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Less money, more flexibility

February 25, 2009 By

California’s very belated budget gives less money to schools but more flexibility in how to spend the money, reports the Sacramento Bee.

Summer school. Art and music. Classes for gifted children.

Buying textbooks. Training math and English teachers. Tutoring students for the high school exit exam.

. . . In the budget deal crafted last week, the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger combined many of the pots of money known as “categoricals.” The result is that for the next five years, principals and district administrators will have more spending flexibility than they’ve had in recent history.

One third of state education funding has been restricted by the Legislature, which feared school boards would sacrifice special programs to boost teacher salaries.

Money for buying new technology couldn’t be used to buy books for a library. Money for checking kids’ teeth couldn’t be spent on counseling. Money for training principals couldn’t be used to train a teacher.

Reformers have called for combining the categoricals for 20 years now. It took a crisis to make it happen. And, due to heavy pressure by the teachers’ union, class-size reduction wasn’t included.  A principal can’t choose to save the reading intervention program by increasing second-grade and third-grade classes to 25 students.

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First grade: Nice is not enough

February 24, 2009 By

First-grade teachers are good at interacting with students but not so good at teaching, concludes a University of Virginia study. Nice is not enough.

Most American first-grade classrooms are pretty happy places to be. Children smile and enjoy working with one another and have positive interactions with their teachers, who recognize their students’ cues for help and offer timely responses.

However, only 23 percent of teachers earned a high quality rating by combining strong instruction with a positive social climate, conclude Robert Pianta and Megan Stuhlman.

Trained raters observed 820 first-grade classrooms in nearly 700 private and public schools in 32 states.

Twenty-eight percent of classrooms had teachers scoring just below the mean and were thus deemed “mediocre.” Seventeen percent of the classrooms were “low overall quality.”

The largest category in the sample, accounting for 31 percent of the classrooms, was labeled “positive emotional climate, low academic demand.”

Nice but undemanding teachers were unlikely to “give constructive feedback – for instance, not asking students to think a little bit harder about their questions, or by making basic facts more real to students in ways that would expand their understanding of those facts,” Stuhlman said.

Class size and teacher credentials didn’t correlate with classroom quality, the researchers found.

Via Core Knowledge.

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The ‘new day’ is two hours longer

February 24, 2009 By

Successful schools are Expanding School Time to Expand School Learning, write Christopher Gabrieli and Warren Goldstein of WestEd. The “new day” typically is two hours longer, giving time “to raise students’ core academic skills and ensure a truly well-rounded education.”

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Carnival Of Homeschooling

February 24, 2009 By

Consent Of The Governed is hosting the stimulus edition of the Carnival Of Homeschooling.

Go here to submit to this week’s Carnival of Education, which will be hosted by Rayray’s Writing.

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Texting: gd 4 literaC

February 24, 2009 By

Texting can b gd 4 ur kids, reports New Scientist.

GR8 news for worried parents: frequent use of text abbreviations does not harm children’s literacy – and may even improve it.

Concerns have been raised that an explosion in the use of “textisms” like “CUL8R” and “wot u doin 2nite?” could be damaging children’s reading and spelling ability. To investigate, Beverly Plester and her colleagues at Coventry University in the UK asked 88 children aged 10 to 12 to write text messages describing 10 different scenarios. When they compared the number of textisms used to a separate study of the children’s reading ability, they found that those who used more textisms were better readers . . .

Based on a follow-up study, she believes the phonetic basis of textisms improves reading.

“Phonological awareness has long been associated with good reading skills.” Exposure to the written word in any form is also linked to improved literacy. “These kids are engaging with more written language and they’re doing it for fun.”

Via Textually.org.

Questions abound for the Washington Post, which observes that teens now do more texting than speaking on their cell phones.

Texters are “sharing a sense of co-presence,” said Mimi Ito of the University of California at Irvine. “It can be a very socially affirming thing.”

. . . But some experts say there are downsides, starting with declines in spelling, word choice and writing complexity. Some suggest too much texting is related to an inability to focus.

