Skip to main content

Home/ ADMS707/ Group items tagged report

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Jonathan Becker

New NSBA report finds school boards focusing on achievement, accountability «... - 6 views

  •  
    An important read for the week on the role of school boards.
  • ...4 more comments...
  •  
    Really??? Some good news today? Thanks.
  •  
    Only if you think achievement and accountability are worth focusing on... ;-)
  •  
    Yipppeeee! 90% of school board members are "concerned about an overly narrow focus on achievement." There may be a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel.
  •  
    I don't find anything here groundbreaking as such...what was I supposed to be surprised by again?
  •  
    We shall see if their actions speak to their words
  •  
    It is interesting that school board members are only "lukewarm" about certain "structural" changes such as school choice, charter schools, and year-round schooling.
REL N

Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Among 18-to-33-year-olds, the project said in a report last year, blogging dropped two percentage points in 2010 from two years earlier.
  • Former bloggers said they were too busy to write lengthy posts and were uninspired by a lack of readers. Others said they had no interest in creating a blog because social networking did a good enough job keeping them in touch
  •  
    Many of us said that we found writing in the blog difficult because it took a lot of time to craft the "perfect" text. This article explains how many are shifting from blogging to social networks as a more convenient way to quickly share updates.
Victoria Schnettler

Charter Schools: A Report on Rethinking the Federal Role in Education - 1 views

  •  
    From the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings, a think tank, a group of researchers review the accessibility of data on charter schools and the federal government's recent push towards this growing trend.
REL N

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

  • And we need to approach our education investment as we approach infrastructure or industrial policy.
    • REL N
       
      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
       
      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
       
      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...
  • We need to change our approach from preventing failure to promoting success.
  • 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?"
  • 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
  •  
    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.
  •  
    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).
Roger Mancastroppa

ERIC - Education Resources Information Center - 0 views

  •  
    The school board and superintendent set up the groundwork for instructional reforms. They turned to the Council of the Great City Schools to look at how well the district's instructional program was meeting the academic needs of these English-language learners and newcomers. The study shows how a program considered excellent that performs very well, can still miss students with limited English speaking skills. The report shows how the school district missed the fact that many of these folks even existed, let alone began building programming to meet their needs. Most important are the strategies that offer the students a chance to join mainstream and improve their achievement. 
Roger Mancastroppa

Raising the Achievement of English Language Learners in the Buffalo Public Schools - 0 views

  •  
    The school board and superintendent set up the groundwork for instructional reforms. They turned to the Council of the Great City Schools to look at how well the district's instructional program was meeting the academic needs of these English-language learners and newcomers. The study shows how a program considered excellent that performs very well, can still miss students with limited English speaking skills. The report shows how the school district missed the fact that many of these folks even existed, let alone began building programming to meet their needs. Most important are the strategies that offer the students a chance to join mainstream and improve their achievement. 
Roger Mancastroppa

SUPERINTENDENT RECRUITMENT: A STATEWIDE ASSESSMENT OF PRINCIPAL ATTRACTION TO THE JOB - 0 views

  •  
    The study assessed a public school principals in terms of their attraction to the job of district superintendent. The reasearchers assumed "participant self-reported capability to become a superintendent impacts participant attraction to the job, and participant satisfaction with facets of their current jobs and their expected satisfaction with those same job facets in the job of superintendent give an indication of participant likelihood of pursuing the job of superintendent." Method: This was a field survey "designed and implemented according to procedures established by Dillman" (2000). The study was "a combination of the quasi-experimental and correlation designs, as explicated byCampbell and Stanley (1963), and involved three analytical procedures: Winter, Rinehart Keedy, Björk 38 Planning and Changingpaired-samples t-tests, two-group discriminant analysis, and hierarchical multiple regression analysis."   The study shows that the superintendents were on average 46.9 years-old and were fairly even gender, predominantly caucasian, and 85% were married. Most participants were not superintendentcertified (87.7%), and most of those who were not certified did not intend to become certified (79.0%), suggesting relatively low interest in pursuing the job of superintendent. Most of the participants who were superintendent-certified had held their certification for five years or more (65.3%), suggesting a modest degree of intent to transition from the job of principal to the job of superintendent. People tend to see the reality of the workload and time commitment.
REL N

NAEP and the Common Core Standards - Brookings Institution - 0 views

  •  
    Advanced release of a Brown Center (Brookings Institution) report on the Common Core Standards.
REL N

