Education Research Report

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

K8 Math Strategies

A brief summary of research is available at: http://www.districtadministration.com/viewarticle.aspx
?articleid=1111

75% of Education School Grads Can't Get Jobs in Michigan

Michigan universities continue to graduate large numbers of new teachers -- an estimated 7,000 will be certified this year -- but three-fourths won't land jobs here because there aren't enough teaching positions to go around…

Despite the glut of elementary teachers in particular, teaching remains among Michigan's most popular college majors…

On average, Michigan taxpayers spend $5,800 to support each student for one year's study at a public university. "Education schools … are farming out education grads at a rate much higher than Michigan can employ. In effect, we are exporting teachers at the taxpayers' expense," said John Bebow, executive director of the Center for Michigan, a public policy think tank founded by newspaper publisher Phil Power….

Michigan State Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Flanagan recognizes the vast disconnect between supply and demand.

"There are thousands and thousands of teachers without job opportunities in Michigan," he said.

While colleges keep producing elementary teachers, Michigan schools need teachers of special education, secondary math and science and language arts, he said.

Flanagan wants colleges to be held accountable to how well they are meeting the state's supply and demand needs for teachers…

"Otherwise, you are subsidizing kids with public dollars who go to another state and we are still stuck holding the bag with not enough math and science teachers," Flanagan said…

There are about 125,000 certified teachers among the state's school districts. And there aren't 7,000 job openings annually to employ all the newly minted teachers. Meanwhile, the declining school age population in Michigan means schools aren't creating many new jobs…

In 2005, Michigan granted the fifth highest number of education bachelor's degrees in the nation. Yet it ranks No. 8 in the nation for school-age children.

Like the other top teacher-producing states such as New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois, Michigan produces thousands of more teachers each year than it needs.

States with teacher shortages -- Arizona, Florida and the Carolinas, for example -- clamor to hire Michigan education graduates. Grand Valley State University, in fact, holds a separate job fair for out-of-state districts.

Competition is fierce for the few teacher openings in Michigan.

In Rochester, for example, 1,000 people applied for 54 teaching positions -- some of them part-time jobs at the start of this school year…

Growth in teaching jobs doesn't seem likely soon.

The state anticipates a loss of 15,000 public school students next year and the census predicts a steady drop in Michigan's school age population until 2015.

To read the complete article: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070312/SCHOOLS/703120328/1026

State Education Data Indicate Florida's FCAT-Based Grade Retention Policy Is a Failure

A 2002 Florida law mandates that third grade students with low FCAT reading scores (scores at level 1) be required to repeat grade three. The one-year and two-year follow-up achievement data collected by the Florida Department of Education were reported by Greene and Winters of the Manhattan Institute For Policy Research.

Similar to the one-year impact data (December, 2004), the two-year impact data (September, 2006) demonstrated that the reading achievement of retained students showed trivial or very small improvements. Retained students’ FCAT reading test scores remained notably below the average score of their younger grade peers. Recently those who control the Florida legislature and Governor Bush claimed that holding kids back would allow slower learning students to catch-up with their grade peers. As was predicted by those who have studied the long-term impact of such unfounded beliefs, fairy-tails don’t come true.

The findings in Florida are in close agreement with the many previous studies of the impact of grade-level retention. There were very small initial achievement improvements one to two years after a child’s grade “failure”. Most often, the improvements were short-lived. By grade 5,6, and 7 children who were one or two years older then their classmates tended to remain at the lower end of the learning achievement scale and most often dropped-out of school by the end of grade 10.

The Florida FCAT reading cut-off score for Level 1 was near the 23rd percentile. That means that approximately 77% of third grade students passed the test and qualified for promotion. Although only about half of students who had level 1 scores were actually retained, the outcome for most of the retained students has not been good. Compared to nearly similar promoted students, retained students had a one-year achievement gain of only 1 to 2 percentile points and 5 percentile points after two years.

Researchers use effect-size to evaluate the impact of new actions. The effect-size for the Florida law was small, no more then .15 at the very best and much smaller in most comparisons.

Most all measurement and data analysis experts have classified the percentile and effect-size comparisons found in the Florida data as trivial or very small. Small enough to be classified as indicators of a failed school intervention.

