Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 19:26:23 -0700 Subject: PEN Weekly NewsBlast for September 13, 2002 To: "PEN Weekly NewsBlast" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> From: "Public Education Network" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Public Education Network Weekly NewsBlast "America's Favorite Free Newsletter on Improving Public Education" *************************************************************************** THE TESTING TRAP Richard Elmore, a distinguished member of the Harvard faculty, calls the single test-based accountability system being promoted by the federal government, "…the single largest -- and the single most damaging -- expansion of federal power over the nation's education system." Under "No Child Left Behind," the federal government mandates a single test-based accountability system for all states -- a system currently operating in fewer than half the states. Elmore argues that the work of turning a school around entails improving "capacity" (the knowledge and skills of teachers) -- changing their command of content and how to teach it -- and helping them to understand where their students are in their academic development. Low-performing schools, and the people who work in them, don't know what to do. If they did, they would be doing it already. You can't improve a school's performance, or that of any teacher or student in it, without increasing the investment in teachers' knowledge, pedagogical skills, and understanding of students. Test scores don't tell us much of anything about these important domains; they provide a composite, undifferentiated signal about students' responses to a problem. Test-based accountability without substantial investments in internal accountability and instructional improvement is unlikely to elicit better performance from low-performing students and schools. Furthermore, the increased pressure of test-based accountability alone is likely to aggravate the existing inequalities between low-performing and high-performing schools and students. http://www.harvard-magazine.com/on-line/0902140.html NEW APPROACHES TO EDUCATION REFORM As schools reopen, a new issue of the Ford Foundation Report features articles that draw attention to new and promising approaches to education reform. "When money is tight, a perennial lament at many schools and colleges throughout the United States, a little vision, tenacity and critical insight can go a long way," says Janice Petrovich, director of the foundation's Education, Knowledge and Religion unit. Three new articles highlight reforms at the elementary, high school and college level that aim to make classrooms more diverse and education more effective. They entail forming public-private partnerships among teachers, parents and real estate developers to rebuild and save crumbling schools, strengthening the structure and support system to help poor and underserved students make a smooth transition to college, and exploring Texas' new alternatives to affirmative action. http://www.fordfound.org/ffreport/fall2002/ SCHOOL BATHROOMS LACK CLASS SAYS CLEAN CRUSADER Wherever Tom Keating travels, he tells anyone who will listen that it's time to transform grungy school restrooms into paragons of good citizenship and proper hygiene. If a school can't do a simple thing like keep soap in a dispenser, he says, how can it hope to teach students self-respect or inspire them to greater academic achievement? "This is a national disaster and I think that we ought to do something about it," says Dr. Keating, who launched his Project Clean campaign from this Atlanta suburb six years ago, using roughly $25,000 of his own money and a few tiny state and federal grants, all under $10,000. Progress has been slow at a time when school administrators are under pressure to balance tight budgets and boost test scores. Even so, Dr. Keating -- known to some as "Bathroom Man" -- has established a few beachheads and gained a bit of recognition. Not all school administrators are eager for the involvement of Dr. Keating, who documents nasty restrooms with photographs and, to lobby for his cause, has been known to show up at school-board meetings wearing yellow rubber cleaning gloves. http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB1025133912784551720,00.html TOP TEACHERS RARE IN POOR SCHOOLS As a new school year begins, the relative absence of successful teachers in America's poorest schools is becoming one of the most important educational issues. Several new studies note that the poorest children are hurt by having the least experienced, and often the least effective, instructors. A study by Richard M. Ingersoll of the University of Pennsylvania shows that the problem is not so much that low-income schools cannot attract enough experienced teachers, but that they lose the ones they have. "Once teachers gain a few years of seniority, they bolt from these urban schools faster than the speed of sound," said Peter D. Ford III, a mathematics teacher who has mostly low-income students at the Foshay Learning Center in South Central Los Angeles. Many education experts say teachers must be paid more and supported by good administrators. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59173-2002Sep9.html GIVE NEW TEACHERS NEEDED SUPPORT The Education Alliance, a local education fund, wanted to know how new teachers feel about their preparation to teach. Do they share the view that they are well prepared? Two-thirds of middle and high school teachers surveyed in four West Virginia counties agree that they would still want to be teachers. A slightly smaller percentage (58 percent) feel their teacher education program adequately prepared them for the classroom and that recent graduates of teacher education programs are adequately prepared to teach. Slightly over 60 percent felt that new teachers are given sufficient assistance. This survey was conducted last fall as part of a planning grant from the Public Education Network. Key findings include the importance of structured orientation, mentorships, and classroom observations to support new teachers. http://www.dailymail.com/display_story.php3?sid=2002091217 SCHOOLS CUT COSTS WITH 4-DAY WEEKS Bucking a nationwide trend toward bulking up school calendars, dozens of rural school districts are actually paring back their work weeks, cramming more academics into four days. The trade-off: School days are an hour or more longer than in most schools. Schools find that by knocking off Fridays or Mondays can save money on transportation, heating and substitute teachers. Advocates say four-day weeks have