Education News Roundup: Sept. 17, 2012

Today’s Top Picks:

D-News and KSL profile Ogden’s Dee School turnaround.
http://goo.gl/fsfUP (DN)
and http://goo.gl/KxsDp (KSL)

Small glitch at UEN gets fixed quickly.
http://goo.gl/tOcRj (SLT)
and http://goo.gl/PA0V0 (DN)
and http://goo.gl/z3M1f (PDH)
and http://goo.gl/tU0ST (KTVX)
and http://goo.gl/7bthn (KSL)
and http://goo.gl/9E9pb (SF Chronicle)

Standard looks at dual immersion at the junior high level.
http://goo.gl/FkBz3 (OSE)

What do great expectations mean (and ENR is NOT talking about Dickens; ENR never tries to talk about Dickens)?
http://goo.gl/xd9nO (NPR)
and http://goo.gl/6AbVa (Ed Week)

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TODAY’S HEADLINES

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UTAH

Ogden schools see dramatic spike in student proficiency scores

Computer glitch allowed Utah students to change scores Education » Few students cheated after accessing state database, and schools know who they are.

Social studies and foreign language team up in junior highs in Davis County

Art immersion project takes students through Utah history Granger High program will lead to creation of a student-inspired mural.

Students better security than cameras, Top of Utah officials say

Utah legislators question superintendent selection process

State’s largest district has smoothest opening ever

Coaches lean on the Internet for watching film Prep football » Software allows coaches to monitor how much film each player watches.

Students take anti-bullying messages to heart

The Tri School Trot: Kids raise $35,000 by running laps

Oh, My Aching Back! Business, Education Alliance Creates Rescue Backboard to Protect EMTs

DSC seeks funds to buy East Elementary

School district would use money for new school

Map: How much do your local teachers earn?

OPINION & COMMENTARY

Superintendent search: Find a proven champion for choice and accountability

Sell East Elementary

The Constitution’s well-kept secret

Beehives and Buffalo Chips

Fixing No Child Left Behind

Teacher evaluations and test scores: Let’s start debating how to do it right

Americans Think Teachers Unions are Bad for Public Education

Teachers may strike for reasons other than money

Principal was wrong

Logan schools job not worth it

In Search of Excellent Teaching

Are We Asking Too Much From Our Teachers?

White House Outlines Impact of Looming Sequestration Cuts

Romney Campaign Announces ‘Educators For Romney’

Top grads want to teach. Why don’t they get hired?

Not So Hot for Teacher

Teaching ate me alive

Angry students, selfish parents, incompetent administrators. Was I too smart for a public classroom — or too dumb?

Critique of Study of Voucher Impact on College Enrollment Misguided

Why It’s Never Mattered That America’s Schools ‘Lag’ Behind Other Countries

NATION

Teachers’ Expectations Can Influence How Students Perform

Two Versions of ‘Common’ Test Eyed by State Consortium State consortium to offer long, short versions of test

Chicago’s Emanuel goes to court over teachers strike

Startup Hopefuls Test Ideas With Educators

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UTAH NEWS

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Ogden schools see dramatic spike in student proficiency scores

OGDEN — Last year, Dee Elementary School in Ogden had the worst student proficiency scores in Utah.

In all, five Ogden School District elementary schools claimed spots in the bottom 10 worst performing schools in the state.

Not any more.

In just one year, the percentage of students proficient in language arts – based on the state’s Criterion-Referenced Tests, or CRTs – has increased by double-digits in Ogden’s worst-performing schools. Scores in math and science still lag, but showed modest gains as student literacy in the district improved.

The state’s school-specific CRT reports will not be finalized until November, but the jump in language proficiency should knock at least four Ogden schools out of the “bottom 10″ designation they’ve held for years.

http://goo.gl/fsfUP (DN)
http://goo.gl/KxsDp (KSL)

Computer glitch allowed Utah students to change scores Education » Few students cheated after accessing state database, and schools know who they are.

