[Ohiogift] PEN Weekly NewsBlast for Oct. 26, 2012

Fri Oct 26 11:30:32 EDT 2012

Public Education Network Weekly NewsBlast
"Public Involvement. Public Education. Public Benefit."
October 26, 2012

Before and after
A new survey from Teach Plus looks at attitudes of teachers who entered the profession after NCLB in comparison with their colleagues who entered before it. Teachers with 10 years or fewer in the classroom now constitute over 50 percent of the teaching force. The report indicates that newer teachers voice growing support for placing performance ahead of seniority. However, they join their veteran colleagues on the need for more collaboration time and the importance of smaller class size. Teachers joining the profession in the last decade are more receptive to use of student growth data in evaluation, as well as performance-based tenure and compensation systems, and believe high standards and greater accountability will elevate the profession. When asked what types of working conditions help them serve students more effectively, teachers across the experience spectrum are nearly unanimous: time in the school day for collaboration; more flexible class groupings; and better teacher preparation. When asked what changes would elevate the profession, all teachers cited raising salaries as a key mechanism. To pay for those higher salaries, slightly over half of all teachers suggest raising taxes as their preferred strategy, but do not support trading off class size, a longer year, or a new pension system to pay for the increase.
See the report: http://www.teachplus.org/

'Investment' versus 'experience'
As the two presidential campaigns continue to refine how they would approach the federal role in education, advisers to President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney have made it clear that the fate NCLB waivers may be decided in November, reports Michele McNeil in Education Week. During two debates last week featuring education advisers to the rival campaigns, surrogates for Romney emphasized that waivers would be reviewed and possibly revoked if their candidate wins. Romney surrogate F. Philip Handy said a Romney administration would push for reauthorizing the ESEA, and failing that, would try to return to the law as written. But Obama surrogate Jon Schnur said to revoke the waivers would be a return to the "worst parts" of the law. He argued that voters have a stark choice between the two candidates: Mr. Obama sees education as an "investment," while Mr. Romney sees it as an "expense." The president and Romney are also split on the federal role in helping states adopt a common set of academic standards. The Obama administration has required college- and career-readiness standards in states' NCLB waiver applications and in their applications for the Race to the Top, and has contributed $360 million toward developing common tests linked to the Common Core State Standards. Romney has made it clear he would not steer federal funds to the effort.
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/9hvhhga

Fundamentally anti-democratic
A new report from the National Education Policy Center concludes that the concept of local control has all but disappeared from discussions of education policy. The authors define local control as "the power of communities, made up of individuals bound together by common geography, resources, problems, and interests, to collectively determine the policies that govern their lives." In education, this has typically been elected school boards and their constituents. However, NCLB and subsequent federal policy has forced a surrender of local control, with localities accountable to state and federal officials. Local discretion is allowed for compliance, but constraints because of mandates are enormous. In this way, the authors find NCLB and its progeny, including policies advanced by the Obama administration, are fundamentally anti-democratic. The Race to the Top in particular promises federal funds for expanded testing, use of student outcomes in teacher evaluations, and expansion of charter schools. To remedy this anti-democratic trend, the authors recommend moving away from threats to withhold funding, supplanting these with a participatory model that offers support and incentives for school employees, parents, and community members to collaborate on resolving educational problems. States and local communities should adopt curriculum standards "that include a conscious and substantive focus on developing the deliberative skill required of democratic citizenship." The privatization of public education resources must also be curtailed.
Read more: http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/democracy-left-behind

