Silence is apparently not a good thing when it comes to babies.

Children between the ages of 2 months and 6 months who have a lot of exposure to language are more likely to have advanced language skills later in life, according to research being released this weekend. The research suggests that parents should be trained to make sure infants, particularly those at high risk, are around a lot of talking even before they can speak.

The researchers, who presented their work at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association meeting in New Orleans this week, said babies who heard many different words had more advanced skills by the time they were 18 to 32 months old.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

The National Dairy Council is fighting back. They sent information out today to try to combat what they see as the growing threat to milk drinking in public schools. The food activists who got soda out of school cafeterias may be moving on to chocolate milk. Horrors.

But the National Dairy Council says if we take the chocolate out of the lunch line, kids will stop drinking milk, which everyone seems to agree has some nutrients students need. The Dairy Council is launching a "Calling all moms to raise their hands for chocolate milk" campaign. Even though flavored milk has sugar in it, the council says studies show that children who drink chocolate milk don't have overall higher intakes of sugar than kids who drink plain old white milk.

About 70 percent of the milk that kids in the lunch line are choosing is flavored, they say.

So what do parents think? If chocolate milk wasn't an option, would your children drink white milk instead or reach for juice or water?

Posted by Liz Bowie at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

The Center on Education Policy, a non-partison group that has tracked the No Child Left Behind Act since its passage, has come out with a new report on how states are doing with high school exit exams. Maryland is now in its second year of requiring that students pass the Maryland High School Assessments.

The report doesn't have any shocking news, but it does say that 22 of the 26 states now offer some alternatives for students with disabilities. And there's a growing trend among states to offer struggling students alternative assessments, different diplomas, flexible cut off scores and waivers. In Maryland, we have the bridge plan, which allows students to work on projects instead of passing the exams.

CEP also says across the nation students are more often passing their high school tests on the first try, an encouraging sign.

CEP recommends that states begin looking at increasing money for remediation of students, do a better job of collecting data on pass rates and spend some time researching the effects of the exit exams on students.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 5:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

The Open Society Institute-Baltimore is hosting a panel discussion Monday evening called "Can We Talk About How Race Affects Our Classrooms?". It's the next installment in OSI's "Talking About Race" series, and will focus on the impact of continued segregation in public schools on achievement, among other issues.

Monday's panel discussion, which is free and open to the public, is to be led by Beverly Daniel Tatum, president of Spelman College, and David Hornbeck, the former superintendent of Philadelphia schools. 

The event will be in the Wheeler Auditorium at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, 400 Cathedral Street, and starts at 7 p.m. 

Posted by Arin Gencer at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City, School Diversity/Segregation
        

I received an email about a national "Classroom Makeover Contest" put on by the company eInstruction, involving a prize of $30,000 in educational technology - i.e., interactive white boards, Dell netbooks and a range of software for teaching and testing students - for each of three grand-prize winners.  This is the third year of the contest, which is open to primary and secondary students and teachers.

Entrants have to create "short, creative music videos demonstrating how they would use advanced technology to enhance their learning experience in the classroom," according to the company. For your information and entertainment, you can check out some of the entries.

Considering the difficult economic times we're always talking about, I thought I'd share the information in case any of you enterprising and creative teachers might be interested. Deadline is Nov. 10.

Of course, if you do enter, we'd like to see your video.

Posted by Arin Gencer at 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

I'm working on a story about how high rates of absenteeism and illness among students are affecting schools. Several school systems throughout the country have already begun to make adjustments: A Florida county is looking to suspend its exam exemption policy to prevent sick students from dragging themselves in to make sure they can get out of finals. Some student athletes in New York are no longer allowed to shake hands after games.

Please send me a note with your stories about how things have changed in your school or district.  Are you having to adjust things in the classroom, such as assignments and project deadlines - or facing challenges in terms of just getting through curriculum with so many students out? 

Posted by Arin Gencer at 9:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Around the Nation, Around the Region
        

There's nothing like peer pressure. That is the idea behind Ally Week, a week when lesbian and gay students are asking their straight peers to make a pledge to come to their assistance when they see or hear bullying in their schools.

Nearly nine out of 10 LGBT (lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender) students experience harassment at school because of their sexual orientation, according to a 2007 survey by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

So this week in schools, the LGBT students will ask others to sign a pledge that says they will not use anti-LGBT language or slurs, that they will intervene when it is safe in situations where students are being harassed and they will support efforts to end bullying and harassment.

For more information go to www.allyweek.org. Is there any high school in Maryland where students are taking the pledge?

Posted by Liz Bowie at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

A study available tomorrow in Science reports that giving teachers better training in their field can have a profound impact on the how well students learn science. A study of teachers' research experiences over time by Samuel Silverstein of Columbia University found that students of teachers who participated in Columbia's Summer Research Program outperformed their peers by 10 percentage points on New York Satte science assessments. The middle and high school teachers each spent a summer working on research under the supervision of science faculty at Columbia. Once a week the teachers got together for programs that were designed to help them better communicate the science to students.

The study says the schools saved money over time because those teachers stayed in their jobs.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

William Ouchi argues in a new book coming out this month that one of the keys to student achievement is decreasing the Total Student Load or TSL. He says teachers should teach no more than 80 students at a time. The reason this book may be of interest here in Baltimore is that Ouchi's first book, "Making Schools Work," touched off a change to decentralization in New York and other major cities. Andres Alonso, who came here from New York, immediately gave principals more authority over their budget and their curriculum. And that, Ouchi argues, often has led to principals making decisions to hire more teachers and reduce other staff in the building so that teachers have fewer students. This change does not mean that classes are necessarily smaller, although I guess it could. Rather it means that the typical high school teacher may teach fewer classes. So instead of having to grade 120 student papers, the teacher only has to worry about grading 80.

This research is written about in a recent piece in Education Week. The work follows from a report done several years ago in Maryland on writing that concluded the most important changes that could be made to improve writing would be to reduce the workload of English teachers. I haven't heard that happening around the state, but I may have missed a trend.

I wonder if any city teachers have seen a reduction in their workload as a result of decentralization? What is happening to teachers in surrounding counties? Is your workload increasing?

Posted by Liz Bowie at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told the Associated Press that he thinks maybe the nation's schools should lengthen their days and school year. Duncan said schoolchildren in foreign countries are going 25 to 30 percent longer than students here. The AP reports that while it is true that students go to school more days in other countries, American students spend more hours overall in school during a year.

I guess we just cram all that learning in to fewer days.  But the idea is gaining some momentum, particularly in urban systems. Students there often don't have the same access to programs that will continue their learning during their long summer break. Studies have shown that some city students actually fall behind during their summers while suburban kids gain.

So do parents, teachers and students want more hours in the classroom? More days in the school year? A shorter summer vacation?

I'm guessing I know what students will say, but it would great to get a comment from a student!

Posted by Liz Bowie at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (24)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

Last night, President Barack Obama made an interesting analogy in his address to Congress on health care. He suggested that those without insurance be able to get it through a not-for-profit public option that would be available through an insurance exchange.

The idea, he said, is similar to the system we have in this country for public and private education. "It would also keep pressure on private insurers to keep their policies affordable and treat their customers better, the same way public colleges and universities provide additional choice and competition to students without in any way inhibiting a vibrant system of private colleges and universities," the president said. 

Does this analogy work? Is there competition between private and public colleges and universities and public and parochial or private schools? Are educational standards raised by that competition?

Posted by Liz Bowie at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

Some Maryland students had difficulty seeing the president's speech today and it wasn't because their teachers weren't trying hard to get it to them. At three schools visited by Sun reporters this morning, the feed through the Internet did not work and students saw virtually nothing of the speech. At some schools, they saw bits of the speech, but teachers gave up after awhile and either read the speech or dismissed their students and said they would let them see it tomorrow morning.

Two of the schools were in the city and a third was in Anne Arundel County. All of the schools were attempting to get the speech over the Internet.

We haven't done enough reporting yet to tell you how widespread this problem was, but we would like to hear from you if your school had problems. And for those of you who heard the speech: What did you think?

Posted by Liz Bowie at 1:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

Several of the Sun education reporters went to schools in different districts to sit in on classes as they watched President Obama's speech to them at noon today. I was at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore County, where several classes were able to watch the speech live - and where, according to Principal Brian Scriven, there were plans to record the address for those who had lunch at the time it aired.  Viewing the speech was voluntary - as it was throughout the county and in other school systems, too. 

I was struck by some of the insights the students had in a discussion prior to the address - and how seriously many of them took the exercise, and the speech (I do remember high school, after all).

Stay tuned...I'll have more to share as we continue working on this story.

Posted by Arin Gencer at 1:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Around the Nation, Around the Region, Baltimore County
        

Here is the transcript of the president's speech, folks - also pasted below. 

I'm working on a story about this today and would like to get reactions from Maryland parents.  Please drop me a line or give me a call (410-332-6639).

Continue reading "President Obama's speech to students" »

Posted by Arin Gencer at 2:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (38)
Categories: Around the Nation, Around the Region
        

You just might be aware of President Obama's upcoming speech to students, which will be broadcast live this Tuesday.

A transcript of the president's remarks is supposed to be posted on the White House Web site tomorrow, for those who are curious.  I will post a link here once it's released.

On a side note, I understand several Harford residents - in addition to the parent mentioned in my story - plan to picket the Board of Ed in Bel Air during the speech, to protest its decision not to show the address in schools.  Harford seems to be the only Baltimore-area school system to have gone this route.  Most others are leaving it up to individual schools and teachers to decide whether they want to watch it.

