Dot McDonald - A Rising Star

A. David Dahmer:

The sky is the limit for the Madison area senior who will be graduating from Madison West in June. Dot has been involved in just about everything possible at her school, and people have noticed. She was recently recognized by the Madison Metropolitan Links Inc. at the annual Student Recognition Program as a 2008 Links Scholarship recipient. She won the Project Excel Award at West High and the Jewel of the Community Award from the Ladies of Distinction for making a difference in the community. She’s involved with the Wisconsin Center for Academically Talented Youth where she received a leadership award and also recently won the Joe Thomas Community Service Award for her extensive community involvement.
“I do like to stay active,” Dot laughs.

Girls Who Play Too Much

Ruth Conniff:

Everyone knows an athlete who has been sidelined by injury. I can think of two off the top of my head: star football players I knew in high school and college, both of whom suffered career-ending knee injuries and struggled with almost existential crises as they adjusted to life as regular humans instead of campus gods.

But in a provocative cover story this week in The New York Times Sunday magazine, "Hurt Girls" (adapted from the forthcoming book Warrior Girls: Protecting Our Daughters Against the Injury Epidemic in Women's Sports), author Michael Sokolove posits that female athletes suffer far greater rates of injury than males. The injury crisis is so severe, relates Sokolove, it casts the whole Title IX revolution in women's sports in a grim light.

"I'm afraid for her and for all these girls," Sokolove quotes the mother of an injured soccer player saying. "What's it going to be like for them at 40 years old? They're in so much pain now. Knees and backs and hips, and they just keep on going.... Are they going to look back and regret it?"

Educational Romanticism: On Requiring Every Child to Be Above Average

Charles Murray:

This is the story of educational romanticism in elementary and secondary schools -- its rise, its etiology, and, we have reason to hope, its approaching demise.

Educational romanticism consists of the belief that just about all children who are not doing well in school have the potential to do much better. Correlatively, educational romantics believe that the academic achievement of children is determined mainly by the opportunities they receive; that innate intellectual limits (if they exist at all) play a minor role; and that the current K-12 schools have huge room for improvement. Educational romanticism characterizes reformers of both Left and Right, though in different ways.

Educational romantics of the Left focus on race, class, and gender. It is children of color, children of poor parents, and girls whose performance is artificially depressed, and their academic achievement will blossom as soon as they are liberated from the racism, classism, and sexism embedded in American education. Those of the Right see public education as an ineffectual monopoly, and think that educational achievement will blossom when school choice liberates children from politically correct curricula and obdurate teachers’ unions.

Clusty Search on Charles Murray.

School Funding's Tragic Flaw

Kevin Carey:

Public education costs a lot of money -- over $500 billion per year. Over the last century, there have been huge changes in where that money comes from and how it's spent. In 1930, only 17 percent of school funding came from state sources, and virtually none came from the federal government. Today, the state / local / federal split is roughly 50/40/10 (individual states vary). People still say all the time that "most" school funding comes from local property taxes, but that hasn't actually been true since the mid-1970s.

On the whole, this change has been of tremendous benefit to disadvantaged students. As states have assumed the primary role in funding education, they've tended to distribute money in ways that are, on the whole, more equitable. The same is true for federal funding, most of which is spent on behalf of poor students and students with disabilities. (This works because taxpayers have a weird psychological relationship with their tax dollars. Rationally, people should view every dollar they pay in taxes and receive in services as equal, regardless of the basis of taxation or the source of the services. But they don't. People feel very strongly that locally-generated property taxes should be spent locally, while they feel less ownership over state taxes and even less over federal dollars. As a result, they'll tear their hair out if you propose transferring 10 percent of their local property tax dollars to a low-income district across the state, but they're far more sanguine if you propose a state school funding formula with precisely the same net result in terms of the taxes they pay and the dollars their local school district receives. It doesn't make sense, but that's okay, because this irrational jurisdiction-dependent selflessness is what allows for the redistributionist school funding policies that poor students depend on to get a decent education.)

Madison's revenue sources are a bit different than Carey's example: 65.1% from local property taxes, 17.2% redistributed state taxes and the rest from grants, contributions and other sources.

Related links:

• K-12 Tax & Spending Climate
• The Wisconsin Department of Revenue noted recently that Wisconsin state tax collections are up 2.3% year to date [136K PDF].
• Madison's general fund spending will increase about 4.53% for the 2008/2009 school year (this will change when the final budget is adopted in the fall).
• Wisconsin's structural deficit = $1,700,000,000.
• Madison's K-12 spending history, from 1995 ($217,110,831) to 2008 ($367,806,712) can be found here.

Finally, Patrick McIlheran notes that Wisconsin's tax burden continues to rise:

Wisconsin's entwined state and local governments taxed a sum equal to 12.3% of Wisconsinites' income last year. That was up from 12.2% the year before and 12.1% the year before that. This biennium, the state is spending 10.5% more than last. Ever, the numbers rise.

They rise because the state's costs do. But taxpayers, too, pay more for gasoline, food, power and practically everything else. Times are tough. You'd think the least government could do would be to avoid piling on.

Prince William Schools Join to Design Regional Science/Technology Magnet

Ian Shapira:

Prince William County, after years of longing, may finally get a selective magnet school to serve as a mini-rival to Fairfax County's prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.

