The National Center for Education Research within the Institute of Education Sciences has released the report on the Preschool Curriculum Evaluation Research (PCER) initiative, an efficacy evaluation of several preschool curricula. The report, Effects of Preschool Curriculum Programs on School Readiness, provides individual results for each curriculum evaluated. Under the PCER initiative, twelve research teams were funded to implement and conduct research on 14 preschool curricula in a variety of settings serving predominantly low-income children under an experimental design. Evaluation data were collected from all research sites in fall and spring of the preschool year and spring of the kindergarten year using a common set of measures. The goal of the PCER initiative was to identify the impact of each preschool curriculum on five student-level outcomes (reading, phonological awareness, language, mathematics, and behavior) and six classroom-level outcomes (classroom quality, teacher-child interaction, and four types of instruction). This final report presents findings for the impact of each curriculum on student-level and classroom-level outcomes.

http://ies.ed.gov/ncer/pubs/20082009/pdf/20082009.pdf

No Gender Differences in Math Performance

We've all heard it. Many of us in fact believe it. Girls just aren't as good at math as boys.

But is it true? After sifting through mountains of data - including SAT results and math scores from 7 million students who were tested in accordance with the No Child Left Behind Act - a team of scientists says the answer is no. Whether they looked at average performance, the scores of the most gifted children or students' ability to solve complex math problems, girls measured up to boys.

"There just aren't gender differences anymore in math performance," says University of Wisconsin-Madison psychology professor Janet Hyde, the study's leader. "So parents and teachers need to revise their thoughts about this."  The UW-Madison and University of California, Berkeley, researchers report their findings in the July 25 issue of Science.

Though girls take just as many advanced high school math courses today as boys, and women earn 48 percent of all mathematics bachelor's degrees, the stereotype persists that girls struggle with math, says Hyde. Not only do many parents and teachers believe this, but scholars also use it to explain the dearth of female mathematicians, engineers and physicists at the highest levels.

Cultural beliefs like this are "incredibly influential," she says, making it critical to question them. "Because if your mom or your teacher thinks you can't do math, that can have a big impact on your math self concept."

To carry out its query, the team acquired math scores from state exams now mandated annually under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), along with detailed statistics on test takers, including gender, grade level and ethnicity, in 10 states.

Using data from more than 7 million students, they then calculated the "effect size," a statistic that reports the degree of difference between girls' and boys' average math scores in standardized units.

The effect sizes they found - ranging from 0.01 and 0.06 - were basically zero, indicating that average scores of girls and boys were the same.

"Boys did a teeny bit better in some states, and girls did a teeny bit better in others," says Hyde. "But when you average them all, you essentially get no difference."

Some critics argue, however, that even when average performance is equal, gender discrepancies may still exist at the highest levels of mathematical ability. So the team searched for those, as well. For example, they compared the variability in boys' and girls' math scores, the idea being that if more boys fell into the top scoring percentiles than girls, the variance in their scores would be greater.

Again, the effort uncovered little difference, as did a comparison of how well boys and girls did on questions requiring complex problem solving. What the researchers did find, though, was a disturbing lack of questions that tested this ability. In fact, they found none whatsoever on the state assessments for NCLB, requiring them to turn to another data source for this part of the study.

What this suggests, says Hyde, is that if teachers are gearing instruction toward these assessments, the performance of both boys and girls in complex problem solving may drop in the future, leaving them ill-prepared for careers in math, science and engineering.

"This skill can be taught in the classroom," she says, "but we need to motivate teachers to do so by including those items on the tests."

The study's final piece was a review of the granddaddy of all high school math tests, the SAT. The fact that boys score better on it than girls has been widely publicized, contributing to the public's notion that boys truly are better at math. But Hyde and her co-authors think there's another explanation: sampling artifact.

For one thing, because it's administered only to college-bound seniors, the SAT is hardly a random sample of all students. What's more, greater numbers of girls take the test now than boys, because more girls are going to college.

