“School Library” by Seniwati/CC/flickr
Today’s Top Picks:
Utah Comprehensive Accountability System data on schools released.
http://goo.gl/oWxCG (OSE)
and http://goo.gl/YPM6I (USOE)
or http://goo.gl/Qo0RL (Links to individual school reports and a spreadsheet of all schools)
KUTV reports on, and Lt. Governor Bell writes about, the last meeting in 2012 of the Governor’s Education Excellence Commission.
http://goo.gl/5lUUk (KUTV)
and http://goo.gl/yZI73 (UP)
Utah Foundation looks at the state’s rural schools.
http://goo.gl/1UzoK (UP)
and http://goo.gl/qfqX9 (KCPW)
or a copy of the report
http://goo.gl/AD6Fk (Utah Foundation)
Ed Week looks at dual immersion in Utah and Delaware
http://goo.gl/g2qMV (Ed Week)
Tragedy at Bennion Junior High.
http://goo.gl/xi5WK (SLT)
and http://goo.gl/oDsV7 (DN)
and http://goo.gl/WoXLC (OSE)
and http://goo.gl/bfHUL (PDH)
and http://goo.gl/vC2LE (CVD)
and http://goo.gl/CBgjR (KUTV)
and http://goo.gl/yv7BU (KTVX)
and http://goo.gl/rqpGW (KSL)
and http://goo.gl/DJW1L (KSTU)
Idaho will consider tuition tax credits.
http://goo.gl/HAOoG (AP via Idaho Statesman)
Are guidance counselors underutilized?
http://goo.gl/QKrWK (USN&WR)
or a copy of the report
http://goo.gl/tDRKj (College Board)
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
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UTAH
Most Davis elementaries below average in test scores
Utah Educators Make Funding Wish List, Have High Hopes
Utah Foundation Study Evaluates Rural Schools
Elementary Pupils Immersed in Foreign Language
Utah school mourns teen who killed himself outside campus Fellow students say the teen was often picked on in school.
UHSAA finalizes realignment for next two years Prep sports » Schools switch to six football classifications.
Payson teacher starts school bookstore
Students in Magna getting extra help after school Pleasant Green Elementary » Kids are improving their math and reading skills and turning in homework more frequently.
Students at Layton Junior High get their game on After-school club » Teacher Stephen Olson loves sharing his passion for board games.
Skyhawk Smackdown hosts 700 debate entries
Rowland Hall student to visit D.C. to learn about public service careers International relations » Austen Van Burns wants to pursue a career as an ambassador.
Cache County fifth-graders simulate congressional hearing to learn about government
Area high school students get a Reality Check
Weber School District celebrates success of student interns
Work starts on first public middle school in Draper Closer to home » Building will allow many students to walk to school.
Students learn to be leaders in Jordan School District Leader in Me » Program is based on book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Student wears black dress to create awareness for child trafficking
Pleasant Grove elementary students walk for rewards
Signing Santa delights kids from school for deaf
Davis High Key Club decorates at Apple Tree
Children to help decorate governor’s mansion
Teacher disciplined for inappropriate touching
Mismatch between jobs and workers stems from ‘education gap’ not a ‘skills gap’
Most Britons support teaching of Christianity in school, poll says
OPINION & COMMENTARY
Radical thinking needed to improve Utah’s graduation rates
Stopping disease
Education Excellence
A simple plan to increase Utah graduation rates
States’ Inability to Share Data Seen as Creating Knowledge Gaps
Citing Lack of Common-Core Alignment, Louisiana Poised to Delay Textbook Adoption
Do rich and poor parenting styles matter?
Is This Grade School a ‘Cult’? (And Do Parents Care?) Waldorf schools are popular with progressives. But how do you feel about a dose of spiritualism with your child’s reading and math?
NATION
Tax break plan could send kids to private schools
Report: High School Guidance Counselors Underutilized Counselors are tasked with clerical duties, stealing their focus from student achievement, experts say.
Not just 4 texting: 1 in 3 middle-schoolers uses smart phones for homework A new survey by the Verizon Foundation finds that middle-schoolers, across income levels, are using mobile apps to learn math, do ‘virtual’ labs, and collaborate with peers on projects.
Testing Group Scales Back Performance Items
Will competition cure Head Start?
