Public Agenda and the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality today released research that points to two specific areas where teacher training may be lacking, according to rookie teachers in the trenches and fresh from training: preparedness for the diversity of the contemporary American classroom and teaching students with special needs.

Seventy-six percent of new teachers said that teaching an ethnically diverse student body was covered in their training. But only 39 percent say that their training in this area helps them a lot now that they are in the classroom, which puts their evaluation of the effectiveness of this aspect of their training near the bottom of the list of subjects the new teachers had studied. The survey covered 12 areas of teacher training ranging from direct instruction to their study of history, philosophy and policy debates in public education. No other factor examined in the Public Agenda research showed nearly as great a gap between how many received training in a given area and new teachers' assessments of the effectiveness of said training.

This final report of the "Lessons Learned" series, "Teaching in Changing Times" focuses on the strengths and possible deficits of the training new teachers say they receive. The new report and complete questionnaire are available to media prior to release at: http://www.publicagenda.org/LessonsLearned3 .

The first report in the "Lessons Learned" series (http://www.publicagenda.org/LessonsLearned1) described the differences between the views and experiences of new secondary and elementary teachers. The second looked at the views of teachers coming into the field from three prominent alternate route programs (http://www.publicagenda.org/LessonsLearned2).

Sabrina Laine, Director of the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, which commissioned and helped to design the research said, "The 'Teaching in Changing Times' report illustrates the gap between teacher training and the realities of the classroom when it comes to teaching diverse populations and students with special needs. A highly effective teacher workforce starts with quality preparation and needs to be bolstered with good induction and mentoring programs for new teachers. The TQ Center just introduced an online discussion forum to address special education teacher preparation and also provides other resources to support beginning teachers."

Many new teachers also reported inadequacies in the training they received for teaching children with special needs. Most new teachers (82 percent) say their training in had covered this aspect of teaching, but only 47 percent say their training helps a lot. This is a particularly important area for training, the report notes, because nearly every new teacher reported having at least some children with special needs in their classroom - only 5 percent reported having no students with special needs.

"These subjects are being taught in teacher training," said Public Agenda Executive Vice President and Director of Education Insights Jean Johnson. "But apparently large numbers of new teachers still enter their classrooms feeling unprepared."

The entire "Lessons Learned: New Teachers Talk About Their Jobs, Challenges and Long-Term Plans" series is online at: http://www.publicagenda.org/LessonsLearned .

Suburban Surprise

The anxiety about dealing with diverse classrooms - the sense of being unprepared and untrained in this area - is greater among new teachers in more upscale communities. Most new teachers working in both high-needs and in wealthier schools say they were taught how to teach in an ethnically diverse student body, but new teachers who work in high-needs schools are significantly more likely to say that their training does, in fact, help them, with nearly half (47 percent) saying that their training helps them a lot. By contrast, less than a third (32 percent) of the new teachers in more affluent schools find their training in this area helpful.

Training is Otherwise "Comprehensive and Useful"

Experts and school critics have sometimes attacked teacher-training programs for being out of touch with reality, but many first-year teachers do not agree. They report that their training covered a wide number of topics from teaching specific subject areas to knowing how to manage a classroom and maintain discipline.

Ninety-two percent say their training included coursework on children's cognitive, emotional and psychological development and roughly half (49 percent) find it to be helpful in the classroom. When it comes to direct instruction, of the 84 percent who learned the technique in training, 68 percent say it helps them a lot now. And on classroom management and discipline, large majorities (78 percent) said their training addressed the subject, with 58 percent reporting that their training was helpful.

Everyone Wants Smaller Classes

The challenge of diverse classrooms is also reflected in the judgments new teachers make about what would really help them improve teaching and student learning. The researchers presented new teachers with a list of 14 proposals to improve teacher quality. Two items topped the list and were significantly ahead of all the others. Seventy-six percent of new teachers say reducing class size would be very effective at improving teacher quality, and 63 percent say the same about preparing teachers to meet the needs of a diverse classroom.

The first edition of the "Lessons Learned" series ("They're Not Little Kids Anymore: The Special Challenges of New Teachers in High Schools and Middle Schools") reported that, for strong majorities of the new teachers regardless of their grade level, the same two items topped their list of recommendations for improving the profession overall. In the second edition of the series, focusing on the experiences of teachers who come to teaching through alternate routes rather than traditional university teacher training programs ("Working Without a Net"), both new alt-route teachers and new traditionally-trained teachers placed smaller class size at the very top of their reform wish list, and there was substantial interest in beefing up preparation to teach in ethnically diverse schools and classrooms.

Methodology

The findings in Issue 3 of "Lessons Learned: Teaching in Changing Times" are based a national survey of 641 first-year teachers. Interviews were conducted between March 12 and April 23, 2007. It included 111 items covering issues related to teacher training, recruitment, professional development and retention. The study explored why new teachers come into the profession, what their expectations are and what factors contribute to their desire to either stay in teaching or leaving it. The margin of error is plus or minus four percentage points; it is higher when comparing percentages across subgroups. Full survey results can be found at http://www.publicagenda.org/LessonsLearned .

Study Finds Teachers’ Interactions with Children to be the Critical Ingredient for Effective Pre-K Programs

States are investing considerable amounts of money into delivering high-quality pre-kindergarten programs for 4-year-olds to help prepare them to enter school ready to learn. A new national study, led by University of Virginia researcher Andrew J. Mashburn, finds that these programs will benefit children most when they experience instructionally and emotionally supportive interactions with their teachers. A paper on the findings of the study, which involved 2,439 children enrolled in 671 pre-k classrooms in 11 states, is in the just-released issue of the journal Child Development.

The quality of pre-K programs can be evaluated in three ways, Mashburn explained. One way is counting the number of minimum standards that a program meets regarding teacher, classroom and program characteristics. For example, a high quality program may be defined as one in which the teacher has at least a bachelor’s degree and training in early childhood education, the classroom has 20 or fewer children, and the program uses a comprehensive curriculum. These are the definitions most often used by state legislatures when designing or authorizing spending for preschool. A second definition of high-quality preschool focuses on the overall quality of the classroom environment, including the quality of the space, furnishings, learning materials, activities and interactions commonly used. A third definition considers the quality of emotional and instructional interactions between teachers and children, it's this definition that has been extensively developed and studied by the U.Va. team and is now in use in many states as a result of the work.

"Every governor in the country is interested in expanding preschool options because they understand the research showing its value long-term," said Robert Pianta, dean of U.Va.'s Curry School of Education and director of the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning. "When these leaders go to their respective legislature to ask for funds, they buttress their arguments with assurances that programs will be of high quality. … That’s why we thought it so important to assess the ways that three different approaches to measuring quality, two of which are very commonly used in state policy, actually account for children’s gains in achievement. The answer to this question is critical for children and critical for state policies that aim to support them."

"In this study, we asked how strongly each of these three ways to measure quality was associated with children's development during pre-K," Mashburn said. Children's academic, language and social skills were tested at the beginning and end of pre-K. Teachers and program administrators provided information about whether programs met nine minimum standards of quality recommended by professional organizations; and classroom observers rated the quality of the overall classroom environment and the quality of instructional and emotional interactions.

The study, part of the work of CASTL, found that the minimal standards and physical environment approaches to measuring quality were unrelated to children’s learning. Rather, "We found that children developed greater academic and language skills in classrooms with higher-quality instructional interactions and greater social skills in classrooms with higher-quality emotional interactions," Mashburn said.

“High-quality instructional interactions occur when teachers provide children with feedback about their ideas, comment in ways that extend and expand their skills, and frequently use discussions and activities to promote complex thinking. For example, teachers who provide high instructional support ask “how” and “why” questions to children to explain their thinking, relate concepts to children’s lives, and provide additional information to children to expand their understanding.” Mashburn said.

