http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=16561
Just Schools: Pursuing Equality in Societies of Difference

reviewed by Sherick Hughes - October 14, 2011

Title: Just Schools: Pursuing Equality in Societies of Difference
Author(s): Martha Minow, Richard A. Shweder, and Hazel Rose Markus
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation, New York
ISBN: 0871545829, Pages: 300, Year: 2010
Search for book at Amazon.com


I am writing this book review three days after the death of iconic NYU professor, Derrick Bell, Jr., J.D. Among his many accomplishments, the 80-year-old Bell will most likely be remembered within the academy for being the first tenured faculty member of color in Harvard's Law School and for his pioneering work toward the development of Critical Race Theory (CRT). CRT is a critical framework that provides a base for the examination of the ingrained nature of race and racism, counter-narratives, and interest convergence. Moreover, CRT is concerned with marginalization embedded within the laws, policies, practices, and institutions of our society, including social infrastructures and resources that were initially intended to operate toward a more just society. One such resource for an early CRT examination was David L. Kirp's (1982) Just Schools: The Idea of Racial Equality in American Education. In the following excerpt from that book, Kirp describes the elusiveness of equality when pursued in a democratic society: "progress entails capturing the meaning of equality in a specific setting and translating that meaning into official action, not securing a single coherent timeless understanding" (p. 9). With a recognizable CRT lens, Bell (1983) praises the case study work of Kirp, but challenges him for abandoning an "elusive…equality" message in favor of a constitutional mandated minimum for integration for all. Moreover, Bell was unimpressed with how Kirp's proposed solution in effect masks white privilege, ignores the ingrained nature of racism, "softens differences and emphasizes the similarity of long-term goals" among racialized groups (Bell, 1983, p. 190).

Ironically, nearly three decades later, I am compelled to apply CRT to review the co-edited volume Just Schools: Pursuing Equality in Societies of Difference by Martha Minow (Dean of Harvard's Law School); Richard A. Shweder (University of Chicago's William Claude Reavis Distinguished Service Professor of Human Development); and Hazel Rose Markus (Director of Stanford's Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity). I found only one reference to Kirp (1982) (as a "hard multiculturalist" on p. 112) in this volume and yet, it seems to connect inadvertently to it and to conjure similar critiques when a CRT lens is applied with Bell in mind. Unlike Kirp, Just Schools as a title works for Minow, Shweder, & Markus (2010) as an intentional double entendre that "considers the problem of justice in a multicultural society and at the same time, the relatively limited means schools have for addressing such problems through policies and practices" (p. 3). The editors contend that while "schooling becomes more than a repository of hopes; it is a project of justice" (p. 3). The editors also turn quickly to the point that schools should not be expected to solve all of the inequities in society, "after all, they are only [just] schools" (p. 3).

Without a CRT lens during my first reading, I find the book to be a progressive step in the direction toward explaining the tension of schooling for individual development vs. schooling for pluralistic purposes and goals in multicultural societies. Minow, Shweder, & Markus describe this tension as manifesting sometimes as a choice between treating each student the same or recognizing the aforementioned social differences; and at other times as a tension between commitments to desegregation and integration vs. separate instruction for students grouped by these social differences (p. 4). These tensions are central to the volume, which represents the third installment of the Social Science Research Council Working Group on "Law and Culture" (a diverse group of 18 members co-chaired by the editors). With a CRT lens (i.e., Ingrained Nature of Race and Racism; Importance of Counter-Narratives; and Importance of Convergence), some of my initial reactions to the volume remained, while some of my own blindspots were revealed in relation to the text during my fourth and fifth readings of the main points. Part I of the book includes only one introductory chapter that largely describes the other eight chapters and three parts of the book. Therefore, the remaining text (a) highlights what I found to be among the most promising elements of representative chapters from the three main parts of the book (i.e., Part II, Part III, and Part IV), and (b) addresses my CRT-based concerns about those chapters.

Discussion of Part II: Schooling and the Equality-Difference Paradox

In Chapter 2 of Part II, Minow (2008) describes quite well the ambiguity of school reform by asking the question "we're all for equality in U.S. school reforms, but what does it mean?" The chapter conveys the complexities of "converging around the idea of equal opportunity as an organizing framework" for just schools, and how other groups followed the legal lead of the civil-rights movement of African Americans with more or less success (including gains and losses experienced by African Americans at the hands of Brown (p. 21). The chapter describes incidents like the 2005 school board decision in Baltimore, Maryland to vote against adding Eid el Fitr, the end of Ramadan, to the school holiday calendar (p. 21), while Judeo-Christian holidays remain intact. And it also discusses Court decisions that ultimately permit "reforms admitting females in all-male schools where no comparable opportunities exist, while preserving existing all-female schools and promoting new all-female schools through a combination of tradition, informal policy, and 'success in warding off the handful of boys who express interest'" (p. 31). Minow (2008) also discussed the politics of recognition vs. the politics of redistribution (p. 28), where group disparities are recognized and groups fight for identity recognition, respect, and accommodation. Debates linger on whether to redistribute economic and other resources to the disadvantaged. This discussion concludes with the theme of school choice and vouchers (p. 35) and the questions of homogeneity vs. integration that come to the forefront and the growth of various religious and other groups continues.

Tenet 1 of CRT implores me to appropriate the ingrained nature of race and racism in relation to the information in Chapters Two and Three. Similar to Kirp, Part 1 of the volume breathes optimism for just schools via policy, law, and theory, but omits crucial points related to the fact that both the integration and separate school movements are fueled by the knowledge that race negativity and racism have survived--and some would even say were strengthened by--the Brown decision (Bell, 1983). Moreover, Derrick Bell is cited in Part 1, but the chapters neither seemed to name CRT nor to offer a discussion of it. The second tenet of CRT involving the importance of counter-story also illuminates crucial omissions. For example, the editors could have moved toward multiple authors, where the counter-narratives like those of some Latino scholars compel us to consider authors like Valencia (2005) who even supplements Bell (1980) with additional information about the less popular, yet extremely important 1947 California circuit court class action case, Mendez v. Westminster. The Mendez court seems to have also set a precedent for Brown by ruling the segregated schooling of approximately 5,000 Mexican American students in Orange County as unconstitutional. Mendez and Brown are linked inextricably as (a) "Mendez was a federal, Fourteenth Amendment case grounded in a theoretical argument known as integration theory that stresses the harmful effects of segregation on students," and (b) the attorneys in Mendez made that Fourteenth Amendment argument "using social science expert testimony . . ." and "theoretical arguments that later proved very useful in Brown" (Valencia, 2005, p. 389). Brown's visibility in the nation's highest court struck down Plessy and ultimately overshadowed the exclusion, classifications, and violations questioned previously by Mendez and other similar local, state, and federal court battles. Finally, Part I cites Gloria Ladson Billings, but failed to connect her work to CRT. In fact, Ladson Billings and Bill Tate are credited for bringing CRT to Education. Ladson Billings has been a champion for changing the under-theorized nature of race and racism in Education and she seems to be skeptical of pursuits of equality in societies of difference and just schools that deemphasize race and racism and mask white privilege.

Discussion of Part III: Just Schools in Context

In Chapter 4, Austin Sarat uses ethnographic methodology to study the culture of the self-proclaimed liberal and largely middle class White school district of Amherst, Massachusetts. Due to a growth of African, Latino, Asian, and Native American (ALANA) youth in Amherst, the district, guided by a seemingly well read and informed group, developed guidelines for the Becoming a Multicultural School System (BAMSS) initiative. Yet, even with the most sincere initiative on paper, Austin Sarat finds that everyone has their own view of multiculturalism and list of justifications to support that view. He labels his findings in terms of themes of soft multiculturalism and hard multiculturalism (p. 122). Residents seeking "soft multiculturalism" suggest that they are okay with some cultural accommodation for student differences, in order to raise student test scores, close the achievement gap, and prepare students for a competitive world (p. 122). Conversely, residents seeking "hard multiculturalism" support efforts where the school does what it takes to make each child feel welcome by accepting the customs, speech, dress, attitude toward authority, and slang the child brings- even if this requires some trade-offs with the teacher's authority and expectations of scholastic achievement, mastery of standard English, and assimilation to mainstream cultural norms or standards (p. 122). It concludes by stating that the residents are joined in their commitment to the multicultural movement, but disjointed in what they think the schools should do about it and what public education should be (p. 123).

The second tenet of CRT, again encourages counter-narrative/counter-story. In Education, it works to challenge dominant ideology and to center voices of communities of color as they differ from mainstream portrayals. Similarly, in Anthropology, Law, Psychology, and Sociology, counter-narrative involves naming one's own reality or voice (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). The point on diverse co-authorship is key here to realizing the possibilities of voices different from the homogeneous voice shared by the single authors of the chapters. Invitations for co-authorship opportunities to the African, Latino, Asian, and Native American (ALANA) youth of Amherst of the representative Chapter 4, Somali Muslims of Maine in Chapter 5 and Arab Muslims of Chicago and France in Chapters 6 and 7 of Part I may expand the questions, methods, analyses, and conclusions. Yet, the author who initiates action from a space of privilege at predominantly white institutions in a society where racism is alive, must sincerely ask Spivak's (1988) question, "Can the subaltern speak?" "If so, under what conditions and how might I begin co-constructing those conditions with participants?" The third tenet of CRT stresses the importance of interest convergence and underscores the power of white privilege. Contemporary CRT scholars find that "racism remains firmly in place but social progress advances at the pace that White people determine is reasonable and judicious" (Milner, 2007, p. 391). And, those with power are frequently least aware of-or least willing to acknowledge its existence (Delpit, 1995). Part III of the book has been described as the case study chapters, yet there is only brief mention of the terms "case study" and "interviews." I could find no discussion of the research design, sampling, and data collection techniques and analyses. The American Educational Research Association (AERA), the flagship association of educational research, in 2006 began calling for more clarity and transparency in research methods. It is in the best interest of scholars of color and white scholars to be explicit about our methodology, thereby avoiding strategic ambiguity, strategic obfuscation, and limiting generations of students who may seek transferability or generalizability from faulty research.

