Morning Announcements April 2, 2012

Welcome to a new work week, hopefully you’ve made it back to the office safely and happily after an abundance of April Fools embarrassments. If you’re the culprit of the pranks and still trying to hideout from angry coworkers, find a corner and catch up on the latest education headlines below.

Older generations of Americans remember this school-day staple: the bookmobile. During recess or just when it was available, students could seek refuge and escape reality by delving into the action of a good book provided by this library on wheels. But as National Public Radio reports, due to advances in technology, those rolling reading rooms are becoming scarce. The bookmobile in one New England town just broke down, and residents are wondering if it's time to shelve it in the history section. NPR explores whether this may be the final chapter for the elementary pastime.

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Report Round-Up: March 16, 2012

School Is Not Supposed to Hurt- Department of Education Office for Civil Rights

Released by the Office for Civil Rights, the School Is Not Supposed to Hurt discusses what the agency has learned about the use of restraint and seclusion in schools, this is the first time the report has included questions about the use of such techniques. According to the report, at least 38,792 students were physically restrained in the 2009-10 school year. The document provides no comparable number for seclusion. The collection was based on information from more than 72,000 school districts representing about 85 percent of the nation's students. Read Entire Post

Afternoon Announcements: October 20, 2011

According to a new report from Pew Charitable Trusts, Philadelphia’s school closing plan probably won't raise much revenue, writes the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The New York Times reports that he Learning Network is celebrating National Day on Writing today by offering a host of ways for parents, teachers, and students to share their writing.

According to a recent report by the American Institutes for Research, students who drop out of community college before their second year have cost taxpayers nearly $1-billion annually, writes the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Education officials in Tennessee are taking flak from teachers and unions for rushing the implementation of a new teacher-evaluation system that will eventually undergird tenure decisions—a move, some worry, that could undermine redesigns of evaluation in other states, writes Education Week.

The Christian Science Monitor asks, “Can new No Child Left Behind law pass before 2012 elections?”

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Afternoon Announcements: July 28, 2011

News outlets all over the nation are talking about states bracing for plummeting high school graduation rates as districts nationwide dump flawed measurement formulas that often undercounted dropouts and produced inflated results. According to CBS News, “experts hope the changes will draw attention to the dropout issue and lead to resources being focused on the problem. … 'We’re going to take an honest look in the mirror and see how real our graduation rate is and where we need to cut the dropout rate,' said former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, which has extensively studied the nation’s hodgepodge system of graduation rates. 'You’ve got to know how deep the hole is in order to develop a strategy for getting out of it.'”

NPR finishes out its five-part series “School’s Out: America’s Dropout Crisis” with this story:

Part 5: A High School Dropout’s Midlife Hardships
Today, the people who seem to be hurting the most in our sputtering economy are dropouts in their 30s, 40s and 50s.

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Planting Cut Flowers or: U.S. History: American Students' Worst Subject

"Trying to plan for the future without a sense of the past is like trying to plant cut flowers."

Those were the words of former Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin, as relayed by historian and author David McCullough in June 2005 testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Subcommittee on Education and Early Childhood Development.

McCullough's testimony was part of a hearing entitled "U.S. History: Our Worst Subject." Judging by the various results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation's Report Card, U.S. history continues to be American students' worst subject.

As shown in the graph to the left, the percentage of eighth- and twelfth-grade students who scored at our above proficient on the most recent Nation's Report Cards in history (2010), math (2009), reading (2009), and science (2009) continues to be extremely low. However, the results for U.S. history are even more discouraging. According to the results released earlier this month, only 17 percent of eighth-graders and 12 percent of twelfth-graders scored at or above proficient.

Why are American students performing so poorly in U.S. history? Has the focus on math and reading left high school seniors lacking in the knowledge and skills critical to the responsibilities of citizenship? What actions can be taken to improve results on the U.S. history and civics assessments?

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Straight As: Summarizes Final Spending Agreement, Every Student Counts Act, High School Transcripts Study, and more

Here's a quick summary of the articles in the April 18 issue of Straight A's, the Alliance's biweekly newsletter.

Click on a title below to access the complete article or download a printer-friendly version of the entire newsletter at: http://www.all4ed.org/files/Volume11No8.pdf

LAST CUT IS THE DEEPEST: Final FY 2011 Spending Agreement Cuts Spending by Nearly $40 Billion, Includes More Cuts for Education Programs: After months of negotiations, House Republicans, Senate Democrats, and the White House finally came to an agreement on a long-term continuing resolution (CR) that establishes final spending levels for Fiscal Year (FY) 2011, which officially began more than six months ago. Under the CR, named the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, which the president signed into law on April 15, federal spending was cut by nearly $40 billion, compared to FY 2010.

EVERY STUDENT COUNTS: Senator Harkin and Representative Scott Introduce Legislation to Establish Common Formula for High School Graduation Rates and Set 90 Percent Graduation Rate Goal: On April 7, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Representative Bobby Scott (D-VA) introduced the Every Student Counts Act (ESCA), which would require all states to calculate their graduation rates using the same formula and to set a graduation rate goal of 90 percent for all students and disadvantaged populations. This legislation would codify and strengthen regulations developed in 2008 by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) that requires states to use a single, accurate graduation rate calculation; establish graduation rate goals; and set annual growth targets.

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Upcoming Events on the 2009 PISA Results

As Education Week blogger Eric Robelen writes, Get Ready: PISA Is Coming! The 2009 PISA results, which show the performance of fifteen-year-olds in reading, mathematics literacy, and science, will be released next Tuesday on December 7, 2010.

In anticipation of the release, the Alliance will hold a webinar on Monday, December 6th to provide background on PISA and help educators and policymakers prepare for the forthcoming results. The webinar will describe what PISA measures, how the U.S. has performed on past examinations, and why the results matter for the nation’s future. The discussion will be followed by an interactive conversation with experts using questions submitted by participants from around the country. Register and submit questions for the webinar online at http://www.newmediamill.com/webcasts/all4ed/registerdec62010/.

Then on the day of the release, the Alliance, in conjunction with The Asia Society, Committee for Economic Development, Council of Chief State School Officers, and National Governors Association Center for Best Practices will be hosting a policy briefing on the results. The briefing will be held on Tuesday, December 7 from 2-4 pm at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room SD-G50.

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Morning Announcements: August 31, 2010

Education Week takes a look at states’ progress in complying with No Child Left Behind’s requirement that states report graduation rates for subgroups of students, such as English-language learners or economically disadvantaged children.

The Christian Science Monitor profiles Arne Duncan and his career path leading up to serving as the 9th U.S. Secretary of Education.

USA Today education reporter Mary Beth Marklein interviews Robert Neuman, author of Are You Really Ready for College?,and they discuss strategies to help middle and high school students avoid common problems in college.

The Carbondale Southern Illinoisan reports on the Illinois Student Assistance Corps, an organization that helps potential first-generation college students from low-income families navigate the paperwork and search process of securing grants, scholarships and financial aid.

In Colorado, the governor’s commission investigates ways to close the state’s education achievement gap and hints at some recommendations that will be part of a 10-year plan to be released in October that will focus on attracting the best teachers and school leaders; increasing teacher effectiveness; dealing with consistently low-performing schools; examining the financing of education; suggesting a governance structure that emphasizes accountability; and expanding preschool education.

Although high school students in Oregon made significant gains in reading with a record 71 percent of students passing the state reading exam, 12,000 student are still at risk of not passing and failing to graduate.

In Utah 79 percent of schools met Adequate Yearly Progress in the 2009-10 school year, a decrease from the previous year when 87 percent of schools reached the goal, according to the Deseret News.

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