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Arne Duncan, the new Secretary of Education in the Obama Administration was confirmed unanimously. Saying that it was an “extraordinary time” for the nation and an “extraordinary time to be working on education,” Duncan testified that he approached the position of secretary of education with three deeply held beliefs. First, every child from every background can be successful when adults do their jobs and give the children the opportunities to succeed. Second, when adults fail to properly educate children, they perpetuate poverty and social failure. Third, children have one chance at a quality education. For that last reason, he said, “we must work with an extraordinary sense of urgency. Simply put, we cannot wait because they cannot wait.”

Explaining that President Obama views education as “both a moral obligation and an economic imperative,” Duncan outlined some of the education initiatives that Obama plans to pursue. He mentioned the need to improve the access to and the quality of early childhood education, to raise standards and increase teacher quality, and to ensure greater access to higher education and strengthen institutions such as community colleges, which he said were “critically important” to giving people a second chance at retooling their skills and getting back into the workforce.

Duncan noted two themes that were very important to him and that he felt should permeate the work that needed to be done. The first was to do dramatically better and continue to innovate, which, as he explained it, means building upon what works and challenging the status quo. The second was to recognize and reward excellence.

“We have to elevate the teaching profession,” he said. “We have to build upon this next generation of leaders in our schools and our state boards. And we have to find ways to scale up what works. There are great, great pockets of excellence as we look across every state in this country. We have to find ways that scale up what works and shine a spotlight on those educators who are doing an extraordinary job and going above and beyond the call of duty”¦”

EDUCATION

President Obama and Vice President Biden believe that our kids and our country can’t afford four more years of neglect and indifference. At this defining moment in our history, America faces few more urgent challenges than preparing our children to compete in a global economy. The decisions our leaders make about education in the coming years will shape our future for generations to come. Obama and Biden are committed to meeting this challenge with the leadership and judgment that has been sorely lacking for the last eight years. Their vision for a 21st century education begins with demanding more reform and accountability, coupled with the resources needed to carry out that reform; asking parents to take responsibility for their children’s success; and recruiting, retaining, and rewarding an army of new teachers to fill new successful schools that prepare our children for success in college and the workforce. The Obama-Biden plan will restore the promise of America’s public education, and ensure that American children again lead the world in achievement, creativity and success.
Early Childhood Education

* Zero to Five Plan: The Obama-Biden comprehensive “Zero to Five” plan will provide critical support to young children and their parents. Unlike other early childhood education plans, the Obama-Biden plan places key emphasis at early care and education for infants, which is essential for children to be ready to enter kindergarten. Obama and Biden will create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state Zero to Five efforts and help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school.
* Expand Early Head Start and Head Start: Obama and Biden will quadruple Early Head Start, increase Head Start funding, and improve quality for both.
* Provide affordable, High-Quality Child Care: Obama and Biden will also increase access to affordable and high-quality child care to ease the burden on working families.

K-12

* Reform No Child Left Behind: Obama and Biden will reform NCLB, which starts by funding the law. Obama and Biden believe teachers should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests. They will improve the assessments used to track student progress to measure readiness for college and the workplace and improve student learning in a timely, individualized manner. Obama and Biden will also improve NCLB’s accountability system so that we are supporting schools that need improvement, rather than punishing them.

* Support High-Quality Schools and Close Low-Performing Charter Schools:
Barack Obama and Joe Biden will double funding for the Federal Charter School Program to support the creation of more successful charter schools. The Obama-Biden administration will provide this expanded charter school funding only to states that improve accountability for charter schools, allow for interventions in struggling charter schools and have a clear process for closing down chronically underperforming charter schools. Obama and Biden will also prioritize supporting states that help the most successful charter schools to expand to serve more students.
* Make Math and Science Education a National Priority:
Obama and Biden will recruit math and science degree graduates to the teaching profession and will support efforts to help these teachers learn from professionals in the field. They will also work to ensure that all children have access to a strong science curriculum at all grade levels.

* Address the Dropout Crisis:
Obama and Biden will address the dropout crisis by passing legislation to provide funding to school districts to invest in intervention strategies in middle school — strategies such as personal academic plans, teaching teams, parent involvement, mentoring, intensive reading and math instruction, and extended learning time.

* Expand High-Quality Afterschool Opportunities:
Obama and Biden will double funding for the main federal support for afterschool programs, the 21st Century Learning Centers program, to serve one million more children.

