October 2011
31 posts
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Support boosted for littlest learners (Strib) →
Across Minnesota, the ratio of 759 students to each counselor in grades K-12 ranks among the worst in the nation — 49th, ahead of only California. The American School Counselor Association recommends a 250-to-1 ratio; the national average is 457 students per counselor. Lagging state funding is blamed for the shortage in Minnesota.
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The four counselors will do traditional...
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The Difference between TFA "Corps Members" and... →
The article, summed up in the last paragraph:
The Teach for America alumni assumed they already had a seat at the table, and a genuine voice in policy creation. The student teachers in Michigan were just trying to get hired.
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English learners still far behind using... →
But on the reading section of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the gap between English learners and native speakers hasn’t budged. Only 4 percent of California’s English learners were at least proficient in fourth-grade reading in 2009 on the national test, slightly less than in 2003, when it was 6 percent.
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“When you put them in all-English situations, that really...
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Separate Education for Those in Special Education?... →
One amendment offered by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., would have removed the requirement that teachers of students with disabilities be “highly qualified”.
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Another proposal that died in the committee came from Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga. He wanted to do away with limits on how many students with disabilities could take alternate tests, which are different than those their...
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Scholars Put Civics in Same Category as Literacy,... →
In his research, Keith C. Barton, an education professor at Indiana University, argues that preservice teachers need to expand their understanding of their roles as teachers. He writes that teachers must model and teach civic engagement, and that while teacher-preparation programs can help inculcate those values and skills, most don’t.
As I’ve mentioned before, my teacher prep...
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Struggling Schools and the Problem with the "Shut... →
They found that students in schools that are closed due to poor performance actually do substantially worse on reading and math tests in the new school to which they are sent for at least a year, and then recover and end up doing about as well as they were doing at their original school. In other words, after all the expense, acrimony, and heartache involved in closing a school, the...
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Liberating Inner City Teachers (Huffington Post) →
D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown seeks to recruit top teachers to low performing schools by freeing them for two or three years from the district’s oppressive IMPACT evaluation system.
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If Brown’s idea went national, however, think of the incentive it would provide for teachers who want to actually teach (as opposed to just complying with top down micromanagement) to...
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Charter schools rep disputes discrimination claim... →
Six students returning to IPS “could not be served because the school did not provide the student with the needed special education services,” White said. Five students were homeless. Failing to serve homeless students violates federal law. Failing to serve special needs students violates state and federal laws.
Simnick said Department of Education data showed charter schools...
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When charter schools get too picky (Washington... →
Yet somehow its average SAT score has risen to the top tenth of one percent among all public schools nationally. Less than ten percent of its students are low-income, compared to 40 percent in its city. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that the school is allowed to ask (not require, its principal emphasizes) that every family donate $3,000 and 40 hours of volunteer time a year.
...
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Champlin mom crusades for gay kids after son's... →
Just a few quotes from this article:
“Unfortunately, people are listening to me because my kid died,” Aaberg said.
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She hit a wall after testifying before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights this May. Lights were flashing at her as she recounted her son’s experience and told the panel about the number of bullied GLBT kids dying from suicide. Afterward, she had to...
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Study finds education gap for illegal Mexican... →
“By not providing pathways to legalization, the United States not only risks creating an underclass, but also fails to develop a potentially valuable human resource,” the report said. …
“Amnesty is the wrong solution,” she said. “I’m putting it on the schools — they need to do better educating these kids” regardless of their parents’...
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St. Paul teachers visit students' homes in search... →
Faber said the point of the program is to treat parents as partners in their child’s education. “We see a lot of parent involvement things that really look at parents as a deficit, that they don’t know how to do something, so we’re going to swoop in and show them how,” he said. “What this model works on is that the parent is an asset that has some knowledge that we don’t have.”
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...
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What tea party defeat in Wake County means for... →
Wake County’s widely lauded school integration plan sought to give all students a chance to attend solidly middle-class public schools by limiting the proportion of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch at 40% in any one school.
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Meanwhile, the Chamber of Commerce, which believed segregated schools are bad for education and for business, backed a compromise proposal ...
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Raise Teacher Ed. Standards, State School Boards... →
Teacher colleges need to give aspiring educators much more thorough, intense exposure to K-12 classrooms during their training—and set higher standards for admission—a group representing state school boards contends.
The National Association of State Boards of Education, in a report released today, says that experience in actual classroom settings, as well as continued mentoring once...
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Student progress can be tied to teacher's school... →
The study examined which education schools were tied to better student progress, without naming any particular aspect of training that the schools did differently.
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The University of Washington study found that less than 1 percent of the differences between teachers seemed to be linked to where they got their training. But the programs from the best to the worst associated student...
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It Keeps Getting Worse (Minnesota 20/20) →
…The inflation-adjusted family earnings for a child in the bottom quarter of Americans have declined by a fifth or more since 1975. That means that a child growing up in poverty today is in a household making 80% or less than that of a child growing up in poverty in 1975, after adjusting for inflation.
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As we ratchet up the pressure on schools to somehow counteract poverty in...