other advantages. They leave teachers with fewer interruptions and fewer student absences. They also cut down on teacher absences and allow schools to hire fewer substitutes -- the fifth day is used for teacher training or to free up teachers for personal appointments. School districts in six states -- Louisiana, Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and South Dakota -- are trying it this year. http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/09/11/b2s.02.school.4days.ap/index.html U.S. SECRETARY OF EDUCATION: TRUE BELIEVER To the casual acquaintance, Rod Paige is something of an enigma. He's a black Republican from the Deep South; a former football coach who reads obsessively; a father who keeps close counsel about his son and former wife; a powerful and affluent man who's kept the same modest house for 30 years. To others, he is the chief cheerleader for the Bush administration's "No Child Left Behind Act." In this profile, Amanda Paulson gets up close and personal with the man who has been credited with being a chief architect of the "Texas Miracle," and who has been able to convert and charm some of his loudest critics with his relentlessness and ability to build consensus. http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0910/p15s02-lepr.html THE PEDAGOGY OF POVERTY VERSUS GOOD TEACHING An observer of urban classrooms can find examples of almost every form of pedagogy: direct instruction, cooperative learning, peer tutoring, individualized instruction, computer-assisted learning, behavior modification, the use of student contracts, media-assisted instruction, scientific inquiry, lecture/discussion, tutoring by specialists or volunteers, and even the use of problem-solving units common in progressive education. In spite of this broad range of options, however, there are at least 14 more core functions of basic teaching that can be found in most classrooms. They constitute the pedagogy of poverty -- not merely what teachers do and what youngsters expect but, for different reasons, what parents, the community, and the general public assume teaching to be. Unfortunately, the pedagogy of poverty does not work. Youngsters achieve neither minimum levels of life skills nor what they are capable of learning. The classroom atmosphere created by constant teacher direction and student compliance seethes with passive resentment that sometimes bubbles up into overt resistance. According to Martin Haberman, graduates who lack basic skills may be unemployable and represent a personal and societal tragedy. However, graduates who possess basic skills but are partially informed, unable to think, and incapable of making moral choices are downright dangerous. http://www.enc.org/topics/equity/articles/document.shtm?input=ACQ-111376-1376 CHOICE UNDER NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND School districts nationwide are scrambling to comply with "No Child Left Behind," the federal law that aims to boost the performance of schools enrolling low-income children through a combination of incentives and punishment. The law also gives students at failing schools the right to transfer to better schools. However, both Illinois and Chicago have severely restricted transfers in the first year of what promises to be an increasingly more demanding environment for schools. There is a "big pushback" against the new law, says one business leader. "And it's going to get worse." http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/09-02/0902main1.htm WHAT YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT VOUCHERS To many, the idea of vouchers may sound good initially, but is quickly deflated when carefully analyzed. Every state, given the choice to vote on vouchers and the opportunity to study the issue on state ballot initiatives, has overwhelmingly voted it down -- continually rejecting voucher proposals in state after state for the past 30 years. Appearing in the September 4, 2002 edition of "Education Daily," Dr. Gerald N. Tirozzi discusses the complex nature of vouchers. http://www.principals.org/publicaffairs/views/vouchers.htm INVESTIGATING CHILDREN'S EMERGING DIGITAL LITERACIES This article compares the development of children's digital literacies in low- and middle-income households. The results also show that children's digital literacy skills are emerging in ways that reflect local circumstances, such as the length of time children had a computer at home; the family's ability to purchase stable Internet connectivity; the number of computers in the home and where they are located (bedroom or public area); parents' attitudes toward computer use; parents' own experience and skills with computers; children's leisure time at home; the computing habits of children's peers; the technical expertise of friends, relatives, and neighbors; homework assignments; and the direct instruction provided by teachers in the classroom. This article describes a useful framework for defining digital literacies and provides recommendations to schools and policymakers regarding ways to support the acquisition of digital literacies by children in low-income households. http://www.bc.edu/research/intasc/jtla/journal/v1n4.shtml A NEW YORK CITY SKETCHBOOK: STUDENTS REBUILD HOPE THROUGH ART Before a packed audience of families, peers, and fellow New Yorkers, city teens took the stage at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center this July to perform works of drama, dance, and music, with original photography, sculpture, paintings, and murals exhibited in the theatre lobby. The festival culminated a month-long arts workshop and internship program designed to help NYC students sift through their responses to the September 11 attack on their home. "So many people were affected by the disaster, not only in Lower Manhattan, but all over the world," said one student. "Everyone has a story to tell, and that is what is so compelling." Read about this very special performance and see these students' work at: http://www.whatkidscando.org/studentwork/sketchbook.html SCHOOLS SHOULD GET LESSONS IN NUTRITION There's not a piece of fresh fruit in sight. The only fresh vegetable besides lettuce is sliced tomato. And the meatball sandwiches, Italian hoagies, pepperoni pizza by the slice, pasta Alfredo, french fries and irresistibly aromatic freshly made cookies are too strong a temptation. The 53 million children who eat at school every day are a captive audience, and the nation's school-lunch program is considered the largest feeding program in the world. With all we know about good nutrition, brown still rules. What about food that is