It's Not Always Bigger and Better

It's Thursday, which means it's time to talk digital learning! The following blog post comes from Jeremy Macdonald, the Integrated Technology Systems Coordinator for Bend-La Pine Schools in Bend, Oregon.

As of this Monday, April 15, I will be the new Integrated Technology Systems Coordinator for Bend-La Pine Schools in Bend, OR. It's a new job for me and a big move for my family. It's been bittersweet. As time has passed getting ready at home and at school, I have reflected on my experience here in Klamath, the last seven years, and what it will mean to leave my school.

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Everyone's Getting Straight A's: OECD Test Compares Individual Schools to Highest-Performing Nations

We're back at you with another issue of Straight A's, the Alliance for Excellent Education's bi-weekly newsletter! As always, you can read the entire articles online, or you can sign up to receive Straight A's in your inbox by emailing JAmos@all4ed.org. Here are the highlights.

President Obama releasd his budget proposal today, but will he be able to convince Congress his plan is as good as he believes it to be? The congressional budget resolution is a nonbinding spending blueprint that sets monetary limits for the spending and tax legislation that the U.S. Congress will consider for the rest of the year. It does not require presidential approval and only the grand total of the discretionary spending laid out in the final budget resolution is binding on the appropriations committees. Nonetheless, the congressional budget resolution is an important step in the budgeting process because it provides guidance to the chairmen of the appropriations committees on how to divide resources among various federal departments and agencies, and sets the stage for the twelve annual appropriations bills that must be passed by Congress and signed by the president. Congressional Budget Resolutions

A large percentage of American middle-class high schools have not kept pace with countries like Singapore, Finland, Korea, and Germany that have raised standards, invested in teachers, and lifted their overall performance, according to a new report from America Achieves. The report, Middle Class or Middle of the Pack?: What Can We Learn When Benchmarking U.S. Schools Against the World’s Best?, finds that middle-class American fifteen-year-olds are “significantly” outperformed by their peers in twenty-four countries in math and fifteen countries in science based on a pilot study involving 105 American high schools that administered a new test known as the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Test for Schools (based on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)). The test measures students’ abilities to apply their knowledge to solve real-world problems, the kinds of deeper learning necessary to succeed in college and the workplace. Middle Class or Middle of the Pack?

The Gordon Commission on the Future of Assessment in Education (the Gordon Commission) recently issued a public policy statement based on its two-plus years of work designed to “stimulate a productive national conversation about assessment and its relationship to teaching and learning.” Transforming Assessment

School districts and states must find affordable and feasible ways to improve student assessments so that they measure high-level skills and knowledge, a new report from the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education finds. The report, Developing Assessments of Deeper Learning: The Costs and Benefits of Using Tests that Help Students Learn, provides data on what states and districts currently spend on tests; examines the failings of current multiple-choice tests; and analyzes the costs and opportunities of creating, implementing, and scoring assessments that ensure students are equipped with twenty-first-century competencies. Developing Assessments of Deeper Learning

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Are You Shortsighted in Planning Digital Learning Initiatives?

This Project 24 series blog post was written by Gail Pletnick, Superintendent of Dysart Unified School District in Arizona. Gail is a member of the Project 24 Team of Experts. 

Over the past few years, most school districts, including the Dysart Unified School District, have faced funding challenges as well as challenging changes to academic mandates.   Some districts have used that as a reason to turn away from implementing digital learning initiatives -- the cost for equipment and training was too much.  What our Dysart community learned, however, is that these challenging times often provide an opportunity to become more focused and innovative. 

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Afternoon Announcements: Obama requests $300 million for high school transformation in 2014 budget

The Next Generation Science Standards were publicly released on Tuesday and will help shape science education around the nation. The next step for states will be deciding whether to adopt them. Education Week

A bipartisan bill focused on improving mental health in schools is slated to be considered by the Senate education panel tomorrow. Senators Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee) are sponsoring the bill. Politics K-12

A lot of focus has been given to the student debt crisis. But what about the amount of debt owed by college-goers who don’t complete their programs? New federal data focuses on debt incurred by noncompleters. National Center for Education Statistics

Obama released his budget plan today, and it includes a $300 million increase for high school reform, along with $659 million for School Turnaround Grants. The White House

Georgia will receive $17.2 million in federal grant money to improve consistently low-performing schools, as part of the School Improvement Grants program under the U.S. Department of Education. Education Week Read Entire Post

Afternoon Announcements: Student Loan Rates Set to Increase July 1

Elementary school children in Richmond, Virginia will be incentivized to read, as part of a program to ensure that all students are reading at or above grade level by the end of third grade. The program is called “Earning to Learn.” Education Week

The Common Core State Standards, set to be implemented in 45 states next year, expect students to be competent typists by fourth grade. Keyboarding replaces cursive in many areas, and some states are opting to include a cursive writing requirement. The Star-Herald

A Kenyan Maasai warrior studying at Clemson University talked with students at the University of Georgia as part of a cultural exchange program. He had to run nine miles each way to receive an education. He hopes to return to Kenya with the skills and knowledge to make education more accessible to children in his village and community. The Red and Black

Student loan interest rates will rise from the current 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on July 1 if Congress does not half the increase. Student advocacy groups released an issue brief calling for the federal government not to profit from student loans. New York Times Read Entire Post

What's the Big Deal? Fisher v. University of Texas

The following blog posts comes from Ashley Cheung, a policy intern at the Alliance for Excellent Education. Ms. Cheung is a graduate student in the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at the George Washington University.

