Thinking and Linking by Joanne Jacobs
Community colleges that receive federal job-training grants are required to share any learning materials developed. But software publishers are lobbying for a new law banning “open educational resources” developed with federal funding.
Also on Community College Spotlight: IBM will help Chicago design new six-year high schools that will combine technical training and college classes leading to an associate degree and an IT job.
Early education paid off in the long run for low-income children who spent two to six years in Chicago’s Child-Parent Center Education Program (CPC). In a study published in Science, University of Missouri and University of Minnesota researchers found 9 percent higher high school graduation rates, 22 percent fewer felony arrests, less substance abuse and higher earnings by age 28 for CPC graduates compared to a control group.
The Chicago Child-Parent Center program begins in preschool and provides up to six years of service in the Chicago public schools.
Chicago Public Schools plans to add 90 minutes to the school day and two weeks to the year. Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis said she won’t serve on the advisory committee. “This news has nothing do with helping our children and everything to do with politicizing a real serious problem,” she said in a written statement.
Schools chief Jean-Claude Brizard offered a 2 percent raise for elementary teachers, if the union agrees to longer K-8 school days in the coming school year. The union had agreed to accept a 2 percent raise. This proposal amounts to a 28 percent pay cut, teachers complain.
Chicago’s school day now runs from 9 am to 2:45 pm, one of the shortest in the country. Rahm Emanuel, the city’s new mayor, made extending the school day a campaign pledge.
Don’t mess with Texas’ schools. Education Secretary Arne Duncan claimed Texas schools have “really struggled” under Gov. Rick Perry, now a GOP candidate for president. “Far too few of their high school graduates are actually prepared to go on to college,” Duncan said in a TV interview, adding he feels “very, very badly for the children there.”
Texas’ fourth- and eighth-graders “substantially outperformed” students in Chicago, the district Duncan ran before going to Washington, notes Andrew Rotherham in Time. The Texas high school graduation rate of 73 percent is slightly below the national average, but way above Chicago’s 56 percent graduation rate.
Overall, Texas scores are “right around the national averages” in reading and math on NAEP, despite educating many immigrant students with poorly educated, non-English-speaking parents. ACT reports Texas high school graduates only narrowly trail national averages for college readiness.
Duncan’s response to Rotherham:
“Texas has challenges. The record speaks for itself. Lots of other states have challenges too. But there is a lot of hard work that needs to be done in Texas and a lot of children who need a chance to get a great education.”
Duncan’s claim of “massive increases in class size in Texas” is untrue, responds the Dallas Morning News. Primary classes, capped at 22 students, have remained stable. Secondary classes in core subjects are getting smaller.
. . . secondary math classes averaged 20.3 students in 2000-01 and dropped to 18.5 by last year. Average size of secondary English/language arts classes fell from 20.2 students in 2000-01 to 17.8 by last year.
In an e-mail to Duncan, TEA Commissioner Robert Scott added:
– Texas is ranked 13th in Ed Week’s Quality Counts report. Quality Counts gave Texas an “A” in “Standards, Assessment and Accountability,” and an “A” in “Transitions and Alignment” of the Texas system with college and career readiness. . .
– The Texas class of 2011 posted a record-high math score on the ACT college entrance exam. The Texas average math score was 21.5 and was higher than the national average of 21.1. ACT scores from 2007 to 2011 showed increases in all four subjects.
Texas fourth- and eighth-graders aced the 2009 NAEP science exam, Scott wrote. In eighth grade, black Texans were first in the nation compared to other blacks, white Texans tied with whites in high-scoring Massachusetts and Hispanics ranked eighth.
Perry has resisted Race To the Top, so perhaps Duncan’s antipathy is all about education policy. But it looks as though the education secretary is playing presidential politics. That’s not the way to build bipartisan consensus.
Inspired by a charter network that requires teachers to visit students’ homes twice a year, Chicago Public Schools’ new CEO, Jean-Claude Brizard, said house calls would be a good idea for district schools. “That comment precipitated an outburst of alarm from teachers across the city concerned about safety and whether they would get compensated for the after-school visits, reports the Chicago Tribune.
During a news conference at an UNO school, Brizard said, “Four hundred thousand kids in CPS, 25,000 teachers. If you count principals, assistant principals, office staff — if we each took 10 kids and promised to visit one a month, can you imagine? We could do it too.”
When asked about teacher safety in violence-plagued communities, he said, “Our kids go there every day, so why not?”
The teachers union called the suggestion a “half-baked” idea, and teachers took to local blogs to complain.
“Where is the responsibility of the parents? There is no responsibility on their part. I am not going to do it,” wrote one teacher.
The district has no plans for home visits.
Home visits should be voluntary for both teachers and parents, suggests Parent Teacher Home Visit Project, a nonprofit with programs in 11 states. It recommends a small stipend — $20 to $35 per visit — for teachers.
