Home › Blogs › No Issues Left Behind
« August 2006 | Main | October 2006 »
September 27, 2006
NCLB is awful, a travesty, except we really like it
It seems the dems are wavering on the NCLB bashing as they look to take control of Congress. Even Teddy K. the original champion of NCLB is looking to keep all of the same accountability requirements in the law, and just wants more money.
We all know that more money for schools is good right? Heck, Washington D. C. spends $10,000 per student!
So those who expected standardized testing and NCLB to go away with Democratic leadership are in for a rude awakening.
Could it be because NCLB and other accountability measures are actually, uh, keeping schools accountable?
Read the article, from Education Week:
Published in Education Week: September 27, 2006
Political Shift Could Temper NCLB Resolve
If Democrats Take House or Senate, Uncertainty Ahead
By Alyson Klein
The two top Democratic lawmakers on education policy have signaled that if their party regains control of one or both houses of Congress in November, they will seek to retain the core accountability features of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Rep. George Miller of California would likely support more funding for the law, while seeking to keep its requirements that schools test students annually and be held accountable for the results.
The two, who were among the architects of the bipartisan law five years ago, have continued to champion its central provisions in the face of vocal opposition. A big question is whether rank-and-file Democrats, as well as some senior members who would likely assume other key education posts in a Democratic takeover, share Sen. Kennedy’s and Rep. Miller’s commitment to keeping the law largely intact.
“The bloom has come off the rose for many Democrats and Republicans since the law was signed” by President Bush in January 2002, said Michael D. Casserly, the executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, a Washington group representing more than 60 large urban school districts. “Support for the legislation in Congress appears to be not as great as it was when the initial votes were taken.”
Party’s Prospects
Political analysts suggest that the 2006 midterm elections offer Democrats their best chance in years of retaking one or both chambers of Congress. If the Democrats assume control of the House of Representatives or the Senate, these members are poised to take on leadership roles on education policy over the next two years.
Political analysts give the Democrats their best chance in years for retaking one or both chambers in this fall’s midterm elections. The party needs a net gain of 15 seats to retake the House. In the Senate, they would need to pick up six seats. Republicans have dominated Congress for most of the time since their dramatic takeover in the 1994 elections.
At a panel discussion in Washington last week, Rep. Miller said that he and other Democratic leaders would continue to work in a bipartisan way to maintain the “core concepts” of the No Child Left Behind law, which was championed by President Bush.
“I don’t see there’s any likelihood that Congress goes back on them,” said Rep. Miller, who as the ranking Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee is in line to become its chairman if his party wins a majority.
A Kennedy Fine-Tune
Sen. Kennedy, who was the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee when the law passed in late 2001 as a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, says that if he reclaims that position, he will push for changes that would help foundering schools meet the goals of the law.
“Schools need better solutions to respond to the challenges identified by the No Child Left Behind Act,” Sen. Kennedy said on Sept. 19 in comments provided to Education Week.
“We also need to fine-tune the act to make it more effective in assisting struggling schools by providing new federal funds for advisers and teacher coaches who are experienced in turning low student achievement around, and by creating new partnerships between high-performing and lower-performing schools,” the senator said.
Under the law, states must test students annually in reading and math in grades 3-8 and once in high school. Students and districts must meet annual performance targets for their entire student populations, as well as for subgroups of students, such as those who are learning to speak English, in order to make adequate yearly progress, or AYP. Schools and districts receiving federal Title I money that fail to make AYP for two years or more face increasingly serious consequences.
Additionally, the law requires schools to employ highly qualified teachers, defined as those with state certification and knowledge of the subject they teach.
The law is due for reauthorization in 2007, although many observers doubt that Congress will meet that target.
Stronger Oversight?
Sen. Kennedy says he would seek to channel resources to helping states design better assessments and data systems. He may consider trying to add NCLB provisions to improve high schools, such as dropout-prevention measures, and work to provide schools with parent-outreach coordinators.
He and Rep. Miller have also co-sponsored a bill that would authorize money to boost the salaries of educators who work as mentor or master teachers, or in high-needs districts. The measure would give schools resources to develop a “transition year” for new teachers and overhaul state certification process, among other provisions.
For the past two years, Republicans have provided level funding for the Title I compensatory education program for poor children—a major part of the ESEA in its various versions—and grants to states for students in special education, under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Democrats are more disposed to boost spending levels for those programs.
They are also more likely to spare, or even boost, K-12 programs perennially slated for elimination under President Bush’s budget proposals, such as the Upward Bound program, which prepares disadvantaged high school students for college.
“Congress has walked away from its obligation for funding the law,” Rep. Miller said last week at the discussion on the No Child Left Behind law sponsored by the Business Roundtable.
Democrats say they would keep a closer eye than the Republicans have on how the Department of Education is implementing parts of the law, including the management of the teacher-quality provisions as well as the testing of children with limited English skills and students in special education.
Because the law has been a centerpiece of President Bush’s domestic-policy agenda, the administration and current congressional leaders have a disincentive to identify school districts “that are not performing very well, but are putting forth good statistics,” Rep. Robert E. Andrews, D-N.J., a member of the House education committee, said in an interview. “We would be much more clinical about this and find districts that are gaming the system.”
Though Sen. Kennedy and Rep. Miller may not be eager to change much in the No Child Left Behind law, other members of their party, including high-ranking lawmakers on both the House and the Senate education committees, appear poised to push for more substantial revisions.
Attempts to change the direction of the law could be bolstered by Democrats—and Republicans—on Capitol Hill who have fielded complaints about the law from teachers, administrators, and parents in their constituencies. Dissatisfaction has centered on such provisions as the law’s reliance on standardized tests to measure progress and requirements for teachers to become highly qualified.
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., whose home state is suing the federal Education Department over what Connecticut contends is inadequate funding for the law, would be in line to chair the Senate Education and Early Childhood Development Subcommittee, which oversees K-12 policy.
Last year, Sen. Dodd introduced a bill that would make changes to the way states calculate AYP under the federal law, among other provisions.
Under Sen. Dodd’s legislation, schools and states would be able to get credit for showing improvement on measures other than standardized tests, such as dropout rates, the number of students who take Advanced Placement courses, and individual student improvement over time. The measure has not advanced very far.
In the House, Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., would be in line to chair the key Education Reform Subcommittee after a Democratic victory. She said in an interview this month that, while she supports the concept of the No Child Left Behind law, she has reservations about some of its major provisions, including its reliance on “narrowly focused standardized tests.”
She said the law should give credit for educating “the whole child. … There’s a lot that’s being left out,” Rep. Woolsey said, citing some schools’ lack of emphasis on subjects like art, music, and geography.
At least two Democrats on the House education committee, Reps. Betty McCollum of Minnesota and David Wu of Oregon, have put forth their own proposals for reauthorizing the law, both of which focus on providing more flexibility to the states, partly by allowing them to get credit for improving individual student performance through different types of growth models.
Rep. Miller said he would support including additional measures for determining whether schools and districts make adequate yearly progress under the law. Currently, schools must meet achievement levels on state tests and attendance goals. High schools also must meet targets for graduation rates.
