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Jonathan Becker

States' Rights and States' Wrongs on School Reform - TIME - 1 views

www.time.com/...0,8599,2042166,00.html

school reform states politics rotherham TIME adms707

shared by Jonathan Becker on 21 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Jonathan Becker on 21 Jan 11
     
    States' Rights and States' Wrongs on School Reform
REL N

Charles Kolb: Educational Success: America's New Industrial Policy - 1 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...al-success-ameri_b_810464.html

ADMS707 Federal Resource-allocation

shared by REL N on 04 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • And we need to approach our education investment as we approach infrastructure or industrial policy.
    • REL N
      REL N on 04 Feb 11
       
      NOOOO! We need to better define the type of success we can achieve given that individuals are in different places at different times in their lives. We need to support people where they are and help them move forward in areas and at a pace that is right for them. If a 16-year old is able to perform well in a college program then that is where s/he should be. If a student is gifted in math and abhors and does poorly in history, then we should nurture her/his strengths and stop holding them to their social grade level in math and wasting their time and their passion drilling them in history. Ultimately, they will be happier, more productive, and more willing to contribute to society in a math-related endeavor.
  • "define success up." Our new industrial and competitiveness policy as a nation should be focused relentlessly on those talented young children and adolescents who show educational promise. We should double, perhaps triple, federal, state, and private sector resources that support gifted-and-talented programs in our schools. We should nurture this talent the same way some institutions nurture athletic talent. This approach is not elitism; it is smart commonsense.
    • REL N
      REL N on 04 Feb 11
       
      Yeah... I think we all saw what happened when we had a leader who was proud of getting "C's" in college. And, then we are not really sure if a "C" actually meant a "D-" but was given to ensure social promotion. I would not go to a surgeon who either did not want to go to medical school or was not able to succeed in her/his training. That is not elitism. It is more than simply common sense. It is effective data-driven/evidence-based decision-making. A person might be terrific and funny and caring (and perhaps rich and attractive too) but they should not be given a role beyond their knowledge and capabilities.
  • If such an exam cannot be developed within six months, then perhaps we really have wasted a lot of time over the last 30 years. Algebra in New Hampshire is not different from algebra in California. Reading skills and reading-level assessments should be the same in each state. Grammar doesn't vary across state borders, and gravity tends to work the same way everywhere. The governors are well-positioned to lead a national discussion about what our high school graduates should know and be able to do -- and then devise a test that measures the success of our young people in mastering what they need to know to be successful. The National Governors Association is already doing excellent work in this area -- but it has to move faster.
    • REL N
      REL N on 04 Feb 11
       
      f we stopped the gaming in elementary and middle school testing and relied on the teachers and administrators to implement effective local testing and take appropriate actions to ensure learning, we would have more resources (time, money, people) to develop appropriate and resonable assessments at the high school level. These must be based on higher order thinking and include essays, video-taped dialogues/presentations, and some simple answer tests. The evaluation should be done by humans outside the local area and care must be taken to ensure inter-rater reliability. This is done in other countries as well as in the states with the IB diploma programme. It is do-able and the graduates will be well prepared and confident that they can move forward. Our initial pass rates may not be as high as we would like, and we need to be prepared to accept that some students may take more than 12 years or choose to take a less rigorous set of exams; however, we will have a higher level of success overall and our students will be much better prepared as citizens and workers.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • In late December 2010, the Education Trust reported that nearly 25 percent of high school graduates taking the U.S. Army entrance exam cannot answer basic questions in math, science, and reading. Some of the questions were pretty basic: "If 2 plus x equals 4, what is the value of x?"
  • We need to change our approach from preventing failure to promoting success.
  • all children can learn, not all children are ready to learn at the same time. If some of our classrooms have disruptive students, these students should attend other classes until they become serious about learning.
  • And finally, we should learn from the French, who for decades have had a baccalaureate exam that is a prerequisite for advancing to post-secondary education. In France, the "bac" exam is typically taken by 17- and 18-year-olds, but if a student fails the exam, he or she can take it again -- even later in life. The "bac" serves two purposes: it sets a standard for what French high school graduates know and can do, and it serves as a moment of consequence for French young people: they cannot move forward until they have proved their proficiency.
  • In several states, where testing has been adopted, we find large discrepancies between how the states report their children's performance on "No Child Left Behind" tests and the often much lower performance found by the objective National Assessment of Educational Progress.
  • resources we've squandered. We need a more tough-minded and focused approach that identifies, nurtures, and rewards success
  • REL N on 04 Feb 11
     
