|
 |
|
|
A new report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute “The Proficiency Illusion" reveals that the tests that states use to measure academic progress under the No Child Left Behind Act are creating a false impression of success, especially in reading and especially in the early grades. The report, a collaboration of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Northwest Evaluation Association, contains several major findings: States are aiming particularly low when it comes to their expectations for younger children, setting elementary students up to fail as they progress through their academic careers. The central flaw in NCLB is that it allows each state to set its own definition of what constitutes "proficiency." By mandating that all students reach "proficiency" by 2014, it tempts states to define proficiency downward. Although there has not been a "race to the bottom," with the majority of states dramatically lowering standards under pressure from NCLB, the report did find a "walk to the middle," as some states with high standards saw their expectations drop toward the middle of the pack. In most states, math tests are consistently more difficult to pass than reading tests. Eighth-grade tests are sharply harder to pass in most states than those in earlier grades (even after taking into account obvious differences in subject-matter complexity and children's academic development). As a result, students may be performing worse in reading, and worse in elementary school, than is readily apparent by looking at passing rates on state tests. Full report: U of M Study Finds That U.S. High School Dropout Rate Higher Than Thought and Hasn't Improved in Years University of Minnesota sociologists have found that the U.S. high school dropout rate is considerably higher than most people think -- with one in four students not graduating -- and has not improved appreciably in recent decades. Their findings point to discrepancies in the two major data sources on which most governmental and non-governmental agencies base their findings. The U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS) is widely used by governmental and non-governmental sources -- from the Annie E. Casey Foundation to the White House -- to report high school dropout rates. The CPS paints a rosy picture, showing dropout rates at about 10 percent in recent years and declining some 40 percent over the past generation. On the other hand, measures of high school completion based on the National Center for Education Statistics' Common Core of Data survey (CCD) paint a darker picture, with high school completion rates holding steady at about 75 percent in recent decades. University of Minnesota sociology professor John Robert Warren and graduate student Andrew Halpern-Manners found that whether the dropout rate is high or low -- and improving or not -- depends entirely on which data source observers base their estimates. From the more commonly-used CPS, people typically conclude that about 10 percent of young people drop out; from the CCD, people usually describe a dropout "crisis" with at least one in four students failing to graduate. The data sources also differ with respect to how they count private high school graduates and GED recipients. However, after accounting for the differences, the researchers found that about half of the discrepancy still remained and is attributable to misreporting of high school enrollment and completion status by individuals who respond to the CPS surveys. The researchers conclude that reports using the CCD- -- which is based on administrative records, not individuals' responses to surveys -- tell the more accurate, complete story. An article based on their findings, titled "Is the Glass Emptying or Filling Up: Reconciling Divergent Trends in High School Completion and Dropout," appears in the most recent issue of Educational Researcher. New Teacher-Recruitment and Hiring Strategies Yield Positive Results for Schools, Example for Policymakers A New York City strategy to improve the qualifications of teachers in the city's highest-poverty public schools likely contributed to student gains in those needy classrooms, says a new report from the Urban Institute's National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER). In school systems nationwide, the teachers with the shakiest credentials typically work in the poorest schools. But in New York City between 2000 and 2005, new hiring standards and teacher-recruitment methods helped strike a remarkable balance in newly hired teacher qualifications throughout many of the city's schools. In 2000, 35 percent of teachers serving in the highest-poverty schools had failed their first attempt at a certification exam, compared with a 15 percent failure rate for educators working in the lowest-poverty schools. By 2003, the failure rate for new teachers had dropped overall and was about the same in all school poverty categories. This convergence in teacher qualifications stemmed largely from policy changes implemented between 2000 and 2005. School officials all but banned uncertified teachers from classrooms, permitted alternative credentialing programs, and recruited high-achieving college graduates through the New York City Teaching Fellows programs and Teach for America (TFA). By 2005, nearly 40 percent of all new hires in the poorest 25 percent of New York City schools were Teaching Fellows or TFA corps members. These specially recruited teachers on average brought stronger academic backgrounds to their new careers and outperformed other new hires on an exam for educators. Average performance on fourth- and eighth-grade math and language arts tests rose between 2000 and 2005 in all New York City public schools, with particularly substantial gains scored in the system's poorest schools. Indeed, more than double the share of fourth-grade math students in the low-income schools met proficiency standards in 2005 than did in 2000. The report "The Narrowing Gap in New York City Teacher Qualifications and Its Implications for Student Achievement in High-Poverty Schools" demonstrates the link between teacher qualifications and student learning. Together, teachers' experience, academic abilities, preparation, and certification contribute to effectiveness in the classroom. Bringing teachers with strong qualifications into hard-pressed schools likely improved the performance of students in those schools. The question now, say the study's authors, is whether this recruitment achievement can be combined with professional development and other supports to reduce turnover, enhance teachers' capabilities, and continue to foster student learning. "New York's success in hiring well-qualified teachers for needy students stands as a powerful example for education leaders everywhere," says Susanna Loeb, an author of the report and associate professor of education at Stanford University. "This research will help inform the debate going on in Congress now, as lawmakers consider changes to the No Child Left Behind education law that will offer incentives for matching good teachers with the neediest schools." Childhood TV Viewing a Risk for Behavior Problems Timing of media exposure plays a vital role in outcomes Daily television viewing for two or more hours in early childhood can lead to behavioral problems and poor social skills, according to a study of children 2.5 to 5.5 years of age conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The Hopkins researchers found that the impact of TV viewing on a child’s behavior and social skills varied by the age at which the viewing occurred. More importantly, heavy television viewing that decreased over time was not associated with behavior or social problems. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under age 2 watch no television while children age 2 and older are limited to no more than two hours of daily viewing. The study is published in the October 2007 issue of Pediatrics. “A number of studies have demonstrated negative effects of heavy television viewing. However, timing of exposure is an important consideration as reducing viewing to acceptable levels can reduce the risk of behavioral and social problems,” said Kamila Mistry, MPH, lead author of the study and a doctoral candidate in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health. For the study, the research team analyzed data for 2,707 children collected from the Healthy Steps for Young Children national evaluation. Parents were surveyed about their child’s television viewing habits and behavior at 2.5 and at 5.5 years of age. Sixteen percent of parents reported that their children watched two hours or more of television daily at 2.5 years of age (early exposure), while 15 percent reported that their children watched two hours or more of television daily at 5.5 years of age (concurrent exposure). One in five parents reported that their children watched two hours or more of television daily at both 2.5 years and at 5.5 years of age (sustained exposure). Sustained exposure to television was associated with behavioral problems. However, early exposure that was subsequently reduced was not a risk for behavior problems. Concurrent viewing was associated with fewer social skills, while sustained and early viewing had less of an impact on social skill development. The study also found that having a television in the child’s bedroom at 5.5 years of age was associated with behavioral problems, poor social skills and poor sleep. Forty-one percent of the children included in the study had a television in his or her bedroom. “Children who reduced their viewing by 5.5 years of age were not at greater risk for behavior and social problems,” said Cynthia Minkovitz, MD, MPP, senior author of the study and associate professor with the School’s Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health. “It is vital for clinicians to emphasize the importance of reducing television viewing in early childhood among those children with early use.” Tests That Teach: Using Standardized Tests to Improve Instruction Since standardized tests are a fact of life in every school and classroom, this book explains how to use sample questions from high-stakes tests as the basis for constructing engaging lessons and meaningful learning experiences. Educators will discover why teaching students to perform well on standardized tests goes way beyond rote facts and memorization and explore word lists, games, discussion topics and testing ideas that encourage students to apply higher-order thinking skills. Chapter 1. Constructed Response: Connecting Performance and Assessment: Chapter 2. Classrooms That Create Deep Thinkers: Friends Help Friends Avoid Drug Use USC study shows prevention programs tailored around social networks reduce substance use among teens by about 15 percent High-risk teenagers who participate in peer-led substance abuse prevention programs reduce their drug use by approximately 15 percent versus traditional curricula, suggests a study led by researchers at the University of Southern California (USC). The study will appear in the journal Addiction, and is now available online. “Most substance abuse prevention programs disseminate information about the bad effects of drugs and teach resistance skills without considering the impact of peer influence,” says Thomas Valente, Ph.D., assistant professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “Generally, our study emphasizes the power of peers. We found that social network-tailored prevention curricula can be very successful in achieving long-term behavioral changes in teenagers.” The study compared substance use among students participating in the prevention program Project Towards No Drug Abuse (TND), traditionally led by a health educator or teacher, to the modified peer-led Project TND Network. TND held interactive discussions at the classroom level while TND Network divided the students into smaller groups composed of their friends, increased the number of group activities and a student-chosen leader led the discussion. Approximately 550 students from 14 alternative high schools in Southern California completed surveys given before the program and again approximately a year later. The average age of the participants was 16 years old. The study assessed data on their use of tobacco, alcohol, marijuana and cocaine. Students were randomly assigned by classroom to receive one of the two