Monthly Archive for July, 2009

Slow down ‘race to the top’

Published on July 31, 2009 in Education. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . By Joanne Jacobs

Learn from No Child Left Behind’s mistakes, Frederick Hess advises the Obama administration. You can’t force states to “race to the top,” he writes on Education Gadfly.

It appears increasingly likely that President Obama and Secretary Duncan are at risk of doing to charter schooling, merit pay, and school “turnarounds” what the Bush administration did to educational accountability. That’s not meant as a compliment.

The Bush team took the sensible and broadly-supported notion of holding schools accountable for their returns and then pursued a vision that is so prescriptive, so overwrought, and so divorced from a coherent rendering of what the feds can actually do that they managed to largely unravel a solid bipartisan commitment in support of the underlying idea.  As a result, most of the country wants to see NCLB overhauled or dumped outright.

Hess predicts states will make promises to get RTT money and then “go through the motions of reforming.”

First, good ideas will be executed poorly, undermining support and engendering skepticism. Second, such an approach will fuel backlash.

It will take longer than four or even eight years to develop “reform-minded political leaders and educators at the state and local levels, and to foster the efforts of entrepreneurs who are solving problems related to teacher quality, assessment, and charter schooling.”

Race to the Top will have only a few winners, predicts Patrick Riccards of Eduflack.

Those in the know seem certain that only a select group of states are going to be bestowed the title of Race to the Top states.  The betting odds are 10 to 15 states will earn the RttT seal.
It’s not clear whether the winners will be states with the greatest need or “low-hanging fruit states where a couple of billion dollars in education funding can make the difference,” he writes. Everyone’s talking innovation now, but the RTT losers are likely to lose their motivation once the dollars are allocated.

Cash for ‘clunker’ schools

Published on July 31, 2009 in Education. 4 Comments Tags: , . By Joanne Jacobs

Inspired by the feds’ “Cash for Clunkers” program, which Congress wants to give another $2 billion, Brooks Garber of National Alliance for Public Charter Schools calls for using turnaround funds to replace clunker schools with new schools.

Instead of just pouring countless resources into “turning around” certain schools, we should use the federal school turnaround resources to help create new high quality successful schools, especially replicating public charter schools that are already excelling.

Of course, the new schools will have to educate the old students.

Duncan’s model: Sonia Sotomayor’s mother

Published on July 31, 2009 in Education. 8 Comments Tags: , , , , , , . By Joanne Jacobs

“We need more parents like Sonia Sotomayor’s mother,” said Education Secretary Arne Duncan urged in a speech to the National Council of La Raza in Chicago. From Learning the Language:

In the July 28 speech, he said, “We need more parents like Sonia Sotomayor’s mother, who said, ‘You will study hard and you will succeed at college and you will graduate — even if I have to work six days a week to make it happen.’ “

Mrs. Sotomayor worked six days a week to send her children to Catholic school.

Duncan made a plug for bilingualism and stated his support for the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, or “DREAM Act,” which if enacted would provide a path to legalization for undocumented students who graduate from U.S. high schools and serve in the military or go to college.

But he didn’t discuss what education policies he thinks would help English Learners or Hispanic students do better in school.

What’s poverty?

Published on July 31, 2009 in Children. 5 Comments Tags: , , , . By Joanne Jacobs

Child well-being improved in most categories, reports the Casey Foundation’s Kids Count Data Book. However, the nation needs a new way of calculating the poverty rate, the report said.

The report documented improvements since 2000 in the infant mortality rate, child death rate, teen death rate, high school dropout rate, and teens not in school and not working. Four areas have worsened: low-birthweight babies, children living with jobless or underemployed parents, children in poverty, and children in single-parent families.

Next year’s report, which will include post-recession data, is expected to show more children living in poverty.  However, the poverty formula, developed in the ’60s, is “thoroughly outdated,” Casey concluded.

It calculates the cost of a basic grocery budget for a given family size and multiplies the total by three because food, in the ’60s, represented one-third of a typical family budget.

The formula has not been recalculated since then even though, according to Casey, food now accounts for only about one-seventh of a typical family’s budget.

The formula takes no account of child care, transportation, health insurance, and certain government benefits such as food stamps and housing vouchers. Also — except for Alaska and Hawaii — it does not reflect regional differences in the cost of living.

After years of decline, the teen birth rate rose from 2005 to 2006. However, recessions often curb the birth rate. Births are down in Silicon Valley, except for mothers over 40.

Top language blogs

Published on July 31, 2009 in Blogging. 4 Comments Tags: . By Joanne Jacobs

This blog is #18 among the Top 100 Language Blogs 2009. I don’t think of it as a language blog, but what the heck . . .

Understanding graduation rates

Published on July 30, 2009 in Education. Closed Tags: , , . By Joanne Jacobs

Fordham’s Graduation Rate Debate explains the pros and cons of different ways to calculate graduation rates.

Twittering on education

Published on July 30, 2009 in Blogging. Closed Tags: , . By Joanne Jacobs

Who in the edusphere is a Twitterer? Alexander Russo has the list and the links.

I Twitter as joanneleejacobs because my alter ego — an Aussie professor turned London-based networking entrepreneur — has joannejacobs taken.

‘Llectuals: Girls gone Wilde

Published on July 30, 2009 in Culture. 2 Comments Tags: , , , . By Joanne Jacobs

For “summer reading you can watch,” check out the parody promo for ‘Llectuals,’ allegedly a new PBS show about hotties who read Wittgenstein but “don’t always do it by the book.”