High-quality emotional interactions include frequent displays of positive emotions and a teacher who is sensitive to children's needs, interests, motivations and points of view, he added. Teachers who provide high emotional support smile and laugh with children, are enthusiastic and provide comfort and assistance to children.

In contrast, pre-K teachers' level of education and field of study, class size and child-to-teacher ratio were not directly associated with children's academic, language and social development. However, these features of pre-K programs may benefit children if they improve the quality of emotional and instructional interactions that children experience.

According to Mashburn, senior research scientist at CASTL, these findings help parents, teachers and program administrators understand the specific features of pre-K programs that directly support children's academic, language and social development. Given that other studies have found that the quality of instructional and emotional interactions within classrooms is average at best, these results point to the importance of finding ways to improve teacher-child interactions within classrooms, he said. For example, teacher professional development programs and programs that monitor pre-K quality have the potential to directly improve the quality of instructional and emotional interactions, which in turn, improve children's development.

A full report of the study, "Measures of Classroom Quality in Pre-Kindergarten and Children's Development of Academic, Language and Social Skills," is available in the May/June issue of Child Development.

Mixed Results For Late-Talking Toddlers

New research findings from the world’s largest study on language emergence have revealed that one in four late talking toddlers continue to have language problems by age 7.

The LOOKING at Language project has analysed the speech development of 1766 children in Western Australia from infancy to seven years of age, with particular focus on environmental, neuro-developmental and genetic risk factors. It is the first study to look at predictors of late language.

The latest findings have just been published in the Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research.

LOOKING at Language Chief Investigator Professor Mabel Rice said the findings were mixed news for parents worried about their child’s language development.

“While a late start doesn’t necessarily predict on-going language problems, most school aged children with impaired language were late talkers,” Professor Rice said.

“That’s why it’s essential that late talkers are professionally evaluated by a speech pathologist and have their hearing checked. We know that early intervention can greatly assist with a child’s language development.”

Co-Chief Investigator Associate Professor Kate Taylor said the next challenge for researchers was to find ways to identify which children were likely to outgrow the problem so that interventions could be targeted at those in need.

“Our study has previously shown that 13% of two year olds are late talkers and that boys are three times as likely to have a delay at that age,” Associate Professor Taylor said.

“What we now can see from our data is that by seven years of age, 80% of late talkers have caught up, and that boys are at no greater risk than girls. However, one in five late talkers was below age expectations for language at school-age”

Other findings from the LOOKING at Language project have included that a mother’s education, income, parenting style or mental health had no impact on a child’s likelihood of being a late talker.

By 24 months, children will usually have a vocabulary of around 50 words and have begun combining those words in two or three word sentences.

The Impact of Playing Number Board Games on Math Skills of Pre-Schoolers

The present study was designed to pursue five goals: to replicate a previous finding that playing linearly arranged, number board games improved low-income preschoolers’ number line estimation, to determine the effects of playing such games on a broader range of numerical tasks, to establish whether the increases in numerical knowledge are stable over time, to examine developmental differences in learning, and to test whether informal experience playing such games in the home environment is positively related to numerical knowledge.

All these goals were achieved.

Full report:

http://www.psy.cmu.edu/~siegler/ramsieg-inpress1.pdf

Early Intervention for Infants and Toddlers With Developmental Delays Underutilized; University of Colorado Denver Study Finds Only Small Number of Eligible Infants, Toddlers Receive Early Intervention They Need

Results of a new University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine study are raising concerns regarding the nation's children suffering from developmental delays. An early intervention program run by all 50 states is available for children under age three but it is not being utilized, especially for African-American children. The study was published May 26 in Pediatrics.

Part C early intervention is specified in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) as an early intervention program for children age 3 and younger with developmental delays. In 2002, Part C early intervention served more than 265,000 infants and toddlers - 2.2 percent of the nation's children under the age of three - reflecting the U.S. Department of Education's goal of providing Part C services to at least 2 percent of the nation's children. However, far more infants and toddlers are eligible for Part C than are currently served.

"This study documents high rates of Part C eligibility nationally but found only a small proportion of children who are likely to be Part C eligible actually receive early intervention," said Steven Rosenberg, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry at UC Denver School of Medicine and the study's principal investigator.

Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-B), a survey which provides developmental and family data on a national sample of children born in 2001, Rosenberg and his colleagues, Zhang, and Robinson, used data collected when these children were 9 and 24 months of age and found that 13 percent of the nation's infants and toddlers have developmental delays likely to make them eligible for Part C early intervention. However, only 10 percent of these eligible children actually receive services for their developmental needs. The results of this study also indicate that African-American children are half as likely to receive early intervention services as Caucasian children.

"The states have an obligation to provide equitable access to early intervention for all eligible infants and toddlers, but lack the capacity to serve all of them," said Rosenberg. "I think there is a need for national discussion about how Part C is structured and how the apparent inequities in access to services and supports are best addressed."

Therapeutic Vest Will Help Children With Autism, ADHD, Anxiety

Children with autism and ADHD may soon get anxiety relief from a novel “deep-pressure” vest developed by Brian Mullen at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The vest, which can also be used for adults with mental illness, delivers a “portable hug” called deep pressure touch stimulation (DPTS).

“People with developmental disorders and mental illness are often overwhelmed in everyday environments such as school and the workplace, and solutions available to families and mental health professionals are limited,” says Mullen, a doctoral student of mechanical engineering. “This is an alternative therapy that can safely and discreetly provide the treatment they need to function in mainstream society.”

To market the vest, Mullen has created a concept business called Therapeutic Systems, which recently won the $50,000 grand prize in the UMass Amherst Technology Innovation Challenge, a competition for the best entrepreneurial technology business plan produced by students, recent alumni and faculty advisors on campus.

Occupational therapists working with children suffering from autism, ADHD and sensory processing disorders have observed that DPTS can increase attention to tasks and reduce anxiety and harmful behaviors by providing different sensory stimuli. DPTS is also part of a growing trend to improve the lives of adults with mental illness by using touch, sound and aroma to influence alertness, attention and their ability to adapt to their surroundings.

Eight clinical studies of the effectiveness and safety of existing weighted blankets and vests that deliver DPTS were conducted by Mullen and his advisor Sundar Krishnamurty, a professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at UMass Amherst. Mullen used that data to design a prototype system for applying DPTS that can be inserted into any commercial vest or jacket with a lining. Initial results of a study with students at UMass Amherst who did not have autism or ADHD showed that participants preferred Mullen’s prototype vest, which applies pressure that feels like a firm hug or swaddling, over the current gold standard weighted vest.

Mullen’s prototype has several advantages over weighted or elastic garments and toys currently used to apply DPTS in hospitals and schools. “Existing methods provide limited control over the amount of pressure applied and require some oversight by a caregiver,” says Mullen. “Their use is also limited because of the lack of literature documenting their safety, and their tendency to make the user stand out in a crowd.”

Therapeutic Systems is also starting the initial phase of designing a DPTS blanket to aid with resting and falling asleep. “Falling asleep has been found to be a major problem for many people with mental illness,” says Mullen, who adds that an estimated 65 percent of Americans are losing sleep due to stress.”

Bridging the Math Gender Gap

The gender gap in math perceived to exist between girls and boys has long been contested. New research published in the journal Science sheds clarity on the debate and demonstrates that girls perform better in mathematics in more gender equal societies, in some cases besting male peers.

