"State Budgets & Education Funding" by Gates Foundation/flickr
Today’s Top Picks:
UEA President Sharon Gallagher-Fishbaugh, among others, discusses unions in Utah.
http://bit.ly/rHA0IW (KCPW)
Horizonte’s ESL program expands to the Sorenson Unity Center http://bit.ly/tlZe8o (SLT)
New South Weber charter school gets some opposition.
http://bit.ly/v6zQhb (OSE)
Sheryl Allen takes to the D-News to advocate for school funding.
http://bit.ly/uAkadr
Sen. Urquhart discusses Southwest High School.
http://bit.ly/sBUSR7
New ED report concludes: “Tens of thousands of schools serving low-income students are being shortchanged because districts spend fewer state and local dollars on teacher salaries in those schools than on salaries in schools serving higher-income students.”
http://nyti.ms/uiKL6A (NYT)
and http://reut.rs/spcRuj (Reuters)
and http://1.usa.gov/upmBfI (ED)
or a copy of the report
http://1.usa.gov/t4MU44
The cost to ED if the deficit deal can’t be reached? $3.5 billion.
http://bit.ly/uyrKPc (Ed Week)
————————————————————
TODAY’S HEADLINES
————————————————————
UTAH
The State of the Unions in Utah
Utah’s largest ESL program enrolls students at Sorenson Unity Center Horizonte » Program, which helps hone skills for nonnative English speakers, expands into Sorenson Unity Center.
HighMark Charter School constructions started
School, city discussing future ownership of Logan Rec Center
Bingham High chemistry teacher wins statewide honor Award » Bingham High educator wins prestigious Excellence in Teaching award.
Ogden teacher named Utah’s top environmental educator Education » The 156-acre Ogden Nature Center is the award-winner’s classroom.
Bennion Elementary — in wax
Project » West-side school teaches history through a living-statue display.
Midvale paraeducator snags statewide honor Fifteen educators recognized for their helping hands in the classroom.
Winder tells students “It’s fun to be the mayor”
Students create ‘smoke-free’ signs for city parks
Ogden students join forces to perform ‘The King and I’
Granite Peaks offers tutorial in the paranormal Psychometry » Class teaches about tarot cards, divining rods.
Salt Lake city math teachers honored
Granite educator honored for CTE work
Farmington musicians to perform in Chicago
Spring Lake students participate in annual Lights On ceremony
Midvale school water avoided after bacteria found
Holiday music celebration
SFHS FFA project
Forbes Elementary School patriot readers
Book fair
Forbes Elementary School book fair
OPINION & COMMENTARY
Improving high school
Smart students apply here
Public education’s biggest problem is funding
What education dollars can’t seem to buy
To Significantly Improve Education in Utah
River project creates loss of tax money for schools
How Many Decades Before ‘Reform’ Becomes ‘Status Quo’?
The achievement gap is a middle class issue
Has Teacher Quality Declined Over Time?
Substance Abuse Greater Problem Among Rural Youth
NATION
Districts Pay Less in Poor Schools, Report Says
K-12 Cuts Loom as Deficit Deal Eludes Congress
Minnesota school districts begged; now they borrow Delay in state aid creates record levels of borrowing to run metro-area schools.
STEAM: Experts Make Case for Adding Arts to STEM
Schools add Internet etiquette, safety to coursework
Survey Shows Nearly All States Can Track Data on Students
Pioneers in teacher prep chart changes in training landscape
Michele Bachmann reflects on early life in Iowa, takes education questions in Cedar Falls
Subtracting calculators adds to children’s maths abilities, says minister National curriculum review to look at use of calculators in primary schools amid concerns students are too reliant on them
Arlington High School bans dances over alcohol, suggestive dancing
————————————————————
UTAH NEWS
————————————————————
The State of the Unions in Utah
Collective bargaining is a core value of organized labor, so this year’s attempt to quash those rights in Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere put Utah unions on high alert. What does all of this mean for a “right to work” state like Utah and what’s in store for Utah’s unions as they negotiate for health and retirement benefits?
http://bit.ly/rHA0IW (KCPW)
Utah’s largest ESL program enrolls students at Sorenson Unity Center Horizonte » Program, which helps hone skills for nonnative English speakers, expands into Sorenson Unity Center.
