Recess round-up: August 4, 2010
A daily dose of education news around the nation – just in time for a little mid-day break!
Class size: Forty-five students in a fifth-grade class in Lodi, Calif. But in Central Florida, core classes in grades 4-8 are capped at 22. (Lodi News-Sentinel and Central Florida News 13)
For-profit colleges: A government probe of 15 for-profit colleges found four cases in which campus officials encouraged applicants to commit fraud, and examples at every institution of school officials lying about or misrepresenting their programs. (USA Today)
Teacher tenure: A new Delaware law requires good ratings in addition to three years of teaching before tenure is granted. (Dover Post)
Online education: Virtual High School, or VHS, offers an online learning option for high school students in Columbia, Mo. (Columbia Tribune)
Teacher malpractice: An investigative panel has recommended that 109 principals, assistant principals, school-based testing coordinators and teachers face further scrutiny or sanctions after it found evidence of suspected cheating at 58 Atlanta public schools. However, some news-outlets have suggested that Atlanta’s public schools were largely vindicated by the investigation. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The New York Times)
Achievement gap: More than a third of pupils in the U.K. leave primary school without a proper grasp of the basics in reading, writing and mathematics. (Financial Times, free registration required)
Fly forward, give back: An airline partners with social media to raise funds for KIPP, the well-known charter-school network. Hurry, the promotion ends today! (prnewswire)
Once again, for-profit schools under fire
For-profit colleges are working hard to improve their offerings and image and position themselves as clear alternatives to overcrowded community colleges. A report released today did little to help.
The report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office alleged that several colleges engaged in what it called deceptive marketing practices and encouraged fraud. The report was released a day before a Senate hearing on the topic and comes as U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has proposed new rules that would crack down on the schools for leaving students with too much debt.
“College representatives exaggerated undercover applicants’ potential salary after graduation and failed to provide clear information about the college’s program duration, costs, or graduation rate,” the report said. “Admissions staff used other deceptive practices, such as pressuring applicants to sign a contract for enrollment before allowing them to speak to a financial advisor about program cost and financing options.”
The Career College Association (CCA), which represents some 1,800 members, called the report “deeply troubling” — and immediately announced plans to encourage oversight.
“Even if the problems cited in the GAO report are limited to a few individuals at a few institutions, we can have zero tolerance for bad behavior,” CCA President and CEO Harris N. Miller said in a statement. “We will expand our existing compliance program to help CCA member institutions achieve the highest standards,” Miller continued. “The rules exist to protect students and taxpayers, and must be observed.”
Recess round-up: August 3, 2010
A daily dose of education news around the nation – just in time for a little mid-day break!
For-profit colleges: Listen to Liz Willen of The Hechinger Report explain why Congress and the White House are considering tighter regulation of for-profit colleges. It’s the second story on the lineup. (NPR)
Charter schools and funding: A $5.5 million gift from Venture Philanthropy Partners aims to expand KIPP DC schools. (The Washington Post)
Common standards: On the last day to earn points in Race to the Top by signing on, second-round RttT finalists California and Colorado adopt the standards. (Los Angeles Times and Denver Daily News)
Public Waldorf schools: They are booming in Sacramento —but are they legal? (The Sacramento Bee)
School improvement: The federal government is giving California $415 million to improve schools ranked in the bottom 5 percent of student achievement, “the persistently lowest achieving.” But the state board has yet to divvy up the money. (Santa Cruz Sentinel)
Special ed: A mission to remove barriers to education in Michigan. (Daily Press & Argus)
Student assessment: Readers respond to Dear Abby about performance on exams as a true test of a student’s education. (via The Detroit News)
Teacher pay and pensions: A new report indicates that key structural elements in teacher retirement plans impair the ability of schools to recruit, hire, retain and compensate high-quality teachers and principals. (Education Sector)
Whom will for-profit schools serve going forward?
Lots of discussion of Secretary Duncan's proposed new rules at for-profit colleges with The Hechinger Report today on "Here and Now"
Since U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan proposed a slew of new rules he wants for-profit schools to follow, discussions have continued about what role the schools should play going forward. The questions were front-and-center during a discussion The Hechinger Report had on Monday with Robin Young on WBUR’s “Here and Now” in Boston.
For-profits also have been on the mind of civil rights leaders, mindful of President Barack Obama’s goal of getting more Americans to complete college degrees.
The National Black Chamber of Commerce said the new rules would “disproportionately harm low-income and minority populations by discriminating against students who must borrow the needed tuition to attend college,” according to InsideHigherEd, which also reported that MANA, a national Latina organization, is concerned about how the new rules could possibly impact Hispanic students’ access to higher education.
For-profit colleges have been in the news a great deal lately, in part because of intense press coverage and also because Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) held a series of hearings in an attempt to examine federal education spending at the schools. He and others have expressed particular concern about the level of debt the schools leave graduates in.
The WBUR conversation included details of what kinds of offerings are available at for-profit colleges, where enrollment has almost tripled over the last decade and where the cost can be 17 times as much as at community colleges. What is the quality of the education, and how do these schools further President Obama’s college completion goals?