Contrary to widely accepted standard interpretations of data, the report from the Manhattan Institute claimed that the results support the use of grade retention for improving student achievement.

Wise readers will note that the Manhattan Institute’s stated goal is to support the conservative political agenda and to influence public policy in a direction desired by big business and the wealthy. At the same time, this writer has a long reputation as a supporter of liberal child-centered strategies for improving student achievement.

Research data are always meaningless until interpreted. Researchers with different agendas can always see divergent meanings when reviewing data.

Florida’s A+ plan for education has experienced other failures. Florida now has the highest or nearly the highest school dropout rate in the nation. Each year approximately 1,000 Students are being required to stay in grade three for a third time. Higher and higher percentages of students at every grade level are two or more years older then their grade-level school-mates. School-level grading formulas are secret and have changed from year to year but continue to reflect average household incomes. Art, music, physical education and non-tested content are reduced or eliminated for much of the school year. More and more teachers have become discouraged and leave the field.

Sure, FCAT test scores have shown some improvement. But measurement experts have noted that average scores on standardized tests such as the FCAT most always increase over time. The gradual increase reflects natural test corruption as teachers become more familiar with non-changing test items and test formats.

In Florida, the test corruption and higher scores were likely caused by such natural test corruption and by Florida Department of Education tweaking of the test scoring process. Such tweaking was suggested in comments made by Education Commissioner John L. Winn.

Bush’s A+ plan for education seems to be designed to ensure that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Perhaps, the plan was put together by persons who enjoy kicking those who are down or have fallen behind.

Robert R. Lange
Retired Professor of Educational Research

California Business Executives Rank Importance of Education High, But Find Quality is Low

Executives Need Students Better Prepared for World of Work

Executives Would Support Increased School Funding, But Only if Tied to Accountability and Specific Reforms

California business leaders place education at the top of public policy concerns, alongside health care, according to a survey released today by the California Foundation for Commerce and Education. At the same time, business executives gave K-12 schools a “D” grade for their quality of work.

In the first statewide survey of its kind, a representative sample of business executives believe that schools need more funding, but believe even more strongly that reforms should be adopted to meaningfully overhaul how schools are run and pupils educated.

“Business leaders insist schools must provide well-qualified workers but believe that is not currently happening, especially in high schools,” said Loren Kaye, CFCE President. “Specifically, executives tell us schools should teach job readiness skills in addition to the basics, and rate communications, work ethic, and personal responsibility on par with reading and even above writing and math. This is a major finding since these skills are not in today’s policy debate in a significant way and represents a sharp distinction from voters and elected officials who are more focused on academic and vocational issues.”

Executives agreed that the main purpose of a high school education should be providing skills to students so they can be productive workers in California’s economy. Focusing on the basics ranked next in priority, followed by college preparation and citizenship.

Business leaders identified the most important education reforms as providing essential basic skills for students, more technical and vocational education, incorporating best business practices into schools, and clearly tracking and evaluating teacher performance in improving student performance.

Regarding top priorities for reforms affecting teachers, executives called for making it easier to fire underperforming or incompetent teachers, increasing salaries for teachers who improve student performance, more teacher training and mentoring, and higher standards for achieving tenure.

Business leaders are open to increased funding, even tax increases, as long as those increases are tied to adopting proven reforms, tougher accountability and increased financial oversight.

“California business leaders believe that increased funding is a necessary ingredient for public school improvement, but only if accompanied by strong reforms and close accountability tied to student improvement,” Kaye added.

Methodology

This statewide internet survey was conducted from January 29 to February 14, 2007 by the national research firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. The 1,342 responding business executives were representative of business size and sector in California as a whole. The margin of error is 2.6% at the 95% confidence level.

Funding

This study was made possible by the generous support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

California Foundation for Commerce and Education

The California Foundation for Commerce and Education is a tax-exempt [501(c)(3)] nonprofit corporation affiliated with the California Chamber of Commerce, which functions as a “think tank” for the business community in California. The Foundation is dedicated to preserving and strengthening the California business climate and private enterprise through:

Education of the public and policy makers on the virtues of private enterprise and a strong economic base;
Accurate, impartial and objective research and analysis of public policy issues of interest to the California business and public policy communities; and
Education and outreach efforts in support of the research and public policy findings and recommendations.