My interest in the relationship between education and law was sparked by one of my graduate courses that took a deep dive into the world of Supreme Court cases starting with Brown v. Board. The timing of this course couldn’t have been better- the oral arguments of the Fisher v. University of Texas case were being heard, and I have been glued on this topic ever since. I want to take this opportunity to introduce what the case is about, and ask you how you feel about court cases that take into account race as a factor in admissions. Think about it.

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Afternoon Announcements: Santa Fe Public Schools Works to Keep Students from Dropping Out

Santa Fe Public Schools is embarking on an education reform plan to engage more students for longer and keep them in school until they graduate. As part of the program, the district wants to know why students drop out of school and how to keep them from doing so. Santa Fe New Mexican

A new study finds that the best performing schools have principals who have been there for at least six years. The study examines how school leadership impacts student achievement. Education Next

Despite debates on teacher pensions and performance evaluations, teacher retention is rising in New York City. New data shows that more than 80% of public schoolteachers have at least five years of experience, compared to two-thirds of educators with the same amount of experience in 2002. Wall Street Journal

The Georgia Department of Education will begin assigning number grades to schools in an effort to move beyond standardized tests and give parents the more information possible. They’re calling the new system the College and Career Ready Performance Index. The grades range from zero to 100. Education Week Read Entire Post

Afternoon announcements: Obama will pay for pre-k plan through increased tobacco taxes

Protestors outside the Department of Education, dubbed, “Occupy DOE,” resorted to inflammatory and even racist insults against high-stakes testing. Politics K-12

Ohio State University students might think they’re getting an easy lift to class when a golf cart pulls up beside them, but what they’re actually getting is a trip in “Buck$ Bus,” in which they’re quizzed on financial aid and budgeting. The inspiration for the game comes from the Discovery Channel’s show, Cash Cab. The Columbus Dispatch

The Obama administration released details on how they plan to pay for the universal pre-kindergarten program highlighted in the President’s State of the Union earlier this year. Money will come from increased revenue from raised tobacco taxes. Politics K-12

Massachusetts parents are outraged over a story that broke earlier this week, in which as many as 25 students were told to throw away their lunch because they could not pay for it. The director of the food service company that denied the children their lunches was placed on administrative leave. Education Week Read Entire Post

Afternoon Announcements: Bill Gates Wants Fairer Teacher Evaluations

Bill Gates ties the NFL to teacher evaluation systems in an interesting way. He also offers some thoughts and insights on how teachers should be evaluated… and how they shouldn’t in an editorial. Washington Post

Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber says dreamers’ dreams should come at the price of in-state tuition. Earlier this week he signed into law a bill granting in-state tuition to undocumented Oregon high school graduates who meet set criteria. The Oregonian

Has the US Department of Education’s website been hacked? Just in case it has, the Department’s website is down this week. Politics K-12

A high school senior with a stack of rejection letters says students often get rejected because they’ve been lied to about the admissions process. Being yourself, she says, only matters to colleges if you are perfect. She takes a snarky look at what she could have done differently. Wall Street Journal

Michigan is struggling with a growing homeless student population, having seen a 66 percent rise over the last four years. The state may receive additional federal funds to help the students in need. Education Week Read Entire Post

Robert Rothman: Deeper learning and the Common Core

High schools in the International networks – a group of 14 high schools, most of them based in New York City – aren’t waiting for full implementation of the Common Core State Standards to teach their students using the deeper learning skills emphasized by them. All of the students in the Internationals program are still learning English, and while they do it, teachers engage them in challenging projects that require critical thinking, analyzing arguments and evidence, and collaboration, among other skills. The schools have seen gains in academic achievement and college enrollment.

Robert Rothman, senior fellow at the Alliance for Excellent Education, writes about the program’s success, rooted in deeper learning and the Common Core, on the Harvard Education Publishing blog.

“The type of learning that is routine at International is about to become more common in schools across the United States. The Common Core State Standards , which forty-six states and the District of Columbia have adopted, call for deeper learning in a variety of ways, in both English language arts and mathematics,” Rothman writes. “If implemented effectively—a big if—students will be doing a lot more of the kinds of things students at International do daily.”

In his blog post, Rothman emphasizes the need for appropriate professional support and development to help teachers understand how to teach to help students succeed under the new standards. He also points to a recent study out of the University of California, Los Angeles showing the in-progress assessments for the Common Core standards to be promising.

Read the full blog post at Harvard Education Publishing Group. Read Entire Post