    I'm not sure how I feel about this blog. Part of me says "Oh no!" while the other part says that we need to make education accessible but we would be better served to go with a more individualized approach. Right now it feels as though we often cater to the lowest common denominator which is not fair to anyone. Can we learn something from the operations concept of mass customization? Educators--feedback please!! I'd love to hear what your experience tells you r.e. these issues.
  • mirabilecp on 05 Feb 11
     
    I am intrigued if not in full agreement with this piece by Kolb. He makes good points about a national baccaulaureate exam...it's true, algebra is algebra, grammar is grammar, in all 50 states. Some of our colleagues would disagree that we need primarily focus on the best and the brightest and that those who are not ready to learn should be sequestered until they are (paraphrasing here). He says, "We really aren't serious as a nation when it comes to education," but I think that we are fast approaching a time when (I hope) it becomes a primary focus of our political debate (from Candy).
REL N

The State of State U.S. History Standards 2011 - 1 views

www.edexcellence.net/...the-state-of-state-us.html

ADMS707 states SOL Standards

shared by REL N on 16 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • REL N on 16 Feb 11
     
    Virginia received a "C" for its K-12 state standards for US history. Even DC outperformed us... they received an "A-"
Jonathan Becker

State Superintendent Says Gov. Walker Goes Too Far - 1 views

www.wsaw.com/...er_Goes_Too_Far_116191589.html

ADMS707 education finance states governor superintendent politics

shared by Jonathan Becker on 15 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Jonathan Becker on 15 Feb 11
     
    Always tricky when the chief state school officer takes on the governor...
Victoria Schnettler

State and Local Government Conflict of Interests Act - 0 views

leg1.state.va.us/...legp504.exe

ADMS707 Act State Local School Boards

shared by Victoria Schnettler on 08 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Victoria Schnettler on 08 Feb 11
     
    Outlines specific Act that outlines the walls of state and local power...2.2-3119 outlines school boards specifically.
Angela Winston

The Black-White Achievement Gap: Do State Policies Matter? - 0 views

epaa.asu.edu/v14n8.pdf

state policies Black-White achievement gap Winston ADMS707

shared by Angela Winston on 13 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Angela Winston on 13 Feb 11
     
    Investigates to find out if there is a relationship between state education policies and changes in the black-white achievement gap.
Angela Winston

Top State Education Policy Organizations Form Expert Advisory Group on International Be... - 1 views

www.achieve.org/1029

State Advisory Group Winston ADMS707

shared by Angela Winston on 13 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Angela Winston on 13 Feb 11
     
    Advisory group helps create state benchmarks and compare US academic success with other countries
REL N

E Pluribus Unum? : Education Next - 0 views

educationnext.org/e-pluribus-unum-2

ADMS707 Federal CoreStandards

shared by REL N on 07 Feb 11 - Cached
  • And that content should be married to national standards of “proficiency” in these subjects at these grade levels, and joined to national exams by which we determine how well and by whom this is being accomplished.
    • REL N
      REL N on 07 Feb 11
       