The Foundation is nonpartisan and does not advocate on legislation or ballot measures.

Making the Grade: Online Education in the United States, 2006 - Southern Edition

The 2006 Southern Edition, derived from the national report, Making the Grade: Online Education in the United States, provides further evidence of the continuing growth, development and importance of online learning in the South. The report complements the efforts initiated in 2003 by the SREB-State Data Exchange to provide detailed interstate comparisons on credit hours earned through online learning. With the SREB states representing over one-third of the total online enrollments in the U.S., there is clear evidence that the “phenomena” of online learning has yet to peak. We are reaching new students, many of whom are older learners who would otherwise have limited or no access to higher education. The number of online programs continues to grow and, more importantly, academic leaders increasingly report that learning outcomes from online education are similar, or better, than in traditional face-to-face instruction.

At the same time, participation by smaller institutions continues to lag and faculty acceptance of online learning, while increasing slightly, is well below the level that we would like. Several other challenges or “barriers” described in the report, help to create a working agenda for the years ahead. We trust this report will provide not only SREB, our colleges and universities, state leadership and policymakers with a roadmap for action that will ensure the continued growth of online learning in the South.

To see the complete report: http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/pdf/Making_the_Grade_Southern.pdf

Status of California's Kids Undermines Public Health and Economy, According to New Children Now Report Card, "The State of the State's Children"

Costly Societal Outcomes Linked to Children's Current Health and Education Status

If significant children’s policy changes are not made in health care and education, current and future generations will be far worse off than previous ones and pay costs, directly and indirectly, for many years to come. These are among the findings of a new study from Children Now, a leading nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to assuring all children thrive.

The 2006-07 California Report Card: The State of the State’s Children identifies critical issues affecting children’s well-being and threatening to compromise public health and the economy. The report assigns letter grades to individual issues, such as a “C-” in early care and education, a “C-” in K-12 education, and a “B-” in health insurance. One bright spot, a “B+” in after school programs, reflects the state’s ability to resolve systemic children’s issues through focused, bipartisan effort.

“Our aim is to present a complete, nonpartisan analysis of the components of our children’s well-being, so as policy agendas are set we have an accurate measuring stick to assess what’s being done,” said Ted Lempert, Children Now president. “All of our children’s issues are interconnected, so it is absolutely critical that we begin to look at them together.”

The report presents the most current data available on the status of California’s children, who represent 27 percent of all Californians and 13 percent of the nation’s kids:

760,000 California children, ages 0-18, don’t have health insurance.
One in three of California’s 6- to 17-year-olds is obese or overweight.
About 58 percent of California’s 3- and 4-year-olds do not attend preschool.
About 60 percent of California’s 2nd- to 11th-graders did not meet state goals for math and reading proficiency in 2006.
As many as 30 percent of the state’s children live in an economically-struggling family, able to pay for only the most basic needs.

“We need to recognize that comprehensive changes to the systems themselves are needed now,” said Lempert, “such as overhauling our state’s K-12 finance system and aggressively pursuing school-based health services, to really improve things for our children and ultimately every one of us.” Lempert added, “If we ignore the warning signs, California will be forced, at a minimum, to cover higher costs of remedial health services and confront the lack of a well-educated workforce needed to compete in tomorrow’s economy.”

In November 2006, Children Now released a bipartisan poll that found 86 percent of California voters were looking for “significant and comprehensive changes” to the K-12 public education system.

The 2006-07 California Report Card: The State of the State’s Children is available for free online at www.childrennow.org/reportcard

Trends In K-12 Enterprise Management

School districts across the country appear to be taking a page from the playbook of their corporate brethren in seeking an integrated enterprise approach to data management, according to a recent study by Eduventures, the leading research and consulting firm for the education industry. Ninety-one percent of district officials responding to Eduventures' survey indicated that it is important "to integrate academic and administrative data from various district technology systems." Similarly, 90% agreed that "a K-12 enterprise management approach would enable their district to be more effective on behalf of its students."

