Archive | November, 2012

Brookings report: What failing public schools can learn from charters?

10 Nov

Mary Ann Zehr wrote a 2010 article in Education Week about the sharing of “best practices” between charters and public schools. In the article, Regular Public Schools Start to Mimic Charters Zehr reported:

Collaborations popping up across the country between charter and traditional public schools show promise that charter schools could fulfill their original purpose of becoming research-and-development hothouses for public education, champions of charters say….

“There’s not a lot to share. Charter schools are a lot like [regular] public schools,” said Joan Devlin, the senior associate director of the educational issues department at the American Federation of Teachers.

But others, such as the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools, believe charter schools do have some distinctive practices that should be shared with traditional public schools. The alliance hosted a conference in September that featured 26 “promising cooperative practices” between the two kinds of schools. Examples included a Minnesota Spanish-immersion charter school working with a local district to create a Spanish-language-maintenance program, and California charter school and districts teaming up on a teacher-induction program.

“We were trying to move past the whole charter-war debates and move to a more productive place,” said Stephanie Klupinski, the alliance’s vice president of government and public affairs.

If the goal is that ALL children receive a good basic education, then ALL options must be available.

Kristin Kloberdanz has written an incisive critique for TakePart of the Brookings Institute report, Learning from the Successes and Failure of Charter Schools:

What makes a charter school succeed and how exactly can we transfer these ideas to failing public schools?

These questions are examined in Roland G. Fryer’s widely talked about report, “Learning From the Successes and Failures of Charter Schools.” Fryer is the CEO of EdLabs and an economics professor at Harvard University, the report was published as part of The Hamilton Project (the Brookings Institution).

The report has been touted as a great way for modeled successful charters to “cross-pollinate” with failing public schools. Critics, however, have said charters are being favored as education policy over reforms that might be more cohesive with the traditional public school system.

Fryer studied data from 35 charter schools of varying success levels in New York City to determine what separated the high achievers from those that failed. What he discovered was intriguing. The usual measurements, such as class size and amount spent per student, were not as important to reading and math scores as other school-wide implemented practices. In fact, Roland determined that the charter schools with evidence of the highest achievement consistently maintained these five factors:

Focus on human capital: “Effective teachers and quality principals are the bedrock of public schools.” Using student data to drive instruction: Set up an assessment system where students themselves help establish year-long goals. High-dosage tutoring: Intensive tutoring on site. Extended time on task: More days and hours for class time. Culture of high expectations: School-wide and individual goals clearly established for achievement, plus plenty of visible college materials.

According to The Hamilton Project brief which accompanies this report, this kind of research is important not only for lifting charter schools to greater levels, but also to help failing traditional public schools: “Notwithstanding the difficulties and uncertainties surrounding charter schools, two things are certain. First, some charter schools drastically improve student achievement. Second, the practices that distinguish these high-performing charters from their low-performing counterparts can be implemented in traditional public schools. While some of the factors require more restructuring than others, all of them hold the potential to help turn around America’s flagging education system….”

O’Brien says Fryer’s research is important and that charter schools provide a wonderful opportunity to study education reforms. But she says she—and other scholars—do not think all lessons learned from a charter school can be so easily transferred as Fryer (who does state in his report that the goal is not “to replace public schools with charter schools”) suggests.

“You cannot simply import something that has been learned in a specific context, and high performing charters and networks studied in a report like this do have a particular context,” she says. “They are filled with seats by lotteries, parents must sign them up and win a spot and they must commit to volunteer. It’s not the same type of environment as in typical public schools. Plus there are [different] government issues, charters might not be unionized, teachers might receive higher or lower pay, the calendars can be set differently and charter can be funded with more flexibility.”

O’Brien says too often people get excited by successes in charter schools, but neglect to understand that these differences can hinder making a transferable leap. She says she wishes more people were studying high performing typical public schools and coming up with a similar list as Fryer did….http://news.yahoo.com/failing-public-schools-learn-thriving-charters-234015660.html;_ylt=Ao_pKpjxXl3mUIe5VAXIwHBPXs8F;_ylu=X3oDMTQ0MXFrdXNlBG1pdANUb3BTdG9yeSBVU1NGIEVkdWNhdGlvblNTRgRwa2cDYWU1NzFlMzEtYzNiMC0zNDVmLTljZjEtNjM5NzRlZjZhYmY3BHBvcwMyBHNlYwN0b3Bfc3RvcnkEdmVyA2E1YTRlYzkwLTI5ZmQtMTFlMi04ZmZmLTZmMTFjYjQ2OWIyMA–;_ylg=X3oDMTFzcXM5ajBmBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lfGVkdWNhdGlvbgRwdANzZWN0aW9ucw–;_ylv=3

Citation:

Learning from the Successes and Failures of Charter Schools

Our education system is in desperate need of innovation. Despite radical advances in nearly every other sector, public school students continue to attend school in the same buildings and according to the same schedule as students did more than a hundred years ago, and performance is either stagnant or worsening. One of the most important innovations in the past halfcentury is the emergence of charter schools, which, when first introduced in 1991, came with two distinct promises: to serve as an escape hatch for students in failing schools, and to create and incubate new educational practices. We examine charter schools across the quality spectrum in order to learn which practices separate high-achieving from low-achieving schools. An expansive data collection and analysis project in New York City charter schools yielded an index of five educational practices that explains nearly half of the difference between high- and low-performing schools. We then draw on preliminary evidence from demonstration projects in Houston and Denver and find the effects on student achievement to be strikingly similar to those of many high-performing charter schools and networks. The magnitude of the problems in our education system is enormous, but this preliminary evidence points to a path forward to save the 3 million students in our nation’s worst-performing schools, for a price of about $6 billion, or less than $2,000 per student.

Downloads

In Focus on charter schools: There must be accountability, moi said:

Moi supports neighborhood schools which cater to the needs of the children and families in that neighborhood. A one-size-fits-all approach does not work in education. It is for this reason that moi supports charter schools which are regulated by strong charter school legislation with accountability. Accountability means different things to different people. In 2005 Sheila A. Arens wrote Examining the Meaning of Accountability: Reframing the Construct for Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning which emphasizes the involvement of parents and community members. One of the goals of the charter movement is to involve parents and communities. http://www.mcrel.org/PDF/AssessmentAccountabilityDataUse/4002IR_Examining_Accountability.pdf https://drwilda.com/2011/12/24/focus-on-charter-schools-there-must-be-accountability/

There is no one approach that works in every situation, there is only what works to address the needs of a particular population of children.