curricula or the control group. “Reducing drug use among the high-risk teen population at these alternative schools is tough,” continues Valente. “It is encouraging to see this type of positive influence among students who live and go to school in challenging environments.” However, the study also found that students with a peer environment that supports substance use did not benefit from the interactive program. Students with substance using friends increase their own use in the peer-led condition. “Peer influence can go both ways, some students benefited because of the positive social influence of their friends while others were harmed by negative influence of their substance using peers,” concludes Valente. “Programs that incorporate this type of interactive programming can be very effective, but they depend on how peer influence is channeled.” A Flawed Campaign to Reinvent High School New analysis argues that recent attacks on American high schools and proposals for stiffer graduation requirements are simplistic and almost certain to fail Several recent high-profile reports calling for the “reinvention” of the American high school are simplistic and seriously flawed, according to a new analysis by two distinguished scholars. W. Norton Grubb, an economist who holds the David Gardner Chair in Higher Education at UC Berkeley, and Jeannie Oakes, who holds the Presidential Chair in Education Equity at UCLA, analyzed a wave of commission reports since 2004 that attack the American high school and call, in particular, for higher state graduation requirements and for exit exams. Grubb and Oakes conclude that this current push for “rigor” fails on several levels. The reports don’t adequately consider the likely consequences of the policies intended to enforce higher standards. They also “have little to say about how [the] imposition [of these standards] will enhance student performance.” And most discussions in these reports focus on narrow definitions of rigor—higher test scores, more demanding courses, or both—while ignoring other conceptions of rigor that may be as valid, if not more so, to discussions of how high schools should better fill society’s needs. Rigor, the authors explain, can also be advanced as depth rather than breadth, as more sophisticated levels of understanding including “higher-order skills,” and as the ability to apply learning in unfamiliar settings. These goals are largely neglected in the new “high standards” commission reports. Grubb and Oakes advance their argument in a policy brief titled, “ ‘Restoring Value’ to the High School Diploma: The Rhetoric and Practice of Higher Standards.” It is one of a series on education policy issues questions published jointly by the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State University and the Education and the Public Interest Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The commission reports analyzed by Grubb and Oakes have had a very real policy impact. As they note, “Recent legislation has forced the translation of rhetoric into practice. Most states have increased their graduation requirements, and half the states have adopted exit exams.” Yet the current push to increase rigor and heighten standards is “seriously flawed,” they write, and “any gains come at the expense of other goals for h igh school reform, including equity, curricular relevance, and student interest.” In place of the current approaches, Grubb and Oakes describe a clear and distinctly different alternative to the nineteenth century model of the traditional high school. They suggest that high schools offer “multiple pathways” structured around themes, some drawn from occupational areas, others drawn from broad, multidisciplinary concepts. Such an approach would “provide room for examining the important occupational, political, and social issues of adult life in the process of teaching disciplinary subjects.” They also explain that focusing “on a single theme nurtures multiple concepts of rigor,” and “the approach distributes responsibility for standards throughout the educational community, and it provides students with the benefits of curricular choice and several routes to graduation.” Find “‘Restoring Value’ to the High School Diploma: The Rhetoric and Practice of Higher Standards,” by W. Norton Grubb and Jeannie Oakes, on the web at Female Academic Performance Lies in the (Gender) Balance Have you ever felt outnumbered? Like there are just not that many people like you around? We’ve all felt outnumbered in one situation or another and walking into a situation in which you sense the possibility of being ostracized or isolated can be quite threatening. One group that may experience this kind of threat is women who participate in math, science, and engineering (MSE) settings- settings in which the gender ratio is approximately 3 men to every 1 woman. Recently, in the wake of comments made by former Harvard University President, Larry Summers, suggesting that women may not possess the same “innate ability” or “natural ability” in these fields as do men, several leading scientific institutions and university presidents publicly lamented the underrepresentation of women in Math, Science and Engineering fields and put out a call to study the reasons for the numbers gap in these areas. While previous research offers biological and socialization explanations for differences in the performance and representation of men and women in these fields, Stanford psychologists, Mary Murphy and Claude Steele argue that the organization of Math, Science and Engineering environments themselves plays a significant role in contributing to this gap. Murphy contends that situational cues (i.e. being outnumbered) may contribute to a decrease in women’s performance expectations, as well as their actual performance. Murphy and colleagues showed a group of advanced MSE undergraduates a gender balanced or unbalanced video depicting a potential MSE summer leadership conference. To assess identity threat, the researchers measured the participant’s physiological arousal during the video, cognitive vigilance, sense of belonging and desire to participate in the conference. The results are telling. The women who watched the gender unbalanced video- where women were outnumbered by men in a 3 to 1 ratio- experienced faster heart rates, higher skin conductance (sweating), and reported a lower sense of belonging and less desire to participate in the conference. They also found that women were more vigilant to their physical environment when they watched the video in which women were outnumbered. Throughout the testing room, Murphy planted cues related to Math, Science, and Engineering such as magazines like Science, Scientific American, and Nature on the coffee table and a portrait of Einstein and the periodic table on the walls. Women were able to recall more details about the video and the test room, indicating that they paid more attention to the identity-relevant items in order to assess the likelihood of encountering identity threat. “It would not be surprising if the general cognitive functioning of women in the threatening setting was inhibited because of this allocation of attention toward MSE-related cues,” write the authors. Thus, it is likely that this kind of attention allocation would interfere with performance and might help explain the performance gap between men and women in these fields. While men, in either condition, showed no significant difference in physiological arousal, cognitive vigilance, or sense of belonging, both men and women expressed more desire to attend the conference when the ratio of men to women was balanced. Murphy says that while it’s interesting that both men and women want to be where the women are, the motivations of men and women for wanting to be there are probably quite different. “Women probably feel more identity-safe in the environment where there are more women- they feel that they really could belong there- while men might simply be attracted by the unusual number of women in these settings. Men just aren’t used to seeing that many women in these settings, because the numbers in real Math, Science, and Engineering settings are so unbalanced.” These findings, which appear in the October issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, demonstrates that rather than being endemic to women the experience of identity threat in MSE settings is attributable the situation. This research underlies the importance of situational cues and Murphy hopes that it will "inspire greater motivation to attend to such cues when creating and modifying environments so that they may foster perceptions of identity safety rather than threat." New Study on Milwaukee Vouchers Finds No Significant, Sustained Improvement in Public Schools Resulting from Competition With voters in Utah just weeks away from deciding whether the state should offer universal private school vouchers, the non-partisan Economic Policy Institute has released an important new study countering claims by voucher advocates that the alleged “competition” created by vouchers directly leads to improved public school student achievement. Researchers studying Milwaukee schools, home to the country’s longest-running voucher program, found no significant, sustained improvements by public schools, and no discernible link to any so-called voucher effect. “This is another round of research that undercuts a common argument made by voucher supporters,” said Anne L. Bryant, executive director of the National School Boards Association. “Diverting millions of dollars from public schools to fund private school tuition has never been a sound strategy for improving our public schools.” Among the specific findings, the researchers point to a brief boost in student achievement for Milwaukee public schools, but note that it falls off as the voucher program’s enrollment expanded and public school enrollment declined. In fact, as voucher enrollment doubled to 15 percent of public school enrollment, the lowest income schools “lost ground” to comparison schools. The researchers also found no positive effects on students’ math or language arts scores based on the number of private schools in close proximity to the public school, on the number of voucher seats nearby, or on the number of voucher applications from the public school’s enrollment. While this study contradicts the competition claim by voucher advocates, other research has done the same to claims of higher achievement for voucher recipients, Bryant noted. Earlier this year, a U.S. Department of Education study on the Washington, D.C. voucher program found no significant academic differences between voucher students and public school students, mirroring previous findings in Milwaukee and Cleveland. Full report: http://www.epi.org/books/vouchers/vpsp-intro.pdf Encouraging Girls in Math and Science This NCER Practice Guide is the second in a series of IES guides in education. Developed by a panel of experts, this guide brings together the best available evidence and expertise to provide educators with specific and coherent evidence-based recommendations on how to encourage girls in the fields of math and science. The objective is to provide teachers with specific recommendations that can be carried out in the classroom without requiring systemic change. Other school personnel having direct contact with students, such as coaches, counselors, and principals may also find the guide useful. The guide offers five recommendations and indicates the quality of the evidence that supports the recommendations. Together, the recommendations make a coherent statement: To encourage girls in math and science, educators need to strengthen girls' beliefs about their abilities in math and science, spark and maintain greater interest in these subject areas, and build associated skills. Full report: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/pdf/20072003.pdf Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning This NCER Practice Guide is the third in a series of IES guides in education. This guide reflects an expert panel's consensus on some of the most important principles to emerge from research on learning and memory. The guide draws on the best available evidence and expertise to provide teachers with specific strategies for organizing instruction and students' studying of material to facilitate learning and remembering, and for helping students use