"So you're dipping farther down into the distribution of female talent, which brings down the average score," says Hyde. "That may be the explanation for (the results), rather than girls aren't as good as math."

Still, will all of this be enough to finally shift this long-held attitude? Hyde can't say, but she remains determined to do so.

"Stereotypes are very, very resistant to change," she says, "but as a scientist I have to challenge them with data."

How to Speak to Children

When it comes to speaking to children, the issue is not speaking up; rather, it's slowing down, according to Wichita State University audiology professor Ray Hull. Hull has been researching and offering his expertise on the rate of adults' speech and the processing capacity of the maturing central nervous system in young children.

Hull found that adults who speak too rapidly can overload children's central nervous systems and, in turn, inhibit their ability to learn. He was recently featured in a January edition of Advance magazine, a national speech-language-audiology publication, discussing the effects of rapid speech on the learning process.

According to Hull, the average adult speaks between 160 and 170 words per minute (wpm) while the average child age 5 to 7 can process speech at a rate of only 124 wpm. When teachers and parents speak too quickly for children to understand, learning can be hindered. What may appear as inattention is simply not being able to process what was said.

"If [the new concepts] are not being given to them at a rate that allows their central nervous system to process the information with efficiency, then that places those children in jeopardy," Hull told Advance. "They're not going to do as well in understanding and retaining the information."

The solution, Hull said, is to slow down.

“When you slow the rate of speech down from 170 wpm to 124 wpm, vowels and consonants and sounds of speech become more precisely articulated," Hull said. "We begin to articulate speech with a greater execution, so we are doubling the understandability of what is being said."

Hull believes there would be fewer diagnoses of auditory processing problems if teachers would simply slow their speech.

Another problem that Hull suggests impairs learning is square and rectangle-shaped classrooms filled with desks and chalkboards because of hard surfaces' tendency to reverberate and distort sound. Combine this with mile-a-minute speech, and you've added more difficulty in speech understanding.

"Classrooms do strange things to our auditory systems and distort speech," Hull said. "Cut down on reverberation and amplify a teacher's voice, and I think people would be amazed at how children would learn."

In addition to teachers, Hull said parents can benefit from this research, too. Rather than speaking to their child at their average rate of 160 wpm, slowing speech to a rate of 120 wpm, or a rate in line with the maturity of their child's central nervous system, would alleviate frustration on both ends.

Becoming a Leader: Preparing Principals for Today’s Schools

This Wallace Perspective describes the key attributes of effective principal preparation and offers a set of action-oriented lessons that could help states, districts and universities do a better job in providing that training.

Full report:

http://www.wallacefoundation.org/NR/rdonlyres/4AFFEBC7-9912-4F23-9250-573F64D4B9D8/0/BecomingaLeader.pdf

Strategic Designs: Lessons from Leading Edge Small High Schools

Education Resource Strategies recently concluded a three-year effort aimed at building understanding and tools that would support districts in creating cost-effective systems of high-performing urban high schools.

This report illustrates how nine high performing, small urban high schools across the U.S. are thinking about and organizing their resources strategically to best meet their students' most pressing needs. Through interviews and reviews of class schedules, staffing strategies, budgets, and more, the report provides a detailed look at how leaders in these "Leading Edge Schools" carefully and purposefully think about how they use every staff member, each moment of the school day, and every dollar to support student learning. At "Leading Edge Schools":

· Principals carefully select teaching staff to meet high standards and fit specific school design needs.

· Students, on average, spend 20% more time in school each day and 233 more days over four years on core academic compared to their peers in traditional high schools.

· Teachers devote five times more hours to collaborating and professional development than local districts require.

Full report:

http://www.educationresourcestrategies.org/documents/FINALREPORTSTRATEGICDESIGNSERS_5-19.pdf

Case Studies of Leading Edge Small Urban High Schools

This report is a companion to the "Strategic Designs" study and contains the complete case studies for each of the nine schools analyzed.

