[Ohiogift] Public Education NewsBlast — October 21, 2014

[Gifted and Talented in Ohio Discussion List]

                                                   October 21, 2014 - In This Issue:
       Change for Newark now (again)
  Reform isn't rocket science
  Still widgets, five years on
  'Nice' and racist
  What 'close reading' is, and isn't
  Leveled reading evolves
  D.C.'s vouchers by the numbers
  Testing relief gains steam
  BRIEFLY NOTED CALIFORNIA
  BRIEFLY NOTED
  GRANTS AND FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
                                            Change for Newark now (again)
Nearly 20 years after the New Jersey Department of Education took control of Newark's schools, it's clear the state has failed to improve them, writes former Newark teacher and current Mayor Ras Baraka in The New York Times. Thanks to state control, Baraka says, Newark has been a laboratory for top-down reforms, with persistent lack of consultation and consent. Court-ordered remedies have been eroded or ignored; a $6 billion construction program never materialized; and successive initiatives have come and gone. Little of Mark Zuckerberg's donated $100 million has gone directly to schools; instead, the first $1.3 million was directed to poorly conducted community outreach. Another $100 million, including Zuckerberg funds, went to teacher merit pay. Still, last year, the district ran a $57 million deficit. Baraka feels reforms should ensure every 3- or 4-year-old child is enrolled in a structured learning environment, and that all teachers get staff development and training. Educators must share best practices, and class sizes must be manageable. If necessary, more than one teacher should teach a classroom, especially kindergarten to third grade. Baraka recommends a transition to local control through a short-term transfer of authority to the mayor (himself). He would then appoint a new superintendent, and once "basic functions" were restored, would move return control to an elected school board with full powers. More
 Reform isn't rocket science
Why does so much reform produce so little change? asks Jack Schneider in a post on the Answer Sheet blog in The Washington Post. His answer is that most observers see fixing schools as more like baking brownies than launching a rocket: "Mix one good teacher with a solid curriculum; stir in a few books; add a pinch of snazzy technology; and bake for 180 days." What could be so hard? But unlike working educators, most leaders of reform have never taught a five-period day, felt the joy of an unquantifiable classroom victory, lost instructional time to a standardized test, or been evaluated by a computer. And unlike students targeted by reform, most policy elites have not gone to school hungry, struggled to understand English, battled low expectations, or feared for their personal safety on the walk home. Because reformers believe school reform is simple, they are untroubled by their lack of familiarity with educational research, test construction, cut scores, or measurement error. Most are not versed in literature on cognition, memory, or motivation. And most have never understood schools from an anthropological or historical perspective. Most issues facing public education are dilemmas rather than problems, Schneider says, the difference being that whereas problems can be solved, dilemmas can only be managed. Educating kids isn't rocket science. It's harder. More
Still widgets, five years on
Over the last five years, in the wake of TNTP's The Widget Effect, Tim Daly writes that many states and districts have designed new teacher-evaluation systems, but fewer have fully implemented them, or implemented them well. A higher number of classroom observations per year doesn't ensure principals are actually giving teachers accurate, useful feedback. A certain percentage of evaluations from student-learning measures doesn't solve the matter of measuring teachers in non-tested grades and subjects. And establishing more rigorous expectations for teachers doesn't magically eliminate rating inflation. Daly says the consensus around evaluating with multiple measures should be celebrated. Yet in most schools, principals and other observers still fail to evaluate accurately and with rigor. Even observation rubrics specifically designed to better distinguish teacher performance have produced the same old results, rating every teacher "good" or "great." Daly urges rubrics be shrunk to four or five components, all focused squarely on how students respond to instruction. These can capture differences in teacher performance as well as longer rubrics, minus the confusion. He also says state and district leaders must persist through the anxiety and resistance that comes along with any big change, and carry out the process of revising the culture. More
'Nice' and racist
In a review in Teachers College Record of Angela Castano's Educated in Whiteness: Good Intentions and Diversity in Schools, Lisa Mazzei writes that Castano critiques how educator engagements with race have become inconspicuous, normal, and "nice." The book problematizes discourses of race in U.S. schools, and illustrates how well-intentioned diversity-related practices solidify inequity and reinscribe whiteness as the norm. Castagno attributes some of these policies and actions to a desire by educators to be seen as fair and to treat everyone equally. Counterintuitively, this fails to account for difference and leads to inequitable practices. The effects of race-related silences -- use of language coded for racial meaning, explicit ignoring of students' race talk, and active silencing of students around issues of race -- are often anything but nice. They may be considered nice for those who wish to resist confrontation, but they affirm racist attitudes. Mazzei writes that in her work with preservice teachers, mostly white and mostly female, these young women have been taught, both at home and in school, to be "good girls." True equity will not arrive as long as teachers -- especially "nice" white teachers -- remain unaware of socially constructed attitudes and fail to see that an examination of whiteness has a place in racial discourse. More