The research, led in part by Kellogg School of Management Professor Paola Sapienza, sought to address the issue of whether social and cultural factors influence women’s success in math and science. Sapienza and her colleagues Luigi Guiso (Instituto Universitario Europeo) and Ferdinando Monte and Luigi Zingales (University of Chicago), empirically investigated whether a global gender gap exists in math to understand the relative importance of biology and culture on the development of basic mental attributes that are valuable for conducting math and science.

“The so-called gender gap in math skills seems to be at least partially correlated to environmental factors” says Sapienza. “The gap doesn’t exist in countries in which men and women have access to similar resources and opportunities.”

In search of bridges across the math gender gap, Sapienza and her colleagues analyzed data from more than 276,000 children in 40 countries. The large number of subjects and broad range of social systems represented were key to the validity of the study. Each child took the 2003 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), an internationally standardized assessment of math, reading, science and problem-solving ability.

Based on the PISA analysis, Sapienza and her colleagues determined that while the global pattern shows that boys tended to outperform girls in math (on average girls score 10.5 points lower than boys), this advantage was not always the case. In a few countries, including Iceland, Sweden and Norway, girls scored as well as boys or better.

Sapienza and colleagues examined social features that might explain the variance from country to country. The team used four tools to measure how well women were integrated into each society compared with men. These tools were the 2006 Gender Gap Index (GGI) developed by the World Economic Forum (WEF); the World Values Survey; the percentage of women aged 15 or older who are eligible to work in each country’s labor force; and the WEF political empowerment index, which measures the representation of women in government.

Sapienza’s team found that, in more gender equal societies, the gender gap in math disappears. For example, the math gender gap almost disappeared in Sweden (GGI = 0.81), while girls scored 23 points below boys in math in Turkey (GGI = 0.59). Not only did average girls’ scores improve as equality improved, but the number of girls reaching the highest levels of performance also increased.

Math and science rates for girls in the U.S., which ranks 23rd on the GGI scale with a score of 0.7, fell in the middle of the pack. On average, U.S. girls score almost 10 points lower than U.S. boys in mathematics, which is around the average for all countries analyzed in the study.

The research also found a striking gender gap in reading skills. In every country girls perform better than boys in reading In more gender equal societies, the girls’ advantage in reading over boys increases further. On average, girls have reading scores that are 32.7 points higher than those of boys (6.6 percent higher than the mean average score for boys). In Turkey, this amounts to 25.1 points higher and in Iceland, girls score 61.0 points higher.

Said Sapienza, “Our research indicates that in more gender equal societies, girls will gain an absolute advantage relative to boys.”

Public schools as good as private schools in raising math scores, study says

Students in public schools learn as much or more math between kindergarten and fifth grade as similar students in private schools, according to a new University of Illinois study of multi-year, longitudinal data on nearly 10,000 students.

The results of the study appear in the May issue of the influential education journal Phi Delta Kappan.

“These data provide strong, longitudinal evidence that public schools are at least as effective as private schools in boosting student achievement,” according to the authors, education professor Christopher Lubienski, doctoral student Corinna Crane and education professor Sarah Theule Lubienski.

The new study is the first published study to show that public schools are at least as effective as private schools at promoting student learning over time, they say.

Combined with other, yet-unpublished studies of the same data, which produced similar findings, “we think this effectively ends the debate about whether private schools are more effective than publics,” said Christopher Lubienski, whose research has dealt with all aspects of alternative education.

This is important, he said, because many current reforms, such as No Child Left Behind, charter schools and vouchers for private schools, are based on that assumption.

The debate essentially began three years ago with the publication in Phi Delta Kappan of a previous study by the Lubienskis, which challenged the then-common wisdom – supported by well-regarded but dated research – that private schools were superior.

In that 2005 study, they found that public school students tested higher in math than their private school peers from similar social and economic backgrounds.

In another, more-extensive study in early 2006, they built on those findings, and also raised similar questions about charter schools.

Both studies were based on fourth- and eighth-grade test data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

The conclusions of the husband-and-wife team seemed “crazy radical” at the time, Sarah Lubienski said, and generated significant controversy. They were supported, however, later in 2006, with similar findings in U.S. Department of Education studies comparing public schools with privates and with charters, which looked at NAEP test data on both math and reading.

(Unlike literacy, math is viewed as being less dependent on a student’s home environment and more an indication of a school’s effectiveness, Sarah Lubienski said.)

Critics of these previous studies, however, have cited the lack of longitudinal data showing the possible effect over time of different types of schooling. The studies of NAEP data were only snapshots, they said, showing student achievement at a single point in time. The studies did not address the possibility that some students may have entered private school at a lower level of achievement.

The new study was designed, in part, to address that issue, the authors say in their PDK article.

The data for the new study came from the database produced by the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (or ECLS-K), administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), part of the U.S. Department of Education.

The ECLS-K database includes both student achievement and comprehensive background information drawn from a nationally representative sample of more than 21,000 students, starting with their entry into kindergarten in the fall of 1998.

The most recent data available for the U. of I. study was gathered in 2004, in the spring of the students’ fifth-grade year. The sample used for the study included 9,791 students in 1,531 schools (1,273 public, 140 Catholic and 118 other private schools).

To better determine the effects of attending different types of schools, the sample included only students who had stayed in the same type of school – though not necessarily the same school – throughout the years covered.

As in the previous studies, the researchers used a statistical technique known as hierarchical linear modeling to control for demographic differences between students, as well as schools. Among the demographic variables included in looking at students were measures of socioeconomic status; race and ethnicity; gender; disability; and whether the child spoke a language other than English at home.

Among the variables included in looking at schools was the average socioeconomic level of its students, its racial or ethnic composition, and its location (urban or rural).

The NAEP data had included similar information, but its quality and controls on its collection were not as strong as for ECLS-K, according to Sarah Lubienski, who studies math education and specializes in statistical research. “It’s one reason this study feels more definitive than the NAEP studies,” she said.

After controlling for demographic differences among students and schools, the researchers’ found that public school students began kindergarten with math scores roughly equal to those of their Catholic school peers. By fifth grade, however, they had made significantly greater gains, equal to almost an extra half year of schooling.

Part of the explanation, Sarah Lubienski said, might lie in the fact that Catholic schools have fewer certified teachers and employ fewer reform-oriented mathematics teaching practices – something they found in research for another study, accepted for publication in the American Journal of Education.

Public school students also “rivaled the performance of students in other (non-Catholic) private schools,” the researchers wrote. After adjusting for demographics and initial kindergarten scores, they found that achievement gains between kindergarten and fifth grade were roughly equal.

The number of private schools in the study did not allow for drawing conclusions about other subcategories of private schools, such as Lutheran, conservative Christian or secular, Sarah Lubienski said. In their earlier NAEP research, they found that Lutheran schools, for instance, performed on par with publics, while conservative Christian schools performed lower than all other school types.

“It is worth noting,” the researchers write in analyzing their results, “how little variation school type really accounts for in students’ growth in achievement … Specifically, while all of the variables in our model together explained 62 percent of the achievement differences between schools, school type alone accounted for less than 5 percent of these differences, with demographic considerations accounting for a much greater share.”

Put another way by Sarah Lubienski, “school type alone doesn’t explain very much of why these scores vary … in truth, whether the school is public or private doesn’t seem to make that much difference.”

The researchers go on to write that they “personally see private schools as an integral part of the American system of education” and “there are many valid reasons why parents choose private schools and why policymakers may push for school choice.”

Academic achievement, however, may no longer be one of those reasons, they write. “Claims that simply switching students from one type of school to another will result in higher scores appear to be unfounded.”

They suggest “moving away from a simple focus on school type and instead examining what happens within schools.”