Resources:

1.      YouTube Link of Professor Carolyn Hoxby Discussing Charters

2.      PBS Frontline – The Battle Over School Choice

3.      The Center for Education Reform’s FAQs About Charter Schools

4.      WSJ’s opinion piece about charters and student performance

5.      Charter School Students More Likely to Graduate and Attend College

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART © http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews © http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda © https://drwilda.com/

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Study: Some of the effects of adverse stress do not go away

9 Nov

Moi said in Schools have to deal with depressed and troubled children:

Both the culture and the economy are experiencing turmoil. For some communities, the unsettled environment is a new phenomenon, for other communities, children have been stressed for generations. According to the article, Understanding Depression which was posted at the Kids Health site:

Depression is the most common mental health problem in the United States. Each year it affects 17 million people of all age groups, races, and economic backgrounds.

As many as 1 in every 33 children may have depression; in teens, that number may be as high as 1 in 8.

http://kidshealth.org/parent/emotions/feelings/understanding_depression.html

Schools are developing strategies to deal with troubled kids.

Anna M. Phillips has written the New York Times article, Calming Schools by Focusing on Well-Being of Troubled Students which describes how one New York school is dealing with its troubled children.

Mark Ossenheimer, principal of the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation in the Bronx, threw out a name to add to the list of teenagers in trouble.

Several teachers and a social worker seated around a table in the school’s cramped administrative offices nodded in agreement. They had watched the student, who had a housebound parent who was seriously ill, sink into heavy depression. Another child seemed to be moving from apartment to apartment, showing up at school only sporadically. And then there was the one grappling with gender-identity issues. Soon the list had a dozen names of students who could shatter a classroom’s composure or a school windowpane in a second.

Convening the meeting was Turnaround for Children, a nonprofit organization that the young-but-faltering school in an impoverished neighborhood near the Bronx Zoo had brought in this year to try to change things.

“This is the condition our organization was created to solve,” said Dr. Pamela Cantor, Turnaround’s founder and president. “A teacher who works in a community like this and thinks that these children can leave their issues at the door and come in and perform is dreaming.”

In focusing on students’ psychological and emotional well-being, in addition to academics, Turnaround occupies a middle ground between the educators and politicians who believe schools should be more like community centers, and the education-reform movement, with its no-excuses mantra. Over the past decade, the movement has argued that schools should concentrate on what high-quality, well-trained teachers can achieve in classrooms, rather than on the sociological challenges beyond their doors.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/nyregion/calming-schools-through-a-sociological-approach-to-troubled-students.html?hpw

One strategy in helping children to succeed is to recognize and treat depression. https://drwilda.com/2011/11/15/schools-have-to-deal-with-depressed-and-troubled-children/

Sarah D. Sparks writes in the Education Week article, Research Traces Impacts of Childhood Adversity:

The stress of a spelling bee or a challenging science project can enhance a student’s focus and promote learning. But the stress of a dysfunctional or unstable home life can poison a child’s cognitive ability for a lifetime, according to new research.

While educators and psychologists have said for decades that the effects of poverty interfere with students’ academic achievement, new evidence from cognitive and neuroscience is showing exactly how adversity in childhood damages students’ long-term learning and health.

Those studies show that stress forms the link between childhood adversity and poor academic achievement, but that not all adversity—or all stress—is bad for students….

Compounding Risks

As part of the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, more than 17,400 adults in San Diego County were assigned scores based on the number of risk factors each experienced as a child, including abuse or neglect, or growing up in homes with domestic violence, drug abuse or mental illness, or absent parents. Researchers found that people with higher ACE scores were more likely to experience underage sex or pregnancy, among other health risks.

Research from Dr. Shonkoff’s center and from other experts finds that positive stress—the kind that comes from telling a toddler he can’t have a cookie or a teenager that she’s about to take a pop quiz—causes a brief rise in heart rate and stress hormones. A jolt can focus a student’s attention and is generally considered healthy.

Similarly, a child can tolerate stress that is severe but may be relatively short-term—from the death of a loved one, for example—as long as he or she has support….

‘Toxic’ Recipe

By contrast, so-called “toxic stress” is severe, sustained, and not buffered by supportive relationships.

The same brain flexibility, called plasticity, that makes children open to learning in their early years also makes them particularly vulnerable to damage from the toxic stressors that often accompany poverty: high mobility and homelessness; hunger and food instability; parents who are in jail or absent; domestic violence; drug abuse; and other problems, according to Pat Levitt, a developmental neuroscientist at the University of Southern California and the director of the Keck School of Medicine Center on the Developing Child in Los Angeles.

The exponential brain growth of infancy and early childhood also makes children more vulnerable to chronic stress during those years than at other developmental periods, according to the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, an interdisciplinary group of neuroscientists, psychologists, economists, and education researchers. In a series of easy-to-understand, peer-reviewed videos, the group explains how early cognitive connections form—and break down.

Good experiences, like nurturing parents and rich early-child-care environments, help build and reinforce neural connections in areas such as language development and self-control, while adversity weakens those connections.

Over time, the connections, good or bad, stabilize, “and you can’t go back and rewire; you have to adapt,” Dr. Shonkoff said. “If you’ve built on strong foundations, that’s good, and if you have weak foundations, the brain has to work harder, and it costs more to the brain and society.”

Compounding Risks

As part of the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, more than 17,400 adults in San Diego County were assigned scores based on the number of risk factors each experienced as a child, including abuse or neglect, or growing up in homes with domestic violence, drug abuse or mental illness, or absent parents. Researchers found that people with higher ACE scores were more likely to experience underage sex or pregnancy, among other health risks.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/11/07/11poverty_ep.h32.html?tkn=QLYF5qldyT3U0BI0xqtD5885mihZIxwbX4qZ&cmp=clp-edweek

Here is information about the Adverse Child Experiences Study:

What is The ACE Study?

The ACE Study is ongoing collaborative research between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA, and Kaiser Permanente in San Diego, CA.

The Co-principal Investigators of The Study are Robert F. Anda, MD, MS, with the CDC; and Vincent J. Felitti, MD, with Kaiser Permanente.

