Boston program creates outdoor classrooms.
The Christian Science Monitor (8/20, Khadroo) reports on the Boston Schoolyard Initiative (BSI), an “effort to renovate school sites and add ‘outdoor classrooms’” that “has become a national model as cities struggle to address both childhood obesity and academic gaps.” Begun in 1995 “to create inviting outdoor settings for schools and communities to share,” in 2005 the program “began adding outdoor classrooms — mini wilderness zones, gardening areas, and other features that teachers use for everything from science lessons to writing projects.” The BSI “model shows that even with tight school budgets, such efforts can be sustained when they draw on private funding and community support,” according to the Monitor. Researchers studying “the effect on learning outcomes” found that, “[i]n Boston schools with renovated yards, about 25 percent more fourth-graders passed the state math test.” The researchers added, “The fact that they got the teachers involved, and the parents and neighborhoods,…made this project more successful.”
In the Classroom
NYC program paying students to pass AP exams shows mixed results.
On the front page of its Metro section, the New York Times (8/20, B1, Gootman) reports on the 31 New York City high schools that “[o]ffered up to $1,000 for scoring well on Advanced Placement exams” through a program “aimed at closing a racial gap in Advanced Placement results.” The schools’ students “took 345 more of the tests this year than last,” and the number of students scoring 5′s, “the highest possible score,” increased. However, this was offset “by a decline in the number of 4′s and 3′s,” and has “rais[ed] questions about the effectiveness of increasingly popular pay-for-performance programs in schools here and across the country.” Critics of pay-for-performance programs said the first year’s result “sort of undercuts the argument that the problem is the question of motivation.” Proponents of the program, however, “said they were encouraged by the increase in test-takers and student survey results.” They added that “they never expected to see significant change in the first year, noting that the program was announced after the school year was under way and students had signed up for Advanced Placement classes.”
Utah third-graders show improved reading skills.
The Salt Lake Tribune (8/19, Schencker) reported, “Utah third-graders became better readers over the course of last school year and outperformed the nation as a whole, according to results of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills reading test.” The results coincide with the first year that “Utah third-graders took the Iowa Reading Test twice — once in the fall and then again in the spring.” In the fall test, “79 percent of Utah third-graders were reading on grade level.” That figure had risen to 86 percent by spring. That figure puts Utah third-graders “in the 60th percentile nationwide,” up from the 57th percentile. Further, “almost all ethnic, economic and ability groups improved between the fall and spring tests.” The results are attributed to a state-wide program in which “school districts create plans to improve student reading achievement and can use state money for reading coaches, reading materials and some assessment tools, among other things.”
Minnesota district creates Hmong magnet school.
Minnesota’s Star Tribune (8/20, Johns) reports, “For six years, Phalen Lake [School] has served its large Hmong population by offering Hmong culture and language classes during an enrichment period in the school day. But this fall, the school is converting into a Hmong magnet school, tying Hmong culture and history into the core curriculum at each grade.” Now, “[i]nstead of the once-a-day cultural enrichment class that students could take in the past, the school will now embed parts of the Hmong culture into the core curriculum.” This fall, “each grade will study a different aspect of the Hmong migration story. In the winter, they’ll study village life in Laos.” Principal Catherine Rich said that the Hmong history curriculum is “aligned to the state’s social studies standards.” The Star Tribune notes that of Phalen Lake’s 63 percent Asian student population, the majority are of Hmong heritage.
On the Job
Connecticut district’s program ties students’ test scores to teacher evaluations.
Connecticut’s Greenwich Time (8/20, Gustafson) reported on the “Teacher Evaluation and Professional Learning” program, “which encourages school administrators to take a more hands-on role in advising teachers and evaluating their performance.” The Greenwich Times explains, “Under the new system, teachers will in large part be rated on how their students are performing under a broader — and, district officials say, much more specific — list of standards.” If a teacher’s performance does not meet the standards, “the administrator must offer a variety of ‘professional development’ opportunities, from special workshops and coursework to classroom visits at other schools.” In a prior version of the program, “principals typically spent several days observing teachers in the classroom before writing evaluations, which ranged widely in length and detail, and did not use standardized benchmarks.” The program was then revised “in response to a state requirement for periodic reviews as well as teachers’ union demands for a more streamlined evaluation system with clear-cut standards.”
Denver union, school leaders debate proposed changes to merit-pay system.