Posted by Arin Gencer at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (44)
Categories: Around the Nation, Around the Region, Parents
        

On Tuesday, September 8, President Obama will tell the school kids of America that they should take more responsibility for their success in school. The address will air on C-Span at noon and the U.S. Department of Education is going to provide materials to teachers in advance to encourage class discussion after the speech. Are teachers planning to have their classes watch this?

Posted by Liz Bowie at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (29)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

If a school system sends home dozens of students in the face of an H1N1 outbreak, how would students keep up with their classwork? It is a question that the U.S. Department of Education is asking and directing school districts to start carefully considering.

At a news conference today in Washington, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan suggested school systems might want to wade into some new technology and consider providing online classes or live classes with video coming over the Internet to students at home. At a more basic level, the schools might have technology that would allow a teacher to have a conference call with many students at the same time. School systems, the guidance said, might also arrange with book publishers to provide instructional materials to students if they are out for a long period.

Of course, the department also suggested the obvious: packets of homework materials that could be sent home in case of an H1N1 outbreak.

With everything teachers and administrators have to do these days, is this extra planning an important step or a nuisance contingency? How many teachers think they would be able to communicate effectively with students in the case of a school closing for a couple of weeks? How proficient are schools at getting a lot of material onto their Web sites?

Posted by Liz Bowie at 7:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

There's an interesting Education Week article today on the ACT results, which indicate most students are not ready for college.  And while a higher percentage of Maryland students are deemed prepared, the number (30 percent) is still low.

You can see how Maryland students did on the exam, and also check out the state's college readiness report.

SAT scores are expected next week, so stay tuned.

Posted by Arin Gencer at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation, Around the Region, Testing
        

In light of the ongoing conversation about the MSAs and testing this week, I thought I'd share this new study done by the Center on Education Policy, examining test score trends. 

The CEP reviewed test-result trends in 16 states with six to 10 years of consistent data for its report.

Interestingly, the study found that the so-called "plateau effect" - the idea that scores initially rise, then level off after the tests are administered for a few years - is not necessarily a given.  The plateau concept has often been cited when talking about state tests, and the likelihood of meeting the 2014 deadline for having every child pass the assessments.

Posted by Arin Gencer at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Around the Nation, Testing, Trends
        

We've recently found out who will be writing and reviewing the new national or "common core" standards for math and language arts. For those of you who would like to know who is likely to be the group deciding what is important to be taught in classrooms, here's the list. 

This year, Maryland and 45 other states decided to jointly develop a common group of standards for what should be taught in kindergarten through high school. The collective wisdom among most education policy experts is that it would be easier and cheaper if there were national standards. In other words, what a second-grader might need to know in Florida or Massachusetts varies little.

But for years, every state developed its own curriculum, standards and tests. That process will likely change soon. For a good story on the subject, go to Education Week.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 1:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

Dear Inside Ed folk,

We're working on an editorial for tomorrow's paper about recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including one dealing with special ed. The court decided 6-3 that federal law allows parents of special ed students to seek government reimbursement for tuition at a private school that can meet their children's needs, even if they've never gotten special ed services in public school. We have an entry about it over on the Second Opinion blog. Swing by and let us know what you think. We'll print some of the comments in the paper.

//AAG

Posted by Andy Green at 2:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

In my story today, I take a look at dropouts – and, more specifically, dropout prevention and intervention – the focus of a day-long summit at Randallstown High School yesterday.  Hundreds of state educators, believed to represent all 24 school systems, attended the event, said to be a first for Maryland.  It was sponsored by America’s Promise Alliance, an organization tied to former Secretary of State Colin Powell and his wife and current chair, Alma.

One of the noteworthy moments during the summit involved a theatrical performance put on by a troupe from Garrett County, who portrayed seven characters – six students and a parent – explaining why they chose to drop out.  The writer of the play, called The Goodbye Kids, explained to the audience that the concept emerged from more than 20 interviews she did with dropouts.  The characters were composites of what she gleaned from those talks, she said.

The characters, all students at “Run of the Mill High School,” ranged from a boy who bellowed about how much his teachers bored him to a girl whose family never set a high priority on finishing school to a poor student who was sick of being mocked for his appearance – and stench.  Other highlights included a student who’d always gotten by – until that one teacher noticed his inability to read – and the mother of another who had been regularly mocked for being gay.

Interestingly, the profiles foreshadowed a later presentation from Robert Balfanz, director of the Everyone Graduates Center at the Johns Hopkins University. 

Continue reading "Tackling school dropouts" »

Posted by Arin Gencer at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation, Around the Region, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Howard County, NCLB
        

In my story today, I wrote about efforts to increase the number of males in schools.

For whatever reason, males have been noticeably absent from the school setting. Recently there have been initiatives to reverse that. The program that I found at one Howard County elementary school encourages fathers at the school to spend the day helping out teachers, and serving as an addition set of adult eyes in the hallways.

What do you think about increasing the number of males in the school? Is it necessary? What other creative ways might work to accomplish this?

Posted by John-John Williams IV at 4:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Around the Nation, Around the Region, Howard County, Parents, Trends
        

What Ronald Peiffer, the deputy state superintendent, said he could not conceive of just nine years ago has happened.

In today's paper, a story details how 46 states, D.C., Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands all agreed, at least conceptually, that classrooms ought to be teaching toward the same set of high standards.

For nearly the past decade, the country has been trying to ensure that every child got a minimum education. Now it appears we are moving to recognize that the minimum is not enough and that we have to raise our expectations if we are going to compete with foreign countries. To do that we should have national curriculum standards.

But that is no small task, as Peiffer sees it, in a nation that historically has given even the smallest school systems the right to decide what their children would learn. If they want to teach creationism, so be it. If they want to teach whole language or phonics, the choice was theirs.

States' rights were so clear that Peiffer didn't see how it would change quickly. But the states have taken the first steps. The arguing may come later when the standards are made public.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 6:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

Ever wonder whether all those expensive test prep courses actually work as well as the companies claim? Some guarantee they will raise your SAT or ACT scores significantly.

Well, the National Association for College Admission Counseling commissioned a report that found that the average gain for students who have taken professional test prep is only 30 points for the SAT and only one point on the ACT. That, the report says, is significantly less than gains that are claimed by test prep companies. But here's the rub. NACAC also says that college admissions officers sometimes report that even small increases in test scores can have an impact on whether a student is admitted or not. For instance, some colleges have cut off test scores and others say even slightly higher test scores can influence whether a student gets into a college.

The full paper is available online.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 6:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

I'm working my last night police shift at The Sun tonight. Despite having done shifts like this at various newspapers for more than a decade, my grandmother still asks every time if I'll be safe. Every time, I can assure her that I will be.

Why? On weekends late at night, we're only looking to report on major crimes, most notably murders. But as long as the killings happen in certain neighborhoods, fitting the city's typical pattern where a 20-something-year-old black male is shot in a high-drug area, we only give them a few sentences. I sit listening to the police scanner and call the public information officer on duty at the police department. Almost invariably, I never have to leave the office. (Now, if mayhem breaks out at the Preakness tonight, I'll have to eat my words, but I'm speaking generally about my experience over time, and the same is true across newspapers.) I feel guilty every time I do it, reduce someone's life to a paragraph or two. And yet, I don't see a way around it. Newsworthiness is determined in large part by rarity, and shootings happen in Baltimore's impoverished, majority-black neighborhoods all the time. Of the 234 homicides in the city last year, 214 of the victims were African-American. Eighty-three percent of them had a criminal record, and 70 percent of them had prior drug arrests.

Wait, isn't this an education blog? Well...

Continue reading "Fifty-five years after Brown vs. Board of Ed" »

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 5:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City, School Diversity/Segregation
        

Comedian Stephen Colbert is encouraging donations to DonorsChoose, the Web site that raises money to help teachers (including those in Baltimore, as you might recall from the mustache fundraiser) pay for classroom supplies. He's asking people to celebrate his 45th birthday by signing on to the site and giving to the teacher of their choice. So far 64 donors have given $3,733. Check it out here.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City
        

While at the EWA conference, I learned about a study to be published soon by the Consortium on Chicago School Research about the learning loss that occurs following an announcement that a school is to close. It makes sense that such an announcement would have a demoralizing effect on both students and teachers for the remainder of their time together. But is that reason to keep a failing school open?

The topic came up at a session I attended Friday with Michelle Rhee and Charles Payne, author of the new book "So Much Reform, So Little Change." Rhee has closed 23 schools in Washington. Both she and Payne acknowledged that the learning loss when a school is to close is substantial but said the closures still must proceed. Payne said districts have a responsibility to ensure that students from closing schools get seats in good schools. Rhee said they should be working with teachers to ease their fears and pave the way for the smoothest transition possible.

Other interesting points they made at the session: 1) School districts need to stop changing direction every time they change superintendents or reform will never take hold. 2) Teachers are getting mandates from too many places and need to be told simply what's expected of them. 3) Improving social services alone does not radically improve student achievement and must be coupled with improving education.