The Prince William, Manassas and Manassas Park school systems recently won a $100,000 state grant to design a regional "governor's school" that would open by fall 2010 and specialize in math, science and technology.

The yet-unnamed school, which would have rigorous admissions requirements, would differ in key respects from Thomas Jefferson, a full-day governor's school in the Alexandria section of Fairfax that draws students from across Northern Virginia. Students would still attend neighborhood schools, traveling to the new magnet campus only for high-level classes.

Pennsylvania Charter Schools Growth

Eleanor Chute:

More than a decade after charter schools became legal in Pennsylvania, it is safe to say the schools, once considered experimental and still sometimes controversial, are here to stay.

About 64,000 students are enrolled in 126 charter schools statewide, and about 20,000 are on charter school waiting lists, according to the Pennsylvania Coalition of Charter Schools.

Nearly half of the schools are in Philadelphia. But parents of Western Pennsylvania students -- including 2,355 children living in Pittsburgh -- also have chosen charter schools, which can be bricks-and-mortar buildings or cyber schools.

Their staying power will be in evident this week as the Pennsylvania Coalition of Charter Schools, a statewide advocacy and support organization, conducts its state convention at the Pittsburgh Marriott City Center, Uptown. The meeting, which began yesterday, runs through tomorrow and is expected to attract more than 1,000 people.

Madison West Rocketry Club Travels to the Team America Rocketry Challenge

TARC website:

The scores are in, and all the hard work has paid off for the 100 finalists for the Team America Rocketry Challenge. Those teams will face one another during the exciting final fly-off on Saturday, May 17 in The Plains, Va. for the title of national TARC champion. After a full day of launches, held at the Great Meadows facility, the winners will be crowned and $60,000 in scholarships will be divided up among the top finishers.

West Rocketry website.

11 Madison-area students win at National History Day

Wisconsin Historical Society:

We are proud to announce the national finalists and alternates for the 2008 Wisconsin History Day State Event held on May 3, 2008. The national finalists represented Wisconsin at the national contest June 15-19, 2008 at the University of Maryland - College Park.

The first and second alternate in each category are offered the opportunity to attend the national contest in the event that the finalist entry is unable to attend.

Each finalist designs their entry to reflect the annual theme. The entries below reflect the annual theme for 2008: Conflict and Compromise in History.

This year's local winners: Amanda Snodgrass (Mount Horeb High School), Joanna Weng (Velma Hamilton Middle School), and Alexandra Cohn and David Aeschlimann (Madison West High School). The following students from Eagle School were also winners: Hannah O'Dea, Carolyn Raihala, Sophie Gerdes, Sonia Urquidi, Nate Smith, Jeffrey Zhao and Eli Fessler.

Via the Capital Times.

Some Rich Students 'Merit' Financial Aid

Kim Clark:

Although college tuition prices are at an all-time high, colleges are, on average, issuing stingier financial aid packages this year, say counselors who've been helping families with their college finances.

Counselors who have examined awards from many colleges say that only a few dozen extremely generous schools are making sure that every student who needs financial help gets enough scholarships to attend. Meanwhile, a growing number of schools and states are awarding scholarships to students from wealthy families. Some of the wealthy students are receiving "merit" awards because of their top grades or test scores, but counselors say they are increasingly seeing run-of-the-mill but wealthy students receive "merit" awards, too. Meanwhile, the vast majority of low- and middle-income students are receiving far less aid than they need.

The Haskins Literacy Initiative

Michael F. Shaughnessy:

First of all, what exactly is this Haskins Literacy Initiative?

Haskins Literacy Initiative promotes the science of teaching reading in three main ways.First, we provide comprehensive professional development, coaching and classroom support to make teachers masters of effective literacy practices. Teachers, not programs, teach children to read.By becoming informed consumers about the myths and realities of teaching reading, teachers can become "method-proof," knowing what to teach which child when.

Second, we conduct field research about how knowledge and practice impacts student reading achievement.

Our parent, Haskins Laboratories, has conducted more basic reading research for over 40 years.Finally, we engage in advocacy to inform public policy to improve reading achievement for every child.

Waukesha begins looking at an operating referendum

Amy Hetzner:

District officials blame the financial troubles on the discrepancy between what they can raise under revenue caps, which increase roughly 2% a year, and expenditures that grow about 4% a year.

A $4.9 million annual addition to the district's operating revenue that was approved by voters in an April 2001 referendum gave the district only a few years free from cutting programs and services. Another referendum attempt in April 2005 that would have raised taxes to help avoid further staff reductions failed by a substantial margin.

Board member Patrick McCaffery warned that the board risked another referendum setback if it proceeds without searching for additional efficiencies, including closing a school and realigning attendance boundaries

Waukesha's Executive Director of Business Services, Erik Kass will soon join the Madison School District in a similar capacity. K-12 Tax & Spending Climate.

YES, A New Approach for the Inner City

Nidya Baez, Douglas Cruickshank:

Reinventing our schools with a greater emphasis on student needs and community engagement is, I believe, one of the most broadly beneficial ways to apply the "think globally, act locally" philosophy. Indeed, many students, parents, teachers, administrators and education experts would probably agree that our education system must be radically retooled to increase its relevance and effectiveness in ways that enable all individuals to prosper in what's already shaping up to be an extremely challenging century.

