Articles in the Announcements category

Education headlines: High school graduation rate rises

Education Week’s annual Diplomas Count report found a significant jump in the number of students graduating high school–more now than any time during the 1980s. Read NSBA’s Center for Public Education’s analysis on Board Buzz. The report is among the growing number of skeptics questioning whether the “College for All” movement is right for all students. (“Has the Push college push gone too far?” was a presentation at NSBA’s annual conference in April. Read more about the session in Conference Daily).

The prosecution of a homeless mother who forged her babysitter’s address to enroll her child in a Connecticut elementary school has gained national attention. The Rev. Al Sharpton is using the situation to call for more equality in public education, NBC Connecticut reports… In a lengthy article, the New York Times examines a fast-growing network of charter schools run by Turkish natives, some with ties to a moderate Islamic preacher, and questions whether the network is using taxpayer dollars to help the religious movement by hiring Turkish employees and contractors for nearly all its services… And more schools and state legislatures are rethinking zero-tolerance discipline policies that have led to lengthy suspensions and ousters for such mistakes as carrying toy guns or Advil, the Washington Post reports.

Joetta Sack-Min|June 8th, 2011|Categories: Announcements, Charter Schools, NSBA Annual Conference 2011|

Week in blogs: It’s OK to ask questions if it doesn’t make sense

It’s the good elementary school teacher who tells her students: “It’s Okay to ask questions if you don’t understand.” It doesn’t mean you’re dumb; there could be many reasons why you’re lost.

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., a strong advocate for public schools, seems to have taken that axiom to heart. In a sometimes darkly humorous video clip posted on This Week in Education, he shows that sometimes you can’t follow what someone is saying (in this case, someone testifying before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce) because, well, she isn’t making any sense.

“What are you telling me?” proclaims a somewhat exasperated Miller, after a witness attempts to explain that those ill-defined private Education Management Organizations (EMOs) that are increasingly running public charter schools really are accountable to their public boards (even though they typically withhold the most basic information from them) because, well, they should be accountable — and, doggone it, it’s just the right thing to do. (Or something like that; I didn’t get it either.)

“I don’t understand what you’re telling me,” the congressman deadpans.

Watch it. Laugh. And maybe — weep.

Speaking of accountability, in a provocative Op-Ed in the New York Times, author and education historian Diane Ravitch says that a lot of the dramatic short-term gains of charters “reconstituted” schools, and other highly touted programs “are the result of statistical legerdemain.” That drew a sharp response by Bloomberg’s Jonathan Alter called Don’t Believe the Critics Education, Education Reform Works.

And what do the kids think about this whole accountability thing? We can’t speak for all of them, of course, but the blogger “Miss Malarkey” has provided a helpful Top Ten list of “comments made by my third graders” during their first ever New York State tests.

My favorite: “Wait, is this the real test?”

Lawrence Hardy|June 3rd, 2011|Categories: Announcements, Week in Blogs|

Education headlines: Do schools share too much with parents?

Do schools share too much with parents? An article on CNN.com shows how some teachers use social media and other technologies to engage parents in their children’s learning, and Ann Flynn, NSBA’s Director of Education Technology, explains how student management systems work… Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called on Congress to speed up its reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act during a visit to a high-achieving elementary school in St. Paul, Minn., the Associated Press writes. In related news, the Education Department’s ED.gov blog discusses the petition by NSBA and the American Association of School Administrators to solicit regulatory relief for schools.

And the Missouri School Boards Association provides an update on the Joplin, Mo., school district, which saw most of its schools leveled or seriously damaged by a deadly tornado on May 21. The school district won the 2011 Magna Grand Prize for districts in the 5,000 to 20,000-student enrollment category for its comprehensive program to engage community members and map out a strategic plan, which resulted in a much lower dropout rate and significant donations of time and money from community members and local businesses. The school district is planning to offer summer school and reopen on time in August.

The MSBA’s 501(c)(3) foundation, FutureBuilders, is receiving monetary donations for the district. MSBA is encouraging donations from individual board members, school employees and friends of education who want to assist the Joplin R-8 School District. Monetary contributions can be sent to MSBA FutureBuilders, Joplin Assistance Challenge Fund, at 2100 I-70 Drive S.W., Columbia, MO 65203. Contributions are tax deductible and 100 percent of the donations will be sent to the school district. For more information, please contact: Dr. Carter Ward, MSBA Executive Director, at ward@msbanet.org.