A few hundred Utah students on Tuesday got an unexpected opportunity to not only see their fellow students’ assignment scores online, but change those scores as well as their own.

Utah education officials say the glitch in the state’s Canvas learning-management platform resulted in only a few changes, which were quickly fixed.

They stressed the incident was not caused by hackers, but by a software malfunction that has been repaired. No data appear to have been downloaded, and the exposure was limited to names and grades.

http://goo.gl/tOcRj (SLT)
http://goo.gl/PA0V0 (DN)
http://goo.gl/z3M1f (PDH)
http://goo.gl/tU0ST (KTVX)
http://goo.gl/7bthn (KSL)
http://goo.gl/9E9pb (SF Chronicle)

Social studies and foreign language team up in junior highs in Davis County

FARMINGTON — The first round of Davis School District students who graduated from Spanish immersion programs at Eagle Bay Elementary School in Farmington and Sands Springs Elementary in Layton is now leading the way into junior high with a new immersion curriculum at Farmington Junior High and Legacy Junior High in Layton.

Moving the program into junior high school has been a huge undertaking for the district, given that the school day is set up entirely differently in seventh grade.

“We’ve gone from a 50/50 model in elementary school with a language-speaking teacher half-day to now just two classes that are immersion,” said Bonnie Flint, Davis School District world languages supervisor.

Seventh-grade students take physical education, English, keyboarding, band and different levels of math, most of which are not conducive to being taught in a foreign language. The district decided to set up the curriculum for social studies to go along with the language class, which is set up similarly to an English language arts class to prepare them for Advanced Placement Spanish in ninth grade.
http://goo.gl/FkBz3 (OSE)

Art immersion project takes students through Utah history Granger High program will lead to creation of a student-inspired mural.

Richfield » Native-American storyteller Dovie Thomason stood beside an iron gate separating her from a cave filled with ancient treasure. At the Cave of a Hundred Hands in Fremont Indian State Park, she reached her own hand through the bars and compared it to a slender-fingered print so similar she realized it could be hers.

“There were human beings here,” said Thomason, who accompanied a group of Granger High students from West Valley City to the site earlier this month.

The renowned storyteller described her experience at the cave as humbling, and said she could almost feel the gratitude emanating from people who lived a 1,000 years ago in the harsh red landscape of southern Utah.

Thomason and muralist Lee Madrid, along with other artists and educators at Granger High and the Center for Documentary Expression and Art, want to remove the iron gates that keep 21st-century students from learning about their ancient Utah neighbors.
http://goo.gl/JoUZK (SLT)

Students better security than cameras, Top of Utah officials say

It’s the eyes that count when it comes to safe schools, officials say.

“When you have 2,000 kids, you have 2,000 sets of eyes, and that’s better than all the cameras you can install,” said Christopher Williams, spokesman for Davis School District.

The district has installed cameras inside and outside of many of its schools, as well as in many of the buses. These security cameras help, but it is the students who offer the most help when it comes to security at schools.

It was students who alerted Bountiful High School administrators last spring about two students who had the makings of a “Works” bomb.

The two students did detonate the bombs, but administrators and police knew who to search for after the explosions.
http://goo.gl/v4TH9 (OSE)

Utah legislators question superintendent selection process

SALT LAKE CITY – Four Utah legislators are concerned with the Board of Education’s quick process to select the new superintendent of public education.

Current superintendent Larry Shumway announced his resignation on Sept. 7. The board has opened the position to applicants and plans to make a decision next month.

The legislators issued a statement saying the process is far too quick and may miss some qualified candidates. They worry the board is too concerned about filling the position before the upcoming legislative session.
http://goo.gl/9BZRL (KSTU)

State’s largest district has smoothest opening ever

The most populous school district in Utah had its smoothest opening ever this fall, thanks to some changes.

“It was not a perfect school opening but it was the smoothest start ever,” said administrator Sam Jarvis, reporting to Alpine School District board members recently.
http://goo.gl/92i61 (PDH)

Coaches lean on the Internet for watching film Prep football » Software allows coaches to monitor how much film each player watches.

