[Ohiogift] PEN Weekly NewsBlast for Dec. 7, 2012

[Art Snyder]

 Public Education Network Weekly NewsBlast
"Public Involvement. Public Education. Public  Benefit."
Dec. 7, 2012


The road ahead
  U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently laid out his priorities for the next four years in a speech at the Foundation for Excellence in Education, emphasizing he thinks teacher preparation is broken and the best educators should be teaching the highest-need children, reports Michele McNeil in Education Week. He also wants to renew focus on teacher and principal quality. Duncan said teacher  by CouponDropDown">education programs are "part of the problem," and without getting specific, said there are a "number of things we plan to do," such as a competitive initiative to foster innovation in schools of education. "We need to push very, very hard in schools of education," he said. He also expressed concern that no schools or districts he knows of work "systemically" to identify the best teachers and principals, then place them with children with the highest needs. Duncan also indicated early education would get a renewed focus in his second term. This was the most widely viewed speech from the secretary since President Barack Obama was re-elected.
  Read more: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2012/11/_this_marks_the_first.html

Education without representation
  Though Hispanic students are a quarter of the nation's public school  by CouponDropDown">enrollment and the fastest-growing segment of the school population, non-white Latino children seldom see themselves in books for young readers, reports The New York Times. Education experts and teachers who work with Latino populations say the lack of familiar images could be an obstacle as young readers work to build stamina and deepen their understanding of story elements like character motivation. The Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education, which compiles statistics about the race of authors and characters in children's books published each year, found that in 2011, only 3 percent of the 3,400 books reviewed were written by or about Latinos, a proportion unchanged in a decade. As schools across the country implement the Common Core State Standards, many are questioning whether nonwhite students are seeing themselves reflected in the required reading. Suggested books for the early elementary grades include some by African-American authors about black characters, but few by Latino writers or featuring Hispanic characters. In response to concerns by the Southern Poverty Law Center and others, the architects of the Common Core are now developing a more diverse supplemental list.
  Read: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/05/education/young-latino-students-dont-see-themselves-in-books.html?hpw

Pulling the plug on promise
  Should reforms that show signs of success be halted by a competing district agenda? asks Dana Goldstein on her blog. Goldstein considers Crenshaw High in South Los Angeles, now facing a district-imposed "reconstitution." Crenshaw, high-poverty and predominantly African American, has instituted the Extended Learning Cultural Model. Led by teachers -- and financed by the Ford Foundation and a School Improvement Grant -- Crenshaw split into several themed academies and reorganized its curriculum around neighborhood problem-solving. Students worked with researchers to examine local health and nutrition issues; graphed the relationship between truancy and incarceration rates; and interned at local nonprofits. The principal worked closely with teachers to raise rigor across the curriculum and implement the Common Core standards. But Superintendent John Deasy, who favors corporate-style reforms, has notified Crenshaw he intends to suspend the school's existing reforms, divide Crenshaw into three magnet schools, and ask the current teaching and administrative staff to reapply for their jobs. "Everyone in the field of public education has his or her favored reform methods," Goldstein writes, "from merit pay to vocational education to year-round schooling to giving every kid violin lessons. But if district leaders don't allow other experts' ideas to come to fruition over the course of years, not months, new strategies can never be fully assessed, nor scaled up if they work."
  Read more: http://tinyurl.com/a9hmaoy

A cure worse than the disease?
  Singing River Head Start center in Lucedale, Mississippi is one of 131 Head Start programs in the U.S. that must compete for their contract as part of a new initiative to improve early childhood education, writes Sarah Garland in The Hechinger Report. Singing River was placed in competition based on a "deficient" rating in one of five criteria when evaluated by the federal Administration for Children and Families, whose assessment did not include classroom evaluations or academic goals. The main reason the center could lose funding, according to Singing River's director, Billy Knight, is an incident in 2010 in which a driver allowed a child to get off the bus in a church parking lot before his mother arrived. Knight doesn't deny the incident was serious, but says his program has rectified the matter and doesn't deserve to be driven out of business. "It had nothing to do with our instruction," Knight said. "It had nothing to do with the quality of programs." In Lucedale, people like injecting competition into the system but worry the current process could derail a program with a good track record and deep local roots. And who would take over Lucedale's Head Start program if Singing River closed? "I can't think of anybody in George County who would want to take this on," said Terri Nyman, special education director for the George County public schools. In other states, large nonprofits and even for-profit companies have taken over Head Start centers. But with its 1,500 regulations and tight budget, Head Start tends to be a stressful, money-losing endeavor. Lucedale is so remote and financially strapped that locals wonder what sort of organization -- if any -- would bother to compete for the grant.
  Read more: http://hechingerreport.org/content/will-competition-cure-head-start_10440/