What 'close reading' is, and isn't
Every good teaching idea becomes a bad idea the moment it hardens into orthodoxy, writes Robert Pondiscio on the Thomas B. Fordham Institute website. The latest example is "close reading," he says. The Common Core expects students to "read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it" and "cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text." Sounds simple, even obvious. Yet Pondiscio says some of the guidance for teachers is "frankly, terrible." Close reading is not a workaround for lack of student background knowledge and vocabulary; it's a way of engaging kids in challenging works that stretch their abilities. This requires supporting students through multiple readings, providing vocabulary, working in pairs or groups, and posing questions designed to elicit understanding. Close reading means not giving students a steady diet of dumbed-down, content-free books at their "just right" reading level. It also means something different in different classes: Historians read differently than literary critics. Pondiscio sees little to be gained in a close reading of "any ol' text as long as it's sufficiently difficult." The works we put in front of kids should be worth the time it takes to read them repeatedly and thoughtfully. If the work isn't stimulating, it's unlikely to stick. More
     Leveled reading evolves
Technology is changing the long-established practice of adjusting text difficulty to suit a reader's ability, writes Annie Murphy Paul in The Hechinger Report. "Leveling" was introduced in 1946 by reading specialist Emmett Betts, who instructed teachers to assign texts students could read with relative ease, and to avoid "frustration-level texts." New, technology-based leveling tools are enabling all students in a class to read the same story but at varying levels of complexity. They also make leveling more discreet, preventing students from being teased or stigmatized, and students can dial up or down their reading level themselves, which supports awareness of their own abilities. Digital reading programs also offer "formative assessments," another advantage over paper and ink. But these digital improvements on traditional leveling arrive just as the practice itself is facing criticism. Critics say it's better to ask all students to tackle texts appropriate to their grade level, with teachers helping where necessary; this approach is advocated by the Common Core. However, everyone agrees that students must read frequently on their own, and independent reading calls for not-too-easy, not-too-hard selections -- in other words, leveled reading. Both sides also concur that students should wrestle with challenging texts, but in the classroom, where teachers can head off discouragement. More
D.C.'s vouchers by the numbers
A new report from the Institute of Education Sciences examines the District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), which provides tuition vouchers to low-income children for private schools; it is the only voucher program created and funded by U.S. Congress. The report focuses on implementation of OSP since reauthorization under the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results (SOAR) Act of 2011, which expanded scholarship amount, prioritized types of student recipients, and redrafted accountability requirements. The report finds about half of all D.C. private schools participate. These are more likely now than in the past to have tuitions above scholarship amounts; to serve grades 9-12; and to have less diverse student populations. Compared to district schools, participating schools are smaller, serve a higher share of white students, and are clustered in affluent neighborhoods. OSP applicants represent fewer than 5 percent of eligible D.C. students (in a household with an annual household income within 185 percent of the 2011 federal poverty level -- $34,281 for a family of three, $41,348 for a family of four). Applicants are less likely to have attended low-performing schools than all students potentially eligible for the program, but as likely to have attended a charter. Most OSP applicants live in the lowest-income neighborhoods. Older students, and those from disadvantaged schools and families, use the scholarship at lower rates than others. More
Testing relief gains steam                                                                    
A movement to limit federally mandated tests is gaining momentum as the Obama administration draws to a close, writes Alyson Klein in Education Week. Proposals include legislation in Congress backed by teachers' unions that would allow summative tests in math and English/language arts only in certain grade spans. New Hampshire and the U.S. Department of Education are discussing establishing a pilot that would administer summative assessments only in certain grades, provided districts offer other "competency-based" tests to gauge student mastery. The Council of Chief State School Officers has proposed a similar program. And in Connecticut, Gov. Dannel Malloy is pursuing "a dialogue" between the Obama administration and his state on ways to "reduce the testing burden," such as allowing 11th graders to take the SAT in lieu of a high school exam aligned with the Common Core State Standards. A bill introduced in March by Reps. Chris Gibson, R-N.Y. and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz. would let states test students in certain grade spans, reducing mandated tests from 14 to six. And a bill by Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y. would require students in grades 3 through 8 to take just one test per year instead of two. Recently, former President Bill Clinton said he favored fewer tests -- perhaps once in elementary school, once in middle school, and once in high school. More
 