Joetta Sack-Min|June 1st, 2011|Categories: Announcements|

Education headlines: School choice increasing for K-12 and higher education

A recent survey by the federal National Center for Educational Statistics finds that school choice—in both K-12 and higher education—is fast increasing across the country, mainly because of charter schools and for-profit colleges taking a larger share of students, particularly in urban areas, the Associated Press reports…

The Tea Party Patriots, which claims 1,000 chapters nationally, are instructing members to remind teachers that a 2004 federal law requires public schools to teach Constitution lessons the week of Sept. 17, commemorating the day the document was signed. And, according to the AP, they’d like the teachers to use material from the Idaho-based National Center for Constitutional Studies, which promotes the Constitution as a divinely-inspired document.

The New York Times reports that the New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that Gov. Chris Christie’s cost-cutting plans are unconstitutional and ordered state lawmakers to raise spending for poor, urban schools… And a new analysis shows that graduates with degrees in fields such as science and engineering really do make considerably more money than those who major in liberal-arts subjects, including education. But a college degree is still considered a good investment, the Washington Post reports.

Joetta Sack-Min|May 26th, 2011|Categories: American School Board Journal, Announcements|

Tornado demolishes Magna award-winning school district

The Joplin, Mo., school district, one of the top winners in this year’s Magna Awards, saw most of its schools leveled or seriously damaged by a deadly tornado this past weekend.

Update: The Missouri School Boards’ Association’s 501(c)(3) foundation, FutureBuilders, is receiving monetary donations for the district. MSBA is encouraging donations from individual board members, school employees and friends of education who want to assist the Joplin School District. Monetary contributions can be sent to MSBA FutureBuilders, Joplin Assistance Challenge Fund at 2100 I-70 Drive S.W., Columbia, MO 65203. Contributions are tax deductible. 100 percent of the donations will be sent to the Joplin School District.

Joplin schools won the 2011 Magna Grand Prize in the 5,000 to 20,000-student enrollment category for its “Bright Futures” program. The high-poverty school district in Southwest Missouri had launched a comprehensive program to engage community members and map out a strategic plan, which resulted in a much lower drop-out rate and significant donations of time and money from community members and local businesses. The Magna Awards are sponsored by American School Board Journal and Sodexo School Services.

High school students were celebrating graduation ceremonies at Missouri Southern State University when the tornado struck on May 22. The tornado is considered the deadliest since record-keeping began in 1950, killing at least 116 people and damaging or destroying some 2,000 buildings in or near Joplin.

Joplin school officials have cancelled classes for the rest of the year. The Joplin Globe reported that more than 4,800 students were displaced, out of 7,747 in the school system, but as of Monday there had not been any fatalities reported among students and staff. The newspaper reported that one elementary school, the district’s high school, and a technology center were completely destroyed. A new middle school was heavily damaged and another elementary and the central office headquarters buildings were also damaged. The cost of the damage was estimated at $50 million.

According to the newspaper, the school district had set up a temporary office to secure those buildings and coordinate plans to rebuild and reopen.

Before the tornado, 56 percent of Joplin’s students qualified for free or reduced price lunches and the district had a high drop-out rate. The Magna Awards judges were impressed that the school board had led an effort to mobilize all of the community members to create a strategic plan to address those issues, and created an accountability structure with monthly progress updates.

According to ASBJ, the district saw a 54 percent reduction in the number of dropouts, establishment of 233 community partnerships, and more than $300,000 in donations. More than 550 volunteers contributed some 3,000 hours of service as mentors, tutors, and volunteers. School officials also succeeded in building a rapid response system to meet basic needs of students within a 24-hour period.

Read ASBJ Editor-in-Chief Glenn Cook on how Joplin is mobilizing and communicating through social networking in the disaster at The Leading Source.

Joetta Sack-Min|May 24th, 2011|Categories: American School Board Journal, Announcements, School Boards|

Education headlines: Obama pushes Congress to pass new ESEA law

In his weekly radio address, President Obama nudged Congress to overhaul the No Child Left Behind law by the end of the year and give states and local schools more flexibility in a student’s education, Bloomberg News writes. However, The Hill reports that Rep. John Kline, chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, said he would not rush a rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, even though it was due four years ago. (Read NSBA’s issue brief on NCLB).

