[Ohiogift] Public Education NewsBlast — November 13, 2014

[Gifted and Talented in Ohio Discussion List]

                                  ?                November 13, 2014 - In This Issue:
       The midterms and education
  Coming soon to a Congress near you
  Of Tuck and Torlakson
  New centerpiece for NYC schools
  The inevitable VAM lawsuit arrives
  Separate, equal-ish
  Rock and robots
  Early results for personalized learning
  BRIEFLY NOTED CALIFORNIA
  BRIEFLY NOTED
  GRANTS AND FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
                                            The midterms and education
In U.S. News & World Report, Frederick Hess and Mike McShane draw several conclusions from the midterms. Teacher unions had a bad night, they observe. Unions poured money into several races this cycle, and only the expensive California superintendent's race (between two Democrats) had the outcome they sought. Unions also campaigned against Republican Govs. Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Rick Snyder in Michigan, Sam Brownback in Kansas, and Rick Scott in Florida; these candidates prevailed. Hess and McShane also note new Republican governorships in blue states: Charlie Baker in Massachusetts, Larry Hogan in Maryland, and Bruce Rauner in Illinois. Though they face Democratic legislatures, these governors could put a productive and distinctive conservative twist on blue-state policy, as Mitt Romney did in Massachusetts. Since Republicans have captured the U.S. Senate, Lamar Alexander -- former U.S. Secretary of Education and governor of Tennessee -- will helm the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee, and has stated he'd like to reauthorize NCLB and end the Obama administration's acting, in his words, as "a national school board." A bill for a drastically circumscribed role for the Department of Education may therefore be introduced. Finally, Hess and McShane note that for all the debate it provoked this year, the Common Core Standards had little bearing on the midterms. More
 Coming soon to a Congress near you
Since the 114th Congress will turn to GOP control in January, charter and voucher proposals will likely be a top education priority for leaders in the House and Senate, writes Lauren Camera for Education Week. This should cheer Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, who has long sought a bi-cameral, bipartisan measure that he ushered through the House in 2011 and would allow states to tap federal funds to replicate charter models with a track record of success. It would also help charters access high-quality facilities, and encourage states to work with charters to serve special populations. More recently, Kline teamed with Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. on a similar proposal. School-choice policies are now signature issues for Republican senators with presidential aspirations, including Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida, both co-sponsors of school choice bills. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., future chairman of the Senate education committee, has a school-choice proposal that would allow states to put most federal K-12 funds into a giant block grant for creating scholarships for low-income students to use at any school, private or public. Voucher programs, however, are more divisive than proposals aimed at expanding charters. More
Of Tuck and Torlakson
In the wake of Marshall Tuck's failed effort to unseat incumbent California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, education and political observers have reached different conclusions about the election and its significance, writes John Fensterwald for EdSource. David Plank of Policy Analysis for California Education says Tuck's defeat will have little impact: A win by Tuck would have given supporters a "public triumph," but Tuck's campaign promises were empty since actual power rests with Gov. Jerry Brown and the State Board of Education. Tuck's vow to drop an appeal of Vergara v. State of California is an example: Torlakson, a defendant in the suit, appealed, but this is immaterial given that Gov. Jerry Brown has also appealed, trumping anyone else. Dan Schnur of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics fears the election outcome will further deepen the rift between the two main factions that squared off in record spending. Their takeaway may be that higher spending prevails. Steve Barr, founder of Green Dot charters, said the closeness of returns should prompt both sides to de-escalate rhetoric, since they must work together. And Tuck himself says he's inspired by the campaign and the coalition he built, and will continue working on behalf of California's kids in ways he has yet to decide. More
New centerpiece for NYC schools
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced a new approach to fixing the city's troubled schools: more money and staffing, an extended day, and social services on site, reports Elizabeth Harris for The New York Times. De Blasio says these strategies are a sharp departure from his predecessor's, which centered on closing large, failing schools and replacing them with smaller ones. The new program designates 94 Renewal Schools based on a list of criteria, including low four-year graduation rates for high schools and poor test scores for middle and elementary schools. Students at these schools will receive an extra hour of instruction each day, teachers will have extra professional training, and schools will remain open for summer. Schools will also receive a total of $150 million over two years, $39 million this year and $111 million the next. Going forward, these institutions will be designated Community Schools, addressing challenges students face outside the classroom with offerings like mental health services and food for students who lack enough to eat at home. Schools will work along a three-year timeline that will require improved attendance next school year and enhanced academic performance the following. Staffing changes may occur along the way, and if schools do not show meaningful improvement, they could still be closed. More
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Related:
The inevitable VAM lawsuit arrives
Sheri Lederman, a fourth-grade teacher of 17 years for Great Neck Public Schools, is suing New York state officials over their methods of determining she was "ineffective," writes Valerie Strauss on the Answer Sheet blog in The Washington Post. Lederman's students have consistently?outperformed state averages on math and English standardized tests, and?her district's superintendent has signed an affidavit that "her record is flawless" and "she is highly regarded as an educator." Value-added modeling (VAM), which New York uses to measure teacher contributions to student test scores, awarded Lederman just one out of 20 possible points. Lederman's suit alleges that New York State Growth Measures "actually punish excellence in education through a statistical black box that no rational educator or fact-finder could see as fair, accurate, or reliable." In 2012-13, 68.75 percent of Lederman's students met or exceeded state standards in both English and math; she was deemed "effective" that year. In 2013-14, her students' results were similar, but she was rated "ineffective." Sharon Fougner, principal of the school where Lederman teaches, signed an affidavit that she feels awarding of one out of 20 possible points to Lederman under VAM is "arbitrary and capricious." If the utility of VAM falls in New York, more legal challenges are likely in other states. More
     Separate, equal-ish