But Rep. Miller said any new measures must be valid and academically challenging.
“It can’t be pass-fail, have a portfolio, do some art work, and tell us the history of your life,” Mr. Miller said at the Business Roundtable forum.
Miller the Maverick?
Whether any significant changes to the No Child Left Behind Act make their way into a reauthorization may depend on the leanings of not-yet-elected Democrats who would take the place of GOP lawmakers next year, said Jack Jennings, the president of the Center on Education Policy, a Washington-based research and advocacy organization.
Those members would likely be in the House of Representatives, which political analysts suggest is more likely to change hands than the Senate, said Mr. Jennings, who was an aide to Democrats on the House education committee from 1967 to 1994.
Freshman House Democrats could come from swing districts, where they would need the support of the 2.8 million-member National Education Association to get re-elected two years from now, Mr. Jennings said. The NEA has criticized many aspects of the federal education law and mounted a lawsuit over its funding provisions.
In maintaining strong support for the federal school improvement law, Rep. Miller has bucked key Democratic constituencies, such as the NEA, said Michael J. Petrilli, the vice president for national programs and policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a research and advocacy group in Washington, and a former Education Department official under President Bush.
“It might be easier for [Rep. Miller] to continue to play the maverick role as a ranking member than as chairman,” Mr. Petrilli said. In the event of a Democratic takeover of the House, he said, “Miller will be expected to come and write NCLB version 2.0, and he’s going to have to decide how bold he’s willing to be. There’s going to be a real war within the Democratic Party.”
If new members or rank-and-file Democrats hear concerns from their constituents about the No Child Left Behind law, they could press for changes, appealing to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who will likely become the speaker of the House if the Democrats retake the chamber. But Rep. Pelosi and Rep. Miller have a close working relationship, Mr. Jennings said.
“I find it hard to believe she would propose something much different from what he would want, unless she has newly minted members of Congress who want change,” Mr. Jennings said.
Some observers do not expect a groundswell of opposition to the school law to materialize in Congress.
“There’s not going to be tremendous pressure to gut this law,” said Ross Wiener, the policy director of Education Trust, a Washington-based organization that supports the law for its emphasis on raising the achievement of all students.
“The critics are obviously the most vocal, but there really is a silent majority in the middle,” he said, who feel the law is the right direction for K-12 education.
---the article states the following democrats would have prominent roles in Congressional education funding and policy:
SENATE
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts
In line to become: Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee
Would replace: Sen. Michael B. Enzi, R-Wyo.
Priorities: A key architect of the No Child Left Behind Act, Sen. Kennedy wants to bolster resources for schools in need of improvement under the law and improve tests used to measure students’ progress. He would also like to make it easier for graduates working in public-service fields to repay their student loans.
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut
In line to become: Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Education and Early Childhood Development
Would replace: Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.
Priorities: Sen. Dodd has introduced a bill that would change the way adequate yearly progress is calculated under the No Child Left Behind law, giving schools credit for meeting benchmarks other than simply bringing students to proficiency on mathematics and reading tests. He is also interested in boosting Pell Grants for college students.
HOUSE
Rep. George Miller of California
In line to become: Chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee
Would replace: Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif.
Priorities: Rep. Miller, along with Sen. Kennedy, has introduced a bill, called the Teach Act, aimed at improving teacher quality and encouraging effective teachers to work in high-need schools. He would like to cut interest rates on student loans in half.
Rep. Lynn Woolsey of California
In line to become: Chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Education Reform
Would replace: Rep. Michael N. Castle, R-Del.
Priorities: Rep. Woolsey would like to see the No Child Left Behind law become more flexible, possibly by using measurements other than tests to determine a school’s progress. She would like to see the law encourage schools to educate “the whole child,” in part by bolstering classes in subjects such as art and music.
SOURCE: Education Week
Posted by Tim Keaney at 06:21 AM
September 25, 2006
Ray Cruz - Candidate for SVUSD Board
If any other local school board candidates would like to send me their information, I will post it:
Dear Friends,
It has been an honor and a blessing to be a resident of Simi Valley and to serve the community in many different areas.
As your candidate, I am proud to report that I earned my Bachelors Degree in Education from the Herbert Lehman College – City University of New York and recently earned certificates in counseling and mediation from the American Association of Christian Counselors. I also serve on several boards including the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center Foundation, Simi Valley Community Foundation, and World Impact – Los Angeles. Past organizations have included Southern California Special Olympics, Eisner Pediatric Medical Center, and the Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic.
Although I feel that I have accomplished much, there is still more to do especially at the Unified School District. That is why I am running for School Board Trustee.
However, there are other candidates running for two vacant board positions and I will need your help to be a successful candidate. To that end, I would be honored to have you join my campaign by providing me your endorsement and the financial support I need to win.
In order to get our message out to voters, I will need the financial resources to run a strong campaign. I am asking you for a contribution of $25, $50, $100 or whatever you can do to help me with my race. If you are able to help, please make your check out to Committee to Elect Ray Cruz for School Board and send your contribution to:
Committee to Elect Ray Cruz
2075 North Potter Avenue
Simi Valley, California 93065
Thank you, very much, for your consideration. With your support, I know we will be successful.
If you should have any questions about my race or my candidacy, please feel free to call me at 805-432-8209.
Sincerely,
Raymond Cruz,
Campaign ID # 1289981
Commitment to Leadership and Keeping Our Kids First
Posted by Tim Keaney at 06:37 AM
September 22, 2006
Excellent!
Four county schools recognized for excellence
September 22, 2006
Four local schools have been recognized for academic excellence with the No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon award.
The schools are Newbury Park High School and Redwood Middle School in Thousand Oaks; Foothill Technology High School in Ventura, and Calabasas High School.
The schools are among 31 public schools statewide that will receive the award, which is given by the U.S. Department of Education.
Schools are recognized in two categories, both based on test scores. In the first, the school must fall into the top 10 percent of campuses statewide academically.
The second category measures improvement, as well as academic success. In that category, 40 percent of the schools students must qualify as disadvantaged.All four local schools fall into the first category
Posted by Tim Keaney at 06:02 PM
Lew Roth Believed in teachers
And so should you - From the Acorn:
Recognizing people who make a difference
The Simi Valley Education Foundation is now accepting nominations for the Lew Roth Award, named for the creator of the foundation.
In his honor, the community, students, parents and certificated and classified staff are asked to nominate worthy individuals who work or volunteer in the Simi Valley Unified School District. Candidates are those who make a difference in the schools and have a positive influence on students who need extra support or attention.
Candidates may be nominated in one of these categories:
+Management: principals, assistant principals, counselors, school psychologists, district administrators, etc.
+Certificated: teachers, nurses, speech therapists, etc.
+Classified: accounting, clerical/secretarial, custodial/ maintenance, food service, instructional aides, playground Supervisors, purchasing/warehouse, transportation, etc.
+Volunteer: individual volunteer or members of school or community organizations.
The following new categories have been added this year:
+Special Education: teachers or aides that work with special education students.
+Lifetime Achievement Award: individuals who are retiring or have an outstanding achievement.
