Articles in the Governance category

Reading for pleasure instead of pain

http://www.public-domain-image.com (public domain image)However disheartening, it’s no surprise that today’s children spend far more time watching TV, surfing the web and playing on their cell phones than turning pages in a book. But the fact that the average young American spends nearly 92 times longer each day using media than reading is highly disturbing.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that youth between 15 and 19 spend only about 10 minutes reading each weekday and just five minutes reading each day during the weekend on average. On the flip side, eight to 18-year-olds are engaged in “entertainment media” —TV, cell phones, the web, video games etc. —a whooping seven hours and 38 minutes per DAY, The Kaiser Family Foundation found.

When I was a child, I would go to the library and take out 50 books on my card—maxing it out– and then take out a few more on my mother’s card. My favorite TV shows were “Sesame Street” and “Reading Rainbow.” Sure, I liked to play mystery computer games and watch non-educational shows as well, but my parents limited the amount of time I was allowed to partake in such activities. I was allotted one hour per day sitting in front of a screen. But there was no block on reading—so that’s what I did constantly.

Parents need to limit their kids’ screen time, considering that The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends just one to two hours of “quality programming” daily for those over the age of two. But such limits will only be effective if schools also contribute to the efforts. From first grade through high school, students spend nearly one third of their waking hours in school. Educators must recognize their potential to impact behaviors.

Recently, Education Week spoke with author Kelly Gallagher about his new book Readicide and what schools can do to counteract the phenomenon. He said that although trends in technology are a major factor, schools also need to tweak teaching practices to encourage reading. The problem, Gallagher says is the heavy emphasis on passing tests and academic reading, as opposed to “recreational reading.”
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Naomi Dillon|April 13th, 2011|Categories: American School Board Journal, Governance, Student Achievement|Tags: , |

Their future — and ours

First Christmas in America. Ellis Island, 1918. Library of Congress photo It’s an ingenious title, when you think of it. Also a little ambiguous.

The Future of Children — the collaboration between the Brookings Institution and Princeton University’s Wilson School of Public and International Affairs — is it about future generations of children and our commitment (or lack thereof) to them? That’s the way I’ve always read it. Or is it about the future of today’s children and the kind of lives they will lead as adults?

It’s about both, of course, because the future of children — today’s and tomorrow’s — is the most compelling issue facing our society today.

Unfortunately, we often don’t treat children’s futures with the kind of commitment and urgency they deserve. As Laura Moore, of the Brookings-Princeton collaboration, notes in her blog last week on the challenges facing immigrant children, “without purchasing, voting, or lobbying power, the well-being of children can easily get lost in the debates, which is why knowledge and advocacy on the behalf of children is so critical.”

In other words, adults – teachers, school board members, school administrators, and others – must do the speaking for them. That’s one reason why thousands of them are going to NSBA’s 71st Annual Conference in San Francisco this week: to give voice to the voiceless. 

Ironically, those most in need of a voice are also the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population: immigrant children. Thus, by definition, their success and the nation’s are inextricably combined. Appropriately, the latest Future of Children volume is devoted to them. 

 ”Most of the recommendations in these volumes, and other Future of Children volumes, suggest prioritizing and investing in children now — regardless of their circumstances and often ahead of other interests,” Moore writes. “This is simply because investments in child well-being are the smartest ones we can make.”

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor

Lawrence Hardy|April 5th, 2011|Categories: American School Board Journal, Budgeting, Diversity, Dropout Prevention, Educational Research, Governance, Policy Formation, Student Achievement|

Feds launch initiative to stem sexual violence in schools

322-1222511197yhmWBetween 20 and 25 percent of college-aged women and six percent of men are victims of rape during their years at school.  Most perpetrators are not strangers— but acquaintances, friends or romantic interests.

Despite the prominence of sexual violence on college campuses, a startling number of attacks go unreported. The American Association of Women estimates that 65 percent of these cases are never brought to the attention of police or university officials.

Some common causes for this phenomenon are fear of retribution from the attacker, embarrassment and the victim’s belief that it was their fault. These are all psychological consequences of a traumatic event, perpetuated by the social stigma which dictates that these survivors should be ashamed.

It is certain that before more rape and harassment victims step forward, societal ideas about the crime and those who’ve lived through it have to change.

But another serious reason that some remain silent— the belief that their school won’t do anything about the incident—has barely been addressed. This can be especially problematic where institutional policies on sexual violence are lenient, poorly defined, or non-existent.

Hopefully, positive institutional changes will occur as a result of a new set of federal guidelines to prevent sexual violence in U.S. public schools.