Discussion of Part IV: Just Schools in the World

In the concluding Chapter 9, Richard Shweder begins by reviewing the previous chapters briefly. He then names four core and yet conflicting liberal values or expectancies that are visited in-depth later in the chapter and how they help and hinder the progress toward just schools: "(1) autonomy, (2) merit-based justice, (3) equality, and (4) benevolent safekeeping of the vulnerable" (pp. 254, 265-266). Shweder (2008) offers interesting inquiries that challenge the utility of our past reforms and their abilities of getting our multicultural society any closer to universally just schools (p. 259) and then he "comes to terms" with multiculturalism and how the different factions who use it have contributed to some of the skepticism surrounding the term (p. 260). The chapter returns to the theme of complexity and cites Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at a time where he was sure about integrated public restaurants, buses, fountains, restrooms, but not so much interested in integrated public schools in Southern contexts where White teachers may not have Black students' best interest in mind. In another example of philosophical thought, he channels Hannah Arendt and her complex thoughts on social and private discrimination (parent choice) working currently with acquiescing to a necessity for at least minimal aims toward a public citizenry (p. 271). Shweder (2008) concludes the book by discussing the master narratives, chiefly, the master narratives of Judeo-Christian European, African American, and Native American folks involving different emphases upon the four liberal ideals that he names earlier in the chapter and supports more research, experimentation, and openness to various forms of school choice including public support of parents' private choices about how best to educate their children (pp. 280, 281, 282, 285).

The first and second tenets of CRT applied to Part IV of the volume encourage revisiting the powerful invisibility of racism for the privileged and center the necessity of counter-narrative/counter-story to challenge the dominant ideology underlying the professors' voices, including my own. Although both authors may self-identify with marginalized, racialized groups, without CRT and with single-authorship, they are trapped by the dilemma of representing the underrepresented. Centering voices of communities of color as they differ from and concur with the professors' portrayals could open crucial information about the problems and possibilities posited in Part IV. For example, the authors like their peers in Parts II and III limit discussions of the ingrained nature of racism and its inextricable link to poverty; an important point when you consider the argument that Bowles and Gintis (1976) foreshadowed over thirty years ago in their seminal piece: "We conclude that the creation of an equal and liberating school system requires a revolutionary transformation of economic life" (p. 265). Perhaps, CRT tenets one and two would move the authors to consider the liberal ideals instead as ideals that are at least, in part, myth. For example, the merit ideal is present, but largely as myth. There is certainly a merit and hard work frame, but that frame is surrounded by frames of acceptance and rejection at the hands of racism. These frames still disproportionately determine how far our merit and hard work will take us in our society. Moreover, the master narratives were careful and thoughtful and the preamble to them was considerate, however, CRT compels me to be skeptical of someone of insider/outsider status or someone going native portraying the master narrative of my racialized group home. It is unclear why the authors cite Ladson Billings, but fail to cite her education debt theory. Explaining the economic underachievement, crime, and educational underachievement of minorities (African American and Latinos) in the United States, scholar Ladson Billings (2006) asserted "we do not have an achievement gap, we have an education debt" (Ladson Billings, 2006, p. 5).

With a CRT lens, disproportionality is also noticeably deemphasized in the book. Disproportionality is one major barrier to just schools at the hands of racism and classism with over 40 years of research providing evidence of Black, Latino, and impoverished youth being (a) placed inequitably in Special Education (Blanchett, 2006), (b) withheld inequitably from gifted education (Tyson, Darity, & Castellino, 2005), and (c) disciplined inequitably at school (e.g., Skiba, Michael, Nardo, & Peterson, 2002). In fact, an entire issue of the Educational Researcher, a flagship journal of the AERA, was dedicated to disproportionality in 2006 (i.e., Artiles, Klingner, & Tate, 2006). The omission of this type of work coupled with calls at the end of chapters to be open to all the schooling possibilities, and school choice, renders the work as part suspect with a hidden agenda (perhaps neo-liberal or radically moderate aspirations). The third tenet, interest convergence, is mentioned in passing in Parts II-IV without a CRT connection. Perhaps a healthy dosage of critical reflexivity and positionality may have helped to convey and to understand the complications of the authors' positions toward just schools. Questions from Spivak (1988, p. 25) seem to adapt well to a CRT examination of texts when potential crises of interpretation and representation arise. "Do I base my assumptions about group mobility on faulty observations of the exceptional?" "Can the subaltern speak?" "If so, under what conditions?" "How might we co-construct those conditions to expand our understanding and critique?"

Concluding Thoughts

Overall, this book identifies the necessity of seeking and embracing the complexity of educational goals in a multicultural society. However, I find each chapter missing one or more tenets of critical race pedagogy, a brief discussion of data collection and analysis, and critical reflexivity. If present, CRP coupled with some methodological clarity and critical reflexivity could have served (a) to diversify the authorship (and co-authorship) to have multiple representatives (i.e., folks of color and K-12 teachers; and participants) with the legitimate authority to tell their own stories and to member-check and critique the authors' analyses and accounts-such diverse representatives could have served as critical friends, (b) to give the reader more intellectual resource materials to contemplate, weigh, consider, and critique, thereby adding clarity and transparency, and (c) to support critical reader comprehension, inquiry, and dialogue. Still, I find that with my reading and critique of the book, Just Schools may provide some thought-provoking insight into the complexity of education in a pluralistic society for teachers, learners, policymakers, government researchers and professors of K-12 Education; Migration/Immigration; Religion; U.S. Law; U.S. Culture, Psychology, and Policy.

References

Artiles, A. J., Klingner, J. K., & Tate, W. E (Eds.). (2006). Theme issue: Representation of minority students in special education: Complicating traditional explanations. Educational Researcher, 35(6), 2-3.

Bell, D. (1980). Brown and the Interest-Convergence Dilemma. (pp. 90-106) in D. Bell (Ed) Shades of Brown: New Perspectives on School Desegregation. New York: Teachers College Press.

Bell, D. (1983). Book Review: A School Desegregation Post-Mortem: Just Schools: The Idea of Racial Equality in American Education. By David L. Kirp. Texas Law Review, August, 62, 175.

Blanchett, W. (2006). Disproportionate representation of African American students in special education: Acknowledging the role of White privilege and racism. Educational Researcher, 35(6), 24-28.

Bowles, S. & Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life. London: Routledge.

Delpit, L. (1995). Other people's children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New York: New Press.

Kirp, David L. (1982). Just Schools: The Idea of Racial Equality in American Education. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2006) From the Achievement Gap to Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools, Educational Researcher, Vol.35, No.7.

Ladson- Billings, G. & Tate, B. (1995). Toward a critical race theory of education. Teachers College Record, 97 (1), 47-67.

Lynn, M. & Parker, L. (2006). Critical race studies in education: Examining a decade of research in US schools. The Urban Review, 38, 257-290.

Milner, H.R., 1V. (2007). Race, Culture and Researcher Positionality: Working through Dangerous Seen, Unseen, and Unforeseen. Educational Research, 36(7), 388-400.

Russom, G. (2010). Obama's neoliberal agenda for education. ISR-Online, May-June, 71. Retrieved October 9, 2011 at http://www.isreview.org/issues/71/feat-neoliberaleducation.shtml.

Sears, D. O., & Henry, P. J. (2005). Over thirty years later: A contemporary look at symbolic racism. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (pp. 95-150). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Skiba, R. J., Michael, R. S., Nardo, A. C., & Peterson, R. (2002). The color of discipline: Sources of racial and gender disproportionality in school punishment. Urban Review, 34, 317-342.

Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the Subaltern Speak? (pp. 24-28). In Gary Nelson & Lawrence Grossberg (Eds.) Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. London: MacMillan.

Tyson, C., Darity, W., & Castillino, D, (2005). It's Not "A Black Thing": Understanding the Burden of Acting White and Other Dilemmas of High Achievement, American Sociological Review. 70(4), 582-605.

Valencia, Richard. 2005. "The Mexican American Struggle for Equal Educational Opportunity in Mendez v. Westminster: Helping to pave the way for Brown v. The Topeka Board of Education." Teacher's College Record 107(3): 389-423.

Chemistry Now http://www.nbclearn.com/portal/site/learn/chemistry-now
Chemistry Now is an NBC Learn Special Collection that reveals how chemistry contributes to everyday life, with lesson plans from the National Science Teachers Association. New content released weekly in 2011, January - May and September - December. I
Chemistry Now

CHEMISTRY OF CHANGING LEAVES
Why do tree leaves turn gold, orange and scarlet in the fall? "Chemistry of Changing Leaves" explains the role of pigment molecules, including chlorophyll, carotenoids, and anthocyanin. We also profile North Carolina State "green" chemist Elon Ison, who is designing catalysts to make safer, cleaner alternative fuels. Also in this collection: news stories from the archives of NBC News and Scientific American on leaf change and "green" fuels, plus a NOAA diagram on why seasons change, and charts and photographs for virtual leaf-peepers.

NOBEL EFFORTS: BUCKYBALLS AND GRAPHENE (Fullerenes, Allotropes)
We mark the award of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with a look at two other notable Nobel-worthy advances: discovery of buckminsterfullerene, a 'surprise' carbon allotrope (along with diamond and graphite); and one of the most promising recent Chance Discoveries: graphene. Also in this collection: news stories from the archives of NBC News and Scientific American on graphene, buckyballs, and past Nobelists in Chemistry.