The nomination deadline is Friday, Nov. 3.
The nomination form is available at each school and is online at www.svef.org.
Applications can be mailed to Simi Valley Education Foundation, PO Box 1439, Simi Valley, CA 93062, or faxed to (805) 277-9467 or e-mailed to info@svef.org.
For additional information, call (877) SIMI-KID or e-mail.
The awards will be presented on Friday, Jan. 26, 2007 at the Grand Vista Hotel.
The Simi Valley Education Foundation provides additional resources to benefit students in Simi Valley's public schools.
Posted by Tim Keaney at 09:54 AM
September 20, 2006
AS standards rise...
Are more schools actually failing, or is it getting harder to raise scores that have already been raised?
From Education Week...
Published: September 20, 2006
As AYP Bar Rises, More Schools Fail
Percent missing NCLB goals climbs amid greater testing.
By Lynn Olson
The proportion of public schools meeting their prescribed achievement targets under the No Child Left Behind Act appears to have fallen slightly in the 2005-06 school year, while the percent classified under the law as needing improvement increased.
Those trends emerge from an analysis by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center of results released by 34 states and the District of Columbia by Sept. 8. Though not true in every state, the trends bear out earlier predictions that schools would find it increasingly hard to show adequate yearly progress, or AYP, under the law as the number of students tested grew and the performance targets rose over time.
See Also
See the accompanying PDF table, Preliminary NCLB Results Show Slippage in 2006.
“To some extent, the standards are getting a little tougher, and people are expecting more,” said Betsy Brand, the director of the American Youth Policy Forum, a Washington-based nonprofit group that focuses on education and youth-development issues. “And perhaps states are being more honest in whom they’re counting, and that’s probably a good thing.”
The 4½-year-old federal law requires that, by 2014, all students be proficient on state reading and mathematics tests, including subgroups of students who are poor, speak limited English, belong to racial or ethnic minority groups, or have disabilities.
Fredrick H. Row and Mary Alice Heuschel of the Renton School District 403 in Washington state go over test results as state Superintendent Terry Bergeson announces math scores last month.
—Jim Bryant/AP
Many state officials attributed the increasing number of schools that missed one or more achievement targets to the larger number of tests given last school year. The 2005-06 school year marked the first time that all states had to give annual reading and math tests in grades 3-8 and at least once in high school.
That meant more schools had enough students tested in specific subgroups to have those subgroups count when calculating progress. In essence, schools had more targets to meet and, therefore, more chances to fail.
National Rate Drops
Nationally, the percent of rated schools making AYP, based on data released so far, dropped from 75 percent to 71 percent. The percent of rated schools in need of improvement increased from 13 percent to 17 percent.
Schools classified as needing improvement that receive federal Title I money face escalating consequences, from being required to allow students to transfer to higher-performing public schools to possible closure. Schools are classified as needing improvement if they fail to make adequate progress for two consecutive years.
In Ohio, the proportion of schools making AYP dropped from 76 percent last year to 61 percent this year. The proportion of schools needing improvement under the federal law more than doubled, from 13 percent to 28 percent.
“It’s more tests,” said J.C. Benton, the spokesman for the Ohio Department of Education. “With the addition of testing in grades 3 to 8, there are more scores being counted for AYP purposes.”
In Kentucky, the percent of schools meeting their achievement targets dropped from 75 percent in 2005 to 66 percent this year. “That really is a function of the system itself, because every year the goals get a little harder to reach,” said Lisa York Gross, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Education.
She cautioned that changes in implementing the federal law, a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, make it hard to compare results across years.
For the 2005-06 school year only, to meet federal deadlines for testing in grades 3-8, Kentucky gave a national test that was augmented with additional test items in grades for which it had not previously given a state exam. Those results were averaged with test data from the 2004-05 school year to calculate AYP across two different tests and two different groups of students.
Beginning next spring, Kentucky will assess reading and math with a new Kentucky Core Content Test in all NCLB-required grades. The achievement targets that schools had to reach also rose in 2004-05—by about 6 percentage points, on average—and schools were still trying to adjust to those targets, Ms. Gross said.
“The real problem is going to be in another couple of years, when the targets go up again, and they start going up dramatically after that every single year,” she added. “So we expect that every single year, it will be more difficult for schools to make AYP.”
In Indiana, where the percent of schools making AYP dropped from 59 percent to 49 percent, state officials also blamed rising performance targets.
“The major thing that changed this year was that our bar was raised for the first time,” said Jason Bearce, the communications director for the state education department. In English, the target rose from 58.8 percent to 65.7 percent at the proficient level or higher; in math, from 57.1 percent to 64.3 percent.
“One of the things we pointed out when we announced our results is that you have to look beyond the AYP label,” Mr. Bearce said, “because we actually have schools that are making substantial gains that aren’t reflected in this, because they really only get credit for the progress they’re making when their students cross the proficiency line.”
Growth Models and AYP
This year, two states—North Carolina and Tennessee—were permitted to use the growth of individual students below the proficiency bar to help calculate AYP under a “growth models” pilot program approved by the U.S. Department of Education.
But if states were hoping that such growth models would dramatically change AYP results, they may be disappointed.
To date, North Carolina has calculated AYP results based solely on reading scores; it will release final results based on both math and reading scores next month. ("States Late With Data About AYP," Sept. 6, 2006.)
But so far, said Louis M. Fabrizio, the director of the division of accountability services in the state department of education, “it’s not helping much at all.”
“I think many felt that this was going to be the magic bullet to make this whole thing better, and it doesn’t,” he said of using a growth model, “or at least it doesn’t from what we have seen so far.”
Under North Carolina’s four-year growth model, students must be on a trajectory to score at the proficient level four years from the first time they take a state-administered exam, to count as proficient for calculations of adequate yearly progress. “In North Carolina, where we already have high percentages of students scoring proficient, we believe that the students who are not scoring proficient are those who bring the greatest challenges with them to school,” said Mr. Fabrizio.
For other states, where fewer students now score at the proficient level, the growth model may prove more helpful, he added. “It would be unfortunate if the whole future of growth models is going to be based on how North Carolina and Tennessee perform,” he said.
In Tennessee, only eight schools’ achievement of AYP was attributable to the growth model said Connie J. Smith, the director of accountability for the state education department. Tennessee uses individual student data to project whether students will be proficient three years into the future.
“I was not surprised,” Ms. Smith said. “It’s a stringent application of the projection model.”
Despite the few schools affected, she said, “it’s always worth doing and using a growth model, even if it helps one school.”
Some Good News
Of the states that have released data thus far, about half saw the number of schools needing improvement climb this year, while half saw the number decrease. Tennessee was one of those with some good news. Seventy-six schools made enough improvement for two consecutive years to come off the list. The total number of such schools dropped to 96 this year, compared with 159 last year, or a decrease of about 40 percent.
“We know that our targeted technical assistance is working,” Ms. Smith said. “When you get a focus and a clarity of purpose, you know schools will improve.”
In Georgia, too, many schools in need of improvement came off the list, despite the rollout of a new state curriculum last year—including more difficult English tests in elementary and middle schools, as well as 6th grade math—and higher performance targets at the high school level.