With nearly 1,300 students, it’s the largest program of its kind in the state.
And now, it’s at the Sorenson Unity Center, offering a skill students will need to land job, buy groceries or even order pizza.
The Horizonte Instruction and Training Center has extended its adult English as a Second Language (ESL) classes to the Sorenson Unity Center in Glendale. Although classes are small — the Unity Center now has 11 students — officials hope to increase enrollment.
http://bit.ly/tlZe8o (SLT)
HighMark Charter School constructions started
SOUTH WEBER — What effect will a new charter school have on the only existing school in the city?
That’s the biggest concern surrounding HighMark Charter School, which will open in August 2012. The public charter school will serve kindergarten through eighth grade the first year, and ninth grade will be added for the 2012-13 school year.
The new school, which celebrated its groundbreaking Nov. 19 and will be located where South Weber Drive and Highway 89 intersect, has received some opposition throughout the city.
http://bit.ly/v6zQhb (OSE)
School, city discussing future ownership of Logan Rec Center
With a pressing necessity to repair the aged Logan Recreation Center, its two stakeholders – the school district and the city – have started discussing whether the two should continue joint use of the building.
While the school district would like to continue the partnership, the city officials said they need to look more closely at community usage of the facility before determining whether the city’s use of the center is justified.
http://bit.ly/sPPiwO (LHJ)
Bingham High chemistry teacher wins statewide honor Award » Bingham High educator wins prestigious Excellence in Teaching award.
It all started with a shower curtain.
Bingham High chemistry teacher Deborah Brown fielded a question last year from a student, asking if she had seen the latest episode of “The Big Bang Theory.” Why? Because the televised comedy featured an oddly decorated shower curtain — belonging to the character Sheldon — containing the periodic table of elements.
“I would’ve been more impressed if it were a quilt,” Brown told the student.
The idea was born. After Brown’s Advanced Placement chemistry students completed their end-of-term tests, they celebrated by assembling a periodic quilt with the elements in the correct order. Students contributed their own squares, and each learned about a particular element.
Brown isn’t a quilter. But with some advice from fellow Bingham teachers, she and her mother sewed it together.
“As a teacher — whether or not you have the skills — you run with it to keep kids interested and excited,” she said.
In her 19th year in education, Brown has won the prestigious Excellence in Teaching award, a statewide honor given each year to 10 outstanding educators by the Utah Education Association. Brown won $1,500 from the UEA and partner Arch Coal Foundation.
http://bit.ly/rVfKsy (SLT)
Ogden teacher named Utah’s top environmental educator Education » The 156-acre Ogden Nature Center is the award-winner’s classroom.
Ogden • Susan Snyder’s classroom is larger than most. It stretches over 156 acres of grassy fields and forests that run wild with turkeys — and sometimes students.
In a scenic preserve known as the Ogden Nature Center, juxtaposed against the urban landscape of Utah’s seventh-most-populous city, Snyder has distinguished herself as the state’s top environmental educator.
Snyder recently received the Vern A. Fridley Environmental Educator of the Year Award, presented during the annual conference of the Utah Society for Environmental Education. Snyder said she was stunned by the recognition.
http://bit.ly/vP7d3a (SLT)
Bennion Elementary — in wax
Project » West-side school teaches history through a living-statue display.
Taylorsville • Katy Perry and Lady Gaga were there, but neither sang a note.
LeBron James and Michael Jordan hung out, but didn’t comment on the NBA lockout.
President Barack Obama made an appearance, but didn’t campaign for re-election.
Bennion Elementary hosted a Who’s Who of entertainment stars, sports heroes and national pols last month as nearly 100 sixth-graders impersonated celebrities as part of the third annual Bennion House of Wax.
http://bit.ly/rMf3k8 (SLT)
Midvale paraeducator snags statewide honor Fifteen educators recognized for their helping hands in the classroom.
Ruth Barrett had already left school when the principal called.
Her first reaction: “Uh-oh. Am I in trouble?”
Barrett, who works as a part-time reading aide at Midvale Elementary, wondered what might have precipitated a potentially dreaded trip to the principal’s office.
“I thought a parent had complained or something,” she said.
It was nothing like that. Instead, she walked into the grade-school gym to find five classes of happy-faced third-graders applauding.
