December 2006
No. 9
Copyright © 2006 Queue, Inc.

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EDUCATION NEWS—Our Weblog Has Moved!

For back issues of this newsletter, as well as current and back issues of our state newsletters and U.S. Education News, please go to: http://www.queuenews.com/

For the latest education research news on a daily basis, please visit our NEW Education Research Report Weblog: http://educationresearchreport.blogspot.com/ Please don't forget to change your RSS Feeds and bookmarks!

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Letters to the Editor

I'd like to unsubscribe.  I saw enough when I saw the article which cited Texas as a state which leads the nation in education reform.  I had a student who, without any notification, left our rural Wisconsin school and went back to Texas.  He was achieving many Bs and Cs here, though he rarely attended school in Texas and came to us as a senior with only one credit.  When a fellow staff member called his home school district, it turns out they don't enforce attendance as we do, and weren't even interested in getting the phone number and address for the new apartment into which his family moved.  We have something called truancy.  Wouldn't it wonderfully change OUR test results here in Wisconsin if we allowed those who didn't care to stay home?  National leader in education?  National leader in fudging the numbers.  Maybe that would be an article worth pursuing.  Either Texas is cheating at the game, or that particular Texas city school district is getting away with it under the table.

Therein lies one of the MANY problems with "No Child Left Behind".  Glossing over the reality of the completely crooked playing field only allows the shenanigans to continue.

To the Editor:

I have enjoyed my first two issues of the Education Research Report and am in need of information regarding Middle School Science Best Practices and Curriculum.  Our district has been in debate regarding which curriculum is best and would like to examine research to help guide our discussions.  Unfortunately, we are not adept at accessing research as we seem unable to find any guiding documents that overwhelmingly determine that one curriculum is valued over another.  

In the past we have noted that research tends to indicate that the type of curriculum selected is less important than the method of instruction and the preparedness of the teacher in determining quality program.  The research we have found in the past indicates that students succeed based on the knowledge and passion of the teacher, district support and use of appropriate instruction.  This research has said it doesn’t really matter if you choose spiral curriculum, integrated, or traditional, the other factors noted can make any of these curricular choices successful for students.

Can someone at Education Research Report guide us to any new, more conclusive research?  I have begun to peruse the latest Education Research Report and the Taking Science to School report but I was wondering if there are any other articles or books you can point me to?

Thank you so much!  I eagerly await your reply.

Sincerely,

Catherine Anderson
DeLong Middle School
Eau Claire, WI

Editor's Response: Can anyone help her?

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The 2005 Trial Urban District Assessment in Science

The TUDA Science Report Card

Background On The Trial Urban District Assessment (Tuda)

The TUDA assessments were designed to explore the feasibility of using NAEP to measure performance of public school students at the district level on a common scale. Because the assessments are the same for the nation, the states, and the urban districts, NAEP serves as a common yardstick for comparison.

Participation in TUDA is voluntary. In 2005, 10 districts from around the country participated.

Trial Urban District Assessment Map—Science 2005

http://nationsreportcard.gov/tuda_science/t0125.asp

The 10 districts participating in the Science TUDA range in size from New York, with almost a million students, to Atlanta, with about 50,000. In between are Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, San Diego, Charlotte (North Carolina), Austin, Cleveland, and Boston.

So how did these districts do?

At grade four, all of these districts, except for Austin, scored below the nation in science, a subject fundamentally important to the future competitiveness of the United States.

Here are the national and large central city numbers.

Seven districts scored as well as, or better than, students in large central cities. These were Austin, Charlotte, Houston, San Diego, New York City, Atlanta, and Boston.

Three districts—Cleveland, Chicago, and Los Angeles—scored below large central cities.

Achievement Level Results

We also compare the percentage of fourth-graders who were at or above Basic and at or above Proficient with the large central city percentages.

Two districts—Austin and Charlotte—had percentages at or above Basic that were higher than the large central city percentage.

In three districts—San Diego, Houston, and New York City—the difference was not significant.

In the remaining five districts, the percentage at or above Basic was lower than the large central city percentage. These were Boston, Atlanta, Cleveland, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

The Governing Board’s goal is that all students should perform at or above Proficient.

The percent of students at this level in the TUDA districts ranges from 9 percent to 25 percent, compared with 27 percent for the nation and 15 percent in large central cities nationwide.

The percentages at or above Proficient in two districts, Austin and Charlotte, were higher than in large central cities. Four districts had lower percentages than central cities nationally of students at or above this level—Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, and Los Angeles.

Cross-District Comparisons Of Average Scores for All Students

Comparing districts to one another, Austin and Charlotte were not significantly different from one another and scored higher than the remaining eight districts. Houston and San Diego were lower than Austin and Charlotte but not significantly different from one another. Chicago and Los Angeles scored lower than any district except Cleveland and each other.

Next, we’re going to look at how districts’ performance changes when we consider scores of low-income students only, because the districts serve so many of these students.

Cross-District Comparisons Of Average Scores for Low-Income Students

As we saw earlier, the percentage of low-income fourth-graders in 9 of the 10 TUDA districts exceeds the national percentage. The percentage of these students also varies substantially among districts, from 46 percent in Charlotte to 100 percent in Cleveland. In 9 of the 10 districts, over 60 percent of fourth-graders are low-income.

On average, these students tend to have lower scores than other students, and some of the variation in scores that we see when comparing districts to one another is due to the variation in percentages of low-income students.

When we compare scores for low-income students only, there are fewer significant differences in scores among districts than when we compare them across their entire student population. Austin scores higher than only four districts—San Diego, Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Boston, Houston, and New York City score higher than three other districts—Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Charlotte scores ahead of Chicago and Los Angeles, and Cleveland and San Diego score ahead of Los Angeles.

Sample Question

We asked students several different kinds of questions on the assessment—both multiple-choice and “constructed-response,” which require a written answer. We also asked half the students to perform real experiments.

The example presented is a short constructed-response question—a physics question—that asked students which of two cups of water of equal size would experience the greater increase in the height of water when a ball was placed in the cup. One ball was larger than the other. Students were also required to explain their answers.

A student who chose the cup with the larger ball and gave a correct explanation—that the larger ball would take up more space—received a “Complete” score.

Nationally, 62 percent of students gave a “Complete” answer, while for large central city students, the percentage was 53 percent. For the 10 districts, the range was from 46 percent in Los Angeles to 62 percent in Charlotte.

We have many more sample questions and student responses available on the NAEP website. We make these questions and other analytic tools available to help teachers and school leaders understand where their students may need additional help to do better.

Eighth Grade

Now we’ll look at the performance of eighth-grade students.

Average Science Scores

As at grade 4, you will see that when comparing 8th-grade students within the low-income group, several of these cities performed above their peers in the nation as a whole. Nevertheless, when all students are considered together, at grade 8 all 10 districts performed below the national average.

Austin, Charlotte, and San Diego had scores that were higher than the large central city average nationally. In three districts—Boston, Houston, and New York City—there was no significant difference, and the remaining four were lower than the central city average.

But again, when all students are considered together, at grade 8 all 10 districts performed below the national average.

Achievement Level Results

When we look at the percentages of eighth-graders who were at or above Basic in science for the districts, we see that three—Austin, Charlotte, and San Diego had percentages that were higher than the large central city percentage.

In two districts—Boston and New York City—the difference was not significantly different from the central city percentage.
In the remaining five districts—Houston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and Atlanta-- the percentage at or above Basic was lower than the large central city percentage.

Between 5 percent in Cleveland and 7% in Atlanta up to 27 percent in Austin performed at or above Proficient, which, as I mentioned earlier, is a Governing Board goal. This compares to 27 percent of students nationally and 16 percent in the nation’s large central cities that met this standard.

Cross-District Comparisons Of Average Scores for All Students

Looking at cross-district comparisons for all students, we can see that average scores for Austin and Charlotte were higher than the large central city average and higher than the averages for the remaining eight districts. San Diego was higher than the large central city average, lower than Austin and Charlotte, and higher than the remaining seven districts. Boston, Houston, and New York City showed no significant difference when compared to large central cities, were lower than Austin, Charlotte, and San Diego, not significantly different from one another, and higher than the remaining four cities.

Chicago, Cleveland, and Los Angeles were lower than large central cities and the preceding six districts, not significantly different from one another, and higher than Atlanta. All 10 districts were below the national average.

Sample Question

One of the questions that eighth-graders answered on the assessment is a multiple-choice question from the field of Life Science, in which students were shown a drawing of a cell and asked them to identify the part of a cell that contains most of its genetic material. The answer is the nucleus.

Nationally, 52 percent of students answered this question correctly, while for large central cities it was 44 percent. For the 10 districts, the percentage ranged from 36 percent in Cleveland to 54 percent in Austin.