That was what I and some of my fellow high school students were thinking in 2002, even if we didn't express it in quite those words. Nonetheless, by 2003 we'd helped develop an Oakland high school called YES (Youth Empowerment School), part of the city's Small Schools Initiative. Last year, I graduated from UC Berkeley. I'm now working as a substitute teacher and language tutor, and I've recently interviewed for a fall 2008 faculty position at YES.

In 2002, and today, Oakland's students and its schools were coping with problems endemic to education in big cities across the United States.

Psychiatric Help 5c

Will Fitzhugh
The Concord Review
15 May 2008

In Peanuts, when we see Lucy offering Psychiatric Help for a nickel, we know it is a joke: ("The Psychiatrist is IN"), but when English teachers in the schools insist that students write about the most intimate details of their private lives for school assignments, that is not a joke, it is an unwarranted intrusion.

There are a couple of major problems with the "personal writing" that has taken over so many of the writing assignments for the English classes in our schools.

First, the teachers are asking students to share information about their personal lives that is none of the teachers' business. The vast majority of English teachers are not qualified as psychologists, much less as psychiatrists, and they should not pretend that they are.

Second, the time spent by students writing assignments for their teachers in their personal diaries is subtracted from time they need to spend learning how to do the academic expository writing they will need to be able to do when they leave school, for college and for work.

I will leave it to others to explain why English teachers have gone down this road in so many of our schools. I have written a number of articles about Creative Nonfiction and Contentless Writing, and the like, to try to encourage some attention to the retreat (or flight) from academic writing in our schools.

Continue reading "Psychiatric Help 5c"

Foundation for Madison Public Schools Celebrates Carol Carstensen's School Board Tenure

Samara Kalk Derby:

More than 100 friends, colleagues, family members and parents showed up at a farewell party Wednesday at Olbrich Gardens to say goodbye and thank you to Carol Carstensen, who served six terms on the Madison School Board and stepped down after the spring elections.

"There will never be another Carol Carstensen. I will predict that," said School Board member Johnny Winston Jr. "There will never be another School Board member in this community that will serve 18 years. I miss her already."

Winston called it a wonderful experience to work with Carstensen.

"She really not only knew the material and had a grasp of the issues going on, but she also had her pulse on the community as well," he said.

Former board member Nan Brien, who served with Carstensen in the early 1990s, said that for 18 years Carstensen was the spokesperson on the board for all the kids in the district.

"She was particularly adamant that all kids, no matter their background, have an opportunity for the best education. That is the heart and soul of who Carol Carstensen is," Brien said.

Carol reflects on her tenure, including three accomplishments she takes personal pride in: Wright Middle School, renaming 5 middle schools to reflect the diversity of our community and establishment of the Joe Thomas award.

Much more on Carol Carstensen here. Watch a brief video interview with Carol during her most recent campaign.

More on the Foundation for Madison Public Schools here. John Taylor's 2003 challenge grants energized the formation of FMPS.

A One Page Reaction to "Check the Facts: Few States Set World-Class Standards"

In their scheme of things, Peterson and Hess1 used the NAEP scale to designate three states – Massachusetts, South Carolina and Missouri – as having "world class standards." In the process, they classified my state – Idaho – among a group of 12 states that have pitched their expectation far below the other states. So what?

There is no reason to expect that setting a “world-class standard” will cause “world-class achievement.” Indeed, a recently released research study using the NAEP scale and state standards and achievement scores found little relationship between the rigor of a state’s standard and the overall achievement of its students.2

What happens when the overall reading and mathematics achievement in grades 4 and 8 on NAEP 2007 in the three Peterson and Hess “world-class standards” states is compared to the overall achievement in one of their “low expectation” states such as Idaho? Zero correlation! This is clearly illustrated in the following table:


“Proficient” has several meanings. It is important to understand clearly that the [NAEP] Proficient achievement level does not refer to “at grade” performance. Nor is performance at the Proficient level synonymous with “proficiency” in the subject. That is, students who may be considered proficient in a subject, given the common usage of the term, might not satisfy the requirements for performance at the NAEP achievement level.3

1 Peterson, P.E., and Hess, F.M. (2008, Summer). Check the facts: Few states set world-class standards. Education Next, 8(3). Retrieved May 13, 2008, from http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/18845034.html

2 McLaughlin, D.H., Bandeira de Mello, V., Blankenship, C., Chaney, K., Esra, P., Hikawa, H., Rojas, D., William, P., and Wolman, M. (2008). Comparison Between NAEP and State Reading Assessment Results: 2003 (NCES 2008-474). National for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC. Retrieved May 13, 2008, from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2008474

3 Loomis, S.C., and Bourque, M.L. (Eds.) (2001). National Assessment of Educational Progress achievement levels 1992-1998 for reading. National Assessment Governing Board, U.S. Department of Education. Washington, D.C. Retrieved May 13, 2008, from http://www.nagb.org/pubs/readingbook.pdf

58K PDF

Teach For America's Growth

Sam Dillon:

Teach for America, the program that recruits top college graduates to teach for two years in public schools that are difficult to staff, has experienced a year of prodigious growth and will place 3,700 new teachers this fall, up from 2,900 last year, a 28 percent increase.

That growth was outpaced, however, by a surge in applications from college seniors. About 24,700 applied this spring to be teachers, up from 18,000 last year, a 37 percent increase, according to figures released by the organization on Wednesday.