See this editorial from yesterday's Sun about last week's school closure votes in Baltimore, suggesting that Dr. Alonso use the opportunity to reorganize school staffs for a better mix of new and experienced teachers.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City
        

The Education Writers Association conference kicked off yesterday in Washington, and Arne Duncan spoke to our group last night. Some highlights (on issues I didn't talk about last week when I covered his talk at University of Maryland):

-- Unproven programs are "absolutely worth trying." Performance pay is still new in education, but it increases worker productivity in other industries. If we never try new things, we'll never know if they can work.

-- Closing failing schools in Chicago, the saddest part was showing parents the data. No one had ever talked to them, and they didn't know they were the worst in the city.

-- Districts should hold principals accountable for school culture.

-- School districts should be judged on their graduation rate -- and not necessarily a four-year rate. Nothing's wrong with giving a struggling kid extra time. And districts should not be penalized in their statistics for bringing dropouts back.

-- "If there's one word that captures my state of mind these days, it is urgency."

I had the opportunity to briefly meet Duncan after his talk, and he asked me what I think of the work Dr. Alonso is doing in Baltimore. I said it sounds like they share many of the same ideas.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City
        

There's really only one standardized test that has charted long-term trends in reading and math and the latest results are out today. Depending on who you are, you can find hope or despair in the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Released by the U.S. Department of Education, the assessment showed that 9-year-olds and 13-year-olds have made some significant strides in both reading and math since the early 1970s. Unfortunately, the same does not hold true for our 17-year-olds, whose scores remained relatively flat over the 35-year period. What's perhaps the most discouraging is that the best performance of this high-school age group was in the mid- to late 1990s.

Most encouraging, several education groups pointed out today that the achievement gap between whites and Hispanic and black students has been narrowing.

When you look at the trends in the past four years, the last time the test was administered, education groups say there's little to find encouraging except that 9-year-olds improved in math.

For those of you who might be confused, there are two NAEP tests given. The results released today include a version of the test that has remained relatively constant since the 1970s. Another NAEP, which does change over time, produces state data. That test is given this spring.

Continue reading "NAEP scores show mixed results" »

Posted by Liz Bowie at 3:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

McKinsey & Co. released a troubling report this week called "The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools." It concludes that:

"If the United States had closed the international achievement gap between 1983 and 1998 and raised its performance to the level of such nations as Finland and Korea, US GDP in 2008 would have been between $1.3 trillion and $2.3 trillion higher, representing 9 to 16 percent of GDP."

"If the United States had closed the racial achievement gap and black and Latino student performance had caught up with that of white students by 1998, GDP in 2008 would have been between $310 billion and $525 billion higher, or roughly 2 to 4 percent of GDP. (The magnitude of this effect will rise in the years ahead as blacks and Latinos become a larger proportion of the population.)" 

If you don't feel like spending time this sunny weekend reading the whole report, here's a good summary from Tom Friedman.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 5:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Around the Nation, Study, study!
        

America's Promise Alliance, the collaborative founded by Colin and Alma Powell to improve the well-being of youth, has a new report out today with the on-time high school graduation rates in the nation's 50 largest cities. In Baltimore, the rate increased 7.7 points over a decade, from 33.8 percent in 1995 to 41.5 percent in 2005. We placed 46th out of 50 and were one of 16 city districts where the rate was calculated at below 50 percent. Suburban Baltimore schools were found to have a graduation rate 39 points higher than the city's, making us one of the regions with the largest gaps.

The report, called "Cities in Crisis 2009," did its calculations slightly differently than the oft-cited Education Week rankings, but for Baltimore the results are about the same -- and far lower than the city's official graduation rate as reported by the state: 62.6 percent in 2008 and 59 percent in 2005. The state rate is likely an overstatement because some dropouts are not officially recorded as such. But both the America's Promise and Ed Week calculations make things look worse than they are because they don't account for students moving in and out of the city.

And none of the calculations look beyond a four-year rate. I find this curious, as we judge colleges based on the number of students they graduate within six years and what matters ultimately is whether someone gets a high school diploma -- not how long it takes. Typically, about 20 percent of seniors in Baltimore need a fifth year to finish. In fighting to maintain the HSA requirements for this year's seniors, Dr. Alonso argued that he'll keep them around as long as it takes to get them to meet basic standards. (Students are legally entitled to stay in school until age 21.)

With all that said, here are more findings of the America's Promise report: 

Continue reading "Calculating Baltimore's graduation rate" »

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 5:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City
        

The Supreme Court hears arguments today in a case involving a 13-year-old girl in Arizona who was suspected of possessing drugs and forced to strip down to her underwear in the school nurse's office. I've heard of drug and weapons checks in Baltimore where kids get patted down by school police, but nothing this extreme. Here's an article from NPR's Nina Totenberg with the specifics of the case. The Supreme Court ruled in the 1980s that schools may search students' bags but did not address the issue of strip-searching. As Totenberg tells us, the question before the court is whether schools have free reign in determining when a strip search is warranted and where the Constitution draws the line.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

In talking about the tutors, I barely mention the kids. But a new study out of Washington University in St. Louis is worth a little more attention. It says that children who had these older adults as tutors made better than 60 percent more progress in two reading skills: reading comprehension and sounding out words.

Experience Corps is a national volunteer program that places at least 15 older tutors in a given school in kindergarten through third-grade classes. The volunteers, who have to be 55 or older, must commit to coming to the school for at least 15 hours a week for the academic year.

The Washington University study found that having an Experience Corps member in the classroom was the equivalent of reducing class size by 40 percent. The only groups that did not benefit, the study said, were students in special education.

The study was conducted over two years was funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies. It followed 800 students in 23 elementary schools in three cities. Half the students in the study were with Experience Corps volunteers and half were not.

What is so interesting, too, about these volunteers, is that many of them come from the communities around the schools. It's almost a formal way of having more neighborhood grandmas in schools. What kids wouldn't be helped having a grandma or grandpa there when they struggle to sound out a word or understand the meaning of a sentence?

And getting to know a few more adults in the neighborhood might also have benefits that carry into the streets. I am guessing here, but don't you think when those children move on to middle school and high school, they would be less likely to act up when they see the Experience Corps volunteer who sat beside them for hours in third-grade walking by?

Posted by Liz Bowie at 6:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City, Study, study!
        

There’s an interesting op-ed in today’s paper praising Maryland for its Farm-to-School program. The program aims to put fresh, local food in school cafeterias and to teach kids more about where that food comes from. The op-ed considers the concept a win for everyone – students, farmers, local communities and the environment.

This focus on healthy eating is another facet of an ongoing conversation on childhood obesity and ensuring students are eating well during the school day. Even as they turn healthier, schools throughout the nation are simultaneously trying not to loose their young clientele by sacrificing taste. My colleague John-John Williams recently wrote about such efforts in a story about a Howard County contest allowing students to propose recipes for the cafeteria menu.

Posted by Arin Gencer at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Around the Nation, Around the Region, Howard County
        

The porn wars at University of Maryland have become a dominant topic in this final week of the General Assembly, as you'll see from reading the Maryland Politics blog. But showing an X-rated movie in college is nothing compared with... high school. In Denver, a substitute teacher accidentally gave students in a geography class a sneak peak of a porno from the regular teacher's personal collection, in place of the movie they were supposed to be watching. Oops. Tip courtesy of Detention Slip. 

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 2:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

A report released today ranks Maryland ninth in the nation for the percentage of its preschool-age population enrolled in pre-kindergarten programs.

The report is by the National Institute for Early Education Research, which looked at the extent of pre-kindergarten programs in U.S. schools since 2002. Nationally, the number of children enrolled in free public pre-kindergarten classes increased by more than 100,000 last year to 1.1 million, but the report warns that could decrease next year as states make cuts to their programs during the recession.

In Maryland, funding jumped this year, allowing more children to take advantage of pre-kindergarten classes. Research has shown that low-income children who have good preschool opportunities do better later in school.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 9:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

The Broad Foundation today announced what it considers to be the five urban school districts making the most progress in raising student achievement:

Aldine Independent School District in Houston
Broward County Public Schools in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Gwinnett County Public Schools outside Atlanta
Long Beach Unified School District in California
Socorro Independent School District in El Paso, Texas

These districts are the finalists for the annual Broad Prize, the biggest award in urban education. The winner will get $1 million and the other four will get $250,000 each to use for college scholarships for high school students.

This Education Week blog points out that all five of the districts have high Latino populations. Officials in Baltimore have made no secret that they hope to be a finalist for this award in the next few years. New York City won in 2007.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

At the Mayors' National Forum on Education in Washington this week, Arne Duncan made the case that all urban school districts should be under mayoral control -- and said he would get involved in advocacy at the local level to see to governance changes. As described in this AP account of Duncan's talk, he singled out Dr. Alonso in the audience and asked how many superintendents Baltimore had over the course of a decade. Seven, Alonso answered. "And you wonder why school systems are struggling,'' Duncan said, according to the article. "What business would run that way?"

He said the tenure of urban superintendents is usually very short because of a lack of leadership at the top. Mayoral control provides stability, he contends.

Assuming the mayor is a strong leader willing to back the superintendent with politically unpopular decisions.

Around the country, the AP says, a few dozen mayors have some control of urban districts, but only seven run management and operations. Among the seven cities with full mayoral control are NYC, where Alonso was deputy chancellor before coming to Baltimore; Washington, where Michelle Rhee is getting a lot of attention for her efforts to rid classrooms of ineffective teachers; and Chicago, where Duncan was superintendent before becoming President Obama's education secretary.

