Upcoming Webinars: Homelessness, MetLife Teacher Survey, and International Lessons

Foreclosed Futures, Part 1: The Impact of Homelessness on a Student’s Education
March 24, 2011, 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm

The Alliance for Excellent Education, in partnership with the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth (NAEHCY), will be hosting “Foreclosed Futures,” a series of webinars on the issue of student homelessness. Please join us on Thursday, March 24, 2011 from 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm, ET, for the first webinar in the series, “Foreclosed Futures, Part 1: The Impact of Homelessness on a Student’s Education.” During this webinar, Phillip Lovell, vice president of federal advocacy at the Alliance for Excellent Education and Barbara Duffield, policy director at NAEHCY, will feature the personal stories of four homeless students who will talk about what it means to be homeless, as well as the challenges they face to graduate from high school. This webinar will also provide an opportunity for Mr. Lovell and Ms. Duffield to address questions submitted by viewers across the country. Register and submit questions for the webinar.

The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: College and Career Readiness and the Implications for Teaching
March 25, 2011, 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

Please join the Alliance on Friday, March 25 from 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm, ET for a webinar on the findings of the 2010 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher released this month in two parts. Part 1: Clearing the Path examines the importance of being college and career ready, what this level of preparation includes, and what it may take to get there.

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Morning Announcements: March 22, 2011

Today at the first annual Building a GradNation Summit,  Vice President Joe Biden announced a new campaign calling for states to boost their college graduation rates. The effort includes a $20 million Comprehensive Grant Program for states that carry out plans intended to increase their graduation rates. The administration also released a tool kit of strategies to help governors meet college graduation goals, like stabilizing tuition increases, singling out adults with some college experience but no degree, and making it easier for students to transfer college credits. Read stories by the Associated Press and the New York Times.

Also released at the summit was a report finding that the number of U.S. schools considered "dropout factories" has decreased by 6.4 percent between 2008 and 2009, Education Week reports. Read more about this report in a piece written by the report authors in the Huffington Post. The Hartford Courant also writes about what these report findings mean for Connecticut.

The Contra Costa Times reports on a new study finding that more than 10 percent of California school districts are in financial trouble. 

Florida Education Commissioner Eric Smith will resign at the end of this school year according to the Miami Herald.

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Increasing High School Grad Rate Significantly Boosts Job Creation, Home Ownership, and Car Sales, New Alliance Study Finds

Cutting the high school dropout rate in half for just one class would likely lead to billions of dollars in increased earnings, provide a boost to home and automobile sales, and create more than 50,000 new jobs nationwide, according to a ground-breaking new study released on March 22 by the Alliance for Excellent Education.

The publication, “Education and the Economy: Boosting the Nation’s Economy by Improving High School Graduation Rates,” made possible through the generous support of State Farm®, demonstrates the economic benefits the nation—as well as each state—would likely see if its number of high school dropouts was cut in half. The state-by-state and national findings include the growth in jobs, home ownership, levels of spending and investment, and car sales. This study builds on the Alliance’s previous work examining education and the economy and provides clear evidence that in an information-age economy, education is the only currency.

According to Bob Wise, Alliance president and former governor of West Virginia, these findings clearly prove that everyone benefits from improved education. “Decisions on how to close budget gaps and build a strong economy must begin with ensuring better educational outcomes for the nation’s students,” he said. “There’s been a lot of talk about how budget deficits threaten our children’s future, but the best way to cut budget deficits is to cut dropout rates,” concluded Wise.

See the results for your state and the nation.

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Report Round-Up

Teacher and Leader Effectiveness in High-Performing Education Systems by the Alliance for Excellent Education. This report concludes that high-performing education systems around the world provide valuable lessons for the United States as policymakers and educators seek to develop systems to improve teacher and school leader effectiveness in this country.

Flexible Mobile Platforms from the Consortium for School Networking. This report explores the challenges and benefits that school districts face in allowing children to use mobile devices, both student-owned and school-issued, in the classroom.

What the U.S. Can Learn from the World’s Most Successful Education Reform Efforts from McGraw-Hill Research Foundation. This report calls for United States to raise teaching profession by recruiting more qualified candidates, training them better and paying them more.

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Morning Announcements: March 18, 2011

Education Week reports, “As momentum for customized, online instruction grows, its supporters say the biggest obstacle to implementing more adaptive curricula and personalized approaches isn't popular will, but state and local policies.”

St. Petersburg Times reports that nationwide, 47 percent of black males graduated high school compared with 78 percent of white males and in Florida just 37 percent of black males graduated compared with 57 percent of white males.

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Morning Announcements: March 17, 2011

In the op-ed in the Washington Post, U.S. Secretary of Education writes of March Madness, “Like millions of fans, I’ll be watching the tournament, rooting for my favorites. As a kid on the South Side of Chicago who loved basketball, I got to see the best and the worst of college sports. I spent time on the court with inner-city players who had been used and dumped by their universities. When the ball stopped bouncing, they struggled to find work and had difficult lives. Some died early. The dividing line for success was between those who went to college and got their degrees, and those who did not. If a team fails to graduate even half of its players, how serious are the institution and coach about preparing their student-athletes for life?”

National Public Radio reports that budget cuts are forcing public schools to put sports on the chopping block.

Education Week’s Teacher Beat blog features two recently released reports (one by the Alliance) that coincide with the International Summit on the Teaching Profession in New York.

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Stats That Stick: March 16, 2011

In Singapore, the attrition rate of teachers is less than 3 percent annually, which is less than half the annual attrition rate for teachers in the United States. –Alliance for Excellent Education and the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE)  

In raw numbers, the United States produces many more low-achieving students than any other OECD nation, including even two developing economies, Mexico and Turkey. –Thomas B. Fordham Institute

Seventy percent of all high schools offered classes or seminars to students to help explain the college application process, although about one-third did not. -College Board Advocacy & Policy Center

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Morning Announcements: March 16, 2011

The Atlanta Journal Constitution discusses how to grow and retain the very best teachers, citing a newly released report from the Alliance for Excellent Education. 

The New York Times writes about a new report calling for United States to raise teaching profession by recruiting more qualified candidates, training them better and paying them more.

An independent task force is urging the body overseeing national-board certification to consider standardized-test scores, alongside other measures of student-learning growth, among the sources of evidence used to award teachers the prestigious advanced credential, Education Week reports.

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Morning Announcements: March 15, 2011

The New York Times and Education Week report on President Obama’s speech yesterday at Kenmore Middle School in Virginia and his call for Congress to fix No Child Left Behind before the start of the next school year.

Georgia state board voted to let districts ditch integrated math as the required curriculum and choose the approach they deem best, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The American Council on Education and Pearson, a major education and testing company, are starting a partnership to design and deliver a computer-based G.E.D. test, aligned with the Common Core State Standards, the New York Times reports.

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Morning Announcements: March 14, 2011

In an op-ed in the Washington Post, former chancellor of NYC public schools Joel Klein writes, “Any reform worth its name must start by recognizing that teachers are our most important educational asset. That's why we need to treat teaching as a profession, by supporting excellence, striving for constant improvement and ridding the system of poor performers.”
 
Budget Cuts Raise Questions About Federal Commitment to Literacy, Education Week writes. On the Curriculum Matters blog, Catherine Gewertz writes about the ‘career’ part of college readiness.

A guest columnist in the Magic City Morning Star explains how high school dropouts are effecting Maine’s economy.

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