ORIGAMI CHEMISTRY: HOW TO FOLD A MOLECULE (Proteins, Peptides, Peptoids)
21st Century Chemist Kent Kirshenbaum of New York University engineers and folds synthetic peptoids in hopes of creating "hunter-killer" molecules that can target and destroy deadly bacteria like staph (MRSA). A separate Chance Discoveries video tells the story of the first shatter-resistant safety glass. Also in this collection: news stories from the archives of NBC News and Scientific American on drug-resistant "superbugs" and on glass (windshields and cathedral windows).

CLEANING THE OCEAN: CHEMISTRY OF DISPERSANTS
On the anniversary of the final capping of the gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, we explain the chemistry of dispersants and immiscibles, in "How to Wash an Ocean." We also mark the International Year of Chemistry with a video outlining chemistry's "10 Big Questions," as selected by our content partner, Scientific American. Also in this issue: news stories from the archives of NBC News and Scientific American on the Gulf oil spill and cleanup; a slide show on the oil spill's impact on birds and wetlands, and a chart comparing several notable oil spills.

CHEMISTRY OF SOAPS AND DETERGENTS (Surfactants, Surface Tension)
"It's a Wash: The Chemistry of Soap" explains how soap and detergents - surfactants - affect the surface tension of H2O to break up greasy dirt. We also profile 21st Century Chemist Facundo Fernandez at Georgia Tech, who uses chemistry to detect dangerous or ineffective fake pharmaceutical drugs and medicines. Also in this collection: news stories from the archives of NBC News and Scientific American on counterfeit drugs, and on hand-washing and the spread of germs and disease; plus, a history of soap timeline and Victorian-era soap recipes.

CHEMISTRY OF WATER: H2O (Polar Molecules, Cohesion, Adhesion)
"Water: H2O Molecules Made Clear" explains how the structure and behavior of H2O in liquid form gives water its properties, and make it a chemical essential for life. (The Greek word for "life" is traced in a separate Word Root.) Also in this collection: a Victorian-era depiction of the water molecule; news stories on water and molecules from the NBC News Archives, and illustrations and tables on The Water Cycle, water quality and water use.

CHEMISTRY OF CHOCOLATE (Heat Reactions, Melting Point, Crystallization)
"The Chemistry of Chocolate" uses chocolate-making to illustrate and explain chemical reactions related to heat, melting point, and formation of crystal structures. Also in this collection: news stories from the NBC News Archives on the history of chocolate, and its health benefits; Scientific American articles, graphs and maps on worldwide production of cocoa beans and consumption of cocoa, largely in the form of chocolate.

CHEESEBURGER CHEMISTRY: THE BUN (Gas and Sugar Reactions)
"The Chemistry of Bread" (part of a 6-part Cheeseburger Chemistry series) uses bread-making to illustrate and explain how yeasts work to convert starches and sugars in flour to CO2 gas (fermentation); effects of heat on gas; and gluten protein structures. Also in this collection: news stories on bread-making and grain crops from the archives of NBC News and Scientific American, plus graphs, maps and charts on global wheat production and consumption.

CHEESEBURGER CHEMISTRY: BURGERS (Reactions: Heat, Protein, Maillard)
"The Chemistry of Burgers" (part of a 6-part Cheeseburger Chemistry series) outlines myoglobin protein structures and their chemical changes when exposed to heat - part of what turns a patty of red, raw ground beef into a tasty brown burger. Also in this collection: burger-related news stories from the archives of NBC News and Scientific American - plus a Burger-related NBC Learn video.

CHEESEBURGER CHEMISTRY: CHEESE (Phase Change, Coagulation)
"The Chemistry of Cheese" (part of a 6-part Cheeseburger Chemistry series) uses cheese-making to explain protein denaturing, coagulation, and the difference between chemical and physical change. Also in this collection: news stories on Swiss cheese and Blue (or Bleu) cheese from the NBC News Archives, and graphs and charts on cheese production in the U.S.

CHEESEBURGER CHEMISTRY: TOMATOES (Ethylene, Gases, Diffusion)
"The Chemistry of Tomatoes" (one in a 6-part Cheeseburger Chemistry series) outlines the role ethylene plays in ripening tomatoes (and other fruits); the role of lycopene in color change; and diffusion of gas. Also in this collection: news stories on tomato mutation, genetic modification and ripening from the archives of NBC News and Scientific American, plus tables and maps on global tomato production, processing and consumption. And the first in our Chance Discoveries series: the story behind Post-it Notes.

CHEESEBURGER CHEMISTRY: PICKLES (Fermentation, Acid, pH)
"The Chemistry of Pickles" (one in a 6-part Cheeseburger Chemistry series) describes the role of fermentation, lactic acid, and pH in the process of pickling food to preserve it. (The Latin root of the word "preserve" is traced in a separate Word Root.) Also in this collection: news stories from the archives of NBC News and Scientific American on "bad" bacterial growth on food; the acidification and desalination of ocean water; plus a profile of a proud pickle-maker. Finally: a Pickle History Timeline, and a 1900 recipe for Green Sour Pickles.

CHEESEBURGER CHEMISTRY: CONDIMENTS (Suspensions, Dispersions, Emulsions)
"The Chemistry of Condiments" (one in a 6-part Cheeseburger Chemistry series) uses ketchup, mustard and mayo to explain two different types of mixtures: suspensions and colloidal dispersions (emulsions). Two related Chemistry Now videos explain H2O and emulsions in more depth. Also in this collection: news stories from the archives of NBC News and Scientific American on mixtures; a 1910 recipe for "Mayonnaise Dressing" and, for fun, a history of salad dressings. Plus, a Chance Discovery story on how saccharin, cyclamate and aspartame were discovered.

THE CLOVE-NUTMEG BOND (Single and Double Bonds, Bond Placement)
"The Chemical Bond Between Cloves and Nutmeg" focuses on the variety, strengths - and placement - of chemical bonds in the structures of two nearly identical molecules, eugenol and isoeugenol. In a "bonding" story of another kind, we profile Purdue materials chemist Jon Wilker, who's making synthetic adhesives based on the glues mussels produce underwater. (For another story on use of polymers in materials, see "The Science of Skis.") Also in this collection: early 19th century illustrations of atom "combinations," and an 1888 recipe for household glue.

CHIRAL MOLECULES (Chirality, Molecular Structure and Properties)
"Mirror Molecule: Carvone" uses carvone, a chiral molecule, to explain how the "handedness" of a molecule can change its properties - in this case giving us the differing flavors of spearmint, caraway and dill. Also in this collection: an 1853 drawing by Louis Pasteur of a chiral crystal; The Periodic Table of Elements - as it was imagined in previous centuries and as it stands today; and an NBC News profile of Oliver Sacks, author of "Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood."

CHEMISTRY OF GREEN: CHLOROPHYLL (Pigments, Visible Light Spectrum)
"The Chemistry of Green" outlines the role of chlorophyll in photosynthesis, and the role of pigments in making plants green (or making them appear green). Also in this collection: news stories from the archives of NBC News and Scientific American on chlorophyll, sunlight and biofuels, green things (trees, grass, algae) and, for fun, a 1990 story about crayon colors; plus a diagram of the electromagnetic spectrum, and maps of plant zones.

CHEMISTRY OF COLOR: FLOWERS (Pigments, Chromoplasts, Conjugated Bonds)
Roses are red; violets are...well, violet - but why? "The Chemistry of Flower Color" explains how pigment molecules - carotenoids and anthocyanins - give flowers the colors we see. Also in this collection: news stories from the archives of NBC News and Scientific American on desert wild flowers, pollination, the cut-flower industry, and why flowers have scents; color plates of several floral families; and a flowery offering from Robert Louis Stevenson.

COMMON SCENTS: CHEMISTRY OF SMELL (Olfaction, Odor Molecules and Receptors)
Smell that? Our sense of smell is a complex set of chemical reactions. We profile 21st Century Chemist Nate Lewis, who's working to develop an artificial "nose" that can help detect odors, including hazardous gases and chemicals. A story on the carvone molecule adds information on how the nose distinguishes odors. Also in this collection: news stories from the archives of NBC News and Scientific American on air testing, sense of smell (human and canine) - and a Periodic Table of "Smellements."

CHEMISTRY OF NYLON: SYNTHETIC FIBER (Polymers, Polyamides)
The 1930s invention of nylon revolutionized the global textile and materials industry. "Fabricating Fabric" outlines the molecular structure and impact of the first all-synthetic fiber. And we profile 21st century chemist Malika Jeffries-EL from Iowa State, who devises energy-efficient organic semiconductors and LEDs. Also in this collection: copies of the original nylon patents; and related news stories and articles from the archives of NBC News, Scientific American, and the Chemical Heritage Foundation.

CHEMISTRY TO DYE FOR: SYNTHETIC DYE (Pigments, Cell-Staining)
An 18-year-old London chemistry student tries to make synthetic quinine for malaria treatment, and instead creates the first synthetic dye. We tell the story of this 1856 Chance Discovery that transformed the textile industry worldwide. We also profile a 21st century chemist, Purdue's Mary Wirth, whose nanomaterials research makes cancer "markers" easier to detect in blood tests. Also in this collection: news stories from the archives of NBC News and Scientific American on food and fabric dyes, and cancer screening; and charts showing just how small "nanoscale" is.

CHEMISTRY OF HOUSEHOLD CLEANERS: AMMONIA (Deprotonation, Brønsted-Lowry Acids and Bases)
It's a staple of Spring Cleaning: all-purpose ammonia cleaner. "The Dirt on Ammonia as a Cleaning Agent" explains how ammonia works with water to dissolve fatty acids, like stearic acid, in greasy dirt. Also in this collection: news stories from the archives of NBC News and Scientific American on ammonia in nitrogen fertilizer, in Earth's atmosphere and beyond it; and hazardous chemicals (especially when mixed) in household cleaners.