One Quarter of Science and Math Students Have 'Out-of-Field' Teachers: Students in Higher Poverty Schools More Likely to Have Such Teachers

Twenty-six percent of secondary-level science and math students in public schools were taught by teachers who did not have "in-field" majors or state certification in the 2003-04 school year, according to a new Child Trends study, Qualifications of Public School Teachers for Science, Mathematics, And History. Students in higher poverty schools and students with less experienced teachers were more likely to be taught by "out-of-field" teachers.

Among secondary-level science and math students in the 2003-04 school year:

- 58 percent had a teacher with a postsecondary major in the specific science or math field that they were teaching.

- 61 percent had a teacher with an in-field regular state certification.

- 45 percent had a teacher with both qualifications.

- 26 percent had a teacher with neither qualification.

Students of both math and science in lower poverty schools (where fewer than 50 percent of students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch) were more likely to be taught by teachers with in-field qualifications than were students in higher poverty schools (where 50 percent or more of students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch).

- 64 percent of students in lower poverty schools had teachers with an in-field state certification, compared to 53 percent of students in higher poverty schools.

- 23 percent of students in lower poverty schools had a teacher with no in-field certification or major, as opposed to 35 percent of students in higher poverty schools.

Students of veteran teachers (with 6 or more years of teaching experience) had in-field certified teachers more often than students of newer teachers (with 5 or fewer years of experience).

- 67 percent of students of veteran teachers had an in-field certified teacher, compared to 45 percent of students with newer teachers.

- 11 percent of students with veteran teachers were taught by teachers without a regular certification in any subject, compared to 58 percent of students of newer teachers.

The study also examines secondary-level history teachers. Among history students in the 2003-04 school year:

- 62 percent had a teacher with a postsecondary major in the specific science or math field that they were teaching.

- 79 percent had a teacher with an in-field regular state certification.

- 53 percent had a teacher with both qualifications.

- 12 percent had a teacher with neither qualification.

The study uses data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) 2003-04 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) Public Teacher Questionnaire and Public School Questionnaire. The study includes science, math, and history teachers of grades 7-12.

Attrition of Public School Mathematics and Science Teachers

Using data from the Teacher Follow-up Survey (TFS), this Issue Brief reports on trends in the attrition of public school mathematics and science teachers over a 16-year period and examines the reasons given by mathematics and science teachers for leaving teaching employment. Findings from the analysis indicate that the percentage of public school mathematics and science teachers who left teaching employment did not change measurably between 1988–89 and 2004–05. However, the percentage of other public school teachers who left teaching employment did increase over the same period.

Differences were found between mathematics and science leavers and other leavers. For example, of those teachers with a regular or standard certification, a smaller percentage of mathematics and science teachers than other teachers left teaching employment. In addition, when asked to rate various reasons for leaving the teaching profession, greater percentages of mathematics and science leavers than other leavers rated better salary or benefits as very important or extremely important.

Full report:

http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2008077

The Condition of Education 2008

The Condition of Education 2008 summarizes important developments and trends in education using the latest available data. The report presents 43 indicators on the status and condition of education. The indicators represent a consensus of professional judgment on the most significant national measures of the condition and progress of education for which accurate data are available. The 2008 print edition includes 43 indicators in five main areas: (1) participation in education; (2) learner outcomes; (3) student effort and educational progress; (4) the contexts of elementary and secondary education; and (5) the contexts of postsecondary education.

Full report:

http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2008031

School to the Future: ACT Preparation--Too Much, Too Late

The majority of Chicago Public Schools students are not attaining the ACT scores they are aiming for, which they need to qualify for scholarships and college acceptance. In this report, CCSR researchers look at the reasons behind students’ low performance and what matters for doing well on this test. CPS students are highly motivated to do well on the ACT, and they are spending extraordinary amounts of time preparing for it. However, the predominant ways in which students are preparing for the ACT are unlikely to help them do well on the test or to be ready for college-level work. Students are training for the ACT in a last-minute sprint focused on test practice, when the ACT requires years of hard work developing college-level skills.

The key findings include:

· Low ACT scores reflect poor alignment of standards from K-8 to high school and from high school to college.

· Test strategies and item practice are not effective mechanisms for improving students’ ACT scores.

· ACT performance is directly related to students’ work in their courses.

· Incorporating the ACT into high school accountability is not an effective strategy for high school reform by itself, without accompanying strategies to work on instructional practice.

This study relies on qualitative and quantitative data for a cohort of students who were CPS juniors in 2005. This includes test scores from eighth to eleventh grade, student transcripts, CCSR surveys, and multiple interviews of students and teachers at three Chicago high schools. The report also incorporated 2007 data on CPS juniors and teacher surveys.

This research is the third in a series of reports that has tracked the experiences of successive cohorts of CPS graduates and examined the relationship among high school preparation, support, college choice, and postsecondary outcomes. The goal of this research is to help CPS, other urban districts and national policy makers understand what it takes to improve outcomes for urban and other at-risk students who now overwhelmingly aspire to college.

Full report:

http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/publications/ACTReport08.pdf

If Small Is Not Enough...?: The Characteristics of Successful Small High Schools in Chicago

This report describes the practices and characteristics of small high schools with better than expected freshman-year course performance. These schools were created by the Chicago High School Redesign Initiative (CHSRI), a partnership between the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and local foundations. Author W. David Stevens draws on both teacher and principal interviews and quantitative indicators across a sample of ten CHSRI schools. The analysis identified three conditions found in schools with comparatively high student achievement -- strong teacher professional communities, deep principal leadership, and extensive teacher influence. CHSRI schools with high achievement also tended to provide a personalized and supportive environment for their students.

The study highlights that how adults work together in small schools is a crucial factor in raising student achievement. In particular, it suggests that collective work on improving instruction is a key lever for raising achievement. The findings point to the benefits of balancing the direction and initiative provided by principals with teacher voice and leadership. Yet because we know that reducing school size does not automatically lead to such developments, schools will need to intentionally focus on creating these key characteristics.

Full report:

http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/publications/SmallSchoolsApr2008.pdf

· Resource Needs for English Learners: Getting Down to Policy Recommendations

This document is an extension of the report Resource Needs for California’s English Learners, http://www.lmri.ucsb.edu/publications/download.php?file=07_gandara-rumberger.pdf

and is the result of deliberations from several informal meetings and two formal convenings of major stakeholders in the area of English Learner education. Its intent is to suggest a series of policy options, based on data examined in the initial report, that the state might want to consider to strengthen the educational offerings provided to California’s linguistic minority students.

Full report:

http://www.lmri.ucsb.edu/publications/download.php?file=08_gandara-maxwelljolly-rumbergerv2.pdf

Parental Involvement Strongly Impacts Student Achievement

New research from the University of New Hampshire shows that students do much better in school when their parents are actively involved in their education.

Researchers Karen Smith Conway, professor of economics at the University of New Hampshire, and her colleague Andrew Houtenville, senior research associate at New Editions Consulting, found that parental involvement has a strong, positive effect on student achievement.

The research is reported in “Parental Effort, School Resources, and Student Achievement,” which appears in the spring 2008 issue of the Journal of Human Resources.

“Parental effort is consistently associated with higher levels of achievement, and the magnitude of the effect of parental effort is substantial. We found that schools would need to increase per-pupil spending by more than $1,000 in order to achieve the same results that are gained with parental involvement,” Conway said.

Parents seemed particularly interested in the academic achievements of their daughters. The researchers found parents spent more time talking to their daughters about their school work during dinnertime discussions.

“There are a number of theories about why girls seem to garner more attention from their parents than boys. One possibility is that girls are more communicative with their parents so these conversations about academics are easier for parents to have with their daughters,” Conway said.