For More Information

Complete information on the 2005 TUDA Science Assessment is available on the Internet at http://nationsreportcard.gov, including the full text of the Report Card, background on NAEP, sample questions, and an online data tool that allows you to do extensive additional comparisons on your own.

For reactions to this report, please go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/16/education/16reportcard.html?ref=education

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Give the Gift of Renaissance Magazine: A Link to Our Medieval Past

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Education Next: New Study Finds Teacher Certification Matters Little for Student Learning

STANFORD—A new study published in the winter issue of Education Next finds virtually no difference in the average impact on student achievement between traditionally certified teachers in New York City and those who entered teaching without certification, through Teach for America (TFA) or through the city’s Teaching Fellows programs—a finding that could have significant impact on the debate over the reauthorization of NCLB and the law’s “highly qualified” teachers provision.

The study shows that students in grades 4 through 8 learn much more—as much as a full year more—from high performing teachers compared with low performing teachers, but that there is, on average, little difference among teachers entering New York City schools through different certification routes.

Students assigned to TFA teachers learned slightly more (2 percent of a standard deviation) in math than similar students assigned to traditionally certified teachers.  Students whose teachers came from the Teaching Fellows program learned slightly less (1 percent of a standard deviation) in reading than similar students with traditionally certified teachers, but this difference faded as the teachers gained experience.  Both these differences were small compared with the differences in effectiveness among teachers with the same certification status.

The authors recommend that school districts pay less attention to teacher credentials and more attention to monitoring teachers’ performance during the first two years of teaching so that effective teachers are retained while ineffective ones are not.

The study, by economists Thomas J. Kane or Harvard University, Jonah E. Rockoff of Columbia Business School, and Douglas O. Staiger of Dartmouth College, peer-reviewed for publication in Education Next, answers the question of whether certification ensures highly effective teachers in the classroom.

In their study, the researchers used the New York City Department of Education’s (NYCDOE) detailed database of information on student achievement, which links individual students and teachers by classroom.  Uncertified and alternatively certified (AC) teachers are more likely to work in urban areas with low-income and low-achieving students.  Because New York City is a major employer of uncertified and AC teachers, its data were an exceptional resource for the study.  The primary alternative certification program is the NYC Teaching Fellow program.  Between 1999 and 2005, more than 50,000 new teachers were hired in New York schools; more than 50 percent were uncertified or AC teachers. 

Kane, Rockoff, and Staiger looked at NYCDOE’s math and reading data for grades 3 through 8 from 1998 to 2005, comparing the impact of uncertified teachers, AC teachers from the city’s Teaching Fellows program, Teach for America (TFA) participants, and traditionally certified teachers.  The NYC DOE data include identification numbers for students’ math and reading teachers, enabling a student to be matched to his or her teacher.  Student data include test scores, race and ethnicity, eligibility for the federal free and reduced-price lunch program, status as an English as a second language or special education student, and attendance record, allowing the researchers to take these characteristics into account when evaluating a teacher’s contribution to student learning.

Kane, Rockoff, and Staiger also investigated how teaching effectiveness improves with experience among these groups.  They found that uncertified and AC teachers learn somewhat more from experience in their initial years.  Teaching fellows showed more improvement in both math and reading instruction after the first two years than did traditionally certified teachers.  After two years on the job, a teaching fellow’s students would score 3 percent of a standard deviation higher on average in math and reading than the traditionally certified teacher’s students.  Uncertified math teachers’ gains from experience also outpaced those of traditionally certified teachers.  Given the same initial effectiveness as a traditionally certified teacher, an uncertified third-year teacher’s students would score 3 percent of a standard deviation higher on average in math.

The researchers suggest that states need to develop the infrastructure for assessing the performance of novice teachers during their first few years on the job.  The greatest potential for school districts to improve student achievement lies in retaining those teachers who are most effective during their first years of teaching, not in regulating minimum qualifications for new teachers. 

Although alternative certification programs have often been criticized for high turnover, Kane, Rockoff, and Staiger found that teaching fellows actually have slightly lower attrition rates in the first two years than traditionally certified teachers and that after five years the attrition rates are, in fact, about the same—approximately 50 percent for both groups.  Teachers who were initially uncertified are only slightly less likely to stick around—about 45 percent are still teaching in their fifth year. 

Not surprisingly the authors found higher attrition among TFA corps members (reflecting their minimum commitment of two years).  Because the payoff to teaching experience was rather modest, however, they estimate that the negative impact of higher turnover on student achievement (i.e., hiring more inexperienced teachers) was sufficiently small that, at least in math, it was completely offset by the positive impact of TFA corps members during their employment.

The authors write, “By shifting the focus away from ‘qualifications,’ we are not proposing to open the floodgates into teaching.  Instead, we simply want to move the dam further downstream from the time of initial recruitment, and postpone assessments of teacher’s effectiveness for a year or two until districts have much more useful information about which teachers are performing well and which are performing poorly.  Only by shifting the focus away from ‘qualifications’ and toward assessing teachers’ performance in their initial years can we hope to live up to the aspirations of the No Child Left Behind Act.”

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The NCES Private-Public School Study

On July 14, 2006, the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released a study that compared the performance in reading and math of 4th and 8th graders attending private and public schools. The study had been undertaken at the request of the NCES by the Educational Testing Service (ETS). Using information from a national sample of public and private school students collected in 2003 as part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), ETS compared the test scores of public school students with those of students in all private schools, taken together. Separately, it compared student performance in public schools with that in Catholic, Lutheran, and evangelical Protestant schools.

According to the NCES study, students attending private schools performed better than students attending public schools. But after statistical adjustments were made for student characteristics, the private school advantage among 4th graders disappeared, giving way to a 4.5-point public school advantage in math and parity between the sectors in reading. After the same adjustments were made for 8th graders, private schools retained a 7-point advantage in reading but achieved only parity in math.

But, in fact, the NCES study’s measures of student characteristics are flawed…

Read the rest of this report at: http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/4612612.html

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Emerging Evidence for Strengthening Low-Performing High Schools

The National High School Center, funded by the U.S. Department of Education and housed at the American Institutes for Research (AIR), has released a research brief highlighting ways to raise student achievement and keep students on track for graduation. The brief is based on evaluations of four widely used high school improvement programs and identifies key practices used to strengthen high schools.

The brief, “Emerging Evidence on Improving High School Student Achievement and Graduation Rates: The Effects of Four Popular Improvement Programs,” outlines five cross-cutting challenges faced by high schools and lessons learned in working to positively influence student outcomes:

• assisting incoming high school students who possess poor academic skills;
• improving instructional content and outcomes;
• creating a personalized and orderly learning environment;
• preparing students for the world beyond high school; and
• inspiring transformations in overstressed high schools.

“Creating an inviting environment that includes specialized catch-up courses and high-quality and defined curricula is essential in preparing students for the world beyond high school,” explained Joseph R. Harris, Ph.D., interim director of the National High School Center.

The take-aways for better high schools are gleaned from the research conducted by MDRC, a partner of the National High School Center, on the following prominent high school improvement programs:

Career Academies, First Things First, Project GRAD, and Talent Development. The brief, which outlines lessons learned as well as opportunities for improving high schools, expands on MDRC’s May 2006 report “Meeting Five Critical Challenges of High School Reform: Lessons from Research on Three Reform Models” and includes additional findings related to Project GRAD.

Another lesson of the research synthesis is that instructional improvements, along with structural changes that promote personalization, are both important in creating higher-performing high schools. “Both structural and instructional improvements are the twin pillars of high school reform,” said Corinne M. Herlihy, lead author of the brief. “It is critical that these components work in partnership, rather than in isolation.”

“Whether districts and schools adopt an existing comprehensive reform initiative or put together the elements of a comprehensive intervention on their own, much has been learned about what is needed, what seems to work, and what doesn’t work,” Harris said.

To read the report, please go to: http://www.betterhighschools.org/docs/NHSC_November16Announcement_Final.pdf

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Key Practices and Policies of Consistently Higher Performing High Schools

The National High School Center  has released a report on key practices and policies of higher performing high schools.

The study identifies patterns of practice found in higher performing schools as a source of information for educators seeking to chart pathways to improved academic performance in high schools.

“Higher performing high schools are able to succeed because they are active in a number of areas integral to school improvement, not just in one or two instances,” commented Joseph Harris, interim director of the National High School Center.

The study provides examples of how higher performing high schools promote rigorous student achievement across entire student populations. The National Center for Educational Accountability (NCEA) framework, on which the report is based, enables school leaders to examine practices of higher performing schools and provides a research base for comparing these practices to those found in other schools across the nation.

