Archives for 0

A new report from Scholastic and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation find that principal evaluations are a “very accurate measure of of teacher performance”.  Fourteen percent believe that standardized testing gives a “very accurate measure of teacher performance.”  But 55 percent say that a measure of student growth over a course of an academic year is the best indicator.

Ninety-seven percent say that supportive leadership is “absolutely essential’ or somewhat important in teacher retention.”

My latest book, currently being edited, is about the teacher “dropout” problem.  More teachers leave the field of education (46% over five years) than students dropout in four years (33 percent).  The reality is that we do not have a teacher shortage but rather a retention problem.  My greatest concern is that few policy makers are looking at that problem.

As a former social studies teacher I am concerned about the death of newspapers and magazines. (Search the blog post archives for “25 Things Which Will Be Extinct in 25 Years”)  How are people getting their information?

According to a survey conducted by SSRS of 1,040 adults age 18 and older, January 15-24, 2010 people were asked “how frequently do you read a print version of a newspaper?”  Those Aged 18-49 said 20% of the time while those 50 and older said 42%. Thirty-nine percent of young people said they never read a newspaper while 29% of older folks do not.

“Which of the following ways do you most prefer to get the news?” 19% of ages 18-49 said print newspapers, 34% said online and 52% said from television.  Those 50+ said print newspaper 35%, online 16%, and television 69%.

I believe we are seeing a great divide for those who receive their news through print media and those who use computers or television.  My fear is that people who use computers and/or television will get a more slanted view because of the nature of what they tend to watch or read on a computer.  Those who favor CNN or MSNBC will get a different view from those who watch FOX news or read the National Review on line.

According to the US Census Bureau, 48 percent of all births in America are to minority mothers in the 12 months ending July 2008.  The 50 percent benchmark  will be reached before the end of this year.  The Census Bureau estimates that within the next 30 years a majority of the nation’s populations will be minority and that a majority of Americans under the age of 18 will be minority within 10 years.

What are the implications to this data?  I live in the first majority-minority state, New Mexico.  But 10 more states will be minority-majority within 8 years.  Many states now have a minority-majority in our schools.  We need to adjust our classrooms and curriculum to deal with this melting pot reality.  We need to recruit more dual- and even triple-speaking educators as these populations grow. And we are mistaken if we believe that the only language that teachers must learn is Spanish. We have a growing Vietnamese and Chinese speaking population as well.

The Obama administration recently released its “Blueprint for Reform,” an outline of its proposal for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The “blueprint” suggests a number of significant revisions to the current iteration of the law, the No Child Left Behind Act. It emphasizes the administration’s goal of preparing all students for college or a career through the implementation of rigorous state standards. It revises the accountability structure to reward schools, districts, and states that make steady progress in increasing student achievement. It offers districts flexibility in spending funds on human capital development in exchange for  reforms to teacher and principal evaluation systems.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/03/education_reform101.html

The recession is starting to effect schools and school budgets. State Governments under the pressure of balancing their budgets have started cutting into school budgets layoff teachers, proposing to go to 4 day weeks (without regard to how it impacts working family schedules), changing bus schedules so that buses can do double runs, or starting school earlier or later (for the same reasons).

The Mississippi Senate has voted to give school districts the option of keeping children in class five fewer days for the next two academic years.  This would take the academic year from 180 days to 175.

Where are the policy makers, business and media people who recommend that in order to make the United States more globally competitive, we need to extend the school year and extend the school day not shorten it?  Why have they lost their voices?

I am indebted to Trace Vaughn for making me aware of this story.

Yarbrough: Governor’s priorities are embarrassing

Athens Banner-Herald

Published Saturday, March 20, 2010

In the midst of one of the worst economic crises in memory, the members of the Georgia General Assembly have to make some extremely difficult financial decisions. I don’t envy them.

To make their challenge even harder, up pops Gov. Sonny Perdue with some budget add-ons. This time we aren’t talking about concrete fishponds. While teachers are being furloughed, state employees laid off and budgets slashed to the bone, news reports say our chief executive desires to spend $9 million to finish a horse show complex at the fairgrounds in Houston County, his home county. He also has $67 million proposed for a rural economic development program that includes a more than half-million-dollar grant to move Little League Baseball Inc. to -where else? – Houston County.
There’s more. The governor wants $10 million to help move the College Football Hall of Fame to Atlanta after it fumbled opportunities in South Bend and Kings Mill, Ohio.
The reasoning coming out of the governor’s office for the pork projects is that the expenditures will help “economic development.” Hogwash.
You want to talk economic development? According to a study by the Atlanta Regional Council for Higher Education, Georgia college graduates average twice the income – and half the unemployment – of high school graduates. On average, college graduates pay 72 percent more in state and local taxes than non-graduates.
ARCHE says one-fourth of Georgia adults who did not finish high school live in poverty, and 86 percent of prisoners in Georgia did not continue education beyond high school. Their incarceration costs you and me nearly $800 million annually, the report states. I could go on, but I think you get the drift.
How does one attend college and successfully attain a degree and contribute his or her tax dollars to a state in bad need of every dime available? He or she generally comes through a proficient K-12 feeder system. I’m not convinced a horse park in Houston County does much to improve public education in our state. Also, I doubt seriously that a high-tech firm will move its headquarters to Atlanta just to be near O.J. Simpson’s chin strap.
In the meantime, public education is getting sliced and diced, and no one seems able to stop the bleeding. I spoke recently to the Georgia PTA during its visit to the legislature. In a profession that has more special-interest groups than a yard dog has fleas, nobody sees public education in the broad perspective better than PTA volunteers.
The Georgia PTA is tracking close to 100 pieces of legislation having to do with public education in the House and Senate this session. Some bills are good, some are bad, and a few are just plain ugly.
The truth is that education in Georgia lags near the bottom of the national barrel because, despite the rhetoric from our politicians, our state doesn’t have a cohesive plan for improving public education and there is no entity or individual that seems able to change that perception.
Where is state Schools Superintendent Kathy Cox? Does she have a vision for public education that we the citizens can rally around and tell our legislators what we want our schools to be, instead of vice versa? She may have the greatest plan since Pontius was a pilot, but I don’t know what it is, and I doubt you do, either.
In the meantime, teachers are getting furloughed, and while that’s going on, Sonny Perdue wants to build a horse barn with our tax dollars.
Even the horses have to be embarrassed.

https://www.onlineathens.com/stories/032010/opi_592995935.shtml

“Schools need to be globally competitive, just as businesses are.”

So starts my article appearing in SEEN Magazine,

https://www.seenmagazine.us/Sections/ArticleDetail/tabid/79/ArticleID/556/smid/403/reftab/317/Default.aspx

The best students graduating from your community’s schools are not competing with the best graduates from the next community but with the best graduates in the world.

If you are interested in reading the rest of the article simply click on the URL above or go to SEEN Magazine’s website.