High-tech, high-touch
Despite tough zip codes and challenging students, Rocketship charter schools in San Jose have turned in strong results, writes Thomas Toch in The Atlantic Monthly. The network's schools outperform nearly all their impoverished California peers on standardized tests, and many of the state's more privileged school districts as well, using "blended learning," a combination of traditional teaching and computer-based instruction. This has led many reformers to herald Rocketship as the technology-driven future of education. But Toch says he took away a different conviction from his visit to Rocketship's Discovery Prep Elementary School: The school's success shows that younger and more disadvantaged students need adults supporting them in different ways, day in and day out. In the 640-student school, personal connections between adults and students are paramount. The school organizes meetings on curriculum, instructional strategies, and student behavior to enlist parents as educational partners. They ask parents to spend 30 hours a year in their children's schools, and most do. Students have the sense that there are always adults ready to help, that their parents care about them, and that education is important. Even Rocketship's much-touted computer-based educational platform promotes stronger, rather than weaker, ties between teachers and students. Computers at Discovery Prep supplement rather than supplant traditional teaching. The school then pours instructional funds saved into higher salaries, classroom-coaching, and other teacher-centric program improvements.
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/9rsaxvc

A practical path
The Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-Tech) in Brooklyn weaves high school and college curricula into a six-year program tailored for a job in the technology industry, reports The New York Times. By 2017, its first wave of graduates will emerge with associate's degrees in applied science in computer information systems or electromechanical engineering technology, following a course of studies developed in consultation with I.B.M. Officials in Chicago were so taken by New York's P-Tech model that they opened five similar schools this year with corporate partners in telecommunications and technology. Education officials in Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, North Carolina, and Tennessee have also committed to creating such schools, and the Obama administration has recommended that Congress provide more money for vocational education -- or career and technical education (CTE) -- to promote this approach. A year from now, New York City plans to open two more schools in the model of P-Tech, focusing on other growing industries in the city, possibly including health care. The New York State Board of Regents is developing assessment exams for this type of school, one that could be substituted for one of the Regents tests.
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/9dj43s9

What it actually means
The Career Readiness Partner Council, a coalition of national education, business, philanthropic, and policy groups, has released a four-page statement on what it means to be career-ready. According to the group, a career-ready person effectively navigates pathways that connect education and employment to achieve a fulfilling, financially secure, and successful career. To be career-ready in the global economy requires adaptability and a commitment to lifelong learning, mastery of key academic and technical knowledge, and skills and dispositions that vary from one career to another and change over time as a person progresses along a developmental continuum. Career-readiness incorporates engaging workplace experiences that allow a person to apply academic and technical learning to real-world projects alongside professionals, which can start with career awareness and exploration that includes job shadowing, internships, apprenticeships, and service-learning. Career-readiness requires a comprehensive system of supports that deliver learning when, where, and how it is needed, by a cadre of experts that includes teachers and career professionals. To accomplish this for every student, policymakers must align policy and funding infrastructures that break down long- standing silos between secondary, postsecondary, and workforce systems and provide the full spectrum of supports to ensure seamless transitions from high school to college and beyond. High school teachers, leaders, and counselors must engage with business and industry and higher-education leaders and faculty to better understand what is expected of high school students. And parents and students must expand the goal of "college-bound" to include career goals.
See the brief: http://www.careerreadynow.org/wp/

Toward improving continuously
A new report from the Forum for Investment in Youth and the Wallace Foundation offers a how-to guide for the development of quality improvement systems (QIS) in afterschool settings. Identifying quality as a priority is an important first step, but addressing it in a systemic way is complicated and requires research, planning, consensus-building, resource development, managing new processes, and redefining old relationships. The guide aims to help those who are working to create better, more coordinated afterschool programming through a QIS, or to further develop existing efforts. It explains what constitutes an effective QIS, describes tasks involved in building one, and offers examples and resources from communities whose work is forging a trail for others. The guide is premised on the model of "continuous improvement": the idea that organizations should regularly take stock of themselves against a standard; develop plans to improve based on what they have learned; carry out those plans; and begin the cycle over again, so that the quality of their work is always improving. Experience shows that afterschool programs – and the children and youth they serve – benefit enormously when programs agree to a common definition of quality and embrace continuous improvement.
See the report: http://www.forumfyi.org/building_system_quality

BRIEFLY NOTED

And the winner is...
The Broad Prize for Urban Education has been awarded to the Miami-Dade County Public Schools for improving student achievement, raising the graduation rates of minority students, and increasing the percentage of minorities reaching advanced levels on state exams. The Education Fund is a local education fund working with the district to improve student outcomes.
http://tinyurl.com/96brs4x
http://www.educationfund.org/