In 2003, the state had 233 schools that had been identified for improvement four or more years, meaning they were preparing for mandatory restructuring under the federal law. This year, Georgia had 69 such schools. All told, the number of schools needing improvement dropped from 354 last year to 310 this year.
“Despite the increase in rigor that we saw, those schools were really focused on getting out of ‘needs improvement,’ and we think that helped a lot,” said Dana Tofig, a spokesman for the Georgia Department of Education. The state also deployed improvement specialists to help schools.
“Regardless of what people think of NCLB,” Mr. Tofig added, “the idea of being ‘in improvement’—schools don’t want that label, and they focus on trying to get rid of it.”
Posted by Tim Keaney at 06:40 AM
Will Tony V succeed?
From Education Week:
Published: September 20, 2006
Power Shift on L.A. Schools Called Complex
By Lesli A. Maxwell
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has won his hard-fought political battle to gain partial control over Los Angeles’ public schools, but securing meaningful reforms in classrooms is likely to prove far more difficult for the charismatic politician, experts say.
Because the mayor will not have complete control—unlike his counterparts in Boston, Chicago, and New York City—he will have to negotiate with the elected school board, the teachers’ union, and a new council of mayors to embrace his plans for raising student achievement and lowering the high school dropout rate.
“It’s not clear how this arrangement can serve to improve teaching and learning, which is obviously the most central challenge,” said Warren Simmons, the executive director of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, located at Brown University. “Of course, a change in governance is an opportunity to change teaching and learning, but it’s no guarantee.”
Mr. Villaraigosa will share authority with a council of mayors representing the 26 other cities that lie within the boundaries of the Los Angeles Unified district, though he will dominate the panel. His plan, which required the approval of the California legislature, empowers the superintendent to manage most of the contracting, budgeting, and hiring in the 727,000-student district, while keeping the elected school board responsible for setting policy and handling collective bargaining—a concession the mayor made to win support from teachers’ unions.
The arrangement also leaves open the possibility that teachers will have an increased role in making curriculum decisions.
“There is no power for the mayor to impose here,” said Michael W. Kirst, a Stanford University education professor who has studied mayoral control of urban school systems. “What he’s got to work with is a fragmented, unprecedented system that has a high degree of risk. It seems to me that there are going to be ample opportunities for him to be obstructed.”
‘Not Out of the Game’
For one, said Mr. Kirst, school board members—six out of seven of whom vehemently opposed the mayor’s plan—will play a part in selecting the superintendent and retain some say over the district’s budget. Last week, the school board voted to file suit over the plan, challenging, in particular, the direct control the mayor will have over a cluster of low-performing schools.
“They are not out of the game by any means,” Mr. Kirst said of the school board.
Details of the mayor’s proposals for improving schools remained under wraps last week, although Mr. Villaraigosa promised to roll out the specifics soon. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who supports the Democratic mayor on the governance plan, was expected to sign the quasi-takeover legislation this week.
During a visit last week to Washington, where he met with Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and several members of Congress, the mayor said the superintendent is the key to his reform agenda.
When asked how he will implement his ideas under the complex management structure, Mayor Villaraigosa said his plan gives the most critical decisionmaking powers to the superintendent. The Los Angeles mayor and the council of mayors have the authority to veto or ratify the selection and termination of the superintendent. That, he insists, is critical for his agenda.
“From the beginning, this proposal was all about ensuring that the superintendent had the powers of a [chief executive officer] to implement the reforms that are necessary to turn around the school district,” he said. “We’ve got that with our plan, and to the extent that I have the power of the veto over who is hired, we will have a superintendent who is responsible for instruction and accountability.”
That may be, said Mr. Simmons of the Annenberg Institute, but the Los Angeles superintendent won’t have the same independence that Joel I. Klein, the mayorally appointed chancellor of the New York City schools, has.
“In this case, the superintendent won’t just answer to the mayor, so that increases the likelihood of political turmoil,” Mr. Simmons said.
Coy about specifics, Mr. Villaraigosa said he would push immediately to address the dropout problem, and would start by finding a way to calculate exactly how many students leave the district without graduating. He has, time and again, cited a series of independent studies that put the district’s graduation rate at no better than 50 percent. District officials, led by Superintendent Roy Romer, have hotly disputed that figure.
More Charters, Tutoring
Mr. Villaraigosa said he would use his influence to make Los Angeles more hospitable to charter schools. And, he said, he will push the district to do a better job of providing free tutoring to children enrolled in schools that have failed to meet testing benchmarks required under the No Child Left Behind Act, a matter the mayor discussed with Ms. Spellings.
What happens to instruction will be at the heart of the mayor’s success, said Russlyn Ali, the executive director of the Education Trust-West, an Oakland, Calif.-based advocacy group that supports increased rigor in high schools for all students.
Ms. Ali, an advocate of the Los Angeles board’s decision last year to change the district’s graduation requirements to match the courses that are required for admission to the University of California and California State University systems, supports the mayor’s new role in schools.
“The graduation requirements will remain in the board’s control, but how the high school curriculum is delivered is a big, big question,” Ms. Ali said.
Most promising, said Ms. Ali, is the mayor’s plan to directly control three of the city’s worst-performing high schools and schools that feed into them.
“This is the opportunity to bring all of his resources to bear in these very high-need schools and the communities they are in,” she said. “That is very exciting.”
Posted by Tim Keaney at 06:36 AM
September 15, 2006
Peggy Buckles...
Posted by Tim Keaney at 08:54 AM
The Primary Vote is Over...
From the Acorn:
Local teachers' union endorses Partridge, Lundstrom for school board
By Avi Rutschman avi@theacorn.com
The Simi Educators Association, an organization that represents more than 1,000 teachers in the Simi Valley Unified School District, has announced its endorsement of candidates Thurlow Partridge and Eric Lundstrom for the Simi Valley school board.
"After three long nights of interviews the panel came to the conclusion that these two individuals would best represent the needs of the district," said Dayle Gillick, teachers' union president.
All 10 candidates were invited to participate in the interview process. The nine candidates who responded were asked several questions by a board made up of members of the union and classified employees from the district.
Candidates were asked questions on their reasons for running, their qualifications and their opinions on a number of important issues affecting the district. "I think they're people thawill listen and that will consider all aspects of the situations," Gillick said. "Lundstrom and Partridge will do their homework before they react and wilmake good choices. We don'need reactionaries or people with their own agendas."
Partridge has more than 30 years' experience as a classroom teacher and a strong background in finance and real estateLundstrom is married to a SimValley schoolteacher and has
worked as a financial analystHe is active with the PTA and the Neighborhood Council in Simi Valley.
The school board election takes place on Nov. 7.
And a link to candidate profiles can be found here
The Acorn also has a great editorial today
Posted by Tim Keaney at 08:51 AM
Competition - From the Public Schools
From the Wall Street Journal, Weekend Edition:
Opting Out of Private School
September 15, 2006; Page W1
It's the lurking fear of every private-school parent: The kid next door is getting just as good an education at the public school -- free of charge.