“They stood up and started clapping and cheering,” Barrett recalled. “I’m not a person who cries easily, and yet tears came to my eyes. Their cheering for me was really touching.”
Barrett realized — with great relief — that she wasn’t in trouble. Instead, she had been named an outstanding paraeducator by the Utah State Office of Education along with 14 others from across the state. Barrett received free admission to the Utah paraeducator conference, had her hotel room paid for and took home “a little statuette of an angel reading a book.”
http://bit.ly/s2OKd9 (SLT)
Winder tells students “It’s fun to be the mayor”
WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah — West Valley City Mayor Mike Winder was at Farnsworth Elementary on Wednesday reading his new children’s book to third grade students.
The appearance comes just weeks after revealing that he had used a pen name to write news articles for the Deseret News and subsequently resigning from his job as director of public affairs for the Summit Group.
Winder’s new book, “It’s Fun to Be a Mayor,” tells the story of what it’s like to be mayor of a big city and features mayors across the Salt Lake Valley. A portion of the sales from the book will be going to the Community Education Partnership, which funds after-school programs.
http://bit.ly/rRCi2j (KSTU)
Students create ‘smoke-free’ signs for city parks
Residents in Utah County will soon see new smoke-free signs hanging at their local parks. Elementary school students from throughout the county created the signs as part of a contest put on by the Utah County health department’s Tobacco Prevention and Control Program.
Teens involved in the OUTRAGE anti-tobacco youth group organized the contest and judged more than 1,700 entries before narrowing it down to one winner from each city.
http://bit.ly/uVi901 (PDH)
Ogden students join forces to perform ‘The King and I’
OGDEN — The Rodgers & Hammerstein musical “The King and I” was performed for five shows recently by the Mount Ogden Junior High Musical Theater Program.
More than 40 students from Mt. Ogden and eight elementary school students came together to transform the stage into scenes from Siam, modern day Thailand, the school said in a news release.
http://bit.ly/vEPmEW (OSE)
Granite Peaks offers tutorial in the paranormal Psychometry » Class teaches about tarot cards, divining rods.
It sounds like something out of Hogwarts. But it’s not. This tutorial in the paranormal is happening smack dab in the middle of Utah’s most-populous county.
With a curriculum in tarot cards, divining rods and distilled water, the class Sixth Sense ranks among the most popular courses at Granite Peaks Lifelong Learning. It’s a six-week study in psychometry, led by trained psychic Laurel Lowe.
Lowe, the descendent of psychic mediums dating to her great-grandmother, says she has been having premonitions for more than a decade. But it wasn’t until 2008 that Lowe came “out of the psychic closet.”
http://bit.ly/tzElFO (SLT)
Salt Lake city math teachers honored
The Utah Council of Teachers of Mathematics (UCTM) has honored four mathematics teachers and leaders, two of whom teach in the Salt Lake City School District. The district reported that Cami Perkes, a math teacher at West High School, won the George Shell award, which honors a secondary teacher. And Kathy Lambert, elementary math coach at Backman and Parkview elementary schools, won the Muffet Reeves award, which recognizes leadership.
http://bit.ly/s5WUVU (SLT)
Granite educator honored for CTE work
Julie Bagley, a counselor, concurrent enrollment adviser and work-based learning coordinator at the Granite Technical Institute, has been named an outstanding regional educator by the Association for Career and Technical Education (CTE). Bagley is among five finalists vying for a national title from the association. She works with more than 1,100 students and helps to plan and organize career days.
http://bit.ly/ulvAUb (SLT)
Farmington musicians to perform in Chicago
The Farmington Junior High Symphonic Band is one of only three junior high bands in the world invited to perform at the 65th Annual Midwest Clinic, an international band and orchestra conference in Chicago, Dec. 14-17.
http://bit.ly/vmNbAU (SLT)
Spring Lake students participate in annual Lights On ceremony
From Christmas trees to paper cranes and beaded candy canes, fourth-grade students at Spring Lake Elementary School in Payson have been working hard for the past few weeks to create ornaments to decorate the tree at the Payson Zions Bank branch.
On Wednesday, those students gathered at the bank with their teachers, family, friends and bank employees to admire the newly decorated Christmas tree, sing carols and participate in the Lights On ceremony.
http://bit.ly/tU7NH0 (PDH)
Midvale school water avoided after bacteria found
MIDVALE — Students at Midvale Middle School have been drinking bottled water and told not to wash their hands under the taps as officials try to clean bacteria from the water system.