"In a school district setting, a K-12 enterprise management platform enables district leaders and others to access, analyze, and report against a broad array of academic and administrative data and technology applications, including, but not limited to, financial, human resources, facilities management, school and student characteristics, instructional practices, assessment strategies, professional development, and student achievement results," said Adam Newman, managing vice president of Eduventures' Industry Solutions program, which provides research and counsel to suppliers of schools and school districts.

Enterprise software and technology services have become a $1.8 billion industry that is expected to grow annually at a modest 5% to 7% over the next few years. Consistent with oft-cited pressures from NCLB-fueled reporting demands, districts ranked stakeholder access to (92%) and reporting of (87%) key data, as well as time-savings (87%), as among the strongest perceived benefits of enterprise systems. Given the accompanying pressures to increase student performance, however, it is somewhat surprising that the three instruction-related benefits ranked near the bottom of the list. For example, district staff is relatively less confident in the potential of enterprise management systems to improve instruction, increase student performance, or enhance teacher preparedness.

"These findings indicate that districts are responding directly to the need for solutions to the immediate reporting-related challenges," said Newman. "The results also suggest that, on the whole, providers of enterprise solutions have not yet succeeded in providing a compelling argument regarding the link between effective enterprise data management and systemic strategies to raise student performance."

Other issues covered in Eduventures' report, Trends in K-12 Enterprise Management: Are Districts Ready to Cross the Chasm?, include the challenges and constraints in the K-12 district funding environment and the investment horizon in relation to enterprise management systems, where districts are directing those limited resources, and the factors and preferences shaping their purchasing process. The report is available exclusively to Eduventures' clients.

For more information, visit www.eduventures.com.

Sleep Disorders Can Impair Children's IQs As Much As Lead Exposure

Three decades ago, medical investigators began sounding the alarm about how lead exposure causes IQ deficits in children. Today, researchers at the University of Virginia Health System say children with sleep disorders can face similar risks of intellectual impairment.

UVa researchers have been studying sleep disturbances in children with enlarged tonsils and adenoids for the past seven years. In a recent study, they discovered that youngsters who snore nightly scored significantly lower on vocabulary tests than those who snore less often.

"Vocabulary scores are known to be the best single predictor of a child's IQ and the strongest predictor of academic success," explains Dr. Paul M. Suratt, a pulmonologist who directs the UVa Sleep Laboratory.

According to Dr. Suratt, the vocabulary differences associated with nightly snoring are equivalent to the IQ dissimilarities attributed to lead exposure. "Studies show that, even at nontoxic levels, lead exposure can reduce a child's IQ by more than seven points," he notes.

Sleep disorders can be intellectually and behaviorally detrimental to children because they interrupt the deep sleep patterns needed for healthy development. At night, children with sleep disorders can be observed snoring, snorting, gasping, tossing and turning. During the day, these children can be irritable, hyperactive and unable to concentrate.

A key goal of the UVa researchers is to predict which children with sleep disorders are most likely to suffer cognitive impairment or develop behavior problems. "It's more difficult than you would think," Dr. Suratt explains. "Children with sleep disordered breathing may have cognitive impairment even if they don't completely stop breathing, even if their oxygen levels don't fall and even if they don't totally wake up."

In a series of studies involving six to twelve-year-olds, researchers have been piecing together a list of risk indicators. So far, snoring frequency combined with sleep lab results have proven to be the most reliable predictors of intellectual impairment and behavioral problems. Sleep duration and race appear to be important risk factors, too.

"One of our most recent studies found that kids who snore nightly and spend less time in bed score significantly lower on cognitive tests than children who snore less frequently and spend longer times bed," Dr. Suratt explains. "We've also found that obstructive sleep disordered breathing (OSBD) occurs more often in African American children and, therefore, places them at greater risk of cognitive impairment."

As part of their quest to accurately identify at-risk children, UVa researchers are now testing a device that records breathing sounds during sleep at home. When used in the lab, this method has proven more sensitive than existing equipment in detecting sleep apnea in children.

"We're getting closer to the day when we can quickly establish risk profiles and effective treatment plans for children with sleep disorders. Our goal is to minimize the cognitive and behavioral problems that often develop," says Dr. Suratt.

Elementary School Progress Lags for Some Linguistic Minority Students

A new study, featured in the UC Linguistic Minority Research Institute's current newsletter, finds that a growing achievement gap separates California's linguistic minority students - those who come from households in which a language other than English is spoken regularly - from native speakers.