The framework’s themes involve academic goals, professional development activities, instructional approaches, and data-driven decision making.

“It is important to note that these policies and practices are interrelated, not only across themes but also across levels in the school system whether it is classroom, school, or district,” Harris added.

The report also includes ways in which states can guide and support the types of initiatives outlined, including setting explicit standards, developing a coherent policy framework around teacher quality, implementing innovative approaches to reaching more students, as well as methods for supporting data-responsive action at the local level.

To read the report, please go to: http://www.betterhighschools.org/docs/ReportOfKeyPracticesandPolicies_10-31-06.pdf

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Supporting Academic Success Among English Language Learners in High School

The National High School Center released a research brief today, “Improving Literacy Outcomes for English Language Learners in High School: Considerations for States and Districts in Developing a Coherent Policy Framework,” outlining recommendations for states and districts to better support adolescent English language learners (ELLs).

A key finding of the brief indicates that ELLs who are supported in accessing high-level courses develop higher levels of literacy than do ELLs of similar proficiency who are tracked into low-level courses. “In too many instances, we are seeing ELLs, especially Latino ELL students, being placed in remediation courses when the body of existing research clearly indicates that ELL students need to be exposed to and supported in higher-level courses to maximize success,” said Joseph Harris, interim director of the National High School Center.

The brief outlines existing barriers regarding teacher expectations, tracking, and placement of ELL students and offers key policies and useful strategies in building capacity and developing learning environments conducive for all students in obtaining academic success. “English language learners represent a critical mass of student learners in today’s high schools, and these numbers are expected to rise. It is critical that all students gain access to an appropriate and challenging academic experience to succeed at high levels in order for the United States to remain competitive in today’s global workforce,” added Harris.

The brief, authored by WestEd, a partner of the National High School Center, is available free-of-charge on the National High School Center’s Web site at http://www.betterhighschools.org/docs/NHSC_AdolescentS_110806.pdf

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Two-Thirds of Youth Still Are Not Getting Resources Needed to Succeed

A study released by America’s Promise – The Alliance for Youth, Every Child, Every Promise: Turning Failure Into Action, finds that when youth are provided with sufficient fundamental resources, their life chances for success dramatically increase and the gaps between low-income and minority youth from other youth are significantly reduced. Unfortunately, the data also show that more than two-thirds of our youth are not currently receiving enough of these resources to benefit from their full effects.

Every Child, Every Promise measures the presence and impact of the Five Promises – the five fundamental resources that research has shown positively affect the development and lives of America’s youth:

• caring adults
  
• safe places and constructive use of time
  
• a healthy start and healthy development
  
• an effective education
  
• opportunities to make a difference through helping others

The report finds that children receiving four or five Promises, as compared to youth receiving zero or one Promise, are far more likely to be successful, including being twice as likely to get A’s, twice as likely to avoid violence and 40% more likely to volunteer. Moreover, the research shows that receiving four or five of these basic developmental resources has the potential to level the playing field for youth across racial and economic lines.

For example, experiencing four or five Promises:

• Reduced the academic achievement gap (measured by A-F grades) between white and minority students ages 12-17 and nearly eliminated the gap for students ages 6-11
  
• Nearly eliminated disparities in school attendance between white and minority youth ages 12-17
  
• Nearly eliminated disparities in school attendance between 12-17 year-olds from high- and low-income families
  
• Nearly eliminated the disparity in drug use for 12-17 year-olds

“This report shows the Five Promises have the power to help break the economic and racial barriers that too often impede our children’s success,” said former Secretary of State and America’s Promise Founding Chairman General Colin L. Powell, USA (Ret). “It’s unacceptable that we are failing two-thirds of our youth by not providing them the resources they need to succeed.

“Fortunately there is action we can and must take to reverse this tide and set our children on a course for future action,” Powell continued. “To settle for less is to renege on our promise to America’s youth.”

Every Child, Every Promise presents and analyzes the results of three new studies. The first, the National Promise Study takes a quantitative approach to determining the presence of the Five Promises in the lives of America’s youth. The second, the Voices Study, offers detailed perspectives of young people in America concerning their own needs and well-being. The final study, a large-scale economic analysis titled Investing in Our Young People, was conducted by Nobel Laureate Dr. James Heckman and fellow University of Chicago economist Flavio Cunha, and examines the importance of investing in our youth throughout childhood, from preschool through adolescence, not only in the early years.

According to the Voices Study, America’s youth have concrete goals, and are willing to work hard to achieve them, but many said they need adult help to make it happen. Dispelling the myth that young people are not driven and lack goals, 90% of young people were able to identify their goals, but more than 40% fear they will be unable to achieve them.

“The findings in Every Child, Every Promise are disturbing, but we cannot afford to waste time being discouraged,” said Marguerite Kondracke, President and CEO of the America’s Promise Alliance. “The research paves the way for the actions we must take to improve the lives and strengthen the future of America’s youth. All sectors of society and our communities must come together in an integrated and collaborative manner to help our children succeed. The Alliance is committed to this fundamental and integrated approach to ‘whole child’ development.”

“The time is now to invest in our nation’s greatest resource – our youth,” said Edward B. Rust Jr., Chairman and CEO, State Farm Insurance Companies, whose generous support helped make the report possible. “This report so vividly illustrates the power all sectors of the community have to help young people succeed in life. We must all work together to reverse the disturbing trends exposed in the report and ensure every child has every resource they need.” The research initiative affirmed that “whole child investments” – ensuring that children experience the sustained and cumulative benefits of at least four of the Five Promises in various aspects of their lives – at home, in school and in the community – greatly increases their odds of success, regardless of race or family income.

This holistic investment approach is further supported by the economic analysis conducted by Heckman and Cunha. Their work reinforces the importance of a continual approach to investing in youth, as opposed to concentrating on particular stages of development. They found that consistent and balanced investment, particularly from the family during early childhood and through the teen years, leads to greater returns. More importantly, Heckman and Cunha report that early investment not followed by sustained investments at other developmental stages are not as productive.

The effects of balanced, long-term investments throughout childhood are striking. Heckman and Cunha discovered that such a strategy resulted in:

• A 90% high school graduation rate, compared to just a 41% graduation rate without additional investment
  
• A 40% college attendance rate, compared to less than 5% without additional investment
  
• Marked decline in the number of youth who would wind up convicted of crimes or on probation – from 40% to 10%
  
• Marked decline in the number of youth who would wind up on welfare – from nearly 20% to only 2%

Every Child, Every Promise suggests that it will take a coordinated effort – businesses and non-profits organizations, city governments with help from state and federal sources, parents and young people themselves – to address challenges facing our nation’s youth. The report makes clear that investing in youth is not only morally justified, it is an economic imperative.

“Our young people are our future,” said Kondracke. “In an ultra-competitive global economy, economic vitality depends on the capabilities of tomorrow’s workforce. Our national security depends on the wisdom and will of the next generation. And our American values depend on the strength of future families and communities.

“We know our children are ready and willing to put in the hard work to succeed,” Kondracke continued. “And we know they want the help and guidance of adults to show them the way. This report is a call to action to our nation’s policy, business and community leaders. We can and must do everything necessary to help them achieve their dreams and create a brighter, stronger future for America.”

To read the report, please go to:
http://www.americaspromise.org/uploadedFiles/AmericasPromise/Our_Work/Strategic_Initiatives/Every_Child_Every_Promise/EC-EP_Documents/MAIN%20REPORT%20DRAFT%2011.1.pdf

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High-Quality Teaching in Early Childhood Education Closes Achievement Gap, but Not Enough Programs Provide It

In a targeted study of children who are, on average, behind their peers at age four and further behind by 1st grade, Robert C. Pianta, professor of education at the University of Virginia, found that learning gaps can be eliminated for children in high-quality classrooms who receive strong instructional and emotional support from teachers.  The new study is described in the winter issue of Education Next.

Pianta and a team of researchers examined the effects on two groups of at-risk children: those whose mothers had less than a four-year college degree and those who had displayed significant behavioral, social, or academic problems.  Children from low-education households who were placed in high-quality classrooms achieved at the same level as those whose mothers had a college degree, and children displaying previous problem behavior showed achievement and adjustment levels identical to children who had no history of problems.  At-risk children who did not receive these supports did not show such gains.   

These results are consistent with other studies that show a substantial increase (up to 50 percent of a standard deviation on standardized achievement tests) in achievement in high-quality classrooms, with greater effects often accruing to children with higher levels of risk and disadvantage. (The size of the well known racial gap in test-score performance is between one-half and one standard deviation.)

