Districts nationwide reevaluating middle schools.
The Los Angeles Times (9/2, Landsberg) reported on “a small but influential movement” of “school districts nationwide…taking a hard look at middle schools” and “acknowledging that they have become the weakest link in the educational system.” In Los Angeles, for example, 70 percent of “middle schools that serve high numbers of low-income students are failing federal education standards, compared with 44 percent of high schools and 32 percent of elementary schools.” In response, some school systems, such as the Philadelphia school district, “are scrapping” middle schools altogether and “converting to a system of kindergarten-to-eighth-grade schools.” The Times noted that “research is sketchy on the benefits of K-8 schools. The studies that have been done suggest that students behave better but that academic improvements are likely to be relatively modest.”
In the Classroom
Arizona adjusts policies for ELL instruction.
Education Week (9/2, Zehr) reported, “Arizona education officials are giving school districts some room to diverge from a mandate that all English-language learners (ELL) be taught specific English skills in classrooms separate from other students for four hours a day.” Despite this, “the state is still pushing ahead with its overall requirement that districts provide intensive — and separate — instruction of English skills for those students, despite criticism from experts who say there is little evidence to support that approach.” A researcher from the Center for Applied Linguistics, for example, noted that “there are no experimental or quasi-experimental studies that show this type of instruction helps students learn English better or faster.” She added that the approach “divorces academic content from the teaching of English skills.” An Arizona Department of Education official responded, “It really comes from the classic research that says the more time you spend on something in education, the more students learn.”
Maine enrollment continues to fall.
The AP (9/2) reported, “Enrollment at Maine public schools has fallen to around 190,000 students for the new school year, extending a decade-long decline that is expected to continue for several years to come.” This trend “can be blamed on the state’s demographics and low birth rate,” according to Maine Department of Education spokesman David Connerty-Marin, and “is particularly acute in Maine’s rural regions.” Some of the state’s counties are projected “to see declines of more than 20 percent” through 2014. As the decline in enrollment continues, “communities are faced with the prospect of school closures.” Connerty-Marin added, “We’ll continue to see schools closing in some of these areas where they don’t have the numbers to provide the educational offerings in some schools or the financial ability to keep them open.”
Special training required to lift students’ creative writing skills, study indicates.
The U.K.’s Guardian (9/2, Andalo) reported, “Teachers need to be taught how to write if children are to reach their creative writing potential,” new research suggests. Paul Munden of the National Association of Writers in Education explained, “If you look at other creative arts, you have music or arts teachers in schools who are [practicing] artists or musicians. English teachers don’t see themselves as creative writers.” The study’s authors are pushing for “summer schools for teachers from different subjects,” where U.K. educators could “learn the craft of writing and take their new skills back to the classroom.” The study’s authors also noted the U.S. model of instruction, where “teachers are trained in six key areas of writing — content; structure and genre; stance; fluency (which includes structure and grammar); diction (including vocabulary) and accuracy in spelling and punctuation.” Evaluations of this model indicated “‘improvement’ or ‘significant improvement’ in all six areas from children who were taught by teachers who had been through the project’s professional training and development.”
Single-gender classes gaining popularity in Michigan.
Michigan’s Grand Rapids Press (9/2, Makarewicz, Loechler) reported on gender-specific elementary school classes, which are gaining popularity in Michigan. While “research shows that single-gender classrooms may boost test scores, and that boys and girls learn differently,” some “veteran teachers also rely heavily on what they have witnessed for years in their classrooms.” According to teacher Suzanne MacIntosh, “Boys are generally more right brain and girls are left brain.” Consequently, “boys are likely to do well with hands-on, active lessons, such as learning the alphabet while throwing a ball back and forth. Meanwhile, the girls might prefer flash cards and games at their desks.” However, some “teachers cautioned” that those “are generalizations about boys and girls.”
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Colorado school encourages “brain breaks” during instruction.
Colorado’s Rocky Mountain News (9/2, Poppen) reported that during reading and writing instruction “inside some classrooms at Hackberry Hill Elementary School in Arvada, [Co.], students are encouraged” to take “brain breaks” in which they “get up and move, stretch, and talk about their work every 20 minutes or so.” Also, for writing assignments, “boys are…allowed to write about things that might have previously been frowned upon,” such as “bodily functions…or anything with a good gross-out factor.” The options are “part of the school’s attempts to address a global phenomenon, reinforced by recently released Colorado Student Assessment Program test results, showing boys consistently scoring lower than girls in reading and writing.” According to Hackberry Hill Principal Warren Blair, boys “need more brain breaks” in order to stay engaged in reading and writing activities. They also “need to be allowed to write about topics other than what they did over the summer.”