The researchers also found that parents may reduce their efforts when school resources increase, thus diminishing the effects of improved school resources.

“As an economist, I look for reactions to a specific action so it is not surprising to me that parents may scale back their involvement with their child’s education when a school adds resources. As a result, increasing school resources may not be as effective as we expect since they may diminish parental involvement,” Conway said.

The researchers used national data from more than 10,000 eighth-grade students in public and private schools, their parents, teachers, and school administrators. The researchers were particularly interested in how frequently parents discussed activities or events of particular interest to the child, discussed things the child studied in class, discussed selecting courses or programs at school, attended a school meeting, and volunteered at the child’s school.

To evaluate school resources, the researchers looked at per-pupil expenditures on instructional salaries and a set of five school characteristics: student-teacher ratio, lowest salary received by a teacher, percentage of teachers with a master’s or a doctoral degree, percentage of the student body not in the school’s subsidized lunch program, and percentage of nonminority students in the student body.

Updated Study Finds Higher Graduation Rates For Milwaukee Choice Students

Students in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) graduate at a higher rate than students in the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS), according to an analysis of five years of data by a national expert.

In “Graduation Rates for Choice and Public School Students in Milwaukee: 2003-2007,” John Robert Warren, Ph.D., compares graduation data for students in the MPCP and the MPS. Dr.Warren concludes that “students in the MPCP are more likely to graduate from high school than MPS students.”

According to Warren, had MPS graduation rates equaled those of MPCP students, there would have been almost 20% more public high school graduates between 2003 and 2007. Over the five years studied, that would have meant nearly 3,000 additional MPS graduates.

The report comes on the heels of a directive from Education Secretary Margaret Spellings requiring states to use a standard method for measuring graduation rates by 2012-13.

Spellings’ directive responds in part to scholarship by Warren and others that show that official graduation rates typically overstate actual results.

The MPCP is the nation’s oldest and largest program to provide public support for parents to enroll their children in private schools. Through the program, 18,550 students this year attend one of 122 private schools in the City of Milwaukee.

Dr. Warren’s analysis reports the following comparative graduation rates:

Milwaukee Public Schools students - Milwaukee School choice program students

2003: 49% - 62%

2004: 64% - 61%

2005: 52% - 61%

2006: 55% - 64%

2007: 58% - 85%

About the Author and Report

John Robert Warren is an Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota—Twin Cities. Dr. Warren received his doctorate in 1998 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Warren’s scholarship reflects extensive examination of issues associated with the accurate measurement of high school graduation rates. In “State-Level High School Completion Rates: Concepts, Measures, and Trends,” he validated a rigorous new method for calculating

graduation rates (see Education Policy Analysis Archives, Vol. 13, No. 51, December 23, 2005 — http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v13n51/).

Dr. Warren participates with scholars at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS), an extensive long-term research project involving graduates of Wisconsin high schools in 1957 (see http://www.wisls.org/about.htm).

Dr. Warren also is an expert on the consequences of state high school exit examinations for a variety of student outcomes.

“Graduation Rates for Choice and Public School Students in Milwaukee” was supported by a grant from School Choice Wisconsin, a nonprofit organization that seeks to ensure an honest debate about school choice by providing accurate information on the impact of school choice on families, communities, and schools.

Full report:

http://www.schoolchoicewi.org/data/currdev_links/Grad%20rates-2008-8.5x11.pdf

Paying for A's: An Early Exploration of Student Reward and Incentive Programs in Charter Schools

The use of student reward and incentive programs in K-12 education has been met with support, skepticism and indignation. Until now, the characteristics of these programs and the degree to which they improve student academic achievement had not been examined. This study examines a non-random sample of charter schools and their decisions to use or forego an incentive program in their school to see if the systems enhance academic achievement gains.

Full report:

http://credo.stanford.edu/downloads/paying_for_a.pdf

Sad Children Out-Perform Happy Children in Attention-to-Detail Tasks

Psychologists at the University of Virginia and the University of Plymouth (United Kingdom) have conducted experimental research that contrasts with the belief that happy children are the best learners. The findings, which currently appear online in the journal Developmental Science ( http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00709.x ), and will be printed in the June issue, show that where attention to detail is required, happy children may be at a disadvantage.

The researchers conducted a series of experiments with different child age groups who had happy or sad moods induced with the aid of music (Mozart and Mahler) and selected video clips (Jungle Book and the Lion King). The groups were then asked to undertake a task that required attention to detail — to observe a detailed image such as a house and a simple shape such as a triangle, and then locate the shape within the larger picture. The findings in each experiment with both music and video clips were conclusive, with the children induced to feel a sad or neutral mood performing the task better than those induced to feel a happy state of mind.

Lead researcher Simone Schnall of the University of Plymouth describes the psychology behind the findings: "Happiness indicates that things are going well, which leads to a global, top-down style of information processing. Sadness indicates that something is amiss, triggering detail-orientated, analytical processing.

"However, it is important to emphasize that existing research shows there are contexts in which a positive mood is beneficial for a child, such as when a task calls for creative thinking. But this particular research demonstrates that when attention to detail is required, it may do more harm than good."

Co-author Vikram Jaswal, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, added that the findings contradict conventional wisdom that happiness always leads to optimal outcomes. "The good feeling that accompanies happiness comes at a hidden cost. It leads to a particular style of thinking that is suited for some types of situations, but not others."

New Poll: Parents Conflicted About the Role of Digital Media in Kids' Lives

Vast Majority of Parents Say Digital Media Skills Are as Important as Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic – But Also Express Skepticism About Educational Potential of Digital Media

In a new, nationally representative poll from Common Sense Media and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center (JGCC), American parents agreed by a wide margin that digital media skills are important to kids’ success in the 21st century, but they also expressed skepticism about whether digital media could contribute to the development of skills like communicating, working with others, and establishing civic responsibility.

Three out of four parents in the survey (75 percent) agreed that knowing how to use digital media is as beneficial for kids as traditional skills like reading and math, and 83 percent of parents said that digital media gives their children the skills they need to succeed in the 21st century.

But parents expressed skepticism about the value of many digital media platforms, particularly when it came to whether digital media could teach kids how to communicate and collaborate, skills that are essential in a 21st-century workforce. For example:

• 67 percent of parents said they did not think the Web helped teach their kids how to communicate.

• 87 percent of parents said they did not believe the Web helped their kids learn how to work with others.

• Three out of four parents do not believe the Web can teach kids to be responsible in their communities.

"When it comes to digital media in kids’ lives, it’s a confusing time to be a parent,” said Jim Steyer, CEO and founder of Common Sense Media. “Clearly, parents seem to understand that the world has fundamentally changed and that kids need digital media to be successful in the 21st century. But the results also suggest that parents have reservations about how their kids engage with each other using digital media. That’s why it's important that we help parents understand both the potential and the risks of digital media, so we can make sure kids get the best of this new world.”

Michael Levine, Executive Director of the JGCC, said the poll represented a significant step toward understanding how digital media can best be used to improve kids’ lives.

“The media landscape has been fundamentally transformed in the past decade,” Levine said. “Our kids are adapting to change at breakneck speed. Adults who nurture children are trying to catch up to ensure that the new, ubiquitous digital diet is balanced and educational. The scarcity of quality research on how these new tools can be used best is an urgent national priority, especially in meeting the needs of children who are traditionally under served. Everyone must be prepared to compete and cooperate in our global economy today, so skills like learning to read and thinking critically, solving problems, and collaborating with children from other cultures are now more critical than ever. Policy makers, researchers, industry leaders, schools, and parents all must better understand and invest in the potential of digital media.”