* Support College Outreach Programs: Obama and Biden support outreach programs like GEAR UP, TRIO and Upward Bound to encourage more young people from low-income families to consider and prepare for college.
* Support College Credit Initiatives:
Barack Obama and Joe Biden will create a national “Make College A Reality” initiative that has a bold goal to increase students taking AP or college-level classes nationwide 50 percent by 2016, and will build on Obama’s bipartisan proposal in the U.S. Senate to provide grants for students seeking college level credit at community colleges if their school does not provide those resources.
* Support English Language Learners:
Obama and Biden support transitional bilingual education and will help Limited English Proficient students get ahead by holding schools accountable for making sure these students complete school.
* Recruit Teachers:
Obama and Biden will create new Teacher Service Scholarships that will cover four years of undergraduate or two years of graduate teacher education, including high-quality alternative programs for mid-career recruits in exchange for teaching for at least four years in a high-need field or location.
* Prepare Teachers:
Obama and Biden will require all schools of education to be accredited. Obama and Biden will also create a voluntary national performance assessment so we can be sure that every new educator is trained and ready to walk into the classroom and start teaching effectively. Obama and Biden will also create Teacher Residency Programs that will supply 30,000 exceptionally well-prepared recruits to high-need schools.
* Retain Teachers:
To support our teachers, the Obama-Biden plan will expand mentoring programs that pair experienced teachers with new recruits. They will also provide incentives to give teachers paid common planning time so they can collaborate to share best practices.
* Reward Teachers:
Obama and Biden will promote new and innovative ways to increase teacher pay that are developed with teachers, not imposed on them. Districts will be able to design programs that reward with a salary increase accomplished educators who serve as a mentors to new teachers. Districts can reward teachers who work in underserved places like rural areas and inner cities. And if teachers consistently excel in the classroom, that work can be valued and rewarded as well.

Higher Education

* Create the American Opportunity Tax Credit:
Obama and Biden will make college affordable for all Americans by creating a new American Opportunity Tax Credit. This universal and fully refundable credit will ensure that the first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for most Americans, and will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students. Recipients of the credit will be required to conduct 100 hours of community service.
* Simplify the Application Process for Financial Aid:
Obama and Biden will streamline the financial aid process by eliminating the current federal financial aid application and enabling families to apply simply by checking a box on their tax form, authorizing their tax information to be used, and eliminating the need for a separate application.

Students with Disabilities

Obama and Biden will work to ensure the academic success of students with disabilities by increasing funding and effectively enforcing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and by holding schools accountable for providing students with disabilities the services and supports they need to reach their potential. Obama and Biden will also support Early Intervention services for infants and toddlers, and will work to improve college opportunities for high school graduates with disabilities.

There are many advantages that small schools offer over large factory-model schools. They allow greater attention to be paid to students who need an identity as well as recognition that they may need additional assistance. However, Bill Gates admitted at a session held at the Form of Education, that they are not the silver bullet he had believed.

The Gates Foundation has spent approximately $2 Billion in the past ten years supporting a “small schools” initiative that breaks existing low-performing schools into 400-student blocks. The theory is that these small schools will reduce drop-out rates — even in the absence of other major improvements — by making students feel part of a community. When all the teachers and principals know your name, you have to keep showing up, right?

Now, Bill Gates has acknowledged that the results have been “disappointing” too. Gates shared the information. Here’s what he said in his speech:

“In the first four years of our work with new, small schools, most of the schools had achievement scores below district averages on reading and math assessments. In one set of schools we supported, graduation rates were no better than the statewide average, and reading and math scores were consistently below the average. The percentage of students attending college the year after graduating high school was up only 2.5 percentage points after five years. Simply breaking up existing schools into smaller units often did not generate the gains we were hoping for.”

The evidence is clear that smaller impersonal schools are no more effective than larger impersonal schools.

So what is the answer? “The defining feature of a great education is what happens in the classroom,” Gates said. “Everything starts from that and must be built around it. So we’re going to sharpen our focus on effective teaching””in particular supporting new standards, curriculum, instructional tools, and data that help teachers””because these changes trigger the biggest gains, they are hardest to scale, and that is what’s holding us back.”

It is something we already know. We need to create better qualified, highly effective teachers. Simply relying on “highly qualified teachers” is not the answer. We have all had highly qualified teachers (teachers who knew the material) who were not highly effective (knew how to teach the material.)

As he said, “Money is tight. We need to spend it wisely. We’re now spending $8 billion a year for teachers with master’s degrees, even though the evidence suggests that master’s degrees do not improve student achievement. We’re spending billions on a seniority system, even though the evidence says that seniority, after the first five years, may not improve student achievement. We’ve spent billions to reduce class size, even though there is no strong evidence that spending money to reduce class size in high school is the most impactful way to improve student performance. And the last thing we can afford””-whether the economy is good or bad””-is to pay teachers who can’t do the job. As President-elect Obama and others have pointed out: We need to give all teachers the benefit of clear standards, sound curriculum, good training, and top instructional tools. But if their students still keep falling behind, they’re in the wrong line of work, and they need to find another job.”

As I have indicated in earlier blogs, in these times of economic crisis, education takes a disproportionate hit in cutting back. In the state of Florida, the state legislature recently suggested a cut in educational spending equal to almost $467 Million.