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study of Kindergartners followed a group of 9,976 students across the country from their first day of kindergarten in 1998 through the end of their fifth grade year in 2004. Researchers monitored their progress in reading, language and mathematics. According to the study's findings, the gap in language and reading skills that existed in kindergarten improved for some groups, but worsened for others as they moved through elementary school. Math achievement, however, showed greater relative improvement. Further, the study found the greatest disparities between English-only speakers and children who came from Spanish-dominant households.

"It's a pretty sobering picture to see how far we have to go to improve the outcome for English learners," said Russell Rumberger, director of the UC LMRI, a University of California systemwide research center based at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Rumberger, who is also a professor in the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, wrote the feature article that appears in the Institute's winter newsletter. The newsletter is published quarterly and distributed to 3,500 academics, educators, and policymakers throughout the United States.

The study, which was conducted under the auspices of the National Center for Educational Statistics, found that in the fall of 1998 more than half of all kindergartners in California came from non-English-speaking households, as compared to 16 percent in the rest of the United States. Of those students in California, well over half came from homes in which Spanish was the dominant language, roughly a third spoke a second language at home but used English primarily, and the rest came from households with another dominant language.

"We're not surprised to see these large achievement gaps early on," said Rumberger. "The fact that there's little improvement in reading and language skills isn't encouraging considering how important they are for learning later on. Language demands increase with grade level, and the fact that they're having trouble starting secondary school portends a lot of problems ahead."

To understand the differences in students' backgrounds, the study also examined the socioeconomic status of their families. Family socioeconomic status measures family income, parental education, and parental occupational status. Together, these factors are useful indicators of family resources and a strong predictor of subsequent student achievement. The study identified Spanish-dominant households as the most economically disadvantaged in California and the United States.

According to Rumberger, the study's overall findings call into question California's efforts to educate the state's growing linguistic minority population - especially Spanish-speaking students - and to close the sizeable achievement gap with other students.

"These students represent half our school-age population, so the future of the state rests on our ability to educate them successfully," he said. "If part of our goal is to eliminate achievement differences, then we have a long way to go."

Has The Promise of Blended Education Been Realized?

Joint Babson/Sloan/Eduventures Report Provides Comprehensive Insights

In one of the most comprehensive reports on academic and consumer preferences for blended learning in the post secondary market, the Babson Survey Research Group and Eduventures found that academic leadership is seeing greater promise in the growth of online education than that of blended learning, while consumer's openness to online and blended delivery continues to outpace their experience, leaving considerable room for growth in both delivery models. These are the findings from the newly released report, "Blending In: The Extent and Promise of Blended Education in the United States," published by the Sloan Consortium and available at http://www.eduventures.com/BlendingIn.cfm and http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/blended06.asp

"The findings in this study are compelling because there has been a belief among some that blended courses held more promise than fully online ones, and blended learning represented the path to online education," says Jeff Seaman, Survey Director for The Sloan Consortium and Co-Director of Babson Survey Research Group at Babson College. "What has become abundantly clear is that blended learning is generally not part of an institutional transition strategy from face-to-face to fully online courses, but rather a discrete option which institutions choose on its own merits."

Survey results included in the "Blending In" report show that almost 55 percent of all institutions offer at least one blended course, while 64 percent offer at least one online course. Additionally, the percentage of courses taught as blended has been relatively steady over the three survey years (moving from 6.8 percent in 2003 to 6.6 percent in 2004 and 5.6 percent in 2005). During this same time period the percentage of courses taught as fully online has continued to grow (6.5 percent in 2003, 8.2 percent in 2004, and 10.6 percent in 2005). These trends are punctuated by the fact that overall, only 38 percent of respondents agreed that "blended courses hold more promise than online courses" in 2004. This is a decrease from 46 percent agreement in 2003.

"Blending In" also provides a comprehensive snapshot of consumer preferences for online education -- hybrid or fully online -- from a recent study by Eduventures. The research finds that seventy-six percent of consumers interested in postsecondary education stated a preference for a delivery mode with at least some online element, and eighty-one percent stated a preference for a delivery mode with at least some face-to-face element.