Over 17,000 Kaiser patients participating in routine health screening volunteered to participate in The Study.  Data resulting from their participation continues to be analyzed; it reveals staggering proof of the health, social, and economic risks that result from childhood trauma.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides access to the peer-reviewed publications resulting from The ACE Study.                   http://acestudy.org/

See, School psychologists are needed to treat troubled children  https://drwilda.com/2012/02/27/school-psychologists-are-needed-to-treat-troubled-children/

Our goal as a society should be:

A healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood ©

Related:

Schools have to deal with depressed and troubled children https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/schools-have-to-deal-with-depressed-and-troubled-children/

School psychologists are needed to treat troubled children https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/school-psychologists-are-needed-to-treat-troubled-children/

Battling teen addiction: ‘Recovery high schools’                                              https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/battling-teen-addiction-recovery-high-schools/

Resources:

  1. About.Com’s Depression In Young Children
  2. Psych Central’s Depression In Young Children
  3. Psychiatric News’ Study Helps Pinpoint Children With Depression
  4. Family Doctor’s What Is Depression?
  5. WebMD’s Depression In Children
  6. Healthline’s Is Your Child Depressed?
  7. Medicine.Net’s Depression In Children

If you or your child needs help for depression or another illness, then go to a reputable medical provider. There is nothing wrong with taking the steps necessary to get well.

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART © http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                               http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©                                                                                https://drwilda.com/

Tags: , , , , , , ,

What is the Educare preschool model?

9 Nov

In Early learning standards and the K-12 continuum, moi said:

Preschool is a portal to the continuum of life long learning. A good preschool stimulates the learning process and prompts the child into asking questions about their world and environment. Baby Center offers advice about how to find a good preschool and general advice to expectant parents. At the core of why education is important is the goal of equipping every child with the knowledge and skills to pursue THEIR dream, whatever that dream is. Christine Armario and Dorie Turner are reporting in the AP article, AP News Break: Nearly 1 in 4 Fails Military Exam which appeared in the Seattle Times:

Nearly one-fourth of the students who try to join the U.S. Army fail its entrance exam, painting a grim picture of an education system that produces graduates who can’t answer basic math, science and reading questions, according to a new study released Tuesday.

Many children begin their first day of school behind their more advantaged peers. Early childhood learning is an important tool is bridging the education deficit. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/early-learning-standards-and-the-k-12-contiuum/

Julie Rasicot is reporting in the Education Week article, Public-private model generates interest:

Here at Educare, a $16 million early-childhood school that opened in July with the goal of closing the achievement gap for local children living in poverty, building that sense of security and familiarity is a major component of the program. These infants will spend three years with the same teachers. At age 3, they’ll move to a new teacher who will stay with them for two more years.

Funded by Head Start and public and private partnerships, this school is the newest addition to the growing Educare Learning Network’s 17 schools in communities across the country, a program that its proponents hope will become a national model for comprehensive early-childhood education. Since 2000, the Chicago-based nonprofit has been combining public and private money to provide early intervention for children deemed educationally and socially at risk and to help build strong bonds between the children, their parents, and teachers. The goal is to ensure that the children start school ready to learn, on par with peers from more-advantaged families.

Research has long shown that children from disadvantaged backgrounds enter kindergarten far behind their more-advantaged peers, and often face continued hardship in achieving success in school and life.

Continuity of Care

That’s why Educare promotes a comprehensive approach to high-quality child care and early learning through the critical years from birth to age 5, according to top officials. In the District of Columbia, in fact, the program anchors the city’s Promise Neighborhoods initiative, an effort to provide a web of social services to disadvantaged children and their families, much as the Harlem Children’s Zone does in New York.

The Educare program stresses the importance of continuity of care—keeping children together with the same teachers from birth to age 3—and strong parent engagement.

“Our major strategy is to promote the centrality of relationships as the cornerstone of learning for all human beings,” said Portia Kennel, the founder and executive director of the Educare Learning Network. “All learning happens in the context of relationships with caring adults.”

Low teacher-to-student ratios—three teachers serve a maximum of eight infants or toddlers— and a requirement that all teachers have a least a bachelor’s degree contribute to a high-quality experience, officials said.

Katherine Stimpson, a teacher in the pre-toddler classroom at Educare, reads a book with Xavier Monk. As part of the program, children stay with the same teacher from birth to age 3 and then move to another teacher for two more years.

—Lexey Swall for Education Week

It’s a model that’s achieving results, according to recent research. A study released in AugustRequires Adobe Acrobat Reader by the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that Educare was succeeding at preparing at-risk children for later achievement.

The institute has been conducting an implementation study of the Educare model since 2005. Now including 12 Educare schools serving about 1,800 children, study data show that “more years of Educare attendance are associated with better school readiness and vocabulary skills.” http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/11/07/11educare_ep.h32.html?tkn=URZFuw%2B819xZwM89pQJqzDJJ78tZ15sQZaTQ&cmp=clp-edweek

This is what Educare says at its site:

about educare > What is Educare

What is Educare?

Educare is a research-based Program that prepares, at-risk children for school.

Through a growing coast-to-coast network of state-of-the-art, full-day, year-round schools, funded mostly by existing public dollars, Educare serves at-risk children from birth to 5 years. Each Educare School embraces a community’s most vulnerable children with programming and instructional support that develop early skills and nurture the strong parent-child relationships that create the foundation for successful learning.

Educare is a:

  • Program based on the best of early education practices that ensure the school readiness of children most at risk for academic failure
  • Place of early learning that sends a clear message that we must invest in early childhood education because children are born learning
  • Partnership comprised of philanthropists, Head Start and Early Head Start providers, and school officials dedicated to narrowing the achievement gap for children in their communities
  • Platform for raising awareness of the value and vital importance of learning during a child’s first five years of life.

Narrowing the Achievement Gap

Research shows that children who experience Educare for a full five years arrive at school performing on par with average kindergarteners, regardless of their socio-economic standing. Educare children have more extensive vocabularies and are better able to recognize letters, numbers and colors than their peers.

Children who attend an Educare School also develop strong social skills, including self-confidence, persistence and methods to manage frustration. All of these abilities are strong predictors for later success in academics and in life. What’s more, early findings indicate the gains Educare children make hold as they move through elementary school. http://www.educareschools.org/home/index.php

Here is the research regarding the Educare model:

We know from a large body of research that good quality classroom environments are associated with enhanced child outcomes in the areas of language, vocabulary, early math and social skills.