Full report:

http://www.educationresourcestrategies.org/documents/ERS_CaseStudies_Compiled_7-3.pdf

Intervention: Accelerated Middle Schools

Overview

Accelerated middle schools are self-contained academic programs designed to help middle school students who are behind grade level catch up with their age peers. If these students begin high school with other students their age, the hope is that they will be more likely to stay in school and graduate. The programs serve students who are one to two years behind grade level and give them the opportunity to cover an additional year of curriculum during their one to two years in the program. Accelerated middle schools can be structured as separate schools or as schools within a traditional middle school.

Research

One study of accelerated middle schools met the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards, and two studies met them with reservations. The three randomized controlled trials included more than 800 students in school districts in Georgia, Michigan, and New Jersey. Based on the three, the WWC considers the extent of evidence for accelerated middle schools to be medium to large for the staying in school and progressing in school domains. The studies did not examine relevant outcomes in the completing school domain.

Effectiveness

Accelerated middle schools were found to have potentially positive effects on staying in school and positive effects on progressing in school.

Full report:

http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/pdf/WWC_AccelMiddleSch_070808.pdf

English Language Learner Achievement Gap Lower In Better Schools

Students designated as English language learners (ELL) tend to go to public schools with low standardized test scores. However, these low levels of assessed proficiency are not solely attributable to poor achievement by ELL students. These same schools report poor achievement by other major student groups as well, and have a set of characteristics associated generally with poor standardized test performance--such as high student-teacher ratios, high student enrollments and high levels of students who live in poverty or near poverty. When ELL students are not isolated in these low-achieving schools, their gap in test score results is considerably narrower.

Complete Report:

http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/89.pdf

Expanded Learning Time in Action

Initiatives in High-Poverty and High-Minority Schools and Districts

This report examines whether high-poverty and high-minority schools and districts are rethinking the school calendar, if they are adding learning time to the calendar in a significant way, and if they are using learning time differently. To address these questions, the Center for American Progress has conducted research over a two-and-a-half year period to identify and study schools and districts across the country with more learning time. This report identifies more than 300 current initiatives in high-poverty and high-minority schools across 30 states, implemented between 1991 and 2007. It also offers snapshots of school and district initiatives that incorporate additional learning time into the school calendar.

In presenting these initiatives, this report touches on why schools and districts choose to expand learning time, how that time was added to the calendar, and what additional time means for schools and students. This report also begins to consider the impact of more time on student achievement.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/07/pdf/elt1.pdf

Fiscal Costs of Expanded Learning Time

With increasing demands for improved student performance, many education policymakers are considering reforms that would expand learning time for all students. In fact, there are now numerous examples of individual schools that have implemented some form of expanded learning. Yet as more education leaders consider this promising strategy, the first questions that come to mind are:

· What are the cost components of different proposals?

· What is the price tag associated with different proposals?

· How do the costs compare with other reforms?

· How can districts cover the costs?

This paper seeks to address these questions in a way intended to assist policymakers at the district level in considering expanding the length of the school day. After a short introduction to the thinking behind expanded learning time and the core models for implementation, the authors provide a framework for policymakers and practitioners to identify the key cost components involved in expanding the school day. The authors then cost out core design elements, and compare these costs against other reform initiatives.

Lastly, the authors explore investment in expanded learning time in the context of existing funding sources and other trade-offs and strategies that must be considered at the same time. As with simply adding more dollars to schools, adding time makes little sense unless it is part of an overall strategy for improving student performance.

Full report:

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/07/pdf/elt2.pdf

Teachers Can Learn from "The Simpsons," Professors Claim

The cartoon depictions of educators in “The Simpsons” could serve as professional development tools for real teachers.

That’s what two academics argue in a paper, “Images of the Teacher in The Simpsons: Subversive, Superficial, or Sentimental?” It was presented in July 2008 at the conference, “The Teacher: Image, Icon, Identity” in Glasgow, Scotland.