Gov. Mitch Daniels claims teachers used illegal tactics to defeat GOP state education chief Tony Bennett
California Targets School Borrowing
Parents of students that skip school could face criminal charges
Pigtails For Peace
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UTAH NEWS
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Most Davis elementaries below average in test scores
FARMINGTON — The new Utah Comprehensive Accountability System shows the majority of Davis School District’s elementary schools have work to do to meet the state’s average.
On Thursday, Dr. Logan Toone, the district’s assessment, research and evaluation director met with media to explain the scores. Those UCAS scores were held for release until Friday morning.
Of the district’s 59 elementary schools, 39 scored below the state average of 435. Of the district’s 16 junior high schools, seven were below the state average of 435. All of the district’s high schools scored above the state’s average of 398.
http://goo.gl/oWxCG (OSE)
http://goo.gl/YPM6I (USOE)
http://goo.gl/Qo0RL (Links to individual school reports and a spreadsheet of all schools)
Utah Educators Make Funding Wish List, Have High Hopes
Utah’s Education Excellence Commission has drawn up a list of things they hope the governor and legislature will fund –and they’re making a plan about Utah’s future.
Most of the money will go to pay for 13,500 more public school students next year than this year received, and for a 1% raise for teachers and college professors. But there’s a little bit of money around the edges they’re hoping to use to improve education and help Utah prosper.
http://goo.gl/5lUUk (KUTV)
Utah Foundation Study Evaluates Rural Schools
A new Utah Foundation research report finds that Utah’s rural students perform better than non-rural students in the core subjects and graduate at a higher rate, but fewer rural students go on to college than their non-rural counterparts.
http://goo.gl/1UzoK (UP)
http://goo.gl/qfqX9 (KCPW)
A copy of the report
http://goo.gl/AD6Fk
Elementary Pupils Immersed in Foreign Language
When it comes to lessons in other tongues, Kevin Fitzgerald, the superintendent of the Caesar Rodney school district in northeastern Delaware, is never at a loss for words.
He speaks with pride about the fact that his district’s high school, Caesar Rodney High School, offers six foreign languages: French, Spanish, German, Latin, and, more recently, Arabic and Mandarin.
This school year, the district introduced a more novel and potentially more effective foreign-language initiative to talk up: a new Chinese-immersion program for 101 kindergartners, which the district plans to offer those children and successive kindergartners through 8th grade.
The immersion program, which provides instruction in math, science, and literacy in Chinese for half a day and in English for the remainder, is one of three such programs funded though Gov. Jack Markell’s recently created World Language Expansion Initiative. The initiative operates with $1.9 million annually from Delaware’s state budget.
…
Foreign-language instruction at the elementary level has been around for decades. Funding from the U.S. Department of State, whose goal was to bolster national security and the economy, served as a catalyst for some of that instruction. Delaware, in fact, is one of the states that has received the federal funding. But Mr. Rivers and others hail Delaware’s initiative and a similar one in Utah as being at the cutting edge of states trying to bring more in-depth instruction.
Lynn Fulton-Archer, the education specialist for the immersion program at the Delaware education department, said the initiatives in her state and Utah differ from previous ones at the elementary level in part because the earlier programs were “isolated” and “low intensity.” In those programs, students spend between 30 and 150 minutes a week learning another language, she said, while students in Delaware and Utah get at least 150 minutes of language learning a day.
What’s more, Ms. Fulton-Archer said, the teacher is not an add-on, but, instead, a regular grade-level teacher who teaches both the language and core content.
Utah’s program involves immersion in Chinese, French, Spanish, and Portuguese beginning mostly in 1st grade and university-level coursework in high school. The state plans to establish 100 dual-language programs reaching 30,000 students by 2014.
http://goo.gl/g2qMV
Utah school mourns teen who killed himself outside campus Fellow students say the teen was often picked on in school.
Taylorsville • More than 200 people gathered on the sky bridge Thursday night, candles in hand, for a vigil to remember the boy who had shot himself there hours before.
They remembered the boy, a student at Bennion Junior High School, as a kind, friendly soul, and they denounced the bullying they fear may have led to the suicide near the school’s campus as classes ended Thursday.