I'm sure most of you know already, but as a refresher: In Baltimore, the school board is appointed jointly by the mayor and the governor, and the board appoints the CEO. It wouldn't be too much of a change if Sheila Dixon were given sole board appointment power, like the mayor of Chicago. Last year, at least, Gov. O'Malley deferred to Dixon anyway to select a new member. The other option would be to abolish the school board and have the superintendent report directly to the mayor, as in New York and D.C. Baltimore's mayor did have full control of the school board until 1997, when partial control was ceded to the state in exchange for additional state funding.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City
        

Arne Duncan is to appear at Doswell E. Brooks Elementary School in Prince George's County this morning to announce how states and school districts can begin receiving the first installment of federal stimulus money. Gov. O'Malley and Nancy Grasmick are scheduled to be there, too.

A press release from the governor's office points out that in Prince George's County, administrators plan to use stimulus money "to avoid employee furloughs, layoffs, increases in class sizes and other education program cuts." That is true. But it's also true that such cuts could happen anyway in Prince George's if the state operating budget proposed by the Senate's budget and tax committee and now before the full chamber were to be adopted. I'm told P.G. stands to lose about $22 million next year. The ACLU of Maryland, which is tracking this carefully, said yesterday that the city could take an $18 million hit; yesterday I reported it would be at least $12 million. The House version of the bill contains some of the cuts, but not the biggest ones: a reduction in GCEI funding from 100 percent to 60 percent next year, and a continued cap on inflation increases for school districts in fiscal years 2011 and 2012.

Like the last time education cuts were proposed (only to be rescinded because of the stimulus), it seems the state's two neediest jurisdictions would suffer a disproportionate share of the pain. Montgomery County would take a big hit, too.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Around the Nation, Around the Region
        

There's an interesting battle playing out at the KIPP schools in New York City. At Brooklyn's KIPP AMP school (AMP is short for "always mentally prepared"), teachers want to unionize and KIPP is resisting. Teachers at two other KIPP schools that are already unionized want out, and the union's leaders are angry.

Unionizing is a tricky subject for KIPP's national network of 66 schools, which require their teachers to work long hours and be available for students in their spare time. That commitment has led to high turnover in some cases, but also is a factor in the schools' success in getting poor, minority children to college.

Meanwhile, KIPP founders Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin have been named the winners of this year's Charles Bronfman Prize, which awards humanitarian work of people under age 50. They will use part of their $100,000 award to set up a KIPP-inspired school serving Jewish and Arab children in Israel.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Around the Nation, Charter Schools
        

The Notebook blog about Philadelphia public schools linked to my Edison coverage in an entry that goes on to describe the company's woes there.

Early this decade, Edison made a pitch to privatize the entire Philadelphia school district. Instead, it got a contract to run 20 schools. The post notes that, in securing that contract in 2002, Edison touted its work in Baltimore "as a model of its ability to turn around struggling urban schools." Last year, schools chief Arlene Ackerman ended contracts at four Edison schools and put another dozen on one-year probation. The writer counts 62 schools nationwide that Edison is now managing, down from more than 100.

UPDATE: I got this e-mail from Edison spokesman Michael Serpe:

Continue reading "Edison's woes extend to Philadelphia" »

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City
        

Interesting discussion on the Read Street blog yesterday under the headline "Is spelling ded?" In a world where we fire off e-mails, text messages, Tweets and Facebook updates, does anyone care about accurate spelling anymore?

I'd be curious to hear from teachers about how much spelling is emphasized in your schools. If you're trying to get kids interested in writing, how much spelling correction is appropriate? There was a huge debate about this a couple of years back when I wrote about the Studio Course curriculum being used in Baltimore middle schools that urged teachers to let spelling errors go.

But then, the educators need to spell accurately, too. A few weeks ago, I saw a letter to the editor from a prominent local educator (who will remain nameless in this post) that was filled with spelling mistakes when it was submitted. I'm hoping the issue was lack of interest rather than lack of knowledge. The Sun's letters editor does, after all, clean up spelling and grammar before publishing -- unlike InsideEd.  

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Around the Nation, Teaching
        

Came across this new podcast with Baltimore County’s Superintendent Joe A. Hairston. In an interview, Hairston discusses his tenure in the school system and the meaning of the election of President Obama.

The site, aptly called District Leader's Podcast, features a number of other interviews with education leaders from around the nation. For those school junkies out there, it might be interesting to tune in to hear superintendents present and past, sharing their thoughts on leadership and education.

Posted by Arin Gencer at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore County
        

In a speech this morning, President Barack Obama said he supported extra pay for "excellence in the classroom,"  an idea that has been opposed by some teachers' unions.

Obama said he also suggested that teachers who aren't performing well in the classroom shouldn't be there, according to an Associated Press story.

The remarks, made to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, were part of his first major talk on education and are expected to start a round of criticism from some unions.

The AP also reported that the president said school districts shouldn't put a cap on the number of charter schools that can open in their districts and needed to think about a longer school day and school year.

Some school systems in Maryland have offered merit pay to teachers who chose to teach in low performing schools, but I am not aware of any school system that has seriously considered a longer school day or school year.

While charters are common in Baltimore, applications to open charters in Harford and Frederick counties have been blocked by the school boards there.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

The lousy economy isn't just good for public school enrollment. It -- along, perhaps, with President Obama's call for public service -- is also drawing a record number of college graduates to apply to teach in tough urban schools. Teach For America reports that it received more than 35,000 applications this year, surpassing last year's record of 25,000, of which 3,600 were selected. At least 10 percent of the senior class at 33 colleges and universities applied to join TFA, as did more than 11 percent of all seniors at Ivy League schools.

In Baltimore, applications came from more than 4 percent of seniors at Hopkins and 6 percent at Loyola.

The organization also says it's seeing more African-American applicants, including a quarter of the graduating seniors at Spelman College.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City, Teaching
        

That is the question that Washington's schools chief will have to answer if she is going to forge ahead with the plan to use $100 million in private funds to increase pay to teachers over the next five years. Michelle Rhee said on the radio the other day that she has a consultant's report that shows this salary level is sustainable, according to a story in the Washington Post. But she won't make the report public yet.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 1:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

It seems like The New York Times has had a lot of features lately about rich people who can't live quite as extravagantly as a result of the economic downturn. On Sunday, the lead article in the Style section was about parents who will have to resort to public schools because they can no longer afford private school tuition.

Not surprisingly, Baltimore's private schools are feeling the pinch as well. I've heard the most about the plight of the city's Catholic schools. Mount St. Joseph High sent an e-mail to alumni today saying that the president and principal will both take an 8.5 percent pay cut and the rest of the staff will see wages frozen this year, as the endowment is down 24 percent. This despite the fact that alum Mark Teixeira has a $180 million contract from the Yankees...

The city's Catholic schools have formed a blue ribbon task force to develop a strategic plan. The committee includes leaders from public education, among them Nancy Grasmick, Joe Hairson and Andrés Alonso. I find Dr. Alonso's placement a bit ironic, since he likes to joke that he wants to put all the private schools in Baltimore out of business. (Seriously, he says, he's trying to develop partnerships.)

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City
        

The Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution issued a major new report on education yesterday. It examines the performance of 37 big city school districts in the 2006-07 year and compares their test scores against the averages in their respective states on whatever standardized tests the states were using for NCLB. Generally, the results are positive, indicating a narrowing of the achievement gap between urban districts and their suburban counterparts. But Baltimore is one of eight districts where the report concludes that's not the case. In five districts -- Baltimore, Milwaukee, Detroit, Indianapolis and Philadelphia -- scores were more than two statistical standard deviations below the state average. Keep in mind that Baltimore's test scores improved more than the state average last year.

The report also compares the 06-07 results with data from 2000-01, which, in Maryland at least, seems problematic since the state switched the test it was using during that time period.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City, Study, study!
        

Naming education one of his top domestic priorities last night in his address to Congress, the president said his administration has already made a historic investment through the stimulus. He specifically cited the money for early childhood education. But, he suggested, there need to be policy changes along with the infusion of cash. He'll be supporting policies that reward educators for good performance and that are beneficial to charter schools. He was also strong about parental and personal responsibility, calling on all Americans to commit to at least a year of higher education or career training.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

We've talked a lot on this blog about student disciplinary problems, but not as much about how to prevent them... Last weekend in Timonium, the results of a national study were released suggesting that transcendental meditation can reduce the behavioral outbursts associated with ADHD. Researchers followed a group of middle school students with ADHD who were meditating twice a day in school. After three months, they found more than a 50-percent reduction in stress and anxiety and improvements in ADHD symptoms. The lead researcher, a cognitive learning specialist from George Washington University, said the effect was "much greater than we expected."

The study is published this month in the journal Current Issues in Education. And here's a video of kids talking about their experience meditating.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Around the Nation, Around the Region, School Safety (Or Lack Thereof), Study, study!
        

The investigative reporting Web site ProPublica has created a database showing how much school construction money school districts around the nation would gain under the House version of the economic stimulus bill -- and lose under the Senate version. In Baltimore, the figure is $72 million. In Baltimore County, it's $21 million.

As I mentioned here yesterday, the House version of the bill contains $14 billion for school construction. The Senate version does not.

In the city, Dr. Alonso points out that state capital dollars went down from $52 million two years ago to $41 million last year. As of now, Baltimore schools are only expecting to get up to $25 million for school construction and renovation this year. The system has hundreds of millions of dollars in basic maintenance needs. "Given our needs these dollars are still about the basics (while for other folks it’s about value added)," the CEO wrote in an e-mail to me today.