While only 10.6 percent of consumers reported prior experience of a totally online program (whether in postsecondary education or elsewhere), 19 percent expressed a preference for wholly online postsecondary programs. In terms of blended delivery, the experience and preference figures were also some distance apart. While 16.6 percent of consumers reported blended program experience, 32 percent expressed a preference for either primarily online or online/on-campus balanced programs.

"Whether online or blended delivery, consumer preference appears to significantly outpace prior consumer experience, which gives us a clear picture of a market that is restless for growth," says Richard Garrett, Senior Analyst for Eduventures' Learning Collaborative for Online Higher Education. "This is a positive finding, not least for universities and colleges that have invested in online and/or blended delivery."

"Blending In: The Extent and Promise of Blended Education in the United States" builds on a set of annual research findings on the state of online education in U.S. Higher Education. The findings are based on a national survey of all colleges and universities in the U.S. conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group and funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Additionally, results are presented from an Eduventures-conducted national survey of 2,033 U.S. adults interested in postsecondary education in the next three years. The complimentary report is available at http://www.eduventures.com/BlendingIn.cfm and http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/blended06.asp

Research Finds Music Training 'Tunes' Human Auditory System

A newly published study by Northwestern University researchers suggests that Mom was right when she insisted that you continue music lessons -- even after it was clear that a professional music career was not in your future.

The study, which will appear in the April issue of Nature Neuroscience, is the first to provide concrete evidence that playing a musical instrument significantly enhances the brainstem’s sensitivity to speech sounds. This finding has broad implications because it applies to sound encoding skills involved not only in music but also in language.

The findings indicate that experience with music at a young age in effect can "fine-tune" the brain's auditory system. "Increasing music experience appears to benefit all children -- whether musically exceptional or not -- in a wide range of learning activities," says Nina Kraus, director of Northwestern's Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory and senior author of the study.

"Our findings underscore the pervasive impact of musical training on neurological development. Yet music classes are often among the first to be cut when school budgets get tight. That's a mistake," says Kraus, Hugh Knowles Professor of Neurobiology and Physiology and professor of communication sciences and disorders.

"Our study is the first to ask whether enhancing the sound environment -- in this case with musical training -- will positively affect the way an individual encodes sound even at a level as basic as the brainstem," says Patrick Wong, primary author of "Musical Experience Shapes Human Brainstem Encoding of Linguistic Pitch Patterns." An old structure from an evolutionary standpoint, the brainstem once was thought to only play a passive role in auditory processing.

Using a novel experimental design, the researchers presented the Mandarin word "mi" to 20 adults as they watched a movie. Half had at least six years of musical instrument training starting before the age of 12. The other half had minimal (less than 2 years) or no musical training. All were native English speakers with no knowledge of Mandarin, a tone language.

In tone languages, a single word can differ in meaning depending on pitch patterns called "tones." For example, the Mandarin word "mi" delivered in a level tone means "to squint," in a rising tone means "to bewilder," and in a dipping (falling then rising) tone means "rice." English, on the other hand, only uses pitch to reflect intonation (as when rising pitch is used in questions).

As the subjects watched the movie, the researchers used electrophysiological methods to measure and graph the accuracy of their brainstem ability to track the three differently pitched "mi" sounds.

"Even with their attention focused on the movie and though the sounds had no linguistic or musical meaning for them, we found our musically trained subjects were far better at tracking the three different tones than the non-musicians," says Wong, director of Northwestern’s Speech Research Laboratory and assistant professor of communication sciences and disorders.

The research by co-authors Wong, Kraus, Erika Skoe, Nicole Russo and Tasha Dees represents a new way of defining the relationship between the brainstem -- a lower order brain structure thought to be unchangeable and uninvolved in complex processing -- and the neocortex, a higher order brain structure associated with music, language and other complex processing.

These findings are in line with previous studies by Wong and his group suggesting that musical experience can improve one’s ability to learn tone languages in adulthood and level of musical experience plays a role in the degree of activation in the auditory cortex. Wong also is a faculty member in Northwestern’s Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program.

The findings also are consistent with studies by Kraus and her research team that have revealed anomalies in brainstem sound encoding in some children with learning disabilities which can be improved by auditory training.