On the Job
Educator positions, salaries increasingly affected by budget concerns.
Education Week (9/2, Sawchuk) reported, “Faced with high energy costs and crimped budgets, school districts have cut administrative positions, bus routes, special services, and athletics programs.” Now, “as economic prospects worsen, the salaries and jobs of teachers are increasingly coming under green-eyeshade scrutiny.” Several states “have begun to cap hiring, eliminate staff positions, and cut salaries.” In California, “districts don’t yet know how tight budget times will affect them,” but officials note that any reduction will come “as they face higher proficiency targets under the No Child Left Behind Act and a new Algebra 1 requirement passed by the state board of education.” Education Week noted, “In this era of accountability, districts have been reluctant to reduce instructional positions in core academic classes.” But even so, “the alternatives to paring teaching positions can be equally contentious,” as districts and local union officials have clashed over reductions to salaries and “the number of paid in-service days.”
Atlanta district expects alternative certification programs to attract applicants for hard-to-staff jobs.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (9/2, Dodd) reported on Gwinnett County Public Schools’ Teach Gwinnett program, a certification program “for career-swappers looking for an alternative path to teaching.” Teach Gwinnett offers two new routes to certification. The first is a version “of the Georgia Teacher Alternative Preparation Program, which leads to certification in two years. A second program” gives “professionals with bachelor’s degrees who have passed state testing requirements” the opportunity to “earn certification in one year if they complete on-the-job training teaching in a subject area related to their major.” With the alternative certification options available, “Gwinnett human resources officials” expect the “pool of candidates for hard-to-staff jobs” to expand. The Journal-Constitution noted that according to a “researcher with the Professional Standards Commission,” about “8,389 of 119,018 educators statewide came to teaching through alternative routes” last spring.
Law & Policy
Georgia commission is revising educator code of ethics.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (9/2, Maciag) reported that “the Georgia Professional Standards Commission (PSC) is revising its Code of Ethics for Educators, a set of standards for all state-certified school employees.” The PSC will be joined by “several teachers’ organizations” to revise the code, which was “last updated in 2005.” Among the changes being considered is a request by the “Georgia Association of Educators…to allow sanctions against employee peer-on-peer harassment.” An additional “proposal by the group would modify grading policies, including preventing educators from being forced to change a grade.” Currently, “the ethics code has 10 sets of standards, including committing criminal and other violations outside the classroom, along with treatment of students, misusing funds, and other in-school infractions. Educators breaking the rules are subject to a range of sanctions — up to having their licenses revoked.”
Special Needs
D.C. schools do not meet needs of special education students, report finds.
On the front of its Metro section, the Washington Post (9/3, B1, Turque) reports, “D.C. public schools continue to fall woefully short in meeting the needs of students with learning disabilities and physical or behavioral challenges, according to the report of a federal court monitor.” Court Monitor Amy Totenberg noted that “about 20 percent of the District’s 10,977 special education students, including those in public charter schools, are enrolled in private schools because the District can’t meet their needs, at a cost to taxpayers of about $200 million a year in tuition and transportation.” Meanwhile, “parents seeking help for children with special needs face lengthy delays.” According to the Post, “The issue is a critical one for” Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, “whose long-term plans anticipate saving some of the money now spent on private placements to invest in higher teacher salaries.” Yet, “Totenberg…notes that the rapid pace of upheaval and change within the D.C. public school system under Rhee has made it difficult for her to devote appropriate attention to the issue.”
Facilities
Some districts merging to save money, improve course offerings.
The AP (9/2, Raffaele, Santanam) reported, “Pennsylvania will be shedding a school district by the end of this school year — a significant development even after years of nationwide efforts to nudge and sometimes force school systems to share services or merge.” District officials “say the move will save money” as well as “improve educational offerings.” For example, one school’s enrollment has decreased to such an extent that the school “does not offer Advanced Placement classes…in mathematics beyond calculus,” or “science beyond physics.” This voluntary merger “is part of a gradual, ongoing national progression toward fewer districts educating public school students.” The AP noted that “the willingness of two school districts to dissolve boundary lines is rare,” but “in recent years, at least a few states have tried to force mergers, with mixed results.” While “proponents say small district mergers can streamline administrative costs and achieve economies of scale,” others “question whether educational quality will improve under larger school enrollments that mergers inevitably produce.”
School Finance
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Six Baltimore schools denied funding for recreational programs.