Few of the nation’s highest-need children, however, are currently receiving the kind of quality early education experience they require, despite rising participation rates in early education programs, warns Pianta.

Pianta’s analysis of two recent large-scale early education studies -- the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (NICHD SECCYD) and the National Center for Early Development and Learning (NCEDL) Multi-State Pre-K Study -- confirms this. 

The 11-state NCEDL study revealed that, even in state-sponsored pre-K programs staffed with credentialed teachers with bachelors’ degrees, variations in the quality of teaching were considerable, as was also the case in Pianta and his colleagues’ analysis of 1st- and 3rd-grade classrooms in the NICHD study.

Among pre-K classrooms in the study, only about 25 percent of those serving four-year-olds provided students with high levels of emotional and instructional support.  And preschoolers lucky enough to have such support in pre-K are not highly likely to be enrolled in similarly high-quality classrooms in kindergarten or 1st grade.  In those grades, too, only about one-quarter of classrooms are providing the instructional and emotional nurturing that young children require.

Because the standard measures of teacher quality -- degrees and experience -- are not reliable proxies for what teachers do in the classroom and tend not to be consistently related to gains in achievement, policies that mandate accumulating course credits are not likely to produce teachers with high-quality classroom skills or necessarily raise student achievement, unless those credits are tied to knowledge and skill about implementing instruction in actual classrooms.

“The odds are stacked against children getting the kind of early education experiences that close gaps,” explains Pianta. “Most children in pre-K, K, and 1st-grade classrooms are exposed to quite low levels of instructional support, and the quality is particularly poor. We also see this in 3rd and 5th grades in our work there -- it’s a problem throughout the system that we need to solve.”

To combat the uneven quality of early education instruction, Pianta has called for more effective professional development focused on the specific challenges of teaching young children: standardizing descriptions of teacher-student interactions, direct assessments of teacher and classroom tied to incentive and credentialing systems, and improved alignment of early childhood education with K-12.

Read “Preschool Is School, Sometimes” in the new issue of Education Next, now online at: http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/4612287.html

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“At age 36 months, parent level of education, the total quality of child care and paternal different words were significant predictors of child language. Mothers' language was not a significant predictor of child language.”

There has been little research comparing the nature and contributions of language input of mothers and fathers to their young children. This study examined differences in mother and father talk to their 24 month-old children. This study also considered contributions of parent education, child care quality and mother and father language (output, vocabulary, complexity, questions, and pragmatics) to children's expressive language development at 36 months. It was found that fathers' language input was less than mothers' language input on the following: verbal output, turn length, different word roots, and wh-questions. Mothers and fathers did not differ on type-token ratio, mean length of utterance, or the proportion of questions. At age 36 months, parent level of education, the total quality of child care and paternal different words were significant predictors of child language. Mothers' language was not a significant predictor of child language.

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Does Student Achievement Really Spur National Economic Growth?

Educational policy discourse supports the idea that increases in science and mathematics achievement correlate to nation-wide economic gains. However, a thought-provoking new study from the American Journal of Education challenges the perceived causal links between educational achievement and economic growth. Francisco O. Ramirez (Stanford University) and his co-authors find that without the so-called "Asian Tigers," the correlation diminishes and all but disappears.

"This is a striking finding that calls into question the disproportionate attention (and envy) focused on those few countries with the very highest achievement scores," write the authors. "It is clear that education and its reforms are everywhere seen in light of their supposed economic effects. It is also clear that the areas of education given the most attention as relevant to economic goals have been science and mathematics, the new keys to economic growth."

Comparing national GDP data with international standardized test scores over two twenty-year periods (1970-1990 and 1980-2000), the researchers found that countries with high science and math scores do tend to grow somewhat more rapidly than other countries – but not when Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan are removed from the analysis, or in an analysis of the last two decades. Additionally, "Moving from the 'middle of the pack' to the top provides less of an economic boost," the authors write.

They continue: "The results run contrary to the expectation that the student achievement effect would be stronger in more educationally developed countries."

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Funding and Integration Still Biggest Challenges for Education Technology, According to NSBA Survey

For the third year in a row, funding for technology and integrating that technology into the classroom are the biggest challenges that school districts face in the area of technology, according to a survey issued by the National School Boards Association (NSBA) at the organization’s annual T+L Conference here.

Nearly 50 percent reported funding and 45 percent said integrating technology in the classroom were the biggest challenges they faced.  Seventeen percent said that proving that technology benefits student learning is their biggest challenge.

NSBA conducted an e-mail survey the week of October 22 of approximately 1,200 registrants of the T+L Conference.  The group includes technology specialists, teachers, administrators, and school board members.

For the first time, the survey examined the phenomenon of social networking. Almost 36 percent of respondents said the content of student postings on social networking websites, such as MySpace.com, is disruptive to the learning environment.  The biggest problem they say – almost 70 percent – is that students post inappropriate material, followed by students giving out too much personally identifiable information – 62 percent.

Almost 35 percent said their school district has a policy that covers social websites.  After examining the responses, that policy appears to be, for the most part, a firewall, blocking software or a rule forbidding access to these sites when using school computers. 

“It is important to keep in mind that just blocking access to social websites at school is not the end of the story,” said Anne Bryant, NSBA executive director.  “Most of the misuse of these sites takes place at home, but still affects the classroom.  We have to teach our students about the safe and proper use of social websites.” 

For the third straight year, survey respondents said by a wide margin – almost 94 percent -- that technology in the classroom increases educational opportunities for students.  In raw numbers, only three respondents this year said technology did not increase opportunities.

When asked how technology helped, more than 92 percent said it helps students become more engaged in learning.

“The successful use of technology is overwhelming and is totally consistent with the survey results over the last two years,” Bryant said.  “The opportunities for students provided by technology are growing, including virtual field trips to the zoo, online courses and access to the Smithsonian.”

Home access to the Internet for low-income students continues to be a serious issue.  Nearly 71 percent of respondents said it was a problem in their districts, compared to 69 percent in 2004 and 78 percent in 2005.

The federal E-Rate program continues to be important to school districts in meeting their technology goals.  Seventy percent replied that the E-Rate is somewhat or very important to their districts.  In terms of improving the program, 66 percent said the application process needs to be enhanced, 44 percent want more outreach to applicants and 35 percent want sanctions for rule violators.

If school districts received additional technology funding, 72 percent said they would put it into classroom instruction and 55 percent said they would use it for staff professional development.

Survey results may be found on the NSBA website at http://www.nsba.org/site/view.asp?CID=1782&DID=3952

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A New Report on Bullying

A new report has been published to mark the beginning of Anti-Bullying Week in England. It examines how bullying, or the fear of bullying, is the cause of a third of all truancies.

Snapshot of the findings:

• 20,000 kids truant everyday because of bullying
  
• 1 in 3 truants (36%) blame bullying
  
• Two in five young people (42%) who are bullied, admit to skipping school at least once
  
• Overall a third of all 11-17 year olds in the England admit to skipping school at least once because of the fear of bullying

John Quinn, Director of beatbullying said: “The most significant finding from the research is that 20,000 kids are truanting everyday to avoid their bullies. This figure equates to 36% of all truancy. Therefore over a third of all truants are missing lessons because they are being bullied.”

The other significant finding from the report is that almost half (42%) of bullied young people admit to avoiding school at least once, so if 69% of young people are bullied, that means that a third of all young people in the UK have truanted, faked an illness, or otherwise skipped school because of bullying

Children and young people who are not in school; are most vulnerable to academic failure, are easily drawn into crime and anti-social behaviour and are more likely to be unemployed after leaving school.  For the third of young people who truant to escape being bullied, many of them persistently, lack of bullying prevention decreases their chances of fulfilling their potential and going on to be happy and productive citizens.

The report also highlights the authorized absences element, those young people who stay away from school with their parent’s permission, to avoid bullying. These include parents who are too scared to send their children to school because of their bullying and young people who fake illnesses to avoid bullies.

John Quinn continued: “In this report, young people have told us how they want the Government to beat bullying, they want their schools and education professionals to see truanting as a symptom of bullying and not only the behavior of lazy and trouble-making young people.”

On the campaign, Sara Cox said: “Sometimes you still hear people say that bullying is just a part of growing up, that it is just child’s play, well I hope that beatbullying’s work changes that attitude. Bullying is not only having a serious social and emotional effect on Britain’s young people, but now it is proven that it is affecting the life chances and education of the future workforce of Britain.