“Given the often central role that the figure of the teacher plays in ‘The Simpsons,’ there is a…rich vein that could be mined for the purposes of teacher education, whether through initial training or continuing professional development,” says Gavin Morrison, curator of the University Galleries at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth and co-author Alan Britton of the University of Glasgow.

In the animated series, famous for its subversive and satirical subject matter, school plays a central role for its ten-year-old protagonist, Bart Simpson.

School functions as an “authoritative foil to free-spirited youth,” say TCU’s Morrison and Glasgow’s Britton. “The show’s critique and satire often plays out within the context of education involving Bart and Lisa’s school and its roster of (usually) dysfunctional teacher and auxiliary employees.”

Morrison and Britton argue that educators in “The Simpsons” provide “sources of reflection on professional knowledge, purpose and identity.”

“By examining the extreme caricatures (in the show), perhaps teachers at the outset or throughout their careers might consider aspects of their practice that are at the mild end of the spectrum of behavior and character found in ‘The Simpsons,’” says Morrison.

The characters roaming the halls of Springfield Elementary include:

• Principal Seymour Skinner – “A stern authoritative figure wracked with a dark history. He is haunted by his experiences as a Vietnam veteran,” says Morrison. But “his apparently stern demeanor is ridiculed by the juxtaposition of his domestic arrangements. He lives with his mother who continues to exert a strong, often Freudian control over him.” Despite his harshness, Skinner sporadically shows elements of warmth, likeability and commitment to education.

• Edna Krabappel – Bart’s teacher. She is the world-weary single woman whose motivation for teaching ceased long ago. Her classroom is “a perpetual conflict zone…where inappropriate details of her personal life are permitted to become widely known, usually through the good offices of Bart Simpson.” Krabappel struggles with thoughts of what could have been, inappropriate sexual trysts and the demanding task of educating the uneducable. Ultimately, Krabappel explores the teacher as a pressurized, reactive classroom “firefighter.”

• Miss Hoover – Lisa’s instructor and Krabappel’s professional foil. She is a softy, “notable for excessive use of smiley-face stickers” and pent-up under-the-surface aggression. Hoover deals with Lisa’s alternating curiously intellectual queries and cynical flip-outs. As a response to the pressures of teaching, Hoover has become a hypochondriac, which allows her to be absent from school.

• Groundskeeper Willie – Though not a teacher, Willie plays an important role. Morrison says he is “a caricature of the worst excesses of a school janitor. He provides a regular and reliably aggressive foil to both Bart and Principal Skinner, with whom he has a tempestuous working relationship.”

Though the cartoon falls within the genre of comedy, Morrison and Britton argue that teacher portrayals in “The Simpsons” take on educational and social policy issues.

“The representations of teachers and the school environment in ‘The Simpsons’ may occasionally appear superficial and primarily ‘played for laughs.’ However, this often masks a serious satirical and subversive intent, driven by intellectual imperatives,” says Morrison.

The Power of Peter Piper: How alliteration enhances poetry, prose, and memory

From nursery rhymes to Shakespearian sonnets, alliterations have always been an important aspect of poetry whether as an interesting aesthetic touch or just as something fun to read. But a recent study suggests that this literary technique is useful not only for poetry but also for memory.

In several experiments, researchers R. Brooke Lea of Macalester College, David N. Rapp of Northwestern University, Andrew Elfenbein and Russell Swinburne Romine of University of Minnesota and Aaron D. Mitchel of the Pennsylvania State University had participants read works of poetry and prose with alliterative sentences to show the importance of repetitive consonants on memory.

Previous studies have shown that alliteration can act as a better tool for memory than both imagery and meaning, however the reason for this has never been established. In their experiments the researchers hoped to demonstrate that alliterations retrieve similar sounding words and phrases from a person’s memory, making it a useful tool for poetry comprehension and memorization.