UPDATE: Moments after I posted this entry, I got word that the two chambers have reached a compromise on the stimulus. It would contain $6 billion for school construction. I will update as soon as I know what the impact would be in Baltimore.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 4:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

I've been bombarded by e-mails this afternoon by advocacy groups outraged that many of the cuts in the Senate's version of an economic stimulus bill involve education and other spending for children. And, according to my colleagues, the Senate package would direct $953 million less to Maryland (for all things, not just education) than the House's version. It does not include $450 million in discretionary money for the state. Education advocates have been hoping that Gov. O'Malley would use that discretionary pot to prevent the changes in funding formulas that would hurt Baltimore and Prince George's County schools so badly. The remaining stimulus money for schools is earmarked for things such as Title 1 and special education, so it wouldn't close a budget shortfall when a school district needs money to pay teachers.

The National Head Start Association points out that the Senate included just over $1 billion for Head Start; the House version has $2.1 billion.

The House version contains $14 billion for school modernization; the Senate version does not.

A joint committee will now hammer out the differences between the two.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 5:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

The College Board released its annual Advanced Placement report this morning. Out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Maryland had the highest percentage of students with a passing score on at least one A.P. exam: 23.4 percent of the class of 2008, compared with about 15 percent nationally. Maryland is also one of six states highlighted in the report with the highest five-year gains.

The state today is calling attention to six high schools for their A.P. achievement: Polytechnic Institute in the city; Franklin, Perry Hall and Pikesville in Baltimore County; Broadneck in Anne Arundel County; and River Hill in Howard County -- plus two that were specifically singled out by the College Board, Eleanor Roosevelt in Prince George's County and Paint Branch in Montgomery County.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)
Categories: Around the Nation, Around the Region, Testing
        

Our discussion yesterday about how to engage students and whether school is supposed to be fun made me think of this article that I read in the Style section of Sunday's New York Times. It's about the craze over the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books, and it starts by describing a 10-year-old boy who generally hates to read but was so hooked on his Wimpy Kid book he wanted to bring it in to a restaurant.

The hero of the books is by no means a role model. "Some parents object to the way the books celebrate a disrespectful, mean-spirited kid," the article says. "Others deplore its cartoons as pandering to young readers, a dilution of text and language."

But if the books engage disengaged kids, is it worth it? And should kids be reading such books in school, or only in their free time?

A few years ago, I wrote a series of controversial articles about the Studio Course curriculum that Baltimore middle schools were using at the time. The curriculum, which was thrown out after my stories were published, focused heavily on cultivating kids' interest in reading, even if some materials were questionable. Perhaps the juiciest detail was that kids were allowed to read CosmoGIRL magazine in class, with features on such topics as how to make out.

Where to draw the line?

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

For the record, I figured I'd post the letter grades that Education Week gave Maryland schools in its annual Quality Counts report released this week. Though we rank No. 1 among states, our schools still only have a B average, compared with a C for the nation as a whole.

Our best showing is in the "chance for success" index, measuring such things as parent education and children's access to preschool. We get an A; the nation gets a C.

For school finance, Maryland earned a B, the nation C-plus. K12 achievement: a B for Maryland, a D-plus for the nation. Standards, accountability and assessments: B's all around.

In the "teaching profession" category, measuring accountability for quality, incentives and efforts to build and support teaching capacity, we're actually below the national average: a C-minus, compared with the country's C.

Is this a report card worthy of a valedictorian?

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 8:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Around the Nation, Around the Region
        

George W. Bush delivered what he called the "last policy address" of his presidency at a school in Philadelphia yesterday, on the seventh anniversary of his signing No Child Left Behind into law. You can read what he said here, or I'll spare you the task: He thanks everyone under the sun, defends the premise of testing and talks about how much NCLB has improved America's schools. He says that now is not the time to retreat to the "soft bigotry of low expectations" by weakening the law.

Groups including the National Education Association promptly issued statements decrying the havoc NCLB has wreaked. "President-elect Obama views children as citizens of the world, not just standardized test scores," NEA's statement says.

Find more about NCLB's birthday on this Education Week blog.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation, NCLB
        

If you read the fine print in the Quality Counts state rankings posted this morning on Education Week's Web site, you'll see that Maryland ranks No. 1 overall.

The report is an annual accounting of how the states are ranked on 14 different catagories. The data are massive but worth reading to see where the state's strengths and weaknesses are.

Sterling Lloyd, a senior researcher at the Educational Project in Education, the parent company of Education Week, said the analysis shows Maryland and a couple of other states are not very different.

"Maryland fared very well compared to states across the nation and Massachusettes and New York were not far behind," he said.

State Superintendent Nancy Grasmick said in an interview last night that she is "very happy." She said it reflects on the state's progress in setting pollicy. If there is one area she said needs some improvement it is in setting more rigorous standards in high schools so that more students graduate ready to go to college or into the workplace.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 7:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

The struggling Adams 50 school district, which serves a working-class suburb north of Denver, will eliminate grade levels and begin grouping students based on ability, according to this article in The Denver Post. The Gates Foundation has paid for some school districts in Alaska to try the same thing.

We all know the challenges teachers face when presented with a class where some students are academically prepared and some aren't. But clearly, grade levels also play a big role in the socialization process. The problems leading to a high dropout rate among the many over-age students in Baltimore aren't just academic; it's socially awkward for them to be in class with kids who are significantly younger. On the flip side, what would happen to an academically gifted child if placed alongside classmates who are much older? 

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 2:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

Happy new year! Moving now to the national education scene... The College Board has created a stir with a recent decision to let high school students pick which of their SAT scores get sent to colleges. In other words, students who take the test multiple times can opt to have only their best score show. Critics say this is unfair to low-income students who can't afford to take the test over and over. Some have gone as far as to call it a money-making scheme for the College Board by encouraging students to keep retaking the test.

As a New York Times article this week explains, some selective colleges have already decided not to participate in the new Score Choice plan, insisting on seeing all the scores a student earned.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 9:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Around the Nation, Testing
        

Good article in The New York Times yesterday about a topic familiar to many in Baltimore: the challenges associated with locating multiple small schools in the same building. While the suburbs by and large aren't experiencing this trend, it's becoming more and more common in urban districts around the nation. According to the article, 42 percent of New York City schools now cohabit with at least one other school, with as many as five to a building. In Baltimore, I know of as many as four under one roof (the old Roland Patterson now houses KIPP, MATHS, Civitas and the high school portion of ConneXions).

These configurations make sense for the many small schools opening without the funds for their own buildings, and they are an efficient use of resources. They also pose a variety of logistical problems, from who gets to have lunch at what time (the article mentions one where lunch periods start at 9:42 a.m.) to disagreements over when to have a fire drill and whether to form a sports team. In New York, there have been territorial spats among principals over such petty things as who controls keys to the building's closets. While the article says some of the thorniest issues involve placing multiple age groups under the same roof, I'd venture to say that in Baltimore at least, the toughest scenarios are those where one school in a building has a positive culture and another does not.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City
        

People in the Baltimore school system seem to be excited about Arne Duncan's appointment as education secretary for the new Obama administration. As superintendent in Chicago, Duncan understands the challenges that urban districts like Baltimore face. "He knows the work," Dr. Alonso said at last night's budget work session, when school board member Bob Heck asked what he thought of the appointment. And what's more, Alonso said, "We can call him up." He and Duncan were together twice two weeks ago, for conferences of the National Governors Association in Chicago and the Aspen Institute in Charlotte. Alonso and Duncan both belong to Aspen's Urban Superintendents Network, which brings a group of big city superintendents together a few times a year.

While many of the national pundits have called Duncan a middle-of-the-road choice for Obama, he has, like Alonso, taken tough stances on school accountability. In Chicago, he's closed dozens of failing schools. And he's embraced the idea of giving schools autonomy in exchange for results, though not to the same extent as Batlimore's CEO. From what I've read, Duncan's school autonomy model in Chicago seems similar to John Deasy's in Prince George's County, where schools have to earn their freedom from the bureaucratic red tape. It's not an automatic, as in Baltimore and New York.

Obama announced Duncan's appointment this week at a Chicago school turned around by a New Leaders for New Schools principal, which seems to indicate an endorsement of the non-traditional school leadership model that's also been embraced in Baltimore.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City
        

Even before President-elect Barack Obama introduced Arne Duncan, 44, as his selection for Secretary of Education this morning at a press conference in a revamped Chicago public school, education policy advocates on all sides had begun to express delight at the choice. He appeals to the current education secretary, Margaret Spellings, who said in a statement that he was a "visionary leader and fellow reformer who cares deeply about children." She notes that he has promoted policies to keep schools accountable. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington think tank, agreed. "He's a proven and committed and inventive education reformer, not tethered to the public school establishment and its infinite interest groups, nor bedazzled by blandishments and commands from Washington,"  said Chester E. Finn, Fordham's outspoken president, in a press release.

On the other hand, the National School Boards Assocation also was supportive of the choice. As was the president of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the two big teachers unions in the country. "As Chicago schools’ chief executive officer, Duncan has shown a genuine commitment to what we see as the essential priorities for an incoming education secretary," said Randi Weingarten, AFT president, in a statement.

It appears that Obama has chosen a middle-of-the-road nominee who can appeal to both the reform-minded education advocates who value standardized testing and those who think more attention needs to be paid to programs outside of school that support students, particularly those from poor backgrounds.