Ben and Courtney Nields of Norwalk, Conn., agonized over the issue last year when they moved their daughter Annie from the New Canaan Country School, set on a 72-acre campus, to a public school for first grade. The move was primarily economic -- they have twins entering kindergarten this year and faced tuition bills of $22,500 per child.
"It was like taking your child out of the Garden of Eden," says Mrs. Nields. But Annie thrived at the school. Her confidence grew and the teacher, say the Nieldses, was phenomenal.
Across the country, some schools and education professionals report a growing movement from private to public. Among the possible reasons: Private-school tuition has grown sharply, while some colleges are boosting the number of students they take from public schools. New studies have suggested that public-school students often tested as well or better than their private school peers. And increasingly, public schools are enriching their programs by holding the same kinds of fund-raisers often associated with private schools, such as auctions and capital campaigns.
A select group of public schools say they're seeing a growing share of new students coming from private schools. At Highland Park High School in Dallas, 74% of the new students came from private schools this fall, compared with 61% a year ago. Over the past three years, the proportion has doubled at Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville, Md. At Homestead Elementary School in Centennial, Colo., the number of kids coming from private school tripled in the past year.
"It's a significant shift here," says Laurie Conlon, guidance chairman at Cold Spring Harbor Junior/Senior High School in Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. This fall, all 17 of the new entrants for grades eight through 12 are from private schools, compared with five students last year. The school scheduled its first-ever information sessions to help the newcomers adjust.
Not all public schools are seeing these transfers: Top-scoring schools in affluent areas tend to get the highest influxes from private schools. In fact, the shift serves to highlight the gap between well-funded schools and their underfunded counterparts, often inner-city schools.
Jonathan Thielman at Jefferson County IB, a public school in Birmingham, Ala. He switched from private school last year.
While the shift isn't reflected in recent national aggregate statistics, a number of educational consultants and academics interviewed say they're beginning to see more parents opting in to public schools. "Most people agree there's always been some movement between private and public school," says Jeffrey Henig, a professor of political science and education at Columbia University. "But lately there's strong anecdotal evidence of frequent movement from private schools to public schools. There are more choices for parents now."
Interest in private schools shows signs of waning. The number of private-school enrollments in kindergarten through grade 12 increased at a slower rate than the number of enrollments in public schools between 1989 and 2001, according to the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. Last year, the approximately 1,200 schools that belong to the National Association for Independent Schools received 8.5 inquiries for each student who enrolled, down from 9.7 inquiries in the 1998-99 school year. (The group has added more member schools in that period.) While competition for admission in many areas of the country remains intense, the percentage of students accepted at member schools rose to 53.4% last year, from 49.7% in 1998.
Higher costs are a big factor in the switch. The median tuition for private schools nationally was $16,970 in 2005-06, up 16% from five years earlier. In some parts of the country, tuition is now as high as $30,000 a year. Even as the number of families able to easily shoulder full tuition continues to rise -- in 2005, the number of households in the U.S. with a net worth of $1 million or more rose 11%, to 8.3 million, over the previous year, according to the Spectrem Group, a wealth-research firm in Chicago -- the NAIS is warning member schools that rising tuitions may cause some families to look for alternatives. "The schools are getting some pushback they haven't seen before," says NAIS President Pat Bassett.
The 9% rise in annual tuition, to $10,890 a student, at St. Mary's Academy in Englewood, Colo., prompted Elizabeth Maloney to start researching the local elementary school. The mother of five enrolled her kids at St. Mary's -- alma mater of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- after moving to the area last year. She didn't know much about the public schools, and going private felt safer. "My kids had always gone to private school," she says.
Abbey Maloney at her old private school.
But when Mrs. Maloney spoke with the principal at the public school, she learned that it offered a similar curriculum to St. Mary's, including identical vocabulary and math programs. "I was blown away," she says. Plus, her kids could walk or ride their bikes to school. Now, four of her kids are there. Mrs. Maloney doesn't rule out a return; she misses perks like the foreign language program and the extra arts activities. Deirdre V. Cryor, the head of St. Mary's, says what makes the school different is its strong values.
Beyond tuition, educational advisers say more parents are worrying that the competition at private schools might hurt their kids' chances of getting into a selective college. As the number of applications reached record levels at some colleges this year (at Harvard University, applications were up 15% over 2005, with nearly 23,000 students competing for about 1,650 slots in the freshman class) they fear the colleges are placing quotas on how many kids they take from each elite private school. Some also believe their child will have a better chance of standing out at public school.
The College Connection
In our own sampling of 20 selective colleges, 11 had slightly higher percentages of enrolled freshmen from public schools in the class of 2010 compared with 2005. Five were down, and four were roughly flat. At Dartmouth College, the percentage of first-year students from public school grew to 66% this year, from 62% five years ago. Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg says that though the change is subtle, it reflects a growing applicant pool, as well as the school's efforts to reach more students who might not have thought of applying.
"There's no point in spending all that money if your kid is going to be in the middle of the class," says Robert Shaw, a partner at IvySuccess, an educational consulting firm in Garden City, N.Y. He counsels students to consider switching if they aren't in the top 10%. However, advisers note that some elite public schools -- such as Edgemont High School in Scarsdale, N.Y., or New Trier High School in Winnetka, Ill. -- can be just as competitive.
Claire Straty, a 16-year-old in Dallas, hoped to leave some of the pressure behind when she switched from the Hockaday School, an independent college-preparatory school for girls, to the public Highland Park High School. "If you weren't brilliant you'd fall to the middle of the pack," she says of Hockaday. "At Highland Park I felt I'd have a better chance to stand out." She also thought she would have more time for extracurriculars.
Her mother, Laurie-Jo Straty, had a hard time letting her daughter leave Hockaday, which she believes is an extraordinary school. Mrs. Straty also struggled with leaving the community she'd developed with other parents there. But so far, she's pleased. She recently received an email from Claire's English teacher complimenting her daughter's performance on a test, and Claire's Spanish teacher has been coming to school early to help her catch up on language requirements.
Two studies that came out in the past year showed that public-school students often tested the same or better than private-school students, after accounting for certain socio-economic variables and background characteristics. One, from the National Center for Education Statistics, compared fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math scores in 2003 from nearly 7,000 public schools and more than 530 private schools. The results: Public-school fourth-graders did as well in reading as the kids in private school and somewhat better in math. In eighth grade, public-school children did the same in math but somewhat worse in reading. A study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that looked at the same data found similar results in the math scores. "It's quite eye-opening for a lot of people," says Christopher Lubienski, a professor of education who co-authored the report.
Still, the studies are contentious: Harvard University researchers came to the opposite conclusion after evaluating the data with different methodology.
Kathy Allcock had other reasons for moving her daughter Christy from an 830-student independent school in Portland, Ore., to a 1,500-student public school for ninth grade last year. Though Mrs. Allcock loved the smaller school -- she still has her two younger children there -- she worried her daughter would be academically but not socially prepared for college.
At first, Christy objected. But she quickly grew to like the greater number of people, clubs and activities. "I realized how sheltered I was and how much I was missing," she says. Initially scared that the teachers wouldn't help, Christy has been surprised at the one-on-one time she's received. She's now aiming for Stanford University, and figures her experience in big classes is good preparation.