Since 2005, nationally renowned researchers from the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill have tracked program quality and child and family outcomes at Educare Schools. And results from four years of study are promising. The study shows that low-income children, including children with limited proficiency in English, who started in an Educare School as babies, enter kindergarten with achievement levels close to their middle-income peers and much higher than would be expected of children in poverty.

The FPG Child Development Institute, founded in 1966 as The Frank Porter Graham Center, is one of the nation’s largest centers studying young children and their families. Among its many achievements is the Abecedarian Project, a longitudinal study of preschoolers frequently cited by experts and policymakers in making the case that quality early childhood education can narrow the achievement gap. FPG researchers also developed the measurement tools now used nationally and internationally to evaluate the quality of programs, including Educare Schools.

Related publications:

One of the major contributors to poverty in third world nations is limited access to education opportunities. Without continued sustained investment in education in this country, we are the next third world country.

Related:

The state of preschool education is dire                        https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/the-state-of-preschool-education-is-dire/

Oregon State University study: Ability to pay attention in preschool may predict college success                                      https://drwilda.com/2012/08/08/oregon-state-university-study-ability-to-pay-attention-in-preschool-may-predict-college-success/

Pre-kindergarten programs help at-risk students prepare for school                                                                 https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/pre-kindergarten-programs-help-at-risk-students-prepare-for-school/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART © http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                       http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©                                                                                 https://drwilda.com/

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tips for parent and teacher conferences

7 Nov

Preparation for the parent and teacher conference begins long before the actual meeting with the teacher. It begins with the selection of the school and asking the right questions about the school. The key question to ask is how is the school going to communicate with you about your child’s progress? How regular is the communication?

How to Prepare for a Parent and Teacher Conference

BabyCenter.Com has an excellent checklist for parent and teacher conference and they provide 14 basic questions to ask.

14 great questions to ask the teacher

1. Is my child working up to his ability?

2. Is there anything we can do at home to reinforce the skills that you’re working on in the classroom?

3. How much time should my child be spending on his homework?

4. Do you grade homework assignments?

5. What are my child’s strengths and weaknesses?

6. What can we do to help develop our child’s weak areas?

7. What are my child’s academic talents?

8. How are grades determined — are tests weighted the same as homework and in-class assignments?

9. What is my child like in class?

10. What is my child’s learning style?

11. How does my child interact with the other kids?

12. Is there anything that I can share with you about my child and what he’s like at home?

13. What skills will my child be expected to master this year in key subjects like math, English, science, and history?

14. Which, if any, standardized tests will be administered this year?

Family Education has a number of printable forms including one on Parent and Teacher Conferences They begin their checklist with a discussion with your child and they also have some questions parents may want to ask. You must register to access their materials, but registration is free.

Here are some general hints on how to have a successful conference:

· Ask your child if there is anything that he would like you to discuss with the teacher.

· Jot down everything that you want to talk about at the conference.

· Arrive promptly or a few minutes early.

· Begin with positive comments about the teacher or classroom.

· Avoid lengthy discussions of topics that are not related to the purpose of the conference.

· Be open to suggestions from the teacher.

· Keep your emotions under control.

· Take notes about what has been discussed and share them with your child.

· Express appreciation for the conference.

· Do not stay beyond your allotted time.

The goal of the parent and teacher conference is to get an accurate assessment of where your child is at a particular point in their academic career. Is your child making progress toward achieving academic goals? If not, what is the plan to have the child meet academic goals? If the child is meeting academic goals, are they sufficiently challenged by their work and in the proper placement? The goal is to make the teacher an ally in the education process.

Preparation for Teachers and Administrators

Beginning teachers are often apprehensive about parent conferences. Cathy Pearl offers some sage advice at Tips for Teachers

Tip #1: Make sure you are approachable. Greet every parent at the door with a smile and a handshake. No matter how you feel about their child, a parent should be greeted with respect.

Tip #2: Don’t sit in a position of power. It is not appropriate for the teacher to sit behind the desk during a conference. Arrange chairs in a circle, or sit kitty-corner to each other at a table.

Tip #3: Always start with the positive at a conference. Starting with the positive aspects about a child sets the tone for the entire meeting. No matter how difficult a child is, there is always something that they do well. Find it and use that as a starting point for the rest of the meeting.

Tip #4: When you are discussing a child, bring work samples to illustrate your points. This goes for things a child does well, and areas you may be working on with that child. If a child is showing improvement, bring before and after samples. Parents want to know how their child is developing his or her skills and work samples show this better than words.

Tip #5: At some point, a parent will ask a question that you don’t know the answer to. Don’t make up an answer to cover your lack of knowledge about a subject. Admit that you don’t know the answer and offer to find it for them. Parents will have more respect for you if you give them the correct answer, even if it is a day or two later, versus an incorrect one.

Tip #6: Start and end meetings on time. If you or the parents need more time, offer to meet again at another time. Their time is just as valuable as yours.

Tip #7: No matter how upset a parent gets, as a teacher you must remain calm. A teacher is often on the receiving end of anger and frustration. If you are concerned the meeting will be uncomfortable, ask another teacher to sit in with you. If nothing is being accomplished, offer to meet at another time when everyone involved is calmer.

Tip #8: It is very important to follow through on what was discussed at the meeting. Implement any changes discussed and be sure to call parents within two days with the answers to any questions you did not have at the meeting.

The Washoe County School District in Nevada has a comprehensive planning memo which addresses many of the issues presented by parent involvement.

Tips for Teachers and Administrators Parent Teacher Conferences

Research has shown that parental involvement is essential to a student’s success in school. One of the most important contacts between home and school is the Parent Teacher Conference. Learn how to make the most of the opportunity!

Administrators

Awareness

• Announce dates and times repeatedly – at family learning nights, back to school night, open houses, sporting events and assemblies.

• Publish the schedule in newsletters, on a bulletin board or on the school web site.

• Create a bulletin board in the school devoted to conferences with tips for parents.

• Provide conference information in a language that parents can understand.

• Discuss or include information on the goals of a parent teacher conference and the reasons parent attendance is essential.

Accessibility for Every Parent

• Allow flexible schedules that include early morning, late afternoon and evening conference times.

• Consider longer conference times such as 20 to 30 minute sessions.

• Arrange for school counselors, office staff or parent volunteers to telephone parents, reminding them of their appointments and encouraging them to attend.