Time (8/19, Kingsbury) reported, “At its heart is a notion everyone seems to agree on: better teachers deserve better compensation. But it’s the finer details that are calling into question the future of Denver Public Schools’ acclaimed pay-for-performance program.” Denver Union and district leaders have been at odds with each other since February over proposed changes to the Professional Compensation System for Teachers (ProComp), which was implemented in 2006. At issue is Superintendent Michael Bennet’s “proposal to cap base salaries, while increasing performance-based bonuses.” Other proposed changes “could lead to all teachers” receiving up to $9,000 more each year, mostly through incentive pay. “And while the district’s offer would raise starting salaries from $35,000 to $42,000, base salaries of more-tenured teachers would not rise.” The teachers union is “calling instead for an across-the-board salary bump.”
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Louisiana receives grant to train principals.
The AP (8/19) reported, “Louisiana is receiving a $3.4 million education grant designed to help recruit and train qualified school principals.” The grant funds, given by the Wallace Foundation, “will be used to pay for research involving ways to get well-trained principals into districts with underperforming schools.”
Law & Policy
Massachusetts school requires students to take Breathalyzer tests before social events.
Massachusetts’s Standard-Times (8/19, Brown) reported, “Dartmouth High School students will now be required to take Breathalyzer tests in order to attend proms, banquets and dances.” The School Committee changed the student handbook following a “controversy in June when nearly two dozen students were found to be drinking at the senior prom and were barred from participating in graduation.” Officials hope “the new policy will discourage students from drinking before a school social event.” Robert Taylor, a Dartmouth High School assistant principal, “researched the use of the Breathalyzer over the summer, receiving 72 replies from secondary schools regarding their use at proms and dances.” While methods for employing the Breathalyzer differed, “most schools claim the Breathalyzer is used less and less over time once students learn it is being used.” Taylor added, “Since we Breathalyze every student, it definitely has been effective in curtailing drinking before events.”
Illinois law requires early vision screening for school children.
The Chicago Sun-Times (8/19, Thomas) reported that “Illinois law now requires all children enrolling in kindergarten — and any student enrolling for the first time in any school — to have an eye exam done by a doctor or optometrist.” The purpose “of the new law is to spot vision problems that could affect school performance at an earlier stage, when they’re often easier to treat.” The Sun-Times noted that eye examinations performed by an optometrist are “more thorough” than the “basic vision screenings done during school physicals.” An optometrist “can detect problems such as nearsightedness, astigmatism, and amblyopia, the condition sometimes known as ‘lazy eye.’” For families that “can’t afford the exam or lack health insurance, the state offers waivers.”
Congress authorizes national center to study education technology.
Education Week (8/19, Klein) reported, “Congress has authorized” the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies, “a new federal research center that will be charged with helping to develop innovative ways to use digital technology at schools and in universities.” The National Center “will be charged with supporting research and development of new education technologies, including internet-based technologies,” and “will also help adapt techniques already widely used in other sectors, such as advertising and the military, to classroom instruction.” Margaret D. Roblyer, of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, noted that “[t]he center could help educators and researchers keep track of changes in educational technology.” Education Week added, “The program’s initial funding will come from [the] Education Department, but it will be able to receive funds from any federal agency, as well as from private donors, such as corporations and foundations.”
Florida board approves changes to NCLB policies.
The AP (8/20) reports, “Florida’s education board approved a federal pilot program on Tuesday to give the state more flexibility dealing with troubled schools.” The pilot program “is a softening of the current program.” Under the new rules, “schools that fail to meet standards under the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program will receive targeted help from education experts.” Additionally, “state education leaders can [now] assess each failing school and design programs that best fit the school.” Under the previous version of the program, “schools were required to take specific, federally mandated steps at specific times if they failed to make adequate yearly progress.” Florida is one of several states “accepted to the pilot program earlier this year.”
Special Needs
Missouri district works to keep AD/HD students focused.
The Southeast Missourian (8/19, Dohogne) reported on methods used by educators in the Cape Girardeau School District for educating students with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD). Educators in the district, which in 2007 had about 132 AD/HD students, prefer to “teach a student with AD/HD…in a regular classroom.” To help keep AD/HD students focused during class time, teachers remind the students “of what is expected of them to succeed,” and they may look a particular student “in the eye when talking to the class.” Teachers also “use visual aids to help the students focus.” For instance, “[i]f a student is having trouble in the hallway staying in a single-file line with the rest of the class, a teacher might show a picture of students in a straight line.” Still, “[i]f a classroom is too distracting to” a child with AD/HD, he or she may “be moved to a special classroom, where more one-on-one instruction time with a teacher can be provided.”