what they have learned in new situations. The guide includes a set of concrete actions relating to the use of instructional and study time that are applicable to subjects that demand a great deal of content learning, including social studies, science, and mathematics. Along with seven recommendations for teachers, the panel also indicates the quality of evidence that supports each recommendation. Full report: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/pdf/20072003.pdf "Achievement and Behavior in Charter Schools: Drawing a More Complete Picture" The main benefit of charter schools is better behavior of the students says this report. Full report: Are New Middle and High School Teachers Being Cast Adrift? First in Series of Reports on First-Year Teachers Shows Major Differences Between Elementary, Secondary Teachers on How Long They Plan to Teach, How Much Their Students Are Learning Public Agenda and the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality have released research indicating that new high school and middle school teachers, challenged by their teen-aged students, are much more concerned about administrative support, more frustrated by student motivation and behavior, less likely to see teaching as a lifelong career choice and less likely to believe that all students can achieve in school than new teachers in elementary schools. The series, "Lessons Learned: New Teachers Talk About Their Jobs, Challenges and Long-Term Plans," is based on a nationwide survey of first-year teachers and aims to help leaders in education and government understand more about the quality of current teacher education and the on-the-job support and mentoring for new teachers. "Issue No. 1: The Special Challenges of New Teachers in High Schools and Middle Schools" provides ample evidence that new teachers in middle and high school feel most vulnerable to challenging teaching conditions. According to the survey, compared to new elementary school teachers, new high school and middle school teachers are: - Less likely to say that teaching is exactly what they want to be doing "We all know that kids become a handful in the teen years, so we shouldn't be surprised that teaching kids this age is especially challenging," said Public Agenda Executive Vice President and Director of Education Insights Jean Johnson. "What's more worrying is the number of brand new teachers who seem to have been left dangling in challenging new jobs. These new high school and middle school teachers are more likely to say their training wasn't practical enough, and less likely to say they get good advice from colleagues once they're on the job." Sabrina Laine, Director of NCCTQ which commissioned and helped to design the research said, "This research tells us that we need to pay substantially more attention to the distinctive issues new high school and middle school teachers face. Effective training, supportive leadership, and motivation are essential for teachers of all students, but clearly there are special challenges at the secondary level that the field is not adequately addressing." REL Midwest, part of a federally funded network of 10 regional educational laboratories, gave instrumental aid in the questionnaire design and analysis of the research. To Steve Cantrell, Director of REL-Midwest, the results have significant implications for teacher education practices in the Midwest and nationwide: "We've focused a lot on secondary teachers' subject preparation, but this study reveals that the real pain point for new teachers is students' lack of motivation and discipline. New teachers need effective strategies in these areas." A Different Starting Point It may be that many of those who pursue teaching in middle and high schools versus those who chose to teach in elementary schools have different motivations from the start. The new high school and middle school teachers are less likely to say that teaching is something they've wanted to do for a long time (52 percent for secondary teachers versus 68 percent for elementary teachers) and they are less likely to strongly agree that it's what they really want to be doing now (47 percent versus 61 percent). What does get secondary teachers jazzed? Most new teachers say that the idea of teaching subjects they love and helping underprivileged students are more important reasons for choosing the profession than practical advantages such as summers off and job security. But for the new high school teachers, teaching a subject they love is an even more important factor. Ready, Set... Oh New middle and high school teachers are more likely to criticize their training for putting too much emphasis on theory compared to the practical demands of the classroom. More than half (53 percent) of new high school teachers say their preparation was too theoretical, while just 40 percent of new elementary teachers say this. Majorities of all new teachers voice a general level of satisfaction with their administrators and fellow teachers, but new high school and middle school teachers are less satisfied. The differences are especially notable in the teachers' assessments on the advice they get from other teachers and mentors. Just a quarter of new high school teachers (26 percent) say they get excellent advice on lesson plans and teaching techniques compared to 39 percent of elementary school teachers. There is also a 10-point difference on the advice they get about handling unmotivated students - 31 percent of high school teachers say they get excellent advice and 41 percent of grade school teachers say they get excellent advice on this. End Point: Pessimism For those concerned about teachers' ability to reach out to students of all backgrounds, perhaps the most disconcerting finding in the research is the very striking difference among the secondary school teachers on whether disadvantaged students can learn. While the vast majority of elementary teachers (80 percent) say that "good teachers can lead all students to learn, even those from poor families or who have uninvolved parents," significantly fewer (62 percent) of new secondary school teachers say this. Fifty-one percent of new high school and middle school teachers (compared to a 25 percent of elementary teachers) say that "too many unmotivated students just going through the motions" is a major drawback to teaching. New secondary school teachers are also somewhat more likely (41 percent) than elementary school teachers (33 percent) to consider "too many kids with discipline and behavior issues" a major drawback to teaching. Everyone Wants Smaller Class Sizes For strong majorities of the new teachers, regardless of their grade level, two items topped their list of recommendations for improving the profession overall. The first is reducing class sizes, and the second is giving teachers better preparation to individualize teaching in a diverse classroom. Public Agenda's surveys of teachers overall show a similar pattern - even teachers with more experience rank reducing class size as their top priority for improving education. How important is salary? New teachers are concerned about salary and lack of opportunity for growth, with a majority (78 percent) seeing it as either a major or minor drawback of the profession. But only a third of new teachers consider salary a major drawback to their profession, and this concern ranks well below issues such as unmotivated students, testing and classroom discipline problems. More than two-thirds of new teachers (68 percent) say it is possible for a teacher to make a decent living; new teachers overwhelmingly would choose better working conditions over higher salaries; and just 13 percent say merit pay and sanctions for student performance would be a very effective way to improve the profession. Methodology The findings in Issue 1 of "Lessons Learned: New Teachers Talk About Their Jobs, Their Challenges and Their Long-Term Plans" 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. The full report and complete questionnaire are available online at: http://www.publicagenda.org/LessonsLearned1 Public High School Students Do As Well As Private School Students, Report Finds No Difference Found Between the Academic Performance or College-Going Rates of Public and Private School Students Contradicting decades of research, a new report finds that, once family background characteristics are taken into account, low-income students attending public urban high schools generally performed as well academically as students attending private high schools. The report, issued by the Washington, D.C.- based Center on Education Policy (CEP), also found that the students at public high schools are as likely to attend college as those attending private high schools. According to the report, students attending independent private high schools, most types of parochial high schools, and public high schools of choice performed no better on achievement tests in math, reading, science, and history than students attending traditional public high schools. In addition, students attending any type of private high school were no more likely to attend college than those attending traditional public high schools. The report also finds that young adults who had attended any type of private high school were no more likely to enjoy job satisfaction or to be engaged in civic activities at age 26 than those who had attended traditional public high schools. The unique study is based on analyses of a nationally representative, longitudinal database of students and schools—the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988-2000, or NELS. Unlike other studies that have attempted to determine whether a private school advantage exists, CEP’s approach followed the progress of the same cohort of students over time, their achievement trends before entering high school, and aspects of family life that are critically important in shaping students’ academic, civic, and economic lives such as socioeconomic status and parental involvement. The report also looked at several long-term outcomes—not just achievement trends—and distinguished between the performance of students attending different types of public and private schools. “Contrary to popular belief, we can find no evidence that private schools actually increase student performance,” said Jack Jennings, president and CEO of CEP. “Instead, it appears that private schools simply have higher percentages of students who would perform well in any environment based on their previous performance and background.“ This report does note two exceptions to its main findings. First, it finds that students who attended independent private high schools had higher SAT scores than public school students, gaining an advantage in efforts to enroll at elite colleges. Second, the report indicates that students attending some private Catholic schools run by holy orders (such as Jesuit schools) instead of a diocese did see some positive academic effects. However, there are very few of these schools nationwide, as most Catholic schools are operated by their diocese. The report, Are Private High Schools Better Academically Than Public High Schools?, focuses primarily on the experience of low-income students in urban settings—those for whom policies of school choice are often aimed, on the grounds that they should have the same opportunities that wealthier students have. “Parents assume that private schools will improve the academic preparation of their children,” said Harold Wenglinsky, author of the study. “But the higher performance at private schools is more likely a reflection of the collective resources and support that these parents bring to the school than to factors intrinsic to the school setting.” The report is available online at Almost 90 Percent of Children Reported Experiencing Sexual Violence Almost 90% of teenagers aged 12-18 claim to have been victims of some level of sexual violence, according to a study conducted jointly by the University of Haifa and Ben Gurion University. The research surveyed 1,036 high school students. Additionally, 82% of the boys and 76% of the girls reported said that they had been subjects of violent physical assault. Prof. Rachel Lev-Wiesel from the University of Haifa's School of Social Work, one of the authors of the study, noted that the results showed a distressing increase in the incidence of violence – both sexual and physical - over the past few years. The