      It is interesting that VA has chosen to stay out of the Core Standards frey--not because the state Board of Ed doesn't agree with the concept but because they feel that VA's SOLs are superior and more rigorous than a national core might be. Interestingly the VA performance in the chart below hovers closer to the poor end of the spectrum... not the superior end.
  • attempting to avoid bias by including everyone’s biases only generates more problems.
  • I’d probably install Core Knowledge in the primary and middle grades and the International Baccalaureate (IB) in high schools.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • having these things vary from state to state produces mediocrity, cacophony, waste, duplication, and confusion (see Figure 1). Survey after survey makes clear that (if the question is asked correctly) parents favor national standards and tests. Instead of letting “That’s the first step toward a national curriculum” serve as a conversation stopper, let’s deploy it as a conversation starter. Let’s acknowledge that “curriculum,” loosely defined, is supposed to be aligned with standards and appraised by assessments.
  • Let me note, finally, that I’m unimpressed by Meier’s “habits of mind” alternative to content (see below). It’s wonderfully seductive, but the serious psychologists with whose work I’m acquainted (see, for example, “Reframing the Mind,” check the facts, Summer 2004) don’t put much stock in this Howard Gardner–originated proposition that youngsters can learn skills devoid of content. It’s the absence of essential core content from her view of schooling that lies at the heart of our curricular disagreement.
  • We boiled it down to five “habits of mind” that we claimed (somewhat pompously) underlay all the academic disciplines as well as the mental and social disciplines needed for living in a complex modern society: (1) How do you know what you know? What’s the nature of your evidence? How credible is it? Compared to what? (2) Are there other perspectives? What affects our points of view? How otherwise might this be seen? (3) Are there patterns there? A sequence? A theory of cause and effect? (4) Could it be otherwise? What would happen if? Supposing that x had not happened? and (5) Who cares? Why does it matter? As you can see, they blend into each other and, in a way, just define a mind state of skepticism and informed empathy. It suggests having to take seriously the idea that one might be wrong, and so could others. We added “habits of work” like meeting deadlines and being on time and “habits of the heart” like caring about one’s impact on others.
Angela Winston

EBSCOhost: Solving the "Rural School Problem": New State Aid, Standards, and Supervisi... - 1 views

web.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/...pdfviewer

local level rural schools state & local aid Winston ADMS707

shared by Angela Winston on 21 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Angela Winston on 21 Feb 11
     
    The rural school problem is prominent and deserving of immediate attention on the local and state levels.
Roger Mancastroppa

School Administration in the Federal Republic of Germany and Its Implications for the U... - 0 views

www.eric.ed.gov/ED380881.pdf

ADMS707 education states boards

shared by Roger Mancastroppa on 18 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Roger Mancastroppa on 18 Feb 11
     
    Germans do not use lay governance - This paper presents findings of a study that explored the governance and administration of elementary and secondary schools in Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany. The sample included 12 Bavarian schools--3 each of the following 4 types of schools--elementary (Grundschulen) and secondary (Gymnasien, Realschulen, and Hauptschulen). Data were gathered from interviews with school principals or headmasters and some administrative staff, observation, and document analysis. Findings showed that the selection process for teachers in Germany is much more rigorous than in the United States. Principals are experienced classroom teachers with proven ability who continue to teach. In addition, the entire district apparatus is missing; there are no superintendents, lay boards of education, and so forth. Bavarian schools appear to function extremely well within a framework of fairly tight external control, while enjoying strong professionalism among educators and freedom from the micromanagement that all too often plagues their American counterparts. Findings underscore the need for fundamental and systemic reform in the United States; high student achievement must be preceded by advances in teacher professionalism.
Angela Winston

"A False Dilemma": Should Decisions about Education Resource Use Be Made at the State o... - 0 views

www.jstor.org.proxy.library.vcu.edu/...651414

state vs. local education governance Winston ADMS707

shared by Angela Winston on 21 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Angela Winston on 21 Feb 11
     
    State versus local education governance
REL N

Why America's teachers are enraged - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

ADMS707 Niemeyer Teacher-evaluation reform states politics

shared by REL N on 24 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Right-to-work states do not have higher scores than states with strong unions. Actually, the states with the highest performance on national tests are Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Vermont, and New Hampshire, where teachers belong to unions that bargain collectively for their members.
  • One must wonder how it is possible to talk of improving schools while cutting funding, demoralizing teachers, cutting scholarships to college, and increasing class sizes.
  • REL N on 24 Feb 11
     