The Baltimore Sun (9/3, Linskey) reports, “Six public schools that received city funding for after-school programs last year will not get that money this year, leaving principals scrambling for activities to occupy youngsters and some City Council members crying foul.” The funding was reduced “in part because of…emphasis from the mayor’s office on allocating funds to high school students and three neighborhoods with high youth violence rates.” The Sun explains that “each year the city government allocates a lump sum to a quasi-public group called Family League and charges it with doling out money to deserving after-school programs. This year the group received $5.8 million and picked 73 programs, including a handful of new ones.” Still, some “council members said…that programs with a proven track record should have been funded first.” Meanwhile, principals are “worried about the safety of children who will not have supervision after school lets out and before their parents return from work.”
Also in the News
Former educator criticizes “college-for-all” mentality.
In an opinion piece for the Christian Science Monitor (9/3), Walt Gardner, a former teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District, writes that this year, “more than 90 percent” of high school students “will be steered toward a college-prep curriculum, according to the Alfred P. Sloan Study of Youth and Social Development.” This is “not as laudable as it seems,” he adds. Gardner points out that the assumption is that bachelor’s degrees contain “decided wage premium,” but recent research “calls into question long-held assumptions.” Gardner cites Alan Blinder, former vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, who said that the “only jobs that will be secure in the next decade will [be] those that cannot be sent abroad electronically.” Gardner argues that the “total damage inflicted on students by the college-is-for-everyone mentality is incalculable.” He concludes that what “Americans ultimately need to learn is that college is merely the most convenient place to learn how to learn,…not an absolute determinant.”
Program host discusses science education.
Popular Mechanics (9/2, Sullivan) reported an interview with Adam Savage, co-host of the television program Mythbusters and author of the recent article 3 Ways to Fix U.S. Science Education (Sept., 2008), in which he proposed more funding for science education, a greater number of hands-on classroom experiments, and teaching students that “even a failed experiment can be a good learning experience.” Asked what he sees as “the bigger problems” in science education, Savage said, “All this ‘accountability’…means you’ve got a bunch of teachers who are trying to teach to a test, which is very different than trying to get kids to learn.” Savage added, “The teachers aren’t the problem. … I think we should properly reward them for doing I think the most important job there is.” Instead, Savage said, views that “the scientific method is some type of religious belief” has been “damaging science exploration across the whole country.”
Educator offers advice for making classrooms more equitable.
In a column for Teacher Magazine (9/3), author and educator Laura Reasoner Jones offered suggestions to educators to make their classrooms “more equitable” for “both boys and girls.” Jones advised that teachers “try some innovative approaches to division instead” of arranging classes using gender, such as grouping “by birth month” or, “if you are working on planets…by astrological sign.” Students can be asked to brainstorm “creative possibilities, and” teachers can use “their choices each week.” In terms of classroom interaction, Jones advises teachers to record their classes to see if they are properly using “wait time,” both in terms of calling on students and responding to their answers. “This gives you time to think about whom to select,” Jones wrote, as well as “time to process the student’s answer and think about how to respond most effectively.” Jones noted, “Many teachers have been observed giving different kinds of feedback to boys and girls.” As a result, Jones advised, “pay attention to the kinds of informal interactions you have with students.”
In the Classroom
Michigan engineering students work with middle school pupils.
Michigan’s Ann Arbor News (9/3, Cobbs) reported that, this year, a partnership between Ypsilanti Public Schools and the University of Michigan College of Education (UMCOE) will offer “fourth- and fifth-grade students at Adams Academy” the opportunity to “add engineering to their list of subjects to study.” Undergraduates and graduates students from the UMCOE “will work weekly with Adams pupils to make math and science principles come alive through demonstrations, said Jill Andrews, director of UM’s Office of Engineering Outreach and Engagement.” Connie Thompson, principal of Adams, which was “established in 2004 as a magnet school for math and science, said ‘strong classes’ are offered to support the engineering curriculum.” Thompson also pointed out that “parents will also be a key part of the new program. Plans are already in the works to have an ‘engineering expo’ in the fall for parents of students in all grades.” Thompson explained that the school wants parents to know how the engineering program prepares students for “engineering-related fields.”
New Wisconsin school to focus on natural sciences.
Wisconsin’s Jackson County Chronicle (9/4, Perenchio) reports, “The Black River Falls School District should have a charter school opened by next fall after the state awarded a $50,000 planning grant.” The school is intended to “have an ecologically and environmentally geared curriculum to help students with those interests better learn.” According to Black River Falls High School Principal Tom Chambers, “the idea for a charter school initially came about after the district was awarded a separate grant to bolster the school forests’ educational opportunities.” Chambers explained that some of the “staff felt there was a number of students who could benefit even further with a classroom environment centered around natural science.” With the new school, officials hope “to create an educational setting where students can learn fundamentals through a focus on the environment, like habitat restoration, alternative energy studies, trail development and soil and water monitoring.” An additional “objective is to have students work with local businesses and organizations.”