Go get 'em
North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue has announced she is shifting $20 million in projected spare funds to accommodate up to another 6,300 4-year-olds in the state's pre-kindergarten academic enrichment program, again moving into disputed territory with the Republican-led Legislature.
http://www.reflector.com/ap/staten/perdue-moves-20m-expand-nc-pre-k-6300-more-1275847

And growing
The California Charter Schools Association said an unprecedented 109 charter schools opened throughout the state for the 2012-13 academic year, bringing the total number of California charter schools to 1,065.
http://www.fresnobee.com/2012/10/24/3040770/calif-sees-record-number-of-new.html

Voucher-friendlier
Louisiana's top school board has approved new rules for voucher and other private and parochial schools to qualify for state tax dollars.
http://theadvocate.com/home/4167312-125/bese-oks-new-rules-for

It's broke
Attorneys representing around 600 school districts are arguing that Texas' school financing system is so "hopelessly broken" that it violates the state Constitution while keeping students from being prepared for the well-paying jobs of tomorrow.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/texas-schools-head-trial-school-finance-17531869#.UIZlmYXiNtQ

Trigger time
According to the Mississippi Department of Education, 35 schools are eligible for the first time to be converted to charter schools if a majority of parents sign a petition seeking conversion.
http://www.clarionledger.com/viewart/20121019/NEWS/310190049/Parents-could-seek-charters-35-schools

Reckoning
As many as 10,000 students across Ohio could be held back to repeat the third grade under the new Third Grade Reading Guarantee law.
http://tinyurl.com/8nobw8b

GRANTS AND FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES

ECS: James Bryant Conant Award
The Education Commission of the States James Bryant Conant Award is bestowed upon individuals who have demonstrated a commitment to improving education across the country in significant ways such as: providing leadership on groundbreaking task forces or committees; publishing works and/or conducting research that profoundly influenced thinking on public education in the United States and/or had a substantial impact on policy; shepherding groundbreaking education reform through the legislative process; and/or demonstrating exemplary service as a public figure or elected official deeply involved in improving education for all. Maximum award: recognition. Deadline: November 21, 2012.
http://www.ecs.org/html/aboutECS/Awards.htm

Architecture for Humanity: Guerrilla Green Sustainable Showdown
The Guerrilla Green Sustainable Showdown invites teams of middle and high school students across the U.S. to bring innovative solutions to their school buildings, outdoor spaces, and activities. Maximum award: $10,000. Eligibility: middle or high school teams of one to four people. Deadline: December 3, 2012.
http://guerrillagreen.architectureforhumanity.org/

Coalition for Community Schools: Individual Community Schools Awards
The Coalition for Community Schools is now accepting nominations for its Community Schools of Excellence Awards. The Individual Community Schools Awards will go to schools that have been operating as community schools for at least three years and have demonstrated success. Three individual schools will be recognized. Maximum award: $2,500. Eligibility: schools that have been operating as community schools for at least three years. Deadline: December 15, 2012.
http://www.communityschools.org/2013_community_school_awards_for_excellence.aspx

Coalition for Community Schools: Community School Initiative Awards
The Community School Initiative Awards will go to initiatives with joint efforts between schools and community stakeholders that have organized multiple community school sites with a strong commitment to scaling up across the community or school systems. Up to two initiatives will be recognized. Maximum award: $5,000. Eligibility: school systems operating more than one community school for more than three years, which has both community leadership and an intermediary organization (e.g., a CBO, institution of higher education, United Way, consortium of organizations, local education fund, local government, etc.) Deadline: December 15, 2012.
http://www.communityschools.org/2013_community_school_awards_for_excellence.aspx

QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"I think it suggests that we're making even more errors than we need to -- and probably pretty large errors -- when we're applying value-added to the middle school level."
-- Douglas N. Harris, associate professor of economics at Tulane University in New Orleans, whose study examines the application of a value-added approach to middle school math scores. 
http://tinyurl.com/8kgrx86

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