“I’m proud to be a patron of beatbullying, they are really making a difference to the lives of bullied kids. They don’t provide helplines or counsellors; what beatbullying do is even more important, they prevent bullying from starting in the first place.  During Anti-Bullying Week, from Nov 20th, beatbullying is asking schools all around the country to get involved in anti-bullying lessons or fundraising for beatbullying.”

beatbullying argues that if schools set out to prevent bullying rather than try to end it once it starts, then the problem will never take hold. beatbullying takes a unique peer to peer approach to shaping attitudes and ultimately changing behaviours of the whole school rather than focusing on those involved specifically in bullying incidences. This approach is proven to work with schools reporting a drop in bullying of 39% and an increase in reporting of bullying of 60% after working with beatbullying.

The report is available here: http://www.beatbullying.org/reports/bullying-truancy-report-2006.pdf

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Separate But Superior? A Review of Issues and Data Bearing on Single-Sex Education

This report finds that there is no evidence to support girls-only and boys-only schools and classes as a means to remedy a variety of educational problems.

The report is available here: http://epsl.asu.edu/epru/epru_2006_Research_Writing.htm

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How to Find and Keep the Teachers We Need

The report concludes that competition and choice induce improved hiring practices and more flexible compensation policies, which in turn attract and retain high-quality teachers.

The report is available here: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa579.pdf

A review finds that this report lacks evidentiary support: http://epsl.asu.edu/epru/ttreviews/EPSL-0610-217-EPRU.pdf

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Getting Farther Ahead by Staying Behind

A Second-Year Evaluation of Florida's Policy to End Social Promotion

The report concludes that Florida's recently instituted policy of test-based retention has helped academically struggling elementary school students improve their reading.

The report is available here: http://www.manhattan-institute.org/pdf/cr_49.pdf

A review argues that the report overstates the effect of retention on student achievement:
http://epsl.asu.edu/epru/ttreviews/EPSL-0610-215-EPRU.pdf

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Ten Big Effects of the No Child Left Behind Act on Public Schools

This short report describes ten major effects of the No Child Left Behind Act based on CEP's four year study of the implementation of NCLB at the federal, state, and local level.

The report is available here: http://www.cep-dc.org/nclb/NCLB-TenBigEffects.pdf

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The Ninth Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercialism Trends: 2005-2006

The Ninth Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercialism Trends: 2006-2006 finds that despite a voluntary, soft-drink industry ban on the sale of sugared soda products in schools, school house commercialism remains a pervasive phenomenon in America's public schools, in many forms.

The report is available here: http://epsl.asu.edu/ceru/Annual%20reports/EPSL-0611-220-CERU.pdf

Executive Summary: http://epsl.asu.edu/ceru/Annual%20reports/EPSL-0611-220-CERU-exec.pdf

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How Do U.S. Students and Adults Compare With Their Peers in Other Countries?

Based on the results of recent international assessments, measures of students’ and adults’ skills and abilities in reading, mathematics, and science present a mixed picture. U.S. students perform relatively well in reading literacy compared with their peers around the world, including those in highly industrialized countries.

In addition, U.S. students perform relatively well in mathematics at the lower grades compared to their peers in other countries—though the data suggest that their performance may not be keeping pace with that of their peers—and are showing improvement in the middle school years.

However, when older U.S. students are asked to apply what they have learned in mathematics, they demonstrate less ability than most of their peers in other highly industrialized countries.

In science, U.S. students also perform relatively well at the lower grades compared with their peers in other countries—though, again, the data suggest that their performance may not be keeping pace with their peers—and are showing improvement in the middle school years. This progress, though, may not carry over to tasks that are embedded in a real-life context: when asked to apply scientific skills, U.S. 15-year-olds performed worse than about half of their international peers.

Data on the literacy and numeracy skills of U.S. adults in comparison with their peers from other countries are fairly limited, but suggest that the skills of U.S. adults do not compare favorably (based on ALL data).

The full report is here: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/2006073.pdf

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Overview of Public Elementary and Secondary Students, Staff, Schools, School Districts, Revenues, and Expenditures

School Year 2004-05 and Fiscal Year 2004

The report presents data about the students enrolled in public education, including the number of students by grade and the number receiving special education, migrant, or English language learner services. Some tables disaggregate the student data by racial/ethnic group or community characteristics such as rural - urban. The numbers and types of teachers, other education staff, schools, and local education agencies are also reported. Finance data include revenues by source (local, state, and federal) and total and per-pupil expenditures by function.

Online Availability: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2007/2007309.pdf

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The Accuracy and Effectiveness of Adequate Yearly Progress, NCLB's School Evaluation System

This report examines the controversies surrounding the implementation of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and the proposals to improve it. The report concludes that AYP is fundamentally flawed and the author recommends that it be suspended until its merits can be confirmed or refuted by scientific evidence.

The full report is here: http://epsl.asu.edu/epru/epru_2006_Research_Writing.htm

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The Career Pathways How-To Guide

This report presents a step-by-step approach to implementing career pathways. It calls for cooperation between K-12 education and the workforce at the local level and state-level officials support of these efforts.

The full report is here: http://www.workforcestrategy.org/publications/WSC_howto_10.16.06.pdf

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Young Pupils in England Abuse Teachers with Sexual Swear Words

Children as young as 5 are consistently swearing at teachers, with nearly 20 per cent of primary school teachers claiming to have been subject to sexually abusive insults from pupils.

In a study commissioned by the National Union of Teachers, England’s largest teaching union, researchers also found that 75 per cent of secondary school teachers said that pupils used language such as “F*** you” or “I’ve f***** your mum” to one another.

And, according to the teachers, parents, far from helping to stamp out sexist language and bullying, are refusing to set children a good example.
Most experienced teachers said that sexist language had worsened in recent years, and they wanted schools to take action on the serious incidents of sexist bullying.

Language was as bad at primaries as at secondaries, teachers reported, and worst in failing schools…

Steve Sinnott, the union’s general secretary, said that the Government must insist that schools develop tough policies in order to discourage parents and pupils from using abusive language. “Sexist jokes, put-downs and harassment in schools all help create an atmosphere in which female pupils and teachers feel degraded,” he said. “Such behaviour is completely unacceptable.

“But schools cannot close society out at the gates — its influence will inevitably be seen in our schools. As society becomes more tolerant of sexually aggressive and abusive language, so this attitude will be communicated to children and young people…”

To read the complete article please go to: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,591-2468715,00.html

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Study of Language Use in Children Suggests Sex Influences How Brain Processes Words

Boys and girls tend to use different parts of their brains to process some basic aspects of grammar, according to the first study of its kind, suggesting that sex is an important factor in the acquisition and use of language.

Two neuroscientists from Georgetown University Medical Center discovered that boys and girls use different brain systems when they make mistakes like “Yesterday I holded the bunny”. Girls mainly use a system that is for memorizing words and associations between them, whereas boys rely primarily on a system that governs the rules of language.

“Sex has been virtually ignored in studies of the learning, representation, processing and neural bases of language. This study shows that differences between males and females may be an important factor in these cognitive processes,” said the lead author, Michael Ullman, PhD, professor of neuroscience, psychology, neurology and linguistics.

He added that since the brain systems tested in this study are responsible for more than just language use, the study supports the notion that “men and women may tend to process various skills differently from one another.” One potential underlying reason, suggested by other research, is that the hormone estrogen, found primarily in females, affects brain processing, Ullman said.

The study, whose co-author is Joshua Hartshorne, was published earlier this year in the journal Developmental Science.

Researchers know that women tend to be better than men at verbal memory tasks, such as remembering word lists, and that this ability depends on declarative memory. Included within declarative memory is a “mental lexicon” in which word forms are memorized and remembered. The grammatical rules that allow us to combine words in sentences depend on “procedural” memory. Researchers have found that both boys and girls may be equally adept at this process, which depends on a different part of the brain than declarative memory.

In this study, Ullman and Hartshorne hypothesized that girls would be better than boys at remembering irregular past-tenses of verbs, like “held”, since these words are memorized in declarative memory. And if girls remember “held” better than boys, they should make fewer errors like “holded”, since these “over-regularization” errors are made when children can’t remember irregular past-tenses, and so resort to combing the verb with an –ed ending, just as they do for regular verbs like “walked”.  

So they studied how a group of 10 boys and 15 girls, age 2 to 5, used regular and irregular past-tense forms in their normal speech. To their surprise, and contrary to their predictions, the researchers discovered that the girls over-regularized far more than boys.

They then investigated which verbs the girls made the mistakes on, and found an association between the number of similar sounding regular past-tense verbs, and the particular verb that was over-regularized. For example, girls tended to say “holded” or “blowed” because many other rhyming verbs use the regular past-tense form (such as folded, molded, and flowed, rowed, stowed, respectively).