Today, Vice President Joe Biden will disclose these suggestions, which are in the form of a “Dear Colleague” letter clarifying and expanding upon Title IX, at the University of New Hampshire.
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Naomi Dillon|April 4th, 2011|Categories: American School Board Journal, Governance, School Climate|Tags: , , |

The week in blogs

Ready for today’s “Week in Blog Question?” Here goes: “How are those weird Easter Island statues like the Obama administration’s Race to the Top competition?”

“Say what?”

Sorry, time’s up.  But because this is our inaugural, occasional, semi-monthly-on-average Week in Blog Question, the Judges have graciously offered to give you another try.  “Now take the eraser end of your pencil and open the test  booklet…” No, actually, just think real hard.

Question #2: “So. About those statues: How is the fact that their construction is said to have totally devastated Easter Island civilization as we know it (or think we know it – it was, after all, hundreds of years ago) analogous to what RTTT will do to the public schools?”

Yes, it’s a toughie, and, yes, I’m poking fun at Yong Zhao’s blog on these seemingly disparate topics (“I can’t help but make the connection between Easter Islanders’ race to erect the statues and the Obama’s Race to the Top program…” he writes) because it’s a little, well, out there; but the fact is, the University of Oregon professor writes some of the most original and provocative analyses of K12 education on the web today.

Here, to be as brief as possible, is his point: Just as Jared Diamond’s argues in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed that the Easter Islanders exhausted their human and natural resources in a misguided competition to build ever-grander icons, so is RTTT exhausting our schools’ resources in a misguided competition for the best test scores.

“Test scores have no doubt become American’s stone statue in education…” Zhao writes. “Just like the Easter Islanders’ obsession with building statues damaged their ecosystem, America’s obsession with test scores have already begun and will continue to damage its education ecosystem.”
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Lawrence Hardy|April 1st, 2011|Categories: American School Board Journal, Assessment, Curriculum, Educational Research, Governance, Policy Formation, Student Achievement, Teachers, Week in Blogs|

Evaluating teachers on student performance

If you try to keep up with whether teachers should be evaluated based on their students’ performance by using value-added models your head is probably spinning from all the conflicting conclusions. On one hand, researchers say value-added results are too imprecise to accurately evaluate teachers. While on the other had, another group of researchers claim using value-added results are better than how we evaluate teachers now.

So what are school board members and other policymakers to make of these conflicting findings?

Well, a report released today by NSBA’s  Center for Public Education helps makes sense of it all even for the non-researcher. Their report– Building a Better Evaluation System: Can value-added models be used in evaluations? –delves into the limitations of current teacher evaluation systems as well as into the conflicting research on using student achievement to evaluate teachers to help school board members and other policymakers make more informed decisions on how to best evaluate teachers. The report came to these general conclusions:

  • Current teacher evaluation systems are lacking: Research shows that less than 1 percent of teachers nationwide earn ‘unsatisfactory’ ratings even though by all accounts more teachers fall into this category.
  • Value-added models have their flaws but they are better than what are in place now: Value-added results may misidentify some effective teachers as ineffective and vise versa but they are more accurate than the current system that identifies both effective and ineffective teachers as ‘satisfactory’.
  • Similar statistical measures are used effectively to evaluate employees in other industries: Other professionals are evaluated based on similarly imprecise statistical measures.
  • There are ways to improve value-added models: There are tools available to make value-added results more accurate such as averaging results over multiple years.
  • Multiples measures that include value-added results provide the fullest picture of a teacher’s actual effectiveness: Value-added measures should be just one tool in determining a teacher’s true effectiveness. Other measures of teachers effectiveness should also be used as part of  comprehensive evaluation system that is not only used for personnel decisions but to help all teaches improve as well.

Of course the report provides a wealth of information for school board members when considering including student results in evaluating teachers so be sure check out the full report on the Center’s website at www.centerforpubliceducation.org.

Jim Hull|April 1st, 2011|Categories: Center for Public Education, Educational Research, Governance, NSBA Opinions and Analysis, Teachers|

Spare the rod; corporal punishment an outdated practice that still exists

SpankingThe phrase “corporal punishments in schools” brings to mind Agatha Trenchbull, the absurdly aggressive, vile principal from the children’s movie, Matilda. Or the 1930s nuns armed with rulers, recalled by our grandparents.

Yet this backwards method is actually a part of today’s reality?  Research  has shown nearly a quarter-million students in our country are punished through physical means each year.

I thought we were in the 21st century here, not a recurring nightmare.  My mistake.

It seems so outrageous to say any U.S. school still partakes in this, that it’s nearly impossible to believe that striking pupils as a means of discipline is still legal within 20 states in our country. 