Unified Police Lt. Justin Hoyal said the 14-year-old boy died shortly after he was transported in extremely critical condition to Intermountain Medical Center.
http://goo.gl/xi5WK (SLT)
http://goo.gl/oDsV7 (DN)
http://goo.gl/WoXLC (OSE)
http://goo.gl/bfHUL (PDH)
http://goo.gl/vC2LE (CVD)
http://goo.gl/CBgjR (KUTV)
http://goo.gl/yv7BU (KTVX)
http://goo.gl/rqpGW (KSL)
http://goo.gl/DJW1L (KSTU)
UHSAA finalizes realignment for next two years Prep sports » Schools switch to six football classifications.
Utah’s high school athletic classifications and regions are now set for the next two years.
And the Utah High School Activities Association’s board of trustees wrapped it all up before lunch.
It was a relatively placid morning meeting Thursday, as the UHSAA finalized its plan for how the state’s schools will compete in sports for the near future. There were still some frustrations expressed about lost rivalries, travel and a lack of competitive balance, but nothing rivaling two years ago, when passions flared in some of the state’s most prominent schools.
Although the UHSAA was drawing lines for six classifications for football for the first time this year, the process went fairly smoothly. Schools such as Hillcrest and Herriman didn’t get exactly what they hoped for, but most seemed satisfied with the outcome.
http://goo.gl/S8rQb (SLT)
http://goo.gl/ivs5S (DN)
http://goo.gl/ulKMD (OSE)
http://goo.gl/itH6v (PDH)
http://goo.gl/WU7h9 (LHJ)
http://goo.gl/N2g7F (SGS)
http://goo.gl/v6lLw (KSL)
http://goo.gl/IC9Xx (KSTU)
Payson teacher starts school bookstore
PAYSON — As you walk into Stephanie Buhler’s sixth-grade class you will find shelves and more shelves of books for her students to read. Buhler’s love for reading and books gives the students at Wilson Elementary the opportunity to purchase books for a small price. Buhler and her students have transformed an unused classroom into a fun and exciting bookstore.
Dinosaur, princess, alien and sports books are just a few of the offerings you will find at the Wilson Bookstore. The bookstore has new and used books for the students to purchase. Not only is the bookstore providing books for the students, but it is also giving Buhler’s students a chance to learn how a business is run and how to manage money.
“Books are not cheap in most places,” Buhler said. “This provides a resource for students to find books for cheap and call them their own.”
http://goo.gl/FdQKp (PDH)
Students in Magna getting extra help after school Pleasant Green Elementary » Kids are improving their math and reading skills and turning in homework more frequently.
Students are improving their math and reading skills while more home assignments are getting turned in rather than getting lost at Pleasant Green Elementary in Magna.
The positive changes are due in large part to a successful after-school tutoring program.
After being awarded a 21st Century Community Learning Center grant from the Department of Education, Pleasant Green is now in the middle of the first of three years that go along with the grant, and principal Sharon Prescott is already seeing results.
http://goo.gl/6U9M2 (SLT)
Students at Layton Junior High get their game on After-school club » Teacher Stephen Olson loves sharing his passion for board games.
Layton • Growing up, Stephen Olson loved board games — all kinds of board games.
He played them with his family and friends. When he went to college at the University of Utah, he started a board game club with fellow students.
Eventually Olson’s friends gave up board games for girlfriends, wives, children and other activities, and the club died out. But Olson’s love for games never diminished.
Fast forward to 2012, and Olson is a math teacher at North Layton Junior High. It’s his first year on the job, and he discovered there is no math club, so he volunteered to supervise one. He then discovers there is no chess club. It’s one of the few board games he doesn’t love, so he asked his administration if he could have a combination chess and board game club.
They consented.
http://goo.gl/W2hIC (SLT)
Skyhawk Smackdown hosts 700 debate entries
Schools from across the state gathered at Salem Hills High School this month for the fourth annual Skyhawk Smackdown. Seventeen schools, including four from south Utah County — Payson High, Salem Hills, Spanish Fork High and American Leadership Academy — participated in the Smackdown. The Smackdown held 15 events from Lincoln-Douglas and Policy to Character SPAR and News Casting, and had 700 entries in the events. Salem Hills took first place as a school with 91 points. Lone Peak came in second with 74 points and Maeser Prep third with 56 points.
http://goo.gl/y7mB9 (PDH)
Rowland Hall student to visit D.C. to learn about public service careers International relations » Austen Van Burns wants to pursue a career as an ambassador.