Russ Jones used to use Super 8 film when reviewing game footage. He remembers splicing up plays by offense or defense, formations and other categories over the course of hours and hours.

When he was done, he might’ve watched the whole game footage three or four times.

The same tasks now are done in minutes. All using a mouse and a keypad.

Ever heard of Hudl? Utah high school football coaches have. And to them, it’s a godsend.

“It makes it really easy to trade film, watch film with the kids, make our own highlight tapes,” said Jones, now the coach at Syracuse. “It saves us just hours and hours.”

Hudl is the latest craze that has made its way to computers in coaches’ offices all over the state. It’s a digital sharing program that allows coaches to splice up film and send it out to players, who can watch it on their own time on their home computers or smartphones.
http://goo.gl/V6kV4 (SLT)

Students take anti-bullying messages to heart

PARK CITY — Thousands of students in Salt Lake and Park Cities are learning to take the lead to prevent bullying, and they are already stepping up to support those who have been bullied.

Secondary students throughout Park City and Salt Lake City are watching the powerful documentary, “Bully,” to learn how to combat a widespread problem. Park City’s police chief, who will be honored Friday night for his bully prevention programs, is encouraged the problem is finally getting broad attention.

http://goo.gl/cNHY6 (DN)
http://goo.gl/5UbMw (PDH)
http://goo.gl/CKSQ9 (KTVX)
http://goo.gl/Auypq (KSL)

The Tri School Trot: Kids raise $35,000 by running laps

SMITHFIELD — As a horde of anxious young kids lined up for the beginning of the Tri School Trot, the DJ’s voiced blared over the intercom system: “On your mark, get set, go!” At that moment, the swarm of children in brightly colored T-shirts raced off, running as fast as their legs could take them.

The Tri School Trot is the annual fundraiser for the PTAs of Sunrise, Birch Creek and Summit elementaries — all in Smithfield.
http://goo.gl/uLi0g (LHJ)

Oh, My Aching Back! Business, Education Alliance Creates Rescue Backboard to Protect EMTs

A new Utah startup company has hit a major milestone – the delivery of their first order for a product designed to protect the health of emergency medical technicians (EMTs), firefighters and other first responders.

EZ Lift Rescue Systems delivered its first round of backboard rescue systems to the Sandy Fire Department on Wednesday, Sept. 12, making Sandy the first Utah agency to use the system in the field. The event featured members of the EZ Lift team, Zien Medical Technologies, Granite School District, the BioInnovations Gateway (BiG), the Utah Science Technology and Research initiative (USTAR), and representatives from the media.
http://goo.gl/ySHUP (UP)

DSC seeks funds to buy East Elementary

School district would use money for new school

ST. GEORGE — Dixie State College officials asked the state’s higher education policy makers Thursday to approve funding that would allow the college to buy East Elementary School from the Washington County School District.

DSC Vice President of Administrative Services Stan Plewe made the request on behalf of the school at the state Board of Regents meeting in Logan during a session that addressed Capital Development Projects for the 2013-2014 fiscal year.
http://goo.gl/ZOMmF (SGS)

Map: How much do your local teachers earn?

Our take: Utah teachers are paid an average $37,000 to $52,000, according to an article from Mother Jones. How are Utah teacher’s average pay compared to the Chicago teacher on strike and other teachers across the nation? Dave Gilson, Tasneem Raja and Jaeah Lee of Mother Jones analyze American teacher’s pay:

“The Chicago teacher strike has resurrected the question at the center of much edupontification: Are American teachers underpaid or overpaid?

“For some perspective, we’ve compiled data on the average wages of elementary-school, middle-school, and high school teachers in more than 300 metropolitan areas. As you’ll see, most teachers make more than $45,320, the average yearly wage for all occupations tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yet the range of what they earn varies widely: Elementary-school teachers in Jefferson City, Missouri, earn an average of $37,090; their colleagues in Long Island, New York, earn an average of $90,560.”
http://goo.gl/UdC1K (DN)
http://goo.gl/TTym9 (Mother Jones)

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OPINION & COMMENTARY

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Investing in Utah’s children

Deseret News editorial

Doing more with less has always been one of Utah’s signature virtues. But even frugality reaches diminishing returns.