We cannot attract enough people who are willing to work in poor conditions, without sufficient administrative support and for a low salary.

This website went “live” on December 15, 2007 and this week hit a total of over 130,000 hits visits!  Obviously, people like you have found there is a need for this information on at-risk youth and dropout prevention strategies.

While two-thirds of the viewers come from the United States, Canada comes next. The following countries are also represented:

Morocco, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, China, India, Malaysia, Korea, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Tunisia, Germany, Australia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, Fiji, the Netherlands, Portugal, Louth, Ireland and South Africa.  Based on the countries listed above, I am convinced that we have a global crisis in the non-completion of schools.  Since we live in a global information age, the completion of school will be even more necessary once the world pulls out of the hopefully short term economic crisis.

I have received suggestions from several people which have been enormously helpful in guiding me in the direction that these thoughts should go.  Please continue to send suggestions.  Also, if you have not registered to receive any additions to this blog, please do so on the upper right corner of this homepage.

Thanks again for your input and viewing.

I remain, your humble servant.

Franklin

New data from the National Center for Health Statistics show that the teen birth rate increased in 26 states between 2005 and 2006, confirming a widespread national trend and reversing a 14-year decline in teen birth rates.

Among the findings:
States with the five highest teen birth rates in 2005 (above 60 births per 1,000 females ages 15-19, compared with 41.9 births per 1,000 females ages 15-19 for the U.S. overall) experienced increases:
Arizona:  7% increase
Arkansas:  5% increase
Mississippi: 13% increase
New Mexico: a statistically non-significant 4% increase
Texas: 2% increase

States with the four lowest teen birth rates (New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut) showed non-significant changes.

The state with the highest teen birth rate in 2006 (Mississippi, with 68.4 births for every 1,000 female teen ages 15-19) has a rate that is more than 3.5 times the rate of the state with lowest teen birth rate (New Hampshire, with 18.7 births for every 1,000 female teens ages 15-19).

Alaska showed the greatest increase in teen birth rates (up 19%), while the District of Columbia reported the most dramatic decline in rates (down 24%).

The national numbers confirm increases in teen birth rates for all racial/ethnic groups:
Whites: 3 percent increase
Blacks: 5 percent increase
Hispanics: 2 percent increase

“The widespread increase in teen birth rates across states and racial/ethnic groups highlights the need to continue focusing program and funding efforts on pregnancy prevention,” said Senior Research Scientist Jennifer Manlove, Ph.D.

A study published  by the National Center for the Study of Privatization In Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, shows that a teacher will leave the profession versus stay in the same school are 132 percent greater for charter school teachers than they are for regular public school teachers. The study also says that a teacher will switch schools rather than stay at the same school are 76 percent higher for the charter teachers.

The research draws on national survey data for the 2003-04 school year. It found that 25 percent of charter school teachers turned over that year, compared to 14 percent of traditional public school teachers. Fourteen percent of the charter teachers left the profession altogether and 11 percent moved to a different school. Among the public school teachers, 7 percent left the profession and 7 percent switched schools.

The more-polished version of the study also includes some additional calculations aimed at pinpointing the reasons why so many more charter teachers are leaving. Are they quitting in frustration or leaving involuntarily?

Mostly the former, according to these researchers. “Compared to traditional public school teachers,” they write, “charter school teachers are more likely to voluntarily leave the profession or move to a new school because they are dissatisfied with the school and its working conditions.”

I have just sent my latest book to my publisher.  It deals with what school administrators can do to stop teachers from leaving the profession.  Are you aware that the teacher dropout rate is higher than the student dropout rate. Teachers dropping out is 46% over 5 years while the student dropout rate is only (sic) 30% over 4 years.  Look here for the announcement about when the book will be published as well as an excerpt from it in the “Resources” section of the website.

Computers are tools and like any tool in the educator’s tool-chest will do an excellent job in fixing an aspect of education.  But like any tool, it is not capable of fixing all of the problems of education.

Craig Barrett, the chairman of Intel stated that America is ignoring that it is good teaching that makes the difference.  “We’re bailing out Wall Street, we’ll be bailing out Detroit soon, we’re bailing out the agricultural sector with high subsidies at a time of record crop prices.”

The keys to economic success, Mr Barrett said, are high expectations, improved teacher competence and measured results.  He talked about Finland which achieved the highest score on the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA examination).  Finland is perhaps the most wired country in the world, measured by broadband access.  But the edge seems to lie in the fact that Finland has high expectations for students and respected teachers.  In the 2007 book, Innovation Nation:  How America is Losing its Innovative Edge, Why it Matters and What We Can Do to Get it Back”, John Kao writes:  “Finns have come to cherish gifted educators as Texans do ace quarterbacks.  The country’s teacher training schools have ten applicants for every opening.”

Mr. Barrett said, “PCs aren’t magic, good teachers are.”

Source:  The New York Times, 10/02/2008