number of criminal files opened by the police for assault against children rose from 6,370 in 1998 to 8,805 in 2005. According to the National Council for the Child, the number of children treated for suspected violent attacks or abuse in 2005 stood at more than 37,000, a rise of 120% over the past decade. Of the 37,000, 30.5% were reported physical violence, 9.9% sexual, 13% psychological and 36.8% varying degrees of neglect. Prof. Lev-Wiesel stressed that the aim of the research was to examine the personal and social factors that help adolescents cope with the trauma of a violent assault. A questionnaire was completed anonymously by over 1,000 high school students. The questionnaire measured six variables: demography, physical and sexual assaults, PTSD, potency and social support from family and friends. According to the researchers, there is a distinct correlation between a child's feeling of potency and the level of traumatic symptoms exhibited following a violent attack. The study found a distinctive difference in the personal resources and the level of psychological distress of the children who suffered violent attacks as opposed to those who did not – whether the violence was limited to one incident or continuing and whether the attack was considered minor or severe. Boys in the study reported a higher incidence of sexual and physical violence than girls. "The results of the research show that a feeling of potency and support of family and friends are important resources which have the potential to reduce the resulting trauma following assault. In addition to the importance of developing programs to decrease the incidence of violence, these is a need for programs for empowerment and strengthening personal resources that will protect those who have already fallen victim to violence," summarized Prof. Lev-Wiesel. The results of the study were presented at a conference, held on October 10, 2007, in cooperation with the University of Haifa, announcing the establishment of a non-profit organization founded by academics, professionals in the fields of social services and healthcare, lawmakers and the media to fight the rising incidence of violence and propose concrete solutions for aiding victims. The Narrowing Gap in New York City Teacher Qualifications and its Implications for Student Achievement in High-Poverty Schools In this research the authors explore the how the distribution of teacher qualifications and student achievement in New York City have changed from 2000 through 2005 using data on teachers and students. The authors find: the gap between the qualifications of New York City teachers in high-poverty schools and low-poverty schools has narrowed substantially over this period, the gap-narrowing associated with new hires has been driven almost entirely by the substitution of teachers entering through alternative certification routes, for uncertified teachers in high-poverty schools, these changes resulted from a direct policy intervention eliminating unlicensed teachers, and perhaps most intriguing, much larger gains could result if teachers with strong teacher qualifications could be recruited. View the working paper PDF: Staying Back to Move Forward: Impact of Test-Based Grade Retention on Florida Students In 2002, Florida adopted a test-based promotion policy in the third grade in an attempt to end social promotion. Similar policies are currently operating in Texas, New York City, and Chicago and affect at least 17 percent of public school students nationwide. Using individual-level data on the universe of public school students in Florida, the authors analyzed the impact of grade retention on student proficiency in reading one and two years after the retention decision. An analysis of the impact of a promotion and retention policy in Florida public schools adds to the limited research on test-based promotion and suggests its value to students. A study by University of Arkansas researchers Jay P. Greene and Marcus A. Winters showed that when students who didn’t pass the state accountability test repeated third grade, “they learned at a faster rate than if they had been promoted.” “Third grade is seen as a pivotal year because if students don’t learn the foundations, such as reading, they have great difficulty learning in future grades,” Greene said. “Traditionally the view of educators has been that retaining students stigmatizes them so that they give up, but this evidence suggests that students may be more harmed if they are pushed into the next grade for which they are not prepared.” Greene and Winters analyzed two years of data showing student test scores and progress, with results that held true through two methods of data analysis. The authors use an instrumental variable (IV) approach made available by the relatively objective nature of Florida's policy. In an article in a recent issue of Education Finance and Policy, published by MIT Press, the researchers concluded that their study provided evidence that “Florida’s policy has substantially improved the academic proficiency of the lowest-performing students in the state.” Because the data from Florida schools allowed Greene and Winters to track individual performance on tests, they were able to compare students who were retained with students who were promoted. The researchers found that students who were retained did slightly better than socially promoted students in reading in the first year after retention and substantially better in the second year. “That the impact of the policy for reading scores grows after two years is consistent with the idea that retained students will continue to gain ground in reading relative to promoted students in later years as academic material becomes more difficult,” the researchers wrote. In fact, the researchers found that students who had been retained demonstrated higher academic skills when they entered fifth grade than the promoted students did upon leaving fifth grade. Nationally, more than 17 percent of public school students are required to show a level of academic preparation on a standardized test to be promoted to the next grade. In the past, decisions about promotion and retention were subjective, resulting from consultation among teachers, administrators and parents. As a result, it was difficult for researchers to pull together comparable data or arrive at useful conclusions. “The existence of more objective retention policies across the nation now provides researchers with an opportunity to create more meaningful groups with which to compare retained students than were available to researchers previously,” Greene and Winters wrote. They suggest that education researchers should focus on the data available from objective retention policies “to reopen the empirical discovery of the effect of grade retention.” Greene and Winters point to the need for further study to understand the longer-term effects of Florida’s retention policy, such as the probability that a student who repeated the third grade would go on to graduate from high school. They also note that test-based retention policies in other grades could have different effects. For example, it is possible that the negative effect on self-esteem could increase in the later grades, “as students become more attached to their peers.” Greene holds an endowed chair and is head of the department of education reform in the College of Education and Health Professions, University of Arkansas. Winters is a University of Arkansas Doctoral Academy Fellow in economics. Full paper: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/edfp.2007.2.4.319 Teacher Credentials and Student Achievement in High School The authors use data on statewide end-of-course tests in North Carolina to examine the relationship between teacher credentials and student achievement at the high school level. The availability of test scores in multiple subjects for each student permits us to estimate a model with student fixed effects, which helps minimize any bias associated with the non-random distribution of teachers and students among classrooms within schools. the authors find compelling evidence that teacher credentials affect student achievement in systematic ways and that the magnitudes are large enough to be policy relevant. As a result, the uneven distribution of teacher credentials by race and socio-economic status of high school students--a pattern the authors also document--contributes to achievement gaps in high school. View the working paper PDF: We ask schools to do a lot of things in addition to preparing our kids to compete in the global economy. Schools have traditionally been thought of as the primary providers of comprehensive drug and alcohol prevention education. Teaching about the dangers of drugs and alcohol is included in the state education requirements of 37 states. In April 2006, Join Together and Communitas Online, with funding from the Gift of the Magi Foundation, conducted a survey of kindergarten through twelfth-grade educators in the U.S. The survey’s goals were to learn how drug and alcohol education is actually taught, identify barriers teachers face in teaching prevention, and identify the types of training, support, and materials educators need to improve the effectiveness of their alcohol and drug use prevention efforts. A national advisory committee of experts in education met several times to discuss the survey results and formulate recommendations on how we can move forward to help delay, reduce, and prevent drug and alcohol use among children and adolescents. Based on the findings of our survey and other research, we conclude that schools should not be relied on as the primary element in the country's efforts to prevent the early initiation and consequences of alcohol and drug use. RECOMMENDATIONS This report is organized around five recommendations that evolved from what educators told us is effective and where they need more help and support. Recommendation 1: Recommendation 2: Recommendation 3: Recommendation 4: Recommendation 5: Download the survey report: Anti-gay Slurs May Be Damaging to Heterosexual Students Too A study of middle-school students in Central Illinois has found that being called anti-gay names significantly predicts higher levels of trauma for students regardless of sexual orientation. Such name-calling may lead to anxiety, depression, personal distress, and a lower sense of school belonging. “These results are another indication that verbal bullying in schools should not be tolerated,” said Dr. Robert-Jay Green, executive director of the Rockway Institute at Alliant International University. “Unfortunately, anti-gay name-calling is often viewed by adults as part of growing up and is tolerated by school officials, but this study finds the behavior is damaging to all students.” The study, “Predicting Psychosocial Consequences of Homophobic Victimization in Middle School Students,” was conducted by V. Paul Poteat and Dorothy L. Espelage of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and published in The Journal of Early Adolescence (May 2007; Vol. 27, No. 2; pp.175 -191). Among a group of 143 seventh graders, Poteat and Espelage examined the extent to which being the target of anti-gay name-calling over a one week period predicted psychological effects after controlling for students’ previously reported levels of psychological functioning. In seventh grade, these students reported their level of anxiety, depression, school belonging, and social withdrawal. The students were surveyed again a year later, when they were in the eighth grade, and they again reported these conditions as well as the frequency with which they were called homophobic epithets by other students. The sexual orientation of the students was not known, but it was assumed that the vast majority of students were heterosexual. The results indicate that “being the victim of homophobic name-calling is a serious concern and significantly predicts several negative psychosocial outcomes,” stated the researchers. Also, there were differences between the sexes. For males, being the recipient of name-calling was significantly linked with anxiety, depression, personal distress, and a lower sense of school belonging. For females, being the object of name-calling was connected with higher levels of social withdrawal. These gender differences may be related to the more general use of name-calling in male groups to establish “dominance