Obama's budget: A play for the center? - CNN.com - 0 views

  • While it's absolutely essential to live within our means ... we can't sacrifice our future in the process," he told reporters while touting some targeted new education spending. "We have a responsibility to invest in those areas that will have the biggest impact in our future" while "demanding accountability."
Tara McDaniel

Education Week's Quality Counts - 0 views

  •  
    Report Awards State Grades for Education Performance, Policy; Nation Earns a D-plus on Achievement, Some Movement Seen On Reform Initiatives Despite Recession
Tara McDaniel

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

  •  
    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.
  •  
    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....
REL N

Americans Support Federal Involvement in Education - 1 views

  • Forty-three percent of U.S. adults want the federal government to be more involved in education than it is currently and 20% want it to keep the same level of involvement,
  • Parents of school-aged children are particularly supportive of expanding the government's role in education, with 56% favoring more involvement.
  • Americans are, at a minimum, content with the current level of federal involvement in education. Still, views on this are highly partisan. Sixty percent of Republicans favor less federal involvement in education while 63% of Democrats want to see more. By 44% to 33%, independents tend to favor more involvement over less.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • 54% of Americans dissatisfied with the quality of K-12 education in the United States today, the highest Gallup has recorded since August 2000.
    • REL N
       
      More than 50% of Americans feel that the public school system is failing yet 80% of American parents are completely or somewhat satisfied with the quality of education their children are receiving.
  • By contrast, American parents have remained largely satisfied with the quality of education their own children are receiving. The 80% currently saying they are either completely (35%) or somewhat (45%) satisfied is the most positive assessment Gallup has measured since the question was first asked in 1999.
  •  
    "A combined 63% of Americans want the federal government's role in education either maintained at its current level or increased. The figure is 72% among parents of K-12 schoolchildren. The fact that a majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the status of education today may give added support to an expanded federal role."
  •  
    Gallup poll results reported Sep-2010 r.e. role of the federal government in education.
  •  
    This surprised me. Interesting find...
Roger Mancastroppa

For-Profit Schools: Large Schools and Schools that Specialize in Healthcare Are More Li... - 0 views

  •  
    In 2008-2009, nearly $24 billion in loans and grants went to about 2k for-profit schools under federal student aid programs. About 20 years ago there was some concern by the Fed that the schools were recruiting students not ready or capable for higher education. A lot of the students were not prepared for the jobs they were supposedly trained for and so they never got jobs in those areas. In turn many of them defaulted on their student loans. Congress put the 85/15 rule in place - meaning that the for profit schools would have to raise 15% of their student aid from other sources. That was reduced to 10% in the late 90s under Clinton.
REL N

D.C. schools to use data from teacher evaluation system in new ways - 0 views

  • by matching teachers' ratings to the universities they attended, officials are deciding which pipelines deliver the best, or worst, talent.
  • "We'll just stop taking graduates from institutions that aren't producing effective teachers."
  • Teacher ratings from one cluster of schools might be compared with those from another cluster to assess how a particular instructional superintendent is faring. Principals will be judged in part by the number of "highly effective" teachers they are able to retain from year to year. Instructional coaches will be held accountable for the ratings of the teachers they coach.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Critics of value-added evaluation models, who have objected to using the data to fire teachers, say that expanding their use is unwise at this point. "The core problem with these data is the creation of incentives to narrow the curriculum," said Richard Rothstein, a research associate with the Economic Policy Institute and one of the authors of a recent report critical of value-added evaluations.
  • "It's never been piloted, never been tested," Saunders said. "And the conclusions made using IMPACT as a basis will be just as flawed as the instrument they rely upon."
  •  
    DC is expanding the use of the data from value-added evaluation models. "And the conclusions made using IMPACT as a basis will be just as flawed as the instrument they rely upon."
Tara McDaniel

Reaction to school choice in Detroit - 0 views

  •  
    Many whites are taking advantage of the Michigan School Choice programs to move their children from more diverse schools to ones with fewer black students, The Detroit News reports. According to the most recent US census data, released on March 22, more than 184,000 African-Americans have moved out of Detroit in the past decade, most moving to the predominantly white suburban communities and the percentage of black students in those schools has jumped.
Roger Mancastroppa

Chris Hedges: Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System - Chris Hedges' ... - 0 views

  •  
    Offers a pointed finger for why our education system is collapsing in upon itself. The author provided connections between teaching and curriculum to business and corporate influence. He used powerful quotes by teachers decrying how they feel like frauds telling their kids that what they are learning will prepare them for life.
1 - 17 of 17
Showing 20 items per page