Crews disinfected the system over the weekend, but were still waiting for test results. The contamination was found during a routine check in mid-November.
http://bit.ly/sDIDbL (OSE)
Holiday music celebration
The Salem Hills High School Fine Arts Department presents Wintertide, a Holiday Music Celebration, which will be held at 7 p.m. on Dec. 14 at 7 p.m. at the SHHS Auditorium. The event will feature the Concert Choir Singers, Serendipity, Men’s Camarata, Women’s Chorale, the Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonic Orchestra and the Concert Band. Tickets are $5 for adults, $3 for children and students and $20 for a family pass.
http://bit.ly/vXlkf1 (PDH)
SFHS FFA project
The Spanish Fork FFA is sponsoring its annual Christmas Angel program that provides an entire Christmas for families in need. Donations can be made at the Spanish Fork High School during school hours. For questions or to donate after school hours, please call (801) 471-4616.
http://bit.ly/tvNXpR (PDH)
Forbes Elementary School patriot readers
There will be a patriot reader assembly on Thursday at 10 a.m.
http://bit.ly/uTC4zO (PDH)
Book fair
The PTSA book fair will continue Nov. 30 and Dec. 1. Parents are asked to stop by during the Parent Teacher Conference on Dec. 1 or shop online at AFJH Book Fair.
http://bit.ly/vzMRYj (PDH)
Forbes Elementary School book fair
The book fair will be Dec. 5-9.
http://bit.ly/visowS (PDH)
————————————————————
OPINION & COMMENTARY
————————————————————
Improving high school
(Provo) Daily Herald editorial
A healthy brainstorm by state Rep. John Dougall, R-Highland, deserves a detailed look.
Dougall wants the state to establish an education savings account for every public school student, funded by existing taxpayer dollars.
The idea is something like a health savings account. Students would draw upon the ESA for up to 32 classes during four years of high school. A student could attend a class in a neighboring district, at a charter school or take relatively inexpensive courses online — whatever is best for that student.
http://bit.ly/uEe7r8
Smart students apply here
(Provo) Daily Herald editorial
Alpine School District is taking a small step toward meeting the needs of gifted students.
It plans to start two magnet classrooms for gifted students in grades three through six. One would be at Aspen Elementary in Orem; the other would be at a school in the northern end of the district.
http://bit.ly/rA5E9B
Public education’s biggest problem is funding Deseret News op-ed by Sheryl Allen, a member of the executive committees of Alliance for a better Utah and Utahns for Public Schools
How refreshing. Sen. Aaron Osmond, R-South Jordan, has an idea to change teacher employment laws, and he is consulting with teachers. He either has good instincts, or he may have read the extensive research which validates that top down edicts don’t result in much improvement in education. Policymakers who collaborate with parents and professional educators do have the potential to improve education.
But Utah’s No. 1 education challenge unquestionably is funding. Utah’s revenues are slowly improving. Forbes Magazine has again named Utah as the best state for business. It’s time for the Legislature to reinvest in the future and the students if we are to maintain that status. The public should not be distracted by legislators’ unwillingness to face this real, pressing problem by efforts to blame collective bargaining or teacher accountability http://bit.ly/uAkadr
What education dollars can’t seem to buy
Deseret News commentary by columnist Mary McConnell
Yesterday’s Education Week ran an interesting article about the consequences of Kansas City schools losing their accreditation. I’ll quote more from the article below, but the bottom line is that state law requires neighboring school districts to make room for these kids if their parents want to change schools. The district has 17,400 students. As you’d expect, this fight has already made it to the courts, and it’s heading to the state school board and, probably, the state legislature.
But what’s most interesting about this long article is what it doesn’t mention. Kansas City is the poster child for “Money can’t buy me . . . educational improvement.”
http://bit.ly/uQaZWx
To Significantly Improve Education in Utah
Commentary by Sen. Steve Urquhart
Man! Did Rep. Ipson and I see something amazing today!
We visited Southwest High School – the Washington County adult education high school. Anyone 16-years old or older can attend, as long as they are not enrolled in a traditional school. About 1% of the student body is there because they want to accelerate their graduation. The other 99%? I’m glad you asked.
