[Ohiogift] Public Education NewsBlast for April 23

[Art Snyder]

                April 23, 2013 - In This Issue:
       Flawed measures, but the best we've got
  Anti-cheating efforts lag
  Testing: Tune in and opt out
  Whose finger on the trigger?
  Sweden's debatable voucher 'success'
  Chicago's violent reality
  A place to heal, not punish
  Expanding engagement
  BRIEFLY NOTED
  GRANTS AND FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
                                            
Flawed measures, but the best we've got
A new paper from the Carnegie Knowledge Networks weighs the trade-offs of using teacher value-added scores in personnel and compensation decisions. The authors conclude that grouping teachers in performance categories inevitably leads to mistakes, regardless of when in her career a teacher is evaluated, whether for high or low stakes, or how the evaluation is conducted. True performance is not fully observable and measures are always imperfect. Measures based on student test scores have a high number of classification errors, but fewer than those based on licensure status or years of experience. In effectiveness ratings, "false positives" classify a teacher as belonging in a group where he does not belong (e.g., effective teachers), and "false negatives" place him into a group where he does (ineffective). Since current evaluation systems rarely classify teachers as ineffective or needing improvement, the "false negative" rate for these classifications is likely high. The authors conclude that better measurement can reduce misclassification, and better balancing of errors, and careful consideration of the consequences of these errors, can reduce the harm of misclassification. To achieve more accurate classification, the authors recommend continued research on measurement, on tradeoffs between false positives and false negatives, and on structuring the consequences associated with classification.?More

 
Anti-cheating efforts lag
In the wake of testing scandals, district efforts to stop cheating by school staff have been constrained by bureaucratic inertia, budget constraints, and staff and community resistance, The Wall Street Journal reports. Though relatively inexpensive, anti-cheating action has been slow in part because those charged with policing test results are most vested in their outcome. Over two dozen states have passed laws linking test results to teacher evaluations, pay, and tenure. Neal Kingston of the Center for Educational Testing and Evaluation said that many in education haven't been aggressive due to "fear of the unknown in terms of impact on budgets, on schedules." Staci Hupp of the Iowa Department of Education said her agency doesn't monitor for testing irregularities because it lacks staff, will, and funds: "If the legislature feels it is important for the schools in Iowa to have tighter security, we will implement that." The Pennsylvania Department of Education contracted an erasure analysis in 2009, but did nothing with the results until an outside website obtained and publicized the data in 2011. The state eventually launched an investigation into high erasure marks at 90 schools, including 53 in Philadelphia. Thirty schools have been cleared. Last week, two Philadelphia principals surrendered their administrative licenses. More? ? ?Related


Testing: Tune in and opt out
A decade into the school accountability movement, resistance to standardized testing is surfacing around the country, with parents and students opting out of high-stakes tests used to evaluate schools and teachers, reports The Washington Post. From Seattle, where 600 high school students refused to take a standardized test in January, to Texas, where 86 percent of school districts say the tests are "strangling our public schools," the opt-out movement is growing, propelled by parents, students, and educators using social media to swap tips on ways to reject the tests. Because regulations differ from state to state, parents are resorting to various methods. In Pennsylvania, for example, parents are citing a state rule that allows opting out of testing based on religious objections. In Florida, parents are relying on regulations that allow for alternative assessments, such as a portfolio of schoolwork or SAT scores. Some districts and state education departments have tried to discourage test boycotts, leading parents to swap information via Facebook pages and blogs. Students opting out do not face individual ramifications, but if students opt out in large groups, the boycotts can affect a specific school's standing under federal law, which requires 95 percent of each school's student population to take the tests.??More


Whose finger on the trigger?
At first glance, it's one of the nation's hottest education-reform movements, a populist crusade to empower poor parents and fix failing public schools, writes Gary Cohn on the Truthout website. But closer examination shows the "parent-trigger" movement is heavily financed by the Walton Family Foundation. Since 2009, the foundation has poured more than $6 million into Parent Revolution, a Los Angeles advocacy group at the forefront of the parent-trigger campaign. The Walton Family Foundation has also funded conservative research groups (including the Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation) whose analysts have then defended?Walmart?and its anti-union policies on newspaper opinion pages and in testimony to government committees. In education, the foundation is a strong proponent of charter schools, school voucher programs, and other efforts to privatize public education. The foundation wholeheartedly embraces all state parent-trigger laws, whose language stems from model legislation crafted by the American Leadership Exchange Council??(ALEC) -- a corporate-controlled generator of far-right legislation, including Florida's Stand Your Ground gun law and the recent statute that made Michigan a right-to-work state. Parent Revolution has lately shifted focus to the city of Los Angeles, where the city's board of education approved the first use of the parent-trigger law at the West Adams District's 24th Street Elementary School.?More? ? ?Related