Related:
          BRIEFLY NOTED CALIFORNIA
 
 
And so it ends
John E. Deasy, superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, has resigned after reaching an agreement with the city's school board that ended his tumultuous three-and-a-half-year tenure. More
 
A 'crescendo of spending'
Independent groups backing the two candidates for California superintendent of public instruction have reloaded the campaigns with millions of dollars in contributions as the race heads toward November 4. More
 
Fiasco, redux
The Los Angeles Unified School District's student information system, which cost more than $130 million, has become a "technological disaster," according to The Los Angeles Times. More
 
Good money after bad
The Los Angeles Unified board has approved the purchase of 3,340 computers costing $3.6 million for school sites struggling to properly schedule classes, take attendance, and track student needs in a new data system. More
          BRIEFLY NOTED 
 
 
Thinking systemically (we hope)
The Education Department has allotted $8.7 million to a new Center for Systemic Improvement, which will replace the old regional resource centers that provided special education assistance to states. More
 
Altered course
Three years after a New York Times exposé, the corporation K12 appears to be taking a step away from virtual charter school operation -- not because of critics' continuing complaints, but because virtual charters are no longer the lucrative or growing business they once were. More
 
Come what may
The Portland, Oregon School Board has voted not to set state-mandated achievement targets in three subject areas linked to the state's new Common Core-aligned tests. More
 
Not making the grade
Indiana Board of Education members have shelved a planned release of A to F grades for all Indiana schools after a sharp debate which included criticism of whether state Superintendent Glenda Ritz and her lieutenants properly screened the data for errors. More
 
Oh, so now he wants federal input
A dispute over the Common Core education standards won't sideline Louisiana's application for up to $15 million in federal grant money for pre-kindergarten programs. More
 
Better spent elsewhere
Over the past 10 years, Wisconsin taxpayers have paid $139 million to private schools that were subsequently barred from the state's voucher system for failing to meet requirements related to finances, accreditation, student safety, and auditing. More
          
GRANTS AND FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES

 
 
MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition: The Trust Challenge
Successful applicants to the MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition Trust Challenge will develop digital tools -- apps, badge systems, data management platforms, online learning content, etc. -- that engender trust, safety, and privacy in connected learning environments, and that empower learners to connect and learn anywhere, anytime in ways that are equitable, social, participatory, and interest-driven. Maximum award: $150,000. Eligibility: organizations and institutions anywhere in the world that serve as laboratories where challenges to trust for youth in connected learning environments can be identified and addressed; applicants may be affiliated with any institution, organization or entity that has legal status to operate, regardless of its size or the sector in which it operates. Deadline: November 3, 2014. More
 
U.S. Dept of Energy Office of Science: Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship Program
The Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship Program provides a unique opportunity for accomplished K-12 educators in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to serve in the national education arena. Fellows spend 11 months working in a federal agency or U.S. Congressional office, bringing their extensive knowledge and experience in the classroom to education program and/or education policy efforts. Maximum award: 11-month fellowship. Eligibility: U.S. citizens with a minimum of five years full-time classroom teaching experience who have been teaching full-time in a public or private elementary or secondary school for at least five of the last seven years in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) discipline and are currently employed full-time in a public or private elementary or secondary school or district in the U.S. Deadline: November 20, 2014. More
 

 
Quote of the Week:
 
"Deasy wasn't careful enough to avoid the perception that he enjoyed using the sledgehammer.  He fought for things he really believed in, which is fine, but he wasn't careful about how it would be perceived by the people who have to teach our kids everyday." -- LA School Board Member Steve Zimmer. More


 

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