As Utah’s economy slowly recovers from the Great Recession, it is time to talk candidly about structural solutions to Utah’s grave education issues, where a dollar saved can mean a dollar wasted by forgoing critical investments in our children’s future.

On a per-child basis, Utah invests less in its schoolchildren than any other state in the country. Utah spent just over $6,000 per pupil compared to a national average of $10,615 according to the latest figures on public education finance from the U.S. Department of Education.

In the not-too-distant past, the question for fiscally prudent law-makers was whether it made sense to invest additional funds in education when Utah was already collecting about as much educational revenue, on a proportional basis, as any other state in the nation, and the public education system was delivering better than average results.

But as we look to the future, merely average performance nationally is not an acceptable return on our educational investment. Utah’s educational results trail those of peer states in reading, math and science, according to the Utah Foundation.
http://goo.gl/OUguA

Sell East Elementary

(St. George) Spectrum editorial

Dixie State College is land-locked and needs to find creative ways to expand its campus footprint. The Washington County School District needs a new elementary school more centrally located in the center part of St. George.

Those two goals — when put together — make a proposal given last week to the state’s higher education policymakers not only logical, but one that deserves support among members of the St. George community and the Legislature.
http://goo.gl/daoA3

The Constitution’s well-kept secret

(Provo) Daily Herald editorial

Constitution Day is designated every year on Sept. 17, and federal law requires that public schools focus on the topic.

Unfortunately, a provision of the Constitution that is extraordinarily important has not been emphasized by educators. As a result, many in America today either don’t know of this provision’s existence or fear its use.

It is found in Article V of the document and describes the ultimate power of the American people, acting through their state governments, to control virtually everything the federal government does — from runaway spending, to federal interference, to taxes, to energy development, to education grants, to … you name it.

Everything. Literally. The states, acting on behalf of the people, have the right — and the unchallenged power — to reshape the federal government any way they want.

Did you know this?
http://goo.gl/8zdww

Beehives and Buffalo Chips

(Provo) Daily Herald editorial

Beehive to Donna Warnock for teaching hunter safety through the Nebo School District Community School Program to help Utah reduce hunting accidents. Warnock is one of a team of volunteer hunter safety teachers in Utah County. Anyone age 12 and up can participate.
http://goo.gl/5mWtK

Fixing No Child Left Behind

(Provo) Daily Herald op-ed by Jeanne Whitmore, founder and CEO of an American Fork charter school, Aristotle Academy

Just as you became used to the federally-mandated No Child Left Behind reporting of school performance — UPASS and AYP — it is being discontinued. That is right: The dreaded Adequate Yearly Progress reports that everyone predicted schools would fail, making them all but meaningless, are going away.

AYP reports showed if students were proficient based on the Utah Criterion-referenced tests, or CRT. The reports broke down the proficiency into groups based on economic and ethnic demographics. As the requirements were getting harder and harder to meet, educational leaders predicted that all schools would fail in two to three years, even the best schools. The Utah Performance Assessment System for Students report showed the progress of students as well as their proficiency.

Both of these reports are now going to be replaced by one report that shows a combination of proficiency and progress.
http://goo.gl/JNq39

Teacher evaluations and test scores: Let’s start debating how to do it right Deseret News commentary by columnist Mary McConnell

Since I don’t have any kids in the Chicago public school system, I can afford to be grateful to striking teachers and a recalcitrant mayor for giving needed publicity to a very important education reform issue: using student results to evaluate teachers.