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Young Men of Color: A National Crisis (Education... →
Recommendation 3: Reform education to ensure that all students, including young men of color, are college and career ready when they graduate from high school.
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Recommendation 4: Improve teacher education programs and provide professional development that includes cultural- and gender-responsive training.
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Study: Minority students do better under minority... →
The paper’s authors — Robert Fairlie, Florian Hoffmann and Philip Oreopoulos — conclude that this effect is due to minority students’ positive reactions to minority teachers — what other researchers have dubbed the “role-model effect”:
First, we find dropout effects from instructor race and ethnicity prior to receiving grades. This outcome is entirely determined by the student rather than...
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Why school reform can’t ignore poverty’s toll... →
Poverty increases family stress, leads to poor nutrition and medical care, and, importantly, means children are talked to less and end up with vocabularies that are about half that of middle-class children. Research suggests that the first years shape a child’s capacity to learn. Science tells us that it is essential to brain development that babies are spoken to, read to, cuddled, and...
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World Teachers' Day: Teachers For Gender Equality... →
From a joint statement by UNESCO, UNDP, UNICEF, ILO and Education International on the occasion of World Teachers’ Day:
If we want to give equal opportunities to our daughters and sons to realize their full potential and claim their rights, we must devise policies and strategies that attract and motivate capable women and men to teach, while also enabling them to create gender-equal learning...
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Study Finds Minority Students Get Harsher... →
…The latest in a series of actions intended to draw attention to school discipline practices that some consider overly harsh or punishments that are meted out disproportionately among students of different races, genders, and ethnic groups.
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He said raising awareness about the disparities is crucial, and training in multicultural competence should be combined with training in ...
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Study: growing up in bad neighborhoods has a... →
Including the full text here, since the link I have is to site I’m not familiar with and I’m not sure how long it will be valid for.
WASHINGTON, DC — Growing up in a poor neighborhood significantly reduces the chances that a child will graduate from high school, according to a study published in the October issue of the American Sociological Review. And, the longer a child...
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Urban vs. suburban matters little when it comes to... →
But do suburban kids really post better test results than their peers in city schools? Not if they’re from middle- and upper-income families. Scores are virtually the same for those students on statewide reading and math tests, no matter where they live, according to a Pioneer Press analysis.
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The results show what education experts have known for decades: Poverty, and the...
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School Layoffs About to Fall Heaviest on the... →
So wrong.
…Schools that serve large numbers of poor or struggling students are disproportionately affected, as are schools receiving federal money to improve results after years of weak performance.
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The layoffs would affect one in four school aides, parent coordinators, health workers and paraprofessionals in District 5 in Harlem, and roughly one in five in District 23 in...
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A State Grooms Its Best Students to Be Good... →
The idea is simple: the state pays top academic students to attend a public college, and in return they spend at least four years teaching in a public school.
In the 20 years since the first fellows began teaching, the program has flourished. High school seniors selected for the program average about 1,200 on the SATs compared with a state average of 1,000. Of the 500 fellows chosen each...
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Gains Made in Equality of Incomes in Downturn... →
The recession was bad for everyone, but women experienced at least one silver lining: Their median earnings edged a bit closer to men’s.
The progress was bittersweet, however. It happened not because women earned more, but because men earned less, according to an analysis of new Census Bureau data.
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For women, whose economic fortunes have been on a slow but steady rise relative to...
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Few Minnesota kids using the 'No Child’ options... →
I’m posting the article in its entirety here because articles drop from the Strib’s site after a few weeks, and I didn’t want to lose the text. I’ve bolded what I wanted to emphasize.
Thousands of low-income students in underperforming schools statewide will soon receive letters saying they are eligible to transfer to different schools and receive private tutoring paid...
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Pew: Growing rates of child poverty among Latinos... →
The Pew Hispanic report adds that in 2010, at least 6.1 million Latino children, more than any other group, are living in poverty. “In 2010, 37.3% of poor children were Latino, 30.5% were white and 26.6% were black.”
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Teachers Paid Less in Higher-Minority Schools... →
In many ethnically diverse school districts across the country, teachers in schools that serve the top quintile of African-American and Latino students are paid significantly less—approximately $2,500 per year—than the average teacher in such districts, according to an analysis released today by the U.S. Department of Education’s office for civil rights.
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Fifty-nine percent...
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Classroom 'crisis': Many teachers have little or... →
Chances are good that they are being taught by teachers with little or no experience.
Since no statistics/facts are actually offered in this article except for a chart that many people might miss, let me spell out what that chart says.
In 1987, 3% of the teaching force were brand new teachers. In 2007, it was 6.5%.
While that is technically double (the “more” referenced in the...
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What's the matter with teachers today? (Seattle... →
Great article! Some highlights:
How can teachers be the cause of our troubles … (Stewart pause here) … AND the solution?
YES, IT’S A little crazy. But it’s not new.
From the days of the one-room schoolhouse on the prairie, our relationship with teachers has been, well, complicated.
We idolize them, but second-guess their judgment. Love the ones we know, but disparage...