Most of these states are in the south or rural areas—aka places that are highly embedded in tradition and often resistant to change. Somehow, these government officials actually believe this old-fashioned practice is still a good idea. 

“Each year, prodded by child safety advocates, state legislatures debate whether corporal punishment amounts to an archaic form of child abuse or an effective means of discipline,” a New York Times reporter writes.

Seriously? What’s the debate about? Striking youth as a means of punishment is abusive, plain and simple.
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Naomi Dillon|March 30th, 2011|Categories: American School Board Journal, Governance, School Climate|Tags: |

Obama hosts town hall meeting focusing on Hispanics and education

Yesterday President Obama spoke to Latino students and families about the role education plays in their community and their future. Watch an excerpt of the forum he held in Washington D.C.

Naomi Dillon|March 29th, 2011|Categories: American School Board Journal, Governance, Policy Formation|Tags: , |

Fate of teachers’ unions might play a role in future of school boards

1298464906226271134megaphone77-mdTeachers unions must feel like the proverbial punching bag these days. Across the nation, a lot of state policymakers are attacking tenure, seniority, and collective bargaining rights —and demonizing the unions as an obstacle to school reform.

How badly the unions are under fire—and the potential consequences for local school boards—are the focus of the April ASBJ cover story.

Clearly it’s not the best of times for unions. For one, some governors are showing very little fear of the unions’ still-powerful political influence and sizable financial war chests.

No one has made that more clear than New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who once claimed his state’s school reform efforts were being held hostage by “a selfish, self-interested, greedy union that cares more about putting money in their pockets and the pockets of their members than they care about educating our most vulnerable and needy children.”

Ouch.

Then, of course, there’s the recent—and tumultuous—legislative fight in Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to strip unions of collective-bargaining rights led to a walkout by Democratic lawmakers, noisy protests, and ultimately a temporary restraining order from a judge who wanted to sort out the messy legislative process that led to the law’s passage.
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Naomi Dillon|March 24th, 2011|Categories: American School Board Journal, Governance, School Climate, Teachers|Tags: |

Protocol on pregnancy, maternity leave best delivered before stork arrives

stork_delivery_baby_1I used to grumble about any perceived special treatment my colleagues received when they were pregnant—taking time for all those doctors’ appointments, that afternoon sleepiness and lack of productivity, and complaining about having to return to work full time after only 12 weeks. Just who did they think they were?

Then, of course, I got pregnant.

ASBJ legal columnist Edwin Darden examines what school districts and administrators must know about pregnancy and pregnant women’s legal rights to work and time off. Now that I’m in the “protected” category again, I was relieved to learn that the law in most situations favors pregnant women.

Darden outlines several lawsuits where relations between women who were pregnant or new mothers and their school administrators went bad—recent cases include a woman who underestimated the toll her pregnancy would take on her finances and wanted to return to work earlier than planned and cases where school officials did not know how to handle the pregnancies of unwed teachers. Some of the examples were clearly discriminatory, others were well into the gray area.

Darden’s column gives a good overview of the legal landscape for anyone who does not want to be caught off guard. Here are some of the questions he suggests you ask:
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Naomi Dillon|March 21st, 2011|Categories: American School Board Journal, Governance, Teachers|Tags: , , , |

The week in blogs

Next month marks the 28th anniversary of A Nation at Risk, notes University of Oregon education school dean (and blogger) Yong Zhao, so it’s only appropriate that we quote from that ground-breaking document:

“If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the insane policies that threaten democracy, turn American children into robotic test takers, narrow and homogenize our children’s education, reward grant writing skills instead of helping the needy children and stimulate innovation (e.g., Race to the Top), value testing over teaching, and scapegoat teachers that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”

Not the Nation at Risk you knew? That’s because Zhao has taken it upon himself to edit the document in ways that more accurately reflect the state of education, and education politics, these days. Very clever — and revealing.

So how’s that risky nation doing these days? Surprisingly well, writes Robert Pondiscio in the Core Knowledge Blog — not exactly a font of giddy enthusiasm for American schools.

Speaking of how education is taught, Atlanta Journal-Constitution blogger Maureen Downey quotes from a piece called “The Failure of American Teachers.” It’s not what you might expect.

And finally, this:

A Cinderella choice if there ever was one, A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy topped Pride and Prejudice, The Grapes of Wrath, Anna Karenina and a little yarn called Moby-Dick in David McCandless’ illustrated “consensus-cloud” of books mentioned most often on “Top 100 Must-Read Books” lists.  If only my bizarre March Madness picks were so lucky.

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor

Lawrence Hardy|March 19th, 2011|Categories: American School Board Journal, Assessment, Educational Research, Governance, Policy Formation, Student Achievement, Teachers, Week in Blogs|
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