The head prefect at Rowland Hall is much more than she seems. Senior Austen Van Burns has a calm demeanor and a smooth, even tone to her voice. Yet, according to her adviser Liz Paige, Van Burns is a fierce debater, a young woman with conviction who can speak passionately on any subject.
It’s one of the reasons Paige nominated Van Burns for the United States Senate Youth Program, held yearly in Washington, D.C., for outstanding students interested in pursuing careers in public service. Van Burns was one of two students chosen from a field of more than 60 from around the state.
http://goo.gl/r1zd1 (SLT)
Cache County fifth-graders simulate congressional hearing to learn about government
SMITHFIELD — Students at Birch Creek Elementary School took on the role of constitutional experts during a simulated congressional hearing Thursday afternoon.
http://goo.gl/FAWhz (LHJ)
Area high school students get a Reality Check
How do you explain the cost of living to kids? The answer is to provide a “Reality Check!” On November 14, students from Kanab High School, Fredonia High School and Valley High School came together in the Fredonia High School gym to go through a simulated game of life.
Each student was assigned an occupation, assuming their age to be 25, provided the monthly salary associated with that occupation, and then sent into the “real world” to obtain housing, transportation, plus other necessities of life such as groceries and child care.
http://goo.gl/BJvnu (SUN)
Weber School District celebrates success of student interns
SOUTH OGDEN — Students, business leaders and educators in Weber School District recently celebrated the success of the district’s work-based learning program.
About 110 juniors and seniors participated in the program — which helps students get a leg up by doing an internship in the field of their desired profession — during the last school quarter.
Those participating in the program had a luncheon at the district offices to share the success of some of the students.
http://goo.gl/7TPbl\ (OSE)
Work starts on first public middle school in Draper Closer to home » Building will allow many students to walk to school.
Crescent View Middle School will have a different view by fall of 2013.
Work commenced on a new school building at 13133 S. 1300 East after a groundbreaking on Oct. 9.
“We were just all ecstatic that the [Canyons] Board of Education and the public would support us in this,” said Greg Leavitt, principal of Crescent View. “Our teachers were really excited.”
Although the new location is about four miles south of the old school, the move means crossing the boundary from Sandy to Draper. Officials say it will be a monumental change for Crescent View because almost 90 percent of the students come from Draper.
http://goo.gl/BRvrM (SLT)
Students learn to be leaders in Jordan School District Leader in Me » Program is based on book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Sure, there’s the mathematics, social studies, reading and writing — all staples of elementary education.
But some Utah schools are asking students to broaden their learning spectrum, adding such things as conflict resolution, proactive thinking and raising social and academic expectations.
Twenty-one schools in the Jordan School District have incorporated the Leader In Me Program into their daily learning. The initiative, inspired by Stephen Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, focuses on transforming the culture of the classroom and beyond.
http://goo.gl/H5gKd (SLT)
Student wears black dress to create awareness for child trafficking
MURRAY — A new report show America’s legal system is failing children who are sexually exploited for money and that includes Utah.
The problem mainly involves the weak laws which the report states don’t do enough to protect victims and adequately punish perpetrators.
Backyard Broadcast is a youth driven anti-child sex trafficking group in Utah. And one student at Cottonwood High School is actively working to create awareness.
16-year-old Madi Palmer talks to roughly five of her peers a day about her black dress.
http://goo.gl/Lgx6e (KSL)
Pleasant Grove elementary students walk for rewards
PLEASANT GROVE — The Pleasant Grove students trickled outside from the lunch cafeteria, found their teacher’s file, picked up their 3-inch square card and immediately began walking or running for the Valley View Walking Club.
Anywhere from 100 to 200 Valley View Elementary students participate in the Tuesday/Thursday exercise program and earn rewards for every four miles — 16 laps of the field — that they complete.
http://goo.gl/oyZ3W (PDH)
Signing Santa delights kids from school for deaf
SALT LAKE CITY — Students of a school for the deaf Thursday visited with a Signing Santa at City Creek Center.