Sweden's debatable voucher 'success'
In a post on Diane Ravitch's blog, Henry Levin of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education discusses Sweden's voucher-type plan, adopted in 1992, in which municipalities give the same per-pupil funding to either public or independent (private) schools. In the initiative's early years, only 2 percent of students chose independent schools, but by 2011-12, a quarter of all Swedish elementary and secondary students attended them. Half of all students in upper secondary schools in Stockholm attend private schools at public expense. In March 2013, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (KVA) convened a two-day conference to examine what vouchers had accomplished in the preceding decades. Private school enrollment had dramatically increased, and Swedish performance on international tests had precipitously declined. Levin analyzed research on the topic for the KVA, and found that Swedish parents and students have many more choices among both public schools and independent schools than prior to the voucher system. The studies show virtually no difference in achievement between public and independent schools for comparable students, as measured nationally. However, the overall performance of the Swedish education system on externally administered and evaluated tests used for international comparisons show substantial declines since 1995. Socioeconomic stratification has also increased, as well as ethnic and immigrant segregation.?More

     
Chicago's violent reality
As Chicago prepares to close 54 schools, a significant challenge will be safely moving thousands of students to and from class through the patchwork of rival gang territories in the city, The Huffington Post reports. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett acknowledge the danger of mixing youth from different neighborhoods, and will not close high schools. The district consulted maps of gang lines when choosing where to send elementary students, and has dedicated $16 million to expand Safe Passage, a program that ensures children arrive to school safely. Adults stand watch along key routes, alerting police of problems. In the past two years, criminal activity has dropped 20 percent in the immediate area of the 35 high schools and four elementary schools that currently implement Safe Passage. The program will expand next year to all 55 "welcoming" schools, and its success will rely heavily on people like the Rev. Robin Hood, who grew up in Chicago's North Lawndale neighborhood. Hood works with organizations like Mothers Opposed to Violence Everywhere and Cease Fire, and his seven-day-a-week job involves having former gang members -- experts in gang behavior he calls his "street epidemiologists" -- gather intelligence about where problems are brewing and trying to negotiate resolutions.??More


A place to heal, not punish
More than 23,000 schools out of 132,000 nationwide have discarded or are discarding highly punitive approaches to discipline, writes Jane Ellen Stevens in The Huffington Post. Schools that undertake supportive, compassionate, and solution-oriented discipline methods can see a 20 to 40 percent drop in suspensions in their first year, research finds. Instead of waiting for kids to behave badly and then punishing them, schools are creating environments where kids can succeed. Equipped with their own conflict-resolution skills, teachers can defuse most situations in their classrooms instead of sending disruptive kids to the principal's office. That said, research shows that programs such as PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports), Safe & Civil Schools, CBITS (Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools), restorative justice, trauma-sensitive schools, and HEARTS (Healthy Environments and Response to Trauma in Schools) may not be enough. A Washington State University study examined records of 2,101 randomly selected elementary schoolchildren, and found that 45 percent of students had experienced one or more of ten severe and chronic types of adversity; 12 percent had three or more. Schools can be major contributors to childhood trauma, especially if fighting, bullying, and suspensions are common. The entire educational system needs to change, Stevens writes, so that it stops traumatizing already traumatized children; reaches out not only to traumatized students who express their trauma by acting out, but also to those who withdraw; and creates safe environments where all traumatized children can begin healing.?More? ? ?Related


Expanding engagement
A new brief from The After-School Corporation (TASC) examines its ExpandED Schools initiative, which it launched in 2011 in 11 elementary and middle schools in New York City, Baltimore, and New Orleans, each school partnering with a strong youth-serving community organization to add three hours to the conventional six-and-a-half hour school day. ExpandED Schools incorporate four core elements into their redesign: more time for a balanced curriculum; school-and-community partnerships; engaging, personalized instruction; and a sustainable cost model. External analysis shows that participating students increased their math proficiency, surpassing citywide gains in each city. Student attendance improved in ExpandED schools, and students, teachers, and parents ranked ExpandED schools higher than citywide averages on safety, communication, student engagement, and academic expectations. Schools varied in how successfully they communicated school change to families, in the proportion of teachers who worked expanded hours, and in teacher desire to work expanded hours. The brief concludes that a school's culture, schedule, and approach to learning don't change in one year. Real-time feedback loops must be established among partners, and schools must define and provide support for family engagement. Decisions about teachers working extended hours should be made at the school level, and not prescribed externally, and success is best achieved through whole-school implementation.?More