• Talk to your Partners in Education or your parent organization (PTA, PTO, PFO) about providing childcare, transportation, and refreshments.

• Provide interpretation.

• Let parents know what services will be provided to help them overcome their barriers to attendance.

Many parents face challenges because of employment and other circumstances. To the extent possible, to goal should be to accommodate their involvement. 

Kelsey Sheehy of U.S. News provides the following tips for parents of high school students in the article, What High School Teachers Wish Parents Asked at Conferences:

As high school students inch closer and closer to college, parents can help ensure their student is on the right path by participating in teacher conferences. If a student is headed in the wrong direction, teachers can use the time to advise parents on how to help their teen change course.

While showing up at parent-teacher conferences is an important first step, asking the right questions will help both parties have a productive meeting. Here are some questions teachers say they wish parents would ask:

1. Is my student giving his or her best effort?

Conferences are typically a time for teachers to walk parents through their student’s grades, progress, and areas for growth. But grades don’t always tell the full story….

2. What could my teen do that he or she is not already doing?

Almost every student has room for improvement, and in an increasingly competitive college admissions landscape, each grade or activity could count.

Whether it’s taking advantage of internship or extra credit opportunities, filling out college applications, or simply turning assignments in on time, teachers can tell parents what their student needs to do to take his or her academic performance to the next level.

3. What can I do to make your job easier?

Parents and teachers should be on the same team–the student’s team….

“Place the responsibility for ‘doing well’ and turning in work on time right on the person who has the most control over making that happen–the student themselves,” Mango said via E-mail.

[Learn why students perform better with engaged parents.]

4. How are you doing?

Teaching can be a thankless task. Many teachers are managing dozens of students on a daily basis, and take on responsibilities that extend far beyond classroom instruction.

“I’m a teacher, a psychologist, a security guard, a babysitter, a bank, a chef, and countless other jobs. And it’s not like I’m doing it all for one child; no, I’m doing it for 70,” says Vin Testa, a math teacher at Roosevelt High School in Washington, D.C.

http://news.yahoo.com/high-school-teachers-wish-parents-asked-conferences-155245643.html;_ylt=ArsHGTgJH7dELCtAX6_oB0pPXs8F;_ylu=X3oDMTQ0czBza25nBG1pdANUb3BTdG9yeSBVU1NGIEVkdWNhdGlvblNTRgRwa2cDNDFiODAwMzktZDAwMy0zNTA2LWIyMmQtNmVjZWIxZmE3NzIxBHBvcwM0BHNlYwN0b3Bfc3RvcnkEdmVyAzA2NzA0YzMwLTI3NjEtMTFlMi1iYmRiLTU4N2ZlYzczYmQ2Mg–;_ylg=X3oDMTFzcXM5ajBmBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lfGVkdWNhdGlvbgRwdANzZWN0aW9ucw–;_ylv=3

Remember, the conference you will be attending is like a snapshot of a point in time. School is a process of learning and getting through the system of education. Go to the conference prepared and ask questions. If your child has challenges, formulate a plan to address those challenges. If it is necessary to take some corrective action to get your child on the proper course, ask for benchmarks of where your child should be at particular points during the school year and into the next grade. Ask how you will be informed. Constantly monitor what is going on at your child’s school and in their classroom. Hopefully, at the end of the conference you and your child’s teacher will be allies in the academic success of your child.

It is important that your child’s teacher understands that you are a concerned parent who is interested in working with them to ensure your child’s success.

Resources:

Iowa Parents. Org Information about how to be an involved parent

Education World Parent and Teacher Conference Resources

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART © http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                           http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©                                                                                      https://drwilda.com/

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Is cognitive learning the newest fad?

6 Nov

Cognitive training has been theorized to affect the educational development of children for quite awhile. Paul Eggen and Don Kauchak write in Educational Psychology: Windows on Classrooms, Sixth Edition:

Cognitive Perspectives on Learning

Although elements of cognitive learning theory have a long history, what is commonly termed the “cognitive revolution” occurred at about the middle of the 20th century. Cognitive views of learning evolved, in part, because behaviorism was unable to explain complex phenomena such as language learning and problem solving as well as a number of everyday events, such as why people respond differently to the same stimulus.

Cognitive learning theory assumes that learners are active in their attempts to understand the world, new understanding depends on prior learning, learners construct understanding, and learning is a change in people’s mental structures instead of changes in observable behavior. http://wps.prenhall.com/chet_eggen_education_6/0,8057,885470-,00.html

Cognitive learning techniques can be used by parents of at-risk children to help their children advance academically.

Sarah D. Sparks wrote in the 2011 Education Week article, Neuroscience Ed. Winner Finds Cognitive Training Helps Parents, Students:

Helen J. Neville, the director of the Brain Development Lab and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oregon in Eugene, believes training parents as well as children in cognitive techniques can help to close early achievement gaps.

Neville has been named the winner of the 2011Transforming Education Through Neuroscience award, sponsored by the International Mind Brain Education Society and the Learning and the Brain Foundation, for her studies of parent and child cognitive training to improve attention.

Neville worked with more than 100 at-risk children in Head Start centers and their parents. The children, ages 3 to 5, received 40 minutes of training in attention for four days a week for eight weeks. A typical session might include watching snails travel from one point to another, or observing other children playing with balloons—activities requiring patience, focus, and mental self-control.

For one group of children, Neville and her colleagues provided weekly, two-hour training sessions for their parents on activities associated with improving cognitive focus in young children, such as using specific praise and positive enforcement; engaging the children in turn-taking conversations; and providing opportunities for the children to choose and solve problems.

The researchers found that training parents as well as children amplified the effects of the intervention. Neville found that for the group in which both parents and children received training, the children improved significantly in their attention, nonverbal IQ scores, associative memory and receptive language skills. Moreover, their parents reported significantly lower stress levels and improved child behavior. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2011/12/neuroscience_education_award_w.html?intc=es

Parents who can afford cognitive learning tutoring are providing cognitive learning training for their children.

Dan Hurley wrote the New York Times article, the Brain Trainers:

On this Wednesday evening at the Upper Montclair, N.J., outlet of LearningRx, a chain of 83 “brain training” franchises across the United States, the goal is to improve cognitive skills. LearningRx is one of a growing number of such commercial services — some online, others offered by psychologists. Unlike traditional tutoring services that seek to help students master a subject, brain training purports to enhance comprehension and the ability to analyze and mentally manipulate concepts, images, sounds and instructions. In a word, it seeks to make students smarter.

