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anonymous

Springing Into Digital Research Projects « The Unquiet Librarian - 0 views

theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com/...into-digital-research-projects

Wikis

shared by anonymous on 22 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 22 Mar 11
     
    A group research writing assignment using a wiki.
Linda Garcia

ASCD Infobrief:Examining Charter Schools:Examining Charter Schools - 1 views

www.ascd.org/...Examining-Charter-Schools.aspx

shared by Linda Garcia on 28 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • By definition, the common link among these 5,000-plus schools is their acceptance of increased accountability in exchange for increased autonomy, but the schools themselves may have little in common
  • More than three-quarters of charter schools nationwide are freestanding, started by educators, parents, activists, and others
  • Although Americans' approval of charter schools has increased 15 percent in the last five years and reached a two-thirds favorable rating, half of the respondents to a recent Phi Delta Kappan poll mistakenly believe that charters are not public schools and are allowed to teach religion.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • saying that charter schools are vital to promoting innovation in American schools (Obama, 2009)
  • With so much variation among charter schools, however, significant questions exist regarding how well they are educating students, how they manage their financial responsibilities, and whether creating more charter schools will be better for the nation's schoolchildren.
  • In 2009, Secretary Duncan made lifting charter caps a key component of qualifying for education funding under the $4.35 billion Race to the Top (RTTT) program. Originally, to qualify for RTTT money, Duncan said states must eliminate any caps on charter schools. In November 2009, Duncan changed the requirement so that states with caps could still receive money if they had other kinds of innovative public schools and as long as the caps were generous enough (The Wall Street Journal, 2009).
  • Parents' demand for charter schools is outpacing their availability in many locations, with an estimated 365,000 students on waitlists—enough to fill more than 1,100 average-sized charter schools
  • In Montana, where there are no charter schools and where more than half of the state's school districts have enrollments of fewer than 100 students, Superintendent of Schools Denise Juneau objected to the RTTT focus on charter schools in a July 28 letter to Secretary Duncan. "Montana's rural context and economic status has made it challenging for many communities and the state to support the public schools we currently have," Juneau wrote in the letter, "much less encourage the duplication of infrastructure a charter school would mean in most communities" (McNeil, 2009).
  • "The charter movement is putting itself at risk by allowing too many second-rate and third-rate schools to exist," he said, in reference to a recent study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University that found that more than 80 percent of charter schools were performing the same as or worse than their local public schools (2009).
  • The comparison found that only 17 percent of charter schools were producing gains that were significantly better than their traditional public school counterparts, while 46 percent were similar to their local public schools and 37 percent performed significantly worse (Center for Research on Education Outcomes, 2009).
  • In contrast, another recent study by Stanford economics professor Caroline Hoxby found that students who entered lotteries and gained admission to New York City charter schools performed better on state assessments than students who entered the same lotteries and were not admitted to the charter schools.
  • The findings of both studies have been disputed. Critics of the Hoxby study point out that it relies on extrapolations of data, comparing statistical projections of student achievement as opposed to actual student achievement (Ravitch, 2009). Critics of the CREDO study raise doubts about its seemingly contradictory findings that charter schools provided gains for English language learners and poor students while having negative effects on Hispanic and black students (Anderson, 2009).
  • For middle and high school charters that did have baseline scores, that study found charter schools in five of the seven locations it examined were on average no better or worse than local traditional public schools (Zimmer et al., 2009).
  • Of the more than 5,250 charter schools that have ever opened, 657 have closed since 1992. Of those, 41 percent closed because of financial deficiencies caused by either low enrollment or inequitable funding; 27 percent for mismanagement; and only 14 percent for poor academic performance (Allen et al., 2009).
  • A 2005 analysis by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) found that 90 percent of authorizers were local school districts, and two-thirds lacked a dedicated office or staff to oversee the authorizing process (Vanourek, 2005). NAPCS, which has described quality authorizing as an intensive, data-driven process that requires dedicating substantial resources to the task, has called for stricter accountability for local school boards and other entities that authorize charter schools
  • anonymous on 28 Oct 10
     