The nonprofit program sent its first 500 recruits into American public school classrooms in 1990. It has a large recruiting staff that visits campuses, contacting top prospects and recruiting aggressively. Founded by a Princeton graduate, it has always carefully sifted through applicants’ grade-point averages and other data in recruiting. But with the numbers of applicants increasing faster than the number of teachers placed, it was even more selective this year than before, the organization said.

Wisconsin's Structural Deficit: $1,700,000,000

Steven Walters:

State government faces a long-term imbalance between spending commitments and tax collections of almost $1.7 billion - even if the budget-repair bill that passed the Senate on Tuesday becomes law.

That figure is $800 million more than last fall, when the budget was adopted.

The Legislative Fiscal Bureau blamed the higher long-term deficit on the sluggish economy, because tax collections are expected to grow by only 2% - less than half the 5.5% annual growth in the past. Every 1% lag in tax collections means state government collects $130 million less in taxes.

Fiscal Bureau Director Bob Lang gave legislators the $1.7 billion estimate of the so-called "structural deficit," which is the projected shortfall Gov. Jim Doyle and legislators face next year when they must pass the 2009-'11 budget.

Parents are Less Strict on Their Younger Children

Raina Kelley:

It's considered a "fact" of sibling relations: the baby of the family always gets away with murder. If the oldest brother had a curfew of 11 p.m. on weekends, his baby sister just has to call if she's staying out all night. But can it be proven that parents are always stricter with their first born?

Researchers from the University of Maryland, Duke University and The Johns Hopkins University say yes, if there are younger siblings in the family, out of concern for the example that is being set for them. Using economic game theory, which is the use of mathematical analysis to determine what kinds of choices people make, the research team looked at more than 11,000 subjects in the National Longitudinal Study of Youth to predict levels of parental discipline. They also discovered that having one additional younger brother or sister can lower the chance that an adolescent will drop out of high school by 3 percentage points. Researchers also found that though parents are much less likely to financially support or put up with a rebellious teen if there are still younger children at home, their resolve weakens as older siblings move out and younger siblings grow up. "As a result, the theory predicts that last-born and only children, knowing that they can get away with much more than their older brothers and sisters, are, on average, more likely to engage in risky behaviors," says University of Maryland economist Ginger Jin, one of three coauthors of the study. NEWSWEEK's Raina Kelley spoke to Gin about the study and the games teens play. Excerpts

Assistant LA Superintendent Sounds Off

Mitchell Landsberg interviews Ramon Cortines:

"I’ve tackled some of the sacred cows in my recommendations, such as the issues of contracts, how much money we could receive from that. Such as the issue of health benefits, and how much money we could receive by capping that. And increasing the co-pay."

Cortines was at times unsparing of LAUSD's failures, saying that the district is organized for the benefit of the adults who work there, not the children they are hired to serve. He said the school board passes too many resolutions that "aren't worth the paper [they're] printed on." And he said the district had "abdicated our responsibility" for Locke High School, which is about to be turned over to Green Dot Public Schools, the big charter operator. Students didn't get a pass, though: He said the district needs to enforce "a code of behavior" based on the idea that they don't just have rights -- they also have responsibilities.

Clusty Search: Ramon Cortines.

Hawaii lawmakers push keiki education

Loren Moreno:

With milestone legislation poised for passage, Hawai'i is expected to join a growing list of states that have established some form of an early childhood education system.

State lawmakers said last week they are likely to pass the "Keiki First Steps" legislation — Senate Bill 2878 — which would set aside at least $250,000 to establish a state council on early learning. The council is intended to be the governing body of what is likely to become Hawai'i's public-private early education system.

The system would be a private-public partnership, with services offered by existing and new childcare or preschool facilities.

The state eventually would make money available to the private schools to use for kids age 3 to 4. As a condition of taking the money, a school would have to agree to meet state standards.

Legal Advocacy and Education Reform: Litigating School Exclusion

Deann Hill Rivkin:

School exclusion has existed as a dark side of public education since the creation of America's public schools. Several cases in the United States Supreme Court memorably invalidated State and school system efforts to deny equal educational opportunities to marginalized school children and youth. In these cases, the over-riding multiple values of education were poignantly articulated in the majority decisions.

School exclusion has stubbornly persisted. It takes many forms. This article surveys the most prominent pathways to school exclusion, highlighting what has been called the "School-To-Prison-Pipeline." Various legal challenges are also evaluated. The pros and cons of litigating school exclusion cases are also assessed.

Commentary on: Should Student Results Count in Grading Teachers?

Followup on Student Test and Teacher Grades:

I am a retired elementary school principal from Long Island, N.Y. I was also a teacher, counselor and school psychologist during my 39 years in public education.

It was, to say the least, appalling to learn in John Merrow's "Student Tests -- and Teacher Grades" (op-ed, May 9) that teachers' unions prevailed, at least in New York state, in eliminating the quality of student performance in determining a teacher's tenure. Besides violating common sense, it is counter to most other evaluations. For instance, aren't coaches in any sport evaluated by the performance of their respective charges, be they teams or individuals?

In my estimation, the evaluation of a teacher's performance for tenure consideration at K-12 level should be based primarily on that teacher's students performance, i.e., results, just as we judge the quality of performance in many other activities, be it sports, sales, etc.

Leon W. Zelby
Norman, Okla.