Beyond regular attendance and Cs
  A new report from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation looks at schools in the Proficiency-Based Pathways Project (PBP), which implements mastery-based approaches to teaching in rural, suburban, and inner-city regions in New England. Competency education is rooted in mastering a set of skills and knowledge rather than simply moving through a curriculum. Students work on skills or knowledge until they demonstrate understanding and ability to apply them; they then move on. They cannot advance simply by showing up to class a sufficient number of days and earning a grade just above failing. The report finds time-based policies and systems -- from schedules to contracts to credit systems, at both the district and state level -- often impede implementation of competency-based designs, yet educators find ways to create flexibility, starting within familiar structures but locating strategies to support individualized pacing. The biggest logistical challenge to competency-based initiatives is the lack of high-quality data and technological tools to assess and monitor student progress. Expansion of competency education will likely be aided by evolving state policies that allow districts or schools to opt out of seat-time requirements. Adoption of the Common Core standards will encourage consistency in developing competencies grounded in high-quality college-readiness standards, and the assessment systems being developed for these by multi-state consortia will support the need to measure complex knowledge and skills.
  See the report: http://www.competencyworks.org/resources/making-mastery-work/

To help innovation thrive
  A new report from the Center for American Progress describes the role that government can play at multiple stages of education innovation, and the role social innovation funds can play in advancing an "investing in what works" policy agenda. The report synthesizes key lessons from prior innovation funds, and proposes policy and implementation recommendations for strengthening current and informing future evidence-based innovation funds. The authors suggest redirecting resources from ineffective federal programs, determining where additional social innovation funds should be created, providing additional funding for innovation fund grantees, increasing funding for data collection and third-party evaluations, and setting aside a portion of funding streams to award competitively. The authors also recommend executive and legislative branches of the federal government support quality implementation of innovation funds by creating an interagency working group and a common evidence framework, and by encouraging greater implementation of a tiered awards approach. The government can also improve the peer review process, better define the role of philanthropy and the private sector in supporting innovation funds, ensure flexibility of private-sector matching funds, and better leverage data collection and evaluation results to communicate progress and outcomes from innovation funds to critical stakeholders.
  See the report: http://tinyurl.com/aztfqfc

How to weight the student survey?
  A review by the National Education Policy Center of a recent report from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation about its Measures of Effective Teaching Program (MET) finds the report, which seeks to establish student surveys as valid evidence for evaluation of and feedback for teachers, suggests a relationship between the surveys and teacher effectiveness unsupported by evidence provided. According to the reviewer, many of the report's findings and conclusions are presented uncritically and without sufficient justification. Developers of the MET project advance the idea that multiple measures of teaching effectiveness are needed to represent the complex, multi-faceted phenomenon of good teaching. In discussing the potential uses of student surveys, however, the reviewer finds the report's stance lopsided, placing too much weight on the strengths of student surveys and too little on their weaknesses. His concern is that implementation of some of the report's recommendations might result in an overconfidence in student-survey results. The reviewer agrees with the report's general assertion that student surveys are a useful tool in practitioners' and policymakers' toolkits, and says the report contains many practical pieces of advice that are sensible and worth putting into practice.
  See the report: http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-asking-students

Localize, don't centralize
  A new paper from the Center for the Study of Privatization in Education focuses on the effects of a 1994 school-finance reform in Michigan known as Proposal A. The legislation increased state aid to low-spending districts and shifted control of revenues and expenditures to the state. This had a disproportionate effect on wealthy districts, which used their discretion before the reform to raise more revenues while receiving less state aid. The authors hypothesize that while increasing state control over expenditures may have significantly reduced inter-district spending inequities, its unintended consequence was reducing the incentive for all districts, especially wealthy ones, to focus on improving the quality of education. Prior research has found that instructional spending is the expenditure category most closely related to academic outcomes. The authors therefore examined relative differences in instructional spending as a result of proposal A in districts of different income levels. Their analysis found Proposal A led to declines in the growth rate of instructional expenditures and teachers per pupil across all districts. More importantly, these declines were significantly sharper in wealthier districts. These results support the hypothesis that increasing local fiscal discretion leads to a sharper focus on improving student outcomes (and vice versa). To the extent that spending on instruction is correlated with student achievement, the paper suggests centralizing spending on education can result in reduced student achievement.
  See the report: http://ncspe.org/list-papers.php

BRIEFLY NOTED

More, more, more
  Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Tennessee have announced they will add at least 300 hours of learning time to the calendar in some schools starting in 2013.
  http://news.yahoo.com/5-states-increase-class-time-schools-221441177.html