Duncan is currently the chief executive of the Chicago school system and has been there for seven years, an extremely long tenure for any urban superintendent. In introducing him, Obama said Duncan is "not beholden to any ideology."

It will be interesting to see if Duncan is able to span the philosophical divides and get some much needed consensus on education issues.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 5:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

President-elect Obama says he has a plan to save or create 2.5 million jobs by 2011. Workers can pave roads, build bridges and -- and -- modernize schools.

On the Open Society Institute's Audacious Ideas blog this week, Bebe Verdery of the ACLU of Maryland proposes that Obama create jobs by rebuilding schools in Baltimore. Better yet, she says, make the new buildings green.

Verdery, a longtime advocate for city school funding, notes that Baltimore's school buildings "need $2.7 billion in renovation/construction to meet industry standards." With state money for school construction a tiny fraction of what the city needs, it has long seemed a far-fetched notion that the children of Baltimore would all go to school in modern, well-lit buildings. And in these economic times, we know, the belt is only getting tighter.

But if the nation is going to spend the money to create new jobs anyway, why not put people to work rebuilding the city's schools?

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City
        

In Baltimore this academic year, the annual school climate surveys completed by parents, teachers and students will be administered under much tighter regulations. The results will be used in evaluating principals.

In New York City, such surveys are already used as a factor in giving schools A through F letter grades. If low enough for long enough, those grades can cost principals their jobs and prompt school closings. 

The New York Post reported yesterday that more than 60 principals there were urged to keep the surveys away from "toxic" students who might bring their rankings down. In a document posted online last year by a school system official, the article says, "Principals were also advised to have school staffers help parents not only with translating a survey, but with 'filling it out,' and to urge students and teachers to complete the surveys following 'fun' events." The article quotes parents who say their principals told them falsely that low marks on the surveys would cost their schools funding.

The Post reports that the document in question has been taken down from the New York education department's Web site, but the department defended the integrity of the surveys.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City
        

The Civil Rights Project at UCLA released a study today recommending that, with all the buzz about charter schools, the nation's public school systems shouldn't forget about magnet schools, which tend to be more diverse than charters.

The country's 2,683 magnet schools have improved both the quality and the equity in public schools over the past 40 years, the report says, but they have been left out of the discussion on how to reform schools. Magnet schools enroll 2 million students, twice as many as charter schools.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 6:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Around the Nation, Charter Schools, Study, study!
        

Kalman R. "Buzzy" Hettleman, a former Baltimore school board member, wrote an opinion column today suggesting what the Obama administration might tackle first in education reform.

Hettleman forecasts a reauthorization of No Child Left Behind and a bit more money over the next two years, with larger changes coming in the long haul. But he says there is little consensus on what the role of the federal government should be in education, as neither the president-elect nor Sen. John McCain was very specific during the campaign about how Congress should change NCLB.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 6:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute is asking Washington insiders for their thoughts on who Barack Obama might pick for the next secretary of education, and guess who's on the list? Freeman Hrabowski, UMBC's president (not someone else in our area).

Fordham is keeping a new daily tracking poll of the rumors. Hrabowski appears way down, in seventh in the polls, but he might be an interesting choice, according to Fordham's Mike Petrilli, because he is the only one on the list from higher education.

Others mentioned include Arne Duncan, chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools; Joel Klein, the chancellor of New York City schools; Colin Powell, the former secetary of state; and Jim Hunt, the former governor of North Carolina.

I am not sure that anyone knows anything right now, but it is fun to pass on the speculation.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 5:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

For those who want one viewpoint on how election results will affect the education landscape around the nation, go to the Web site for the Center for Education Reform, an advocate for charter schools. There will be some new commentary posted soon. Beginning at 7 p.m when the races begin to be called, CER will post commentary on each state. The site will evolve during the evening.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 6:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

Mock election results, that is. Classrooms around the country held election days of their own in recent weeks to engage students in the civic process.

Nearly a million children ages 6 to 12 participated in the "Every Kid Votes" election sponsored by Studies Weekly and Woogi World. Barack Obama won with 473,919 votes, compared with 333,092 for John McCain. The contest said it had children from all 50 states participating. Wonder how their votes would break down in an electoral college....

Here in Baltimore, Hampstead Hill Academy, a charter school that enrolls about 500 pre-K through eighth graders, reports that Obama won its mock election. He got 75 percent of the vote, while 25 percent voted for McCain.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City
        

I was just about ready to pass out in front of the television last night when the final question of the final presidential debate perked me up. At last, a question about education. It's been discouraging the last several months how little the topic -- which Sen. McCain last night called the civil rights issue of our time -- has played a part in the campaign.

I was baffled by McCain's response about No Child Left Behind, that the law needs more "transparency" and "accountability," but not necessarily more money thrown at it. This may be true of many things in government, and many things in education as well. But in the case of NCLB, aren't we already making everything transparent -- embarrassing low-performing schools by making their scores available for all to see? Don't we already have accountability -- holding schools to ever-higher standards and sanctioning those who don't meet state-established benchmarks for two years or more? Isn't a big part of the problem that the federal government has placed these increased demands on schools without providing the extra resources to meet them?

Sen. Obama compared NCLB with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, the 1975 federal law that requires schools to provide disabled students with a "free and appropriate public education" but has never been fully funded. But much of the back-and-forth centered around vouchers. (Does Michelle Rhee support them, or only charter schools? McCain said she does. Does not, replied Obama. Does, too, replied McCain. I'm sure the D.C. schools chancellor was thrilled to have her position debated on national television. The Washington Post and a Post blogger say today she supports both, vouchers and charters.)

Given the current economic climate, an infusion of cash for education seems unlikely regardless of who wins the White House. In Maryland and many other states, cuts are on the way. But let's be real about what the needs are.

UPDATE: The Web site Fast Company talked to Rhee today about what was said about her. She said she hasn't issued a formal position on vouchers, but her office issued a statement saying vouchers aren't the solution to fixing the D.C. school system.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Around the Nation, NCLB
        

The Brownsville Independent School District, located along the U.S. border with Mexico, is the winner of this year's Broad Prize in Urban Education. Selected from among the five finalists (including drama-ridden Miami), it will receive $1 million in scholarship money for its high school seniors. The four other districts will get $250,000 each.

The winner of the prize, the most prestigious in urban education, was chosen by a panel of 10 leaders in education, business and government, including two former U.S. education secretaries (Democrat Richard Riley and Republican Rod Paige) and former Harvard president Lawrence Summers.

According to the Broad Foundation, Brownsville is one of the nation's poorest school districts, with 94 percent of students qualifying for free and reduced-price lunch. Billionaire Eli Broad, founder of the foundation, said in a statement that it is "the best kept secret in America," outpacing other urban districts by focusing its resources on direct support to students and teachers.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

The Chicago Tribune reports that the Windy City's superintendent is asking the board of education there to sign off on the creation of a high school for gay, lesbian and transgendered teens. The article says the Pride Campus "would incorporate lessons about sexual identity in literature and history classes and offer counseling."

The school proposal comes as a new study confirms the rampant harassment of gay students in the nation's middle and high schools. The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network says nearly nine in 10 of the 6,209 students it surveyed say they've been harassed in the past year. This leads to truancy, as gay students don't feel safe coming to school. And understandably, fears are heightened in the wake of the Larry King tragedy this year in California.

But is creating a separate school the answer? Or, as some gay-rights activists suggest in the article, should existing schools be working harder to foster acceptance? After all, children make fun of each other all the time for all kinds of reasons: because of the color of their skin or the religion they practice, because their families are poor, because they have a disability. 

The Pride school would not be allowed to ask prospective students their sexual orientation (presumably, they would self-select). But it's hard to imagine the creation of a school designed to prevent any other minority group from being teased.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 3:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

Tuesday is a day that administrators from around the nation have been waiting for: the announcement of this year's Broad Prize, urban education's version of the Oscars or the Pulitzers or even the Nobel. The prize goes to the urban district with the greatest growth and overall student achievement. The winner gets $1 million for college scholarships for its high school seniors; the four finalists each get $250,000. New York City won last year.

This year, the contest is particularly interesting because one of the contenders -- Miami-Dade County Public Schools -- just ousted its superintendent, former NYC Chancellor Rudy Crew. Crew had been named the 2008 superintendent of the year by the American Association of School Administrators. From what I've read, it sounds like he was a victim of school board politics. And the drama only begins there: The Miami board named as Crew's successor an assistant superintendent, Alberto Carvalho, who is alleged to have had an affair with the Miami Herald reporter who was covering the schools there last year. She had moved onto The Boston Globe when the allegations surfaced and resigned from her position last month.

The other finalists for the Broad Prize are the Aldine Independent School District in Texas, Broward County Public Schools in Florida, the Brownsville Independent School District in Texas and the Long Beach Unified School District in California.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

In today's paper, I wrote about another chapter in the ongoing conflict of Baltimore County schools vs. teachers (and other system employees).  While the hundreds who protested at the Board of Education were pleased that members decided not to switch to a single provider for 403(b) plans, the call for a 2 percent pay raise (recommended by a mediation panel) is still at issue.

The pay raise issue here popped into my head this morning when I stumbled across this item about a very well-paying teaching job in New York City. Teachers, what do you think?  Would you be up for a gig that paid $125,000 a year?  This charter school may be for you.

