New Study Finds Narrowing Of Achievement Gap.
The Christian Science Monitor (10/2, Paulson) reports that a new national Center on Education Policy study examining student performance since NCLB took effect in 2002 finds that student achievement “is going up, and the gaps in test scores between subgroups — such as between African-Americans and whites — are closing across all grade levels and subjects.” However, the “news isn’t all positive. In 23 percent of the cases the report analyzed,” the achievement gap grew. And “in a few cases, the gap narrowed, but only because the achievement of higher-performing subgroups went down.”

The AP (10/2, Armario) reports, “Florida students have made progress in narrowing the achievement gap…but significant disparities remain.” The study “found that in math and reading, students across race and income levels made gains,” but “some of the most significant improvements were seen in elementary black and Latino students.” Still, “the gap between white, black and Latino students remains significant” at nearly 30 points between whites and blacks and nearly 20 points between whites and Latinos in the fourth grade. “That gap tends to widen as students enter middle and high school.”

Leslie Postal argues in a blog at the Orlando Sentinel (10/2) that the gap “”has narrowed in Florida, though not a lot,” while “in many other states, the gap is also shrinking, but also very slowly.”

TO: APEA Membership

FROM: John Napolitani, President
Sean Hamilton, Vice President

DATE: September 30, 2009

The Negotiations Team met with our PERC appointed mediator last Thursday evening at the Board Office. Our team met before our negotiations session to discuss strategy and points that the Board wanted to discuss at the table. The meeting started promptly at 6:00pm and lasted past 11:30pm. At this meeting, all items on the agenda were discussed which included our main points and the Board’s main points.
As we discussed in prior correspondence, our team narrowed our proposal down to six main issues. The Board managed to do the same but had several sub-sections. Their proposal was significantly reduced from the last session, which was a major stumbling block for all our prior meetings.

Things are continuing to move slowly. We agreed to try one more session, which will be scheduled some time in October, to attempt to bring some items to closure. As with most districts in the state that are at this point in negotiations, a major area that we are not agreeing on is the section that has to do with our benefits. A discussion on a salary increase can not even be discussed until the next session because the Board was late producing the scatter grams to the Association. Now that we are in possession of these scatter grams, we can have NJEA analyze it and see what the true cost of people moving through the guide is going to cost the Board over three years.

NEA To Encourage Best Teachers To Teach At High-Need Schools.
USA Today (10/1, Toppo) reports that the National Education Association “will encourage local chapters to ignore contract provisions that in the past have kept school districts’ best teachers out of schools that serve mostly poor and minority students.” In testimony before the House education committee on Tuesday, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said the move “is part of the union’s ‘Priority Schools’ campaign that will also encourage ‘the most accomplished teachers-members’ to start their teaching careers in high-needs schools, remain there or transfer there.” The NEA “has come under fire from critics for supporting contracts that allow experienced teachers with more seniority to transfer to schools that serve more middle-class children.”

Jay Mathews wrote in a “Class Struggle” blog for the Washington Post (9/30), “Data show that schools in poor neighborhoods tend to have a disproportionate number of unqualified, inexperienced or out-of-field teachers. That compounds the schools’ many academic challenges.” Thus, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel “said in prepared testimony that the union would ask ‘every local NEA affiliate to enter into a compact or memorandum of understanding with its local school district to waive any contract language that prohibits staffing high-needs schools with great teachers.’”

Draft Of Common State Academic Standards Released.
The Washington Post (9/22, A6, Anderson) reports, “Experts convened by the nation’s governors and state schools chiefs on Monday proposed a set of math and English skills students should master before high school graduation, the first step toward what advocates hope will become common standards driving instruction in classrooms from coast to coast.” In math, the “proposal envisions that students would be able to solve systems of equations; find and interpret rates of change; and adapt probability models to solve real-world problems.” In English, students “would be able to analyze how word choices shape the meaning and tone of a text; develop a style and tone of writing appropriate to a task and audience; and respond constructively to advance a discussion and build on the input of others.” The National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers “launched the Common Core Standards Initiative this year, enlisting 48 states and the District of Columbia.” Two states yet to join the effort are Texas and Alaska.

