From: Public Education Network [mailto:PEN@;PublicEducation.org] Sent: Thursday, October 17, 2002 10:43 PM To: PEN Weekly NewsBlast Subject: PEN Weekly NewsBlast for October 18, 2002
Public Education Network Weekly NewsBlast "America's Favorite Free Newsletter on Improving Public Education" ************************************************************************ *** WATCHING OUT FOR OUR POOREST SCHOOLS A recent report from the Education Trust outlines the ways many states may be exacerbating the achievement gap by providing the least funding to the schools with the greatest numbers of poor students. These funding differences amount to thousands of dollars less per child each year compared to schools with more affluent students. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) states, "all children, including those from low-income families, are entitled to safe, healthy, and comfortable school facilities; well-qualified teachers and other staff members; high-quality curriculum and learning materials; and adequate supplies and equipment." Gene Carter, ASCD's executive director, outlines why school funding must be adequate to give students with different abilities, backgrounds, and preparation equal access to knowledge and skill development. Schools with a high percentage of poor students lack more than just funding. Affluent schools are commonly believed to provide higher expectations and peers with a range of experiences, aspirations, and vocabulary. Teachers at these schools are faced with reduced numbers of high-needs students, and thus are able to teach more effectively. All students can succeed and should not be denied the resources -- financial and otherwise -- necessary for their success. http://www.ascd.org/educationnews/kids/kids092002.html TRUST IN SCHOOLS LINKED TO STUDENT GAINS Education Week examines the contention by two researchers that they have found the "missing ingredient" without which schools stand little chance of improving: a strong bond of trust among members of the school community. In a new book, University of Chicago professors Anthony S. Bryk and Barbara Schneider express their support for improving the quality of instruction, measuring student performance, and reshaping education governance. But they argue that without trusting relationships among teachers, principals, parents, and students, such efforts are likely doomed to fail. The type of trust at work in public schools they dubbed "relational trust," a complex dynamic in which parties depend on one another, and on a shared vision, for success. They found that the bedrock of trust rested on four supports: respect, competence, integrity, and personal regard for others. Again and again, they found that teachers and principals who had one another's trust, and the trust of parents, had exhibited strong and consistent signs of all four. http://www.edweek.com/ew/ewstory.cfm?slug=07trust.h22 STANDARDS-BASED REFORM: A CIVIC IMPERATIVE Public Education Network's 2002 annual conference, "Standards-Based Reform: A Civic Imperative," November 10-12 in Washington, DC, features Harvard professor and author Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot speaking on "Building Respect & Reverence for Public Education"; Award-winning author Taylor Branch discussing, "Connecting School Reform and Social Justice"; Boston schools chief Tom Payzant; and Maryland state school superintendent, Nancy Grasmick. For detailed session and registration information, visit: http://www.publiceducation.org/events/conference/index.htm PERFORMANCE PAY FOR TEACHERS: EXCELLENCE FOR ALL While teacher unions may continually call for improved schools and higher standards, according to Clint Green, the unions refuse to take necessary steps to ensure that goal. Among those steps is one that other industries and organizations adopted long ago: pay for performance. The idea behind giving incentives for outstanding performance is not a new one. Teachers should be given financial incentives for excellence and dedication. However, under the current teacher compensation plans, teachers are not compensated based on their results, or their excellence, but rather on their seniority. Educators that choose to work in the poorer urban and rural schools deserve to be compensated for that choice. In the same way, teachers who choose to specialize in the more difficult to fill fields of math and science should also be compensated accordingly. It is an accepted fact that individuals with more sought after skills are generally paid more than those with less desired skills. If merit pay has been successfully implemented in other industries, why is it not so well received in education? The answer is actually rather complicated. http://www.acton.org/ppolicy/comment/archives/021016.html URBAN RESIDENTS CONCERNED CHILDREN WILL BE LEFT BEHIND Americans closest to the scene of urban schools are broadly supportive of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education law, but are deeply concerned about the effect of various provisions of the law on struggling urban communities and their schools. A recent poll from the Annenberg Institute confirms that most urban Americans support the central provisions of the law -- greater accountability for student achievement -- but also prefer district-by-district, system-wide approaches to addressing the needs of failing schools over the more common school-by-school improvement efforts. Most Americans in urban communities believe that the standardized test scores usually arrive too late to help individual children or schools that are struggling. Additionally, most respondents voiced their concern that a provision of the law allowing students from underperforming schools to transfer to higher-performing schools will end up harming the struggling urban schools from which students transfer. To address these issues, Americans in urban communities overwhelmingly want to make changes to school districts to ensure that every school receives the specific resources and supports it needs to offer all students a quality education. Additionally, large majorities also support