Some public schools are actively recruiting private-school students. At Torrey Pines Elementary in La Jolla, Calif., Principal Jim Solo began holding monthly tours and meetings for private-school families four years ago. Many students had left for private or charter schools. While he says it was not a main motivator, having students return to the school increased state funding, as the district is paid on a per-pupil basis.
Mr. Solo has since led a charge to raise more private funding -- $100,000 a year, mostly from parents -- to pay for more teachers, and students' average test scores have grown. The school gets 75% of its students from the neighborhood now, compared with 50% four years ago. The rest come from out of district.
Palm Desert High School in Palm Desert, Calif., started inviting parents and students from private schools to information sessions three years ago. "I had a ton of friends confiding in me their trepidation about moving from private to public," says Jan Hawkins, a parent who arranged the events; they said they had heard stories about impersonal teachers and pranks like "trash canning" new freshmen. The percentage of new students coming from private schools was 9% this year, up from 6% three years ago.
Schools are also offering more Advanced Placement classes to prove academic rigor. The number of all U.S. schools with those classes has jumped 36% over the past decade, to over 15,000, according to the College Board, the nonprofit association that administers the program. Nearly a quarter of public-school seniors now take at least one Advanced Placement exam in high school, up from 16% in 2000.
A range of Advanced Placement classes and other college-level courses was one draw for Frank Thielman, a divinity professor in Birmingham, Ala., when he investigated the local high schools for his son Jonathan. Mr. Thielman had been hesitant at first, fearing inadequate funding and safety issues. But after more research, he enrolled his son, who had spent nine years at Briarwood Christian School, where tuition this year would have run about $5,000. "It turns out we have a very good academic option right here," says Mr. Thielman. Kids coming from private school to Jefferson County IB have jumped to 15% of new students from 7% three years ago, the school says.
The image of public schools has been slowly evolving. In the latest Phi Delta Kappa/ Gallup annual poll called the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools, 49% of respondents gave their local schools a grade of A or B. The number has steadily increased every year from the 36% recorded in 1978.
Growing Options
Some attribute the shifting sentiment to students having more choice in deciding which public school to attend -- whether it's charter, magnet or out of district. The percentage of public-school students enrolled in a chosen school was 15% in 1999, up from 11% in 1993, according to the Department of Education.
Any movement toward public schools could be short-lived. With the "baby bust" generation now following the baby boomers, there will be fewer school-age children overall, and public schools are forecast to have sharper declines in enrollment growth nationwide than private schools through 2013.
Going from private to public isn't right for everyone, says Steven Roy Goodman, an admissions strategist in Washington who has had three clients switch to public schools in the past two years. Transferring can be difficult emotionally and some kids do better in smaller schools. Public schools have advantages, he says, but usually can't offer classes that are as small. The average student-teacher ratio in most public schools is about 16 to 1, according to the Department of Education. At NAIS schools, the average is about 9 to 1.
Parents should evaluate their children to see whether they would thrive in a place with small classes or with more extracurricular activities, consultants say. Learning approaches can vary greatly from school to school and what may work for one student may not for another.
After a tough eighth-grade year at the all-girl's Winsor School in Boston, Maddie Pannell decided to try Weston High School. The public school was renowned for its academics and Maddie thought she might like a change. Her father, Saul Pannell, an investment adviser, was opposed but agreed to let her give it a try.
The experiment lasted three weeks. Maddie missed the teachers and students at Winsor and found she preferred the private school's discussion-based method of learning. "I didn't realize how important that was to me," she says. The moral, says Mr. Pannell: "No situation is ideal."
Posted by Tim Keaney at 06:02 AM
September 12, 2006
Care to Dance?
Do you remember all of the stories about how bad off GM was, or is? And now Ford? Did you hear how GM, instead of laying off employees, or terminating bad ones, would instead put the employees in a "job bank"? What's a job bank you ask? A job bank is where the employee gets to go to work everyday: playing cards, video games, reading the paper etc... at the same base pay and benefits for NOT WORKING.
Sort of sounds like paying farmers for not farming, but I digress...
Anyway, apparently the same thing has been happening in schools for years. Incompetent teachers who can't do the job are put in to the job bank. Except, the job bank in the teachers union works like this: If you can't do the job, we'll just send you to another school to "teach" other kids.
Principals call it the dance of the lemons, and while they'll never admit it, it happens all the time. In private industry, many incompetents are never fired when they should be. When it comes to teaching your kids, is it ok with you if 3% of teachers shouldn't be teaching? What about 5%? What's the magic number for you?
In California it's gotten so bad, a DEMOCRATIC state legislator has a bill to outlaw it. Yep, outlaw bad teachers being transferred around just to save their butts. I'll bet the CTA is in favor eh?
Barbara Kerr, president of the California Teachers Association, called the bill "insulting to teachers," because it implies that every teacher who voluntarily leaves a school is a poor one. Some teachers leave a school for reasons unrelated to performance, such as a personality clash with a principal.
Insulting to teachers is hog wash. What's insulting to talented, hard working teachers is giving them the same raises as the incompetent ones (hear me Simi & Conejo?)
Can yuou believe we need a law that tells government schools it's not OK to simply transfer lousy teachers around? Can you believe Kerr can defend the indefensible?
So come on, let's all support the bill that outlaws the dance of the lemons....
Care to dance?
p.s. BONUS ROUND - Ask your school board candidates whether they support outlawing the Dance of the Lemons - see if they know what legislation you are talking about.
SACRAMENTO
Schools may get break from bad teachers
'Dance of the Lemons' from one campus to another would be curtailed under bill
- Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Imagine a company president being ordered by the board of directors to hire any misfit who knocks on the door.
It's a crazy scenario -- but it's exactly the way many California school districts operate when an unsuccessful teacher is quietly edged out of a school. As long as the teacher agrees to leave voluntarily, union rules require the principal of any other school in the district with an opening to hire that teacher.
The practice, common in large and mid-size urban districts, is so reviled by principals that they've given it a derogatory name.
"It's called the Dance of the Lemons," said state Sen. Jack Scott, a Pasadena Democrat who wrote a bill to ban the practice in low-scoring schools and to limit it in others.
Scott, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, got the Democrat-controlled Legislature to pass his bill despite opposition from two traditional party allies: the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers.
The bill was approved 33-1 by the Senate in May and 59-12 by the Assembly last month. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto the bill.
If the governor signs it as expected, California will become the first state in the nation to rein in the practice.
"There are a lot of states watching what's happening in California, and I think it'll have significant ramifications nationwide," said Michelle Rhee, chief executive officer of the New Teacher Project, a national nonprofit group that worked on the Scott bill.
Barbara Kerr, president of the California Teachers Association, called the bill "insulting to teachers," because it implies that every teacher who voluntarily leaves a school is a poor one. Some teachers leave a school for reasons unrelated to performance, such as a personality clash with a principal.
Disapproval from the teachers unions often can kill a bill. But their opposition was counterbalanced this time by a constituency that proved just as persuasive: advocates for poor and minority students, who most often attend the schools where the lemons land.