The New York Times reports on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s goals to influence education policy and how foundation money is influencing school reform… The Miami-Dade school board is hoping to boost credibility and appeal by branding new schools with recognizable names, according to the Miami Herald… New Los Angeles Superintendent John Deasy is running into opposition from the district’s teachers union because of his plans to test new teacher evaluation systems, the Los Angeles Times reports… Lawmakers in Alabama, Iowa, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia are working to pass bills or update laws that would revoke high school dropouts’ driver’s licenses, despite little evidence that the measures will work, USA Today reports… And Connecticut children who ingested even small amounts of lead later performed poorly on standardized  tests compared to students who were never exposed to the substance, according to a new study by Duke University, the Associated Press reports.

Joetta Sack-Min|May 23rd, 2011|Categories: American School Board Journal, Announcements|

Week in blogs: Common core standards face skeptics

(Don’t have time to read through the hundreds of education-related blogs? NSBA Senior Editor Lawrence Hardy brings you the “must-reads” in his weekly round-up, “The Week in Blogs,” now appearing on School Board News Today. Laugh out loud and learn something new each Friday.)

Living in the Washington, D.C., area can make you feel like a real mover and shaker — even if the only moving and shaking you do is on the dance floor. Case in point, watching my 9-year-old daughter’s soccer game one weekend, I couldn’t help but overhear a parent from the other team talking rather loudly and importantly on his cell phone, saying something about “our position regarding the European Union.”

Which, of course, made me think: “What’s my position regarding the European Union — and do I need to phone that in?” No, actually, it made me think: “What a cool place to live — a place where Big Things are being decided.”

In truth, most of us here spend more time talking about those Big Things than deciding them — or being around the people who decide them. An exception occurred last December, on the deadest of Friday afternoons before the holidays, when I attended a small seminar in a nondescript building off Dupont Circle in the District.

The subject: common core standards.

Why was this different?  Being an education writer, I knew something about the Common Core State Standards initiative and how it was being developed (at a relatively fast clip) by two national consortia, endorsed by most states. But it wasn’t until I went to the seminar and heard from some of the consortia’s key curriculum and testing experts that it hit me: A relatively small group of (admittedly nice and professional) experts was very soon going to determine the parameters of what all public school children will be expected to know during the first decades of the 21st century.

A big deal, indeed. And one about which I, and I suspect a lot of other people, are saying: “I just hope they get it right.”

See American School Board Journal‘s March cover package for my overview piece on the common core initiative as well as a number of other stories, including advice for districts from management expert Douglas B. Reeves and a skeptical view from Illinois superintendent Ken Mauer.

This week, that feeling of skepticism was reiterated in a self-described “cautionary tale” by Robert Pondiscio of The Core Knowledge Blog. The piece takes as its jumping off point a New York Times story on how the standards are being piloted at a New York City high school.

The 57th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision was this past Tuesday, and the Alliance for Excellent Education marked the date by noting the high numbers of minority students who continue to drop out of high school.  The Supreme Court may have struck down the pernicious “separate but equal” doctrine more than a half century ago, but “the promise of an equal education remains unmet for too many of the nation’s students of color and Native American students,” said the Alliance blog High School Soup.

A new report from the group notes: “If just half the 333,200 African-American students who dropped out of the class of 2010 had graduated, these 166,600 ‘new graduates’ would likely be earning an additional $1.7 billion…”

Turning to higher education: University of Wisconsin professor Sara Goldrick-Rab questions the rigor of college study on The Education Optimists blog. The decidedly pessimistic findings of a new report: Many students at Wisconsin’s flagship university aren’t being sufficiently challenged. For example, 75 percent of students read fewer than five books during their senior year.

On a more upbeat note: Despite all the pressure and considerable flak teachers have taken recently, a recent survey shows that teaching has once again become the most sought after profession among certain young people. Also big are: artist, football player, princess, and cowgirl.

Yes, it’s a kindergarten class survey, on Jezebel. (Thanks to This Week in Education for pointing that out.)

Lawrence Hardy|May 20th, 2011|Categories: American School Board Journal, Announcements, National Standards, Week in Blogs|

Education headlines: Georgia court strikes state charter commission

In a long-awaited ruling, Georgia’s state Supreme Court voted 4-3 to strike down a state commission that could approve and direct local funding to charter schools over the objection of local school boards.