One of the comments on this blog really captured my own sentiments: Teachers and administrators need to stop fighting about whether data about student performance should be one of the tools used to evaluate teachers and schools, and start working together to improve these tools and to figure out how they can help teachers strengthen their performance.
http://goo.gl/CDWzj

Americans Think Teachers Unions are Bad for Public Education Utah Policy commentary by columnist Bryan Schott

Wow. Most Americans think teachers unions hurt the quality of public education.

Reason.com looks at Gallup polling about how Americans view teachers unions and finds a rising number think they are bad for public education http://goo.gl/qzlKQ

Teachers may strike for reasons other than money

(Ogden) Standard-Examiner letter from Gary Dohrer

I was very disappointed in the simplistic analysis of the Chicago teachers’ strike by the Standard Examiner’s editorial board (Sept. 13 editorial, “Chicago teacher’s strike illogical). To take several very complex issues concerning the future of education in Chicago and reduce it to one, money, and suggest that the teachers were being greedy is not only unfair, but an insult to many well-intentioned, hard-working, dedicated teachers. But, more importantly, it is a disservice to the readers of this newspaper. Sometimes teachers strike over things other than money.

Sometimes those issues are about the welfare of their students and their beliefs about the conditions they consider necessary for teaching and learning. I believe the editorial board of the Standard-Examiner owes the newspaper’s readers an apology for offering them a distorted view of the issues involved.
http://goo.gl/LlYb5

Principal was wrong

Salt Lake Tribune letter from Stuart McDonald

Re “Parent calls ‘fowl’ on Chick-fil-A partnership with Draper school” (Tribune, Sept. 11):

A local Chick-fil-A has partnered with Draper Elementary School to hold fundraisers. Some parents oppose the project because of the anti-gay views of and massive donations to anti-gay hate groups by Chick-fil-A’s owners and top executives — all from sales revenues.

These groups don’t just oppose gay marriage. They slander lesbians and gay, bisexual and transgender persons on a regular basis and fight against rights for LGBT people.

Draper Elementary School principal Kenna Sorensen must have known about the recent controversy over Chick-fil-A before she entered into this partnership. It’s a slap in the face to LGBT people, their committed and loving relationships, their families and to their rights.
http://goo.gl/d8Ym1

Logan schools job not worth it

(Logan) Herald Journal letter from Katherine Luke

I am writing to convey a disconcerting experience I had under the employ of Logan School District. I was hired as a computer specialist at an elementary school. Computer skills are important, because the majority of the mandatory state tests are administered via computers, and because students lack keyboarding skills, scores are skewed low. Safe to say, I only stayed a week due to multiple factors which I will relay to you, and which should concern anyone who has children that attend public school, or any of those who care about the welfare of teachers.

The main factor that influenced my decision to discontinue the specialist position was class size. As a specialist I had an average of 33 students per class for 30 minutes of instruction time. That is less than one minute per student to answer questions, encourage, keep on task, and monitor student activity. Unfortunately, the majority of the time was spent with discipline, or fixing computer glitches. Little to no teaching occurred, it was simply crowd control.
http://goo.gl/aT7LO

In Search of Excellent Teaching

New York Times editorial

The Chicago teachers’ strike was prompted in part by a fierce disagreement over how much student test scores will weigh in a new teacher evaluation system mandated by state law. That teachers’ unions in much of the country now agree that student achievement should count in evaluations at all reflects a major change from the past, when it was often argued that teaching was an “art” that could not be rigorously evaluated or, even more outrageously, that teachers should not be held accountable for student progress.

Traditional teacher evaluations often consist of cursory classroom visits by principals who declare nearly every teacher good, or at least competent, even in failing schools where few if any children meet basic educational standards.

As a result of this system, bad things can happen.
http://goo.gl/oJu4j

Are We Asking Too Much From Our Teachers?

New York Times op-ed by ALEX KOTLOWITZ, a producer of the documentary “The Interrupters.”