Stephen Burd of the New America Foundation noted in a recent blog post that the Obama administration “has come not to bury the for-profit college sector but to try and help save it from itself.”
The proposed new rules, he wrote, “are designed to strengthen the sector so that these schools are truly able to deliver on the promises they make.”
Recess round-up: August 2, 2010
A daily dose of education news around the nation – just in time for a little mid-day break!
Budgets: California schools have less money than most other states, but their teachers are the most highly paid in the nation. At the same time, per-pupil spending in the Golden State trails the national average by about $2,500. (Oakland Tribune)
Charter schools: New Orleans schools have gone from an “F” to a “C” in five years. What will it take to get from a “C” to an “A,” and can schools save NOLA? (EduWonk and GOOD)
Common standards: Today is the deadline for states to adopt the common standards as a condition for receiving 20 points in their latest Race to the Top bids. Round 2 finalists Colorado and California have yet to decide. (The Denver Daily News and San Francisco Chronicle)
Reform for reform’s sake: Although Iowa and Maine lost out in their bids for Race to the Top funding, both states will adopt the common standards. (The Des Moines Register and The Portland Press Herald)
Education wages — and the crisis of the American middle class. Author Matthew Yglesias weighs in on skills as they relate to income and the greater good. (Financial Times and Think Progress)
EduJobs: The Senate is scheduled to vote this evening on a $10 billion measure to prevent education layoffs. (Education Week: Politics k-12)
Higher ed: The U.S. Department of Education released the full text of its proposed regulations to define “gainful employment” amidst concern that the rule would limit minority students’ access to postsecondary education. (InsideHigherEd)
School ratings: Last year, the Texas Education Agency implemented a new “growth measure” to reward schools for improving student performance — even if students fail state tests. School-performance ratings were released last week, and one analysis suggests little improvement. (The Texas Tribune)
Recess round-up: July 30, 2010
A daily dose of education news around the nation – just in time for a little mid-day break!
At-risk youth: A teacher reflects on teaching at a detention facility in Alaska. (Associated Press via Albany Times Union)
Curriculum: A middle school teacher in Washington state finds a way to combine his love of teaching with his love of motorcycles. (Associated Press via Teacher Magazine)
Education reform: President Obama spoke to the National Urban League yesterday in defense of education reform and said “education is an economic issue.” (Colorlines)
(Associated Press via YouTube)
Online education: With education budgets under fire, school districts are turning to e-learning for students to make up courses they’ve failed. (Fortune)
Promise neighborhoods: Even though funding is at stake, people in Athens, Georgia will do “whatever it takes” to ensure all of their kids go to college. (YouthToday and Athens Banner Herald)
A total of 339 grants for “promise neighbhorhoods” are under review. (EdMoney Watch via New America Foundation)
Data.ed.gov designed an interactive map that shows the 69 applicants from rural and tribal areas. (EquityBlog)
School accountability: State accountability ratings were released today in Texas. Schools found out how well they performed last year. One reporter broke the embargo, she-a culpa. (The Dallas Morning News)
School turnaround: Still in Texas, we were keeping an eye on Pearce Middle School, where test scores failed to meet state standards five years in a row. (weareaustin.com)
Pearce was rated “Academically Acceptable” for 2010, so the district will move forward with its approved plan for redesign, according to Kathy Anthony, a public information officer for the Austin Independent School District.
Teacher effectiveness: In Chicago, teachers’ union president Karen Lewis asked the district to cancel a contract with Teach For America. (WBEZ91.5)
Reviving desegregation from the dead
I’ve attended a couple of conferences on school desegregation in the past two years, where I’ve encountered the same small group of civil rights activists and sociologists worrying about the demise of desegregation policies around the country and the resurgence of racially segregated schools. So it’s interesting to see Education Next, a journal edited by school-choice proponents Chester Finn Jr. and Mike Petrilli, take up the question of whether desegregation is dead in the forthcoming Fall 2010 issue. (Just the fact that Education Next is writing about desegregation makes me think the answer is, “Not quite yet.”)
Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X (photo courtesy of U.S. News and World Report)
The article is a back-and-forth between Susan Eaton and Steven Rivkin, and one interesting discussion point revolves around what desegregation was meant to accomplish. Rivkin, a professor of economics at Amherst College, says desegregation “failed to be the panacea that some believed it would be” because it didn’t “dramatically reduce or eliminate achievement gaps.”
Eaton, who heads an institute devoted to the study of race and justice at Harvard Law School, brings in some evidence to the contrary — but she also makes the point that desegregation was “never meant to be a remedy for low test scores.” Rather, she argues, it was meant to expand opportunities for black students, improve race relations and foster “in the long run, a more democratic, more equal society.”
So what was the point of desegregation? Developing higher achievers or better citizens?
Both Rivkin and Eaton say desegregation helped reduce the number of schools with concentrated minority populations, which are often correlated with the concentrated poverty that can overwhelm a school and drive away good teachers. So they agree that desegregating schools can help in the larger goal of improving minority achievement.
But Eaton’s point is that desegregation was about more than that. It was about pursuing a more diverse, harmonious society by bringing children of different ethnic backgrounds together at a young age.