“We measure every student pre- and post-training with a version of the Woodcock-Johnson general intelligence test,” said Ken Gibson, who began franchising LearningRx centers in 2003, and has data on more than 30,000 of the nearly 50,000 students who have been trained. “The average gain on I.Q. is 15 points after 24 weeks of training, and 20 points in less than 32 weeks.”

The three other large cognitive training services — Lumosity, Cogmed and Posit Science — dance around the question of whether they truly raise I.Q. but do assert that they improve cognitive performance.

“Your brain, just brighter,” is the slogan of Lumosity, an online company that now has some 25 million registered members. According to its Web site, “Our users have reported profound benefits that include: clearer and quicker thinking; faster problem-solving skills; increased alertness and awareness; better concentration at work or while driving; sharper memory for names, numbers and directions.”

Those results are achieved, the companies say, by repurposing cognitive tasks initially developed by psychologists as tests of mental abilities. With technical names like the antisaccade, the N-back and the complex working memory span task, the exercises are dressed up as games that become increasingly difficult as students gain mastery….

One skeptic is Douglas K. Detterman, professor of psychology at Case Western Reserve University and founding editor of the influential academic journal Intelligence. His research would seem to offer reassurance to college-bound brain trainees, because he has found a close correlation between I.Q. and SAT scores. “All of these tests are pretty much the same thing,” he said. “They measure general intelligence.”

The catch, however, is that Dr. Detterman believes that cognitive training only makes people better at taking tests, without improving their underlying intelligence. Dr. Detterman said of brain training, “It’s probably not harmful. But I would tell parents: Save your money. Look at the studies the commercial services have done to support their results. You’ll find very poorly done studies, with no control groups and all kinds of problems.”

Executives at traditional tutoring and test-prep services tend to share Dr. Detterman’s view — perhaps not surprisingly, because some of the brain training programs pitch themselves in direct contrast to standard tutoring. (“Brain Training vs. Tutoring,” says the headline of a LearningRx brochure. “Is tutoring what your child really needs?”) Bror Saxberg, chief learning officer of Kaplan Inc., questions whether improving performance on an intelligence test will translate directly to improved grades and test scores…

Still,a new and growing body of scientific evidence indicates that cognitive training can be effective, including that offered by commercial services.

Oliver W. Hill Jr., a professor of psychology at Virginia State University in Petersburg, recently completed a $1 million study, yet to be published, financed by the National Science Foundation to test the effects of LearningRx. He looked at 340 middle-school students who spent two hours a week for a semester using LearningRx exercises in their schools’ computer labs and an equal number of students who received no such training. Those who played the online games, Dr. Hill found, not only improved significantly on measures of cognitive abilities compared to their peers, but also on Virginia’s annual Standards of Learning exam.

He’s now conducting a follow-up study of college students in Texas and, he said, sees even stronger gains when the training is offered one on one.

Michael Merzenich, who spent years conducting brain plasticity research in animals as a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, started Posit Science to make the results of his research more widely available. “This is medicine,” he insisted. “It is driving changes in the brain.”  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/education/edlife/a-new-kind-of-tutoring-aims-to-make-students-smarter.html?ref=education

Many school districts are trying integrate cognitive techniques into their instruction. Lacking resources to provide more individual tutoring, these districts often rely on technology.

Trip Gabriel and Matt Richtel write in the 2011 New York Times article, Inflating the Software Report Card:

Amid a classroom-based software boom estimated at $2.2 billion a year, debate continues to rage over the effectiveness of technology on learning and how best to measure it. But it is hard to tell that from technology companies’ promotional materials.

Many companies ignore well-regarded independent studies that test their products’ effectiveness. Carnegie’s Web site, for example, makes no mention of the 2010 review, by the Education Department’s What Works Clearinghouse, which analyzed 24 studies of Cognitive Tutor’s effectiveness but found that only four of those met high research standards. Some firms misrepresent research by cherry-picking results and promote surveys or limited case studies that lack the scientific rigor required by the clearinghouse and other authorities.

“The advertising from the companies is tremendous oversell compared to what they can actually demonstrate,” said Grover J. Whitehurst, a former director of the Institute of Education Sciences, the federal agency that includes What Works.

School officials, confronted with a morass of complicated and sometimes conflicting research, often buy products based on personal impressions, marketing hype or faith in technology for its own sake.

“They want the shiny new one,” said Peter Cohen, chief executive of Pearson School, a leading publisher of classroom texts and software. “They always want the latest, when other things have been proven the longest and demonstrated to get results….”

In a recent interview, Dr. Allen said she was familiar with the What Works Clearinghouse, but not its 2010 finding that Cognitive Tutor did not raise test scores more than textbooks.

Though the clearinghouse is intended to help school leaders choose proven curriculum, a 2010 Government Accountability Office survey of district officials found that 58 percent of them had never heard of What Works, never mind consulted its reviews.

“Decisions are made on marketing, on politics, on personal preference,” said Robert A. Slavin, director of the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University. “An intelligent, caring principal who’d never buy a car without looking at Consumer Reports, when they plunk down serious money to buy a curriculum, they don’t even look at the evidence.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/technology/a-classroom-software-boom-but-mixed-results-despite-the-hype.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

More research about cognitive learning techniques is needed.

Resources:

Short- and long-term benefits of cognitive training

  1. Susanne M. Jaeggi1,2,
  2. Martin Buschkuehl1,2,
  3. John Jonides, and
  4. Priti Shah

+ Author Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1043
  1. Edited by Dale Purves, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, and approved May 17, 2011 (received for review March 1, 2011)

Abstract

Does cognitive training work? There are numerous commercial training interventions claiming to improve general mental capacity; however, the scientific evidence for such claims is sparse. Nevertheless, there is accumulating evidence that certain cognitive interventions are effective. Here we provide evidence for the effectiveness of cognitive (often called “brain”) training. However, we demonstrate that there are important individual differences that determine training and transfer. We trained elementary and middle school children by means of a videogame-like working memory task. We found that only children who considerably improved on the training task showed a performance increase on untrained fluid intelligence tasks. This improvement was larger than the improvement of a control group who trained on a knowledge-based task that did not engage working memory; further, this differential pattern remained intact even after a 3-mo hiatus from training. We conclude that cognitive training can be effective and long-lasting, but that there are limiting factors that must be considered to evaluate the effects of this training, one of which is individual differences in training performance. We propose that future research should not investigate whether cognitive training works, but rather should determine what training regimens and what training conditions result in the best transfer effects, investigate the underlying neural and cognitive mechanisms, and finally, investigate for whom cognitive training is most useful.                                                                  http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/06/03/1103228108

What is Cognitive Training? – YouTube
► 3:52► 3:52 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbg1Ilj5nQoJun 2, 2009 – 4 min – Uploaded by AdvancedLearningConc
Cognitive Training can help you train your brain to plan, organize, remember, focus, make good decisions and …

What is Cognitive Training?

