Moneyball or Moneylearning?

I admit, after nearly 15 years in the field I have grown a bit tired of all the metaphors we try to apply to education. I can’t help but roll my eyes when I hear someone say the No Child Left Behind act forces all kids to jump over a high bar in track, or something like that. For the record, asking all kids to be prepared for college and career is NOT the same as asking random athletic feats of them. Or some advocates claim that education should be more like medicine, that doctors train for years in clinical settings,  have a general level of shared content knowledge, and are in touch with the latest research. Yes, doctors study longer, and yes, doctors engage in long, work-based learning that would be a great model for teachers. But news flash: the quality of care you get varies greatly by which doctor you go to. For example, in the pediatric field, some doctors are on board with delayed vaccinations schedules, some are in tune with the latest developments in detecting autism, and some are not. If you get cancer, are you going to just go to your local hospital or are you going to check out all your options, and if you can afford it, get checked out at Sloan Kettering or Mayo Clinic? And yup, low-income families are disadvantaged in health care, too.

That being said, when I saw the new movie Moneyball this weekend I couldn’t help but notice the parallels between the film and education. The movie is based on the true story of Billy Beane, a Major League Baseball general manager played by Brad Pitt who built a winning team on a tiny budget by using statistical data to find the best and cheapest players.

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Afternoon Announcements: July 5, 2011

Today, the Boston Globe reports that more than half of the teachers pushed out of seven underperforming schools in Boston last year now work at other low-achieving schools across the city that are also under pressure to improve.

Tennessee schools eye waiver for No Child Left Behind, according to the Commercial Appeal in Memphis.

Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the National Education Association affirmed for the first time that evidence of student learning must be considered in the evaluations of schoolteachers around the country.

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Stats That Stick: May 25, 2011

On average, bachelor’s degrees pay off. But a new study confirms that some undergraduate majors pay off a lot more than others. In fact, the difference in earnings potential between one major and another can be more than 300 percent. In fact, the lifetime advantage ranges from $1,090,000 for Engineering majors to $241,000 for Education majors.
-Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce

The median starting salary of students graduating in 2009 and 2010 was 10% lower than the salary received by those who entered the workforce in 2006 and 2007. College educated women continue to earn less than college educated men. –Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

The nation’s overall education spending grew at a slower pace in 2009 than at any other time in more than a decade. Public school districts spent an average of $10,499 per student on elementary and secondary education in the 2009 fiscal year, up 2.3 percent from 2008. In contrast, spending rose by 6.1 percent and 5.8 percent in the two years before that. -New York Times

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Report Round-Up

Community College Estimated Growth: Fall 2010 from the American Association of Community Colleges. This report provides enrollment counts for credit enrollment 2000–2010 and finds that although enrollment has continued to increase, the rate of increase has slowed in comparison to previous years.

Data for Action 2010 from Data Quality Campaign. This report finds that despite progress in recent years, 11 states still cannot link data from schools with information from colleges.

Improving Middle Grades Mathematics Performance from EdSource. This analysis examines the relationship between students' 7th grade math scores on the California Standards Tests (CSTs), their 8th grade mathematics placements, and their subsequent performance on either the Algebra I CST or the General Mathematics CST.

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Morning Announcements: December 9, 2010

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that more than a third of California's black public high school students dropped out before graduation day and that number is on the rise.

The New York Times reports on parent reaction to “A Race to Nowhere”, a new documentary that look at the downside of childhoods spent on résumé-building.

A new report by the Arizona Board of Regents finds that four out of five Arizona high-school graduates do not have a college degree six years after graduating from high school, and just over half haven't gone to college at all.

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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.

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Morning Announcements: August 6, 2010

An Education Week article takes a look at the challenges facing rural schools and communities. In the story, the research director for Rural School and Community Trust is quoted as saying, “Rural schools, on average, face higher concentrations of the challenges that make schools more difficult to staff than do their counterparts in other locales.”

According to a new Associated Press-Univision poll, many Spanish-speaking parents are having trouble helping their children with homework or communicating with U.S. teachers as English-immersion classes proliferate in K-12.

A proposed program in Idaho would have high school dropouts earning their diplomas through boot camp, reports the Idaho Statesman.

The Baltimore Sun reports that 60 percent of Baltimore's elementary and middle schools failed to reach AYP.

The Montana office of public instruction announced the launch of a new tool that will help schools measure the academic success of students after they graduate from high school, according to the Billings Gazette. The Gazette also reports that Wyoming’s dropout rate is getting better.  The rate used in the state reflects the number of students who disenroll from school in grades nine through 12 during one year and is calculated from the most recent set of data available.

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