If wealthy Malibu can convince less-affluent Santa Monica, Calif. that two districts would work better than the one they now share, it could offer a template for others around the country that have sought independence from their less-well-off partners, writes Kyle Spencer for The Hechinger Report. "Separatist movements" are increasingly common as parents in mostly white, mostly middle-class communities in and around such places as Memphis, Salt Lake City, Baton Rouge, and Dallas have sought to splinter from more economically and racially diverse districts. These parents say they're eager to detach from overly bureaucratic administrations, worry that association with schools serving at-risk students hurts property values, desire more local control when districts are increasingly focused on outcomes for their neediest, and are particularly motivated by burgeoning changes in PTA fundraising policies, which create more equitable offerings between schools with wealthy PTAs and those without. Advocates who assist communities that seek to leave larger, more diverse districts argue that these grassroots separatist campaigns are democratic because they result in more parental say in neighborhood schools. Yet so many communities around the country are already divided along racial and economic lines: Today, American schools are more segregated than in 1968. More
Rock and robots
In a profile in Popular Mechanics, David Howard writes that Brent Bushnell and his cofounder Eric Gradman of Two-Bit Circus -- self-professed "giant nerds" -- aim to make STEM more attractive to kids through their STEAM Carnival (added A for Art), which recently debuted in a 50,000-square-foot Los Angeles warehouse. The carny is a "Trojan horse," Howard says, for the STEM curriculum: Lure kids with attractions they're drawn to -- robots, interactive experiences, contests, prizes, and games -- and fill their heads with the science they never knew they wanted to know. STEAM games include a motion-capture mechanical bull, a laser-maze limbo, a Jacob's ladder game that sends lightning-bolt voltage up the pole to ring the bell, and more. Unlike traditional carny games, whose secrets are concealed, the STEAM versions have engaging explanations of their underlying science and technology. A curriculum for participating schools has six weeks of hands-on learning. "There's all this crazy, awesome stuff you can do now," Bushnell says. "In a weekend, we can build a robot that controls [things] in outer space. If kids had a better sense of what was possible, they would be excited about it, too. We believe it's the new rock and roll." More?
Early results for personalized learning
An interim report for a RAND Corporation study on personalized-learning practices in the classroom, underwritten by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, finds participating students have significantly greater gains in math and reading over the last two years than a virtual control group of similar students at comparable schools. The concept of personalized learning is evolving as new models, approaches, and supporting technologies emerge, but many of the early-adopting schools appear to implement similar practices. Each school in the study has undertaken one or more key, personalized-learning practices: learner profiles, personal learning paths, competency-based progression, and/or flexible learning environments. Two-thirds of teachers from the 23 participating schools use learner profiles and learning plans for students, and 86 percent said they pace instruction based on student need. Teachers also report higher expectations that translate into a change in school culture, with more emphasis on college-going. While all 23 schools in the interim study are public charter schools, the next stage of research includes 29 additional charter and district schools. The report is the first in a series of an ongoing long-term study of schools using a variety of approaches to personalized learning to identify the most promising and important features of these school models, and to document challenges schools face as they implement them. More
          BRIEFLY NOTED CALIFORNIA
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A question of numbers
Substantially more students are assigned per teacher in California than in Vermont. More
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Full stop
LAUSD's Interim Superintendent Ramon Cortines has ordered a hiring freeze, citing "significant deficits" for the next two school years.?More
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Tough on needless expense
Reductions in spending that result from Prop 47 -- fewer non-violent incarcerations -- will go to a fund that includes the California Department of Education.?More
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Unsafe, unsanitary
Two years after the state took over Inglewood Unified,?the district still struggles with fiscal and management problems.?More
          BRIEFLY NOTED?
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Tenure stands in MO
Missouri voters rejected a proposed constitutional amendment to limit Missouri teacher-tenure protections and tie educator evaluations to student performance data. More
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A new majority
Numbers released by the Illinois State Board of Education in its annual school report card show that for the first time ever, low-income children now outnumber middle-class students in the state's public schools.?More
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Sounds good to them
The Indiana State Board of Education has approved "A-F" school grades that indicate more than half the state's 2,000-plus schools earned an "A" under the key school-rating system, with the number of schools rating the top grade surging nearly a third in the past three years.?More
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Money ill spent
Performance is improving "a bit" for Louisiana students attending private schools at taxpayer expense, but only 44 percent of those students have reached a "basic" achievement level, and 23 of the 125 participating private schools performed too poorly to continue enrolling new voucher students next year.?More?
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AIR supply
Arizona education officials have awarded a $19 million contract to the American Institutes for Research to develop a new set of standardized tests that students will start taking this spring.?More
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Significant failure
A new report finds that two-thirds of Mississippi youngest students enter school unprepared to learn and are well below where they should be in terms of literacy.?More
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Ready to launch
The D.C. Public Charter School Board has given full approval for Rocketship Education, a California-based charter operator, to open its first school in the District in 2016.?More
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Falling short
Many teachers in private pre-kindergarten programs in New York City are not getting paid the salaries that Mayor Bill de Blasio promised when he laid out his vision last spring for the massive expansion of full-day pre-k.?More
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Something amiss
Once again, black and Hispanic students students comprised?a disproportionate share of NYC Schools suspensions: 87 percent went to black and Hispanic pupils, though the two groups combined make up 67 percent of all public-school students; more than a third went to students with disabilities, double their representation in the schools.?More
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Expect an appeal
A Louisiana Supreme Court panel has overturned a lower-court class action stemming from the dismissal of teachers after Hurricane Katrina, a decision that for now spares the New Orleans district and Louisiana from owing $1.5 billion in back pay.?More
          