Southwest gets some self-referrals, it gets students who have been kicked out of traditional schools, and it gets students from the abused women’s shelter, Vocational Rehabilitation, homeless shelters, “lost children” from polygamist communities, Juvenile Justice Services, Drug Court, Adult Probation & Parole, and Purgatory. That last place is the name of the local prison, but it also could serve as an apt metaphor for the educational status of many of the students. Though most students have completed 10th or 11th grade, they have the academic functioning level of 8th grade.
Let’s skip to the chase. What are the results? Last year, the 462 enrollees achieved 496 grade-level gains, and 313 graduation diplomas were issued. And – to make those numbers truly jaw dropping – those gains and diplomas were outcome based, meaning that they represent mastery of assessed competencies, not mere endurance of enough seat time. These numbers are off-the-chart amazing!
http://bit.ly/sBUSR7
River project creates loss of tax money for schools
(Ogden) Standard-Examiner letter from Dennis J. Hogge
In his abdication proclamation, Mayor Godfrey declared he was pleased with his administration’s accomplishments. He stated in part, “We are very entrepreneurial.”
The South River project is part of the Ogden River project. As such, it is included in the expenditures associated with that project. About $7 million of tax money from a variety of sources has been spent to restore 1.1 miles of the Ogden River. An additional $545,150 was budgeted to raze the vacant homes located in the project. The plan was to recoup the cost from the developer by placing liens on the properties involved (the last time I inquired, I was told no liens had been assessed).
http://bit.ly/uitjP7
How Many Decades Before ‘Reform’ Becomes ‘Status Quo’?
Education Week op-ed by Kevin G. Welner, professor of education at the University of Colorado Boulder and the director of the National Education Policy Center
Pause for a moment and warily inhale the decaying fragrance of well-aged change.
The nation’s established school reformers have been on the ascendency for decades, and the so-called “change” they offer is simply more of the same. Consider this brief recap of school reform over the past three decades, focused in particular on privatization and choice, as well as standards-based testing and accountability.
http://bit.ly/rAdaKT
The achievement gap is a middle class issue
(Minneapolis) Twin Cities Daily Planet op-ed by Michael Diedrich, policy associate at Minnesota 2020
A recent study by Sean Reardon of Stanford University finds that the achievement gap between the upper and middle classes is bigger than the gap between the middle class and the working poor. This should give pause to those who dismiss education reform as something that affects other people. If you’re middle class, you’re on the losing side of the achievement gap.
Defining the achievement gap in terms of income is trickier than defining it in terms of race. The black-white achievement gap, for example, is relatively easy to determine: Determine proficiency rates for students classified as black and for students classified as white, then subtract. Income, however, exists on a spectrum, not in demographically discrete groups.
http://bit.ly/uFOkOF
Has Teacher Quality Declined Over Time?
Albert Shanker Institute commentary by senior fellow Matthew Di Carlo
One of the common assumptions lurking in the background of our education debates is that “quality” of the teaching workforce has declined a great deal over the past few decades (see here, here, here and here [slide 16]). There is a very plausible storyline supporting this assertion: Prior to the dramatic rise in female labor force participation since the 1960s, professional women were concentrated in a handful of female-dominated occupations, chief among them teaching. Since then, women’s options have changed, and many have moved into professions such as law and medicine instead of the classroom.
The result of this dynamic, so the story goes, is that the pool of candidates to the teaching profession has been “watered down.” This in turn has generated a decline in the aggregate “quality” of U.S. teachers, and, it follows, a stagnation of student achievement growth. This portrayal is often used as a set-up for a preferred set of solutions – e.g., remaking teaching in the image of the other professions into which women are moving, largely by increasing risk and rewards.
Although the argument that “teacher quality” has declined substantially is sometimes taken for granted, its empirical backing is actually quite thin, and not as clear-cut as some might believe.
http://shankerblog.org/?p=4333
Substance Abuse Greater Problem Among Rural Youth
Education Week commentary by columnist Diette Courrege
Substance abuse is a bigger problem among rural youth than among their non-rural peers, with rural teens having higher rates of alcohol consumption and usage of drugs such as cocaine, marijuana, and heroin. And that problem is influenced in part by rural communities limited expectations for students’ futures, according to a new study.