Blame the teachers and the unions -- how often do we have to hear the same old tired arguments as to why the American educational system is failing?

I taught music for 20 years in both public and private schools, and there have always been good students and bad students.

Sorry, parents -- when your kids don't do well in school, it is usually due to lack of discipline at home. Parents who acquiesce to the whims of a child, refuse to impose rules, and blame the teacher are begging for their child to fail. Through the years, I watched as good teachers left the profession in disgust. For all their hard work, the pay is still low, administrators and parents still lack respect, and when something goes wrong, well, we still blame the teacher.

Matching Newcomer to College, While Both Pay

Tamar Lewin:

When Xiaoxi Li, a 20-year-old from Beijing, decided she should go to college in the United States, she applied only to Ohio University — not that she knew much about it.

"I heard of Ohio, of course," Ms. Li said. "I knew it was in the middle, and has agriculture.”"

What brought her here was the recommendation of a Chinese recruiting agent, JJL Overseas Education Consulting and Service Company. For about $3,000, JJL helped Ms. Li choose a college, complete the application and prepare for the all-important visa interview.

"Everyone I know used an agent,”" she said. "They are professionals. They suggested Ohio University might be the best for me. They have a good relationship with Ohio University."

Actually, JJL has more than a good relationship with Ohio University. Unknown to Ms. Li, it has a contract, under which the agent gets a $1,000 commission for each undergraduate it sends.

Who will teach our children?

Daniel Meier:

I teach people who want to become public school teachers. Although the needs of our children and schools have never been greater, the number of people going into teaching has dropped by 23 percent between fiscal 2001-02 and 2004-05, according to the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning. California has about 300,000 teachers, half of whom are over 45 years of age. We need approximately 10,000 new teachers each year. But as our teachers age and get closer to retirement, and younger teachers enter the profession in increasingly smaller numbers, who will teach our children?

I have been a teacher educator for 11 years, and I teach in a high-quality program, but there are at least four critical reasons why we are not attracting enough teachers to California's public schools.

Football, Dartmouth and a Third Grade Teacher

George Vecsey:

Williams, 53, is not just any retired player. He has been a shining light of the N.F.L., his name even floated around when the commissionership was open a couple of years ago. And he won awards for citizenship and sportsmanship while playing in two Super Bowls.

Before the 1982 Super Bowl near Detroit, not far from his childhood home in Flint, Mich., he told reporters how he had been underachieving in the third grade until his teacher, Geraldine Chapel, sent him off for tests that proved he was quite smart but hard of hearing. The hearing improved, and so did his self-image and his schoolwork.

Williams majored in psychology at Dartmouth and was all-Ivy linebacker for three years as well as an Ivy heavyweight wrestling champion. Undersized at 6 feet and 228 pounds, Williams merged his intelligence and his outsider’s drive to make the Bengals.

Leapold Elementary's Population Again Rises to the Top

Channel3000:

Dozens of parents and staff members attended Monday night's Madison Metropolitan School District's Board of Education meeting to shed new light on an old problem: overcrowding at a local elementary school.

The issue of overcrowding at Aldo Leopold Elementary School is prompting some parents and teachers to tell the board solutions they'd like to see to relieve the problem.

Some said that the obvious solution would be to build a new Leopold Elementary or perhaps to adjust the school's boundaries. The group presenting the board with the findings of a parent-teacher survey about the challenges at the school, WISC-TV reported.

The school is at 99 percent attendance with 718 students and can only handle eight more students, officials said.

Monday evening's Board meeting included a brief discussion of a much larger Leapold School - perhaps similar to the failed 2005 referendum that would have created a building suitable for 1100+students.

American man jailed after daughter fails exam

Tom Leonard:

A father who was ordered by a judge to keep a close eye on his daughter's education has been jailed for six months after she failed a maths exam.

Brian Gegner, of Fairfield, Ohio, was sentenced to 180 days in prison for "contributing to the delinquency of a minor".

His daughter, Brittany, now 18, had a history of school truancy and a judge warned her father to make sure she passed her General Educational Development tests.

Her family said that she passed four of the five parts, except for maths which she has failed several times

Immunization Rates Falling, CDC Says

Audrey Grayson:

Fewer children in the United States are getting the immunizations they need, putting themselves and others at much greater risk of contracting and spreading vaccine-preventable diseases, new research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests.

Moms team up to battle influence of gangs: 'We didn't raise our kids this way'

Annie Sweeney:

It's what everyone wants to know after a gang member terrorizes a neighborhood: Where are the parents?

For the last several months, at least some of them have been meeting in a South Side church basement to pray and cry and face a deep shame: They are mothers of the gang-bangers on the corners. Or they fear their child is about to join a gang.

Many are also single parents, struggling to pay bills. They work 16 hours a day, and every time they hear a gunshot, they worry their child has been shot or has shot someone else's child. Some chase after their kids at 2 a.m.; others have stood in defiance when they won't leave a corner.

And yes, they wonder what they did wrong.

Push Continues for the Wisconsin Covenant

John Burton:

Wisconsin's Lieutenant Governor is traveling the state, urging eighth graders to sign up for the Wisconsin Covenant. The program seeks to get kids into higher education.

In Rhinelander, Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton told students education is necessary to have good job prospects. She says every student should have some form of post-high school education if they want to have a family supporting job.

Wisconsin Covenant Website:

Enrollment for current 8th graders is now open!