    If everyone agrees that teachers are important... why do they think that demoralizing them will improve students' experience and performance in school?
Roger Mancastroppa

Wisconsin Progressive/Labor Alliance Gears Up for Major Electoral Test Tomorrow | FDL N... - 0 views

news.firedoglake.com/...-major-electoral-test-tomorrow

adms707 Republicans education collective bargaining collective rights policy privatization

shared by Roger Mancastroppa on 04 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Roger Mancastroppa on 04 Apr 11
     
    "Judge Maryann Sumi delayed the implementation of the anti-union law in Wisconsin that would strip most collective bargaining rights from public employees. Sumi is ruling on whether the conference committee for the bill violated state open meetings requirements. In addition, Madison-area unions have filed suit over whether or not the bill passed had fiscal elements, meaning it would require a quorum of state Senators to consider it, which it did not receive. And a third lawsuit, filed late last week, alleges that the legislation is unconstitutional, "infringing on employees' equal protection rights and their rights to freedom of speech and association."
Angela Winston

EBSCOhost: Implementation of Supportive School Programs for Immigrant Students in the ... - 1 views

web.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/...pdfviewer

immigrants in schools states winston ADMS707

shared by Angela Winston on 13 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Angela Winston on 13 Feb 11
     
    State policies on integrating immigrants into schools
Jonathan Becker

The Education Optimists: Sailing A Ship With Half A Crew - 2 views

eduoptimists.blogspot.com/...iling-ship-with-half-crew.html

states politics school adms707 governance

shared by Jonathan Becker on 21 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Jonathan Becker on 21 Jan 11
     
    states reform governance - Liam Goldrick's take on Andy Rotherhams's TIME article
Georggetta Howie

Online Public/Private High School Courses - 0 views

www.k12.com/...ticipating_schools_in_virginia

on-line education K-12 State School

shared by Georggetta Howie on 11 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Georggetta Howie on 11 Feb 11
     
    This site is powerhouse site for online public and private education for K-12. There are 30 states participating including Virgnia and Washington, DC. Public online course are FREE, while private online course vary in tuition.
REL N