The main point of “Social and epidemiological assessment of drug use: A case study of rural youth in Missouri,” an article published in an 2011 issue of the American Journal of Health Studies, was to show how two rural counties with high rates of youth drug use performed a community needs assessment to determine factors affecting children’s behavior. Back issues can be seen online for a fee.
Researchers found a general acceptance among youth and adults that teens would use drugs. Additionally, youth and adults’ limited outlook on education and career possibilities was an “influential factor in drug use” among youth, according to the article.
http://bit.ly/vD5UGo
————————————————————-
NATIONAL NEWS
————————————————————-
Districts Pay Less in Poor Schools, Report Says
New York Times
Education experts have long argued that a basic inequity in American schooling is that students in poor neighborhoods are frequently taught by low-paid rookie teachers who move on as they gain experience and rise up the salary scale.
Until now, however, researchers lacked nationwide data to prove it. That changed Wednesday when the Department of Education released a 78-page report.
Its conclusion: Tens of thousands of schools serving low-income students are being shortchanged because districts spend fewer state and local dollars on teacher salaries in those schools than on salaries in schools serving higher-income students.
http://nyti.ms/uiKL6A
http://reut.rs/spcRuj (Reuters)
A copy of the report
http://1.usa.gov/t4MU44
K-12 Cuts Loom as Deficit Deal Eludes Congress
Education Week
Education advocates and local school officials are nervously eyeing a series of draconian cuts set to hit just about every federal program in 2013—including Title I, special education, and other key K-12 priorities—in the wake of a special congressional committee’s failure to come up with long-term recommendations for how to cut the federal deficit.
The U.S. Department of Education, in particular, could see an across-the-board cut of 7.8 percent as of January 2013 under the process created over the summer as a consequence in the event the 12-member Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction, or “supercommittee,” failed to craft a plan for cutting at least $1.2 trillion from the federal deficit over the next 10 years.
For the Education Department, the cuts imposed under the process known as sequestration would amount to a $3.5 billion dip from the fiscal 2011 discretionary budget.
To put that number in perspective, it is more than states get right now for Improving Teacher Quality State Grants, a program that is funded at $2.5 billion, but a little less than the $4 billion competitive grant total for the Race to the Top under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
http://bit.ly/uyrKPc
Minnesota school districts begged; now they borrow
Delay in state aid creates record levels of borrowing to run metro-area schools.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Twenty-six metro school districts — nearly twice as many as last year — are turning to banks to make ends meet, borrowing a total of $382 million this year.
The borrowing blitz by more than 60 percent of metro-area school districts that took part in a survey released Wednesday is being blamed on an unprecedented delay in state funding. It comes in a year when a near-record number of districts statewide asked taxpayers for more money.
While borrowing is up, layoffs and budget cuts are down, illustrating a shift in how school districts are balancing their budgets.
http://www.startribune.com/local/west/134799543.html
STEAM: Experts Make Case for Adding Arts to STEM
Education Week
The acronym STEM—shorthand for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—has quickly taken hold in education policy circles, but some experts in the arts community and beyond suggest it may be missing another initial to make the combination still more powerful. The idea? Move from STEM to STEAM, with an A for the arts.
Although it seems a stretch to imagine STEM will be replaced in education parlance, momentum appears to be mounting to explore ways that the intersection of the arts with the STEM fields can enhance student engagement and learning, and even help unlock creative thinking and innovation.
In fact, federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Education and the National Science Foundation, are helping to fuel work in those areas.
http://bit.ly/tCLHz1
Schools add Internet etiquette, safety to coursework
USA Today
As more students spend large chunks of study and leisure time online, schools across the USA are adding coursework focused on privacy, cyberbullying and electronic plagiarism.
Many schools not only are incorporating Internet safety into lesson plans but also shifting their focus from the pervasive “stranger danger” message typically given to young computer users.
The idea, says Principal Chris Lehmann of Philadelphia’s Science Leadership Academy, is teaching students to be better “digital citizens.” Freshmen at his public high school are required to take a course in how to watch their digital footprint — in other words, to be careful what they say on the Internet.
http://usat.ly/sW3jWb
Survey Shows Nearly All States Can Track Data on Students
Education Week
Nearly all states now have comprehensive data systems that allow them to track students’ academic careers over time, and state officials are starting to dig into using the mountains of information, according to the sixth annual national survey on the subject.