    An examination of charter schools
Jennifer Flores

Success for All - 0 views

www.successforall.net/...research.html

shared by Jennifer Flores on 13 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • Jennifer Flores on 13 Nov 10
     
    Website of Success for all foundation that has developed scripted curriculum
Michelle Arce

More Alike Than Different: Promoting Respect Through Multicultural Books and Literacy S... - 0 views

findarticles.com/...ai_n54718446

shared by Michelle Arce on 13 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • Michelle Arce on 13 Nov 10
     
    Not my research topic, but this article reminded me of our Lit. circle book, "Esperanza Rising." =)
  • Michelle Arce on 13 Nov 10
     
    Multicultural books & Literacy Strategies-- helps students gain a stronger sense of identity, especially when identifying with CULTURE.
anonymous

Best Practices - 2 views

www.amphi.com/...bestpract.htm

Diigo Research web2.0

shared by anonymous on 21 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Eric Wheeler on 21 Mar 10
     
    A great article on why/how Diigo can be a useful classroom research tool.
  • anonymous on 21 Mar 10
     
    Great article about how to use Diigo as a teaching tool
Eric Wheeler

eThemes - 0 views

ethemes.missouri.edu

research education ethemes resource Web2.0

shared by Eric Wheeler on 08 Jul 10 - Cached
  • Eric Wheeler on 08 Jul 10
     
    Web Resources organized by grade level, content theme, and standard
Linda Garcia

The Answer Sheet - What 'Superman' got wrong, point by point - 6 views

voices.washingtonpost.com/...-superman-got-wrong-point.html

shared by Linda Garcia on 03 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Promise Academy is in many ways an excellent school, but it is dishonest for the filmmakers to say nothing about the funds it took to create it and the extensive social supports including free medical care and counseling provided by the zone
  • Two-thirds of Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone funding comes from private sources
  • In New Jersey, where court decisions mandated similar programs, such as high quality pre-kindergarten classes and extended school days and social services in the poorest urban districts, achievement and graduation rates increased while gaps started to close. But public funding for those programs is now being cut and progress is being eroded.
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • Most test score differences stubbornly continue to reflect parental income and neighborhood/zip codes, not what schools do. As opportunity, health and family wealth increase, so do test scores.
  • they reduce teachers to test-prep clerks, ignore important subject areas and critical thinking skills
  • But schools and teachers take the blame for huge social inequities in housing, health care, and income.
  • Unions have historically played leading roles in improving public education, and most nations with strong public educational systems have strong teacher unions.
  • The movie touts the benefits of fast track and direct entry to teaching programs such as Teach for America, but the country with the highest achieving students, Finland, also has highly educated teachers.
  • Charters were first proposed by the teachers’ unions to allow committed parents and teachers to create schools that were free of administrative bureaucracy and open to experimentation and innovation, and some excellent charters have set examples. But thousands of hustlers and snake oil salesmen have also jumped in.
  • And the Education Report, "The Evaluation of Charter School Impacts, concludes, “On average, charter middle schools that hold lotteries are neither more nor less successful than traditional public schools in improving student achievement, behavior, and school progress.”
  • The Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University, concludes that only 17% of charter schools have better test scores than traditional public schools, 46% had gains that were no different than their public counterparts, and 37% were significantly worse. While a better measure of school success is needed
  • While a better measure of school success is needed
  • While a better measure of school success is needed
  • It is not a sustainable public policy to allow more and more public school funding to be diverted to privately subsidized charters while public schools become the schools of last resort for children with the greatest educational needs.
  • In spite of the many millions of dollars poured into expounding the theory of paying teachers for higher student test scores (sometimes mislabeled as ‘merit pay’), a new study by Vanderbilt University’s National Center on Performance Incentives found that the use of merit pay for teachers in the Nashville school district produced no difference even according to their measure, test outcomes for students.
  • approximately a third of America’s new teachers leave teaching sometime during their first three years of teaching; almost half leave during the first five years.
  • many of the top students have been lured to careers in finance and consulting.” It’s the market, and the disproportionately high salaries paid to finance specialists, that is misdirecting human resources, not schools.
  • They ignore the social construction of knowledge, the difference between deep learning and rote memorization.
  • This is a common theme of the so-called reformers: We are at war with India and China and we have to out-math them and crush them so that we can remain rich and they can stay in the sweatshops. But really, who declared this war? When did I as a teacher sign up as an officer in this war? And when did that 4th grade girl become a soldier in it? Instead of this new educational Cold War, perhaps we should be helping kids imagine a world of global cooperation, sustainable economies, and equity.
  • So the outcome of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top has been more funding for schools that are doing well and more discipline and narrow test-preparation for the poorest schools.
  • Waiting for Superman has ignored deep historical and systemic problems in education such as segregation, property-tax based funding formulas, centralized textbook production, lack of local autonomy and shared governance, de-professionalization, inadequate special education supports, differential discipline patterns, and the list goes on and on.
  • anonymous on 03 Oct 10
     