CHEMISTRY OF BIOTOXINS: PAIN RELIEF (Peptides, Neurons)
It's both horrifying and fascinating, the way venomous sea snails paralyze, then kill, their prey. We profile 21st Century Chemist Mande Holford of the City University of New York, who is working to synthesize these biotoxins and develop powerful new painkillers. Also in this collection: news stories from the archives of NBC News and Scientific American on snail, spider and cobra venom, and on pain sensation and control - and a "universal" pain-rating scale.

Top tech firms back open Internet in FCC letter

October 12, 2011
Today, it was announced that national nonprofit Connected Nation is a key strategic advisor and partner in a major national public-private broadband adoption initiative called "Connect to Compete" aimed at boosting digital literacy and skills training and job creation.
The program, which includes a dozen private and nonprofit partners, was announced today by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski in a speech at the Pew Charitable Trust.
"Our data show that nearly 32 million rural Americans don't have broadband at home. Across all areas, approximately 6.7 million unemployed Americans don't have home broadband service. We can't compete when our players are sitting on the sidelines without the right equipment," said Brian Mefford, CEO of Connected Nation. "Connected Nation has been working to equip communities with the necessary technology for nearly a decade. The Connect to Compete initiative is an exciting opportunity bringing national game changers together to make big things happen for digital literacy."
Components of the program include a national "digital literacy corps" working to close the broadband adoption gap, and initiatives by private sector firms that are donating training opportunities, software, and creating digital content that will help job seekers. The Connect to Compete nonprofit initiative will oversee the effort.
Microsoft, Geek Squad, the Boys and Girls Club, Goodwill, One Economy, and the National Urban League are some of the other organizations aligned with Connect to Compete.
As a national technology organization with a footprint reaching 30 states and territories, Connected Nation has been leading the way in promoting broadband access, adoption, and use for nearly a decade. Connected Nation's programs include: cutting-edge research, groundbreaking broadband mapping and planning programs through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's State Broadband Initiative, technology training and distribution, and a long history of partnerships with governments, other nonprofits, community leaders, and leading technology firms.
Connected Nation and its state-based programs have initiated several successful digital literacy programs to provide computers and training to disadvantaged populations. Connected Nation's community and education programs such as Every Citizen Online and Computers 4 Kids have the effect of generating demand for broadband services in previously unserved areas, and have helped thousands cross the digital adoption gap.
Tomorrow, Connected Nation is releasing its 2011 Residential Technology Assessment revealing the barriers to broadband adoption across vulnerable sectors. The research shows the vital need for efforts such as Connect to Compete:
46% of rural households or 31.6 million people living in rural areas do not subscribe to broadband service at home. This is more than the populations of Texas and Wisconsin combined.
15.4 million American adults say a lack of digital skills and knowledge of how to use a computer and broadband is the main reason why they don't have broadband at home.
We estimate that 17 million children do not have broadband at home - and that 7.6 million of these children live in low-income households. The disproportionate adoption gap has serious implications for technology education policy.
About Connected Nation: Connected Nation is a national nonprofit 501(c)(3) that expands access to and use of broadband Internet and the related technologies that are enabled when individuals and communities have the opportunity and desire to connect. Connected Nation effectively raises the awareness of the value of broadband and related technologies by developing coalitions of influencers and enablers for improving technology availability and use. Connected Nation works with consumers, community leaders, states, technology providers and foundations, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to develop and implement technology expansion programs with core competencies centered on a mission to improve digital inclusion for people and places previously underserved or overlooked. http://www.connectednation.org.

Connected Nation Releases Results of Broadband Adoption Survey
Connected Nation released its annual residential broadband adoption survey results on October 13, 2011, revealing the top trends in technology use among key demographics. The survey revealed the majority of low-income, senior, disabled adult, Hispanic, and African-American households are without broadband at home, leaving them facing an uphill battle in keeping up with essential online resources, job and educational opportunities, and social services. The survey also shows 31.6 million people living in rural areas do not subscribe to broadband service at home, and 7.6 million children in low-income households are without access to this essential tool at home.

STEM Heavily Featured in New 'No Child' Legislation

By JASON KOEBLER
October 13, 2011 RSS Feed Print
After months of prodding from President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, it looks like Congress is finally getting around to reworking the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, more popularly known as No Child Left Behind, the much-maligned law that has governed K-12 education since it went into effect in early 2002.

For the past several months, Obama and Duncan have asked Congress to rework the law, which has been extended on a year-to-year basis since it expired in 2007. The administration has even granted waivers to states that exempt them from parts of the law. In March, Duncan told Congress that more than 80 percent of schools could miss testing benchmarks set by the law, and in June he called the law a "slow-motion train wreck."

Yesterday, Democratic Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin introduced an 860-page bill to that would finally revise the act. Here's the rundown on parts of the proposed law that would affect STEM education.

The bill seeks to fulfill four goals when it comes to STEM:

- Improving instruction in STEM subjects through grade 12

- Improving student engagement in and their access to STEM courses

- Improving the quality of STEM teachers by recruiting and training new teachers as well as improving existing teachers

- Closing the achievement gap between minority and white students and preparing more students for college in STEM subjects

These goals were outlined in legislation introduced last week by Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Al Franken of Minnesota, Mark Begich of Alaska, and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and were woven into the Harkin bill.

States receiving grants for STEM would be required to report extensive data, such as STEM teacher evaluations, student achievement in the subjects, rates of access to STEM classes, achievement gaps, and the percentage of students participating in advanced placement or International Baccalaureate STEM courses.

States would be allowed greater leeway to distribute funds earmarked for STEM, as long as they are used to increase access to STEM courses, implement high-quality STEM programs, provide professional development for teachers, or provide technical assistance to schools.

James Brown, executive director of the STEM Education Coalition, a group made up of STEM organizations that worked with Senator Merkley on drafting the legislation, says the bill "covers the gamut of all the different STEM needs."

The bill specifically allows states to use funds to woo engineers, scientists, and other STEM professionals who could potentially be interested in transitioning to a career in teaching and places an emphasis on spending money on STEM programs that have been proven to work.

"It's a relatively small [amount of research], but there's a growing knowledge base of what works in STEM education and what doesn't," he says. "It's about making sure you're spending taxpayer money effectively."

Although the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act has been a controversial, partisan issue for much of the year, Brown says STEM is an issue that has bipartisan support.

"It's a tough sell to reauthorize No Child Left Behind, but I think a lot of cynics in Washington didn't think it'd get to this point," he says. "We feel like the STEM focus is very bipartisan and it reflects a lot of agreement between the parties."

For some light reading, check out the entire bill here,http://help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/ROM117523.pdf or see what the introducing senators have to say about STEM education.

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/stem-education/2011/10/13/stem-heavily-featured-in-new-no-child-legislation

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2011/10/11/the-new-american-dilemma-stem-and-minorities The 'New' American Dilemma: STEM and Minorities - US News and World Report www.usnews.com



The 'New' American Dilemma: STEM and Minorities

America and its businesses need to recruit more minorities in STEM fields
By DR. IRVING PRESSLEY MCPHAIL

October 11, 2011 RSS Feed Print

Irving Pressley McPhail is president and chief executive officer of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering Inc. (NACME), which supports expanding the participation of underrepresented minorities studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in P-20 education.

In the 1940s, Gunnar Myrdal, a Swedish economist, developed a study called "An American Dilemma," which illustrated not only the obstacles faced by African-Americans in American society, but also the future of race relations in a democratic system. After 60 years of innovation, we are now faced with "The 'New' American Dilemma" that is, the relative absence of African-Americans, American Indians, and Latinos in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education and careers needed to drive a diverse and globally competitive workforce through a flat world.

With major demographic changes in the United States, the disparity of underrepresented minorities, including women, is becoming an increasing problem for the STEM disciplines. A study by the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, Inc. on U.S. engineering degrees found that African-Americans, American Indians, and Latinos account for 34 percent of the total U.S. population (ages 18 to 24), but earn only 12 percent of all undergraduate degrees in engineering. In fact, the share of engineering degrees earned by these three groups declines at higher educational levels: 12 percent bachelor's, 7 percent master's, and 3 percent doctorates. Meanwhile, women account for nearly half-46 percent-of the U.S. labor force but account for just 10.8 percent of U.S. engineers. In order to remain competitive in the global marketplace, our education system must progress alongside our nation's evolving demographic.

For the United States to continue to prosper and compete in the flattening world, we must do more to recruit Latinos, the fastest growing demographic in the country, as well as other underrepresented minorities into the science, technology, engineering and math fields. Diversity drives innovation, and its absence imperils our designs, our products, and our creativity. Therefore, the United States must recognize this hidden talent pool in our country and begin utilizing private-sector funds to dissolve America's new dilemma.

As the government continues to tighten its belt on budgets, and our education system remains stretched thin, the government has turned to corporations and nonprofits to form innovative public-private partnerships, or PPPs. These PPPs are driving initiatives across the country to recruit and train teachers, spur STEM education programs, and increase the number of students studying STEM from grade school tograduate school. They are also granting minority and economically disadvantaged students renewed access to STEM education. Corporations are providing a network of resources, mentors, and internship opportunities to help develop a workforce that not only reflects our nation's evolving demographic, but maintains our global competitiveness.

Increased private investment is the key to America's new dilemma. It is essential to provide all ranks of students greater access to a quality higher education in the United States By training our nation's underserved talent, we are ensuring that we have the intellectual capital essential to enhance our position as the world's strongest economy, passing American greatness to the next generation.



Tags:
STEM education

October 11, 2011 | 1:09 PM | By Audrey Watters
http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/10/whats-behind-the-culture-of-academic-dishonesty/
FILED UNDER: Culture, cheating, Khan Academy

B. Gilliard
You've heard the stories: Cheating in Atlanta, Georgia. Cheating in Washington, DC. Cheating in Long Island, New York.