The researchers say this kind analogy-based processing suggests the girls were relying on their declarative memory to create the past tense. “This memory is not just a rote list of words, but underlies common patterns between words, and can be used to generalize these patterns,” Ullman said. “In this case, the girls had memorized the regular past tenses of rhyming words, and were generalizing these patterns to new words, resulting in over-regularization errors” such as “holded” and “blowed”.

In contrast, for the boys there was no association between the number of similar sounding regular past-tense verbs, and the particular verbs that were over-regularized. So the boys did not make more over-regularizations on verbs like “holded” or “blowed” that have many rhyming regular past-tenses.  This suggests, Ullman said, that the boys were not forming these words in declarative memory, but were probably using the rule-governed system to combine verbs with –ed endings.

Other types of evidence also suggest that adult women tend use declarative memory more than adult men do in their use of language, Ullman said. “Although the two sexes seem to be doing the same thing, and doing it equally well, they are using two different neurocognitive brain processes to do it,’ Ullman said. “This is a novel and exciting finding.

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English Schools Struggle with Goals as Well

…Results from the Standard Assessment Tests (SATs) show only a marginal improvement in the proportion of children attaining the targets in English, maths and science in the past 12 months.

Teachers' leaders have warned that focusing on easily measured, narrowly-defined ministerial quotas is unrealistic and undermines schools' efforts to excel across a range of subjects.

The Government has decreed that by next year, 85 per cent of pupils should reach the defined benchmark in the three subjects as part of its back-to-basics campaign to drive up achievement.

Today's results show that in maths, despite a 1 per cent increase, only 75 per cent attained the desired level of achievement. An increase of 1 per cent was also recorded in English, with 79 per cent reaching the target…

To read the complete article, please go to: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,591-1747343,00.html

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Why Do Black and Latino Boys Lag Behind in Math?

Study shows that patterns of inequality in math at the end of high school cannot be explained away by early performance

Recent studies and public discussions have focused on female achievement in math, and an important new study in the November issue of the American Journal of Education expands the literature to encompass racial disparity. Using new national data from the 1990s, Catherine Riegle-Crumb (University of Texas, Austin) explores how Black and Latino males fare in high school math classes compared to their female counterparts, finding that a tendency to ignore institutional cues can lead to both positive and negative outcomes. While Black males are not encouraged by high grades in freshman math classes, Black females are able to overcome potentially demoralizing scores.

“Compared with white males, African-American and Latino males receive lower returns from taking Algebra I during their freshman year, reaching lower levels of the math course sequence when they begin in the same position,” Riegle-Crumb writes. “This pattern is not explained by academic performance, and, furthermore, African-American males receive less benefit from high math grades.”

Riegle-Crumb tracked the progression of more than 8,000 students who enrolled in Algebra 1 as freshmen in high school. Black and Latino groups have lower enrollment rates in math courses than Whites and Asian Americans, but attrition was unexpectedly high even among those who began in comparable positions. Black males seem to have little response to positive feedback or good grades, Riegle-Crumb finds, while Black females seem undeterred by low grades, despite their original disadvantage.

Her findings support the idea that minority students may be less responsive to institutional feedback whether positive or negative. Researchers have argued that minority students may reject the educational system. Black students may feel uncomfortable and unsupported in academically intense environments dominated by white students. Furthermore they may experience a phenomenon called “stereotype threat” – that is, buying into negative academic stereotypes about their race-ethnicity.

“While African-American and Latino students of both genders generally start high school in lower math courses compared with their white peers, for minority female students, this appears to be the primary hurdle to reaching comparable levels of math with white female students by the end of high school,” Riegle-Crumb writes.

She continues, “The same cannot be said for African-American and Latino males. Like their female peers, they are less likely to begin high school in Algebra I. Yet their disadvantage does not end there but is exacerbated by the lower returns from Algebra I they receive compared with white male peers.”

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Public School Kindergarteners Post Same or Greater Gains as Private School Counterparts

In the first study to examine differences in learning gains at the kindergarten level, William Carbonaro (University of Notre Dame) finds that publicly schooled kindergarteners post the same or greater learning gains than privately schooled kindergarteners. These findings come as a surprise because, as Carbonaro writes in the November issue of the American Journal of Education, “Both the financial costs of private schooling and other self-selection factors ensure that the private schools will have a more advantaged population of students than public schools.”

Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Carbonaro points out that gains at higher academic levels are greater among privately schooled students. “On the one hand, it is reassuring that public kindergartens do as well or slightly better than private kindergartens in producing learning gains,” Carbonaro writes.

“On the other hand, this remains something of a hollow victory because private school students still have substantially higher test scores at the end of kindergarten than public school students.”

Carbonaro suggests that public schools may want to seriously consider instituting all-day kindergarten to catch up to private school achievement levels, as this would provide more learning opportunities without reducing the amount of time spent in school on nonacademic material.

Founded as School Review in 1893, the American Journal of Education bridges and integrates the intellectual, methodological, and substantive diversity of educational scholarship, while encouraging a vigorous dialogue between educational scholars and practitioners.

William Carbonaro, “Public-Private Differences in Achievement Among Kindergarten Students: Differences in Learning Opportunities and Student Outcomes.” American Journal of Education: November 2006.

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Results of 2006 NCEA Survey of State Data Collection Issues Related to Longitudinal Analysis

In preparation of the launch of the Data Quality Campaign, the National Center for Educational Accountability (NCEA) conducted a survey, with the support of The Broad Foundation and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, about state data systems to determine the number of states that have built the infrastructure to tap into the power of longitudinal data. This report provides an overview of the findings of the August 2006 survey in addition to a state-by-state analysis of the policy implications of each state's data system.

The Power of Longitudinal Data

Longitudinal data matches individual student records over time, from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade and into post secondary education. States are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to improve student achievement. But without quality data, they are essentially flying blind. Policymakers need to act now to put in place the policies and resources to ensure that each state has a longitudinal data system and the culture and capacity to translate the information into specific action steps to improve student achievement. When states collect the most relevant data and are able to match individual student records over time, they can answer the questions that are at the core of educational effectiveness. Longitudinal data (data gathered on the same student from year to year) makes it possible to:

• Determine the value-added of specific schools and programs by following individual students' academic growth;
  
• Identify consistently high-performing schools so that educators and the public can learn from best practices;
  
• Evaluate the impact of teacher preparation and training programs on student achievement; and
  
• Focus school systems on preparing a higher percentage of students to succeed in rigorous high school courses, college and challenging jobs.

Based on responses to the 2006 NCEA survey, only a few states can answer each of these priority questions facing policymakers and educators today.

• Which schools produce the strongest academic growth for their students? (23 states can answer this question)
  
  • Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin
    
• What achievement levels in middle school indicate that a student is on track to succeed in rigorous courses in high school? (5 states can answer this question)
  
  • Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Utah
    
• What is each school's graduation rate, according to the 2005 National Governors Association graduation compact? (26 states can answer this question)
  
  • Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming
    
• What high school performance indicators (e.g., enrollment in rigorous courses or performance on state tests) are the best predictors of students' success in college or the workplace? (4 states can answer this question)
  
  • Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Texas
    
• What percentage of high school graduates who go on to college take remedial courses? (14 states can answer this question)
  
  • Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Oregon, Texas, Vermont, Washington, Wyoming
    
• Which teacher preparation programs produce the graduates whose students have the strongest academic growth? (9 states can answer this question)
  • Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Mexico, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia
    

For the complete report, go to: http://www.dataqualitycampaign.org/survey_results/

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Violent Video Games Leave Teenagers Emotionally Aroused

A new study has found that adolescents who play violent video games may exhibit lingering effects on brain function, including increased activity in the region of the brain that governs emotional arousal and decreased activity in the brain’s executive function, which is associated with control, focus and concentration. The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

"Our study suggests that playing a certain type of violent video game may have different short-term effects on brain function than playing a nonviolent—but exciting—game," said Vincent P. Mathews, M.D., professor of radiology at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis.

Video games are big business with nearly $10 billion in sales in the United States last year. But along with growing sales come growing concerns about what effects these games may be having on the young people who play them.

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How Do Peer Relationships in High School Affect College Enrollment?

..Research has long shown that peers can have a significant influence on individual student behaviors. Peer influence can result in outcomes both positive (increased school performance) and negative (increased delinquency). In fact, the influence of peers has been identified as particularly important for low-achieving students, who can improve when they have a network of higher-achieving friends. Peers may have an immediate influence on individual behavior, but they can also affect long-term behavior that has implications for students deciding whether to attend college or other postsecondary education programs…

The Bottom Line

High school graduates are significantly more likely to go on to postsecondary education and college if their peers support them and have similar plans for higher education. These effects are particularly strong for black and Hispanic youth with a low socioeconomic status.