Oregon middle, high school students show no improvement in math and reading.
The AP (9/3, Silverman) reported, “Middle and high school students across Oregon aren’t improving on state tests in math and reading, new data from Oregon Department of Education show.” However, “elementary school students continue to do well in both subjects,” which according to the AP suggests “that despite plenty of focus on the issue, Oregon hasn’t been able to do much to stem the testing drop-off as students get older.” The lack of improvement “takes on special consequence with this year’s entering ninth-graders, the first class expected to fulfill tougher course requirements for graduation.” The AP noted, “In some schools, there’s exasperation with the extensive requirements of standardized testing,” as some “teachers now spend eight weeks out of the school year preparing for tests, administering them, or having their students retake the standardized, online exams.” Even so, “there was a bright spot for Oregon’s older students on the writing portion: Fifty-six percent of last year’s 10th-graders met state standards, the highest of any age group.”
Testing may help students learn, researchers say.
In Newsweek’s (9/4) Mind Matters column, Wray Herbert writes, “The popularity of testing seems to ebb and flow.” The No Child Left Behind Act “ushered in [a] testing frenzy, and we now appear to be entering yet another period of backlash.” Although “much of this to-and-fro is political,” one question stands out: “Do kids who are tested a lot learn more or less than kids who are not?” Psychologists Henry Roediger of Washington University and Jeffrey Karpicke of Purdue say “that quizzes and tests and exams are…cognitive” cornerstones “of the learning process.” After researching the subject, Roediger and Karpicke found that “it’s the digging up of newly stored information, the way you would when answering questions on a test, that really sets it in concrete. Repeated attempts to enter new” information “into memory…produce nowhere near the same level of retention.” Still, Herbert adds, “there are certainly good arguments against too much testing…when it’s done at the expense of problem solving and experiential learning.”
Cell phone use in the classroom can help boost education standards, research indicates.
The U.K.’s Telegraph (9/4, Paton) reports, “Schoolchildren should be allowed to use mobile phones in the classroom to boost education standards, according to researchers,” who say that mobile phones “could be used for a wide range of educational purposes, including creating short movies, setting homework reminders, recording a teacher reading a poem and timing science experiments.” The researchers also claim that “employing [cell phones] as part of day-to-day lessons boosts pupils’ motivation levels.” For the study, “researchers spent nine months analyzing lessons for 14 to 16-year-olds in five schools in Cambridgeshire, West Berkshire, and Nottingham.” They also encouraged teachers “to allow pupils to use their own mobiles or new generation smartphones in lessons.” The researchers concluded that “pupils gained confidence by using technology familiar to them, using it in a number of different ways.”
On the Job
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Philadelphia schools chief plans ethics training for staff.
The Philadelphia Inquirer (9/3, Graham) reported, “Vowing to hold adults more accountable, Philadelphia schools Superintendent Arlene Ackerman yesterday disclosed plans to require all central office staff to take ethics training.” Ackerman’s comments came in response to questions “about the possibility of ethics classes for students” from a teacher at an area school. “Ackerman said her concern was not so much children as the adults who serve them,” and explained that “some employees might not realize that past practices considered acceptable — the hiring of family members, for instance — raised ethical issues.” Ackerman said that, “going forward, the lines will be clear.” Ackerman noted that “the classes will start with her senior staff, possibly next month,” and will eventually include “every central office employee.” The Inquirer added that “the lessons…will be taught by members of the city’s ethics team,” and “will last all school year.”
Law & Policy
Massachusetts project would address dropout prevention, teacher contracts.
Education Week (9/3, Aarons) reported that “Gov. Deval Patrick (D) of Massachusetts is moving forward with an ambitious education agenda for the state’s students that would include free access to community college for all state residents, a statewide teacher contract, and an aggressive dropout-prevention program.” Patrick’s Commonwealth Readiness Project is “a 55-point plan that stretches into 2020 and is intended to address students’ educational needs from prekindergarten through college graduation.” However, although “the ideas have been met with a positive reception from lawmakers and educators, that goodwill has yet to translate into the political and fiscal capital needed to make the Readiness Project a reality.” In the meantime, “work on some initiatives is under way, but many others are still being shaped, with a goal of bringing several items forward in the next state legislative session, which starts in January.”
Florida high court blocks school voucher amendments from ballot.