In one experiment, a group of participants read aloud poems with similar alliterative sounds throughout it while other participants had to read aloud poems with either different alliterative sounds or no alliterations at all. A second experiment had the same conditions, except that participants read a series of poems silently. The final experiment had participants read a work of narrative prose, also with the same conditions in regards to alliterative sounds in the literature. In each experiment, participants had to recall both content and thematic aspects from the works that they read.

The results of all three experiments underscore the interaction between alliteration and memory. In each of the experiments, participants in the same-alliteration condition were able to recall the most from the literature they read.

“In our experiments, concepts presented early in a poem (or prose passage) were more available when alliterative sounds overlapped between lines than when there was no overlap,” the researchers reported.

Additionally, the results of the other experiments, published in the July issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, show that alliteration’s affect on memory is not lessened by either the type of work it is used in or whether or not the literature is read silently or aloud. Most importantly, the results demonstrate alliteration only works as a tool for memory when the alliterative sounds are similar; while the participants in the same-alliteration condition did well in each experiment, those in the other two conditions had similar, less impressive results.

Revitalizing Arts Education Through Community-Wide Coordination

Arts education in the nation’s public schools has been declining for a generation, undermined by factors ranging from the state budget crises of the late 1970s to current school reforms that focus on reading and math. In a number of urban areas in recent years, arts learning advocates have sought to counter this trend by forming coordinated networks of schools, cultural organizations, funders, local government and other groups to work in common to revive arts education. These efforts are fragile and vary widely from city to city, but when well planned and executed, they show promise toward achieving the goal of more arts education for more children.

This RAND study, commissioned by the Wallace Foundation, examines six such initiatives — in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles County, New York City and the Oakland-Berkeley area of California. It details common strategies they have used and discusses conditions that have helped and hindered their effectiveness.

Full report:

http://www.wallacefoundation.org/NR/rdonlyres/B49E3B29-04F2-4EE3-BFFC-9C76D442F5A0/0/RevitalizingArtsEducation.pdf

STUDY: COMMON WISDOM ABOUT TROUBLED YOUTH FALLS APART WHEN RACE CONSIDERED

One of the most widely accepted beliefs about the differences between troubled boys and girls may need to be revised, according to new research.

Experts have long believed that girls tend to internalize their problems, becoming depressed or anxious, while boys externalize, turning to violence against people or property.But a new study found that this oft-repeated idea didn’t hold true for African-American youth who were in the juvenile justice system. For them, whether they internalized or externalized depended not on gender, but on what was happening within their families.

The results suggest more attention needs to be paid to the intersection of race, gender and family when it comes to dealing with troubled youth, said Stephen Gavazzi, co-author of the study and professor of human development and family science at Ohio State University.

“If you look at most studies involving internalizing and externalizing among youth, they generally look at white, middle-class samples,” Gavazzi said.

“Most research has not paid attention to race. And when studies do look at race, they are not likely to look at family and gender as well.”

In this study, the results showed that Black girls and boys showed similar levels of externalizing and internalizing behavior, once family dysfunction was taken into account. In these families, boys and girls were more likely to show outward aggression if they lived in families with higher levels of dysfunction. Such a relationship was not found in white families.

“Family issues affect children in African-American families differently than they do in white families,” Gavazzi said. “That is something that really hasn’t been found before.”

This study, published in the July 2008 issue of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, involved 2,549 youth who appeared before a juvenile court in five counties in Ohio.

The youth were assessed using a measure developed by Gavazzi and his colleagues called the Global Risk Assessment Device (GRAD). The measure is an internet-based assessment tool that asks youth a variety of questions to determine the risks they face for further problems in life.

GRAD asks about prior brushes with the law, family and parenting issues, substance abuse, traumatic events and a variety of other issues. For example, GRAD asks how often they get into fights with adults in their homes, if they have friends who have been in trouble with the law, and how much trouble they have in controlling their anger.

Gavazzi said it is not surprising that family issues affect African-American children differently than they do white children.