Safety & Security
Safety audit reveals flaws in Missouri public school practices.
The AP (8/19) reported, “A state review of safety at Missouri’s public schools found problems with discipline policies, emergency planning, building security, and Internet safety.” Auditors “evaluated education officials and school districts based on compliance with state laws and recommendations from the Missouri Center for Safe Schools.” They found “that school districts had not always provided parents and students with complete disciplinary policies,” needed to better educate “students about potential Internet dangers, and could do more to prepare for emergencies.” Additionally, “[a]uditors found that school districts have either not reported to the education department or been too vague in how the incidents are categorized.” Further, according to the audit, “nine state agencies have independently spent $64 million for almost 50″ school safety “programs over the past six years.” Auditors instead recommended the establishment of “a state safe schools program” with “one state agency” designated to oversee it.
According to Missouri CBS affiliate KRCG-TV (8/20, McGowin), State Auditor Susan Montee said that overall, schools are safe, and that parents should not “feel bad about sending…children to school.” Missouri’s News-Press (8/19, Raletz), NBC affiliate KOMU-TV (8/20, Navarette), NBC affiliate KYTV (8/20), KWMU-FM (8/19, Griffin), and the Missourinet blog (8/19, Martin) also covered the story.
Public alert radios being distributed to some schools.
The AP (8/20) reports, “Federal agencies are distributing 182,000″ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Public Alert Radios “to schools across the country.” The radios “sound an alarm automatically to warn of weather hazards and other emergencies.” According to NOAA officials, “the current effort will provide the radios to preschools, Head Start programs, school district offices and nonpublic schools and offices.” In a previous phase of the program, “97,000 public elementary and secondary schools across the country received radios.”
School Finance
California city may use proceeds from land sale to fund after-school programs.
California’s Fresno Bee (8/20, Boyles) reports that “after-school programs could get some financial help from the sale of city-owned land.” A plan developed by the Fresno City Council would “transfer to the Park and Recreation Department $345,000 from the sale of 1.75 acres.” According to the Bee, the “money would help fund capital improvements to citywide after-school programs.” Park and Recreation Director Randall Cooper indicated that the “money could be used to expand the BEST (Business, Education and Service Training) program, which provides computer training, financial literacy, business skills and job shadowing to high school students.”
Minorities, students with disabilities receive more corporal punishment, study finds.
The Washington Post (8/20) reported, “Minority children” and children with disabilities “received a disproportionate share of the corporal punishment given to 223,190 American school children last year, says a study released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU).”
The AP (8/21, Quaid) notes that the study “used Education Department data to show that, while paddling has been declining, racial disparity persists.” Specifically, “African American students are more than twice as likely to be paddled,” a “disparity [that] persists even in places with large black populations.” The study also found that “Native Americans were more than twice as likely to be paddled.” While schools offer parents forms to opt out of corporal punishment, “many parents find that such forms are ignored.” Additionally, “even if schools make a mistake, they are unlikely to face lawsuits” because “teachers and principals” in states that allow corporal punishment “generally have legal immunity from assault laws.”
USA Today (8/20) reported that, according to the ACLU and Human Rights Watch, corporal punishment “creates a ‘violent and degrading school environment.’” The groups have asked “federal and state lawmakers to ban it.” The report’s author, Alice Farmer, noted “that children in Texas and Mississippi are routinely paddled for ‘minor infractions’ such as chewing gum or violating school dress codes.” Farmer called corporal punishment “fundamentally ineffective in terms of improving school discipline,” and said that it teaches students “to be violent.” Advocates for the practice call the report’s findings “simplistic,” and say that communities “support the practice.”
CBS News (8/20) noted that “there’s been little research done on the effectiveness of corporal punishment in schools,” although “plenty of studies have shown it doesn’t work in the home.” The UPI (8/20) and Canada’s Globe and Mail (8/21, Jegatheesan) also reported the story.
In the Classroom
Indiana homework assistance hotline to remain in operation.