Academic dishonesty, plagiarism, and cheating are hardly new. And as the history of the banking industry and baseball demonstrate, cheating scandals aren't just limited to schools. With numerous incidents making headlines in recent months, however, questions are being raised about the validity and the pressures of standardized testing, as well as the security of testing practices. And some are asking if it's time to scrutinize the underlying behaviors and motivation for all this cheating.

In a climate where they're told what really matters are grades, students turn to cheating (rather than to learning) in order to do well.
Is the pressure to score high - not just on standardized tests, but in all facets of school life - leading to a rampant culture of academic dishonesty? Or is it simply that technology is making it easier to cheat?

Some studies indicate that cheating is at an all time high - or at least, students' willingness to admit they've cheated. Some 75% of college students admit that they've cheated at one point or another during their academic careers. That's up from 20% of students back in the 1940s.

According to these studies, the types of students who are cheating has changed, too. It isn't necessarily the student who's struggling to do well in class who's cheating; it's top-performing students who are feeling the pressure to perform better. A recent article in Psychology Today cites one student saying, "I was in honors classes in high school because I wanted to get into the best schools, and all of us in those classes cheated; we needed the grades to get into the best schools."

The pressures to test well are extending beyond students now too, as the cheating scandals in Atlanta and DC and elsewhere suggest. Students are cheating. Teachers are cheating. School administrators are cheating.

That Psychology Today article, written by Peter Gray, a research professor of psychology at Boston College, posits that there may be something about the structure of the school system that is becoming a "breeding ground for cheaters." He argues that by being forced to spend time doing work they do not choose, students are unmotivated to learn. Furthermore, in a climate where they're told what really matters are grades, students turn to cheating (rather than to learning) in order to do well.

"One of the tragedies of our system of schooling," he writes, "is that it deflects students from discovering what they truly love and find worth doing for its own sake. Instead, it teaches them that life is a series of hoops that one must get through, by one means or another, and that success lies in others' judgments rather than in real, self-satisfying accomplishments."

Despite all the new ways that students can learn now - via Web tools and mobile phone apps, for example - it seems as though without a shift in this culture, cheating will continue. Indeed, I stumbled upon a Web site yesterday with instructions on how to cheat the point system on Khan Academy. Rather than earn badges by watching (and hopefully learning from) the videos, the author of the post demonstrated how to artificially inflate one's points. Khan himself said he's heard from teachers that students try to "game" the system, and his engineers are working on finding ways to thwart those efforts.

Many people point to Khan Academy as a site that epitomizes a system that encourages self-paced, self-motivated learners to thrive. What does it say, then, that there are already cheating sites aimed at gaming that system?

FCC posts map of broadband access: The Federal Communications Commission posted an interactive map on its website Wednesday that shows which areas of the country lack access to broadband. Currently, 18 million Americans lack broadband access. The FCC is promoting the map to win support for Chairman Julius Genachowski's plan to overhaul the agency's Universal Service Fund to focus on expanding broadband.

http://www.broadbandmap.gov/

For Immediate Release
For More Information: Steve Norton (202) 626-5758 snorton@itif.org

WASHINGTON (October 11, 2011)-In response to the report released today at a forum sponsored by various privacy organizations, ITIF Senior Analyst Daniel Castro issued the following statement:

"The authors of a study released today claim that they are, 'debunking a myth that digital data collection is anonymous.' Despite the hype, the report merely identified some known technical issues that websites can address to improve privacy. Indeed the author of the report admitted at today's event that he was, 'not alleging any violation of self-regulation.' The fact remains that the vast majority of organizations and businesses on the Internet do not abuse consumer data and have policies and practices in place to protect consumers.

Contrary to statements made today, the sky is not falling. Consider that Internet users have more tools to protect their online privacy today than they had a decade ago, and the private sector is working diligently to strengthen and improve online advertising self-regulation. Moreover, online advertising, and increasingly behavioral advertising, is the foundation of today's Internet economy, the vast amount of free content and services available to consumers, and the potential growth of tomorrow's Internet. Sound public policy should be guided by thoughtful commentary, not hysteria and fear-mongering."

Castro explained that imposing stringent new rules on the Internet economy will likely hurt consumers more than help them, policymakers should focus on improving online privacy through light-touch regulation. He said immediate steps that Congress could take include:

-Creating a Data Policy Office within the Department of Commerce to focus on data policies that foster economic activity, including policies that increase data sharing, reduce barriers to global information flows, and protect consumer privacy. For example, the Data Policy Office could evaluate the impact of data regulations on competition and innovation, fund research on important issues like data anonymization, and work with other nations to improve international frameworks for sharing data across borders.

-Funding the development and deployment of privacy-enhancing technologies for consumers, such as an electronic ID system.

-Strengthening the enforcement of existing consumer protection laws, including providing more resources to the Federal Trade Commission to investigate allegations of consumer privacy violations.

-Passing a federal data breach notification law that establishes a single standard for notifying consumers of security incidents involving personal data, rather than allow each state to create its own rules.

For more background, see the following ITIF publications:
-Data Privacy Principles for Spurring Innovation.

-Cover Your Bits, It's Data Privacy Day.

-Policymakers Should Opt Out of "Do Not Track".

About ITIF

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) is a Washington, D.C.-based think tank at the cutting edge of designing innovation strategies and technology policies to create economic opportunities and improve quality of life in the United States and around the world. Founded in 2006, ITIF is a 501(c) 3 nonprofit, non-partisan organization that documents the beneficial role technology plays in our lives and provides pragmatic ideas for improving technology-driven productivity, boosting competitiveness, and meeting today's global challenges through innovation.

Keeping Special Ed in Proportion
Experts say improvements in school instructional cultures can keep some struggling minority kids out of special education.

http://www.edweek.org/tsb/articles/2011/10/13/01disproportion.h05.html

ARTICLE TOOLS SPONSORED BY:

Everyone involved in education is aware of the issue of racial achievement gaps in standardized test scores. But for some advocates of educational equity, there's a parallel trend that even more dramatically depicts schools' difficulties in effectively teaching struggling minority students. In industry parlance, it's known simply as "disproportionality"-referring to the disproportionate statistical representation of African-American and Hispanic students in special education programs.
Exactly how disproportionality-also sometimes referred to as "overrepresentation"-is calculated is the subject of much scholarly and policy debate. But some widely available statistics illustrate the problem. For example, federal data from 2007 show that African-American students made up 17 percent of the U.S. school enrollment but more than 20 percent of the students classified with specific learning disabilities. Likewise, Hispanic students represented just over 20 percent of the school population but almost 24 percent of students classified with learning disabilities.