"We've found that by playing music -- an action thought of as a function of the neocortex -- a person may actually be tuning the brainstem," says Kraus. "This suggests that the relationship between the brainstem and neocortex is a dynamic and reciprocal one and tells us that our basic sensory circuitry is more malleable than we previously thought."

Overall, the findings assist in unfolding new lines of inquiry. The researchers now are looking to find ways to "train" the brain to better encode sound – work that potentially has far-reaching educational and clinical implications. The study was supported by Northwestern University, grants from the National Institutes of Health and a grant from the National Science Foundation.

The Stages of Second Language Acquisition

We have all seen children move through the stages of acquiring their first language—from babbling to one-word utterances, two-word phrases, full sentences, and eventually, complex grammar. Students learning a second language also move through stages. One of the most important things you should know about each of your English language learners (ELLs) is which stage of acquisition they are in. Knowing and understanding the stage and its characteristics are critical for effectively differentiating instruction for these students.

Read the complete chapter http://www.ascd.org/portal/site/ascd/template.chapter/menuitem.
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ETS Study Reports on U.S. Adult-Education Activities

A new report from ETS provides a comprehensive picture of federally supported adult-education activities in the United States. It also makes a case for examining the survey data within today's economic landscape, where those with below-average skills find it increasingly more difficult to earn above-average wages in a global economy.

ETS's Center for Global Assessment produced the report, "Adult Education in America: A First Look at Results from the Adult Education Program and Learner Surveys." Authors Irwin Kirsch, Marylou Lennon and Kentaro Yamamoto of ETS and Claudia Tamassia of the University of Illinois present data from the Adult Education Program Survey (AEPS), which includes data from more than 6,000 adult learners at 1,200 adult-education programs nationwide.

Data from the AEPS show that, overall, participants in adult-education programs have literacy and numeracy skills that are significantly below those of the general population. While this makes sense on one level, it is still surprising, considering that a large proportion of these adult learners demonstrated skills in the lowest level of the proficiency scales. The ETS report suggests that this information has important implications for adult education, in terms of the investment of resources required to assist these learners in developing needed skills.

"The challenges for adult-education programs and the learners they serve are more complex than ever before," Tamassia says. "In a changing America, the skills that participants in adult-education programs do or do not develop have increasingly important implications in terms of learners' workforce participation, long-term self-sufficiency, acculturation, and citizenship. In addition to obtaining and succeeding in a job, literacy and numeracy skills are associated with the likelihood that individuals will participate in lifelong learning, keep abreast of social and political events, and vote in state and national elections.

"These data also suggest that literacy is likely to be one of the major pathways linking education and health, and may be a contributing factor to the disparities that have been observed in the quality of health care in developed countries," continues Tamassia.

Another topic highlighted in the ETS report is the central role that English-language learning plays in adult education. The AEPS data show that English as a Second Language (ESL) represents the largest type of instructional program in adult education. In fact, about half of all participants in adult-education programs reported that English was not their native language -- more than three times as many as the general adult population.

"Not surprisingly, the results showed that Spanish-speaking Hispanic learners demonstrated somewhat higher-than-average literacy skills in Spanish than in English," explains Kirsch. "However, it was also clear that allowing for language differences did not eradicate differences in literacy performance. The skill levels of learners who were tested in Spanish were similar to the levels of literacy shown by English-speaking adults enrolled in adult-education programs. Those skills levels, in general, fell well below those of the general adult population.

"ESL classes and the learners they serve face the dual challenge of improving not just English-language skills, but literacy skills as well," Kirsch adds. "And one would expect that this challenge will continue to grow, as U.S. Census Bureau projections show net international migration likely to account for more than half of our nation's population growth between 2000 and 2015."

The AEPS is significant in several ways:

It is the first nationally representative study of both adult-education programs and learners, using comparable measures to assess the literacy and numeracy skills of adult-education participants.
It is the first survey that allows comparisons to be drawn between the skills of the adult-learner population and of the general adult population in the United States.
It is the first time a large-scale measure of literacy skills was conducted in both Spanish and English to explore the impact of testing language on performance.