Raising the bar
  The American Federation of Teachers has unveiled an initiative to raise entry standards for teacher-preparation programs and create a "universal assessment," analogous to the bar exam in law that teachers must pass to demonstrate competence.
  http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2012/12/aft_calls_for_higher_teacher-p.html

Fragile pact
  After months of tense negotiations, leaders of the Los Angeles Unified School District and its teacher union have agreed to use student test scores to evaluate instructors.
  http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1201-lausd-evals-20121201,0,4606955.story

Nice try
  Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's school voucher overhaul has been dealt a blow, with a Baton Rouge judge declaring the diversion of public money by the voucher program to private schools unconstitutional.
  http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/11/jindal_voucher_overhaul_uncons.html

Time...
  The Smarter Balanced Assessment consortium has dramatically reduced the length of its Common Core assessment to balance the desire for a more meaningful and useful exam with concerns about the amount of time spent on testing.
  http://tinyurl.com/ahkue3v

... is money
  Standardized-testing cost states some $1.7 billion a year overall, or a quarter of 1 percent of total K-12 spending in the United States, according to a new report on assessment finances by the Brookings Institution.
  http://tinyurl.com/amuwn9v

But an A for effort
  A new report from Education Trust-Midwest finds Michigan public school districts are improving their teacher-evaluation systems, but struggling with issues of fairness, consistency, and effectiveness.
  http://www.mlive.com/education/index.ssf/2012/11/districts_are_improving_teache.html

Self-policing
  As enrollment in charters continues to climb, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers is urging state legislators to draw a harder line on setting standards for opening charter schools and ensuring weak ones shut down.
  http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/charterschoice/2012/11/a_new_campaign_to_close_sub-par_charter_schools.html

Transform now!
  Education Resource Strategies has a new video urging bold action.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElLqbDfokao

Seems reasonable
  Texas college students could achieve technical certification for jobs in high-demand fields without taking coursework in skills they already possess, under an initiative announced by Gov. Ricky Perry.
  http://tinyurl.com/at875fj

GRANTS AND FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES

LEGO: Children's Fund Grants
  The LEGO Children's Fund provides grants for collaborative programs, either in part or in total, to organizations that focus on early childhood education and development; technology and communication projects that advance learning opportunities; or sport or athletic programs that concentrate on underserved youth. Maximum award: $5,000. Eligibility: 501(c)(3) organizations. Deadline: January 15, 2013.
  http://www.legochildrensfund.org/Guidelines.html

C-SPAN StudentCam
  C-SPAN's StudentCam is an annual national video documentary competition that encourages students to think seriously about issues that affect our communities and our nation. Students are asked to create a short (5-8 minute) video documentary on a topic related to the theme "Message to the President": What's the most important issue the president should consider in 2013? Maximum award: $5,000, plus $1,000 in digital equipment for school. Eligibility: individuals or teams of two to three students grades 6-8 or grades 9-12; Deadline: January 18, 2013.
  http://www.studentcam.org/

United States-Japan Foundation: Elgin Heinz Outstanding Teacher Award
  The United States-Japan Foundation Elgin Heinz Outstanding Teacher Award recognizes exceptional teachers who further mutual understanding between Americans and Japanese. The award is presented annually to two pre-college teachers in two categories, humanities and Japanese language. Maximum award: $7,500 ($2,500 monetary award, $5,000 in project funds). Eligibility: current full-time K-12 classroom teachers of any relevant subject in the United States who have been teaching for at least five years. Deadline: February 1, 2013.
  http://www.us-jf.org/elginHeinz.html

The Christopher Columbus Awards Program
  The Christopher Columbus Awards Program combines science and technology with community problem-solving. Students work in teams with the help of an adult coach to identify an issue they care about and, using science and technology, work with experts, conduct research, and put their ideas to the test to develop an innovative solution. Maximum award: $25,000. Eligibility: middle-school-age (sixth, seventh, and eighth grade) children; teams do not need to be affiliated with a school to enter. Deadline: February 4, 2013.
  http://www.christophercolumbusawards.com/contact_info.php

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"These are pretty basic tests. The fact that there were folks who felt like they needed to bring somebody else in, in order to meet a very basic level of content knowledge is disturbing, in particular for the kids those teachers are going to wind up teaching." -- Sarah Almy, director of teacher quality at the Education Trust, regarding an alleged test-cheating ring in three Southern states for teachers and prospective teachers who wanted to pass standardized certification exams.
  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/27/us/educator-aided-others-at-cheating-us-charges.html?ref=education
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