Providing a different lens, 2008 government data mapped by the Equity Alliance at Arizona State University show that in most states, African-American students were nearly or greater than twice as likely as white students to be classified with emotional or intellectual disabilities. The discrepancies-for both African-American and Hispanic students-are far worse in many individual districts, the organization says.
Interpretations of such figures vary. But for many school-equity experts, they point to the troubling conclusion that large numbers of struggling minority students are being classified for special education even though they don't have true disabilities.
"The data are clear that when you look at the representation of minorities in special education, there's something going on behind the scenes," says H. Richard Milner IV, an associate professor of education at Vanderbilt University and the author of Start Where You Are, But Don't Stay There: Understanding Diversity, Opportunity Gaps, and Teaching in Today's Classrooms. "In other words, there are kids who are placed in these programs because educators either don't want to deal with them, don't know how to deal with them, or don't know how to be responsive to them."
And placement in special education, researchers point out, can often make matters worse for these students. Divorced from the reglar academic curriculum and environment, they tend to have poorer academic and career outcomes than their peers, including much higher high school dropout rates. Compounding the problem is the enduring stigma that the special education label can have on students who don't belong there. In the long run, says Milner, such students "become the victims of remediation."
What Schools Can Do
Scholars generally don't blame racial disproportionality in special education on outright discrimination. Instead, they say it typically derives from systemic flaws within a school or district's instructional culture that allow for some disadvantaged students to fall through the cracks. Such problems are generally specific to individual school systems and may require a comprehensive analysis to identify. However, there are a number of widely recommended steps that school communities can take to address or prevent overrepresentation issues. By extension, these steps can be seen as ways to better support at-risk students in general.
Open up the conversation. Rather than avoiding the issue or accepting it as "just the way things are," schools facing a disproportionality problem should seek to foster honest-though tactful-discussions on issues of race, academic achievement, and pedagogy. Experts often suggest organizing meetings in cross-functional teams to explore educators' own experiences and perspectives. "Get people to talk about who they are and their own views of things, and then to examine their practice and their curriculum," says Elizabeth Kozleski, a professor at Arizona State University and a principal investigator with the Equity Alliance.
In these conversations, school leaders should be on the lookout for examples of subtle cultural biases that educators may be relying on to justify high rates of special education referrals for minority students, suggests Edward Fergus-Arcia, deputy director of New York University's Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, which provides technical assistance to school districts on disproportionality. For example, some teachers may point to a lack of academic support from the students' families or give voice to stereotypes about differing cultural expectations for student performance or behavior.
Such revelations may be a starting point for change. "The reality," says Fergus-Arcia, "is that instruction should be responsive to all those types of issues." For students with school-readiness problems, "it's still our job to make sure we get them there," he adds.
Become data-conscious. To help detect and address problematic racial academic patterns, experts stress the importance of honing in on student-performance data. "A lot of systems have disproportionality problems and don't even know it because they're not paying attention to the data," says Amanda VanDerHeyden, an education consultant and researcher.
Janette Klingner, a professor of education at the University of Colorado and co-author of Why Are So Many Minority Students in Special Education?: Understanding Race & Disability in Schools, stresses the value of examining student data holistically. "Progress-monitoring data is great for looking at classroom performance as well as [that of] individual students," she says. "You get a sense of whether a particular classroom is doing well or not doing well, and where you might need to give instructional support to the teachers."
At the classroom level, meanwhile, access to well-parsed progress-monitoring data has been shown to help teachers make better decisions about special education referrals, says Claudia Rinaldi, a senior training and technical assistance associate with the Urban Special Education Leadership Collaborative in Newton, Mass. Hard data give teachers a solid basis for responding to students' learning needs and gauging their development, she explains.
Heal the curriculum. Many school systems with disproportionality problems, even some affluent ones, "do not have curriculum frameworks that are well-articulated," says Fergus-Arcia. The materials don't have "a good scope and sequence and curriculum map that show the teachers what they could be doing and where they should be at different parts of the school year, given the standard they need to meet for the state." Such inconsistencies need to be tackled, Fergus-Arcia explains, because they put kids who are struggling or disadvantaged at an even greater risk of falling behind.
In addition, school leaders may need to scrutinize the curriculum for areas that exclude or fail to resonate with particular subgroups of students. By way of example, Klingner points to math story problems that are remote from some kids' experiences. To tap students' full capacity, she says, curriculum needs to be "accepting, interesting, motivating to kids and to make connections between [academic content] and their lives."
Tailor professional development. No matter how idealistic they may be, teachers are not always well-prepared to work with diverse-needs students. To minimize the potential for added referrals, experts advise, school leaders should ensure that teachers receive sustained training in high-frequency problem areas like classroom management, English-language learner instruction, literacy development, differentiation, and culturally responsive practice.
Fergus-Arcia also strongly recommends targeting intensive professional development to members of school instructional support or intervention teams-the "key gatekeepers," as he calls them-to ensure that they are operating well even as regular classroom instructional problems are being addressed.
Selected Books on Race and Education
To help teachers better understand the problems minority students face, school equity experts often advise forming faculty book-study groups around issues of racial identity and education. Here are some books recommended by the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education at New York University's Steinhardt School.
Building Racial and Cultural Competence in the Classroom
eds. Karen Manheim Teel and Jennifer E. Obidah (Teachers College, 2008)
Can We Talk About Race?: And Other Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation
by Beverly Daniel Tatum (Beacon Press, 2007)
Culturally Responsive Teaching: Lesson Planning for Elementary and Middle Grades
by Jacqueline Irvine and Beverly Armento (McGraw Hill, 2001)
The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children
by Gloria Ladson-Billings (Jossey Bass, 1994)
Invisible No More: Understanding the Disenfranchisement of Latino Men and Boys
eds. Pedro Noguera, Aída Hurtado, and Edward Fergus (Routledge, 2011)
Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom
by Lisa Delpit (The New Press, 1993)
"Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?": A Psychologist Explains the Development of Racial Identity
by Beverly Daniel Tatum (Basic Books, 2003)
Intervene, early and often. Perhaps most crucially, schools detecting signs of disproportionality should introduce rigorous academic interventions, in the form of individual or small-group instruction, to provide added support for students who are at risk of falling behind. Indeed, there is at least some isolated evidence that the response-to-intervention model-a tiered instructional-support framework-can significantly reduce special education referrals for minority students. But researcher VanDerHeyden stresses that, to work well, interventions must be carefully planned, based on validated instructional practices, and-most importantly-closely monitored through student-performance data. Even in schools with RTI, VanDerHeyden says, "intervention consistency is a huge problem."
Fergus-Arcia adds that he generally urges schools to implement interventions earlier and more broadly than they are accustomed to. Too many schools, he says, take it for granted that their regular instructional program alone is strong enough to lift most kids.
The Teacher's Role
While disproportionality is generally a school- or district-wide problem requiring structural change, there are also things individual classroom teachers can do on their own to respond to-or at least not contribute to-the problem. Teachers are not only the ones who work with the students most frequently and know them best. They also often initiate the special education referral process. "Teachers play a huge role [in special education determinations]," says Vanderbilt's Milner. "Teachers matter."
Don't go it alone. Teachers who find that they are having trouble getting through to some students should acknowledge their own limits and reach out to colleagues for support. Getting input from others can help teachers avoid making fixed judgments about students that can lead to misclassifications.
Klingner advises observing the classrooms of more experienced teachers or partnering with staff members who have needed expertise. "Maybe it's a special ed. teacher, maybe it's an ESL teacher," she says. "You're going to develop a climate or culture where there's more collaboration. That's a really important piece."
Similarly, Fergus-Arcia says teachers should make sure they know the proper protocols for getting assistance from the support or intervention teams in their building. "Every teacher needs some level of support, so having an understanding of that team, the existing process, and how it is activated is essential," he says.
Be diligent about formative assessment. To ensure students are on pace, Fergus-Arcia recommends that teachers closely monitor progress data at least every two weeks. Those data may include not only test results but also written work, homework, and class projects. By consistently reviewing students' work, teachers can gain an understanding of whether the kids are getting the material as intended, Fergus-Arcia says. Then they can "hone in on linking their teaching to the learning that's actually happening," as opposed to relegating some kids to permanent catch-up mode.
Discipline wisely. In responding to disciplinary problems-often a prominent factor in minority special education referrals-teachers should try to understand the motivation behind the behavior before punishing the student or removing him or her from class. "When a student is acting out, chances are something is happening beyond the behavior," says Milner. "Students experience peer pressure, or they might be undergoing some family change or some form of abuse." Educators should try to be cognizant of such issues and help students address them, Milner says.
As a rule, experts stress, teachers shouldn't make assumptions about a student on the basis of behavioral issues. "We're all responding from our own cultural frameworks of what we expect behaviors to look like in the classroom, and not every kid instinctively knows how to manage that," Fergus-Arcia observes.
Read and reflect. In general, teachers in diverse classrooms may need to gain a better understanding of how their own viewpoints and preconceptions about schooling differ from those of their students. Teachers should be "conscious and deliberate about their own roles, their own belief systems, and how that sometimes connects inconsistently with their students," says Milner. To help bridge cultural divides in the classroom, both Milner and Fergus-Arcia recommend forming faculty book-study groups around texts that speak to issues of education and ethnicity.
It's important for teachers in diverse settings to converse with peers and "try to build an understanding of what it means" in practical terms to have kids with different cultural backgrounds and needs in their classrooms, says Fergus-Arcia.
Vol. 05, Issue 01, Page 36

Microsoft, Best Buy to join FCC efforts to spur broadband use
Microsoft will offer free computer-literacy lessons in schools and libraries in disadvantaged communities across 15 states as part of a pilot program set to be announced today by the Federal Communications Commission, which is seeking to encourage more people to use broadband services. The program also enlists the help of other private companies such as Best Buy, whose tech experts -- known as the Geek Squad -- will provide computer training through service groups, such as Boys and Girls Clubs and 4-H, in 20 cities. The New York Times (tiered subscription model) (10/12), All Headline News (10/12)

NCES Announces the 2012 National Forum on Education Statistics and the 25th Annual NCES Management Information Systems (MIS) Conference
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) will be sponsoring a 2-day meeting of the membership of the National Forum on Education Statistics February 13-14, 2012 in San Diego, CA. This meeting will immediately be followed by the 25th Annual Management Information Systems (MIS) Conference, co-sponsored this year by the California Department of Education and NCES, February 15-17, 2012. The theme for this year's conference is "Server's Up, Dude."

The 2012 MIS Conference is a concentrated 3-day program of information about best practices, innovative ideas, current issues, and practical how-to advice about data systems for K-12 education. It brings together the people who work with information collection, management, transmittal, and reporting in school districts and state education agencies.

This year, the MIS Conference will offer more than 100 presentations, demonstrations, and workshops conducted by practitioners from K-12 information systems.

You are invited to attend the 25th Annual MIS Conference in San Diego and to submit a proposal to present a session that will add to the conference's interest and usefulness. Topics are invited from all sources, but the major focus will be on data use, data standards, statewide data systems, and data quality. For more information about the conference, including registration and proposal submission instructions, please visit
http://ies.ed.gov/whatsnew/conferences/?id=905

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/education/10winerip.html?pagewanted=all%3Fsrc%3Dtp&smid=fb-share&src=ISMR_AP_LI_LST_FBON EDUCATION
Free Trips Raise Issues for Officials in Education
By MICHAEL WINERIP

Since 2008, the Pearson Foundation, the nonprofit arm of one of the nation's largest educational publishers, has financed free international trips - some have called them junkets - for education commissioners whose states do business with the company. When the state commissioners are asked about these trips - to Rio de Janeiro; London; Singapore; and Helsinki, Finland - they emphasize the time they spend with educators from around the world to get ideas for improving American public schools.

Why school reform can't ignore poverty's toll

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/why-school-reform-cant-ignore-povertys-toll/2011/10/07/gIQAYPHMUL_blog.html
By Valerie Strauss
Some school reformers are fond of saying that "great teaching" can overcome the effects of living poverty on children, and that those people (me included) who insist that poverty matters are only supporting the status quo.

The critics of school reform that I know are hardly happy with the status quo, nor do they believe that poverty must be eliminated for public schools to be improved.

The bottom line is that pushing school reforms that are obsessed with standardized test scores and do nothing to address the emotional, physical and social needs of needy children are bound to fail.

The following piece speaks of the real toll that living in poverty takes on children. It was written by Marcus D. Pohlmann, a professor of political science at Rhodes College in Memphis who has written extensively on race and poverty in Memphis.

By Marcus D. Pohlmann

Like most urban systems, Memphis City Schools have demonstrated the kind of achievement numbers that keep school reformers up at night. One in three students fail to graduate, and those who continue remain far behind by all achievement measures. Just 4 percent of seniors score well enough on entrance exams to qualify to take college-level courses without remedial work.

In films like " Waiting for Superman" and books like " Class Warfare ," teachers and teacher unions are lambasted. The mandates of "No Child Left Behind" legislation also have meant numerous firings and re-assignments when students fail to make "adequate yearly progress."