To read the complete article, please go to: http://www.ascd.org/portal/site/ascd/menuitem.bf94f2521501fd98dd1b2110d3108a0c/

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America Needs to Wise Up About Need for Quality Tutoring

…Research reveals that tutoring is most effective when it helps students literally "learn how to learn." What does this mean? It may surprise many people that students often fail to master important basic skills because of subtle undiagnosed learning disabilities, dyslexia, underachievement and other learning issues that may limit study skills.

Good tutoring -- particularly diagnostic/developmental tutoring -- closely observes and records student learning strengths and weaknesses on a class-by-class basis. Using this ongoing information, the tutor can better individualize tutoring instruction, using the student's stronger skills to build up personal learning weaknesses...

Other key factors that research tells us will make tutoring more effective include:

1. Better-prepared tutors produce better results than tutors with little or no special preparation. College courses in the skills to be tutored, a degree, special teaching certification and prior teaching/tutoring experience can improve tutoring quality.
   
2. Tutors need to follow a written curriculum that helps individualize their instruction. They need to record their learning observations in an organized manner and track the gradual development of the student's new skills class by class.
   
3. Tutors need to coach parents on how to better encourage good study habits and motivate their child's daily learning at home. Parental support of this process will have a very powerful influence on improving a child's classroom achievement.

To read the complete article, please go to: http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/152600,CST-EDT-tutor29.article

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New Research on Vocabulary and Learning

The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) has announced new research that helps document the connection between standards-based vocabulary instruction and future academic achievement. The findings are based on an evaluation study of ASCD's Building Academic Vocabulary program, a six-step process for vocabulary instruction in the major disciplines for all grade levels through high school.

The study, conducted between 2004 and 2005, found that the Building Academic Vocabulary program enhances students' abilities to read and understand subject matter content and ultimately helps students build a store of academic background knowledge that raises their academic achievement.

The program produced:

• A statistically significant positive effect on students' abilities to read and comprehend unrelated subject matter content in all dependent measures. The dependent measures included the ability to read and understand information about mathematics, science, and general literacy and the aggregated ability to read and understand information across the three subject areas.
  
• A similar effect from grade level to grade level, which included similar mean scores for grades 1, 2, 3, 4 5, 6, 7, and 9 about 91 percent of the time.
  The findings were particularly encouraging for two subgroups: English language learners (ELLs) and students on free and reduced lunch. Both groups were represented in large numbers in the experimental (those using the Building Academic Vocabulary program) and control groups.

"ELL and students on free and reduced lunch programs demonstrated gains in achievement after using the vocabulary program," said researcher Robert Marzano. "This is a particularly significant finding because the program is low cost and easy for schools and districts to implement." Marzano created the vocabulary program based on his book Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement.

The evaluation study was comprised of experimental and control groups that included 118 teachers and 2,683 students from 11 schools in 5 U.S. districts and covered a broad range of demographic and socioeconomic factors. Pre-tests were conducted in October 2004; post-tests were conducted in April 2005.

Key Findings

• In written and multiple choice assessments, the students who participated in the Building Academic Vocabulary program showed greater mean scores on the comprehension of new reading material that were statistically significant across the general literacy, mathematics, and science subject areas.
  
• The expected passing rates for the Building Academic Vocabulary participants exceeded the control groups across all measures by percentages ranging from 8.4 to 14.8 percent.
  
• For students on free and reduced lunch, the expected passing rates for the Building Academic Vocabulary participants exceeded the control groups across all measures by an average of 8.9 percent.
  
• For ELLs, the expected passing rates for the Building Academic Vocabulary participants exceeded the control groups across all measures by an average of 16.5 percent.
  
• The findings compared favorably to federally-funded Comprehensive School Reform programs.

View the full report: http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/Building Academic Vocabulary Report.pdf

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Charter Schools Against the Odds: An Assessment of the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education

The expert contributors to this volume tell how state laws and policies have stacked the deck against charter schools by limiting the number of charter schools allowed in a state, forbidding for-profit firms from holding charters, forcing them to pay rent out of operating funds, and other ways. They explain how these policies can be amended to level the playing field and give charter schools—and the children they serve—a fairer chance to succeed.
Please visit the Hoover Press web site for more information on this book or to place an order: http://www.hooverpress.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=1151

Full-text PDF versions of each chapter can be accessed below by clicking on the desired chapter title.

Table of Contents: http://media.hoover.org/documents/0817947620_v.pdf
Introduction: http://media.hoover.org/documents/0817947620_1.pdf
1. The Supply of Charter Schools: http://media.hoover.org/documents/0817947620_15.pdf
2. Charter School Funding: http://media.hoover.org/documents/0817947620_45.pdf
3. School Choice in Milwaukee Fifteen Years Later: http://media.hoover.org/documents/0817947620_71.pdf
4. Authorizing: The Missing Link: http://media.hoover.org/documents/0817947620_103.pdf
5. Should Charter Schools Be a Cottage Industry?: http://media.hoover.org/documents/0817947620_127.pdf
6. Chartering and Innovating: http://media.hoover.org/documents/0817947620_159.pdf
7. Realizing Chartering’s Full Potential: http://media.hoover.org/documents/0817947620_179.pdf
Contributors: http://media.hoover.org/documents/0817947620_205.pdf
Index: http://media.hoover.org/documents/0817947620_209.pdf

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Rand Study Says Many Louisiana Students Displaced by Hurricanes May Suffer Academically

Many of the approximately 200,000 Louisiana students displaced from their public schools by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita may experience long-term academic problems, according to a RAND Corporation study.

The vast majority of the displaced students missed weeks or more of school due to the storms, and most did not return to their original schools by the end of the 2005-06 school year, according to the report prepared by RAND Education for the RAND Gulf States Policy Institute (RGSPI).

“Many children relocated to other schools or left the Louisiana public school system entirely,” said lead study author John Pane of RAND. “Most students missed a lot of school and many had to adjust to new environments, which might slow their academic progress.”

Moving children among schools has been associated with detrimental effects on academic achievement both for the students who move and for other students in the schools, Pane said. In addition to missing some time in school, the students who move may find themselves inadequately prepared for their new classes because the curriculum varies across schools. These problems are compounded by the need to adjust to new social environments and overcome the trauma of the disasters.

Using Louisiana's Student Information System and a survey of 415 school principals, researchers determined that more than a quarter of the state's 740,000 public school students were displaced by one of the hurricanes – the largest displacement of students in U.S. history.

Overall, more than 81 percent of the displaced Louisiana students came from one of three parishes: Orleans, Jefferson and Calcasieu.

The study found that 45 percent of displaced students eventually returned to their original schools, either directly or after enrolling elsewhere temporarily. Another 24 percent, who did not return to their original schools, enrolled elsewhere in the state.

“After their initial re-enrollment, many displaced students continued to change schools, and a substantial number left the state's public education system entirely,” said RAND researcher Dan McCaffrey, a co-author of the report. He said the median amount of time the affected students missed from school was five weeks.

In addition, minority students and those who had been faring poorly academically before the storms were disproportionately impacted, according to the study.

Researchers found that nearly 65 percent of the displaced students were members of minority groups. About 58 percent were black, 4 percent Hispanic, 3 percent Asian and less than 1 percent Native American. This compares to the 52 percent of all Louisiana public school students who are minorities.
Researchers said some students also experienced mental health and behavior problems due to the trauma that many youngsters experienced in the storms and their aftermath, including moving to new communities and schools.

The study by RAND, a nonprofit research organization, found that the majority of principals surveyed indicated that the social behaviors of most displaced students were similar to those of students in the schools before the hurricanes hit.

But in a sizable portion of schools — particularly those serving a large number of displaced students — principals said they observed an increased level of student absenteeism, fights, verbal abuse of teachers, bullying, cutting class and theft. Displaced students were more likely to violate school rules, isolate themselves, and not participate in social activities like clubs or sports. They were also more likely to need mental health counseling.

Faculty members in Louisiana schools also experienced higher levels of work stress, job frustration and absenteeism, the study found. This resulted from the storms' effects on their own lives, as well as staffing shortfalls and strains on other key resources.

According to the report, class sizes increased in more than a third of the schools, and more than half of the schools needed more classroom teachers, special education teachers, support staff and counselors.

The study says problems that students and faculty faced during the 2005-06 school year are likely to persist. It recommends that schools continue helping students affected by the hurricanes with counseling and academic services, and also help teachers deal with their own hurricane-related problems.

“The plight of children in the face of tragedy is always a concern,” said Mike Ward, associate professor of educational leadership at the University of Southern Mississippi. “The report offers very useful insights into the experiences of students in the wake of these storms, along with recommendations to help reduce their suffering and that of students in subsequent disasters.”