THE Chicago teachers’ strike, which appears to be winding down, may be seminal, but for reasons that are not necessarily apparent. It came as a surprise. In July, the city had agreed to hire more teachers to accommodate a longer school day. Last Sunday, the city agreed to a substantial pay raise. The following day, teachers walked off their jobs for the first time since 1987. The union’s president, Karen Lewis, complained at a news conference about the lack of air-conditioning in schools and the new teacher evaluation system, which seemed rather flimsy reasons for some 26,000 teachers to abandon their posts.

Not only was the public confused, but so were the union’s members. One teacher told me last week that if you asked 30 of his colleagues why they were striking, you’d get 30 different answers. Their explanations varied: the teachers wanted respect, they opposed school reform, they feared the privatization of education (in the form of charter schools), they wanted to teach Mayor Rahm Emanuel a lesson. But I believe something else has been going on here, something much more profound.

“Reform of teacher tenure,” Paul Tough writes in a new book, “How Children Succeed,” has become “the central policy tool in our national effort to improve the lives of poor children.” Are we expecting too much of our teachers? Schools are clearly a critical piece — no, the critical piece — in any anti-poverty strategy, but they can’t go it alone. Nor can we do school reform on the cheap. In the absence of any bold effort to alleviate the pressures of poverty, in the absence of any bold investment in educating our children, is it fair to ask that the schools — and by default, the teachers — bear sole responsibility for closing the economic divide? This is a question asked not only in Chicago, but in virtually every urban school district around the country.
http://goo.gl/YAZR9

White House Outlines Impact of Looming Sequestration Cuts Education Week commentary by columnist Alyson Klein

All summer, folks in Washington have been wondering just how that series of planned, across-the-board budget cuts, known by the wonky, catchy name of “sequestration,” would impact education programs. And, finally, the Office of Management of Budget, the White House’s green-eyeshade arm, has released a list detailing just what the cuts would be and which programs they would effect.

The bad news: The White House is estimating that almost every program in the U.S. Department of Education would be cut by 8.2 percent. That’s actually a bit higher than some folks had thought.
http://goo.gl/R0Hya

A copy of the report
http://goo.gl/TSh2R

Romney Campaign Announces ‘Educators For Romney’

Education Week commentary by columnist Alyson Klein

GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney already has a team of education advisers that includes some prominent names. Now his campaign has assembled a new posse of “national education leaders” who will “lead an effort to coordinate support for Mitt Romney and his bold education reforms that will put students first,” in press-release speak.

We’ll have to see what that actually translates to in terms of the real campaign, but everyone on the list is from a swing state—Virginia is especially well represented.

And the list includes a lot of state education board members. There are also a bunch of state lawmakers who have worked as classroom teachers or administrators.
http://goo.gl/cZHhN

Top grads want to teach. Why don’t they get hired?

USA Today op-ed by Richard Whitmire, co-author of The Achievable Dream: College Board Lessons on Creating Great Schools

If and when students in Chicago are headed back to school, parents, teachers, worried politicians and union leaders shouldn’t be smiling.

The fight to upgrade the quality of the nation’s teaching force has just begun. Years from now, the Chicago strike most likely will be viewed as a canary-in-the-coal-mine incident.

The awkward fact is that teaching in America has become a quasi blue-collar profession mostly shunned by top college graduates. The countries with the best education systems recruit from top graduates. What about our top graduates? A good barometer is Teach for America (TFA), which in 2011 drew nearly 48,000 applicants for 5,200 teaching positions. Those applicants included 12% of the seniors at Ivy League schools.

Here’s the question that never gets asked: What happens to the 43,000 top graduates who wanted to teach but didn’t get an offer from TFA? Nearly all seek other careers.
http://goo.gl/k5jn9

Not So Hot for Teacher

New York Times Magazine commentary by columnist ELIZABETH ALSOP

In his State of the Union address in 2011, President Obama made a point of applauding the nation’s teachers and exhorted Americans to do the same. “In South Korea,” Obama reminded us, “teachers are known as ‘nation builders.’ . . . It’s time we treated the people who educate our children with the same level of respect.”