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Some New York Districts Cutting Back On Foreign-Language Programs.
The New York Times (9/13, MB1, Hu) reports, “After years of expanding language offerings,” suburban districts across the New York City metropolitan region “are now cutting back on staff and instructional time, phasing out less popular languages, and rethinking whether they can really afford to introduce foreign tongues to their youngest students while under constant pressure to downsize budgets and raise achievement in English and other core subjects.” However, these cuts “have dismayed and frustrated some educators and parents, who say that children need more, not fewer, foreign language skills to compete in a global marketplace.”

iPods Used To Help ESOL Students Improve English Skills. The Hilton Head Island (SC) Packet (9/14, Cerve) reports that “at Hilton Head Island Middle School and others with high numbers of students with limited English skills, teachers use” iPods “to help students learn to read.” Sarah Owen, the district’s ESOL coordinator, said that “the school district paid about $200 for each” of the 30 iPod Touch units it purchased last year “using federal money earmarked for ESOL students.” In Nancy Davis’ ESOL class, “students use the iPods about twice a week” to “listen to stories as part of a fluency program designed to develop vocabulary, improve pronunciation and emphasize important words and concepts taught in core subjects.” In addition to Island middle school, five other “county schools will use iPods in their English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes this year to tailor instruction to students with different levels of English proficiency.”

To: APEA General Membership

From: APEA Executive Committee

Date: September 15, 2009

Re: General Membership Meeting/Action Team

The APEA Executive Committee is holding a General membership meeting next Wednesday, September 23, 2009, at 2:45pm in the Asbury Park High School Auditorium. A myriad of items will be discussed which will include but are not limited to negotiations and the state of our district. Please make every attempt to attend this important meeting.
We also are looking for volunteers from each building to join a newly formed APEA Action Team. This team will be responsible for planning various negotiations activities throughout the year as we continue our negotiations process. We would like to have a maximum of two people from each building on this team. If you are interested in participating, please send the below form back to John at Bradley Elementary.

—————————————————————————————

Name: _______________________________________________

Email: _______________________________________________

Building: _______________________________________________

Number: _______________________________________________

Pc: Michael Zajac, Recording Secretary

Duncan Calls Unrest Over President’s Speech To Children “Silly.”
CBS News (9/8) reports on it’s website that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “said he didn’t mind the criticism” the Obama administration has received from some parents and Republicans over the President’s planned speech aimed at schoolchildren. “At the end of the day, if the president motivates one C-student to become a B-student or one student who is thinking about dropping out to stay in school and take their education seriously, it’s all worth it,” Duncan told CBS News chief Washington correspondent and anchor Bob Schieffer on ‘Face the Nation’ Sunday.” According to the AP (9/7) Duncan noted that students do not have to watch the speech once they get to school, and that “Obama had no intention beyond talking ‘about personal responsibility and challenging students to take their education very, very seriously.’”

The New York Times (9/8, Dillon) reports that “After reading the text on Monday, even Jim Greer, the Florida Republican Party chairman who last week accused the president of seeking to use the speech to foist “socialist ideology” on schoolchildren, said he could find nothing to criticize in its text.” The speech has been posted on the White House website.

Educators Cite Scheduling, Technology As Barriers To Airing President’s Speech In Class. The Los Angeles Times (9/5, Landsberg, Song) reported, “President Obama’s speech to students next week may be a ‘teachable moment,’ as some educators see it, but it will not be a command performance” in “many Southern California classrooms” on Tuesday. Some educators cite “a combination of scheduling, academic priorities, and sheer bandwidth” as reasons why they will not air the president’s address. James Stratton, superintendent of schools for La Cañada Unified School District, for instance, said that “the speech will be shown only in those classes where it ‘has any relation to the California content standards for that particular class.’” In the Los Angeles Unified district, meanwhile, “most…students will miss the speech unless they watch it at home: The academic year doesn’t begin until Wednesday in the majority of district schools, so only the 87 that are on a year-round schedule will have the opportunity to show it.”

Furor Over Obama Speech Viewed As Extension Of Partisan Politics. Tim Rutten wrote in a column for the Los Angeles Times (9/5, Rutten) though some of the public anxiety of health care reform is understandable, given its deeply personal implications, there “is no similar way to rationalize the bizarre controversy now raging over President Obama’s plan to deliver a brief televised address on Tuesday to the nation’s grammar school children.” Rutten noted that according to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Obama will “‘challenge students to work hard, set educational goals and take responsibility for their learning.’ … Sounds innocuous.” Ultimately, Rutten says Republican officials fueling the hysteria “are playing a dangerous game with an unhinged segment of public opinion that regards Obama not as an elected official with whom they disagree, but as an illegitimate usurper of the presidency.”