The poll included a nationally representative sample of 695 parents, as well as an illustrative sample of 245 teachers. The results from the teachers surveyed indicate that, generally speaking, educators have more favorable views about the educational potential of digital media than parents do. A majority of teachers (59 percent) reported that parents underestimate the educational value of digital media.

"When you consider the context in which parents and teachers typically experience kids’ media use, these results seem to make sense," Steyer said. "Teachers are more likely to see kids using technology in formal, or at least semi-formal, educational settings, while parents tend to see kids using media in a more casual way.”

Even though teachers seemed to see more educational potential in digital media than parents, they did agree that some “educational” digital media products are overselling themselves: 63 percent of parents and 61 percent of teachers said they were skeptical about the educational claims that some digital media products make.

Teachers in the poll also indicated that they don’t see educational potential in all digital media platforms. Only 15 percent of teachers said that video games had a lot of educational potential, and only 14 percent of teachers said MP3 players had a lot of educational potential. Additionally, only three percent of teachers felt that cell phones can help kids learn important skills.

"By and large, American educators don’t utilize mobile technology as a creative way to teach," said Levine. "This is in stark contrast to other cultures. While the Japanese deliver English lessons to students using the Nintendo DS, American teachers don’t currently see a place in the classroom for mobile innovations."

Based on the results of the poll, Common Sense Media and the JGCC recommend that:

• Policy makers support a nationally coordinated effort to fund research on the learning potential of digital media as well as its integration into classrooms via professional development for teachers and education for parents. This research should focus on the added value of digital media to teach both traditional and 21st-century skills in formal and extended learning settings, as well as the critical role that adults can play in scaffolding learning for students who are at academic and social risk. 

• Additionally, policy makers in both the public and private sectors need to create evidentiary standards to help consumers make sense of products marketed as “educational.” 

• A national public engagement effort should be mounted to help parents understand that the range of 21st-century skills goes far beyond the “3 Rs” they learned. Parents should be provided with tools and information to help facilitate their comfort, acceptance, and usage of digital media to promote skills that will be essential for their children’s success today.

For detailed poll results:

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/news/pdfs/Growing-Up-Digital-Presentation.pdf

National Indian Education Study 2007 Part I: Performance of American Indian and Alaska Native Students at Grades 4 and 8 on NAEP 2007 Reading and Mathematics Assessments

The 2007 National Indian Education Study (NIES) was conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Indian Education. This report presents the results for Part I of the study focusing on the performance of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) fourth- and eighth-graders on the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress in reading and mathematics.

A national sample of approximately 10,100 AI/AN students at grades 4 and 8 participated in the 2007 reading assessment and 10,300 in the mathematics assessment. Results from this study are compared to those from the first NIES conducted in 2005. The results for 11 states with relatively large populations of AI/AN students are presented in addition to the national results.

Overall, the average reading scores for AI/AN fourth- and eighth-graders showed no significant change since 2005 and were lower than the scores for non-AI/AN students in 2007. In 2007 at both grades, AI/AN students attending schools in which less than 25 percent of the students were AI/AN scored higher than their peers attending schools with higher concentrations of AI/AN students, and those attending public schools scored higher than their peers in Bureau of Indian Education schools.

Overall, the average mathematics scores for AI/AN fourth- and eighth-graders showed no significant change since 2005 and were lower than the scores for non-AI/AN students in 2007. There was, however, an increase in the percentage of AI/AN fourth-graders performing at or above the Proficient level from 21 percent in 2005 to 25 percent in 2007. In 2007 at both grades, AI/AN students attending schools in which less than 25 percent of the students were AI/AN scored higher than their peers attending schools with higher concentrations of AI/AN students, and those attending public schools scored higher than their peers in Bureau of Indian Education schools.

Full report:

http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2008457

Culture affects how teen girls see harassment

Teenage girls of all ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds still experience sexism and sexual harassment – but cultural factors may control whether they perceive sexism as an environmental problem or as evidence of their own shortcomings.

A study of 600 girls between the ages of 12 and 18, from California and Georgia, included young women who identified as Latina (49 percent), White (23 percent ), African-American (9 percent), Asian American (7.5 percent) and multi-ethnic or other (7.5 percent) was conducted by researchers Christia Brown, assistant professor, Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences, and Campbell Leaper, professor, Department of Psychology, University of California Santa Cruz. Participants were asked about experiences with sexual harassment and any discouraging comments they received in traditionally male-dominated areas such as math, science, computers and sports.

Ninety percent of girls reported experiencing sexual harassment at least once. Specifically, 67 percent of girls reported receiving unwanted romantic attention, 62 percent were exposed to demeaning gender-related comments, 58 percent were teased because of their appearance, 52 percent received unwanted physical contact and 25 percent were bullied or threatened with harm by a male. 52 percent of girls also reported receiving discouraging gender-based comments on the math, science and computer abilities, usually from male peers, and 76 percent of girls reported sexist comments on their athletic abilities, again predominantly from male peers.

The researchers found that girls have different levels of understanding of sexism and sexual harassment, which may affect reporting data. Older girls and those from a lower socioeconomic background reported more sexism than did their peers. Latin and Asian American girls reported less sexual harassment than did girls of other ethnic groups. Girls who had been exposed to feminist ideas, either through the media or an adult such as a mother or teacher, were more likely to identify and report sexist behavior than were girls who had no information about feminism. Girls who reported feeling pressure from their parents to conform to gender stereotypes were also more likely to perceive sexism. Girls who felt atypical for their gender and/or were unhappy with stereotypical gender roles were most likely to report sexism and harassment.

Brown and Leaper note that it is important for girls to be able to identify sexism and sexual harassment as environmental factors, lest they attribute negative experiences to their own faults and suffer erosion of self-esteem. Frequent sexual harassment may lead girls to expect and accept demeaning behaviors in heterosexual romantic relationships, and sexist remarks.

Most ethnic minority teens don't hang out with ethnic school crowds

Peer relationships are an important part of adolescence for most American adolescents. As teens find their places in the peer system in most high schools, crowds define most students’ status and reputation. Today, schools and communities are growing more ethnically diverse and types of crowds have expanded to include ethnically oriented groups. A new study finds that ethnic minority teens tend not to hang out with crowds made up of their ethnic peers.

The study also found that being part of an ethnically oriented crowd at school is, for most Asian students, associated with mostly positive characteristics (such as pride in one’s ethnic background). For most Latino students, being part of an ethnically oriented crowd is associated with a mixed group of characteristics (some pride, but also some feelings of discrimination and stereotyping).

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dartmouth College, and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. It is published in the May/June 2008 issue of the journal Child Development.

The researchers sought to determine what factors explain whether ethnic minority teens are associated with ethnically oriented school crowds (for example, Blacks, Asians, or Mexicans) or with crowds based on individual abilities and interests (such as so-called jocks, druggies, populars, Goths, brains, loners, and nerds). In addition, they sought to understand whether crowds foster discrimination and stereotyping, or affirm young people’s positive ties to their ethnic background.

Researchers polled 2,465 African American, Asian American, and Latino teenagers ages 14 to 19 attending seven public high schools in the midwestern and western United States. The students were given a list of the crowds most commonly mentioned by other teens at their school and asked to indicate the one they identified with most closely. In addition, a group of students placed all their classmates (including those initially polled) into crowds; the researchers then looked for characteristics that distinguished adolescents who were part of ethnically oriented crowds from adolescents who were part of non-ethnic crowds.

The study found that ethnic crowd affiliation was not widespread, particularly among biracial youth. Only about 30% of the teenagers were placed by peers in ethnically oriented crowds, and only half that number associated themselves with such crowds. Teens in the ethnic categories studied were more likely to be placed by peers—and to place themselves—in crowds that were not defined ethnically.