The AP (8/21) reports that an Indiana “homework hotline that helps public school students perplexed by their math and science assignments has won a” $2.7 million Lilly Endowment grant “to remain in operation for the next three years.” The “hotline isn’t an answer line, but an educational resource that reinforces classroom concepts by offering students help on areas they find confusing,” the AP notes. The grant, “announced Wednesday for the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (RHIT),” will “boost efforts to urge the state’s principals and teachers to encourage students to use the toll-free ‘Homework Hotline.’” The AP points out that the “hotline is staffed by students at” RHIT’s Terre Haute campus. In 2007, a “record 44,151 callers got help through the hotline…while another 2,652 email senders used its website.” Since its inception in 1991, the hotline “has helped more than 250,000 students.”
Indiana’s Tribune-Star (8/21, Loughlin) adds, “This year, the hotline will undertake some special outreach efforts with math and science teachers, and it will have a new online newsletter,” according to hotline officials. “Use of the hotline has increased significantly since 1999-2000, when it fielded 5,563 calls. This past year, it received 44,151 calls.” Indiana’s WTHI-TV (8/20) also reported the story.
Philadelphia opens school catering to dropouts.
The Philadelphia Inquirer (8/20, Graham) reported, The Philadelphia School District has opened “its new Re-Engagement Center, a one-stop spot that matches students who have left school with appropriate programs and services and provides support after they enroll.” The center, “staffed by district and city personnel…not only focuses on academics, but also connects students with the social and emotional services whose absence might have caused them to leave school in the first place.” The center features “a bank of computers for assessing where students are scholastically, and a waiting room with comfy furniture and artwork chosen by students.” In terms of staffing, “employees from the Philadelphia Youth Network and the Philadelphia Departments of Human Services and Behavioral Health work on-site, as do student peer advisers.” The Inquirer noted that “the office was begun with government and nonprofit donations,” as well as district funds.
Washington, D.C. schools to begin offering “green-collar” curriculums.
The Washington Times (8/21, Lipscomb) reports that “D.C. schools will begin teaching environmentally friendly construction techniques to prepare the next generation of workers for the anticipated increase in demand for ‘green-collar’ workers.” Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) on “Wednesday introduced the city’s first such curriculum — at Cardozo Senior High School’s Academy of Construction and Design, which will prepare students to enter construction trades immediately after high school.” According to the Times, the green-collar “move comes as deadlines for the Green Building law loom on the horizon.” That law “requires all new government buildings meet the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver certification.” According to Washington, D.C.-area “construction companies and environmental experts,…the curriculum is essential to building a solid workforce as the demand for green-collar jobs is expected to explode at the same rate technology jobs have in the past decade.” Steven J. Donohoe, president of Donohoe Construction, said that it has “been difficult” to find people with “job-ready skills.”
Missouri program pays dropouts to attend GED classes.
The Southeast Missourian (8/20, Bavolek) reported that the Scholars at Work program, run by Metropolitan Employment and Rehabilitation Services (MERS)/Goodwill, “will pay seven to 10 students” $7 an hour “to attend GED and employability skills classes.” DeAnn Briggs, an assistant vice president with MERS/Goodwill, said, “Scholars at Work will not only make obtaining a GED attractive but will make it feasible.” According to the Southeast Missourian, “From 8 a.m. to noon Monday through Friday, the ‘employees’ will attend classes taught by instructors from the Adult Learning Center, which is operated by the Cape Girardeau School District.” Pam Wiliams, coordinator of the program, “will teach the soft skills component, such as the importance of arriving on time, dressing appropriately, and staying on task.” For example, “students will be required to clock in and out and wear a uniform of khaki pants and a polo shirt.” Funding for the program comes “from the Workforce Investment Act, federal money overseen locally by the Workforce Investment Board.”
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Pennsylvania school continues virtual kindergarten program.
T.H.E. Journal (8/20, Schaffhauser) reported on the Rose Tree Media School District in Pennsylvania, which “will be continuing its Virtual Kindergarten program this year at one of its elementary schools after piloting it during 2007-2008.” According to the Journal, “The idea of the Virtual Kindergarten is to support and enrich the half-day in-person program and increase parent involvement in their child’s education.” The program utilizes “a suite of virtual classroom services that include audio, video, application sharing, and content display,” as well as a program that “allows the teacher to embed audio, including voice, into a webpage.” The program “includes interactive lessons to augment literacy, numeracy, technology, and science standards, as well as individual lessons that cater to a specific child’s needs.” The Journal added “a parent email account” is available, which “puts them on the list to receive ‘Virtual K’ announcements with details about weekly extra-curricular activities.”
On the Job
Texas Education Agency assigns monitor to underperforming schools.