Ninety students from the Jean Massieu School of the Deaf enjoyed an exclusive visit with Signing Santa Claus to share their Christmas wishes. During this time, they were told a story by an ASL signing storyteller by the fireplace, decorated cookies and received a voucher for complimentary prints of their photo with Santa.
http://goo.gl/9hjmb (DN)
http://goo.gl/16V8q (KUTV)
http://goo.gl/UMZvM (KSTU)
Davis High Key Club decorates at Apple Tree
Photos of Davis High School Key Club students putting up Christmas decorations at Apple Tree Retirement Center in Kaysville.
http://goo.gl/Xub00 (OSE)
Children to help decorate governor’s mansion
SALT LAKE CITY – Elementary school students will be joining Utah’s Gov. Gary Herbert and first lady Jeanette Herbert in decorating their mansion for Christmas.
Third and fourth graders from Salt Lake City’s Woodrow Wilson Elementary School are set to help decorate a Christmas tree in the mansion library Thursday morning. They’ll also be performing a skit and singing Christmas carols.
http://goo.gl/T5cMW (KTVX)
http://goo.gl/QWYfP (KSL)
http://goo.gl/VSZwA (KSTU)
Teacher disciplined for inappropriate touching
TAYLORSVILLE Utah – A teacher was cleared of inappropriate touching between himself and students.
But the third grade teacher failed to live up to teacher standards.
ABC 4 News received an anonymous letter from a concerned parent. Her third grade child attends Taylorsville elementary and was not happy with the way Granite School District handled the situation.
http://goo.gl/Lxz7A (KTVX)
Mismatch between jobs and workers stems from ‘education gap’ not a ‘skills gap’
The national unemployment rate lingers around 8 percent while employers in STEM fields — science, technology, engineering and math — struggle to find the highly skilled workers they need.
The Herchinger Report warns of a growing skills gap, but Planet Money’s Adam Davidson argues the only real gap is the difference between employers’ and workers’ wage expectations for skilled labor.
http://goo.gl/TBwym (DN)
Most Britons support teaching of Christianity in school, poll says
Our take: A recent study conducted by Oxford University showed that two-thirds of adults questioned said they support the teaching of Christianity in schools, and two-fifths said teaching about the faith needs more attention in religious education lessons.
http://goo.gl/6xqGM
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OPINION & COMMENTARY
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Radical thinking needed to improve Utah’s graduation rates Deseret News editorial
For Utah, high school graduation figures released by the U.S. Department of Education this week held nothing but bad news.
The worst of that news? If you are a Latino student here, your chances of graduating in the 2010-11 school year were only slightly better than if you were a public school student in Washington, D.C. According to the figures, 43 percent of Latino students in Utah failed to graduate last year. Adjusted numbers show that this rate has improved each year since 2008, but that is hardly cause for celebration. It just means an unacceptably dismal rate was even worse before, and the 7 percent improvement over that time doesn’t come close to fixing the problem.
Overall, 24 percent of Utah high school students didn’t graduate, but the figures show a huge disparity between white and minority students. American Indians or Alaskan native students graduated at levels equal to Latinos, while 39 percent of black students and 28 percent of Asian and Pacific Islander students didn’t graduate.
http://goo.gl/lS53z
Stopping disease
Salt Lake Tribune editorial
Whooping cough is catching on in Utah, and babies are being hit hard because older Utahns haven’t been properly immunized from this preventable disease. Utah data show the rate of infant pertussis infection is five times higher than the state rate, and the state rate is an inexcusable five times higher than the national rate. County and state health departments are taking steps to slow the spread of the disease by requiring unvaccinated children and adults be sent home from schools or day care centers where there is an outbreak. Those who have not been immunized may be eight times more likely to develop pertussis than those who are vaccinated, according to the state health department. And they could infect others. Although Utah requires kindergarteners to have vaccinations against preventable “childhood” diseases, too many parents are granted exemptions. That practice should stop.
http://goo.gl/U2K6J
Education Excellence
Utah Policy commentary by Utah Lt. Governor Greg Bell
Governor Herbert’s Education Excellence Commission (EdEx) concluded its third year of work this week. In 2010 and 2011, the Governor put forward 23 of EdEx’s legislative proposals in his proposed budget. The Legislature funded 22 of these important education initiatives.