Given a chance to get rid of probationary teachers (less than five years’ experience) easily, Chicago principals used their power sensibly, writes Brian Jacob in Education Next. Principals were more likely to dismiss teachers with lower ratings in classroom observations, more absenteeism and, at the elementary level, lower value-added scores. Principals kept teachers who’d graduated from highly competitive colleges, but didn’t give weight to performance on the certification exam or advanced degrees.
Probationary teachers who were dismissed from one school and rehired elsewhere were much more likely to be dismissed a second time.
Principals are more likely to dismiss males and older (but probationary) teachers and less likely to dismiss blacks, the study found.
The analysis reported here cannot control for many direct measures of teacher qualities that principals could legitimately consider in making a dismissal decision (e.g., energy, enthusiasm, ability to relate to children, familiarity with the best instructional practices).
Principals are more likely to retain black teachers when the student body is primarily black, the study found.
Pass rates doubled for remedial students enrolled in group study sessions at Chicago’s Daley College. Students used a science-fiction saga to practice reading, writing and math skills.
Also on Community College Spotlight: The thrill of goat tying.
B students in high school are finding themselves in remedial classes at community colleges, Community College Spotlight reports.
Ninety-four percent of Chicago Public Schools graduates who go to city community colleges need remediation in math. Most also need to work on basic reading and writing skills. Many thought they were doing well in high school.
Eighty-five percent of California’s incoming community college students aren’t prepared for college math and 70 percent aren’t ready for college English. Four out of five remedial students had a B average or higher in high school. Instructors are experimenting with accelerated remediation to get students into college-level classes quickly.
If high school students realized the odds of having to pay for no-credit classes in college, would they work harder and learn the skills earlier? You’d think so.
Update: In Pennsylvania, a B+ student finds himself in remedial reading and writing. Unlike most remedial students, he earns an associate degree, but it takes six years.
AVID, which teaches study skills and tries to put average students on the college path, has spread across the country since its start in San Diego in 1980. But at 14 low-performing Chicago high schools, AVID didn’t improve grades significantly enough to put students on track for graduation, according to a study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research, reports Ed Week.
In a report previewed (pdf) at the American Educational Research Association convention in New Orleans in April, researchers compared Chicago ninth graders participating in AVID with similar students who didn’t have access to AVID. After one year of the four-year program, AVID participants’ grades averaged 2.32 in English and 1.9 in mathematics on a 4-point scale, slightly higher than non-participants’ GPAs, but not good enough to be considered on track for graduation. AVID didn’t improve reading, math or science test scores significantly.
Robert P. Gira, the executive vice president of the San Diego-based AVID, said the Chicago study was too short-term to be conclusive, because student academic gains from AVID build over a student’s high school career. “We expect 9th graders to be making some progress, but the real payoffs start to happen two to three years later,” Mr. Gira said.
AVID recruits students who aren’t on track for college but aren’t at the bottom of the class either. In my part of California, ninth graders must be prepared to take algebra, which California defines as an eighth-grade subject. (Not that most kids actually learn it in eighth grade.) Students take college-prep classes and a daily AVID class, where they learn note-taking skills, time management and “critical thinking.” They also receive tutoring, counseling and help applying for college and financial aid.
Four years of a daily AVID class may not be the best use of time, Doug Rohrer, a psychology professor at the University of South Florida, told Ed Week.
“The critical question in my mind,” Mr. Rohrer continued, “is whether AVID is better than requiring students to go to another class, such as an extra dose of math or writing. Learning how to take notes is a fine strategy, but it might not help you in Algebra 2 if you haven’t learned Algebra 1.”
AVID was started at schools that mixed low-income and middle-class students, Ed Week reports. But it’s spread to predominantly low-income schools where AVID students aren’t really average: They’re the highest achievers around.
Chicago’s AVID students reported slightly better study habits than non-AVID peers, the study found. That may pay off over time. But “their classroom experiences are very similar to those of their classmates,” said Jenny Nagaoka, co-author of the study.
Chicago’s new schools CEO will be Jean-Claude Brizard, an education reformer who fought with the teachers’ union over performance pay as superintendent in Rochester, New York. A few months ago, 95 percent of teachers voted “no confidence” in his leadership.
Brizard “is not afraid of tough choices, and that is what Chicago’s students need today,” said (Mayor-elect Rahm) Emanuel, who has pledged longer school days and more accountability from teachers.
A Haitian immigrant, Brizard started as a physics teacher.
In his resignation letter to Rochester’s school board, Brizard touted what he said were his achievements while atop the 32,000-student district: Raising the graduation rate to 51 percent from 39 percent in three years; more than doubling the number of students enrolled in Advanced Placement classes; streamlining the district’s curriculum; decreasing suspensions by two-thirds since 2006; carving $51 million out of the budget through more efficient business practices; and launching a 10-year, $1.2 billion school modernization initiative.
Emanuel also announced seven new Board of Education members and a new executive team for the district, which Brizard helped select.
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