Students who want to sign the Wisconsin Covenant Pledge must do so by September 30th of their freshman year.

To join online, click here.

Pair Break Barriers for Charter Schools

Jay Matthews:

They won a legal battle to force Maryland to increase public funding for charter schools more than 60 percent. They opened two charter schools in Prince George's County and befriended the superintendent there even though the county had a reputation as hostile to the charter movement. They run one of the largest charter school networks in the country.

Yet Dennis and Eileen Bakke remain relatively unknown in local education circles.

Dennis, 62, and Eileen, 55, live in Arlington County. He knows business; she is into education. Few people guess, and the Bakkes never volunteer, what an impact they have had on education in the region and beyond. Their Imagine Schools organization, based in Arlington, oversees 51 schools (four in the Washington area) with 25,000 students. By fall, it plans to have 75 schools with 38,000 students.

Jason Botel, who directs KIPP charter schools in Baltimore, is one educator who knows what the Bakkes have accomplished. "Their funding of advocacy efforts has helped make sure that . . . charter schools like ours can provide a great education for children in Maryland," he said.

Imagine Schools' report card.

Start school early and we can help poor kids

Andy Fleckenstein:

In Milwaukee, one out of three school-aged children lives in poverty. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Milwaukee ranks sixth highest in the nation. Many of these children do not have access to quality education at an early age, which gives them a disadvantage when entering school. It also affects their academic achievement, odds of graduating and potential for earning a family-sustaining wage as adults.

In other words, early childhood literacy is crucial to breaking the cycle of poverty.

Research shows that successful programs don't teach just children. Academic performance improves when parents are involved. This might seem obvious, or even easy. But, for the single mother of three working two jobs, it's anything but easy. It's much harder to help with homework when you're focused on getting food on the table.

For the past four years, the Fleck Foundation has supported United Way's early childhood education initiative because the programs it funds require parents to be involved. We know that this key component leads to success. As a result, each year we challenge the community to support the initiative by matching donations dollar-for-dollar that are designated to address early childhood literacy. Our hope is to stimulate growth in donations and increase attention to this important issue.

One program in particular, Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters or HIPPY, conducted by COA Youth and Family Centers, sends "coaches" to the homes of low-income families. The coaches show parents how to teach their children through reading.

The results speak for themselves.

Gang Activity in Suburbs Acknowledged

Christina Sanchez:

Two weeks before the fatal shooting of a Franklin teenager in what appears to be a gang-related fight, Nashville police gave gang awareness training to Williamson County school faculty.

The school officials' request in March for the training suggests a willingness to acknowledge, although not yet publicly, what they and local law enforcement had long been reluctant to admit:

Gangs exist in suburbia.

"Gangs have always been here, probably much longer than the Police Department was aware or recognized," said Sgt. Charles Warner, a detective with the Franklin Police Department. "We've started to see a slow increase. By no means is there an epidemic."

Several smaller communities outside of Nashville have seen an increase over the past few years in gang presence and gang-related crime. Local police departments attribute gangs' migration to growth — and to Metro's aggressive police crackdown on street gangs in Nashville, which pushes criminal activity to outlying cities.

Educating the Community on Gangs in Madison.

Check the Facts: Few States Set World-Class Standards
Summer 2008 (vol. 8, no. 3) Table of Contents CHECK THE FACTS: Few States Set World-Class Standards
In fact, most render the notion of proficiency meaningless

Paul E. Peterson and Frederick M. Hess:

As the debate over the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) makes its murky way through the political swamp, one thing has become crystal clear: Though NCLB requires that virtually all children become proficient by the year 2014, states disagree on the level of accomplishment in math and reading a proficient child should possess. A few states have been setting world-class standards, but most are well off that mark—in some cases to a laughable degree.

In this report, we use 2007 test-score information to evaluate the rigor of each state’s proficiency standards against the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), an achievement measure that is recognized nationally and has international credibility as well. The analysis extends previous work (see "Johnny Can Read...in Some States," features, Summer 2005, and "Keeping an Eye on State Standards," features, Summer 2006) that used 2003 and 2005 test-score data and finds in the new data a noticeable decline, especially at the 8th-grade level. In Figure 1, we rank the rigor of state proficiency standards using the same A to F scale teachers use to grade students. Those that receive an A have the toughest definitions of student proficiency, while those with an F have the least rigorous.

Measuring Standards

That states vary widely in their definitions of student proficiency seems little short of bizarre. Agreement on what constitutes "proficiency" would seem the essential starting point: if students are to know what is expected of them, teachers are to know what to teach, and parents are to have a measuring stick for their schools. In the absence of such agreement, it is impossible to determine how student achievement stacks up across states and countries.

One national metric for performance does exist, the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The NAEP is a series of tests administered under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. Known as the Nation’s Report Card, the NAEP tests measure proficiency in reading and math among 4th and 8th graders nationwide as well as in every state. The NAEP sets its proficiency standard through a well-established, if complex, technical process. Basically, it asks informed experts to judge the difficulty of each of the items in its test bank. The experts’ handiwork received a pat on the back recently when the American Institutes for Research (AIR) showed that NAEP’s definition of "proficiency" was very similar to the standard used by designers of international tests of student achievement. Proficiency has acquired roughly the same meaning in Europe and Asia, and in the United States—as long as the NAEP standard is employed.