Posted by Arin Gencer at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore County, Teaching
        

We've talked before on this blog about the reasons for the success of the 60-plus schools in the Knowledge is Power Program, or KIPP, which runs Baltimore's highest-performing middle school. Now, the research group SRI International is releasing a three-year study of KIPP schools in the San Francisco Bay Area, analyzing why their students outperform their peers in other public schools. The study, commissioned by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, cites four factors: 1) a culture of high expectations; 2) more time in school and more support for struggling students; 3) a focus on tracking student progress and careful instructional planning; 4) a philosophy of continuous improvement, where school leaders and teachers often revise their strategies.

We've seen all these things before at KIPP Ujima Village in Baltimore. To me, the more interesting question that the study poses is not what causes KIPP to be successful, but whether its success can be replicated on a large scale. And its answer to that is maybe not: It's a lot harder when the students and parents aren't choosing to be at the charter school, making a commitment to do the work. It's a lot harder when teachers aren't choosing to work many extra hours and be available for their students around the clock.

It's not that KIPP students are coming in more able, as is often alleged. In fact, the report found that the Bay Area KIPP schools tend to attract lower-performing students than the traditional public schools in their areas. Perhaps these students and their parents feel desperate that the traditional public schools aren't working for them. In any case, they're choosing to be at KIPP.

The report concludes that KIPP's experiences "don't directly map onto those of other schools and districts," but they demonstrate a lesson relevant to everyone: "High expectations and hard work pay off. There are no shortcuts."

The study's findings are similar to those of another report released in by Johns Hopkins researchers about KIPP Ujima Village last year. An article we wrote about the report at the time said KIPP was transforming the lives of its students, but "translating the methods and successes of KIPP to other middle schools in the city probably would be challenging and costly."

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City, Charter Schools, Study, study!
        

In this article published yesterday, USA Today surveyed 74 business CEOs to ask whether they think it's a good idea to pay students for doing well in school. More than half said yes. Thirty-three of 66 said they pay or have paid their own kids for grades.

The article contrasted that survey's findings with a Union Pacific Foundation survey of 450 high school principals, only 15 percent of whom supported paying for grades. The 15 percent were typically "in poor communities where almost any experiment is worth a try," the article says.

Baltimore, of course, is one of the cities that's trying pay for performance among students -- those struggling to pass the High School Assessments. The article also mentions a project by the foundations of ExxonMobil, Bill Gates and Michael Dell to pay students at 67 high schools in seven states between $100 and $200 for high scores on A.P. exams.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City
        

As Liz reports today, a new study is out by the Center on Education Policy about the schools that have restructured under No Child Left Behind. Maryland, with its recent emphasis on replacing the staff at schools required by law to restructure, is now taking among the most aggressive steps in the nation. But it's too soon to know whether the strategy is working.

Until 2006, most Maryland schools that have failed to meet targets on standardized tests for several consecutive years chose the restructuring option of hiring a "turnaround specialist," usually to work with the principal. And usually, that move didn't do much good, so the option was discontinued.

The CEP report questions the logistical challenges associated with creating school restructuring plans as more schools need them. It says that Maryland's resources are being "stretched thinly." In districts such as Baltimore and Prince George's County with lots of schools in restructuring, there's concern that plans are not being individualized for each school and staff replacement is the automatic option. Other choices include reopening as a charter school and entering into a contract with a private school management company. But as the report points out, "becoming a charter school takes about 18 months, which does not fit with the required federal restructuring timetline."

In Baltimore, the school improvement teams at all the restructuring schools chose the option of staff replacement. (These teams typically include the principal.) The city school board then signed off on the teams' recommendations and forwarded the choices to the state. Mary Minter, the city's chief academic officer, is quoted in the report saying that principals often didn't realize selecting that option meant they could be replaced as well. She said that discussion "came later on... 'You mean I can be replaced, too?' It was after the fact. I think had they known, they would not have selected that option." Dr. Alonso is also quoted about principals being in the dark about their own fates: "I find it difficult to believe that in every single case, something which should be so basic to the conversation has escaped the debate until the very end."

Now that the cat's out of the bag, what option will schools select this year?

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Around the Nation, Around the Region, Baltimore City, NCLB, Study, study!
        

At different times, pundits have said teachers care more about the support they get from their principal and their working conditions than how much they are paid. Maybe.

There's an interesting trend going on out west in Montana and Wyoming. Wyoming, which is rich in a growing coal mining revenues, has been pumping money into its schools, and in particular into its teacher salaries, according to a story in the Great Falls Tribune.  Beginning teacher salaries have risen quickly. In a few years, teachers can earn about $50,000, far more than in neighboring Montana. Montana spends about $5,000 per student on schools while Wyoming now spends $14,000, according to the Tribune.

What that means is that teachers are leaving in droves for Wyoming. Really. Montana's school board estimates that 70 to 80 percent of its new teachers are leaving. "We realize money isn't everything, but it sure does help," one teacher interviewed said.

Locally, Baltimore County's teachers have been complaining about not getting a raise last year, even as pay for teachers increased in other school districts.

And there's an interesting experiment going on in Washington, D.C., where the teachers may be voting next month on whether to give up tenure protections for a major boost in pay. There teachers who perform well could earn up to $131,000 a year.

It will be interesting to see whether they vote for the money as teachers in Montana are doing with their feet.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 6:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

As Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon positions herself to lobby for control of the Baltimore school system, New York is revisiting its state law -- adopted in 2002 and due to expire in June -- giving the mayor of the Big Apple oversight of the nation's largest school system.

The New York Times reports today that a commission appointed by that city's public advocate is recommending the continuation of mayoral control of schools. However, the commission is also recommending that structures be put in place to serve as a check on the mayor's power. It would give an independent panel more say over budget and policy decisions.

When Dr. Alonso served as deputy chancellor in New York, he had tremendous authority as a result of the mayoral control structure. He needed only to report to the chancellor, who had the backing of the mayor. He accepted his job as CEO in Baltimore on the condition that the school board give him the authority he needs to run the system without political interference. Even as observers say the board has given him more power than any Baltimore superintendent has had in decades, he still has to jump through more hoops here than he did in New York.

Education observers agree that the success of mayoral control of schools depends on a mayor's willingness to risk political capital to support controversial decisions made by a superintendent. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has shown that's not a question in New York. The same is now true in Washington, where Mayor Adrian Fenty has thrown his weight behind Chancellor Michelle Rhee. But should there be a limit on the authority vested in these arrangements? Or does a limit defeat the purpose, which is to minimize the bureaucracy that inhibits progress?

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City
        

Traditional educational thinking says that if you belong to certain socioeconomic groups, you are more likely to drop out of school, but the Alliance for Excellent Education, a Washington-based education group, says that academic indicators are a better way of judging that.

In some ways the idea might seem a "duh," but a paper by senior policy associate Lyndsay Pinkus shows that earlier intervention can reduce the risks for students dropping out. Researchers around the nation have found, the report says, that a failing grade in math or English, poor attendance or being retained a grade are red signals that a student is at risk of dropping out.

The alliance's brief on the subject can be found here.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 1:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

The magazine, Education Week, has a thought-provoking piece in its fall issue saying that cash incentives for teachers and students given out for each passing score earned on an Advanced Placement (AP) exam has been shown to increase the percentage of high ACT and SAT scores earned by the students.

In addition, the program increases the number of students enrolling in college, according to new research by Cornell University economist Kirabo Jackson.

The incentives have the biggest impact on African American and Hispanic students, boosting participation in AP courses and exams.

The program is successful among largely poor and minority students in Texas public schools. The researcher reports that there is a 22 percent average increase in the number of students scoring above 1100 on the SAT or above 24 on the ACT. The increase rises each year the student is in the program. There was an 8 percent increase in the number of students who enroll in a college or university in Texas from those schools that participated in the cash incentive program.

This raises a lot of questions about what motivates students and teachers and whether it is proper to pay students to do better in school. For more information on the research check out Education Next at hoover.org.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 6:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

National Public Radio had a story earlier this week about Barack Obama and John McCain's education platforms. A transcript is posted here, along with an audio link.

A couple interesting points the story made: Both of the candidates support merit pay for teachers. Obama has taken this position even though unions tend to oppose merit pay and the two major teachers unions are supporting him.

Obama has also proposed requiring all colleges of education to be accredited and rating how they do in preparing teachers. According to the story, one of his advisers is Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford education professor who believes strongly in the importance of teacher preparation. Darling-Hammond is a leading critic of alternative certification programs such as Teach for America (which, incidentally, is holding a press conference in Baltimore today to announce financial support for the program from the City Council). However, another of Obama's advisers is Michael Johnston from New Leaders for New Schools, which is essentially an alternative certification program for principals.

Both Obama and McCain support changing No Child Left Behind, but neither wants to scrap it altogether. McCain is interested in providing more tutoring to struggling students. Obama says NCLB is inadequately funded, and he wants to work with states to develop better tests measuring what students have learned and where they have weaknesses.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City, Teaching
        

The Schott Foundation for Public Education today released a report on the state of education as it pertains to African-American males. It also launched an interactive Web site with all sorts of interesting information about the achievement gap for black boys. Check it out here.

The report contains data not only for the 50 states, but also for their largest school districts. According to Schott's calculations, Maryland's graduation rate for black boys in 2005-2006 was slightly higher than the national average: 55 percent, compared with 47 percent nationally. That's due in part to the fact that Baltimore County reported one of the nation's highest graduation rates for African-American males, 72 percent. Montgomery County's rate was 69 percent and Prince George's was 59 percent. And then there was Baltimore City: 31 percent.