In an era when the focus is getting kids to be college- and career-ready, pursuing policies that elevate academic achievement is key. But isn’t knowing how to navigate an increasingly diverse society also related to that goal? Perhaps if we’re serious about developing young people who are ready for college and career in a society that will soon be majority minority, we need policies that are focused on both increasing achievement and encouraging integration.
Recess round-up: July 29, 2010
A daily dose of education news around the nation – just in time for a little mid-day break!
ARRA: The U.S. Department of Education urges states and school districts to spend money to alleviate the impact of layoffs. (Thompson Publishing Group)
Charter schools: As New York “moved to raise the bar for achieving a ‘proficient’ rating on exams, charter schools fell as sharply as public schools on the math exams — by 28 percentage points” and more dramatically on reading — by 34 percentage points. (New York Daily News)
College completion: According to an A.P.-Univision poll, despite strong belief in the value of a college degree, Hispanics more often than not fall short of earning one. (Associated Press via Forbes)
Teacher pay: The well-known study on class size in Tennessee was revisited yesterday in a front-page story, “The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers.” (New York Times)
Holding teachers accountable: In response to complaints about his administration’s education agenda, President Barack Obama addressed the National Urban League, broaching the topic of performance standards for teachers. (The Atlantic)
School Improvement Grants: Educators are favoring the “transformation” model for turning around persistently underperforming schools. (Education Week)
What a teacher wants: Stephen Lazar wants his students to develop the ability to make moral and healthy choices throughout their lives. (GothamSchools)
Recess round-up: July 28, 2010
A daily dose of education news around the nation – just in time for a little mid-day break!
Education in America: GOOD and the University of Phoenix have partnered to foster thought and action around education. Together, they’ve developed graphics like this one on the dropout epidemic. (GOOD)
Mayoral control: The Detroit City Council opted once again not to place the issue of mayoral control on November’s ballot — on the same day that Michigan lost its bid for Race to the Top funds. (The Detroit News)
Race to the bottom: Perspectives on some of the rural states that weren’t selected as finalists in round two of Race to the Top. (A.P. via Bozeman Daily Chronicle, Kansas City Star, Omaha World-Herald and Tulsa World)
Teacher training: In places like Hillsborough County, Florida teachers went back to school yesterday for effectiveness training under a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. (WTVT-13/myfoxtampabay.com)
Test scores: High school test scores improved in Chicago Public Schools during 2009-10 after years of stagnation. (Chicago Tribune)
Title 1: Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) might include “closing a loophole in Title I, which requires districts to provide their high-poverty schools with nonfederal resources comparable to those enjoyed by more affluent schools in the same district.” (Center for American Progress)
Read more about Title 1 in David K. Cohen’s book (The Ordeal of Equality: Did Federal Regulation Fix the Schools?) or in the Title 1 Monitor.
Flawed math? Aaron Pallas, a professor of sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, writes that value-added scores may have been misused in the firing of some D.C. teachers last week. (“The Answer Sheet” blog of The Washington Post)
Firing the wrong teachers?
Michelle Rhee, chancellor of the Washington D.C. public schools, made a splash last week when she fired 241 teachers in her efforts to overhaul a system where just eight percent of eighth-graders perform at grade level in math, but nearly all teachers are rated as excellent.
But what if Rhee fired the wrong teachers? That’s a scenario that seems very possible in districts using performance-rating systems, according to a new report by Mathematica researchers that the U.S. Department of Education released yesterday.
The warning was hidden inside a rather dry report that hasn’t received much attention, but the findings are quite startling: In a typical rating system aimed at identifying poorly performing teachers, one in four teachers whose performance is fine could be misidentified as bad. At the same time, teachers whose students underperform had a one in four chance of being mislabeled as average performers.
D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee (Photograph by Iris Harris)
This could be a big deal if Rhee’s moves to rid the D.C. public schools of bad teachers are replicated around the country. The Obama administration is encouraging school districts to push for similar policies, and already school systems ranging from New York City to Dallas are experimenting with looking at “value-added” measures, based on test scores, to make decisions about teacher compensation, as well as which teachers get tenure and which are fired.
Although it’s unclear exactly how D.C.’s teacher rating system works, and the new report doesn’t address D.C. specifically, it does underscore how difficult it is to create reliable measures for judging teachers. (The study points out that previous research has found, rather depressingly, that 90 percent of a student’s performance isn’t within a teacher’s control.)
Part of the problem in getting an accurate read on teacher performance is the small sample sizes of students used to judge how teachers are doing – just a classroom’s-worth of students for elementary school teachers, the group examined in the study.
Designing better performance-rating systems isn’t impossible, however. In a system that uses three years of test score data, teacher misclassification rates are 26 percent. If a school district instead uses 10 years of data, misclassification rates drop to about 12 percent. Better, but not perfect, especially since the more rigorous data would have to exclude younger teachers vying for tenure.
Despite these issues, the researchers point out that value-added rating systems tend to be better at revealing which teachers are effective than, say, looking at credentials or classroom observations would. They suggest using a variety of measures that include — but don’t rely exclusively on — value-added measures, which could reduce the risk of firing good teachers based on bad data.