By advancedlearningconc| 1 video

Watch

Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART © http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                  http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©                                                                                              https://drwilda.com/

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Fordham Foundation report: State-by-state analysis of teacher union strength

5 Nov

Andrew J. Rotherham wrote Quiet Riot: Insurgents Take On Teachers’ Unions for Time:

Quick: Which group consistently tops the list of U.S. political donors — bankers? Oil barons? The Koch brothers? Nope. Try schoolteachers. The two major teachers’ unions, despite all the rhetoric about how teachers have no influence on policy, collectively spent more than $67 million directly on political races from 1989 to 2010. And that figure doesn’t include millions more spent by their state and local affiliates and all kinds of support for favored (read: reform-averse) candidates.

For years, union leaders have lambasted as antiteacher pretty much every proposal to expand charter schools, improve teacher evaluation and turn around low-performing schools. Yet these reform issues have moved to the mainstream as even the Democrats, traditionally labor’s biggest allies, have gotten fed up with union intransigence to structural changes to improve America’s schools. Meanwhile, states as diverse as Massachusetts, New Jersey, Florida, Ohio and — you guessed it — Wisconsin are attacking union prerogatives such as valuing seniority over on-the-job performance and collectively bargaining for benefits. At the same time, black and Latino parents are growing increasingly impatient with lousy schools and are organizing in an effort to provide a counterweight to the unions. Just last week, the nation’s second biggest teachers’ union, the American Federation of Teachers, was embarrassed when a PowerPoint presentation surfaced on the Web outlining strategies for undercutting parent groups. Sample quote: “What helped us? Absence of charter school and parent groups from the table.”

But perhaps the biggest strategic pressure for reform is starting to come from teachers themselves, many of whom are trying to change their unions and, by extension, their profession. These renegade groups, composed generally of younger teachers, are trying to accomplish what a generation of education reformers, activists and think tanks have not: forcing the unions to genuinely mend their ways. Here are the three most-talked-about initiatives:

The takeover artists. The Los Angeles teachers’ union, United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA), has long been regarded as one of the nation’s most hidebound. But Jordan Henry, a 12-year veteran teacher, wants to change that, so last year he co-founded NewTLA. (Get it? Rhymes with UTLA? C’mon, this is education reform — we must find little bright spots wherever we can.) Henry has managed in short order to build a large dissident faction within the union. After the last union election, NewTLA holds 90 of the 350 seats in the union’s house of representatives, an impressive feat of organizing given how challenging it is for nonmainstream candidates to get much traction within the union. And although Henry is trying to change the union from within, he is not shy about criticizing it publicly, recently telling the Teach For America alumni magazine that, “I don’t think my local affiliate is a leader in reform, as much as it says it might be….”

The outsiders. Educators for Excellence (E4E) is a group of more than 3,500 New York City teachers that is to trying to change laws and policies by going straight to policymakers. For instance, when New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed doing away with the current system of laying off the most recent hires first, the union attacked any notion of letting principals unilaterally pick which teachers get booted. But the newly formed E4E forced its way into the conversation and sought a middle ground, proposing an alternative that took into account such things as how often teachers had been absent, whether they were actually in front of students or in nonteaching “reserve” roles and also factoring in performance ratings. The union wasn’t enthusiastic about this approach either, but the idea got traction in Albany. And although the city and the teachers’ union cut a deal on layoffs, the episode established E4E as a voice in education policymaking….

The hybrid. Teach Plus is a network of teachers with chapters in Boston, Chicago, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Memphis and, starting this fall, Washington. The group recruits accomplished teachers who want to take on leadership roles within their schools or to advocate for public policy changes without leaving their classrooms. More than 4,500 teachers are involved so far, and about 250 have gone through selective 12- and 18-month fellowships. Teach Plus says it wants to partner with unions — albeit by bringing reformers inside the tent. Celine Coggins, a former middle-school science teacher in Massachusetts who founded the group in 2007, says many teachers often tell her that the unions “seem like my grandfather’s union, not necessarily mine….”

It’s too early to tell whether any of these groups — or even all of them working in tandem — will succeed in changing the teachers’ unions….

Disclosure: Two of my partners at Bellwether have done executive search and strategy work for Teach Plus, and I have advised the organization informally.

Teacher tenure is a huge topic in education.

People become teachers for many reasons. Among the top ten reasons to become a teacher are:

1. Student Potential

2. Student Successes

3. Teaching a Subject Helps You Learn a Subject

4. Daily Humor

5. Affecting the Future

6. Staying Younger

7. Autonomy in the Classroom

8. Conducive to Family Life

9. Job Security

10. Summers Off

For many who seek an education career, an unspoken reason for choosing education as a profession is the stability which tenure may provide.

What is Teacher Tenure?

A good basic description of teacher tenure as found at teacher tenure James gives the following definition:

WHAT IS TENURE?

Tenure is a form of job security for teachers who have successfully completed a probationary period. Its primary purpose is to protect competent teachers from arbitrary nonrenewal of contract for reasons unrelated to the educational process — personal beliefs, personality conflicts with administrators or school board members, and the like.

WHAT PROTECTION DOES TENURE OFFER THE PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER?

The type and amount of protection vary from state to state and — depending on agreements with teachers’ unions — may even vary from school district to school district. In general, a tenured teacher is entitled to due process when he or she is threatened with dismissal or nonrenewal of contract for cause: that is, for failure to maintain some clearly defined standard that serves an educational purpose.