Via Maud Newton.

EW asks: Why so few TV or movie characters who read books?

Lost wilderness of childhood

Published on July 30, 2009 in Children and Culture. 11 Comments Tags: , , , , . By Joanne Jacobs

Michael Chabon mourns the loss of The Wilderness of Childhood in the New York Review of Books.

A striking feature of literature for children is the number of stories, many of them classics of the genre, that feature the adventures of a child, more often a group of children, acting in a world where adults, particularly parents, are completely or effectively out of the picture. Think of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Railway Children, or Charles Schulz’s Peanuts. Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy presents a chilling version of this world in its depiction of Cittàgazze, a city whose adults have all been stolen away. Then there is the very rich vein of children’s literature featuring ordinary contemporary children navigating and adventuring through a contemporary, nonfantastical world that is nonetheless beyond the direct influence of adults, at least some of the time. I’m thinking of the Encyclopedia Brown books, the Great Brain books, the Henry Reed and Homer Price books, the stories of the Mad Scientists’ Club, a fair share of the early works of Beverly Cleary.

As a kid, I was extremely fond of a series of biographies, largely fictional, I’m sure, that dramatized the lives of famous Americans—Washington, Jefferson, Kit Carson, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Daniel Boone—when they were children. (Boys, for the most part, though I do remember reading one about Clara Barton.) One element that was almost universal in these stories was the vast amounts of time the famous historical boys were alleged to have spent wandering with bosom companions, with friendly Indian boys or a devoted slave, through the once-mighty wilderness, the Wilderness of Childhood, entirely free of adult supervision.

Yes! The Little Orange Books (Childhood of Famous Americans series). I loved it. And I loved exactly what Chabon is talking about. For the most part, the kids were on their own.

I grew up in boring suburbia with two (two!) parents. I thought it was incredibly unadventurous, so I escaped to fiction. But compared to the safety-first way kids are raised now, we were bold wayfarers.

Chabon wonders if children’s imaginations can develop in a parent-protected bubble. His daughter learned to ride a bicycle, but isn’t allowed to ride anywhere on her own. And when she ventures out (with dad tagging behind), they meet no other children.

Art is a form of exploration, of sailing off into the unknown alone, heading for those unmarked places on the map. If children are not permitted — not taught — to be adventurers and explorers as children, what will become of the world of adventure, of stories, of literature itself?

It will be boring.

Via Stuart Buck.

The latest Harry Potter movie is under attack from nannies who disapprove of the young wizards drinking “butterbeer,” mead and a “liquid luck” potion.

No data, no dollars

Published on July 29, 2009 in Education. 42 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , . By Joanne Jacobs

Despite laws preventing the use of test scores in teacher evaluations, California, New York and Wisconsin are trying to argue that they qualify for Race to the Top funding, reports Ed Week’s Stephen Sawchuck. He summarizes:

New York: “OK, our law says you can’t use test data in teacher-tenure decisions, but teachers have to demonstrate how they’ll use data to get tenure. Besides, the law only refers to tenure, not all those other teacher things.”
California: “OK, just because there’s a state prohibition on the use of this data doesn’t mean local districts can’t choose to include it on their own. Like, six whole districts already do!”
Wisconsin: “OK, we can’t use our NCLB tests for these teacher-related purposes, but we have all kinds of other tests we could use!”

California Superintendent Jack O’Connell visited Long Beach Unified, known as a data-driven district.  The LA Times reports:

Seven years ago, the district developed a sophisticated centralized data system that allows it to track individual student achievement, attendance and discipline over time. The system also lets the district see how students are faring collectively in a particular classroom or school, and how subsets such as English learners or special education students are performing. District officials can then use the information for staffing decisions, such as where to send specialists.

Tom Malkus, principal of Lee Elementary School, said he and other school leaders use the data to spot struggling teachers and offer coaching, professional development and other support.

If that fails, (Superintendent Christopher) Steinhauser said, the district has “courageous conversations” with teachers that can result in their leaving the profession.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to terminate the data firewall. The unions should agree to change the law, editorializes the San Jose Mercury News.

Without linking student data to teachers, lawmakers will shoot in the dark when they try, for example, to make sure that effective teachers are working in low-performing schools.

Swift & Change Able looks at New York state’s data firewall, which reads:  “The teacher shall not be granted or denied tenure based on student performance data.”

Here’s how it would have been written if what NY state officials and the unions are saying was their real intent really was their intent (the simple adding of one word):

“the teacher shall not be granted or denied tenure based solely on student performance data.”

or, more elegantly and affirmatively:

“teacher tenure shall be granted based on student performance data and other relevant factors”

. . . The one upside of this debate: we now know what is meant by “creative problem solving” when union officials and their flacks talk about “21st Century Skills.”

On Flypaper, Mike Petrilli looks at the politics of the decision to require states to use achievement data to evaluate teachers.  It’s not just a poke in the eye for the teachers’ unions, he writes. It’s a poke at California. And it couldn’t have happened without the OK of Rep. George Miller, a liberal California Democrat who chairs the House Education and Labor committee. Petrilli thinks it’s Miller’s revenge on the NEA, which made “a stink about merit pay when Miller’s NCLB reauthorization bill was floated back in 2007.”