Kids these days!

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‘Rebranding’ No Child Left Behind

February 23, 2009 By

Eduwonk’s contest to rename No Child Left Behind got a boost from the New York Times.

The civil rights leader Marian Wright Edelman took the high road, suggesting it be called the Quality Education for All Children Act. But a lot of wise guys have gotten in on the act too, with suggestions like the All American Children Are Above Average Act.

“The Act to Help Children Read Gooder” has a ring to it.

Bush took the phrase “no child left behind” from Edelman.

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Come to a new carnival

February 23, 2009 By

Kim’s Play Place is starting a new carnival, the Academy of Science and Technology.  Kim writes:

The carnival is geared toward kids and science and technology; parents working on at-home projects with kids, teachers teaching in the classroom, or homeschoolers teaching at home. I am hoping to include posts on hands-on projects and experiments. Any teaching techniques, tips, and philosophy would be welcomed.

The carnival will publish on the second and fourth Mondays of each month. Submit here by  8pm EST on Sunday, March 8 for the first edition on Monday, March 9.

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Schoolhouse Rock for the 21st century

February 22, 2009 By

How a bill becomes a law in 2009.

Via Instapundit.

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An historic day

February 22, 2009 By

Today is my daughter Allison’s 28th birthday.  It’s hard to believe I’m that old.

We had a pre-birthday dinner in Chicago Friday night after seeing a performance of the U-Chicago Law School musical for which she did most of the writing. She also performed as 3L #3, a small but key role.  Since she really is a third-year student, this is her last musical. She’ll earn her degree in June — if none of her professors sees how he or she is portrayed in the show.

Now I’m back in California, coping with a slow and somewhat painful recovery from my shoulder surgery (rotator cuff, bone spurs, adhesive capsulitis, etc.) in late January and my mother-in-law’s recovery from a fractured neck, the result of a fall in the airport two weeks ago on arrival for what was supposed to be a one-week visit. She’s adjusting to the metal “halo” brace which she’ll require for another 10 weeks. We’re trying to find a skilled nursing/rehab center for her near our house; right now she’s in acute care about 30 minutes away. My husband is  using his frequent flyer miles to fly in various relatives to see her, so we have a stream of house guests. We don’t know when she’ll be able to travel back to Illinois; she may be here till May, when the halo comes off.

John’s family, like mine, is the kind that pulls together in a crisis. People say, “How can I help?” And they do. Thank God for that.

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Rethinking seniority, tenure

February 21, 2009 By

Principals in Providence will be able to hire teachers based on their qualifications, instead of letting senior teachers “bump” those with less time on the job.

Education Commissioner Peter McWalters, who ordered the change, says he has the power to intervene in a chronically under-performing school district.  He wants to build a common school culture by giving principals the ”authority to select teachers who not only agree with the school’s mission but are best suited to the needs of those particular students.”

The teachers’ union hasn’t decided whether to fight the order.

Several states are considering delaying tenure for teachers, reports Teacher Beat.

In Ohio, Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland wants to grant teachers tenure after nine years, rather than the current three. . . . It would also allow tenured teachers to be dismissed for “just cause.” Currently, teachers can only be dismissed for “gross immorality” or “inefficiency.”

. . . In Florida, Republican legislators are preparing to submit legislation to give teachers annual contracts for their first 10 years in the classroom and then contracts of no more than five years after that. Essentially, that plan would make teachers at-will employees for their first 10 years.

. . . And, of course, there’s D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s proposal to push tenure-granting back from two to four years and require current teachers to forgo it for a year in exchange for the opportunity to win bonuses.

No Child Left Behind should provide incentives to keep competent teachers and dump the non-performers, reasons Teacher Beat. But is that really happening?

Teacher Beat also reports on a New Teacher Project study of how teachers are hired and evaluated in San Francisco: From 2005-2007, only five of 1,804 teachers were rated “unsatisfactory,” while  86 percent received one of the top two ratings.

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