However, since ethnicity is an important factor in the self-image and peer reputation of many youths, the study also sought to determine why some ethnic minorities do associate themselves with ethnic crowds at school. For all three ethnic groups studied, teenagers were more likely to be part of an ethnically oriented crowd if most of their friends came from the same ethnic background and if the students were doing poorly in school. Moreover, Latino and Asian American teens who had positive feelings about their ethnic background were more likely to associate themselves with a crowd made up of other teens from their ethnic group.

Furthermore, Latino students were more likely to be part of an ethnically oriented crowd if they came from lower-income homes and had experienced a lot of ethnic discrimination, perhaps because associating with a Latino crowd served as a defense against negative experiences with other peers at school.

“Adolescent crowds are often disparaged as instruments of peer pressure and stereotyping that interfere with healthy identity development,” notes Bradford Brown, professor of human development and educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the study’s lead author. “Our findings suggest that this might be true for ethnically oriented crowds in multi-ethnic American high schools, at least among Latino youth. In other respects, however our findings suggest that ethnically oriented crowd affiliations can reflect and contribute to healthy identity and social development, particularly among adolescents of Asian backgrounds.”

Spillover effects of family and school stress linger in adolescents' daily lives

Teenagers today face increasing pressures and demands from school and home. New research has found that stress at home affects adolescents’ school life, and vice versa. What’s more, that stress lasts for two days and affects academic performance across the high school years.

The research was carried out at the University of California, Los Angeles, and is reported in the May/June 2008 issue of the journal Child Development.

The study, which examined the implications of stress in adolescents’ daily lives, looked at the spillover between daily family stressors and school problems among an ethically diverse group of 589 9th-grade students in the Los Angeles area. The teenagers reported their daily family and school experiences in a diary every day for two weeks, completing a checklist that assessed conflict with parents, family demands, learning difficulties, school attendance, and other experiences.

The study found that when adolescents experienced family stress, they had more problems with attendance and learning at school the next day. And when they had attendance and learning problems, they experienced more family stress the following day. These spillover effects continued for two days after the initial stressor occurred: Teenagers who experienced family stress had school adjustment problems not only the next day, but two days later. Similarly, teens with academic problems reported family stress for the next two days.

Stress also affected academic performance across the high school years, the researchers found. Adolescents who had higher levels of family stress and school problems at the start of high school, in 9th grade, saw declining academic achievement four years later, at the end of 12th grade.

“The findings from this study indicate that there are indeed short- and long-term consequences of daily stress that should not be overlooked,” according to Lisa Flook, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the study’s lead author. “By the same token, the two-directional process of spillover between family and school identified here suggests that reducing stress in the family may have benefits for adolescents’ school adjustment and vice versa.”

The Passage of Education Citizen Initiatives - Evidence From California

In recent years, many critical education policy reforms acrossthe American states have been attempted through citizen ballots.This study examines citizens' voting behavior on three salienteducation initiatives proposed in California. Analyses of exitpoll data indicate that voting on education initiatives is greatlyinfluenced by ideological predispositions, self-interest, andracially based incentives. Local school districts' conditionsbecome more influential once we examine voting separately acrossracial groups. These voting strategies suggest that the pathof education reform through citizen initiatives will be muchsusceptible to ideological and demographic currents.

Charter School Students in Chicago Enjoy Better Graduation, College Entry Rates

Chicago's multi-grade charter high schools (those serving students in grades 7-12, 6-12 or K-12) appear to improve their students' chances of graduating and attending college, as compared with the city's traditional public high schools, according to a RAND Corporation study issued today.

The study is the first to rigorously examine the impacts of charter schools on the critical measures of high school graduation and college entry.

The study finds evidence that Chicago's charter high schools may produce positive effects on ACT scores, the probability of graduating, and the probability of enrolling in college—but these positive effects are solidly evident only in the charter high schools that also included middle school grades. For the average eighth-grade charter student in Chicago, continuing in a charter high school is estimated to lead to

· an advantage of approximately half a point in composite ACT score (for which the median score for the students included in the analysis is 16)

· an advantage of 7 percentage points in the probability of graduating from high school

· an advantage of 11 percentage points in the likelihood of enrolling in college.

“The results for the charter high schools are encouraging and raise questions as to why students attending these schools exhibit higher graduation and college attendance rates,” said Ron Zimmer, co-author of the study and a senior policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. “If the educational community is to learn from charter schools, we need to explore further the factors that lead to these results.”

Charter schools are publicly funded schools that operate outside direct school district control and are intended to provide educational choice to families, reduce bureaucratic constraints on educators and provide competitive pressure to conventional public schools.

Forty states and the District of Columbia have charter-school laws, and more than 4,000 charter schools operate in the United States, enrolling more than 1 million students.

“The strongly positive attainment results for Chicago's multi-grade charter high schools suggest that test scores alone may not fully measure the benefits of charter schools for their students,” said Brian Gill, a study co-author and a senior social scientist at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.

The authors contend that additional research is needed before it can be determined how charter high schools produced these results and whether district-run schools can produce positive effects by incorporating middle school and, perhaps, elementary grades onto the same campus.

The study also found that in grades K-8, Chicago charter schools are doing about as well as the city's traditional public schools in raising student achievement as measured by test score, but that charters do not do well in test score achievement during their first year of operation. On average, the prior achievement levels of students transferring to charter schools differ only slightly from the citywide average and from the achievement levels of peers in the district-managed Chicago public schools they departed.

In addition, charter schools in Chicago are not having major effects on the sorting of students by race, ethnicity or achievement and while charter schools have been criticized for “skimming the cream” by attracting the top public school students, this was not the case in Chicago.

The study includes data from the 1997-98 through 2006-07 school years, except for graduation and college attainment data, which included 1997-98 through 2005-06.

The full report, “Achievement and Attainment in Chicago Charter Schools,”:

http://rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/2008/RAND_TR585.pdf

Video games can make us creative if spark is right

Video games that energize players and induce a positive mood could also enhance creativity, according to media researchers. However, the study also finds that players who were not highly energized and had a negative mood, registered the highest creativity.

"You need defocused attention for being creative," said S. Shyam Sundar, professor of film, video and media studies at Penn State. "When you have low arousal and are negative, you tend to focus on detail and become more analytical."

Sundar and Elizabeth Hutton, a Penn State graduate student, are trying to understand the value of video games as a vehicle for sparking positive social traits, such as creativity. Fun and games aside, video games are viewed as a serious communication technology. Schools, corporations and even the government are increasingly employing it as a tool in enhancing learning and decision-making.

"Video games are not just for entertainment alone," says Sundar. "We are trying to figure out how they can aid in education as well."

In the study, conducted as part of Hutton’s graduate thesis, 98 undergraduate and graduate students were asked to play a popular video game, Dance Dance Revolution, at various levels of complexity. The students took a standard creativity test after playing. The researchers also took readings of the players' skin conductance and asked players if they were feeling either positive or negative after the game.

"We looked at two emotional variables: arousal and valence," said Hutton. "Arousal is the degree of physical excitation -- as measured through skin conductance -- and valence, which is the range of positive or negative feeling."

When the researchers ran a statistical analysis of the two emotional variables and the students' creativity scores, they found two totally different groups with high scores.

Players with a high degree of arousal and positive mood were most likely to have new ideas for problem solving. The statistical tests also revealed that creativity scores were highest for players with low arousal and a negative mood.

In real-life terms, the study appears to indicate that after playing the game, happy or sad people are most creative, while angry or relaxed people are not.

