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An important read for the week on the role of school boards.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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. 

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. 

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.

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

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

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....

"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...

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.

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."

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.

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.