hierarchies” (that is, to show ‘who’s boss’) and the use of name-calling in female groups to exclude others from participation in activities. The researchers recommend that although name-calling may “appear to be harmless banter between friends, teachers and administrators should intervene during these occurrences, and school policies should specifically address and seek to decrease these occurrences.” The study also indicates that “school counselors should be open to discussing antigay bullying and victimization when counseling and working with students who are victimized by their peers…” The authors of the study concluded: “Existing research has underscored the traumatizing effects of homophobic victimization for gay and lesbian students, and this investigation suggests that homophobic victimization can also be detrimental to heterosexual students, further underscoring the relevancy of this issue for teachers, administrators, and school counselors.” Dr. Green added: “Based on research findings like these, several states and many individual school districts in the U.S. have established ‘safe school’ policies that prohibit antigay name-calling. Any child could find themselves the target of antigay humiliation and exclusion for not fitting in with the crowd on a particular day or week at school. Hopefully this study will encourage school personnel to take this form of bullying more seriously.” Male Adolescent Athletes More Likely to Be Aggressors For years, proponents of high school athletics have pointed out the positive aspects of youth sports, such as increased bonds to school, self-esteem, achievement, competition, and fair play. However, youth sports have also been marred with high-profile accounts of brawling, sexual assault, and bullying. New sociological research from Pennsylvania State University, published in the October issue of the American Sociological Review, answers the question, “Are these activities promoting fair play and sportsmanship, or are they encouraging violence?” Lead author Derek Kreager shows male adolescent athletes who participate in contact sports such as football and wrestling face an increased likelihood of violence by over 40% compared to non-athletes. This study argues that when youth are rewarded for on-the-field violence, there is a flawed expectation that these lessons will not be taken off-the field. Of the 6,400 male adolescents Kreager studied, 25% played football and 7% wrestled. Professor Kreager said, “The results suggest that sports fail to protect males from interpersonal violence. Indeed, contact sports are positively associated with male serious fighting.” Kreager is not surprised at the results. He looks to the culture surrounding high school football to explain the sports–violence relationship. He says, “On the one hand, parents, coaches, and communities expect athletes to abide by conventional rules, with the threat of team expulsion deterring misbehavior. On the other hand, these same groups provide contact-sport athletes with situational definitions that support violence as a means of attaining ‘battlefield’ victories, increasing peer status, and asserting ‘warrior’ identities.” Professor Kreager suggests that in the classroom, constraint and conformity are expected of contact-sports athletes, but in informal peer situations, power and aggression help male athletes to maintain their status within their peer groups and live up to their masculine reputations. Kreager believes sports programs, including coaches and parents, ultimately need to emphasize self-control and respect, rather than domination, to reduce sports-related violence. This he says, “increases the likelihood that aggression will be contained within the sport and potentially reduced in non-sporting contexts. It is the values emphasized in the program that can positively affect development.” Verbal Abuse by Teacher During Childhood May Increase Risk of Early Sexual Intercourse Verbal abuse by a teacher is directly associated with early onset of sexual intercourse, especially among girls. Researchers followed 312 children in primary school to examine the links between peer rejection and verbal abuse by a teacher during childhood with early onset of sexual intercourse and the mediating role of delinquent behavior and low self-esteem. Verbal abuse by teacher, peer rejection and antisocial behavior among students was assessed each year from kindergarten to fourth grade. Self-esteem and early sexual intercourse were assessed in seventh grade. After controlling for gender, early deviant characteristics during childhood and pubertal status, researchers found that verbal abuse by teacher during childhood is directly associated with early sexual intercourse and indirectly by its link with delinquent behavior, especially among girls. In addition, peer rejection was indirectly associated with a higher risk of early sexual intercourse by its link to self-esteem, but only among girls. “Our findings emphasize the importance of teacher education and early prevention efforts with disruptive children in order to prevent later sexually risky behavior and potential negative health outcomes in both genders,” the study’s authors said. [From: Peer and Teacher Effects On the Early Onset of Sexual Intercourse. ] Legislation to improve environmental education in America’s public schools is gaining momentum in Congress and has picked up support from a coalition of more than 100 organizations representing more than 14 million members around the country, including the National Wildlife Federation and led by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. The legislation, the No Child Left Inside Act, which amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (also known as No Child Left Behind), would provide significant new funding for states to strengthen environmental education – through high-quality teaching standards, teacher training and the creation of state environmental literacy plans, which would ensure that students have a solid grasp of environmental issues. “We cannot expect the next generation to deal with the impacts of major conservation problems like global warming and habitat loss without a solid educational foundation about the natural world in which they live,” says Kevin Coyle, Vice President of Education for the National Wildlife Federation. “Leaving our children ill-equipped to deal with the potentially catastrophic consequences of global warming left behind by this generation, is adding insult to injury.” The legislation represents a major new commitment to environmental instruction. According to environmental education organizations, one of the unintended consequences of No Child Left Behind, which was enacted five years ago, is that many schools have abandoned environmental education programs to invest more time and resources in math and reading instruction. In the classroom, No Child Left Behind causes science teachers to bypass environmental science when it does not appear to relate directly to the high-stakes tests required by the law. Beyond the classroom, teachers have to forego valuable, hands-on field investigations rather than take time away from test-related instruction. In many cases, field trips and outdoor environmental activities have been entirely curtailed, leaving kids with no understanding of the complex environmental challenges confronting our country and the world. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that children today are so overscheduled and “plugged in” to electronic devices from computers to video games, that they are becoming completely disconnected from nature and the sense of wonder and excitement that come with it. Research has shown that if children don’t have any significant interaction with nature by the time they are 11 years old, it’s unlikely they will grow up caring about it or passing on any conservation values to their children. “Without experiencing nature today, we won’t have any environmental stewards tomorrow,” continues Coyle. A National Science Foundation panel noted in 2003 that “in the coming decades, the public will more frequently be called upon to understand complex environmental issues, assess risk, evaluate proposed environmental plans and understand how individual decisions affect the environment at local and global scales. Creating a scientifically informed citizenry requires a concerted, systemic approach to environmental education…” To date, the No Child Left Inside Act has won support from major environmental organizations such as the National Wildlife Federation, Audubon and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, as well as the National Education Association, business groups and health-related organizations, including the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In the House of Representatives, the legislation (H.R. 3036) is sponsored by Rep. John P. Sarbanes of Maryland and has bi-partisan support. In the Senate, S. 1981 is sponsored by Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island. According to the bill’s authors, the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind law this year provides Congress with the opportunity to make changes that will strengthen the Act and better prepare students for real-world challenges and careers. No Child Left Behind must provide schools and school systems with the incentives, flexibility, and authority to develop and deliver valuable environmental education programs. The name “No Child Left Inside” is used with permission of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. Poor Italian Schoolboys Have Lessons for Today's Teachers A veteran teacher, administrator and education researcher is reviving interest in one of the classic stories of 20th-century education -- the experiences of disadvantaged schoolboys inspired to overcome discouragement and adversity by their teacher, who also was a priest in their remote Italian village. "You Won't Remember Me: The Schoolboys of Barbiana Speak to Today," published by Teacher's College Press at Columbia University, is an account of the school where students learned to overcome social-class limitations. "It resonates today as educators help socially disadvantaged students realize their potentials," said Marvin Hoffman, founding director of the University of Chicago's North Kenwood Oakland Charter School. He is also Senior Research Associate at the University's Center for Urban School Improvement and Associate Director of the University's Urban Teacher Education Program. "I'm not sure how any book, in literature or social sciences, earns the classics label. For me, it simply means that it had a major impact on a whole generation -- my generation -- of teachers, and it confirmed the belief that teaching could be a means to bring greater equity to our inequitable society," Hoffman said. The schoolboys in the small Tuscan town brought discouragement with them when they came to the small school operated by maverick priest Don Lorenzo Milani. Born into poor families, these schoolboys had been told by former teachers that their futures were limited. But they succeeded by learning to write and think for themselves in Milani's classroom. They spent long hours there and took part in yearlong projects. They wrote essays in the form of letters to convey their opinions about social class and to challenge their former teachers. Those essays were collected in a book, "Letter to a Teacher" ("Lettera a una professoressa"), published in 1967, which became an indictment of the way the boys had been treated in conventional Italian schools. It was a best seller in several languages, and Hoffman looks afresh at the book to see what lessons it has for today. The first paragraph of the book, a letter addressed to a composite teacher, sets the tone and provides the title for Hoffman's work: "You won't remember me or my name. You have flunked so many of us ... You flunk us right out into the fields and factories and there you forget us," the student wrote. Hoffman read the book shortly after its English version became available in 1970. It has inspired his own work, and he has shared it with other teachers. "During the first year of our new UTEP (Urban Teachers Education Program), I read some excerpts from my weather-beaten copy to our students and found that it resonated with them in the ways it had when I was at their stage," he said. "So I felt it deserved to be back in the world because the problems the