Out in TV land, however, we’ve been receiving a different message. In the past few years, viewers saw teachers turning tricks (“Hung”), dealing drugs (“Breaking Bad”) and taunting overweight students (“The Big C”). All, of course, while not teaching. In the opening episode of “The Big C,” a student in Cathy Jamison’s summer-school course asks, “Are you going to teach us anything today?”

“Have I ever taught you anything, really?” Jamison counters, before queuing up a DVD and returning to her online shopping.
http://goo.gl/BA8Bm

Teaching ate me alive

Angry students, selfish parents, incompetent administrators. Was I too smart for a public classroom — or too dumb?

Salon.com commentary by Peter Hirzel, a teacher and artist in Los Angeles

It wasn’t one single incident that made me quit teaching in a public middle school. It was the steady, moldy accumulation of dehumanizing, lifeless, squalid misadventures of which I was a part. Like that time with “Carlos,” to pick an incident more or less at random.

I can’t even remember what it was that happened between Carlos and me. Anger, impatience, frustration, stupidity — and that was just me. Probably just another student who categorically refused to do as he was perfectly reasonably asked — open a book, pick up a pencil, hand in homework — or a teacher’s ineffectual attempts to come up with any good reason at all to learn the Pythagorean Theorem, or some such timeless knowledge. OK! Let’s say you have a ladder leaning against a wall. Suffice to say, our “conversation” ended without closure. But, evidently I said something that upset Carlos.

The next day I saw my friend the Dean of Students. He told me that he ran into Carlos’ father and a couple of his uncles; they were looking for my classroom. They had baseball bats. I am not the coach of the baseball team. There is no baseball team. In fact, there are no teams at all.

My friend the Dean of Students had diplomatically suggested that Carlos’ father and a couple of his uncles accompany him to his office, where the matter could be discussed at leisure.
http://goo.gl/grQi7

Critique of Study of Voucher Impact on College Enrollment Misguided Education Next commentary by Matthew M. Chingos and Paul E. Peterson (Matthew Chingos is a fellow in the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution. Paul E. Peterson is the Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government and Director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University.)

We recently released a study that shows that school vouchers in New York City had a positive impact on the college enrollment rate for African-American students but not among Hispanic students. We think the study is important because it provides the first experimental estimate of the impact of vouchers on college enrollment.

The National Education Policy Center has just released a critique of our study by Sara Goldrick-Rab of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Several of the issues raised by Goldrick-Rab have no merit and none undermine the primary conclusion of our study: The voucher intervention in New York City increased the college enrollment rates of African-American students. Below are responses to the primary criticisms raised in the review:
http://goo.gl/DkhZ3

Why It’s Never Mattered That America’s Schools ‘Lag’ Behind Other Countries Forbes commentary by columnist James Marshall Crotty

In his Sunday TechCrunch post, Why It’s Never Mattered That America’s Schools ‘Lag’ Behind Other Countries, Gregory Ferenstein publicly raises the question that many of us have privately asked: are the abysmal U.S. rankings in global tests of academic excellence that big a deal?

Ferenstein’s intriguing answer is an unequivocal no. Here’s why.

First, the U.S. has never ranked at the top of global tests of academic excellence. Yet, according to Ferenstein, this has never mattered in our economic success. This is because, notes Ferenstein, “Research has consistently shown that on nearly every measure of education (instructional hours, class size, enrollment, college preparation), what students learn in school does not translate into later life success. The United States has an abundance of the factors that likely do matter: access to the best immigrants, economic opportunity, and the best research facilities.”

Secondly, adds Ferenstein, “while Chinese students, on average, have twice the number of instructional hours as Americans, both countries have identical scores on tests of scientific reasoning.” Ferenstein infers that the ability to reason, or creatively think about problems, is the key to innovation. And innovation is the signature hallmark of U.S. economic dominance.
http://goo.gl/1AuXG

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NATIONAL NEWS

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Teachers’ Expectations Can Influence How Students Perform NPR Morning Edition

In my Morning Edition story today, I look at expectations — specifically, how teacher expectations can affect the performance of the children they teach.