BRIEFLY NOTED CALIFORNIA

Speedbump
Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to make California's community college system more efficient and to increase access for students has hit a road block last week as lawmakers rejected his proposal to set a lifetime limit on the number of units students can take at reduced in-state rates. More
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Not so fast
The reforms that LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy enacted -- and just how aggressively he's pursued them -- have put the fast-talking New Englander at the center of a heated debate over the future of the nation's second-largest school district. More
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Nevermind that they're essentially the same
A majority of Californians support Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to provide additional funding to districts with more low-income and English learner students; however, when asked about each group separately, only 40 percent of likely voters favor extra money for English learners, while 52 percent support additional funding for poor students. More
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Whatever that means
With new data showing more than half of all suspensions and a quarter of expulsions in California schools are for "willful defiance" of school authorities, the Assembly Education Committee has voted 6-0 to move forward a bill that would restrict the use of the vague category by school administrators. More
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Setting limits
Teach For America faces a showdown in California, as the state's Commission on Teacher Credentialing considers new restrictions that could limit the placement of TFA's corps members in places with English learners. More
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BRIEFLY NOTED

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As if they didn't have enough to do
The Allentown School Board in Pennsylvania may adopt its worst-case budget scenario, which includes principal-sharing at the district's four smallest elementary schools. More
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Stirrings of dissent
The National Education Association, on behalf of three affiliates of its Florida chapter and seven teachers, is suing the state education department, contending that the formula used to assess some teachers in the state violates their constitutional rights. More
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Crucial disconnect
New survey results from the ACT find that 89 percent of high school teachers said students who finished their classes were well or very well prepared for college work in those subjects, but only 26 percent of college instructors say incoming students are well or very well prepared for first-year courses. More
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Another reason to be mad
Fans of bipartisan-backed school safety and mental health bills will have to find another legislative vehicle for their programs, now that Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, has pulled a gun violence measure from consideration, after a key vote on bolstering background checks for would-be gun buyers failed to gain sufficient support. More
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Off to a strong start, indeed
The Strong Start for Children Campaign will bring together at least 13 organizations interested in funding Obama's early-childhood education initiative. More
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Dirty Harry need not apply
Indiana schools could get grants to hire officers to serve as protection and resources for students under legislation passed by the Indiana House, but the bill no longer requires that all schools have someone carrying a weapon on site every day. More
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So they'll get simulated bonuses?
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a bill into law setting up a pilot project that simulates tying funding to performance for a handful of school districts and charter schools, but she said in a letter to the Legislature that she wants more than a simulation. More
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Now that's energy well spent
Alabama Republicans have succeeded in pushing a bill to repeal Alabama's common core curriculum standards out of the state senate committee. More?


GRANTS AND FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
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NASPE/ING: Run For Something Better
ING Run For Something Better, in partnership with the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, has developed a school-based running program for each school that desires to establish such a program or expand an existing one. Maximum award: $2,500. Eligibility: programs that target Kindergarten through 8th grade in elementary or middle schools. Deadline: May 15, 2013.
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Dollar General Literacy Foundation: Youth Literacy GrantsDollar General Literacy Foundation Youth Literacy Grants provide funding to schools, public libraries, and nonprofit organizations to help students who are below grade level or experiencing difficulty reading. Grant funding is provided to assist in implementing new or expanding existing literacy programs; purchasing new technology or equipment to support literacy initiatives; and/or purchasing books, materials, or software for literacy programs. Maximum award: $4,000. Eligibility: schools, public libraries, and nonprofit organizations. Deadline: May 23, 2013.
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EPA: Sense of Wonder ContestTo honor the late preservationist and ecologist Rachel Carson, the EPA, Generations United, and the Rachel Carson Council, Inc., are holding a photo, essay, and poetry contest "that best expresses the Sense of Wonder that you feel for the sea, the night sky, forests, birds, wildlife, and all that is beautiful to your eyes." In her book The Sense of Wonder (written in the 1950s and published in a magazine in 1956), Carson used lyrical passages about the beauty of nature and the joy of helping children develop a sense of wonder and love of nature. Maximum award: publication on the websites of EPA Aging Initiative, Generations United, and Rachel Carson Council, Inc. Eligibility: entries must be joint projects involving a person under age 18 and a person age 50 or older. Deadline: June 10, 2013.
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AAPT: Frederick and Florence Bauder Endowment for the Support of Physics TeachingThe American Association of Physics Teachers Frederick and Florence Bauder Endowment for the Support of Physics Teaching was established to support special activities in the area of physics teaching. Activities can include but are not limited to the development and distribution of innovative apparatuses for physics teaching; traveling exhibits of apparatuses; and local workshops. Maximum award: $500. Eligibility: AAPT members. Deadline: July 1, 2013.?
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QUOTE OF THE WEEK
?"Testing companies are in the business of making a profit, but let's not confuse their mission. Their mission is to create as many tests as they can and then grade them at as little cost as possible." -- chairman of the Texas Senate Education Committee, Dan Patrick, Republican of Houston, at a hearing on a comprehensive education bill that would reduce the number of high-stakes tests students must pass to graduate in the state.


 

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