GRANTS AND FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES

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Kennedy Center/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Awards
Each year, The Kennedy Center/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Awards solicits nominations from the general public and notable public figures, providing the opportunity to submit stories about teachers and professors who made a significant difference in their lives. Maximum award: $10,000. Eligibility: Nominees must be legal residents of the United States teach or have taught in a K-12 school, or college, or university in the United States. Deadline: December 14, 2014. More
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The New Teacher Project: The Fishman Prize
The Fishman prize is an annual award for exceptionally effective teachers working in high-poverty public schools. Maximum award: $25,000; summer residency. Eligibility: full-time teachers at public schools (including charter schools) where at least 40% of all students are eligible for Free or Reduced Price Lunch (or a Title I school). Deadline: December 16, 2014. More
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U.S. Army: eCYBERMISSION
eCYBERMISSION is a free, web-based Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics competition in which students compete against other students in their grades for state, regional and national awards.?? Teams consisting of 3-4 students and a team advisor would work to solve problems in their community utilizing the scientific method, scientific inquiry, or engineering design process and can win at the state, regional and national levels. Maximum award: $5,000 in U.S. EE Savings Bonds per student. Eligibility: students grades 6 through 9 at a U.S.-based public, private or home school, or a Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) school abroad. Deadline: December 17, 2014. More
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Quote of the Week:
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"It's hard for me to understand what the business types and the testing types of this education debate think they won here." - AFT President Randi Weingarten on the mid-term elections. More


 

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