"Adult Education in America" presents data from both AEPS' program and learner surveys. Programs are profiled according to their general characteristics (including size, in terms of annual budget, numbers of programs, sites and participants), the types of learners enrolled, the characteristics of program staff, the types and uses of assessments, and the uses of technology. Learners are profiled according to general background characteristics, as well as skill levels in prose literacy, document literacy, and numeracy.

The report also compares the adult-learner and general-household populations by their demographic and background characteristics, as well as by their literacy and numeracy skills. A final chapter focuses on Hispanic learners and compares their performance on English and Spanish versions of literacy tasks in the learner survey.

"Given the social and economic stakes involved, one might reasonably argue that adult-education programs have a more critical role to play in today's society than ever before," says co-author Lennon. "While not a policy paper, the national data presented in this report are intended both to inform and to contribute to the national dialogue about adult education."

Download the full report of "Adult Education in America: A First Look at Results from the Adult Education Program and Learner Surveys" at www.ets.org/etsliteracy

School Wellness Policies Provide Foundation for Healthy School Environments

School districts throughout the United States are adding healthier ingredients and offering cafeteria-based nutrition education. From Caribou, Maine to San Jose, California, these are just a few of the changes schools are incorporating through local school wellness policies. Nationally, school boards have approved policies that include more nutrition education, mandatory recess, and additional nutrition standards for foods and beverages available outside the school cafeteria, according to a report released today by the School Nutrition Association (SNA.)

School nutrition professionals continue to play leadership roles in the ongoing trend toward healthy school environments and the development of mandated local wellness policies. Section 204 of the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004 required that all school districts that participate in the National School Lunch Program approve a local wellness policy by July 1, 2006. The law mandates that these policies include goals for nutrition education, physical activity and other school-based activities, as well as nutrition guidelines for all foods and beverages available on school campuses.

"A Foundation for the Future II" outlines key characteristics of local wellness policies approved by a sample of 140 school districts in seven regions of the United States. These districts account for 3.5% of the nation's K-12 students. This report follows the release in October 2006 by SNA of an analysis of the local wellness policies approved for the 100 largest school districts by enrollment.

Among the key findings of this second report on the local wellness policies approved by 140 school districts in 49 states:

98.6% address school meal nutrition standards. (Note that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has set federal nutrition standards for meals served through the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program.)
88.6% address nutrition standards for a la carte foods and beverages.
87% address nutrition standards for foods and beverages available in vending machines.
69% address nutrition standards/guidelines for fundraisers held during school hours.
65.7% address nutrition standards/guidelines for classroom celebrations or parties.
55% address nutrition standards/guidelines for teachers using foods as rewards in the classroom.
72.5% of school districts address a recess requirement for at least elementary grade levels.
91.7% require physical activity for at least some grade levels.
95% require nutrition education for at least some grade levels.
89% outlined a plan for implementation and evaluation, utilizing the superintendent, school nutrition director or wellness policy task force as the entity responsible for monitoring the policy.

The full report is available at: http://www.schoolnutrition.org/uploadedFiles/SchoolNutrition.org/News_&_Publications/
School_Foodservice_News/New_Folder/Regional%20LWP%20Report.pdf

From Los Angeles to Brownsville, TX, most of the nation’s 100 largest school districts by enrollment are requiring nutrition education, adding recess and tightening nutrition standards. Of these districts, which educate 23% of American students, more than 94% have passed a local wellness policy that addresses nutrition standards for a la carte foods and beverages, according to analysis conducted by the School Nutrition Association.

School nutrition professionals continue to play a leadership role in the ongoing trend towards healthy school environments and the development of local wellness policies. Section 204 of the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004 required that all school districts that participate in the National School Lunch Program approve a local wellness policy by July 1, 2006. The law mandated that these policies include goals for nutrition education, physical activity and other school-based activities as well as nutrition guidelines for all foods and beverages available on school campuses.

The following summary outlines key characteristics of local wellness policies approved by the largest 100 school districts, by enrollment, in the United States. The School Nutrition Association is collecting and analyzing wellness policies based on 79% of those school districts that have passed policies as of August 7, 2006.

Although the top 100 school districts make up less than 1% of the school districts in the nation, they account for 16% of the schools, 21% of the teachers and 23% of the nation's K-12 students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Nutrition Standards for all Foods and Beverages Available in Schools