giving the community a larger role in reforming urban schools and greater responsibility for what happens to students in their city. http://www.schoolcommunities.org/poll_findings.html OUR CHILDREN, OUR MONEY: UNDERSTANDING THE SCHOOL BUDGET Well-informed citizens are key to bringing about sustained school improvement. To that end, Charlotte Advocates for Education has released their "Community Guide to Understanding the School Budget." The guide is a tool to help the community better understand how Charlotte-Mecklenberg Schools (CMS), North Carolina's largest district, are financed and to ensure that citizens are getting the best possible return on investment for the community's children. The Guide makes very large numbers concrete. The guide also includes a budget calendar, sample letters and e-mails, addresses and websites of organizations and elected officials directly involved with the budgeting process, and a list of additional resources. With this information voters can stay informed about school budget issues throughout the school year and can let their voices be heard in key budget decisions. http://www.advocatesfored.org/communityguide.htm TEACHING MATTERS: PROMOTING QUALITY INSTRUCTION IN LOUISIANA Academic Distinction Fund (ADF), a local education fund, works to promote excellence in education in Baton Rouge, LA. Their newest report seeks to provide key facts, dispel some myths and make a few suggestions that will involve all citizens in improving teaching and learning. Last year, ADF held seven community conversations, attended by over 100 citizens including teachers and representatives of numerous local and state organizations. In these meetings, citizens wrestled with such questions as what constitutes quality education and discussed and debated such concerns as family support, youth development and meaningful adult participation in public education. In every discussion, the importance of teacher quality was highlighted. The East Baton Rouge Parish School System cooperated throughout the process. The district shared baseline data for each school. The data included, among other things, information on standardized test scores, teachers, program offerings and dropout rates. Research and information gathering are fundamental in local efforts to provide facts about education. For almost half a century, schools have been a battleground in many communities. Citizens have been distracted from considering the real issues of what it takes to improve student achievement and foster academic excellence for all students and, too often, their beliefs have been shaped by rumor and emotion. Setting forth the facts and making recommendations based on these facts is an essential part of ADF's ongoing efforts to promote informed discussion by concerned citizens. http://www.publiceducation.org/cgi-bin/downloadmanager/publications/p119 .asp SEATTLE SUPERINTENDENT'S $33-MILLION CRISIS In the weeks since discovering a gaping $33-million budget hole, asserts the Seattle Times, Schools Superintendent Joseph Olchefske has tackled the problem with refreshing candor and aggressive action. He has acknowledged mistakes and is now fine-tuning a fix that could return the city schools to sound fiscal shape. It is critical that Olchefske stay this course of honesty and tough decision-making if he wants to restore public confidence. But those efforts don't wipe the blackboard clean. Inexcusable things occurred. People were hired without money to pay their salaries. A $7 million allocation from the state for vocational education was recorded as $14 million and spent. About $5 million in unpaid bills from one year were passed on to the next year. No one, including the top boss, noticed anything amiss. Plain and simple, the district spent far more money than it had. There is a critical role for the Alliance for Education, a local education fund, the nonprofit group that helps the district pay for specific initiatives. While the Alliance cannot and should not backfill for this problem, group leaders have said they might be able to offer technical assistance. Olchefske and Seattle Schools will need all the help they can get. They will have to balance the budget while maintaining a laser-like focus on quality education and financial integrity. http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/d isplay?slug=skul06&date=20021006&query=33-million THIS WEEK I FAILED MY STUDENTS "This week I felt like a failure as a teacher," Annie Bianchetti writes in her online teacher diary. "Every lesson I taught seemed lacking in motivation. I had difficulty keeping control in the classroom and I resorted to yelling and threats. I questioned whether I should be a teacher at all. I compared myself to my colleagues and yearned to be as effective as they seemed to be. This week I only saw my flaws." Read of one dedicated educator's struggle to rekindle her passion for teaching. http://www.middleweb.com/mw/msdiaries/02-03wklydiaries/AB06.html LEARNING TO DISCIPLINE No one is born knowing how to control 125 adolescents for five hours a day and teach the curriculum at the same time. Learning to discipline takes years. Mostly, it's trial and error. Nothing works all the time, and what works well in one class has no effect on another. At the start of her teaching career, Margaret Metzger confesses, she ricocheted between being a drill sergeant and Mary Poppins. In this Phi Delta KAPPAN online article, she shares with new teachers the lessons she's learned along the way about managing and disciplining young adolescents. A good read for all those who care about what happens in America's classrooms. http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k0209met.htm TOUGH LOVE & ENDLESS CHANCES For many students, school is a threatening place -- a place where they expect to meet failure, embarrassment, and ridicule. Liz Locatelli tells the story of how one school district addressed the challenge of formulating an alternative to social promotion. Her assessment concludes that, "Many students who are currently failing do have the ability to pass new assessments if schools adopt a