Concluding its work for 2012, EdEx’s thirty-five stakeholders this week reviewed in detail and approved the education initiatives and related funding proposed by State Superintendent Martell Menlove for public education, President Rob Brems for Utah College of Applied Technology (UCAT), and Commissioner Dave Buhler for the Utah System of Higher Education.
http://goo.gl/yZI73
A simple plan to increase Utah graduation rates KSL commentary by Flint Stephens, author of “Mormon Parenting Secrets: Time-Tested Methods for Raising Exceptional Children.”
SALT LAKE CITY — Many in the Beehive State were surprised on Nov. 27 when the U.S. Department of Education released statistics that show Utah ranks 32nd in overall high school graduation rates.
One simple change by the Utah Legislature could dramatically improve graduation rates and reduce education costs.
Lawmakers should pass a bill that requires school districts to award a diploma to any student who meets state graduation requirements. Currently, many school districts impose graduation standards that are much stricter than those mandated by the Utah Department of Education.
The state requires students to complete 24 credits of coursework to graduate from high school. Many school districts, however, require up to 28 credits for graduation. While that might not seem like a big difference, it amounts to an extra half year of classes.
http://goo.gl/Vy4Hj
States’ Inability to Share Data Seen as Creating Knowledge Gaps Education Week commentary by columnist Katie Ash
The Data Quality Campaign has released a couplet of reports that explain how states’ inability to share data with each other across state lines creates knowledge gaps for educators, policymakers, parents, and students, as well as suggestions for how to break down the data silos between states.
The first report outlines how three areas of education data are currently obscured because of the lack of data sharing between state lines: high school graduation rates, postsecondary success, and educator preparation programs.
http://goo.gl/vG7aN
Citing Lack of Common-Core Alignment, Louisiana Poised to Delay Textbook Adoption Education Week commentary by columnist Stephen Sawchuk
Louisiana is poised to reject every math and reading textbook submitted by publishers in its most recent adoption cycle, citing concerns that the materials are not fully aligned to the Common Core State Standards’ expectations, state officials announced today.
Though the Pelican State isn’t the first to deal with a textbook-adoption process colliding with the common core, it does appear to be the first time alignment has been cited as a key factor in eschewing an endorsement.
Superintendent John White said in an interview that state reviewers found that the textbooks generally didn’t adequately match the skills measured in preliminary tasks unveiled by the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, one of the two testing consortia designing exams aligned to the common standards.
The decision would effectively delay state adoption of K-2 math textbooks and K-5 English/language arts for several years.
http://goo.gl/CWEZa
Do rich and poor parenting styles matter?
Washington Post commentary by columnist Jay Mathews
Our country prides itself on expanding opportunity. These days, any legal resident fluent in English and willing to work can get a college degree. More low-income and minority students are being welcomed into the most challenging high school courses. The number of minorities in positions of power has grown.
But are we raising our children in ways that best prepare them to reach their potential? It is a ticklish question that is difficult to discuss because it is so personal and so loaded with unexamined stereotypes. Education writers like me often leave it alone and become unsettled when the issue is directly confronted, as it is in education scholar Michael Petrilli’s new book, “The Diverse Schools Dilemma.”
The varying parental styles Petrilli describes may enrich our country with creative differences. We can pick methods that work best for each of us. Or some approaches may deny kids their best chances for satisfying lives. I am not sure, and I suspect many people share my uncertainty.
http://goo.gl/hF8eS
Is This Grade School a ‘Cult’? (And Do Parents Care?) Waldorf schools are popular with progressives. But how do you feel about a dose of spiritualism with your child’s reading and math?
The Atlantic commentary by columnist Emily Chertoff
Would you send your kid to a school where faceless dolls and pine-cones are the toys of choice? A school where kids don’t read proficiently until age 9 or 10 — and where time spared goes to knitting and playing the recorder? A school where students sing hymns to “spirit” every day?
Some of the country’s hardest-charging professionals do. In locations like Manhattan, they sometimes fight over spots for their kids. The New York Times recently profiled a Waldorf school populated with the offspring of executives at Google and Apple. The school attracted notice for minimizing the use of technology in classrooms, a strategy common at Waldorf institutions. But the paper saw a paradox in tech workers favoring a school for their children that prohibits most technologies.