"Right now, poor kids and kids of color don't have their fair share of the state's experienced, credentialed teachers," said Russlynn Ali, executive director of the Oakland advocacy group Education Trust-West. "By giving a principal in a high-poverty, high-minority school some power to recruit those teachers, we can finally make headway on closing that teacher-quality gap."
Principals also love the idea.
"I believe in the teachers union, but some things protect ineffective employees. We've got to put children first," said Principal Patricia Gray of Balboa High in San Francisco.
"It's not just about good and bad teachers," Gray said. "Sometimes there's chemistry and a fit -- personalities that work better together. I've got a wonderful staff. I'd like to have some choice in who comes and who's going to be a good fit for the school."
Under the Scott bill, SB1655, existing labor contracts with teachers would be honored, but future agreements would largely disallow the forced hiring.
The new law would no longer require principals in low-scoring schools to hire unwanted teachers. Like Balboa, these schools rank 1, 2, or 3 on the state's 10-point Academic Performance Index.
Principals in higher-scoring schools would have a window of time each year to hire whom they please -- beginning on April 15 and running through the summer.
Under current law, principals don't have that window. They are forced to give unwanted teachers hiring priority throughout the summer, forcing more desirable candidates to look for jobs elsewhere, usually in suburbia.
The so-called Dance of the Lemons is not just a California problem -- it goes on across the country.
"It is the students who lose the most," according to a recent study by the New Teacher Project, which found that the forced hiring results in the placement of "hundreds, and sometimes even thousands, of teachers in urban classrooms each year with little regard for the appropriateness of the match, the quality of the teacher, or the overall impact on schools."
The New Teacher Project looked at the impact of forced hires in five urban districts across the country. It found:
-- City schools have large numbers of unwanted teachers;
-- Teachers who should be fired are instead passed from school to school;
-- Good teachers are unable to wait all summer for the chance to be considered, so they apply elsewhere, usually by June.
The practice of forced hiring has been a part of labor contracts since the early 1960s, beginning with districts on the East Coast and growing in popularity over the years, according to the New Teacher Project.
In San Francisco, Balboa High was one of those schools that could never get ahead. In 1999, Gray was hired as principal and was asked to turn the school around.
But it was slow going.
Gray wanted to transform the school's chaotic atmosphere by setting clear expectations for students and teachers and aligning the curriculum with the state's expectations for high school students.
Though it sounded simple, Gray said it took the cooperation and enthusiasm of every staff member.
Under Gray's new system, all Balboa students could look at the blackboard and know immediately what they were expected to do because every teacher wrote a "Do Now" list for every class.
Teachers also wrote the "Aim for the Day," the "Lesson Steps" and the homework assignment on the board for all to see.
"You find that in every room," Gray said.
The idea was to lessen confusion and help students improve.
One day, a new teacher started at Balboa who had been "consolidated" -- teacher talk for squeezed out -- from another high school. Gray had no choice but to hire her.
"I was forced to take a consolidated teacher on more than one occasion," Gray recalled.
When this particular teacher arrived at Balboa, Gray said, she refused to follow the school-improvement plan that every other teacher had agreed to do and that students had come to rely on.
"She felt it stifled her creativity," Gray said.
Since then, Gray and a few other San Francisco principals trying to turn around low-scoring schools have received a district waiver from forced hiring.
"It did make a difference," Gray said. "If you've got a teacher who has had problems in another school because she was ineffective, then of course the children are not getting the instruction they need. So the children absolutely benefited."
Posted by Tim Keaney at 07:21 PM
Math might be adding up again
From the Wall Street Journal - Page one:
Arithmetic Problem
New Report Urges
Return to Basics
In Teaching Math
Critics of 'Fuzzy' Methods
Cheer Educators' Findings;
Drills Without Calculators
Taking Cues From Singapore
By JOHN HECHINGER
September 12, 2006; Page A1
The nation's math teachers, on the front lines of a 17-year curriculum war, are getting some new marching orders: Make sure students learn the basics.
In a report to be released today, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, which represents 100,000 educators from prekindergarten through college, will give ammunition to traditionalists who believe schools should focus heavily and early on teaching such fundamentals as multiplication tables and long division.
The council's advice is striking because in 1989 it touched off the so-called math wars by promoting open-ended problem solving over drilling. Back then, it recommended that students as young as those in kindergarten use calculators in class.
Those recommendations horrified many educators, especially college math professors alarmed by a rising tide of freshmen needing remediation. The council's 1989 report influenced textbooks and led to what are commonly called "reform math" programs, which are used in school systems across the country.
The new approach puzzled many parents. For example, to solve a basic division problem, 120 divided by 40, students might cross off groups of circles to "discover" that the answer was three.
Infuriated parents dubbed it "fuzzy math" and launched a countermovement. The council says its earlier views had been widely misunderstood and were never intended to excuse students from learning multiplication tables and other fundamentals.
Nevertheless, the council's new guidelines constitute "a remarkable reversal, and it's about time," says Ralph Raimi, a University of Rochester math professor.
Francis Fennell, the council's president, says the latest guidelines move closer to the curriculum of Asian countries such as Singapore, whose students tend to perform better on international tests. There, children focus intensely on a relative handful of topics, such as multiplication, division and algebra, then practice by solving increasingly difficult word and other problems. That contrasts sharply with the U.S. approach, which the report noted has long been described as "a mile wide and an inch deep."
If states adopt the new standards and teachers adjust their methods, "we'll be more competitive," says Prof. Fennell, who teaches at McDaniel College in Westminster, Md.
Nearly 80 teachers and other experts spent 18 months writing and reviewing grade-by-grade guidelines, which cover preschool through eighth grade. The panel aims to give a roadmap to instructors, schools systems and states about exactly what children should be learning -- and to start a debate that could put the math wars to rest.
According to their report, "Curriculum Focal Points," which is subtitled "A Quest for Coherence," students, by second grade, should "develop quick recall of basic addition facts and related subtraction facts." By fourth grade, the report says, students should be fluent with "multiplication and division facts" and should start working with decimals and fractions. By fifth, they should know the "standard algorithm" for division -- in other words, long division -- and should start adding and subtracting decimals and fractions. By sixth grade, students should be moving on to multiplication and division of fractions and decimals. By seventh and eighth grades, they should use algebra to solve linear equations.
Unlike many countries, the U.S. has no nationally mandated curriculum, so the math council's guidance has significant influence. In recent years, states have developed their own standards, in part because of the federal No Child Left Behind law, which requires that schools make progress in raising students' scores on state achievement tests. Another math group, the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, created by President Bush, is preparing its own guidance for how best to teach the subject. It meets in Cambridge, Mass., this week.
A recent study by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a Washington nonprofit group, found that only two dozen states specified that students needed to know the multiplication tables. Many allowed calculators in early grades.
Chester E. Finn Jr., the foundation's president and a former top official at the U.S. Department of Education, blamed the earlier math-council guidelines for state standards that neglect the basics. He described the new advice as a "sea change," saying that "it's a little bit like Lutherans deciding to become Catholics after the Reformation."