“Researchers who study ethnicity and culture have long noted the primacy of family for African Americans,” he said. “That’s telling us that families matter in a different way for African-American youth than what we’re finding for whites.”

Gavazzi said he and his colleagues are now trying to identify exactly what is different in African-American families that affects whether youth internalize or externalize problems, and how to best help them.

They are looking, for example, at issues such as family conflict and the amount of monitoring parents do of their children.

“We want to find out if there is some different constellation of things happening in African-American families that can explain some of our findings,” he said.

Serious school failure turns out to be a real bummer for girls, but not boys

Adolescent girls who had a serious school failure by the 12th grade -- being expelled, suspended or dropping out -- were significantly more likely to have suffered a serious bout of depression at the age of 21 than girls who did not have these problems.

New research published this week in the Journal of Adolescent Health showed that girls who had early conduct problems in elementary school also were at increased risk for depression in early adulthood. However, the University of Washington study did not show any link for boys between academic, behavior or social problems and depression at age 21.

"For girls there are broader implications of school failure," said Carolyn McCarty, a UW research associate professor of pediatrics and lead author of the study. "We already know that it leads to more poverty, higher rates of being on public assistance and lower rates of job stability. And now this study shows it is having mental health implications for girls."

The study showed that girls who were expelled from school were more than twice as likely to suffer depression -- 44 percent compared to 20 percent of girls who were not expelled. Thirty-three percent of the girls who dropped out of school later became depressed compared to 19 percent who were not dropouts. Twenty-eight percent of the girls who were suspended later suffered depression versus 19 percent of girls who weren't suspended.

Overall, 45 percent of the girls and 68 percent of the boys in the study experienced a major school failure, but McCarty said these rates were not surprising since the participants in the study came from high-crime neighborhoods. However, the depression rate was higher among girls, 22 percent versus 17 percent for the boys.

"This gender paradox shows that while school failure is more atypical for girls it appears to have more severe consequences when it does occur," said McCarty. "One reason may be that school failure stigmatizes girls more strongly or is harder for them to overcome. We do know that girls with conduct problems, such as school failure, tend to have long-term problems with cascading effects."

She said the study's overall gender rates of depression are comparable to previous studies, although the 17 percent rate for boys was somewhat high.

Data for the study was drawn from the UW's ongoing Seattle Social Development Research Project that was launched in 1985 and has been tracking 808 people since they were in the fifth grade. Students were drawn from 18 Seattle schools in high-crime neighborhoods to study the development of positive and antisocial behaviors. Participants were almost equally divided by gender and identified themselves as white (46 percent), black (24 percent), Asian-American (21 percent), Native American (6 percent) and other groups (3 percent).

McCarty said the study points to the need for communities to create integrated prevention programs to help children deal with academic, social and behavioral problems.

"When adolescents have these kinds of problems and experiences, the response tends to be focused purely on the academic, in part because the school and mental health systems are distinct. We need to look more broadly at functioning and see what is going on with other aspects of their lives including the psychological. We can't just put a Band-Aid on one thing that seems to be a problem because often there is an underlying bigger issue that has to be addressed," she said.

"When school failure emerges we should have remedies and be ready to intervene at that point to prevent later depression" said McCarty, who is directing a middle school study that is evaluating early prevention efforts to thwart depression. "Social and emotional skills are vital to adolescents and they may or may not be taught by schools and their parents. We need to have school-based prevention programs available before problems get much bigger and harder to resolve."

Preparing Teachers to Teach in Rural Schools

The Central Region states have greater percentages of rural students and schools than the U.S. average. This report describes how nine teacher preparation programs in the region prepare their graduates for teaching positions in rural settings.