Yes, blaming the teaching profession is in vogue, but lurking beneath failure is a full array of social and economic problems, not only in my city, but in major metropolitan areas from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles.

Here in Memphis, the nation's poorest metropolitan area, 60 percent of children live with a single parent and roughly three in four qualify for federally subsidized school meals. As in other poor urban neighborhoods, they start school academically two years behind other children and are less than half as likely to achieve proficiency throughout their school years. Nationally, race and poverty combine to bar all but 1 percent of African-American students from the poorest households from attending college full time.

Poverty increases family stress, leads to poor nutrition and medical care, and, importantly, means children are talked to less and end up with vocabularies that are about half that of middle-class children. Research suggests that the first years shape a child's capacity to learn. Science tells us that it is essential to brain development that babies are spoken to, read to, cuddled, and allowed to engage in physical play. National Institute of Health studies have indicated the foundations necessary for higher learning - working memory, vocabulary, spatial recognition, reasoning, and calculation skills - are set by the time a child reaches puberty.

Children in poverty move from place to place, often several times in a year. There are schools in which three out of four Memphis children "churn," which means they start at a certain school but will not be there by year's end. At nearby Cherokee Elementary, 85 percent of the children live in poverty and one in four will transfer during the year.

Students come to school unbathed, inadequately clothed, and without books. Often, a parent is incarcerated, or otherwise not present. Many are raised by aunts barely out of their teens, or grandmothers who have watched a family disintegrate from a collective inability to fight the powerful currents of poverty.

In schools like Cherokee, you won't find an active PTA, and it is not unusual for only one or two parents out of 20 to turn up for parent-teacher conferences.

Research has shown that high-quality, intensive early education helps prepare students intellectually and socially, and seems to improve academic success, reduce dropout rates, and reduce the need for special education programs and grade repetition. Such programs also can increase the likelihood that students will pursue higher education or training, which translates into reduced delinquency, arrests, teen pregnancy, and welfare reliance. The gains have been particularly noticeable in students from disadvantaged backgrounds who enter such programs by age two.

Through the 18th birthday, the average child will spend less than 9 percent of life in school. That leaves most education occurring outside the schoolhouse. A poll of kindergarten teachers showed that their classrooms would improve if all families had access to quality pre-kindergarten programs.

The bipartisan New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce has recommended that public education begin at age 3 for American students. And studies show that the best early childhood programs are staffed by teachers with college degrees and early education certification, offer developmentally appropriate education, include a focus on language development and comprehensive services such as meals and health and developmental screenings and encourage parental involvement.

We should indeed fire those beaten-down tenured teachers who have given up and are slacking. But the dozens of Memphis public school teachers I have met over the past several years are serious, dedicated teachers who care about their students, take too much work home, and spent money out of their own pockets on teaching supplies.

I have no doubt there are many such dedicated teachers in every American inner city. We risk driving them away by the current wave of attacks. And it doesn't help that teachers are required to take up to six years of post-secondary education only to start teaching for less than $50,000 per year.

Before we throw quality public school teachers under the school reform bus, it would seem far wiser to first fully explore ways of bringing them students prepared to learn. It makes much more sense to support Early Head Start and other programs with proven track records.

-0-

Follow The Answer Sheet every day by bookmarking http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet. And for admissions advice, college news and links to campus papers, please check out our Higher Education page. Bookmark it!

By Valerie Strauss | 07:00 AM ET, 10/08/2011

by larrycuban



The untimely loss of 56 year-old Steve Jobs and the obituaries that followed reminded me of what he told interviewers about technology and school reform. Jobs recorded these interviews in the mid-1990s before he returned to Apple as CEO in 1997.

Gary Wolf from Wired magazine interviewed Steve Jobs in 1996:

Could technology help by improving education?

I used to think that technology could help education. I've probably spearheaded giving away more computer equipment to schools than anybody else on the planet. But I've had to come to the inevitable conclusion that the problem is not one that technology can hope to solve. What's wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology. No amount of technology will make a dent.

It's a political problem. The problems are sociopolitical. The problems are unions. You plot the growth of the NEA [National Education Association] and the dropping of SAT scores, and they're inversely proportional. The problems are unions in the schools. The problem is bureaucracy. I'm one of these people who believes the best thing we could ever do is go to the full voucher system.

I have a 17-year-old daughter who went to a private school for a few years before high school. This private school is the best school I've seen in my life. It was judged one of the 100 best schools in America. It was phenomenal. The tuition was $5,500 a year, which is a lot of money for most parents. But the teachers were paid less than public school teachers - so it's not about money at the teacher level. I asked the state treasurer that year what California pays on average to send kids to school, and I believe it was $4,400. While there are not many parents who could come up with $5,500 a year, there are many who could come up with $1,000 a year.

If we gave vouchers to parents for $4,400 a year, schools would be starting right and left. People would get out of college and say, "Let's start a school." You could have a track at Stanford within the MBA program on how to be the businessperson of a school. And that MBA would get together with somebody else, and they'd start schools. And you'd have these young, idealistic people starting schools, working for pennies.

They'd do it because they'd be able to set the curriculum. When you have kids you think, What exactly do I want them to learn? Most of the stuff they study in school is completely useless. But some incredibly valuable things you don't learn until you're older - yet you could learn them when you're younger. And you start to think, What would I do if I set a curriculum for a school?

God, how exciting that could be! But you can't do it today. You'd be crazy to work in a school today. You don't get to do what you want. You don't get to pick your books, your curriculum. You get to teach one narrow specialization. Who would ever want to do that?

These are the solutions to our problems in education. Unfortunately, technology isn't it. You're not going to solve the problems by putting all knowledge onto CD-ROMs. We can put a Web site in every school - none of this is bad. It's bad only if it lulls us into thinking we're doing something to solve the problem with education.

Lincoln did not have a Web site at the log cabin where his parents home-schooled him, and he turned out pretty interesting. Historical precedent shows that we can turn out amazing human beings without technology. Precedent also shows that we can turn out very uninteresting human beings with technology.

It's not as simple as you think when you're in your 20s - that technology's going to change the world. In some ways it will, in some ways it won't.

________________________________________________

In 1995, Daniel Morrow of the Smithsonian interviewed Jobs. Excerpts follow.

DM: Some people say that this new technology maybe [the most important thing in schools]....

SJ: I absolutely don't believe that. As you've pointed out I've helped with more computers in more schools than anybody else in the world and I [am] absolutely convinced that [it] is by no means the most important thing. The most important thing is a person. A person who incites your curiosity and feeds your curiosity; and machines cannot do that in the same way that people can. The elements of discovery are all around you. You don't need a computer. Here - why does that fall? You know why? Nobody in the entire world knows why that falls. We can describe it pretty accurately but no one knows why. I don't need a computer to get a kid interested in that, to spend a week playing with gravity and trying to understand that and come up with reasons why.

DM: But you do need a person.

SJ: You need a person. Especially with computers the way they are now. Computers are very reactive but they're not proactive; they are not agents, if you will. They are very reactive. What children need is something more proactive. They need a guide. They don't need an assistant. I think we have all the material in the world to solve this problem; it's just being deployed in other places. I've been a very strong believer in that what we need to do in education is to go to the full voucher system. I know this isn't what the interview was supposed to be about but it is what I care about a great deal.

DM: This question was meant to be at the end and we're just getting to it now.

SJ: One of the things I feel is that, right now, if you ask who are the customers of education, the customers of education are the society at large, the employers who hire people, things like that. But ultimately I think the customers are the parents. Not even the students but the parents. The problem that we have in this country is that the customers went away. The customers stopped paying attention to their schools, for the most part. What happened was that mothers started working and they didn't have time to spend at PTA meetings and watching their kids' school. Schools became much more institutionalized and parents spent less and less and less time involved in their kids' education. What happens when a customer goes away and a monopoly gets control, which is what happened in our country, is that the service level almost always goes down. I remember seeing a bumper sticker when the telephone company was all one. I remember seeing a bumper sticker with the Bell Logo on it and it said "We don't care. We don't have to." And that's what a monopoly is. That's what IBM was in their day. And that's certainly what the public school system is. They don't have to care….

The market competition model seems to indicate that where there is a need there is a lot of providers willing to tailor their products to fit that need and a lot of competition which forces them to get better and better. I used to think when I was in my twenties that technology was the solution to most of the world's problems, but unfortunately it just ain't so. I'll give you an analogy. A lot of times we think "Why is the television programming so bad? Why are television shows so demeaning, so poor?" The first thought that occurs to you is "Well, there is a conspiracy: the networks are feeding us this slop because its cheap to produce. It's the networks that are controlling this and they are feeding us this stuff but the truth of the matter, if you study it in any depth, is that networks absolutely want to give people what they want (original emphasis) so that [they] will watch the shows. If people wanted something different, they would get it. And the truth of the matter is that the shows that are on television, are on television because that's what people want. The majority of people in this country want to turn on a television and turn off their brain and that's what they get. And that's far more depressing than a conspiracy. Conspiracies are much more fun than the truth of the matter, which is that the vast majority of the public are pretty mindless most of the time. I think the school situation has a parallel here when it comes to technology. It is so much more hopeful to think that technology can solve the problems that are more human and more organizational and more political in nature, and it ain't so. We need to attack these things at the root, which is people and how much freedom we give people, the competition that will attract the best people. Unfortunately, there are side effects, like pushing out a lot of 46 year old teachers who lost their spirit fifteen years ago and shouldn't be teaching anymore. I feel very strongly about this. I wish it was as simple as giving it over to the computer.

By Edward Wyatt

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday outlined a plan to transform the Universal Service Fund, an $8 billion fund that is paid for by the nation's telephone customers and used to subsidize basic telephone service in rural areas, into one that will help expand broadband Internet service to 18 million Americans who lack high-speed access.