Accountability Lost : Education Next - 0 views

educationnext.org/accountability-lost

ADMS707 Niemeyer Boards accountability

shared by REL N on 17 Feb 11 - Cached
    • REL N
      REL N on 17 Feb 11
       
      Tried to identify confounding variables to increase the likelihood that any changes in voting behavior were due to school performance
  • incumbent school board members won a larger share of the total vote in a precinct when test scores in that precinct improved. We estimate that improvement from the 25th to the 75th percentile of test-score change—that is, moving from a loss of 4 percentile points to a gain of 3.8 percentile points between 1999 and 2000—produced on average an increase of 3 percentage points in an incumbent’s vote share. If precinct test scores dropped from the 75th to the 25th percentile of test-score change, the associated 3-percentage-point decrease in an incumbent’s vote share could substantially erode an incumbent’s margin of victory.
  • percentile scores had increased in the year preceding the election, incumbents won 81 percent of the time in competitive elections; in districts where scores had declined, incumbents won only 69 percent of the time.
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • significant relationship with precinct test scores and the absence of a relationship with district scores suggests that voters were more concerned with school performance within their immediate neighborhood than across the district.
  • all indications of a relationship between school performance and an incumbent school board member’s vote share vanished after the passage of NCLB in 2002.
  • None of these approaches yielded clear evidence of a link between school performance and voter behavior in school board elections.
  • the overwhelming weight of the evidence indicated that school board members were not being judged on improvement or weakening in school test scores.
  • School performance as measured by test scores may have helped determine which candidates sought reelection and which faced a challenger.
  • assess the relationship between test-score trends and incumbents’ decisions to run for reelection, and then to estimate the effect of test-score trends on the probability that an incumbent who runs faces an opponent.
  • incumbents may bow out in anticipation of being held accountable for poor test-score performance by schools in their district.
  • drop from the 75th to the 25th percentile of test-score change, our results lead us to expect that incumbents will be 13 percentage points less likely to run for reelection. In fact, 76 percent of incumbents sought reelection in districts with improving test scores; in districts with falling scores, only 66 percent did.
  • we failed to find any indication that incumbents in 2002 and 2004 based their decisions about running for reelection on student learning trends.
  • In these years, only 30 and 34 percent of articles, respectively, touched on test scores. The decline in media attention leads us to suspect that concerns about student learning trends probably did not stand at the forefront of voters’ or candidates’ thinking in the 2002 and 2004 elections.
  • “The PACT needs to be seen for what it is: a vehicle for politicians to say that they are tough on education (and educators). This may make for good politics, but it makes for bad educational policy.”
  • Reacting to the rising criticisms directed toward PACT, voters may have grown disenchanted with the state’s accountability system and removed test-score performance from among the criteria on which they evaluated school board candidates.
  • if most schools appeared to be average or better, parents may not have been prompted to hold incumbents accountable for poor school performance. Incumbents and potential challengers may also have become less responsive to scores when the testing regimen began to give nearly every school a passing mark.
  • School board elections give the public the leverage to improve their schools. If voters do not cast out incumbents when local school performance is poor, they forfeit that opportunity. As debate continues over components of NCLB, policymakers should consider whether it is realistic to assume voters will in fact use the polls to drive school improvement.
  • Neither the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) nor the states impose direct sanctions on members of school boards that oversee large numbers of underperforming schools.
  • According to a 2002 national survey, student achievement ranks second only to financial concerns as school board members’ highest priority.
  • the basic purpose of all school board activities is to facilitate the day-to-day functioning of schools.
  • analyzed test-score data and election results from 499 races over three election cycles in South Carolina to study whether voters punish and reward incumbent school board members on the basis of changes in student learning, as measured by standardized tests, in district schools
  • impact of school performance on incumbents’ decisions to seek reelection and potential challengers’ decisions to join the race.
  • All but 4 of the state’s 46 counties hold nonpartisan school board elections. Approximately 80 percent of school board members receive some compensation, either a salary, per diem payments, or reimbursement for their expenses. Over 90 percent of South Carolina’s 85 school boards have between 5 and 9 members, while the largest board has 11. And, as is common practice in other states, nearly 9 out of 10 South Carolina school districts hold board elections during the general election in November.
  • the most important difference between South Carolina and most other states when it comes to local school politics is the role played by the state’s teachers unions, which are among the weakest in the country.
  • South Carolina school boards are unlikely to be beholden to the unions, which should make the boards more responsive to the broader public.
  • examine whether voters are more concerned with student performance districtwide or in their local neighborhood, we computed two measures of average school performance to include in our analysis.
  • separate the effect of school performance from the effects of other factors that could reasonably influence an incumbent school board member’s vote share
  • REL N on 17 Feb 11
     
    Details about research on the impact school performance has on how people vote for school board members. The authors conclude "If voters do not cast out incumbents when local school performance is poor, they forfeit that opportunity. As debate continues over components of NCLB, policymakers should consider whether it is realistic to assume voters will in fact use the polls to drive school improvement."
REL N