The New York Times (9/4, A19, Fineout) reports, “Two constitutional amendments intended to help Florida’s school voucher programs withstand legal challenges cannot appear on the November ballot,” according to a decision from the State Supreme Court. “A third amendment was also blocked from the ballot. It involved a tax swap that would have eliminated property taxes charged by local school boards in 2010 in exchange for state money, including a possible 1-cent increase in the state sales tax.”
The AP (9/4, Kaczor) notes that “the seven justices did not immediately explain their decisions, but during oral argument earlier in the day, they fired tough questions at lawyers who supported the proposed amendments to the state constitution.” The AP explains, “Amendments 7 and 9 would have undone court rulings that struck down former Gov. Jeb Bush’s (R) voucher program, which had let students from failing public schools go to private schools at taxpayer expense.” Additionally, Amendment 7 “would have repealed a provision that bars state financial aid to churches and other religious organizations.” The decision won praise from the Florida Education Association, which had “opposed all three amendments.” Union members “argued the amendments failed to mention vouchers, although they would have protected such programs from legal attack and opened the door for creating more.”
The Miami Herald (9/4, Klas), the Orlando Sentinel (9/4, Hafenbrack), the Jacksonville Business Journal (9/4), and Florida’s The Ledger (9/4, Dunkelberger) also report the story.
Legislation requires New York schools to track student obesity.
The AP (9/3, Bauman) reported that “legislation passed in 2007 goes into effect this month” in New York state, “requiring public schools outside of New York City to collect and report a summary of students’ weights and body mass indexes as part of an effort to combat childhood obesity.” The AP noted, “Doctors will now be required to test students when they come in for a student health certificate.” Afterwards, “the information will be reported to schools, creating a set of data that will allow health officials to evaluate obesity levels based on geography.”
Special Needs
Arizona schools adopting new speech therapy model.
The Arizona Republic (9/4, Parker) reports that, in Chandler Unified schools, “a persistent shortage of speech therapists” over the past several years “has changed the way services are provided.” And this year, “the new speech model will expand into all elementary schools.” The Republic notes, “There are two key features of the new model.” The model uses “a district assessment team” that “ensures consistency throughout the district and provides preschool screenings so students with potential speech problems are identified at an earlier age.” Also, “additional school personnel have been trained to reinforce speech services to students throughout the week, which reduces the caseloads of individual speech therapists.” As a result, positions for “full-time speech-language pathologists” can be “filled by more language technicians and resource language staff members.”
Safety & Security
New York City gets new regulations to combat bullying.
The New York Times /AP (9/4, B4) reports that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) “announced regulations on Wednesday that are meant to combat bullying in city schools that is based on bias.”
Another AP (9/3) article explained that, under the new regulations, “every principal will be required to designate a staff member to whom students can report incidents, and schools will report complaints to the Department of Education within 24 hours.” Then, “the schools will have to investigate the complaints and contact the families of accused students.” The regulations also require “an accounting of complaints [to be] made public on the Internet at the end of each school year, broken down by school.”
In the New York Times’s (9/3) City Room blog, Sewell Chan listed the provisions of the regulations, which include a requirement for schools to “create an annual plan ‘to ensure…a safe and supportive learning environment,’ and train students in the new rules so that they understand what behavior is prohibited and where to go for help if they have been bullied.” Chan noted that “the new policy builds on an initiative, Respect for All, that began last year and trains teachers, guidance counselors and others to identify and address bullying, harassment and intimidation.”
New York CBS affiliate WCBS-TV (9/3, Hsu) added that “parents will be able to go on the Department of Education website, look up their child’s school, and find out how many bias incidents have been reported.”
Also in the News
More after-school programs focus on tutoring.
Texas’s Star-Telegram (9/3, McGee) reported on “a national surge in after-school programs that place a strong emphasis on homework.” According to Priscilla Little, “associate director of the Harvard Family Research Project,” the current “approach to after-school programs in general, is related to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. Because [NCLB] emphasizes academic performance, many after-school programs have a strong focus on tutoring.” She also noted that “research shows that after-school programs improve children’s behavior, academic performance, health, and aspirations for college.”
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Chicago Tribune, schools partner for weekly newspaper.
The Chicago Tribune (9/4) reports, “TheMash, the Chicago Tribune’s collaboration with Chicago Public Schools on a weekly newspaper for and largely written by Chicago teens, is scheduled to make its debut Thursday with an initial distribution of 100,000 copies in the city’s 130 public high schools.” The Tribune notes that “student contributors will receive training and guidance from Chicago Tribune employees, and the product will deliver advertisers a vehicle to reach an elusive demographic.”