The findings suggest that either high or low arousal is key to creativity. In other words, medium amounts of arousal are not conducive to creativity.

"When you are highly aroused, the energy itself acts as a catalyst, and the happy mood acts as an encouragement. It is like being in a zone where you cannot be thrown off your game," explained Sundar. A negative mood, especially when there is low arousal, brings a different kind of energy that makes a person more analytical, which is crucial to creativity as well, he added.

Sundar and Hutton, the lead author on the paper, presented their findings today (May 23) at the 58th annual conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) in Montreal. Their work received a Top Paper award from the association’s Game Studies division.

Researchers say that findings from the study could offer a set of rules that could be applied to a video game to see if it can make a person creative or lead to creative outcomes as soon as the game is over.

"We are not looking just at creative games, but what emotional elements of games can serve as an engine to spark creative thought and new problem solving skills," said Sundar, who is also a founder of the Penn State Media Effects Research Laboratory.

He envisions a scenario in which the emotional drivers that video games provide could be harnessed for creative outcomes, either in a classroom setting, or for corporate decision-making.

"The key is to generate emotion," explained Sundar. "Ideally, a good teacher can energize the class and make them much more emotionally invested through presentations, guest lectures, and group discussions. Video games can help achieve that in an already simulated way."

The Penn State Media Effects Research Laboratory is at http://www.psu.edu/dept/medialab

High-school girls who consider themselves attractive are more likely to be targets for bullying

University of Alberta Educational Psychology PhD student Lindsey Leenaars has completed a study that assessed what types of high school students are being indirectly victimized. This includes being involved in emotionally damaging scenarios such as receiving hurtful anonymous notes, being socially excluded, or having rumours spread about them, including threats of physical harm.

Leenaars analyzed data that was collected in Ontario in 2003. More than 2,300 students aged 12–18 filled out an anonymous questionnaire asking them questions, including how they rate their attractiveness, their sexual activity, their friendships and school social problems.

Leenaars found the females who viewed themselves as attractive had a 35 per cent increased chance of being indirectly victimized. Conversely, for males who perceived themselves as good looking, their risk of being bullied decreased by 25 per cent. Leenaars also found older teens (aged 16–18) were at a 35 per cent increased risk of being victimized if they were sexually active.

Leenaars says this information could be used to raise awareness amongst parents, teachers and counselors. She adds it would also be helpful when schools are working on a variety of anti-bullying programs to include all students, not just those who may be traditionally perceived as victims.

“The findings have important implications for the development of interventions designed to reduce peer victimization, in that victims of indirect aggression may represent a broad group.”

This study was recently published in the journal Aggressive Behavior.

First of its kind study compares high school knee injuries by sport and gender

Knee injuries among most costly high school sports-related injuries

Knee injuries, among the most economically costly sports injuries, are the leading cause of high school sports-related surgeries according to a study conducted at the Center for Injury Research and Policy (CIRP) of the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and published in the June issue of The American Journal of Sports Medicine.

The researchers utilized data from the High School RIOTM online injury surveillance system which collects injury reports for nine high school sports from certified athletic trainers at 100 U.S. high schools selected to achieve a nationally representative sample. Data are collected for boys’ football, soccer, basketball, baseball and wrestling and girls’ soccer, volleyball, basketball and softball.

The knee was the second most frequently injured body site overall, with boys’ football and wrestling and girls’ soccer and basketball recording the highest rates of knee injury. The most common knee injuries were incomplete ligament tears, contusions, complete ligament tears, torn cartilage, fractures/dislocations and muscle tears.

“Knee injuries in high school athletes are a significant area for concern,” said Dawn Comstock, PhD, CIRP principal investigator, faculty member at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and one of the study authors. “Knee injuries accounted for nearly 45 percent of all sports injury-related surgeries in our study. Knee surgeries are often costly procedures that can require extensive and expensive post-surgery rehabilitation and can increase risk for early onset osteoarthritis. Without effective interventions, the burden of knee surgeries and rehabilitation will continue to escalate as the number of high school athletes continues to grow.”

Researchers also found several interesting gender patterns. For example, while boys had a higher overall rate of knee injury, girls’ knee injuries were more severe. Girls were more likely to miss > 3 weeks of sports activity (as opposed to <1 week for boys) and were twice as likely to require surgery. Girls were also found to be twice as likely to incur major knee injuries as a result of non-contact mechanisms, often involving landing, jumping or pivoting.

“Parents of young female athletes should not overreact to these findings however,” warned Comstock. “The long term negative health effects of a sedentary lifestyle far outweigh those of the vast majority of sports injuries.”

The study also identified illegal sports activity as a risk factor for major knee injury in high school sports. Although illegal play was identified as a contributing factor in only 5.7 percent of all knee injuries, 20 percent of knee injuries resulting from illegal play required surgery. This finding suggests the importance of making it clear to athletes, parents, coaches, and officials that illegal play has the potential to cause serious injury.

Study authors stressed that monitoring trends through continued surveillance of high school sports injuries is essential to fully understand the mechanisms behind major knee injury. “The study of knee injury patterns in high school athletics is crucial for the development of evidence-based targeted injury prevention measures,” Comstock added. “We know that sports injury rates can be decreased through such efforts.”

New study shows sedentary high school girls are at significant risk for future osteoporosis

Significant numbers of female high school athletes and non-athletes suffer from one or more components of the female athlete triad, a combination of three conditions that can lead to cardiovascular disease, according to a new study by Medical College of Wisconsin researchers in Milwaukee.

The study results were presented today at the American College of Sports Medicine at Indianapolis, by Anne Z. Hoch, D.O., associate professor of orthopedic surgery and physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Medical College, and director of the Froedtert & Medical College Sports Medicine Program. She is also a member of the Medical College’s Cardiovascular Center.

Dr. Hoch found that 78 percent of female high school athletes and 65 percent of female high school non-athletes display one or more components of the female athlete triad. The triad is a combination of three conditions – low energy availability, menstrual abnormalities and low bone mineral density – that often leads to the same steroid and hormonal profiles as postmenopausal women.

“We are concerned that non athletic girls have some of the same components of the female athlete triad as athletes and are in fact at greater risk for low bone density,” says Dr. Hoch. “These young women are under great pressure to conform to society’s standards of body image. In an effort to lose weight, they are restricting their caloric intake and adapting unhealthy nutrition habits.”

The study, conducted at Froedtert Hospital, examined eighty varsity athletes and eighty non-athletes at an all-girls school in Milwaukee. Ninety-three percent of non-athletes were found to have calcium deficiencies, compared to 74 percent of athletes.

“Most important and alarming is that 30 percent of the non athletes versus 16 percent of athletes were found to have low bone mineral density putting them at greater risk for developing osteoporosis earlier in life,” says Dr. Hoch.

Both groups showed little difference in low energy availability, with 39 percent of non-athletes and 36 percent of athletes reporting this condition. The athletes reported 33 percent more menstrual abnormalities than the non-athletes. Women who have normal periods, and hence normal estrogen levels, are less likely to display changes in the function of the layer of cells that line the interior of blood vessels, called the endothelium.

“Change in endothelial function is the seminal event in cardiovascular disease,” says Dr. Hoch.

Dr. Hoch began her studies in the late 1990s to see if young women who have menstrual abnormalities as a result of participating in intense sports are likely to develop cardiovascular disease similar to that seen in postmenopausal women. She and her colleagues were able to show that young women who had the triad also had early vascular change that is a precursor to cardiovascular disease.

“We not only need to educate athletes about the consequences of the triad, now we must educate all students about the harmful effects of a restrictive diet in the adolescent period,” says Dr. Hoch.