Full report:

http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/regions/central/pdf/REL_2008045.pdf

How Benchmark Assessments Affect Student Achievement

This Technical Brief examines whether, after two years of implementation, schools in Massachusetts using quarterly benchmark exams aligned with state standards in middle school mathematics showed greater gains in student achievement than those not doing so. A quasi-experimental design, using covariate matching and comparative interrupted time-series techniques, was used to assess school differences in changes in mathematics performance between program and comparison schools. Following up on an earlier Issues & Answers report, with just one year of post-implementation data, the study found no significant differences between schools using this practice and those not doing so after two years. The original Issues & Answers report is available at (http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?id=43)

New Report:

http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/regions/northeast/pdf/techbrief/tr_00208.pdf

National Indian Education Study - Part II: The Educational Experiences of American Indian and Alaska Native Students in Grades 4 and 8

This report presents information about the educational, home, and community experiences of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) fourth- and eighth-grade students that was collected during the National Indian Education Study (NIES) of 2007. AI/AN students represent about 1 percent of the student population in the United States. Approximately 10,000 AI/AN students in 1,700 schools at grade 4 and 11,000 AI/AN students from 1,800 schools at grade 8 participated in the study. Surveys were completed by students, their teachers, and their school administrators.

The three major areas of findings that are described in this report include: characteristics of AI/AN students, characteristics of their teachers and schools, and the integration of native language and culture in their homes and schools. Some of the major findings are highlighted below.

Social and demographic information provides insights into the AI/AN student population

Location

Higher percentages of AI/AN fourth-graders (56 percent) and eighth-graders (54 percent) attended schools in the South Central and Mountain regions than in other regions. In the Mountain region, higher percentages of AI/AN students (40 to 46 percent across grades) attended schools in which at least 25 percent of the students were AI/AN (“high density” schools) than attended low density schools (19 percent).

Families and Homes

A higher percentage of AI/AN students (about 58 percent) were eligible for free school lunch compared to their non-AI/AN peers (about 34 percent). A lower percentage of AI/AN students (about 75 percent) than non-AI/AN students (about 89 percent) said they had access to a computer in their homes.

Language

A higher percentage of AI/AN students in high density schools (about 20 percent) than in low density schools (about 10 percent) reported that a language other than English was spoken in their homes all or most of the time. A higher percentage of students in Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) schools (35 percent) than in public schools (about 12 percent) reported the same.

Teachers and school administrators describe the context in which AI/AN students learn

Teachers’ Backgrounds

While nearly 80 percent of AI/AN students overall were taught by teachers who identified themselves as White, a higher percentage of AI/AN students in BIE schools (about 40 to 60 percent across grades) than in public schools (5 to 9 percent) were taught by AI/AN teachers. Also, a higher percentage of students in BIE schools (20 to 29 percent) than in public schools (about 3 percent) were taught by teachers who said they were fluent native language speakers.

School Characteristics and Climate

A higher percentage of AI/AN students in high density schools (55 to 64 percent across grades) than in low density schools (12 to 21 percent) attended schools where more than three-quarters of the student body was eligible for free/reduced-price school lunch. Higher percentages of students in high density schools (15 to 35 percent) than in low density schools (2 to 12 percent) had administrators who indicated serious problems with student absenteeism, student tardiness, lack of family involvement, and low expectations.

Homes, communities, and schools provide opportunities for integration of AI/AN language and culture

Homes and Communities

Exposure to native language at home most of the time occurred more frequently for students in BIE schools (about 41 percent) than for students in public schools (about 17 percent). A higher percentage of eighth-graders in high density schools (44 percent) than in low density schools (27 percent) said that they participated in AI/AN ceremonies or gatherings several times a year.

Teachers and Schools

Although nearly 90 percent of AI/AN students overall had teachers who provided instruction entirely in English, a higher percentage of students in high density schools (16 to 20 percent) than in low density schools (about 2 percent) had teachers who reported occasional use of AI/AN language in their instruction. A higher percentage of students in BIE schools (72 to 97 percent) than in public schools (26 to 63 percent) had school administrators who said that students received instruction on a variety of topics related to their native cultures.