The Data Quality Campaign, a Washington-based nonprofit group that promotes data use in education, released the report Thursday at noon. For the first time, the survey focused on governors’ perspectives on state longitudinal-data systems, as opposed to the systems’ technical capacity.
“Leadership is critical,” said Aimee R. Guidera, the executive director of the campaign, noting that in the past year, Idaho and Maryland “leapfrogged many states that had been building along slowly,” thanks to statewide data-use programs launched by Idaho schools Superintendent Tom Luna and Maryland Gov. Martin J. O’Malley.
http://bit.ly/vq8Sp4
A copy of the survey
http://bit.ly/tAHdhh
Pioneers in teacher prep chart changes in training landscape
Gotham Schools
If the people on a panel Tuesday about teacher preparation didn’t convey the urgency they felt about improving teacher training, then a flash poll of the audience surely did.
More than two-thirds of the audience, made up primarily of young teachers, said they didn’t think their masters degrees had made them better at their jobs, according to electronic votes that were tallied in real time.
With that context, a five-member panel of advocates for alternative certification and training dove into a 90-minute discussion about how traditional theory-driven teacher training had failed the profession, particularly in high-needs urban schools. Research has shown that having a masters degree does not make teachers more effective, and local, state, and federal efforts are underway to re-imagine how teachers are trained.
http://bit.ly/sKMQ5Y
Michele Bachmann reflects on early life in Iowa, takes education questions in Cedar Falls
Des Moines (IA) Register
Cedar Falls, Ia. – Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann’s hour-long speech and question-and-answer session on education at the University of Northern Iowa on Wednesday can be summed up in two words.
Local control.
In question after question from a largely student crowd here, Bachmann denied a role for the federal government in education policy, arguing instead that such issues should be decided by communities and families and funded at the state and local level.
“You need to insist on the priorities that are important for your district,” Bachmann said of parents and local community members. “You can do that when you engage in local control. You cannot do that when the federal government is calling the shots from far-away Washington D.C.”
Among the issues that came up – and which Bachmann said her administration would push to the local level – were K-12 programming and funding, early childhood education, higher-education funding, arts and music education and decisions over teaching evolution and so-called “intelligent design” theories on the origin of life.
Bachmann’s position on intelligent design was tested in a series of questions from the audience.
While emphasizing that she didn’t have a platform position on the issue – since she believed it wasn’t something the federal government and president should be involved in – Bachmann said her religious beliefs informed her scientific views and that sufficient questions have been raised concerning evolution to justify alternative theories to be discussed in science classes.
“I do believe that God created the earth and I believe that there are issues that need to be addressed – the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the issue of irreducible complexity, the dearth of fossil record,” she said. “Those are all very real issues that should be addressed in science classes.”
Not allowing ideas like intelligent design to be discussed in science classes amounted to government censorship, she said.
http://dmreg.co/uOYkbL
Subtracting calculators adds to children’s maths abilities, says minister
National curriculum review to look at use of calculators in primary schools amid concerns students are too reliant on them
(Manchester) Guardian
Calculators may be restricted in primary schools until children have mastered basic arithmetic including knowing times tables by heart, a minister has said.
The use of calculators will be looked at as part of a national curriculum review, after the schools minister, Nick Gibb, expressed concern that children’s mental and written arithmetic was suffering because of reliance on the devices.
Gibb said: “Children can become too dependent on calculators if they use them at too young an age. They shouldn’t be reaching for a gadget every time they need to do a simple sum.
“They need to master addition, subtraction, times tables and division, using quick, reliable written methods. This rigour provides the groundwork for the more difficult maths they will come across later in their education.”
http://bit.ly/sMBU3T
Arlington High School bans dances over alcohol, suggestive dancing
Boston Globe
Arlington High School administrators have suspended school dances because an increasing number of students are drinking alcohol and dancing inappropriately at the school functions.
Mary Villano, the interim principal at the school, sent a newsletter to parents Monday saying the moratorium will be in place until administrators can address growing concerns about behavior at the dances.
“It’s at the point where we’re worried something tragic will happen,’’ Villano said.
http://bo.st/tyVhHN
Recent Comments