schoolboys were addressing had not improved one whit." Teachers are trained in UTEP to become effective in working with disadvantaged students in urban schools. The lessons of the book also have guided administrators working on the expansion of the University Charter School campus. "When we were planning our new University of Chicago Woodlawn campus high school, we became committed to the principle that 'standards are fixed, time is flexible,'" he explained. Urban schools seeking to improve outcomes for students frequently have to increase the amount of time students spend in school. At Barbiana, school was in session 12 hours a day, 363 days a year. "Expanding time in school is what we do in our charter schools, by adding tutoring time, summer time and after-school time. This is based on the belief that all children can learn," Hoffman said. Schools also need to reflect the reality of students' experiences, Milani believed. John Dewey, an early Chicago professor who founded the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, also respected that principle, as do teachers and administrators at the University Charter School campuses. "There are so many ways in which the schoolboys of Barbiana point up the way in which school is organized to favor the children of the doctors, not the peasant children," Hoffman said. "School doesn't reflect their reality, especially the school of high-stakes testing. The schoolboys had the capacity to be great teachers, but couldn't pass the teachers' exam. Success in school, as it was constituted, would only rip them from their communal moorings, and that was a deal they were not prepared to make." The school organized by Milani respected the boys as learners, while also respecting their backgrounds, practices that made his school flourish, as do schools that have followed Barbiana's example. Native Language Governs the Way Toddlers Interpret Speech Sounds, According to Penn Study Toddlers are learning language skills earlier than expected and by the age of 18 months understand enough of the lexicon of their own language to recognize how speakers use sounds to convey meaning. They also ignore sounds that don’t play a significant role in speaking their native tongue, according to a study by a University of Pennsylvania psychologist. The study shows how important the child’s first year is in acquiring language. By listening to their parents and learning words, children discover how speech in their language works, a process that is vital for gaining command of vocabulary and grammar. This is the first time scientists have shown that children as young as 18 months actively interpret the phonetic characteristics of their particular language when they learn words. Previously, scientists had speculated that this ability would emerge much later in life, once children had already amassed large vocabularies. Previous research showed that at birth infants can distinguish most of the phonetic contrasts used by all the world’s languages. This ‘‘universal’’ capacity shifts over the first year to a language-specific pattern in which infants retain or improve categorization of native-language sounds but fail to discriminate many non-native sounds. Eventually, they learn to ignore subtle speech distinctions that their language does not use. This is why Japanese toddlers, like Japanese adults, cannot tell apart the English “r” and “l” sounds and why English speakers have trouble with certain French vowels because they all sound the same to non-native speakers due to language learning in infancy. The Penn study shows that even when two words sound very different, toddlers know whether to take this difference seriously or to chalk it up to random variation depending on how their language works. “The results demonstrate that at 18 months children have a rudimentary understanding of the ‘sound system’ of their language and that knowledge guides their interpretation of the sounds they encounter,” said Daniel Swingley, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Penn who worked with colleagues from the University of British Columbia and the Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics. “Children can easily hear how the same word can be pronounced in different ways. We might say, ‘Is that your kiiiiiitty"’ or, ‘Show me the kitty.’ In English, we’re still talking about the same cat. But children have to figure this out. In other languages, like Japanese or Finnish, those two versions of “kitty” could mean completely different things. Our study showed that 18-month-olds have already learned this and apply that knowledge when learning new words.” Psychologists tested vowel duration (“kitty” versus “kiiiitty”) in three experiments comparing Dutch- and English-learning 18-month-olds. Children were shown two different toys. With one toy, researchers repeated a word dozens of times, naming it a “tam.” The other toy was named too, with the same label only with the vowel acoustically longer in duration (“taam”). English learners did not somehow lack the cognitive power to learn both words. They can hear the difference between the words, and they succeed on words that really are different in English (“tam” vs. “tem”). The difference arose from the phonological generalizations children had already made from their brief experience with English: “tam” and “taam”, like “kitty” and “kiiiitty”, mean the same thing. Dutch children, on the other hand, interpreted vowel duration as lexically contrastive in keeping with the properties of their language. Report: Pre-K Momentum Climbs to an All-Time High A record-breaking 36 states increased funding for pre-kindergarten according to a report released today by Pre-K Now. "Votes Count: Legislative Action on Pre-K Fiscal Year 2008," an annual state-by-state analysis of legislative support for pre-k, shows historic momentum for funding early education across the country, with 528 million new dollars committed to providing at least 88,000 more children access to pre-k. The number of states increasing pre-k funding breaks last year's record of 34, and far exceeds the FY05 record of 15. "Investing in pre-k is increasingly recognized as smart public policy at both the state and federal level," said Libby Doggett, executive director for Pre-K Now. "States play a vital role in preparing future generations for success in education and in life. By making pre-k a priority, state legislators help parents make the most of their children’s critical early learning years." Iowa stands out for becoming one of seven states that are now providing or phasing in pre-k for all children, while three states - Arkansas, Louisiana and Oregon - moved to fully fund pre-k for all eligible at-risk children - a strong step toward providing pre-k for all. Notably, Florida, the only state with a voter mandate to provide pre-k for all 4-year-olds, was the lone state to decrease funding for pre-k. "Votes Count" also highlights the spirit of bipartisanship that characterizes legislative work on the issue. It examines the "trickle up" phenomenon playing out at the federal level as well, with key members of Congress recently introducing bills to provide federal support for state pre-k programs and quality improvements within them. Additional report findings include:
http://www.preknow.org/documents/LegislativeReport_Sept2007.pdf Latino Children Lagging Behind in Pre-K Enrollment Nationally Latino children make up more than 20 percent (4.2 million) of the under five population in this country, and in some key states they add up to an even larger percentage. But according to a study by the organization Pre-K Now, titled "Pre-K and Latinos: The Foundation for America's Future," only 40 percent of Hispanic children aged three to five are enrolled in early education programs nationally, compared to 59 percent of Caucasians and 64 percent of African Americans. The same study found that around 2.5 million Latino children have no access to early education. Financial and logistical barriers, as well as lack of information about the availability of pre-k programs, are in great part responsible for this enrollment gap according to a majority of parents interviewed in an opinion poll conducted by the Tomás Rivera Policy institute for Pre-K Now. Full study: The New York Times Magazine / mtvU Poll Advises High School Seniors to ‘Chill Out’ over Choice of College A new national poll of recent college graduates by The New York Times Magazine and mtvU suggests that high school seniors anxious about their college choices ought to forget rankings, chill out and savor the best years of their lives. The nationwide poll of nearly 300 recent college graduates under age 30, conducted by telephone this summer with mtvU, MTV’s 24-hour college network, reveals they are satisfied with the choices they made about where to go to college and with the educations they received. It also shows that the moments in college life that make a difference have nothing to do with brand marketing or college rankings. The poll is the centerpiece of The New York Times Magazine College Issue, which publishes Sept. 30. It will also be available on Sept. 29 at www.nytimes.com/magazine. The poll was conducted June 15-23; it has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 6 percentage points. Separate online surveys conducted by The Times during the summer polled more than 1,300 graduates, most in the class of 2002, from three institutions: the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school; Reed College, a small liberal arts school in Portland, Ore.; and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, a state university. Five years ago, when these graduates were high school seniors frantic about SAT scores, they were focused on college brand names and reputations, as well as the rankings by many magazines. Today, about one-third of Penn and Michigan alumni said that the rankings seemed ‘‘less important’’ to them now than they did in high school. Graduates of both universities were more likely to cite the friendships they made at school. At Reed, which doesn’t even supply data to magazines, students are encouraged to choose a college for what it stands for rather than where it stands in the rankings. Jim Schachter, deputy editor, The New York Times Magazine, said he hoped that this special issue “shows students and parents that they can get past the drumbeat of worry, anxiety and anticipation that comes with choosing a college. If we’ve learned anything from our poll, it’s the message that those in the process should relax a little and think more about the qualities they are seeking in a college experience than the bragging rights that come with admission to any particular school.” Respondents were asked questions like whether their undergraduate education was worth the money; what proved valuable in their college experience that prepared them for life beyond college; and whether it is possible to succeed in work without a college education. Additional questions asked the recent alumni whether annual college rankings in magazines seemed more or less important now than when they were applying to schools, and what they most valued – and most regretted – about their college experience. An analysis of the national poll reveals that 93 percent of recent graduates rated their experience as “excellent” or “good.” Looking back, 42 percent said magazine rankings of undergraduate colleges were less important now. College was worth the money, said 89 percent; and 75 percent in the national poll said their undergraduate education prepared them for the jobs they currently hold. Yet when asked whether it is possible to succeed in work without a college education, 52 percent said it was not necessary. There were some surprises in the regret category. Some recent graduates say they didn’t socialize enough, play enough, have fun and or take full advantage of extra-curricular activities offered by the school while 18 percent regretted not taking school seriously enough and playing too much. Times reporter Jacques Steinberg, who writes about the poll results for The Magazine in “Don’t Worry. Be Students.” said the responses suggested that perhaps the critics of college lists “are onto something: maybe the devaluing of the rankings can serve as a tonic to the unrelenting obsession they foster among many applicants and their parents.” The College Issue also features an essay by Nicholas Handler, a junior at Yale University, who bested 600 other entrants to win The Magazine’s essay contest for college students. Students were asked to read an article by author and historian Rick Perlstein that contrasts college culture today with that of the 1960s and 1970s and submit an essay in response. Mr. Perlstein argues that the experience of going to college has become uninspiring, offering students more of what they’ve grown up with rather than startling them with new ideas and belief systems. Additional online features, available at www.nytimes.com/magazine, include an original film about campus suicides by filmmaker Deirdre Fishel and a special interactive feature that allows users to search for, read and discuss more than 450 entries in The New York Times Magazine College Essay Contest. The site will also be the only place to read the essays of the four runners-up in the contest, with audio of Mr. Handler reading his winning essay. National Student Satisfaction and Priorities Report Are college students satisfied with their educational experiences? Each year, the National Student Satisfaction and Priorities Report examines this subject, compiling data from hundreds of thousands of students attending four-year public campuses, four-year private institutions, two-year community colleges, and private two-year career schools. This report highlights some key areas, including how satisfaction levels differ by student demographic, how satisfaction varies by institutional choice, and whether today’s students—if they had to do it all over—would choose the campuses they currently attend. In particular, these findings stand out:
Institutional choice is a very significant factor in forecasting students’ satisfaction and how likely they are to remain at their institutions Regardless of the institution type, students who enroll at their fi rst-choice institution express greater satisfaction. Offer of Chocolate Changes the Way Students See a Professor, Study Finds Can the simple offer of chocolate from a stranger change the way students view their professors, particularly at evaluation time? The answer is yes, according to a soon-to-be published study by Cal State Northridge assistant professor of psychology Robert Youmans and Benjamin D. Jee, a researcher at Northwestern University. Their study, "Fudging the Numbers: Distributing Chocolate Influences Student Evaluations of an Undergraduate Course," is expected to appear in the fall edition of the journal Teaching of Psychology. "What we were looking at was whether outside influences could affect a situation where people like to believe they are being fair and even-handed in judging something or someone, in this case giving an evaluation of a professor," Youmans said. "But the implications of what we found could go beyond the classroom. Who knows how news about something like what happened at Abu Ghraib prison affected the decisions people made that day?" The idea for the study grew from a conversation between Youmans, who joined CSUN's faculty in August, and Jee while they were both graduate students at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Both were taking a teaching practicum and speculated about how student evaluations of their teaching would impact their futures. "Student evaluations of a professor have major influence on what happens to the professor's career - whether a university or college chooses to retain him, give him tenure and even teaching assignments," Youmans said. "We began wondering if outside influences could affect how students rated a professor. People pride themselves in being fair and objective when they are asked to give an assessment of someone else's performance, such as evaluating a professor. But what if they really aren't being objective? What if something else could influence their judgments?" To test their theory, Youmans visited undergraduate classes with laboratory sections, study sections led by a teaching assistant that drew students from a larger lecture into two smaller groups. In one group, Youmans passed out the evaluations and collected them when the students were finished. In the second group, when it was time for the students to assess their professor's performance, Youmans repeated what was done in the first class, except he offered the students chocolate, saying it was leftover from a prior event, while passing out the evaluations. Youmans and Jee repeated the experiment in three different classes, and each time the result was the same: The groups that received the offer of chocolate gave their professors higher ratings than the groups that were not offered candy, even though students from either group were rating a class and instructor that they had experienced together. "I should point out that not everyone in the classes offered chocolate took the candy. Also, we made it clear in all the classes that we were not affiliated with the professor, just 'strangers' asked to pass out and retrieve the evaluations," Youmans said. "But we found that the good feelings brought on by the offer of chocolate from a complete stranger, even in those students who didn't accept the candy, affected the professors' evaluations in a positive way." At the very least, Youmans said, the study offers a caution to university officials as they consider student evaluations of professors. "They should be aware that the evaluations may not be as objective as they would like them to be, and should keep in mind a bad experience - say a horrible test in the class before - may affect how the students rate the professor who had the misfortune to have his class follow the test, " he said. "But really, this could be much bigger than just chocolate," Youmans said. "The implications are that bad news, such as the stuff about what happened at Abu Ghraib prison, or something as simple as a kind gesture by a stranger can affect how people react or make decisions later." Programs Show Short-term Benefits in Helping Children Maintain Weight Loss Children who lost weight were able to keep it off more effectively by participating in maintenance treatment programs that emphasized behavioral skills or social facilitation, although the effectiveness lessened over time, according to a study in the October 10 issue of JAMA. The prevalence of overweight among children in the United States has tripled in recent decades and related health care costs have nearly quadrupled, according to background information in the article. “Lifestyle interventions remain the most well-established interventions for overweight 7- to 12-year-olds. Although some evidence supports long-term efficacy, maintaining weight loss remains a challenge, with most interventions marked by considerable relapse,” the authors write. Denise E. Wilfley, Ph.D., of Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, and colleagues evaluated the effects of two interventions following standard family-based behavioral weight loss treatment: a behavioral skills maintenance (BSM) and a social facilitation maintenance (SFM) intervention, compared to no intervention. The BSM approach is based on the premise that specific strategies are needed for weight loss maintenance, emphasizing self-regulation behaviors and relapse-prevention strategies. The SFM approach is based on the premise that relapse results from the absence of a social environment supportive of continued weight control. This approach also targets peer (e.g., teasing) and self-perceptual (e.g., body image) factors identified as barriers to overweight children’s physical activity. The randomized controlled trial, conducted between October 1999 and July 2004 in a university-based weight control clinic, included 204 healthy 7- to 12-year-olds, 20 percent to 100 percent above median (midpoint) body mass index (BMI) for age and sex, with at least one overweight parent. Children enrolled in five months of weight loss treatment and 150 were randomized to one of three maintenance conditions: control group or four months of BSM or SFM treatment. Follow-up assessments occurred immediately following maintenance treatments and 1 and 2 years following randomization. The researchers found that children receiving either BSM or SFM maintained relative weight significantly better than children assigned to the control group from randomization to postweight maintenance. Active maintenance treatment effectiveness relative to the control group declined during follow-up, but the effects of SFM alone and when analyzed together with BSM were significantly better than the control group when examining certain BMI score outcomes from baseline to 2-year follow-up. Baseline child social problem scores moderated child relative weight change from baseline to 2-year follow-up, with low social problem children in SFM vs. the control group having the best outcomes. There were no significant differences in child weight outcomes between BSM and SFM in either the short-term or long-term. “The alarming prevalence of child overweight necessitates the development of more effective long-term intervention strategies. Our study demonstrated that extended treatment contact with either a continued BSM focus or a novel SFM focus improves weight loss maintenance in a childhood overweight population in comparison with a weight loss program alone at least in the short-term, with some evidence for sustained long-term efficacy among more socially adept children receiving an SFM treatment,” the researchers write. New Study Says Teachers Need More Bully Prevention Training National Bullying Prevention Week is October 22-28, but researchers say it will take more than a few days of raising awareness to make a difference in the classroom or playground. Bullying prevention takes more than addressing the bully or the victim, says Meline Kevorkian, Ed.D, associate dean of master’s and educational specialist programs at the Fischler School of Education at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “It requires changing the culture of the school, including bullies, victims, bystanders, educators and administrators,” she says. “Children see bullying happening in the classroom or playground and that the teachers don’t even address it. They think it’s normal.” Kevorkian is the lead author of new research – to be published in early 2008 – suggesting that educators want more training to understand and reduce bullying. “Research has indicated that bullying in schools is prevalent, unmanaged and has a direct impact on student quality of life and academic experiences,” she says. “Ninety-two percent of the educators we surveyed acknowledge the link between bullying and school violence. Sixty-four percent agree it negatively impacts academic achievement.” Her survey of educators worldwide found that while 88 percent of educators agreed that they play a large role in bullying prevention, only half were aware of a bullying policy at their school or had a bullying prevention plan. Most surprising to Kevorkian was how strongly felt was the need for training for teachers before they set foot in their first class room. “Ninety-three percent felt that bullying prevention should be taught to pre-service teachers,” she says. “Teachers know they need to watch out for bullying, but they don’t really know what to do, how to address parents about bullying, and how to get a school culture that values empathy and characters as much as standardized test scores.” Bullies and Victims More At Risk of Being Victims of Other Crimes Bullies and their victims are more likely to be victims of other crimes than youth who are not exposed to bullying, according to new research from the Family Research Laboratory and the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. The research is presented in the article “Hidden Forms of Victimization in Elementary Students Involved in Bullying,” which appears in most recent issue of School Psychology Review. The article is authored by Melissa Holt, David Finkelhor, and Glenda Kaufman Kantor with the Family Research Laboratory and Crimes Against Children Research Center. The researchers surveyed nearly 700 fifth-graders living in an urban area in the Northeast. They found that youth involved in bullying in any capacity, whether as bullies, victims, or both -- bully-victims -- were more likely to report that they were victims of other crimes than youth who were not involved in bullying in any capacity. The rates of victimization were particularly striking for bully-victims, who reported markedly higher