First Bell 3-21-13

yes Pamela Tatz / March 21, 2013

A first look at today's most important education news:

New York’s new budget framework will help New York City schools recuperate dollars it lost during the teacher-evaluation debacle earlier this year. (Wall Street Journal)

According to a new report on American infrastructure, U.S. school buildings are very out-of-date. (Inside School Research)

A Rutgers study finds that the effects of New Jersey’s state-funded pre-K program last at least through fifth grade for kids in the poorest school districts. (Hechinger Report)

After months of deliberation, CPS is expected to announce fifty school closures. (Chicago Tribune)

A panel of education-tech experts discussed the latest in K–12 technology projects and barriers to implementation. (Digital Education)

Sen. Tom Coburn’s measure prohibiting the National Science Foundation from funding political science research, unless it is certified as “promoting national security or the economic interests of the United States,” passed in the Senate yesterday. (Huffington Post and PR Newswire)

» Continued

First Bell 3-21-13

Accountability dilemmas

yes Chester E. Finn, Jr. / March 21, 2013

A useful new report from Public Agenda and the Kettering Foundation underscores the painful divide between parents and education reformers on the crucial topic of what to do about bad schools.

Schools play many roles in communities, and the prospect of closing one undermines most of those. Photo by hundrednorth

In a nutshell, if the neighborhood school is crummy, parents want it fixed. So do community leaders. Ed reformers are far more apt to want to close it and give families alternatives such as charter schools.

As Andy Smarick has perceptively written, schools play multiple roles in communities, and the prospect of closing one undermines most of those. Hence, shuttering a school affects more than the convenience of keeping one’s own kids in a familiar (and generally close-at-hand) facility, maybe even with that nice Ms. Greensleeves who teaches fourth grade there. As Jean Johnson writes on behalf of Public Agenda, based on a recent series of focus groups (as well as much other research), “Most parents see local public schools as important community institutions and viscerally reject the idea that closing schools—even those that are persistently low-performing—is a good way to improve accountability in education.”

On the reform side, however, Johnson writes, “In many communities, school leaders are closing or drastically reorganizing low-performing

» Continued

Accountability dilemmas

First Bell 3-20-13

yes Pamela Tatz / March 20, 2013

A first look at today's most important education news:

Pennsylvania’s law requiring students to pass the Common Core–aligned Keystone Exams to receive a diploma have a gaping loophole: Students who do not pass can obtain said diplomas via “validated local assessment.” (Morning Call)

Today, teacher unions and Montgomery school officials will testify in favor of a bill that would delay teacher-evaluation reform in Maryland. (Washington Post)

A new MOOC targeted at K–12 district administrators will provide information on broad themes in education leadership, like how technology is changing the way students learn. (Digital Education)

A data-loving teacher discusses what works and doesn’t work for her in standardized testing. (Hechinger Report)

Pennsylvania is set to reconsider how it funds special education. (On Special Education)

A new NEPC brief overviews the research on improving educational opportunities for English-language learners. (Learning the Language)

Even though the racial makeup of American public school students has changed dramatically (nearly half of all kids under age five in 2008 are racial or ethnic minorities), 82 percent of those who obtained bachelor’s degrees in education from 2009–11 were white. (New York Times)

A North

» Continued

First Bell 3-20-13

SIG, tests, and state legislative proposals

yes Andy Smarick / March 20, 2013

• The U.S. Department of Education just announced more SIG money going out the door. At a TBFI event late last year, the Department and I tussled about the results to date, which showed that more than a third of participating schools (already among the lowest performing in the nation) had gotten worse despite this multi-BILLION dollar program. I sadly predicted these grim results several years ago—not because I’m clairvoyant but because stacks of research over decades showed that turnarounds aren’t a reliable or scalable strategy for generating more high-quality seats. But the Department remains bullish; the release says, “Early findings show positive momentum and progress in many SIG schools.”
  
  Many of us are looking forward to thoroughly analyzing the program’s effects, but we’ve been in a holding pattern. The Department still hasn’t released school-level results from Year 1 yet (even though those tests were given two years ago), and we’ve not yet received any results from Year 2 (even though those tests were given a year ago). Forgive the quick snark, but maybe we just have to wait until close of business on the Friday before Thanksgiving week again to get results.
  
  
• If you follow the common-assessments consortia, make sure to read this post by Catherine Gewertz about PARCC’s and SB’s plans to maintain financial sustainability when federal dollars run out. This is just one of the

  » Continued

  Category: Charters & Choice / Curriculum & Instruction / Governance / Standards, Testing, & Accountability

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  SIG, tests, and state legislative proposals