The first psychologist to systematically study this was a Harvard professor named Robert Rosenthal, who in 1964 did a wonderful experiment at an elementary school south of San Francisco.

The idea was to figure out what would happen if teachers were told that certain kids in their class were destined to succeed, so Rosenthal took a normal IQ test and dressed it up as a different test.
http://goo.gl/xd9nO
http://goo.gl/6AbVa (Ed Week)

Two Versions of ‘Common’ Test Eyed by State Consortium State consortium to offer long, short versions of test Education Week

St. Louis – An unprecedented assessment project involving half the states is planning a significant shift: Instead of designing one test for all of them, it will offer a choice of a longer and a shorter version. The pivot came in response to some states’ resistance to spending more time and money on testing for the common standards.

The plan under discussion here last week among state education chiefs of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium represents the collision of hope and reality, as states confront what is politically and fiscally palatable and figure out how that squares with the more in-depth­—and potentially more valuable—approach to testing promised by the consortium.

“There is the dream, and there’s real life,” said one state assessment director attending the meeting. “We’re trying to bridge the two the best we can.”

The evolving two-pronged approach would give states the option of using a version of the Smarter Balanced test whose multiple sessions and classroom activities span nearly 6½ hours in grades 3-5, close to seven hours in grades 6-8, and eight hours in high school, or the group’s original version, which lasts about four hours longer in grades 3-8 and about five hours longer in high school.
http://goo.gl/ByUtG

Chicago’s Emanuel goes to court over teachers strike Reuters

CHICAGO – The confrontation between striking teachers and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel moved to court on Monday where lawyers for the mayor sought to stop the walkout in President Barack Obama’s home city just weeks before the November 6 election.

Lawyers for Chicago Public Schools filed a complaint in circuit court against the Chicago Teachers Union seeking a preliminary injunction “to end the strike immediately” citing two reasons: danger to “public health and safety” of the students and alleged violation of Illinois state law that prohibits strikes except for wages and benefits.

“State law expressly prohibits the CTU from striking over non-economic issues, such as layoff and recall policies, teacher evaluations, class sizes and the length of the school day and year. The CTU’s repeated statements and recent advertising campaign have made clear that these are exactly the subjects over which the CTU is striking,” the school district said in a statement.

It was not clear when the court would schedule a hearing on the complaint, but lawyers expected one later on Monday.

http://goo.gl/pl1b2
http://goo.gl/D8mOF (AP)
http://goo.gl/xjn9I (Ed Week)

Startup Hopefuls Test Ideas With Educators Education Week

Palo Alto, Calif. – Mandela Schumacher-Hodge, a former public school teacher and Ph.D. candidate in urban schooling, stood on the stage in a small auditorium in the America Online offices here one recent afternoon as three Silicon Valley investors told her how to best communicate with teachers.

It was a dress rehearsal for the next day, when the auditorium would be filled with 100 teachers and school administrators. They would watch Ms. Schumacher-Hodge pitch the education company she recently founded­—Tioki, a LinkedIn-style professional network for educators—along with 10 other entrepreneurs.

The event, called “educator day,” is one of the most important and nerve-racking for the people taking part in Imagine K12, the biggest incubator program in the United States specifically for education technology startups.
http://goo.gl/QQj0w

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CALENDAR

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USOE Calendar
http://tinyurl.com/5x9oh9

UEN News
http://www.uen.org

September 18:
Executive Appropriations Interim Committee meeting
1 p.m., 445 State Capitol
http://le.utah.gov/Interim/2012/html/00002001.htm

September 19:
Education Interim Committee meeting
2 p.m., 30 House Building
http://le.utah.gov/Interim/2012/html/00001827.htm

October 5:
Utah State Board of Education meeting
250 E. 500 South, Salt Lake City
http://www.schools.utah.gov/board/Meetings/Agenda.aspx

October 11:
Utah State Charter School Board meeting
250 E. 500 South, Salt Lake City
http://1.usa.gov/Axtt5K

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