levels of being victims of conventional crime (e.g. theft, attacks by unknown individuals), child maltreatment (e.g. physical abuse, neglect), sexual victimization (e.g. sexual abuse), and peer and sibling victimization (e.g. being hit by other kids). Nearly 85 percent of the youths classified as bully-victims had been the victims of a conventional crime and more than 30 percent were victims of a sexual crime. “Bully-victims experience a constellation of problems such as lack of school success, social isolation, and problem behaviors, which, taken together, put bully-victims at risk for deleterious outcomes. Further, the high victimization rates among bully-victims also helps to explain why long-term outcomes for this group are often poor, and why, at times, they end up needing psychiatric help,” Holt said. The researchers also uncovered eye-opening research about victimization rates for bullies. Although bullies are primarily perpetrators at school, they often are victimized at home and in the community, and often are victims of conventional crime. Researchers found that more than 70 percent of the students classified as bullies also were conventional crime victims. “Certain characteristics of bullies, such as aggressiveness, may make them more prone to victimizations such as being attacked on the street. Without a tendency to walk away from confrontations, conflicts might escalate and result in a crime being committed against the bully,” Holt said. “And because bullies tend to associate with other aggressive youth, they may experience more incidents of crime outside of school at the hands of these associates. For instance, friends might break their things or steal something from them. Or, it might be that because bullies are used to being in positions of power, they incite resentment and competitive aggression from others desiring power, which results in the bully becoming victimized,” she said. This study raises a number of issues regarding how to implement bullying prevention programs, both in and outside of schools. Researchers also note that the label of bully-victim underplays and minimizes the seriousness of victimization some youth in this category experience. Similarly, the label of bully obscures the fact that some bullies experience considerable victimization. “Individuals who design and implement bullying prevention programs should recognize that although bullies are perpetrators at school, they might be victims at home or in the community. Accordingly, in addition to efforts in existing bullying prevention programs aimed at helping bullies to diminish their aggressive behaviors, programs should be expanded to address the internalizing problems youth might have experienced as a result of being victimized,” Holt said. Keep Schools Open After Shooting, Psychologist Advises “Schools have a tendency to close for the entire week (after a shooting incident) which I am generally opposed to,” says Dr. Scott Poland, professor of psychology at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and the author of four books on school crises. “At the very least schools should be open for counseling the day after. Let kids and parents know that teachers and counselors are there and it won’t be a regular academic day but kids can come in and get help,” says Poland who has served on national crisis teams after numerous school shootings including those in Littleton, CO, and Red Lake, MN. About 60 percent of students bounce back after school shootings with little or no psychological damage, Poland says. Another 20 percent will suffer minor psychological problems. A final 20 percent are at risk for major problems. “What needs to happen is a psychological triage,” he says. “There are three circles of vulnerability. The first circle includes those students and staff who were in close physical proximity to the shootings. The second circle includes those who were in close social proximity to the shooting victims—people who were their close friends or roommates, for example. The third circle is comprised of people who have had a history of trauma or violence in their family.” Poland says the problem in the immediate aftermath of school shootings is that people focus on why the massacre occurred instead of what the survivors need. “We never seem to get much of an explanation as to why—and there is always a lot of second-guessing about what could have been done differently. But the most frustrating thing about that is that we need to focus on the mental health and psychological needs of the people who have been through the experience.” Best-Kept Secret of Your Teen: They Really Do Care What You Think, Simmons College Study Shows Blue Cross Blue Shield Massachusetts Foundation Sponsors 'Family Matters' Study It could be one of the best-kept secrets of surly adolescents: it may look as if they're turning away from their family in favor of their friends, but what their family thinks matters to them. A lot. A study led by Simmons School of Social Work Professor Helen Reinherz shows that it is of paramount importance to adolescents that they feel valued by their family, and is an important factor in their optimal mental health. Knowing that their family values their opinions promotes an adolescent's self-esteem, and reduces the risk for major depression, suicidal thoughts and other mental health maladjustments, according to the study. The study also shows that adolescents who believe that they can rely on family members for advice, or who have parents or siblings they can view as confidants, have significantly increased chances for good academic achievement and overall healthy social and psychological adjustment. The findings were recently reported in the Simmons College study "Family Matters," sponsored by Blue Cross Blue Shield Massachusetts Foundation, which commissioned the data analysis to help social service agencies, community workers, parents, teachers and other caregivers understand some of the factors that can promote healthy adolescent development. "The common belief is that the adolescent is turning away from the family - that their peers suddenly become the major influence in their lives," Reinherz said. "But in reality, it is of paramount importance to most adolescents that they feel valued as a family member and that their opinions count." "Families need to understand they are vitally important to the adolescent." These are some of the findings from data that Reinherz and her research team collected over the past thirty years as part of the Simmons Longitudinal Study, one of the national's longest-running and most comprehensive mental health studies. The National Institute of Mental Health funded the longitudinal study. Since 1977, Reinherz has led a team of researchers who followed nearly 400 residents of Quincy, MA from the time they entered kindergarten at age 5, until their mid-30's today, searching for predictors of good or mental health from early childhood onward. The study was designed to help parents, teachers, mental health professionals, policymakers and others improve early identification and treatment of mental health issues. For more information about the overall study and publications about some of its findings, go to www.simmons.edu/ssw/sls/. Study Shows Reducing Class Size May Be More Cost-effective than Most Medical Interventions Reducing the number of students per classroom in U.S. primary schools may be more cost-effective than most public health and medical interventions, according to a study by researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and the Virginia Commonwealth University. The study indicates that class-size reductions would generate more quality-adjusted life-year gains per dollar invested than the majority of medical interventions. The findings will be published in the November issue of the American Journal of Public Health. The researchers estimated the health and economic effects of reducing class sizes from 22–25 students to 13–17 students in kindergarten through grade 3 nationwide, based on an intervention tested in Project STAR (Student Teacher Achievement Ratio), a large multi-school randomized trial that began in 1985. Project STAR is considered the highest quality long-term experiment to date in the field of education. The study shows that a student graduating from high school after attending smaller-sized classes gains an average of 1.7 quality-adjusted life-years and generates a net $168,431 in lifetime revenue. “Higher earnings and better job quality enhance access to health insurance coverage, reduce exposure to hazardous work conditions, and provide individuals and families with the necessary resources to move out of unfavorable neighborhoods and to purchase goods and services,” says Peter A. Muennig, MD, MPH, assistant professor of Health Policy and Management at the Mailman School. “Regardless of class size, the net effect of graduating from high school is roughly equivalent to taking 20 years of bad health off of your life." When targeted to low-income students, the estimated savings would increase to $196,000 per additional graduate. “This is because low-income students seem to benefit more from the additional attention afforded by small classes,” noted Dr. Muennig. “Because we focused on a relatively expensive intervention and examined outcomes over a range of values, our results should provide a conservative framework for evaluating this and other interventions as long-term data on educational interventions become more plentiful,” he commented. The performance of students in the U.S. has been declining relative to the performance of students in other countries. With health costs soaring and student performance falling, the United States is in jeopardy of losing its economic dominance. The findings not only raise issues of whether investments in social determinants of health can be more cost-effective than investments in conventional medical care, “but more intriguing still, also bring up the idea that each dollar invested in education could also potentially produce other long-term returns,” observes Dr. Muennig. He notes that further analysis will refine models and produce more-precise estimates, but “these findings do point to the importance of looking more broadly at the options available for improving health outcomes—including those outside the boundaries of clinical medicine.” Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002): A First Look at the Initial Postsecondary Experiences of the High School Sophomore Class of 2002 This First Look report provides selected, nationally representative information about the about the transition of 2002 high school sophomores to college, the selectivity and other characteristics of the institutions in which they enrolled, their choice of major, and other characteristics of their enrollment to illustrate the wealth of data that is available from the from the Second Follow-up of the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002. When the Second Follow-up data were collected, most of the sample members were sophomores in college. By 2006, approximately 2 years after their expected graduation date, 88 percent of spring 2002 sophomores had graduated from high school with a diploma and 4 percent had earned a General Education Development certificate. Sixty percent enrolled “immediately” in college after receiving their diploma (by October if they left high school between January and July, or by the following February if they left high school after July). High school students whose parents’ income exceeded $100,000 per year had the highest rates of attendance at 4-year public and private institutions (44 and 26 percent, respectively), compared to students whose families earned $20,000 per year or less (14 and 7 percent, respectively). Thirteen percent of the spring 2002 high school sophomore class enrolled first in a highly selective 4-year institutions and 19 percent enrolled in a moderately selective 4-year institutions. Spring 2002 sophomores who took calculus in high school had the highest rates of enrollment (52 percent) in highly selective 4-year institutions. Among spring 2002 high school sophomores who had attended a postsecondary institution, 15 percent entered college intending to study business, 17 percent entered college intending to study health, and 15 percent entered college intending to study engineering/computer science/natural sciences/mathematics. Complete report:
|
||