Researchers found that about 53,000 of the displaced students never re-enrolled in Louisiana public schools, and another 10,000 dropped out by the end of the 2005-06 school year.

While many of these students enrolled in schools in other states, the lack of definitive tracking data makes it hard to determine where many went. Some students may not have gone back to school anywhere, losing nearly an entire year of schooling or dropping out of school.

The study says better state and national student information systems could help keep track of students who are displaced by future disasters, while also assisting in information sharing about proper placement and needed educational services, grade completion, test scores and other educational matters.
The schools surveyed took a variety of actions to help meet the needs of displaced students, such as providing increased mental health counseling and tutoring.

The other authors of the report are Shannah Tharp-Taylor of RAND, along with Gary J. Asmus and Billy R. Stokes of the University of Louisiana-LaFayette.

The RAND Gulf States Policy Institute works to develop a long-term vision and strategy to help build a better future for Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The goal of RGSPI is to assist in long-term recovery efforts by providing evidence-based policy guidance to speed regional recovery and growth.

RAND joined with seven universities to create RGSPI in late 2005. The seven are: Jackson State University and the University of Southern Mississippi in Mississippi; Tulane University, the University of New Orleans and Xavier University in Louisiana; and Tuskegee University and the University of South Alabama in Alabama.

RGSPI seeks funding from nonprofit institutions, other donors, government and the private sector to conduct a broad range of studies. It is the first organization of its kind in the region to conduct a full spectrum of policy research on pressing challenges facing the three states, including problems that existed even before the hurricanes struck.

To see the full report: http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/2006/RAND_TR430.pdf

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Reports Highlight NCLB Failures and Private School Successes

The Goldwater Institute Center for Educational Opportunity has released No Child Left Behind and Arizona: Making State and Federal K-12 Accountability Systems Work and Arizona Public and Private Schools: A Statistical Analysis. The reports explain Arizona's various accountability systems and show differences between public and private schools.

No Child Left Behind and Arizona shows the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is failing to bring transparency to school achievement or accountability to schools that fail to educate children.

Before NCLB was implemented, Arizona had its own accountability program called AZ Learns. Now, schools must comply with two sets of accountability requirements which sometimes conflict. A school can be underperforming according to NCLB standards, but performing according to AZ Learns. For example, in 2005, 13 percent of Arizona schools were labeled underperforming by NCLB standards, and only seven percent by AZ Learns.

"These conflicting rankings confuse parents and defeat the purpose of transparency. Accountability must come from the bottom-up, not the top-down. When parents can freely choose any school, real accountability will begin," says Matthew Ladner, PhD, vice president for research with the Goldwater Institute.

Arizona Public and Private Schools reports results from a new Goldwater Institute survey of private schools in Arizona. Andrew Coulson, author of Market Education, and Director of the Cato Institute Center for Educational Freedom, highlights interesting differences between public and private schools.

One significant finding is the teaching-to- administrative staff ratio. Teachers make up 72 percent of private school staff and 49 percent of public school staff. Arizona has an unusually large share of non-teaching public school employees, placing 46th nationally in teachers as a share of onsite public school staff.

The report also finds few private schools base admission decisions on academic achievement. About half of Arizona private schools do not consider any measure of academic achievement in the admissions process. Of those that do, on average, academic selectivity does not place among the top five admissions criteria.

Coulson also finds private schools have higher graduation rates and higher college acceptance rates. The average private school tuition in Arizona is just under $4,500. That is about half the amount of funding that Arizona public schools receive per pupil.

Download No Child Left Behind and Arizona: Making State and Federal K-12 Accountability Systems Work:
http://goldwaterinstitute.org/Common/Files/Multimedia/1136.pdf

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Teens Who Bite Back More Likely to Be Bullied

A University of Melbourne study has found that the risk of peer victimisation is 1.4 - 2.6 times greater among young people who behave in reactively aggressive ways.

The study, involving almost 400 student bullying victims aged 10-13 years from several Melbourne metropolitan schools, found that young people low in self-restraint (for example unable to manage behavioural responses in social situations) were an easy target for teasing due to their inclination to react ‘hot-headedly’ to provocation. The full findings will be presented for the first time at the University of Melbourne Educational Psychology Conference on Friday 1 December. The study, led by Dr Jodie Lodge from the Educational Psychology Unit of the Faculty of Education, found that low self-restraint in boys and girls was also accompanied by poorer social functioning and adaptation. “Students with low self-restraint tended to suffer from low self-esteem, functioned poorer at school, and had mastered fewer problem solving skills,” said Dr Lodge.

The findings, which were published this month in a volume of research with members of the International Stress and Anxiety Research Society, support the view that young people low in self-restraint tend to process information in social situations differently.

“Particularly problematic for these young people, is that their pattern of reacting perpetuates itself and young people get caught in a vicious circle,” said Dr Lodge.

According to the researchers young people who are low in self-restraint tend to behave in a reactively aggressive manner when they think they are being threatened or provoked. The perceived threat and feelings of anger lead to the aggressive behaviour. The aggressive reaction can also be out of proportion to the threat.

Dr Lodge said these people are at a relatively higher risk for psychosocial problems later in life. Limited social skills combined with problems of emotional regulation also bring a higher risk of suicidal behaviour.

Associate Professor Erica Frydenberg, coordinator of the Educational Psychology Unit, said the study is significant for schools and teachers.

“Bullying is a major concern - we want to understand what is going on in schools and why and how we can change it. But most importantly, we need to be able to apply our knowledge in the community,” she says.

The conference at which the findings will be presented is called ‘Theory into Practice’ and recognises how new research initiatives enhance school psychology.

“This conferences is vital in providing a platform for practitioners, academics and students to engage so that current practice and current learning is aligned,“ said Associate Professor Frydenberg.

“Psychology research takes theory, tests it and, as in this conference, relates it to practitioners – a tangible example of the concept of knowledge transfer that we are always talking about. The impact of research like this on a victim of bullying, on their teacher, their parents and the broader school community is truly significant.”

Dr Lodge echoed this sentiment. “As practitioners, we can take these findings and implement new and different ways of approaching young people with low self-restraint. Specific and distinct forms of intervention are needed to produce the most optimal results.”

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Academic Pathways, Preparation, and Performance: A Descriptive Overview of the Transcripts from the High School Graduating Class of 2003-04

The report supplies a brief examination of the course taking patterns of 2003-04 graduates, with a focus on their participation in mathematics, science, and Advanced Placement/International Baccalaureate courses. Additionally, the report links these course taking patterns with test achievement in mathematics, grade point average, and expectations for future educational attainment.

Major findings in the report are that: the high school graduating class of 2003-04 earned an average of 25.8 course credits (measured in Carnegie units), 19.0 in academic subjects. Overall, about 30 percent of the class earned at least a credit in Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate courses. Among the graduates, 5 percent got no further than basic math or pre-algebra courses, 45 percent completed at least algebra I or II, 36 percent completed at least one trigonometry, statistics, or pre-calculus course, and 14 percent calculus, as their highest level mathematics in high school. Ninety one percent of graduates who completed an academic curriculum and 46 percent of students who completed an occupational curriculum demonstrated mastery at proficiency level 3 on the ELS:2002 12th grade mathematics assessment, which is simple problem-solving, requiring low-level mathematical concepts.

To view the report: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2007/2007316.pdf

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Trends in the Use of School Choice: 1993 to 2003

The percentage of students enrolled in their assigned public school decreased from 80 percent to 74 percent between 1993 and 2003, while this decrease was nearly offset by an increase in chosen public school enrollment from 11 to 15 percent between 1993 and 2003.

During this same time period, enrollment in church-related private schools remained stable at 8 percent and enrollment in non church-related private schools increased from 1.6 to 2.4 percent.

This report also presents data on parental perceptions of public school choice availability and associations between the public and private school types children were enrolled in and parental satisfaction with and involvement in the schools. About one-half of all students have parents who reported that public school choice was available in their community, with one-quarter of students attending assigned public schools having parents who considered enrolling them in a school other than the one they were currently attending, while 17 percent of all students and 27 percent of Black students attended a school other than their parent’s first-choice school. Generally, there were no parental involvement differences detected between students enrolled in assigned and chosen public schools. Parents of students in private schools reported more direct involvement in their children’s schools than parents of students enrolled in other types of schools.

To view the report: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2007/2007045.pdf

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Internet Access in U.S. Public Schools and Classrooms: 1994-2005

This report presents 11 years of data from 1994 to 2005 (no survey was conducted in 2004) on Internet access in U.S. public schools by school characteristics. It provides trend analysis on the percent of public schools and instructional rooms with Internet access and on the ratio of students to instructional computers with Interne