The chairman, Julius Genachowski, said the overhaul of the fund would eliminate waste and inefficiencies in a program that is outdated, unfair and not accountable to the consumers who support it through monthly assessments on their phone bills.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/business/fcc-plans-an-overhaul-of-the-universal-service-fund.html?_r=1&ref=business&pagewanted=print

Collect articles and browse other HuffPost members' collections.

I'm one of many nerds who started programming with an Apple II. I bought the first Mac in 1984, right before I got on a plane to go to MIT. When I got there, I saw all the upperclassmen had PCs -- the "macho computer" -- and thought I was a sissy with the "pansy computer." But I loved it because it could draw circles so much faster than anything else, and it let me play with the images that were dancing in my head.

Growing up, I found I was good at two things, Art and Math. To hear my parents say it, though, it was only "John is good at Math." They saw a life for me like the one most of my classmates had after graduating in the 1980s, developing software for Oracle or Microsoft (which worked out quite well for most of them, to be sure). My formative years were spent steeped in STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Math). Were it not for Jobs' influence, I may not have come to believe -- as I do so fervently today - that you need the "A" for Art to turn STEM to STEAM.

Jobs fueled my career as a technologist, artist, designer, and now as a leader of the art and design school by which all others are measured in the world. All of my artistic work -- like the five works that went into MoMA's permanent collection -- was written on a Mac. I even had my own personal ode to Jobs two years ago in London, where I had a show at the Riflemaker Gallery where I made multimedia sculptures out of iPods.

Jobs foresaw that innovation now extends beyond smaller, faster and cheaper technology -- that technology didn't have to be a rational thing. The MP3 player wasn't a new thing when the iPod came out, nor was the iPhone the first smart phone. But they were the ones that made you give a damn. In his own words, the reason why the Macintosh was so successful was that it was created by artists, musicians, poets and zoologists. Jobs saw that artists and designers could make the technology emotional, desirable, human.

In his 2005 Stanford Commencement address, Jobs, then on the mend, adjured the graduates, "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life." By introducing me to design so many years before, he had already given me this wisdom. On a grander scale, I thank Jobs and Apple for proving that art and design are poised to transform our economy in the 21st century, like science and technology did in the last century. It is this realization that will keep America competitive; the next Apple will be born if America invests in turning "STEM to STEAM" in its research and education.

By AMY SCHATZ

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203388804576614843087697746.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

WASHINGTON-Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said Thursday the agency plans to overhaul an $8 billion federal phone subsidy program, calling it "broken."

Mr. Genachowski said the overhaul will include changes in how money from the federal Universal Service Fund is distributed to telecommunications companies as well as changes to a federally regulated rate system for phone companies.

"Broadband has gone from being a luxury to a necessity," Mr. Genachowski said in a speech Thursday. He offered few specifics about the plan during his speech.

FCC officials want to overhaul the system so that it pays for new broadband lines and service in rural areas without high-speed service instead of covering the costs of phone service. The agency estimates about 18 million American households don't have access to high-speed Internet service.

Mr. Genachowski said his proposed changes would encourage phone companies to bring high-speed Internet to half of U.S. households without service within the next five years.

Consumers pay a monthly charge on their phone bills to fund the Universal Service Fund, which subsidizes phone service in rural areas and for low-income Americans. The fund has ballooned over the years as more wireline and wireless phone companies have asked for subsidies to cover services.

Mr. Genachowski also said the FCC intends to modernize the intercarrier-compensation system, which sets fees telecommunications companies pay each other for carrying or delivering phone calls. The system was designed before lower-cost Internet phone services took off.

Large phone companies, which have advocated many of the changes Mr. Genachowski announced Thursday, mostly applauded his plan, saying it was time for the FCC to change the system. "Absent reform, these rules will simply loiter on to foster more litigation and arbitrage and ultimately stifle innovation and the benefits of broadband for consumers," said Bob Quinn, AT&T Inc.'s senior vice president of federal regulatory affairs, in a statement.

USTelecom, the telecom industry trade group, voiced some concerns about the plan, which fundamentally changes the economics of the telecom industry, mostly because details of it are still not available.

The FCC's four commissioners are scheduled to vote on the plan Oct. 27, although some of them are likely to seek changes to Mr. Genachowski's plan before then.

Consumer groups have complained that changes to the intercarrier-compensation system may result in higher costs for consumers because it will allow phone companies to raise a monthly service charge above the current $6.50 per month cap. State regulators have also voiced worries that the FCC's plan may decrease their consumer protection authority.

Consumers in rural areas may see their phone bills rise, since Mr. Genachowski said phone companies will be allowed to "modestly rebalance rates in areas" where consumers are paying less because of federal subsidies. Mr. Genachowski's aides declined to offer more details about how many consumers might be affected or how much their monthly bills may rise.

The FCC should not "allow companies to raise landline phone rates, which hit seniors and underserved communities especially hard," said Parul Desai, policy counsel for Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine.

Write to Amy Schatz at Amy.Schatz@wsj.com

http://cellular-news.com/story/51224.php

By: Simon Davies | 6th Oct 2011: 4:57pm

The US telecoms regulator has outlines plans to reform the Universal Service Fund (USF) and Intercarrier Compensation system (ICC) that are used to subsidise services in rural areas.




FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said that despite spending $4.5 billion per year, USF is failing to get broadband to approximately 18 million Americans in rural areas. This plan would ensure money is spent in a more targeted and efficient way, bringing greater fairness and benefit for consumers who pay into USF each month.

In a speech announcing the proposals, he said that the USF is wasteful and inefficient. The fund pays some companies almost $2,000 a month -- that's more than $20,000 a year -- for a single home phone line. He also noted that in many areas it subsidizes companies even though there is a competing provider -- typically a cable company -- providing voice and broadband service without a dollar of government support.

The Chairman then offered his plan to transition USF to a Connect America Fund. This Fund would have two core goals:

The transition from USF to a Connect America Fund would start a near-term build-out to hundreds of thousands of consumers in 2012, and would ultimately help get broadband to the 18 million Americans who can't get it today.

The fund would also provide universal availability of affordable mobile broadband through a new Mobility Fund. Deployment of mobile broadband would be extended to more than 100,000 road miles. In addition to a one-time shot-in-the-arm effort to accelerate deployment of 4G networks in 2012, this Fund would provide significant ongoing support for rural mobile broadband.

On the ICC side, Chairman Genachowski said, "Like USF, the current ICC system is unfair to American consumers. It forces hundreds of millions of consumers across the country to pay higher bills to subsidize monthly local telephone bills as low as $8 for other consumers. Our reforms would result in major consumer benefits."

The proposed ICC reforms include three main elements:

(1) Immediately close loopholes like phantom traffic and traffic pumping, and other arbitrage schemes like CMRS-in-the-middle, where some carriers divert wireline traffic to wireless networks to avoid paying ICC. The plan would also provide greater certainty about compensation for VoIP calls that either begin or end on the public switched telephone network, ensuring symmetry in the treatment of such traffic.

(2) Phase down ICC charges over a measured but certain multi-year transition path, starting by bringing intrastate access rates to parity with interstate rates.

(3) Help companies transition by employing a tightly controlled recovery mechanism. The plan would permit some companies to receive transitional support from the Connect America Fund, but that support would be accompanied by obligations to serve the public as well as strong oversight and accountability.

"By eliminating billions of dollars in hidden subsidies that are currently built in to wireless and long-distance bills, consumers can expect reduced costs, better value for their money, or both. We estimate that wireless consumers alone would see more than $1 billion in annual benefits from ICC reform." the Chairman added.

The Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles (CRP) announces the
release of a new report by Daniel Losen, director of the new Center
for Civil Rights Remedies at the CRP and one of the nation's top
experts on school discipline. The report, "Discipline Policies,
Successful Schools, and Racial Justice," is published by the National
Education Policy Center (NPEC), and is released in collaboration with
the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and the Dignity in Schools
Campaign.

Losen's research makes clear that unnecessarily harsh discipline
policies are applied unfairly and disproportionately to minority
students, dragging down academic achievement. The report also
documents a trend across the United States in which minority students
routinely receive major penalties, including school suspensions, for
minor school offenses.

The report shows how criminalizing kids detrimentally affects student
learning, and criticizes the federal government's minimal efforts to
collect data in any uniform way on the large number of students kicked
out of school.
The report was released earlier today at the National Press Club (http://press.org/events
) in Washington, D.C., as part of the Dignity in Schools Campaign
National Week of Action (www.dignityinschools.org).

The Press Club briefing included presentations by experts including:

Daniel Losen, (the report's author), Civil Rights Project at UCLA,
discussed the report's findings;
Jonathan Brice, School Support Networks Officer, Baltimore City Public
Schools, the administrator chiefly responsible for student discipline
in the Baltimore City Schools, spoke about alternative approaches to
zero tolerance policies;

Bobby Scott, Congressman, Third District, Virginia, talked about
actions the federal government should take to insure that discipline
is applied fairly;

Honorable Steven Teske, Judge, Juvenile Court, Clayton County,
Georgia, offered recommendations;

Kevin Welner, Professor, University of Colorado at Boulder School of
Education and Director, National Education Policy Center discussed the
National Education Policy Center's studies on diversity, academic
achievement and the role discipline plays;

Edward Ward, Blocks Together, Chicago, IL and Wanda Parker, Citizens
for a Better Greenville, Greenville, MS, who are youth and parent
representatives from the Dignity in Schools Campaign and spoke to
their experiences with the overuse of suspensions, putting a human
face on the issues.

The complete report, a companion brief suggesting statutory changes to
implement the report's recommendations, and resource sheets for
parents and community members are at http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/discipline-policies
and will be available at the CRP website (www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu
).


Press Contact: James Horwitz , 202/549-4921, jhdcp@starpower.net