diagnostic-prescriptive philosophy, driven by ongoing assessment that informs instructional decisions. We must recognize, however, that growing social and emotional issues compound the problem -- excellence in pedagogy cannot be our sole concern. Teachers and parents need training and support in how to deal with students whose emotional issues impede their academic and social growth. They must work together to help students reach their potential. Finally, teachers and parents need to accept the things they simply can't change, without losing faith in their ability to make a difference." http://www.ascd.org/readingroom/classlead/0210/locatelli.html THE END OF EDISON? Suddenly, it is all falling apart. Edison's stock is plummeting. Boston and Dallas schools have ended their contracts with the financially troubled company. A few days before school opened in September, while Edison and school officials fought over how much money per pupil Edison would get, the company sent two tractor-trailers to haul away all the new equipment -- except some books and a handful of computers. As Edison stock plunges, a radical experiment in educating the poorest kids becomes a soap opera. What was supposed to be the nation's most extensive test of school privatization has devolved into a battle of philosophies pitting Edison's founder, Christopher Whittle, against Philadelphia's assertive schools chief, Paul Vallas. For nearly a decade, Whittle has been the nation's most vocal evangelist for running schools like corporations and measuring their success by the bottom line. He's also known for his high-flying lifestyle, which includes a mansion in the Hamptons that he recently put on the market for $46 million. Vallas, on the other hand, made his mark as a tough administrator who imposed fiscal controls on Chicago schools. Both say their only goal is to help the city's 200,000 mostly poor and black public-school students, whose test scores are well below the state's average. And no one wants the students to succeed more than parents. http://www.msnbc.com/news/820716.asp TAKE A CLOSE LOOK AT PHILANTHROPY'S ROLE IN EDUCATION Richard Rothstein writes about how foundation support is a mixed blessing for school districts: they desperately need the money, but foundation-mandated programs sometimes do not advance district goals. Rothstein acknowledges how hard it is to separate good ideas from foundation proposals that, while seemingly attractive, may be passing fads or only a way to advertise a donor's virtue or political or policy bias. At a time when school officials can be disoriented by funders with their own priorities, school fundraisers, like Caroline Kennedy in New York, should guard against that susceptivity. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/16/education/16LESS.html |---------------GRANT AND FUNDING INFORMATION--------------| "The Eleanor Roosevelt Fund Award" Established in 1989 by The American Association of University Women (AAUW) Educational Foundation, the Eleanor Roosevelt Fund Award honors an individual, project, organization, or institution for outstanding contributions to equity and education for women and girls. The $5,000 award is given for a broad range of activities including classroom teaching, educational and research contributions, and legal and legislative work in equity for women and girls. While the award focuses on education, the recipient need not be an educator. Nomination deadline: November 4, 2002. http://www.aauw.org/3000/awards/erfapp.html "The NEA Foundation's Arts@Work Grant Program" The Arts@Work grants encourage public secondary school arts specialists to collaborate with technology savvy educators and the business community to develop examples of technology-integrated arts curricula that meet high standards for student achievement. This program is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Application deadline: March 3, 2003. http://www.nfie.org/programs/artsatwork.htm "National Teachers Hall of Fame" Founded for the purpose of recognizing the exceptional qualities possessed by the nation's teachers, the National Teachers Hall of Fame has inducted 55 teachers from 25 states since the inaugural induction in 1992. Five teachers are selected for induction annually. Candidates may be current or retired teachers who have at least 20 years of full-time classroom teaching in pre-K through high school. Both public and private schoolteachers will be considered. Nomination deadline: January 15, 2003. http://www.nthf.org "National Endowment for the Humanities" The National Endowment for the Humanities is sponsoring a nationwide essay contest for high school juniors on "The Idea of America." Participating students are asked write a 1,200-word essay on the tenets that define our nation. There will be a first place prize of $5,000 and five runners-up will receive $1,000 each. Essay deadline: November 18, 2002. http://www.wethepeople.gov/ "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 "What is most surprising of all is how much fear there is in school. Why is so little said about it? Perhaps most people do not recognize fear in children when they see it. They can read the grossest signs of fear; they know what the trouble is when a child clings howling to his mother; but the subtler signs of fear escape them. It is these signs, in children's faces, voices, and gestures, in their movements and ways of working, that tell me plainly that most children in school are scared most of the time, many of them very scared. Like good soldiers, they control their fears, live with them, and adjust themselves to them. But the trouble is, and here is a vital difference between school and war, that the adjustments children make to their fears are almost wholly bad, destructive of their intelligence and capacity. The scared fighter may be the best fighter, but the scared learner is always a poor learner." -John Holt (author/educator) ===========PEN NewsBlast========== The PEN Weekly NewsBlast is a free e-mail newsletter featuring school reform and school fundraising resources. 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