Jack Jennings: Get the Federal Government Out of Education? That Wasn't the Founding Fa... - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...rnment-education_b_819814.html

shared by REL N on 25 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • the answer isn't to eliminate federal involvement in education. That would be a wrong-headed move that ignores our country's history and would contribute to the decline of the United States. It's also a battle that has been fought and lost before because the stakes are simply too high.
  • Federal involvement began more than 225 years ago, even before George Washington was president, when Congress passed two laws -- the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 -- to create and maintain public schools in the expanding United States.
  • The specifics of federal land grants were outlined in each of the federal acts for admitting these states.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • the achievement gap narrowed between adolescent white and black students. And the percentage of children with disabilities who attended public school rose from only 20 percent in 1970 to 95 percent in 2007.
  • three-fourths of all college student aid comes from federal sources, whether through the tax code, direct grants or subsidized loans.
  • These indirect subsidies of education through the federal tax code total at least $21 billion for post-secondary education, and at least $17 billion for elementary and secondary education. These amounts are almost as significant as the direct grants made by the federal government to support education.
  • "Getting the federal government out of education" would endanger the progress made by -- among others -- children with disabilities, African-American children, and women and girls
  • The achievement gap between U.S. students and their international peers deprived the national economy of as much as $2.3 trillion in 2008, according to the McKinsey Quarterly.
  • How can the country raise academic achievement if 14,000 local school districts are each making their own decisions on most key aspects of education?
  • Over the course of American history, the national government has aimed to better educate the citizenry as a basis for democracy and economic prosperity. Today, our nation must act with greater, not less, unity to improve schools.
  • REL N on 25 Feb 11
     
    Those who can afford to pay for all private K-12 and college expenses for their children may not care if the Federal government is involved in our education system. All the rest of the country needs to take heed and acknowledge the need for continued and expanded federal involvement. Without sounding flippant... do you suppose that those who might be leading the charge to get the Federal government out of education and make draconian cuts in social programs under the guise that tax burdens are too high and individualism trumps social justice are the same millionaires and billionaires who fund the tea party et al.? Sadly, the "regular folk" who are falling for that rhetoric do not recognize that they are paving their own way to..... [let's just say poverty].
REL N

Few back Quinn's consolidation push | school, local, consolidation - Jacksonville Illin... - 0 views

www.myjournalcourier.com/...32478-local-consolidation.html

NIemeyer ADMS707 Governance School Board Restructuring

shared by REL N on 07 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Ganson said each of the five local elementary districts have different costs, different debt loads and different needs. There would have to be sweeping agreements before consolidation could ever move forward
    • REL N
      REL N on 07 Apr 11
       
      Different needs, different debt loads... could this be "code" for something else?! This sounds a little like "separate but equal"--although it may not be predicated solely on race--or the apartheid that Kozol describes in Shame of the Nation.
  • Koch said the Illinois State Board of Education has always had the power to step in and take over failing schools. He said that power also includes the ability to dissolve a local school district. Koch said the state board will continue to "focus on incentives" to consolidation.
  • "If (school consolidation) makes sense in a community and a community is supportive of it, it needs to be a community decision. I don't think as a General Assembly we should be making and mandating school consolidation," Roth said.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • "There are a lot of local issues, nuances really, that would have to be worked out," Ganson said, "if the local districts were to come together."
  • Quinn first proposed the idea of required consolidation during his budget speech in February. Quinn said Illinois has too many school districts, and too many highly paid superintendents.
  • REL N on 07 Apr 11
     
    So the school boards and their constituents know that consolidation would reduce costs and the people don't want to pay higher taxes... yet there is reluctance to consolidate small districts (those with approx 500 students) because of unique needs (hmmm is this "code" for something?) and because the constituencies don't like the idea of a state mandate. So, let's see... whose interests are they protecting?
Tara McDaniel

Virginia's Public Education System 4th in Nation - 4 views

www.doe.virginia.gov/...jan21_gov.shtml

shared by Tara McDaniel on 28 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Tara McDaniel on 28 Jan 11
     
    Virginia's public education system's fourth place ranking in Education Week's annual Quality Counts report. The rankings are based on four critical areas: the chance for success, K-12 achievement, school finance, and policies related to transitions and alignment.
  • REL N on 04 Feb 11
     
    Sadly... none of the states got an A or A-. Alas, MS is no longer dead last. Granted they have the lowest C- possible. I know we say that grades are not everything but it is sad that there are no "A" states and our national average is mediocre at best. And, this is not a comparison to other developed countries....
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