green, yellow, orange, red, purple? "The biggest obstacle," says one Cornell University researcher, "is getting people to realize that food is important and has an impact on learning." http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/4024626.htm HOMEWORK AS AN ISSUE IN AMERICAN POLITICS John Buell and Etta Kralovec remain convinced that homework as currently constituted is a largely ineffective and overly burdensome practice. Contemporary learning theory suggests that homework as conventionally organized is a poor way to advance student learning. Simply sending work home and observing the results in school often makes it hard for teachers, students, and parents to really understand the roots of both academic success and failure. Whatever homework's history or its failings and costs, it is likely to be retained as a practice as long as most of us are convinced that it is the only way to convey life long skills or character lessons essential to our survival. Homework reform is unlikely to take root until educators can not only understand its limits but also have clearer notions of how schools and classrooms can be organized without extensive reliance on homework as we know it. http://teachers.net/gazette/SEP02/kralovec.html |---------------GRANT AND FUNDING INFORMATION--------------| "Teaching Tolerance" The Southern Poverty Law Center provides Teaching Tolerance grants of up to $2,000 to K-12 classroom teachers for implementing tolerance projects in schools and communities. Proposals from other educators such as community organizations and churches will be considered on the basis of direct student impact. Application deadline: ongoing. http://www.tolerance.org/teach/expand/gra/guide.jsp "IBM's Reinventing Education Program" IBM announced a $15 million grant program designed to drive higher-quality training for U.S. public school teachers -- elevating their preparation to the rigorous standards in other professional fields. The announcement brings IBM's investment in its global Reinventing Education initiative -- currently serving 65,000 teachers and six million students -- to $70 million. The Reinventing Education teacher training initiative creates a first-of-a-kind national collaborative among the participating teacher education schools with the common goal of driving up the academic quality of teacher preparation courses. The grants will bring innovative technologies into schools of education, and build new, permanent bridges between teacher education programs and the schools they serve. http://www.ibm.com/ibm/ibmgives/grant/education/programs/reinventing/ "Handspring Foundation" The Handspring Foundation focuses on supporting non-profit organizations or international equivalents that help at-risk children and youth. The Foundation makes cash grants from $1,000 to $25,000 for projects that focus on preK-12 education or other issues directly related to at-risk children and youth. Application deadline: November 1, 2002. http://www.handspring.com/company/foundation/about.jhtml "FastWEB" FastWEB is the largest online scholarship search available, with 600,000 scholarships representing over one billion in scholarship dollars. It provides students with accurate, regularly updated information on scholarships, grants, and fellowships suited to their goals and qualifications, all at no cost to the student. Students should be advised that FastWEB collects and sells student information (such as name, address, e-mail address, date of birth, gender, and country of citizenship) collected through their site. http://www.fastweb.com/ "Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE)" More than 30 Federal agencies formed a working group in 1997 to make hundreds of federally supported teaching and learning resources easier to find. The result of that work is the FREE website. http://www.ed.gov/free/ "Fundsnet Online Services" A comprehensive website dedicated to providing nonprofit organizations, colleges, and Universities with information on financial resources available on the Internet. http://www.fundsnetservices.com/ "Department of Education Forecast of Funding" This document lists virtually all programs and competitions under which the Department of Education has invited or expects to invite applications for new awards for FY 2002 and provides actual or estimated deadline dates for the transmittal of applications under these programs. The lists are in the form of charts -- organized according to the Department's principal program offices -- and include programs and competitions the Department has previously announced, as well as those it plans to announce at a later date. Note: This document is advisory only and is not an official application notice of the Department of Education. http://www.ed.gov/offices/OCFO/grants/forecast.html "eSchool News School Funding Center" Information on up-to-the-minute grant programs, funding sources, and technology funding. http://www.eschoolnews.com/resources/funding/ "Philanthropy News Digest-K-12 Funding Opportunities" K-12 Funding opportunities with links to grantseeking for teachers, learning technology, and more. http://fdncenter.org/funders/ "School Grants" A collection of resources and tips to help K-12 educators apply for and obtain special grants for a variety of projects. http://www.schoolgrants.org QUOTE OF THE WEEK "It is vitally important that we nominate the best possible candidates and then choose wisely from among them. But that isn't enough. Among a portion of our citizens -- a steadily diminishing portion -- there survives the wistful hope that if we just elect the right person we will all be saved. But the cool voice of experience says something different. …(Taxpayers) are going to have to demand that our public process be responsive. They are going to have to demand that our politicians be continuously accountable. They are going to have to insist that the people be given access to their own institutions." -John W. Gardner (author/activist/civil servant), "In Common Cause" ===========PEN NewsBlast========== The PEN Weekly NewsBlast is a free e-mail newsletter featuring school reform and school fundraising resources. The PEN NewsBlast is the property of the Public Education Network, a national association of 71 local education funds working to improve public school quality in low-income communities nationwide. There are currently 43,821 subscribers to the PEN Weekly NewsBlast. Please forward this e-mail to anyone who enjoys free updates on education news and grant alerts. Some links in the PEN Weekly NewsBlast change or expire on a daily or weekly basis. 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