Study finds later class times lead teens to sleep longer.
HealthDay (6/12) reported, “Teens whose high schools have a delayed start time sleep longer and report less daytime sleepiness,” according to a study from Norwalk Hospital’s Sleep Disorders Center in Connecticut. “The study included 259 high school students who reported sleeping about 7.03 hours per school night, with a mean bed time of 10:52 p.m. and a mean wake-up time of 6:12 a.m. when school started at 7:35 a.m.” However, when “the school start time was switched to 8:15 a.m., the students’ total sleep time on school nights increased 33 minutes, mainly due to a later rise time.” The students also adopted a “slightly later” bedtime, “and there was a slight decrease in weekend sleep time.” In a second study, from the University of Kentucky, “researchers found that teens who don’t get enough sleep suffer lower school grades and lack of motivation and are increased risk for serious emotional and behavioral problems.”
In the Classroom
Dual credit programs increasingly popular in Texas.
Texas’s Express-News (6/12, Ludwig) reported, “Dual credit programs used to be the domain of star pupils but now are opening up to a much broader swath of students.” In Texas last year, “dual credit enrollment…hit a high of 64,910 students, more than five times the number enrolled in 1999.” Included in these growing figures are “students from the middle and bottom of the class,” who through experimental programs are being given the “opportunity to earn up to 60 hours of college credit at the same time they are earning a high school diploma.” The Express-News noted that ethnic “[d]isparities still exist” in terms of participation. Also, “dual credit hinges primarily on the reputation of local community colleges,” which “could be a problem for students who want to go out of state or to an Ivy League school.” However, a Texas A&M official said that “for students who stay in Texas, dual credit holds its value.”
California school officials defend anti-DUI tactics.
The AP (6/13, Hoffman) reports that school officials in Oceanside, California “are defending themselves against allegations they went too far” during “a scared-straight exercise designed by school officials to dramatize the consequences of drinking and driving.” During the exercise, “highway patrol officers visited 20 classrooms at El Camino High School to announce” that a number of the school’s “students had been killed in car wrecks over the weekend.” The plan was “to tell the truth to the students at an assembly later in the day,” but “some counselors and administrators revealed the truth” several hours early “to calm some students who had become upset.” The AP notes, “[S]chool officials defended the program,” saying that the method helped students “get the message.” Oceanside Schools Superintendent Larry Perondi noted, however, “that the program would be revised, but he would not say how.”
Psychologist advocates early childhood phonics education.
England’s Independent (6/12) reported, “Robert Slavin is a leading educational psychologist who has arrived in the U.K. to head up the newly formed Institute for Effective Education at York University.” Slavin, who is “famous for a ground-breaking school reform program that now runs in 1,200 schools in the U.S.,” said that “[h]e is deeply frustrated by how no school system in the world is yet rooted in policies based on hard evidence.” According to Slavin, the “problem isn’t a lack of knowledge about how children learn, or what effective teaching methods are,” the “problem is a lack of knowledge about how to help teachers apply research-proven methods every day.” The Independent points out that Slavin’s education reform plan, which he started in the U.S. in 1987, “promotes early educational success for children, particularly those from deprived backgrounds, by concentrating on basic literacy.” This includes using “phonics, setting, regular assessment, and paired learning to ensure that all children get a good start in school and no one is left behind.”
On the Job
Minnesota district to rehire teachers.
Minnesota’s Star-Tribune (6/13, Draper) reports, “Osseo Schools is putting its check from the state of Minnesota to immediate use: The district is rehiring 23 of the 185 teachers the school board decided to lay off in March.” Minnesota’s Legislature decided last month “to give schools an extra $51 per pupil as a quick fix to schools’ mounting budget problems.” Therefore, “Osseo got an unexpected $1.3 million in added funding.” According to Osseo Superintendent Susan Hintz, “The restored positions will be divided among elementary, junior high and high schools.” The district has not yet decided “[w]ho will get rehired and exactly where those positions will go,” but “teachers will likely wind up where class sizes have swollen the most.” Hintz added that “class sizes in the district have risen to as high as 38 students in the elementary schools and 41 in junior high and high schools.”
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Florida district’s teachers observing local businesses.