    This post corrects the misinformation in Waiting for Superman.
  • ...1 more comment...
  • Benjamin Caulder on 22 Oct 10
     
    This is a good read. I don't know if its only me but "documentary" somehow implicitly means "true story". There really ought to be some sort of rating system, like G-NC17, for the accuracy of a documentary so the public doesn't buy the misinformation.
  • Evonne Villagomez on 18 Nov 10
     
    This is article is particularly helpful for me since my essay is on charter schools. I found this read interesting because it hihglights the areas in education which charter schools seem to be disregarding.
  • Kyle Dodson on 18 Nov 10
     
    I love the criticism if offers on the poster/ text alone. Many professors in the credential program are irate over the film and it's nice to see point-by-point what is wrong with the "documentary." I just love this article in general. It helps to be able to combat certain statistics in conversation too :)
Mallorie Fagundes

Effects of the California High School Exit Exam - 3 views

www.eric.ed.gov.login.hmlproxy.lib.csufresno.edu/...ED510168.pdf

CAHSEE Cons Negative Effects Literacy

shared by Mallorie Fagundes on 26 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Mallorie Fagundes on 26 Oct 10
     
    "Sean Reardon and Michal Kurlaender summarize the findings from a study investigating the impact of the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) on California's lowest performing students. [...] They found that the CAHSEE requirement has had no positive efects on students' academic skills" (quoted from the abstract).
  • ...1 more comment...
  • Justin Norris on 26 Oct 10
     
    Wow. This is an interesting read. I'm thinking about writing my research paper about the CAHSEE, so, thank you for this find!
  • Mallorie Fagundes on 27 Oct 10
     
    It was very interesting. I am writing mine on CAHSEE as well; maybe you and I can get together and discuss what we find. I was expecting to find positive articles for the CAHSEE possibly explaining why it is necessary, but I mostly found articles that rebut the CAHSEE.
  • Justin Norris on 28 Oct 10
     
    Yeah, same here. I just posted a website that shows the stats of the CAHSEE and how students have been doing on them since 2004. For every ethnicity, percentages have gone up every year since 04. Though it doesn't have anything to do with how effective the CAHSEE is in regard to literacy, it's still interesting to see. I'm sure there's a relationship with the improving scores and how the curriculum keeps changing in classrooms in order to focus on getting higher CAHSEE scores.
Stephanie Flores

Dealing with so-so teachers - Quality Teaching | GreatSchools - 6 views

www.greatschools.org/...mediocre-teacher.gs

shared by Stephanie Flores on 26 Oct 10 - No Cached
    • Stephanie Flores
      Stephanie Flores on 26 Oct 10
       
      I thought this was interesting. This quote goes along with the articles on teacher tenure. I'm curious if the "weakness' that is seen in teachers is supposed to be compensated with parent involvement?
    • Michael Horder
      Michael Horder on 01 Nov 10
       
      So parents should do the teachers job! Should they get some of the pay as well. Don't get me wrong I think parents should be more involved in their children's education but they should not have to compensate for a weak teacher. Just get rid of the weak teacher or retrain them.
    • Anthony Logan
      Anthony Logan on 02 Nov 10
       