The Dallas Morning News (8/20, Fischer) reported, “The Texas Education Agency has assigned a monitor to keep tabs on improvement efforts at three schools in the Dallas school district.” The Morning News explained, “The monitor’s duties will include coordinating the state’s assistance with district efforts to improve the schools and recommending additional actions for the TEA to take, if necessary.” Additionally, the monitor will “keep an eye on other [Dallas Independent School District] schools that have failed to meet state standards for at least two years.” However, “the monitor won’t have powers to hire or fire school personnel or oversee spending.” The Morning News noted, “The schools are on the cusp of state closure after four consecutive years of lackluster academic performance.”
California faces shortage of math teachers.
The Sacramento Bee (8/20, A1, Kollars) reported in a front-page story, “Now that the state has mandated Algebra 1 for all eighth-graders within three years, a deeply entrenched problem has become even more urgent: California does not have enough qualified teachers of mathematics.” Both school districts and universities have been taking steps to address the issue and “cultivate more teachers.” The Bee noted, “The number of new math teachers emerging from colleges has been going up.” But even so, “the looming shortage of math teachers stands as one of the biggest challenges facing schools in coming years.” According to the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, “nearly 100,000 teachers of all types are expected to retire in the next decade,” at a time when California “may need more than 33,000 new math and science teachers…at the middle and high school levels.” Additionally, school officials “are scrambling to train elementary teachers to make sure younger children are ready for Algebra 1 by eighth grade.”
Safety & Security
Number of “persistently dangerous” New York schools declines.
The AP (8/21) reports, “A total of 19 New York schools have been labeled ‘persistently dangerous’ this year, down from 27 last year,” State Education Commissioner Richard Mills said. In comparison, “the other 49 states last year reported 21 schools — collectively — as ‘persistently dangerous.’” However, “states set their own criteria for identifying schools, and New York school officials have said their standards are more rigorous.” The AP notes, “The listed schools must offer parents the right to transfer their children to safer schools in the district and will have to submit plans for reducing violence to the state. Under federal law, states are required to release their lists of dangerous schools at least two weeks before the school year starts.”
In the New York Times’s (8/20) City Room blog, Elissa Gootman wrote, “The list of schools deemed persistently dangerous has long been a source of confusion. Because the state relies on schools’ own reports of violent and disruptive episodes rather than on police records, the list bears virtually no resemblance to the city’s own list of dangerous schools.” Gootman added, “The persistently dangerous list has long included a disproportionate number of schools for children with severe disabilities; city officials argue that those schools may experience chronic behavioral problems, but are not dangerous.” New York’s NY1 (8/20) and NBC affiliate WNYT-TV (8/20, Craig) also reported the story.
NEA in the News
NEA project gives makeover to Virginia school.
On the front page of its Virginia section, the Washington Post (8/21, VA1, Vargas) reports on Wakefield High School in Arlington County, Virginia, which “was chosen for a makeover this year as part of the National Education Association’s annual convention,” where the association chooses “a public school to pamper for a day as part of the NEA Student Program’s ‘Outreach to Teach.’” Over the course of one day, over 350 volunteers furnished “a new dressing room for the theater department…planted trees across the campus,” fixed the press box in the football stadium, and lined the hallways “with college-themed bulletin boards,” among other things. And, “the teachers’ lounge and cafeteria received a special redesign by Evette Rios, a featured interior designer for the ‘Rachel Ray’ syndicated TV show.” Wakefield Principal Doris Jackson said, “Environment does affect the way you feel about what you do. … So I expect the new paint, the new furnishings and the murals will just make the building a lot more attractive and make us feel good about being here.”
NEA, AT&T foundations work to narrow achievement gaps.
Tennessee’s Chattanoogan (8/20) reported, “The AT&T Foundation, the corporate philanthropy organization of AT&T Inc. has announced a $300,000 award to the National Education Association Foundation’s Closing the Achievement Gap initiative.” The foundation’s “initiative is a large-scale pilot effort to close the achievement gaps between minority and disadvantaged students, while raising achievement for all students, by supporting collaborative efforts between local unions, school districts, and community partners to improve teaching and learning.” The Chattanoogan noted that, “through the initiative, educators will be provided with the opportunities to: support innovation in the classrooms and improve content to students; support teacher knowledge and growth; deliver engaging instruction through experimental learning opportunities; and connect community assets and resources in pursuit of increased student achievement.” NEA Foundation President and CEO Harriet Sanford said, “Our work in these pilots will play a critical role in learning how we can best ensure that American high school students are prepared for the next level of education.”