Supporters of the council's previous views worry that the new report may lead to a return to the kind of rote learning they say left many children without any understanding of concepts. They say few adults spend much time doing long division, and students are better served getting a grounding in real-life problem solving.
"The risk is that we end up with students who have no idea what math is all about or how to use it," says Joseph Rosenstein, a math professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey who reviewed the new guidelines.
Understanding math, rather than parroting answers to poorly understood equations, was the goal of the council's controversial 1989 standards. Those guidelines called on teachers to promote estimation, rather than precise answers. For example, an elementary-school student tackling the problem 4,783 divided by 13 should instead divide 4,800 by 12 to arrive at "about 400," the 1989 report said. The council said this approach would enable children using calculators to "decide whether the correct keys were pressed and whether the calculator result is reasonable."
"The calculator renders obsolete much of the complex pencil-and-paper proficiency traditionally emphasized in mathematics courses," the council said then. In 2000, in another report, the council backed away somewhat from that position.
Still, in response to the earlier recommendations, many school systems required children to describe in writing the reasoning behind their answers. Some parents complained that students ended up writing about math, rather than doing it.
As the debate heated up, concern grew about U.S. students' math competence. In 2003, Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, a test that compares student achievement in many countries, ranked U.S. students just 15th in eighth-grade math skills, behind both Australia and the Slovak Republic. Singapore ranked No. 1, followed by South Korea and Hong Kong. Fueling concern about the quality of elementary and high-school instruction: one in five U.S. college freshmen now need a remedial math course, according to the National Science Board.
If school systems adopt the math council's new approach, their classes might resemble those at Garfield Elementary School in Revere, Mass., just north of Boston. Three-quarters of Garfield's students receive free and reduced lunches, and many are the children of recent immigrants from such countries as Brazil, Cambodia and El Salvador.
Three years ago, Garfield started using Singapore Math, a curriculum modeled on that country's official program and now used in about 300 school systems in the U.S. Many school systems and parents regard Singapore Math as an antidote for "reform math" programs that arose from the math council's earlier recommendations.
According to preliminary results, the percentage of Garfield students failing the math portion of the fourth-grade state achievement test last year fell to 7% from 23% in 2005. Those rated advanced or proficient rose to 43% from 40%.
Last week, a fourth-grade class at Garfield opened its lesson with Singapore's "mental math," a 10-minute warm-up requiring students to recall facts and solve computation questions without pencil and paper.
"In your heads, take the denominator of the fraction three-quarters, take the next odd number that follows that number. Add to that number, the number of ounces in a cup. What is nine less than that number?" asked teacher Janis Halloran. A sea of hands shot up. (The answer: four.)
Ms. Halloran then moved on to simple pencil-and-paper algebra problems. "The sum of two numbers is 63," one problem reads. "The smaller number is half the bigger number. What is the smaller number? What is the bigger number?" (The answers: 21 and 42.)
In this class, the students didn't use the lettered variables that are so prevalent in standard algebraic equations. Instead, they arrived at answers using Cuisenaire rods, sticks of varying colors and lengths that they manipulate into patterns on the tops of their desks. The children use the rods to learn about the relationship between multiplication and geometry. The goal: a visceral and deep understanding of math concepts.
"It just makes everything easier for you," says fifth-grader Jailene Paz, 10 years old.
The Singapore Math curriculum differs sharply from reform math programs, which often ask students to "discover" on their own the way to perform multiplication and division and other operations, and have come to be known as "constructivist" math.
One reform math program, "Investigations in Number, Data and Space," is used in 800 school systems and has become a lightning rod for critics. TERC, a Cambridge, Mass., nonprofit organization, developed that program, and Pearson Scott Foresman, a unit of Pearson PLC, London, distributes it to schools.
Ken Mayer, a spokesman for TERC, says many parents have a "misconception" that Investigations doesn't value computation. He says many school systems, such as Boston's, have seen gains in test scores using the program. "Fluency with number facts is critical," he says.
Polle Zellweger and her husband, Jock Mackinlay, both computer scientists, moved to Bellevue, Wash., from Palo Alto, Calif., two years ago so their two children could attend its highly regarded public schools. She and her husband grew suspicious of the school's Investigations program. This summer, they had both children take a California grade-level achievement test, and both answered only about 70% of the questions correctly. Ms. Zellweger and her husband started tutoring their children an hour a day to catch up.
"It was a really weird feeling," says their daughter, Molly Mackinlay, 15. "I do really well in school. I am getting A-pluses in math classes. Then, I take a math test from a different state, and I'm not able to finish half the questions."
Eric McDowell, who oversees Bellevue's math curriculum, says parents misunderstand Investigations. Mr. McDowell says schools supplement the program with more traditional drilling in the basics, and students end up flourishing in the system's rigorous high-school courses. "It's not an either/or situation," he says.
In the Alpine School District in Utah, parent Oak Norton, an accountant, has gathered petitions from 1,000 families to protest the use of Investigations. His complaints began more than two years ago, when he discovered at a parent conference that his oldest child, then in third grade, wasn't being taught the multiplication tables.
Barry Graff, a top Alpine school administrator, says the system has added more traditional computation exercises. Over the next year, Alpine plans to give each school a choice between Investigations or a more conventional approach. Mr. Graff, who says Alpine test scores tend to be at or above state averages, expects critics to keep up the attacks and welcomes the national math council's efforts to provide grade-by-grade guidance on what children should learn.
"Other than the war in Iraq, I don't think there's anything more controversial to bring up than math," he says. "The debate will drive us eventually to be in the right place."
Posted by Tim Keaney at 06:31 AM
September 11, 2006
9/11
It's the 5 year anniversary of 9/11. How are you sharing with your kids what happened, and why it happened?
How are our schools treating 9/11?
How has our nation changed since? How have you changed?
Posted by Tim Keaney at 05:53 AM
September 07, 2006
Calling all candidates II
There are a lot of people running for school boards. Don't you think they should be answering more than softball questions? Here come a series of questions - Candidates, feel free to post your answers, and links to your web sites where we can get more detailed information.
Questions:
What would be your first order of business if elected to the school board?
Why are you running for school board?
What endorsements do you have?
Do you support an increase in the school impact fee on developers?
What would you do differently to create policies to reduce the racial tension on campus?
Do you support a school uniform policy?
Do you believe that students should have access to condoms from the school nurse?
What is your opinion of school vouchers?
Bonus Question for Simi Valley Candidates - The C4 Bond lost $29 million last year, and officials say that the inflation rate for bond projects is at 14%.
What would you do to stop the bleeding and live up to the promises of the bond? Would you support a second bond offering?
Please feel free to take all of the space you need to answer the questions. If you want to post a profile, please do.
And readers who comment - let's keep it clean and about schools and performance.
Thank you and good luck in your campaign.
Tim Keaney
Posted by Tim Keaney at 06:47 AM
September 01, 2006
The District 4 Smack Down continues
If you have not been following the District 4 smack down, continue reading about it here
Prenta Vs. Kunicki...
Posted by Tim Keaney at 05:31 PM