      I'm actually curious as to whether they (meaning parents) realize that these things are totally going under the radar and how helpful they could be.  I mean, at some point, the blame has to be shared equally.
    • Stephanie Flores
      Stephanie Flores on 05 Nov 10
       
      M- I'm on the same page as you. I mean I've heard of parents that are too involved with schools and their child (some have even requested to be in the class with their child!), but parents having to teach their kids at home when the teacher should be doing it is obsurd! I'm old school, so I'm all about getting rid of teachers who don't bring their all. A- Same here. I was wondering if parents were aware of what was going on in the school. Also, I don't remember seeing a state, city, district, etc. that said where this "supplementing" was occuring. I agree that if things stay on this path blame will be on both parties and it will be the student that suffers.
    • Shannon George
      Shannon George on 14 Nov 10
       
      It could be because all of my research on Tenure, but the problem here is is THE SO-SO TEACHER! It is very frustrating to know that teachers are so protected that it is now easier to tell parents to pick up the slack then have the teacher fired.
    • Stephanie Flores
      Stephanie Flores on 26 Oct 10
       
      Ha ha!
    • Elvira Ledezma
      Elvira Ledezma on 18 Nov 10
       
      Strategic Support! As a parent I have encountered problems with my daughter's teachers but most of them don't what this kind of support
    • Evonne Villagomez
      Evonne Villagomez on 19 Nov 10
       
      I've witnessed the total opposite of what this is saying also. A lot of teachers become offended and angered when you try to suggest offering that kind of support . I think most teachers feel like it is the child who is not performing well and not them, but in actuality it is the teacher who is doing a poor job.
Evonne Villagomez

Jay Mathews - Five Ways to Boost Charter Schools - washingtonpost.com - 2 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2007091800577.html

shared by Evonne Villagomez on 18 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • These independent public schools give smart educators with fresh ideas a chance to show what they can do without the deadening hand of the local school system bureaucracy around their necks
  • Evonne Villagomez on 18 Nov 10
     
    This article argues that charter schools as a whole are not performing any better than traditional public schools. The auhtor gives a list of five recommendations as to how to improve charter schools.
  • Jennifer Flores on 19 Nov 10
     
    Evonne, I think it is so cool that you are doing your research paper on charter schools. I am taking another class with Kathee and we had a teacher come and talk to us about teaching at University High. What I gained from her presentation that there a lot of pros versus cons. I was totally considering teaching at a charter school after the presentation. Things seem so much easier than public schools, but that can be a myth. Let me know what you come up with. : )
anonymous

Amy Chua Is a Wimp - NYTimes.com - 2 views

www.nytimes.com/...18brooks.html

Collaboration CI161

shared by anonymous on 19 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon have found that groups have a high collective intelligence when members of a group are good at reading each others’ emotions — when they take turns speaking, when the inputs from each member are managed fluidly, when they detect each others’ inclinations and strengths.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 19 Jan 11
       
      In order for groups to function well, we have to be aware of each other's strengths . . . and weaknesses. We have to be patient and willing to contribute our best.
anonymous

Innovations in Teacher Prep Programs | Edutopia - 2 views

www.edutopia.org/...ograms-innovations-anne-obrien

TeacherPrep

shared by anonymous on 24 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Research shows the importance of mentoring new teachers, so why not push that mentoring down into the student teaching experience? And also, why do student teaching programs take effective, experienced teachers out of the classroom while novice teachers are learning? They should always be available to work with kids.
  • And they graduate knowing how to collaborate with other professionals -- a skill that is increasingly valued in educators.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 24 Jan 11
       
      CSUF is considering co-teaching because of the ways that schools are responding to standardized assessment. This model allows master teachers to stay in the classroom with the student teacher--which, CSUF hopes, would reassure districts and schools who are becoming less likely to want student teachers. An interesting by-product is how student teachers would learn to collaborate.
  • anonymous on 24 Jan 11
     
    A brief article about teacher preparation programs. CSUF is considering the co-teaching model. What do you think?
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