Report Round-Up

Now What? Imperatives and Options for Common Core Implementation and Governance from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Most states have adopted the “Common Core” English language arts and math standards, and most are also working on common assessments. In this report, the authors ask but…now what?

Promoting Quality: State Strategies for Overseeing Dual Enrollment Programs from the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships. This study documents the strategies that six states employ to ensure that college courses offered to high school students are of the same high quality and rigor as courses offered to matriculated college students.

Minorities in Higher Education 2010 – Twenty-Fourth Status Report from the American Council on Education. This report finds that young Hispanics and African Americans have made no appreciable progress in postsecondary attainment as compared to their older peers, and attainment rates have dipped for the youngest group (aged 25-34). Note: This report costs $30.00 for non-members and $27.00 for ACE member institutions.

Divided We Fail: Improving Completion and Closing Racial Gaps in California’s Community Colleges from the Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy. This study looks at an alarming trend at California’s community colleges and finds that the vast majority of students hoping to earn an associate degree or a vocational certificate drop out instead.

Sign-up for the Alliance's Oct. 25 Webinar: Looking Back at the Current Congress and Looking Ahead to the New Congress of 2011

Early this year, President Obama, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and key leaders in Congress were saying all the right things to urge policymakers to make 2010 the year that the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as No Child Left Behind, would be reauthorized.

Unfortunately, that did not happen. But a lot of major positive events occurred in the education policy world over the last two years. For one, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act sent additional billions of stimulus dollars to states for education, by creating Race to the Top and the Investing in Innovation program, and providing further funding for existing programs such as School Improvement Grants and Title I. Another sweeping development was a state-led initiative—spearheaded by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers—to develop common standards in English language arts and mathematics.

Much more work, especially around ESEA, remains to be done. In a recent video chat, Secretary Duncan said the goal is to reauthorize ESEA “early in the next year” and “in a bipartisan way.” But how likely is education reform when pollsters are predicting major changes in the Congress, including possible shifts of power from Democrats to Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate? Will divided government force the two parties and the Obama administration to work together on ESEA reauthorization?

Morning Announcements: October 19, 2010

Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, writes “There is No ‘War on Teachers’” in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

The Chicago Tribune editorial board finds that Illinois public schools are suffering from too little class time.

In four months, Memphis City Schools Supt. Kriner Cash expects to identify as many as 50 schools to close or consolidate next year as he cuts district expenditures and streamlines schools where enrollment has plummeted in some cases to less than half capacity, according to the Commercial Appeal.

Washington state educators are hosting a series of public meetings to gather feedback on adopting the common core state standards.

In the November issue of the Smithsonian magazine, G. Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian, discusses the role of technology in education.

Stats That Stick: October 13, 2010

The unemployment rate for high school dropouts aged twenty-five or older soared by 10 percent in September, meanwhile, the unemployment rate for college graduates actually dropped. -U.S. Department of Labor. Read more about these numbers in Jason Amos’ latest blog post. 

Minnesota has become the 38th state to adopt the common standards, but only in English/language arts, not in math. –Education Week

More than $9 billion was spent by state and federal governments to support students at four-year colleges and universities who left school before their sophomore year during a five-year period. -American Institutes for Research. To find out more, check out this blog post.

Although the recession technically ended in 2009, district budgets are not expected to regain their pre-recession (2008) funding levels until late in the decade. –The Center for Public Education

Morning Announcements: October 6, 2010

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Board of Education approved a court settlement that radically limits the traditional practice of laying off teachers strictly on the basis of seniority, the Los Angeles Times reports. According to the story, “The agreement does not scrap seniority as a factor in layoffs. Rather, layoffs based on seniority would be distributed evenly among district schools...No school would lose a disproportionate number of instructors. This marks a significant change because inexperienced teachers tend to be clustered in schools in low-income neighborhoods, putting those campuses at a disadvantage during every budget crisis.”

In South Carolina, education officials offer mixed views on extending the school year.

The Leading Source,  American School Board Journal’s Daily blog, covers a recent Alliance brief on the adolescent literacy crises.

At a summit held yesterday in Washington, DC, President Obama called community colleges the “unsung heroes of America’s education system,” and said they are more important than ever to U.S. competitiveness.

Washington state education officials are going on tour to get input on proposed new national academic standards for English and math, The Olympian reports. State superintendent Randy Dorn has tentatively adopted the standards, but is gathering more input before asking the Legislature to adopt them.

Reflect and Renew: Retooling for the New Education Marketplace

This week, hundreds of education technology entrepreneurs are gathering in Boston, to "Reflect and Renew” on the “Retooling of the New Education Marketplace”– the theme for this year’s EdNET Conference. This theme is quite fitting, given the current economic situation we are facing as a nation, as an industry, and as individuals.

What will define this country in the years to come is how we choose to “Retool,” the way we have operated in the past; and “Re-Prioritize” our goals moving forward.

Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, calls this the “GM Moment.” When the executives at GM found themselves in economic peril and asking for a government bailout, they realized that “business as usual” was no longer an option. The choice was either to “retool” and streamline the business model with 21st Century practices, or close shop.

We are being faced with these same challenges across the country– in every sector– including education. And the stakes are high.

K-12 education in the U.S. is dealing with three major challenges, which taken together, create the “perfect storm.”

Ask the Author: Mariana Haynes

Mariana Haynes, Senior Fellow at the Alliance for Excellent Education, recently wrote The Federal Role in Confronting the Crisis in Adolescent Literacy, a brief on the role that the federal government can play to advocate for a comprehensive, national, and schoolwide focus on K–12 literacy.  We sat down with Mariana to discuss the brief and ask her a few more questions on literacy. Do you have a question for Mariana? Post it in the comments section below and we will be sure you get a response.

What are the differences between the literacy needs of young students versus middle and high school students?

As students move from learning to read to reading to learn, students are asked to perform complex literacy tasks in speaking, listening, reading, and writing in relation to content-area disciplines. As the demands for applied literacy skills in postsecondary settings increase, it is imperative that students receive literacy instruction that is integrated into all subject areas. Students must contend with written material that includes technical vocabulary and concepts unique to mathematics, social sciences, history, and language arts.

Yet, many middle and high school teachers lack the preparation and supports for teaching these skills within their content-area discipline and have minimal resources to draw upon in helping students who struggle to read and write. Large numbers of students cannot understand or evaluate text, provide relevant details, or support inferences about coursework material. Without high-level literacy skills, students will be relegated to the ranks of unskilled workers unable to compete in a global knowledge economy.

Morning Announcements: September 20, 2010

The Wall Street Journal exams the “divide between the fortunes of Americans with college degrees and those without.”

Providence Journal education columnist Julia Steiny writes about the reasoning behind the Common Core State Standard Initiative.

At least 35,000 Indiana middle school and high school students will get online math tutoring as part of a state education department pilot program, according to the Norwest Indiana Times.

In her column “The Answer Sheet” Washington Post reporter Valerie Strauss posts a letter from a 16 year old veteran teacher to California Governor Schwarzenegger about what he believes should be included in teacher evaluations.

In an op-ed in the New York Times, Susan Engel, director of the teaching program at Williams College., suggests that “we should come up with assessments that truly measure the qualities of well-educated children: the ability to understand what they read; an interest in using books to gain knowledge; the capacity to know when a problem calls for mathematics and quantification; the agility to move from concrete examples to abstract principles and back again; the ability to think about a situation in several different ways; and a dynamic working knowledge of the society in which they live. “

In an interview with Education Week reporter Dakarai I. Aarons, Michelle Rhee reflects on her tenure as chancellor of DC Public Schools. 

Morning Announcements: September 15, 2010

Education Week reporter Alyson Klein interviews Rep. John Kline on ESEA, Race to the Top, and common standards.

Several key reforms in Race to the Top winning states hinge on the effectiveness of data systems, but the judges and outside experts worry states could face some heavy lifting to ensure their data systems keep up with their policy plans, Education Week reports.

According to the Washington Post, two D.C. Council members said Tuesday that they will press mayoral primary winner Vincent C. Gray and Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee to negotiate an "extended transition" that could keep her in the job until the end of the 2011-12 school year.

The editorial staff at the Star Advertiser (HI) thinks the state board’s selection of Kathryn Matayoshi as permanent superintendent to head the embattled Department of Education is a cause for hope.

The number of public school districts and schools not making adequate yearly progress in Kansas under No Child Left Behind increased significantly this year, according to The Lawrence World Journal.

The Boston Globe reports that MCAS test scores released yesterday show that more Massachusetts schools than ever are failing to measure up to federal achievement standards, with 57 percent out of compliance.

And in Pennsylvania, more than eight in 10 schools met the required academic goals for the federal No Child Left Behind law in 2010, according to The Patriot-News.

Patrick Welsh, an English teacher at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia, explains why he thinks schools can’t manage poverty in USA Today.

Morning Announcements: September 9, 2010

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation plans to invest up to $250 million over the next eight years to develop "next-generation instructional tools" that will help states and districts implement the common core state standards, the foundation said in its annual report.

Some charter schools are struggling to tap into the federal money provided by the Education Jobs Fund bill because their teachers are employees of a charter management organization or an educational management organization, not a school district according to Education Week.

According to the Sacramento Bee, California charter schools are growing in popularity.

When every teacher is rated 'great,' students suffer, according to the USA Today editorial board. Click here to read the opposing view by A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles.

In today's Wall Street Journal, columnist William McGurn writes, "When it comes to shaking up the status quo, however, the most potent education reform may be the one that's too often considered a side issue: pension reform."