The Georgia School Boards Association noted in its press release that, “In preserving the 134-year history of local control enshrined in the current and earlier Georgia Constitutions, the Court rejected the General Assembly’s attempt to expand its authority to create ‘special’ state schools and to define ‘special’ to mean whatever it wanted it to mean.”

GSBA, through its Delegate Assembly, has a long history of supporting charter schools approved by local boards of education. “Charter schools, approved by local boards of education, that focus on increasing student achievement through unique programs can be a strong addition to the diverse educational opportunities offered by local school systems,” said Dr. James Pope, GSBA’s President and a member of the Carrollton City, Ga., School Board.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Get Schooled blog reported on the verdict as well.

Joetta Sack-Min|May 16th, 2011|Categories: Announcements, Charter Schools, Educational Legislation, School Board News, School Boards|

Education headlines: ED reminds schools not to check immigration status

After complaints that some school districts were checking students’ immigration status before enrolling, the Associated Press reports that the U.S. Department of Education sent a letter to school districts last week reminding them that all students have a right to a public education under the 1982 Supreme Court ruling in Plyer v. Doe.

A new study shows America’s K-12 teachers are ill-prepared to educate students on the basics of online safety, security and ethics, and more than a third of teachers receive no training in cybersecurity issues, USA Today writes… Tennessee’s governor has tapped a charter-school founder to manage a new “special district” of five low-performing schools across the state, in a project funded by the state’s Race to the Top federal grant, according to the Commercial Appeal… The national debt is set to reach its $14.3 trillion limit within the next week, and House Speaker John Boehner is pressing Democrats to commit to extensive cuts, according to the Washington Post. NSBA’s advocacy department is watching these debates as well as FY 2012 budget discussions to determine the impact on K-12 programs.

Joetta Sack-Min|May 11th, 2011|Categories: Announcements, School Board News|

The Week in Blogs: Ensuring all students can read

(Don’t have time to read through the hundreds of education-related blogs? NSBA Senior Editor Lawrence Hardy brings you the “must-reads” in his weekly round-up, “The Week in Blogs,” now appearing on School Board News Today. Laugh out loud and learn something new each Friday.)

If you can’t read, you can’t learn. That statement might seem obvious.

Yet in the United States, according Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash), there are some 8 million students in grades four though 12 who are reading below grade level, according to this video on the Alliance for Excellent Education’s blog. At this time in their schooling – that is, beyond third grade – they should have moved from a “learning-to-read” mode to one sometimes called “reading to learn.” And the fact that they have not reach this point, or have only partially reached it, means they will have trouble keeping up with their peers, graduating from high school, and succeeding in life.

Murray, who received NSBA’s Special Recognition Award last month, is introducing the Literacy Education for All Results for the Nation, dubbed the LEARN Act, which would authorize $2.35 billion in federal support for literacy programs spanning birth through age 12.

If that seems like a hefty sum, consider these next two items: As Joanne Jacobs notes in her blog, a new study shows that almost half the adults in Detroit, or 47 percent, are functionally illiterate.

The second related item? According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, the U.S. spent $3.6 billion on remedial courses for students enrolled in two- or four-year colleges during the 2007-08 school year. The Alliance calculated the subsequent costs to these students – who are more likely to drop out of college – to $2 billion in lost earnings over their lifetimes. The title of its report says it all: “Saving Now and Saving Later: How High School Reform Can Reduce the Nation’s Wasted Remedial Education Dollars.

On a lighter note, read Slate‘s rebuttal to economist Donald J. Boudreaux’s bizarre “thought experiment” in The Wall Street Journal regarding the supposed benefits of free enterprise schooling: “Supposed that groceries were supplied in the same way as K-12 education? ” he asks. “What would happen?”

“In poor counties the quality of public supermarkets would be downright abysmal,” Boudreaux writes. “Poor people – entitled in principal to excellent supermarkets – would in fact suffer unusually poor supermarket quality.”

Five seconds to spot what’s wrong with that sentence. Time’s up. But helpfully, Slate has offered a map showing – surprise! – the poor already suffer from poor choices when it comes to shopping for healthy food. Boudreaux’s analogy sort of goes downhill from there. (Thanks to This Week in Education for pointing us to the Slate piece.)

Finally, read Joanne Jacobs again on a report showing that civic knowledge climbed for fourth graders but dropped at the 12th grade level.

Lawrence Hardy|May 6th, 2011|Categories: Announcements, School Board News, Week in Blogs|
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