September 2011
14 posts
4 tags
An early ed push in Bloomington (Strib) →
The extra efforts, they say, will help steer at-risk kids away from the path of dropping out long before they reach high school, as well as reduce the gap in academic achievement between white and non-white students.
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10 Tips for new teachers (Washington Post) →
This was good for me, just thinking about student teaching. Fabulous.
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LAUSD Chief: 'A Tale Of Two School Systems' (Eagle... →
“And so, coming at this work, we’re really clear that if you want to work in LAUSD, then we have an unshakeable belief that every single student can, will and must graduate college workforce-ready and achieve at high levels.”
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State schools nab $3.8M windfall for sidewalks... →
The national Safe Routes to School program is bestowing $3.8 million to 16 communities statewide for similar purposes. Advocates say the funds are needed to encourage students to walk or bike to school.
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What School District Budget Cuts Mean For Students... →
CONAN: And as you looked - what do you tell to teachers who all of a sudden have greatly increased workload?
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
ELLIS: Well, you know, all you can do is support them, and what you can try and do is use the money you have in ways that you just never used it before. We don’t have textbook money anymore. So we make workbooks. You know, you try to get in a room, and...
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Students paying for budget cuts (Strib) →
In November, a record 133 school districts say they’ll ask taxpayers to support referendums to ward off cuts that have condensed class schedules, provoked higher pay-to-play fees and forced schools to resort to in-school advertising to make ends meet.
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When indexed for inflation, school revenue across the state has declined by double digits over the past eight years, according...
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Before the First School Bell, Teachers in Bronx... →
“I could have chosen to speak to the families from behind a podium in the school auditorium,” Mr. Baum said. “But if the school wants the relationship defined in a certain way, then the school needs to make the effort.”
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For the school, the visits are intended as a welcome mat. For the families, they are a welcoming novelty. For the teachers, many of whom are in their first...
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How do we close the achievement gap? (MPR... →
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Vermont students travel across a mountain to get... →
It’s not a simple commute. Crawford Jones’s mother drives him from Mendon to a pickup area on Route 4, where the Gramps Shuttle van meets him and takes him down to the start of the path. There, a parent volunteer walks him and the others through the woods. A small school bus that can turn around in a tight space picks up the children and takes them to Sherwood Drive, where the big bus is...
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“793 million adults, most of them girls and women, can neither read nor write.”
– UNESCO, 9/8/2011.
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Middle-Class Schools Miss the Mark (Wall Street... →
The report, “Incomplete: How Middle-Class Schools Aren’t Making the Grade,” also found middle-class schools are underachieving. It pointed to their national and international test scores and noted that 28% of their graduates earn a college degree by age 26, compared to 17% for lower-income students and 47% for upper-income students.
I’d like to re-title this...
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U.S. Secretary of Education calls U-M School of... →
“We decided teacher education consisted too much of reading about schools,” said Deborah Loewenberg Ball, dean of the School of Education. “You can’t learn to teach by reading. The curriculum needed to be much more about practice.”
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Schools confront poverty, why don’t education... →
Urging schools to solve vision, nutrition or physical and emotional safety problems by working with “non-profits” and “faith-based institutions” is silly. Voluntary organizations can perform isolated acts of charity, but only government can narrow the vast social inequalities that bring many children to school unprepared to learn.
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Richfield Opens Enrollment for 'Kids at Home' Rent... →
Kids at Home is primarily designed to provide lower-income Richfield residents with greater housing stability so that children aren’t forced to transition in and out of schools, a goal which remains the focus of city staff and counselors who work with the program.
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Bullying Law Puts New Jersey Schools on Spot (NY... →
The law, known as the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, is considered the toughest legislation against bullying in the nation. Propelled by public outcry … it demands that all public schools adopt comprehensive antibullying policies (there are 18 pages of “required components”), increase staff training and adhere to tight deadlines for reporting episodes.
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In the East Hanover...
August 2011
18 posts
2 tags
Scores rise as exams are switched to 11th grade... →
“We did this to ensure our students would enter high school with the skills needed to succeed and graduate college and career ready,” Castillo said. “We believed that our students were capable of achieving at these higher levels, and today’s results clearly demonstrate that they are.
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Public Education's Dangerous Silence (South... →
There are about 1.53 million students attending K-12 schools in New Jersey. In the past school year 1.35 million attended public schools, an impressive 88.4 percent of kids ages five to eighteen. There may be 986 nonpublic schools registered with the education department, but their “market share” has been declining since the 1960’s.
The takeaway: New Jersey relies on public...
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Blaming Teachers When Students Don't Learn... →
However, even the best teachers cannot make students learn if they don’t want to. This is not an excuse; it is an explanation. Non-public schools have the right to expel students who consistently fail to do the work assigned. But public schools can’t.
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How community views education must change if... →
We have reached the point in this story where someone inevitably asks why this is the School District’s problem. Shouldn’t educators be focusing on academics, not trying to fix their students’ home lives? Too many parents have abdicated their responsibilities to the schools, cynics argue.
The hard truth is that these are the School District’s problems. Here’s a harder truth — it’s going to...