Waldorf’s crunchy earth-child ethos is famous, but the schools’ founder and philosophy are less widely known. Rudolf Steiner’s first Waldorf school predates the hippie era by almost 50 years. Steiner started his career as a Goethe scholar in the late 19th century. But as he became less interested in science and more interested in spirituality, his writing began to take a mystical turn. By the turn of the 20th century, he had become a proponent of theosophy — an esoteric belief system centered on ways of knowing God — and founded a society dedicated to promoting his own brand of “anthroposophical” thinking.
http://goo.gl/kvxLx
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NATIONAL NEWS
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Tax break plan could send kids to private schools Associated Press via (Boise) Idaho Statesman
BOISE, Idaho — Idaho just concluded a bruising debate over reforming public education, with voters rejecting an overhaul proposed by Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna.
Come 2013, the Legislature is likely to discuss another education policy change that was not in Luna’s package but is perhaps just as divisive: Whether to offer tax breaks to those who donate to scholarships to help students attend private and religious schools.
The proposal is similar to one introduced in the waning days of the 2012 Legislature and is being promoted by the Idaho Freedom Foundation, a private foundation linked to economist Milton Friedman and the conservative-leaning American Legislative Exchange Council.
http://goo.gl/HAOoG
Report: High School Guidance Counselors Underutilized Counselors are tasked with clerical duties, stealing their focus from student achievement, experts say.
U.S. News & World Report
School counselors can be a vital piece of the college-readiness puzzle for high school students, but many counselors are bogged down with tasks that don’t allow them to put their skills to work.
“[In] our district, we are typically given every fundraiser, every party committee … any need that there is, counselors are given it,” says Kathy Smallwood, a guidance counselor at Mobile County Public Schools in Alabama.
Nearly 70 percent of high school counselors say they are tasked with administrative and clerical duties, according to a report released Wednesday by the College Board, a nonprofit organization that administers the SAT college entrance exam and oversees the AP program.
http://goo.gl/QKrWK
A copy of the report
http://goo.gl/tDRKj (College Board)
Not just 4 texting: 1 in 3 middle-schoolers uses smart phones for homework A new survey by the Verizon Foundation finds that middle-schoolers, across income levels, are using mobile apps to learn math, do ‘virtual’ labs, and collaborate with peers on projects.
Christian Science Monitor
Move over, Angry Birds. It’s time to tackle a math problem.
A new survey finds that about a third of middle-schoolers now use smart phones or tablets not just for entertainment and communication, but also for homework.
Paired with young people’s interest in science, math, and technology, it’s another sign of the potential for digital learning that educators are slowly beginning to tap.
http://goo.gl/QPw3l
A copy of the survey
http://goo.gl/Yf27p (Verizon Foundation)
Testing Group Scales Back Performance Items Education Week
A group that is developing tests for half the states in the nation has dramatically reduced the length of its assessment in a bid to balance the desire for a more meaningful and useful exam with concerns about the amount of time spent on testing.
The decision by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium reflects months of conversation among its 25 state members and technical experts and carries heavy freight for millions of students, who will be taking it in two years. The group is one of two state consortia crafting tests for the Common Core State Standards with $360 million in federal Race to the Top money.
From an original design that included multiple, lengthy performance tasks, the test has been revised to include only one performance task in each subject—mathematics and English/language arts—and has been tightened in other ways, reducing its length by several hours.
The final blueprint of the assessment, approved by the consortium last week now estimates it will take seven hours in grades 3-5, 7½ hours in grades 6-8, and 8½ hours in grade 11.
http://goo.gl/JRHVh
Will competition cure Head Start?
Hechinger Report
On a sunny afternoon in October, the staff at the Singing River Head Start center in Lucedale, Miss., put on a show. It was Head Start Awareness Month (designated by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s), and they wanted to mark the occasion. Children filed into the hall and watched enthralled as the educational manager, Tina Brown, led her all-female staff in a raucous rendition of a song, “Every Child Should Have a Head Start,” that felt more tent revival than schoolhouse. Hands clapped, feet stomped and the children sang along when they got to the chorus: “Let’s keep Head Start rolling.”
Despite their enthusiasm, the staff here has little reason to celebrate. In late 2011, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), the federal agency that runs the Head Start program, cracked down on Singing River and 131 other centers in the U.S. as part of a new nationwide project to improve the quality of early childhood education. The agency has estimated that every year about one third of Head Start programs being evaluated under new rules will fail to meet a set of quality markers. (The nation’s 1,600 Head Start programs are reviewed every three years, so not every center has been subjected to the new rules yet.) Those falling short, like Singing River, must compete for grants that used to be reissued almost automatically. In December, Singing River will find out whether it will receive more federal funding or if it will be forced to close next year.