No Child Left Behind Lacks Bite: Worst-Performing Schools Rarely Adopt Radical Remedies

Robert Tomsho:

Critics of the federal No Child Left Behind law, including Democratic presidential candidates vowing to overhaul or end it, have often accused it of being too harsh. It punishes weak schools instead of supporting them, as Sen. Barack Obama puts it.

But when it comes to the worst-performing schools, the 2001 law hasn't shown much bite. The more-radical restructuring remedies put forth by the law have rarely been adopted by these schools, many of which aren't doing much to address their problems, according to a federal study last year.

The troubles in the restructuring arena reflect broader questions about whether NCLB is a strong enough tool to bring about the overhaul of American education. In many ways, the law was an outgrowth of "A Nation at Risk," a pivotal 1983 federal report that warned that a "rising tide of mediocrity" in education could undermine the nation's competitiveness. That report ushered in the era of accountability and testing, which eventually spawned NCLB.

Supporters maintain the law is helping to fuel learning gains. In the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress tests, reading and math scores for fourth and eighth graders rose compared to 2005, albeit only by a few points.

But NCLB gave states -- not the federal government -- authority to set the academic standards for local schools. And so, while NCLB requires all students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014, states determine what proficiency is and how they will test for it. A 2007 federal study found states don't exactly agree on proficiency.

Related: Commentary on Wisconsin's Department of Public Instruction Standards. DPI Website.

New BadgerLink training videos

Wisconsin DPI:

Four new programs on the BadgerLink website make it easy to learn how to make the most of the BadgerLink databases. BadgerLink is a free service for Wisconsin residents which provides access to articles from thousands of newspaper and periodical titles, image files, and other specialized reference materials and websites. BadgerLink is a project of the Department of Public Instruction, in cooperation with the state's public, school, academic, and special libraries and Internet service providers.

The new videos cover how to use databases such as EBSCO, Kids Search, Searchasaurus, TeachingBooks, ProQuest, Newspaper ARCHIVE, the African American Biographical Database, and LitFinder

Folks, We've Reached an Awkward Age

Monica Hesse:

Things that are " awk-ward," according to a group of University of Maryland students hanging out on the campus quad:

1. Elevators.

2. That guy in the dorm who is so tall that he sees over shower stalls without even trying.

3. Having dinner with your new girlfriend when your ex-girlfriend and her new girlfriend show up at the same restaurant (you, in this instance, are a he).

4. Vegetarian chopped liver, which looks like the most "feces-like food ever," and which what's-his-name was eating in public for Passover.

5. Curry.

When any of these are encountered, the appropriate reaction is to say, loudly and in falsetto, awk-ward

'College material' label doesn't stick for all – and that's OK

Steve Blow:

I've got an assignment for you.

As you're out and about over the next couple of days, I want you to notice all the jobs that don't require a college degree.

I'll get you started with a few – bus driver, cashier, plumber, cop, construction worker, waiter, sales clerk, janitor, child care worker, mechanic, appliance technician, cable installer, postal carrier, carpenter, barber, truck driver ...

OK, you get the idea.

Now, let's think about a pervasive philosophy in public education. It's summed up in a bumper sticker I saw last week: "Our Students Are COLLEGE BOUND."

That particular sticker was from the Garland Independent School District, but it's the same mantra expressed in every district these days.

Our schools have turned into Lake Woebegone ISD, where every student is above average and on the way to a Ph.D.

Are gifted students getting left out?

Carla Rivera

Highly intelligent, talented students need special programs to keep them engaged and challenged. But experts say too often they aren't even identified -- especially in low-income and minority schools.

If you reviewed Dalton Sargent's report cards, you'd know only half his story. The 15-year-old Altadena junior has lousy grades in many subjects. He has blown off assignments and been dissatisfied with many of his teachers. It would be accurate to call him a problematic student. But he is also gifted.

Dalton is among the sizable number of highly intelligent or talented children in the nation's classrooms who find little in the standard curriculum to rouse their interest and who often fall by the wayside.

With schools under intense pressure from state and federal mandates such as No Child Left Behind to raise test scores of low-achieving pupils, the educational needs of gifted students -- who usually perform well on standardized tests -- too often are ignored, advocates say.

Nationally, about 3 million kindergarten through 12th-grade students are identified as gifted, but 80% of them do not receive specialized instruction, experts say. Studies have found that 5% to 20% of students who drop out are gifted.

There is no federal law mandating special programs for gifted children, though many educators argue that these students -- whose curiosity and creativity often coexist with emotional and social problems -- deserve the same status as those with special needs. Services for gifted students vary from state to state. In California, about 512,000 students are enrolled in the Gifted and Talented Education program, which aims to provide specialized and accelerated instruction.

But many gifted students who might benefit from the program are never identified, particularly those in economically disadvantaged communities, advocates say. Legislation sponsored by state Sen. Louis Correa (D-Santa Ana) aimed at training teachers to identify gifted students from low-income, minority and non-English speaking families stalled last year after estimates found that it could cost up to $1.1 million.

Young Workers Flee Midwestern States

Celeste Headlee:

Upper Midwestern states are in danger of losing a precious economic commodity: young people. Many are leaving for other parts of the country after finishing school. Without young, educated workers, there's little incentive for businesses to locate in economically hard-hit states.

audio.