The Jackson County Floridan (6/12, Palmer) reported, “Many Jackson County teachers will return to the classroom this fall equipped with knowledge that will help students better understand what employers want.” The county’s school board, in conjunction with “the Chipola Regional Workforce (CRW) and the state Career and Professional Act, has teachers scheduled to observe in 30 businesses” across the region. Richard Williams, executive director of CRW, explained, “If we can get teachers into the area’s businesses, they will come back to the classroom with more insight into what employers are looking for. And this is something that can be relayed to students during their discussions.” CRW’s business services coordinator, Kenny Griffin, predicted “that teacher[s] are likely to find in their visits this summer…that the workplace is a changing place that needs employees who are flexible and capable of adapting to changes.” He added that “the basic qualities in education” such as math and reading contributed to such flexibility.
Law & Policy
Louisiana Senate approves school voucher bill.
The AP (6/12) reported that “the Louisiana Senate voted 25-to-12 on Wednesday for a bill that would let up to 1,500 low- to middle-income students in New Orleans attend private schools at taxpayer expense.” This week, the House approved the “$10 million school voucher measure.” The measure “needs one more routine” House vote “on the Senate language changes before it goes to” Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) “for signing.”
Safety & Security
Some Pennsylvania schools feature state-of-the-art security, surveillance upgrades.
Pennsylvania’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (6/12, Micco) reported, “School security is a high priority in the post-Columbine era and even grandma and grandpa have to sign in at the school office.” This week, Pennsylvania’s Auditor General Jack Wagner performed a safety audit at two schools in the Pine-Richland School District — one high school and the state-of-the-art Eden Hall Upper Elementary School.” Security measures at the high school “start at the front door, where visitors must be ‘buzzed’ into the building through an intercom system and an electronic lock that is controlled at the front office. They then must check in at the office.” Also, a 16-screen digital camera surveillance system monitors “locations such as entrances, hallways, stairwells and parking lots.” The surveillance system can “zoom in on a location close enough to view a license plate on a vehicle,” and can be accessed by the police department.
Facilities
Massachusetts to cut school construction spending.
Massachusetts’s Republican (6/13, Goonan, Kinney) reports that Massachusetts “is trying to pare down school construction costs, and eliminate unnecessary extras as it provides reimbursement of projects…state Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill said.” Cahill said, “What we are trying to do is cut down on some of the extras like the field houses and the palatial auditoriums that seat far too many people and are never used, not to their full capacity.” Nevertheless, “[t]he state remains committed to paying 90 percent reimbursement for construction of” several new schools. Cahill cited falling income tax, sales tax, and vehicle tax revenues as reasons for why he is “advocating that the state curtail spending.”
Also in the News
Superintendent of New Orleans district profiled.
The AP (6/13, Bohrer) reports that Paul Vallas, Recovery School District superintendent in New Orleans, “has received mostly positive reviews after his first year on the job, but many challenges remain.” Currently, “[t]oo many students continue to fail or not show up for classes, there’s limited funding for dilapidated buildings, and the district needs to retain quality teachers.” And, despite instituting reforms such as longer school days, “decreased class sizes, and increased classroom technology,” Vallas still faces “[d]ifficult decisions about reopening, rebuilding, or demolishing storm-damaged schools,” as well as “political and organizational hurdles.” Despite these issues, “Vallas recently passed his first major milestone when fourth- and eighth-graders in the city’s woeful public schools posted significantly higher test scores on state tests.” The AP notes, “Vallas’s playbook includes creating benchmarks for progress and marketing his program to church and community groups.”
Florida district officials ask state to recheck FCAT scores.
Florida’s St. Petersburg Times (6/12, Matus, Winchester, Solochek) reported, “An historic dive in fifth-grade” Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) “scores has elementary school principals across Florida questioning the results.” Test results “showed a five percent drop in fifth grade reading scores,” prompting state education officials to triple-check the results.” An independent consultant was also brought in to check the results, but “[n]o problems were found.” Still, some school officials “are asking the state to check again,” citing “last year’s disclosure that the state had botched one of the FCAT tests in 2006, a mistake that overstated the same group of students achievements in the third grade.” The Times noted that results of the test, released this week, showed that “students perform[ed] better in every grade and subject except…fifth-grade reading.”
NEA in the News
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Supreme Court rules for public employers in “class-of-one” case.