Some Object To Teachers Showing Obama Speech In Class.
The Salt Lake Tribune (9/3, Schencker, Stewart) reports, “Some Utah parents have already made up their minds about a speech President Barack Obama plans to give to students about the importance of education: They don’t want their children watching it.” The speech will be “broadcast live online at 10 a.m.” next Tuesday. In it, the President “will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning.” The U.S. Department of Education is urging “schools to join in the ‘historic’ event, even providing age-appropriate classroom activities.” Many conservatives, meanwhile, “in Utah and nationwide, say “they don’t want their kids “forced” to watch the speech, fearing it will eat up precious class time with political or policy messages.” Several Utah districts “are sending letters to principals saying that if they plan to broadcast the speech, they should warn parents and provide alternate activities for students who don’t want to watch it.”

The Houston Chronicle (9/3, Scharrer, Mellon) reports that “some Texas parents are asking school principals to excuse their children from listening to a speech that President Barack Obama will make to schools next week on the grounds that it smacks of political indoctrination.” In the Houston area, most “districts will let principals and teachers decide whether to show Obama’s speech. Some district leaders raised concerns about interrupting already scheduled lessons, while others said students need to hear the president’s expected message of personal responsibility for learning.” Texas Education Agency spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe said, “It is not uncommon for students to watch a presidential speech that is given during the school day.” However, she noted, “This situation is somewhat different in that this speech apparently will be directed to students. But each district can decide how best to handle it for their community.”

SAT Results Show Record Minority Participation, Widening Race, Income Disparities.
The Washington Post (8/26, B3, Anderson, Brown) reports that according to the College Board, 40 percent of SAT test-takers are minorities, a “milestone for the college admissions test most widely used in the nation and the Washington region.” However, scores of the wealthiest students “are growing faster than scores of the poorest, and some racial disparities in test performance are widening.” For the class of 2009, composite SAT scores were 501 in critical reading, “down one point from the year before; 515 in mathematics, unchanged; and 493 in writing, down one point.” Also, according to the Post, black student scores “fell four points (to 1276), while white scores fell two points (to 1581).” Also, scores for students “whose families earned more than $200,000 shot up 26 points (to 1702), while scores for those whose families earn $60,000 a year or less were unchanged or rose only slightly.”

USA Today (8/26, Marklein) reports that students “who identified themselves as Asian, Asian-American or Pacific Islander posted a 13-point gain.” However, students “who identified themselves as Puerto Rican posted a 9-point drop in average scores.” The New York Times (8/26, A13, Dillon) reports that girls “outperformed boys, on average, by 13 points on the writing test,” yet girls “scored 35 points lower than boys in math and 5 points lower than boys in critical reading.”

Texas Students Score Lower In Reading, Writing, Higher In Math Portion Of SAT. The AP (8/25, Pope) reported that Texas students “scored lower on the reading and writing portions of the SAT this year, but scores jumped slightly in math.” The College Board, a “nonprofit membership group that owns the exam,” reported that the average math score for the Texas class of 2009 “was 506, up one point from last year.” The biggest decline “was in writing, where the average score dropped five points to 475.”

Utah Students Beat National Average SAT Pass Rate. The Salt Lake Tribune (8/26, Schencker) reports that “more Utah students took AP tests last school year than the year before, and a higher percentage of tests were passed, according to College Board results released Tuesday.” Specifically, “16,361 Utah students took AP tests last school year and 65.4 percent of the tests taken earned passing scores,” compared to just over 58 percent nationwide. In addition, “the number of tests” administered to student of each ethic group “rose and, in most cases, pass rates among Utah’s ethnic groups surpassed those nationwide.”

Alternate-Route Teacher Certification Programs Enrolling More STEM Candidates. Education Week (8/19, Sawchuk) reported that alternative-route teacher program officials across the U.S. “say they are seeing increasing enrollments from career-changers with strong backgrounds in the highly sought-after fields of math, science, and technology.” Yet the “extent to which school district officials are primed to take advantage” of larger talent pools in STEM fields “depends on those officials’ ability to negotiate the factors affecting the teacher labor market,” say experts “familiar with hiring practices.” Education Week notes that although many states have alternate STEM teacher certification programs, the tightening labor market for teachers means some well-qualified candidates will not find jobs.

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In the Classroom
Classes Post 100 Percent Proficiency On California Algebra I Exams. The Sacramento Bee (8/19, Lambert) reported that each “of the 118 seventh- and eighth-graders in Mark Freathy and Mary Chung’s classes at Elizabeth Pinkerton Middle School in Elk Grove was rated advanced or proficient in Algebra I, according to California Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) scores released Tuesday.” Principal Patrick McDougall said this is the first time in his career that he had ever seen 100 percent of any teacher’s students meet standards.