDUCATION
“While the Census Bureau report, which covers the 2007-2008 school year (the latest year for which complete data was available), calculated the national average of per-pupil expenditures at $10,259, it also revealed a widening gulf between individual states.”
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October 2010
DRASTIC SCHOOL TURNAROUND STRATAGIES ARE RISKY
“Walking through schools in which students wander the halls and teachers have given up teaching, it is not hard to understand the desire of policymakers to shut these schools down. Drastic actions are needed. Yet, the proposed turnaround strategies run counter to what research tells us about all the pieces needed to create and sustain improvement—particularly in the lowest-performing schools, where hope and trust are scarce.”
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October 12, 2010
NOT JUST WHICH BOOKS TEACHERS TEACH, BUT HOW THEY TEACH THEM
“Without focused training in deep analysis of literary and non-literary texts, students enter college un-ready for its reading demands. Students generally can complete low-grade analytical tasks such as identifying a thesis, charting evidence at different points in an argument, and discovering various biases. But college level assignments ask for more.”
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October 11, 2010
FINALLY, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IS PUTTING HEAD START TO THE TEST
“Although no program can completely compensate for the negative effects of poverty and family background, a substantial number of Head Start programs are so ineffective that they do little or nothing to boost child development and learning.”
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October 11, 2010
‘LACK’ OF SEX ED IS EXAGGERATED
“If U.S. teens didn't know about birth control, they wouldn't use it, right? Well, according to another federal report, 28 percent of 10.4 million teen girls, ages 15 to 19, use a birth-control method. (If this percent seems small, remember, most teen girls aren't sexually active and don't need these products yet).”
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October 11, 2010
PARENTS UPSET BY “SEX TEST” AT MIDDLE SCHOOL
“The program was not just for education, but for research. The letter notified parents that, by participating in the program, their child would be a "research subject" in a program funded by the federal government.”
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*October 8, 2010
IF SCHOOLS WERE LIKE ‘AMERICAN IDOL’ . . .
“The flip side is that there are also huge economic downsides for a society that consigns millions of its population to the margins of prosperity. When we allow the children of other people to fail or leave school without an education, they do not disappear. They become adults who cannot provide for themselves. And guess what? The costs will be borne by our children.”
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October 8, 2010
DO AMERICAN HISTORY TEACHERS VALUE FEELINGS OVER KNOWLEDGE?
“With Americans' knowledge about our country's compelling origins and ideals in steady decline, and with classroom study of U.S. history increasingly replaced by facilitated conversations about feelings and social justice, it should be a matter of urgency for policymakers to improve both the quality and quantity of history teachers' academic preparation.”
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October 6, 2010
WASHINGTON DOESN’T KNOW BEST: THE PERILS OF FEDERAL CONTROL OF EDUCATION
“In order to appreciate the full dangers of the Obama administration’s attempt to centralize education policymaking and decision making in Washington, it is important to understand the historical context of the provision of education in this country.”
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October 5, 2010
HOW HANDWRITING TRAINS THE BRAIN
“Studies suggest there's real value in learning and maintaining this ancient skill, even as we increasingly communicate electronically via keyboards big and small. Indeed, technology often gets blamed for handwriting's demise. But in an interesting twist, new software for touch-screen devices, such as the iPad, is starting to reinvigorate the practice.”
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October 5, 2010
CHARTER SCHOOLS GIVE CHILDREN A CHOICE AND A CHANCE
"Charter schools provide educational offerings to thousands of Pennsylvania students, and parents increasingly choose charter schools over other educational options," noted Brouillette. "It is troubling that traditional district schools view this competition as a threat. The truth is that both children and taxpayers benefit when parents have choices and schools must compete."
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October 3, 2010
CRACKS IN THE IVORY TOWER?
“... criticism is mounting of traditional education schools and teacher-preparation programs. Americans now demand that new teachers hit the ground running—and continue running, dodging all obstacles in their path, so as to boost student achievement and help schools realize their learning objectives.”
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October 1, 2010
MAKING MATH LESSTONS AS EASY AS 1, PAUSE,2, PAUSE...
“Singapore math’s added appeal is that it has largely skirted the math wars of recent decades over whether to teach traditional math or reform math. Indeed, Singapore math has often been described by educators and parents as a more balanced approach between the two, melding old-fashioned algorithms with visual representations and critical thinking.”
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Related article:
October 6, 2010
SINGAPORE MATH IS “OUR DIRTY LITTLE SECRET”
“The success of Singapore’s programs relies in many ways on more traditional approaches to math education, such as explicit instruction and giving students many problems to solve, in some ways its very success represented a slap in the face to American math reformers, many of whom have worked hard to eliminate such techniques being used.”
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