Using data from 2004-2005, the report said white, non-Hispanic boys were admitted to gifted and talented programs in Baltimore at twice the rate of black boys. Four times as many white boys as black participated in math Advanced Placement courses. Nine times as many white boys took science A.P. courses. Although this information is nearly four years old, it highlights the opportunities that have long existed for the small number of white students (less than 10 percent of total enrollment) in the city school system.

The report's release and the Web site launch coincided with this week's UNITY convention of 10,000 journalists of color, who gathered in Chicago.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 9:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
        

Fascinating article in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine about new efforts to integrate school districts by class, now that the Supreme Court has outlawed assignments based on race.

While the issue is probably irrelevant in much of Baltimore City, where many white, middle class parents send their children to private schools, I could see it having legs in diverse suburban districts like Baltimore County and Anne Arundel County.

The article raises a host of interesting questions: How many poor students can a majority-affluent school accommodate without a perceived decline in quality? A significant number, the researchers quoted conclude. What conditions need to be in place for class-based integration to work? A Harvard economist says affluent and poor students must be together not only in the same building, but also in the same classes. If the poor kids are all put in low-level classes, it defeats the purpose. Will class-based integration lead to racial integration? In some cases yes, in others no.

The article mentions at least one school system where economics-based school assignments seem to be working. In Wake County, N.C., the system ensures that no more than 40 percent of students at a school come from a low-income area, and no more than 25 percent speak English as a second language. Test scores have improved among both black students and poor students. But in San Francisco, a diversity plan based on socioeconomics has resulted in racial resegregation of schools.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Around the Nation, School Diversity/Segregation
        

We've been theorizing a lot on the blog this week about what caused the jump in test scores this year in Baltimore in particular and in general statewide. Liz's story today offers a possible explanation: The tests this year were shorter and better aligned with the Maryland state curriculum, so students were likely less tired taking them and less likely to be presented with material they hadn't learned. But officials say the material tested was just as difficult as last year. And Dr. Alonso points out that Baltimore students still improved more than their peers in the rest of the state.

Meanwhile, an article in the current Education Week reports on two studies in New York City and Chicago that linked an increase in highly qualified teachers serving poor and minority children to better test scores there. While the article only examines those two cities (and Illinois in general), it suggests a trend in urban districts nationwide. Baltimore is one of a handful of systems lauded for aggressive recruitment programs in hard-to-staff areas. "Both studies show a shift in the long-observed trend that the most-qualified teachers appear to teach at the more affluent schools, while the poorest schools are usually staffed by teachers who are new or less qualified," the article says. 

The New York study is here (sorry, it costs $5 to read the whole thing). The Chicago study is here.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore City, Teaching, Testing
        

I'm a little late on this story out of Chicago that made news last week, but I thought it was worth coming back to, given our debates this past year about the use of cash for student incentives and our own recent drama about a car dealership's donation...

A 12-year-old seventh-grader in the Chicago public school system has won a Dodge Caliber for good attendance, four years before she's old enough to drive. (In the meantime, her parents are excited to use it.) Chicago students who had perfect attendance for any one of three three-month periods were eligible to win the car, which was donated to the school system, according to the Chicago Tribune. The girl, Ashley Martinez, won from a pool of 189,115 students eligible.

In the past, according to the Tribune article, the Chicago schools have offered attendance awards including "vacations to Wisconsin resorts, laptops, iPods and even paying a family's rent or mortgage for a month."

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

The National Council on Teacher Quality issued a report yesterday concluding that most of the nation's education colleges are not doing enough to prepare prospective elementary school teachers to teach math. The council studied entry and exit requirements, curriculum, textbooks and state licensing tests for 77 education colleges in 49 states. It found only 13 percent of the schools were giving teachers adequate math training.

Kate Walsh, president of the council, said in a statement: "As a nation, our dislike and discomfort with math is so endemic that we do not even find it troubling when elementary teachers admit to their own weakness in basic mathematics. Not only are our education schools not tackling these weaknesses, they accommodate them with low expectations and insufficient content."

But there's good news for Maryland: The University of Maryland at College Park is among the 10 schools where the council determined the math preparation was adequate. Towson University is one of five that the report said would pass muster with improved focus and textbooks. That's better than the 37 schools, among them American University, that were found to fail on all measures. Some schools, including Hampton University and University of Richmond, don't require prospective elementary teachers to take any math classes at all.

Think you're qualified to teach elementary school math? See how you do on this test that the council says all elementary math teachers should be able to pass. 

UPDATE, 6/30: See the comments for a rebuttal from the dean of Amerian University's education school, who says the report was not compiled responsibly.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Around the Nation, Around the Region, Study, study!, Teaching
        

A Fordham Institute report released yesterday says high-achieving students aren't making the same gains in test scores as the lowest achieving students. (See my story today.)

The report also has some fascinating data about what teachers think about their high-achieving students. For instance, teachers say that their schools do not make high-achieving students a top priority. And that apparently happens much more frequently at urban schools where there are high numbers of students in poverty. So that means that if you a high-achieving, minority student in an urban school, you are much less likely to have a chance to be challenged than if you go to a suburban school. That may not be particularly surprising, but it documents what has been believed for years.

In addition, teachers told the researchers that they feel guilty about the fact that their most gifted students don't get challenged enough. "I feel like sometimes we are cheating them ... cheating them out of their own personal glory.... They could be so much more magnificent in their own right and happier, because I think they feel a level of frustration that they have to sit by while we are babysitting," said one teacher who was quoted in the report by researchers Steve Farkas and Ann Duffett.

Interesting, too, is that while most teachers say the low achievers are getting more attention than others, they also don't think that is right. About half of teachers reported they thought every student should get equal attention.

In the same study, about half of high school teachers surveyed said they believe the advanced-level classes at their school are truly rigorous and challenging. Another 40 percent said they are watered down.

Teachers also said that too often parents push their children into the advanced classes they are unprepared for or don't want to be in.

Posted by Liz Bowie at 2:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Around the Nation
        

Here's an interesting article about an initiative in Michigan aimed at reducing the size of high schools. It's an especially timely article for those of you who may be following the debate locally about school size, an issue recently brought into sharper focus in Baltimore County because of a failed proposal to expand Loch Raven High School.

Click here for my article from last week about the school board's decision to nix the expansion plan at Loch Raven High School. And here for my article on County Executive James T. Smith Jr.'s response to the board's action.

Posted by Gina Davis at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore County, Trends
        

Frances Yancey-Olaifa, a 71-year-old great-grandmother who lives in Upper Marlboro, has earned a high school diploma and will graduate today in a ceremony held by the Literacy Council of Prince George's County.

And she's a youngster compared with John Lawrence Locher, who is 90 and received his high school diploma this week in Detroit.

Posted by Sara Neufeld at 6:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation, Around the Region
        

Shortly after this week's news that the Baltimore County school system has the fourth-highest graduation rate among the nation's 50 largest school districts, I caught up with county schools Superintendent Joe A. Hairston at the Community College of Baltimore County in Essex. (See today's article.)

Hairston was there with a group of eighth-graders from Golden Ring Middle School, as part of a partnership between the school system and the community college to encourage the kids to start thinking about, and planning for, college.

While pleased with the county's graduation rate, he grew serious as he talked about the challenges that the school system faces to keep that high ranking. Not for the sake of rankings, but because of what those rankings represent, he said --- stability and effectiveness.

That means building strong programs at the elementary school level that will send students onto middle school ready for challenging courses that will prepare them for advance work in high school, he said. Middle school students have to come to the table with a solid foundation, ready to start thinking about their futures. He said he worries about the "bottle-neck" that is produced at the middle school level when too many students arrive behind grade level. But, he said, middle school is not the time to try to teach elementary-school concepts.

Hairston said he understands that some people may be worried about his plans to stop giving its middle schools federal Title I money that is aimed at schools with high concentrations of low-income students. (Click here for Wednesday's article on this news.) He said he understands that it sounds like he is taking away precious resources from the middle schools. But I think he summed it up best with these remarks:

"Spending (Title I) money for kids at the middle school level doesn't help if they are in eighth grade reading at the third-grade level. It makes more sense to invest that money in the elementary schools so those students don't get behind."

I've talked to some national education advocates, who seem to generally agree with Hairston's line of thinking. What are you thoughts?

Posted by Gina Davis at 8:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation, Baltimore County, School Finance
        

It appears that 23 states -- Maryland not among them -- might have been banking on No Child Left Behind going away by now, or at least lessening its mandate that 100 percent of public school students be proficient in reading and math by 2014.

A new report by the Center on Education Policy reviewed the pace with which states require their schools to improve each year as they work towards all kids being proficient. Maryland is among those that increase schools' targets incrementally each year.

But in almost half the country, states only required small improvement in the early years of the law, making it relatively easy for schools to make AYP. But as 2014 approaches, schools in these states now have to show big improvements every year. In California, for example, reading proficiency must increase by 11 percentage points a year for the next six years, a goal viewed by many as unrealistic.

The challenge "is about to become much more difficult for 23 states that generally set lower expectations for the percentages of students reaching proficiency between 2002 and 2008 in contrast to much steeper expectations later on," the report says. "The higher goals are now becoming a reality."

The report concludes that, while it will be harder for schools in the 23 states to make