The hope is that a jolt of competition will cure some of the problems facing the nearly $8 billion Head Start program, which was started in the 1960s as a preschool program for children living in poverty and now serves about 900,000 low-income children from birth to age five.
http://goo.gl/PBTtk
Gov. Mitch Daniels claims teachers used illegal tactics to defeat GOP state education chief Tony Bennett Indianapolis Star
WASHINGTON — Republican frustration over the election defeat of Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett boiled over into the public this week with Gov. Mitch Daniels claiming at an education reform conference here that teachers used illegal and improper methods to oust Bennett.
“If you’re a fan of anything-goes politics, it was a creative use of illegal — but still creative use — of public resources,” Daniels said Wednesday at a Washington, D.C., meeting of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, a group led by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. “We got emails sent out on school time by people who were supposed to be teaching someone at the time, all about Tony Bennett. We have parents who went to back to school night to find out how little Jebbie is doing and instead they got a diatribe about the upcoming election.”
The head of the state’s biggest statewide teachers union said Daniels is wrong.
“Those accusations are incorrect,” said Nate Schnellenberger, president of the Indiana State Teachers Association. “The governor wasn’t in any schools to see any of those things happen.”
In fact, Schnellenberger said, it was Bennett who filmed a campaign commercial inside a school.
http://goo.gl/FklRJ
California Targets School Borrowing
Wall Street Journal
SAN FRANCISCO—California Treasurer Bill Lockyer Thursday called for overhauls in school districts’ sales of so-called capital-appreciation bonds, saying too many schools are locking themselves into what he described as “terrible deals” with onerous terms such as debt payments of more than 10 times the principal.
Mr. Lockyer, a Democrat, said he has been meeting with legislators, underwriters and bond attorneys in recent weeks. His office has compiled spreadsheets showing that about 200 K-12 schools and community-college districts in California issued billions of dollars of this type of bond over the past five years.
Many districts turned to capital-appreciation bonds, or CABs, after 2009, when the housing bust and recession dried up property-tax receipts the schools depend on.
“It’s the equivalent of payday loans,” Mr. Lockyer said, adding that he plans to push for overhauls when the legislature convenes next week. “They go to voters and say they can build all these facilities with bonds. But as a consequence of that borrowing, they wind up with a huge balloon payment in the later years of borrowing.”
http://goo.gl/YbnVM
http://goo.gl/UQrTq (LAT)
Parents of students that skip school could face criminal charges (Portland, ME) WGME
Playing hooky, skipping out, ditching school – it’s been a problem in public schools for generations, but school administrators in Rochester, New Hampshire say they’ve never had such alarmingly high numbers of kids missing school as they do right now.
Rochester police are getting ready to start criminally charging parents whose children are overly absent or tardy from school. That’s how bad it’s gotten in this district. And it’s not because of illness, the principal here says it’s been a pretty healthy fall semester.
http://goo.gl/0XGD8
Pigtails For Peace
NPR Tell Me More
Maisie Kate Miller regularly wore pigtails to her Massachusetts high school, but her hairstyle made her a target for a bully. Miller asked friends on Facebook to wear pigtails in solidarity. When word got out, she turned into a national anti-bullying crusader. Maisie Kate Miller talks about her “Pigtails 4 Peace” protest with host Michel Martin.
http://goo.gl/n3FQ7
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CALENDAR
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USOE Calendar
http://tinyurl.com/5x9oh9
UEN News
http://www.uen.org
December 3:
Executive Appropriations Interim Committee meeting
2 p.m., 445 State Capitol
http://le.utah.gov/asp/interim/Commit.asp?Year=2012&Com=APPEXE
December 7:
Utah State Board of Education meeting
250 E. 500 South, Salt Lake City
http://www.schools.utah.gov/board/Meetings/Agenda.aspx
December 11:
Public Education Appropriations Committee meeting
8:30 a.m., 445 State Capitol
http://le.utah.gov/asp/interim/Commit.asp?Year=2012&Com=APPPED
December 13:
Utah State Charter School Board meeting
250 E. 500 South, Salt Lake City
http://1.usa.gov/Axtt5K
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