Education Week (6/12, Walsh) reported, “The U.S. Supreme Court has sided with public employers in” Engquist v. Oregon Department of Agriculture. The case was “being watched closely by school groups,” as “the issue before the justices was whether a public employee may press a federal lawsuit under the 14th Amendment’s equal-protection clause when an adverse job action is based on subjective reasons that don’t otherwise violate laws barring discrimination based on race, sex, or other protected classes.” The majority opinion, authored by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, held that “[r]atifying a class-of-one theory of equal protection in the context of public employment would impermissibly constitutionalize the employee grievance.” In a dissenting opinion, “Justice John Paul Stevens said the majority was using ‘a meat ax’ to carve out an exception to public employees’ constitutional rights.” Michael D. Simpson, “the general counsel of the NEA, said in an interview that teachers protected by tenure or collective-bargaining agreements wouldn’t be harmed by the ruling, but that many paraprofessionals and probationary employees don’t have such pro tections.”
More schools separating students by gender.
In continuing coverage from previous editions of Opening Bell, the Washington Post (6/15, A1, Chandler, Glod) reported in a front-page story, “With encouragement from the federal government, single-sex classes that have long been a hallmark of private schools are multiplying in public schools.” The National Association for Single Sex Public Education estimates that “about 500 public schools nationwide will offer single-sex classes” in the coming year, due in part to single-sex education being “especially attractive to…struggling schools in the market for low-cost reform.” However, “[a]s the movement grows, so does debate over whether boys and girls really do learn better separately.” The Post notes that “[r]esearch remains slim on whether single-sex education boosts achievement in public schools,” as the majority of “studies have examined private schools.” And, “as the movement expands,” some experts are “concerned about whether teachers thrust into the new programs will have more than a superficial understanding of how boys and girls are different.”
In the Classroom
Utah math curriculum, testing disparity addressed.
The Salt Lake Tribune (6/14, Schencker) reported, “A disparity between Utah’s math curriculum and state math tests has been fixed.” The Tribune explained, “Late last year, education officials across the state became concerned when they realized state math tests didn’t yet match Utah’s new math curriculum.” There was particular concern that “students would do poorly on the tests” as a result. The tests are used by the “federal government…to sanction schools under No Child Left Behind.” Officials had “originally said the state couldn’t remove any questions from the test without threatening the test’s validity.” However, last week Judy Park, state associate superintendent, “said a technical advisory committee determined earlier this year the test would still be valid if certain questions were not scored.” Additionally, Park said that “principals will still have the option of appealing to the state if they feel any of their schools failed to meet the goals of NCLB because of confusion over the test.”
Internet language entering academic writing.
On the front page of its Style section, the Washington Post (6/15, M1, Weeks) reported that, with “Internet language” such as text message abbreviations and emoticons “seeping into academic writing,” some experts are concerned about “the demise of the basic component of human communication: the sentence.” Librarian of Congress James Billington describes a “creeping inarticulateness” in the trend, and noted that while “[t]he Internet revolution…creates new possibilities for” advancing communication, “it could also lead to a gobbledygook language without sentences and punctuation and paragraphs — and with less understanding of the world and its meaning.” University of Delaware professor Ben Yagoda reasoned that “[m]ost prose that young people read nowadays…is unedited,” and because of this “the things that suffer most are spelling and punctuation.” Yet other experts “are not alarmed,” noting that “technological developments that impinge on language inevitably cause changes” and calling for “more proof that the sentence is dying.”
Georgia bill to simplify HOPE scholarship restrictions.
Georgia’s Rome News-Tribune (6/14, Cady) reported that “[h]igh school students also enrolled in technical colleges will no longer face HOPE (Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally) scholarship restrictions.” New legislation going into effect July 1 “won’t count hours a student earns during joint enrollment as part of the 95 credit hours the HOPE scholarship covers.” Steve Bradshaw, vice president of student services at Coosa Valley Technical College, explained that the “change will encourage students to dually enroll with a technical college.” Prior to the bill’s passage, “restrictions kept many students from joint enrollment in technical schools because it limited how much money they would receive for college classes after they left high school.” The News-Tribune noted that “[s]chool officials estimate that this change in legislation will dramatically increase the number of students enrolled in state technical colleges.”
California program teaches students soft skills.
California’s Valley Times (6/15, Louie) reported on the “Tri-Valley Educational Collaborative’s ‘Employability Certificate,’” which “is available to students in the Pleasanton, Dublin and Livermore [Calif.] school districts.” Students who complete the program receive “a certificate to show potential employers” that they “know what it takes to get, and keep, a job.” The program started as a “pilot…in the 2005-06 school year, said Julie Duncan, coordinator of career and technical education for the Pleasanton school district.” The skills were taught “informally” at first, said Duncan, “but this year business groups worked to publicize the idea among potential employers.” According to Duncan, the program “requires students to have an introduction letter, r