No Small Plan: Public Boarding Schools for Chicago

Carlos Sadovi and Stephanie Banchero, via a kind reader's email:

Public boarding schools where homeless children and those from troubled homes could find the safety and stability to learn are being pursued by Chicago Public Schools officials.

Under the plan, still in the nascent stages, the first pilot residential program could open as soon as fall 2009. District officials hope to launch as many as six such schools in the following years, including at least one that would operate as a year-round school.

The proposal puts Chicago at the forefront of urban school reform, as cities struggle to raise the academic achievement of students hampered by dysfunctional homes and other obstacles outside school.

Some districts, including Chicago, have looked for solutions from small schools to single-sex campuses. But residential schools are a bolder -- and far more expensive -- proposition. Long an option for the affluent, boarding schools are virtually unheard of for the disadvantaged.

Chicago Public Schools chief Arne Duncan said he does not want to be in the "parenting" business, but he worries that some homes and some neighborhoods are unsafe, making education an afterthought.

"Some children should not go home at night; some of them we need 24-7," he told the Tribune. "We want to serve children who are really not getting enough structure at home. There's a certain point where dad is in jail or has disappeared and mom is on crack ... where there isn't a stable grandmother, that child is being raised by the streets."

Chicago school officials are still working through details of the plan, and it's not clear whether the schools would be run by the district, outside agencies or some combination of the two.

It's also not certain how the schools would be funded, who would shoulder the liability of keeping students overnight or how students would be selected.

In April, as part of its Renaissance 2010 new schools program, the district will put out a formal request for boarding school proposals. Officials have already met with interested groups in Chicago.

Officials have also visited several public and private boarding schools across the country and asked some to submit proposals.

Duncan said he has dreamed for years about opening boarding schools, but only last year, when he hired Josh Edelman, son of Children's Defense Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman, did the idea take off.

Continue reading "No Small Plan: Public Boarding Schools for Chicago"

Take That AP Test or Flunk

Jay Matthews:

J. David Goodman's story in the New York Times last week about the new Advanced Placement policy at two high schools in New Jersey at first made me cringe.

His lead paragraph read: "Students enrolled in Advanced Placement classes at two schools in the Northern Valley Regional High School District in Bergen County are now required to take the AP exams this month -- or receive a failing grade in the courses under a new school policy being questioned by some parents and students."

Take the AP exam or you flunk the course? It seemed un-American. U.S. high schools are famously forgiving of students who don't want to subject themselves to the three-hour college level exams at the end of AP courses. Most leave it up to the student. Some remove the AP designation on their transcript if they don't take the exam. In a few areas, such as Northern Virginia, the schools require that all AP students take the AP exams in May, but if they decide at the last minute to spend those lovely days at the beach, the only penalty is they don't get the extra grade-point credit for taking an advanced course. To a senior who has already been admitted to college by May, that has no more sting than a disappointed look from his mother.

A Look at LA's Small Learning Communities

Jason Song:

Like many large districts throughout the nation, L.A. Unified has been trying to increase the number of smaller learning communities, hoping that personalized instruction would boost student achievement and offer an alternative to charter schools, including the five Green Dot campuses near Jefferson.

The academy, one of four Los Angeles Unified campuses that opened almost two years ago, is partially funded through the New Tech Foundation, a Napa, Calif.-based nonprofit that supports 35 schools throughout the country. Two of the others, Arleta High School of Science, Math and Related Technologies and the Los Angeles High School for Global Studies, have increased their test scores dramatically. However, at Jordan New Tech High School, the API score was 25 points lower than that on the regular Jordan High campus.

Unlike charters, which are publicly funded but are not regulated by L.A. Unified, New Tech schools are run by district administrators. "We're under a lot of pressure: pressure from parents, pressure from the public, to find results that work," said Monica Garcia, president of the Los Angeles Board of Education, adding that New Tech "clearly works."

Raikes to Take the Gates Foundation's Reigns

AP:

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation says Microsoft Corp. executive Jeff Raikes will be its next CEO.

The world's largest charitable foundation has been looking for a new leader since chief executive Patty Stonesifer announced in February that she would be stepping down.

Raikes has been the top executive in Microsoft's business software division, responsible for such things as the Office software suite, Microsoft's server software and applications that help businesses track customers and business processes.

Clusty Search: Jeff Raikes.

The Gates Foundation initially supported the Small Learning Community High School approach. Clusty on Small Learning Communities.

The Economist:

CONGRATULATIONS, Jeff Raikes, on your great new job as chief executive of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. And good luck: you will certainly need it.

Unlike most other foundation CEO jobs, this is unlikely to be a comfortable pre-retirement sinecure. The Gates Foundation is by far the biggest charitable organisation in the world, and growing quickly. Next year, it is expected give away at least $3 billion, up from barely $1 billion a couple of years ago. Some insiders expect that number to rise as high as $6 billion in the near future.

Philadelphia safe-schools advocate say the lack of discipline violates the law

Kristen Graham:

Philadelphia public schools are unsafe places where students who commit violent crimes are rarely punished and rehabilitated and with a disciplinary system that is "dysfunctional and unjust," according to a report by the district's safe-schools advocate.

In a blistering 72-page document obtained by The Inquirer, Jack Stollsteimer describes a district where students who assault teachers or come to school with guns are not removed from classrooms, a violation of federal and state law.

School crime, he says, has been historically underreported, victims do not receive proper rights,