Complete Report:

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/studies/2008458.pdf

More Investment In Management Needed To Help Out-Of-School Time Providers Take Programs To Next Level

Organizations providing out-of-school time (OST) services for children need additional investment in administrative management capacity in order to most effectively support, develop and expand their programs, according to a new report just released by The Wallace Foundation.

The report, “Administrative Management Capacity in Out-of-School Time Organizations: An Exploratory Study,” was commissioned by The Wallace Foundation, based in New York City, and conducted by Fiscal Management Associates, LLC (FMA), a New York-based consulting firm specializing in providing fiscal and administrative capacity-building services to not-for-profit organizations.

According to the report, which was based on interviews and site visits at 16 high-performing OST-providing organizations in New York City and Chicago, many organizations lack the financial resources to invest significantly in administrative staff, facilities needs, IT infrastructure and support, and transformational purchases such as improved space.

While the programs included in the study all provide high quality services, and the data does not portray organizations in danger of collapse due to weak management, the “less than optimal” administrative infrastructure observed among these agencies does have real consequences, notably at the program level, the report finds. Front-line OST staff are often required to do more “administration” to make up for gaps in infrastructure and support, and organizations’ leaders are constrained in their ability to manage their programs in a way that is forward-looking and truly strategic.

At a time when successful programs are being encouraged and funded to serve more and more young people, the study provides important and realistic insights into the administrative and management challenges being faced by OST providers, according to The Wallace Foundation. “Communities around the country are recognizing that young people benefit in many ways when the hours after school are times of opportunity, rather than times of risk,” said Nancy Devine, Director of Communities at The Wallace Foundation. “But this study from Fiscal Management Associates tells us that as out-of-school time providers are being asked to serve more kids with quality programs, many are being stretched to their limits. I hope city leaders and funders will find this report useful as they consider how best to support their community partners in reaching their full potential.”

The report’s lessons and observations are relevant to the broader nonprofit sector as well. Hilda Polanco, Managing Director of FMA and an author of the study, says, “Many of the management challenges we discovered, such as the intense recruiting needs associated with seasonal and part-time positions or the challenges of being housed in a public school, are somewhat particular to after-school programs. At the same time, our experience as consultants has shown us that many of the challenges we identified in the study are widespread throughout the nonprofit sector, including issues associated with government contract compliance, managing and monitoring cash flow, and accurately budgeting for the full costs of programs.”

Among the specific observations and conclusions of the report were the following:

· Many top OST-providing organizations operate on a thin margin of cash and their ability to manage cash flow is therefore crucial.

· Administrative compliance with government contracts for OST services is a formidable challenge requiring significant time and effort.

· Many organizations lack the budgeting and monitoring systems to fully understand the true costs of providing their OST programs.

· There is often insufficient human resource support in OST organizations due to a lack of trained HR staff.

· Information technology infrastructure and training is often limited, as is strategic and long-term planning around the IT function.

The report also includes a series of recommendations to leaders of OST-providing organizations as well as funders and other relevant stakeholders, suggesting steps to improve the administrative management, and ultimately service-delivery, capacity of out-of-school time providers.

Full report:

http://www.wallacefoundation.org/NR/rdonlyres/AF5707E0-9E7D-48AD-BDE6-20E6DD203012/0/AdministrativeManagementCapacity.pdf

The kids most likely to go armed

A new analysis of a 2005 survey of American schoolchildren has identified factors that may be used to help improve school safety. The research, published in BioMed Central's open access journal Annals of General Psychiatry, gives detailed information about the carrying of guns, blades and clubs.

13,707 students participated in the study, 6,664 (50.5%) were male and 7,193 (49.5%) were females. Overall, 10.2% of males and 2.6% of females reported carrying a weapon on school property. An estimated 29.8% of males and 19.3% of females had carried weapons elsewhere.

The analysis showed that the variables most associated with the carrying of weapons were being male and being a member of certain self-selected racial groups. Pupils who identified themselves as white were more likely to carry weapons than those who identified themselves as black.