Time has a good summary of the history of teacher tenure at A Brief History of Tenure

Huffington Post reported on a report by the Fordham Foundation about teacher unions in the article, Teachers Unions Strength Measured: Fordham Institute Report Ranks States By Power And Influence Of Teacher Unions. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/study-examines-ranks-teac_n_2039879.html

Here is the press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Stephen Manfredi
October 29, 2012 (202) 222-8028
Picket Lines and Ballot Boxes: New Study Examines Strength of Teacher Unions Nationwide

Washington, D.C.—Today the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and Education Reform Now released the most comprehensive analysis of American teacher unions’ strength ever conducted. Published weeks after the contentious Chicago teachers’ strike and days before a hotly contested election, this timely study, How Strong Are U.S. Teacher Unions? A State-By-State Comparison, ranks all fifty states and the District of Columbia according to the power and influence of their state-level unions.

Reform debates increasingly focus on the teacher unions’ role in the changing landscape of American K–12 education. Critics accuse them of blocking needed changes, protecting inadequate instructors and overpowering the public interest at the ballot box. Supporters object, arguing that unions are critical to defending teachers’ rights, ensuring teachers’ professionalism, and safeguarding them from misguided reforms.

“For better or worse, teacher unions look out for teacher interests,” said Chester E. Finn, Jr., Fordham’s president. “This study sheds light on how exactly they do this, by measuring their strength, state by state, more comprehensively than any other analysis to date. It illuminates their power to hinder—or promote—education reform, on whether what occurred in Chicago could happen anywhere in the United States, and the myriad ways they seek to influence election outcomes and policy decisions.”

To assess union strength, the Fordham-ERN study examined thirty-seven different variables across five realms: 1) Resources and Membership; 2) Involvement in Politics; 3) Scope of Bargaining; 4) State Policies; and 5) Perceived Influence. Using these data, analysts ranked the relative strength of state-level teacher unions in fifty-one jurisdictions (all states plus the District of Columbia), and ranked their strength and influence. The study analyzed factors ranging from union membership and revenue to state bargaining laws to campaign contributions, and included such measures such as the alignment between specific state policies and traditional union interests and a unique stakeholder survey.

The report sorts the fifty-one jurisdictions into five tiers, ranking their teacher unions from strongest to weakest. This review determined that Hawaii has the strongest teacher union in the U.S. while Arizona has the weakest. (COMPLETE STATE RANKINGS CAN BE VIEWED BELOW) The entire study can also be viewed at http://www.edexcellence.net/publications/how-strong-are-us-teacher-unions.html

Other findings include:

 Teacher strikes, such as the one recently concluded in Chicago, are legal in fourteen states and illegal in thirty-seven.
 In the 2010 state election cycle, teacher unions were one of the top-ten overall donors to candidates for governor and other executive positions, legislature, high court, and elected education positions in twenty-two of forty-eight states. In twenty one states, they were among the top five highest-giving interest groups.
 The percentage of a state’s teachers who are union members varies a lot; in 2008, the nationwide average was 74 percent; in two states it was lower than 35 percent; in sixteen states, 90 percent or more of teachers are unionized.
 Thirty-two states require local school boards to bargain collectively with their teachers, fourteen states permit this, and five states prohibit collective bargaining.
 The unions’ influence may be waning at the state level, however. For the three years prior to the 2011 legislative session, education policies in most states reflected union priorities. In 2011, however, a growing number of legislatures were enacting policies that were less in line with union priorities. (And other sources indicate that many teacher unions are losing members and incurring budget deficits.)
The report has four key takeaways:

1. Mandatory bargaining tilts the playing field in favor of stronger unions overall. It not only increases union resources and status, but also ensures issues are “on the table” (and not under the direct authority of state and local leaders).

2. The scope of bargaining matters a lot, too, as does the right (or not) to strike. Local unions use collective bargaining and strikes to protect teacher interests—but only on issues allowed by state law. When a wide scope of bargaining combines with ill-defined, timid, or absent state policies, unions have better opportunity to negotiate contracts that serve their goals.

3. Resources make a difference. Dollars and members are both important—even (or especially) if unions have limited bargaining rights. With higher revenue, a state union can better finance its lobbying and advocacy efforts at the statehouse, shaping policies that protect its interests while undermining or blocking those that do not. Greater membership means more union representation at the ballot box, more communications with state leaders, and more boots on the ground during rallies and campaigns—and in turn, more revenue from member dues.

4. The fact that a state has mandatory, permissive, or broad bargaining laws—or its unions enjoy abundant resources—does not mean that state policies are union-favorable and vice-versa. Many unions that have mandatory bargaining over a wide range of issues and high membership and revenue still see state education policies that are not particularly favorable to unions. Conversely, some states without strong bargaining rights have union-friendly policies regardless. That’s because other factors matter, too: state leadership (both past and present), federal policy, the condition of the economy, the influence of other key stakeholders, and the state’s own macro-politics.

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute is committed to the renewal and reform of primary and secondary education in the United States. Education Reform Now is a nonpartisan organization that envisions an America in which every child, regardless of class or race, has the social and economic opportunities afforded by an excellent public education. How Strong Are U.S. Teacher Unions? A State-By-State Comparison was authored by Amber M. Winkler, Janie Scull, and Dara Zeehandelaar, with a foreword by Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Michael J. Petrilli. Generous support for this report was provided by the Bodman Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and Education Reform Now, as well as by our sister organization, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. For further information about this study, and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, please visit us online at http://www.edexcellence.net.

Citation:

How Strong Are U.S. Teacher Unions? A State-By-State Comparison

Foreword by Chester E. Finn, Jr. , Michael J. Petrilli

Filed under: Teachers

This timely study represents the most comprehensive analysis of American teacher unions’ strength ever conducted, ranking all fifty states and the District of Columbia according to the power and influence of their state-level unions. To assess union strength, the Fordham Institute and Education Reform Now examined thirty-seven different variables across five realms:

1) Resources and Membership

2) Involvement in Politics

3) Scope of Bargaining

4) State Policies

5) Perceived Influence

The study analyzed factors ranging from union membership and revenue to state bargaining laws to campaign contributions, and included such measures such as the alignment between specific state policies and traditional union interests and a unique stakeholder survey. The report sorts the fifty-one jurisdictions into five tiers, ranking their teacher unions from strongest to weakest and providing in-depth profiles of each.

Download the state profiles (Click your state to download):

Full Report

The strength of teacher unions in the U.S.

How Strong Are U.S. Teacher Unions?

Background about teachers unions:

Debate: Are Teachers Unions The Problem or The Answer?

NPR: The Role of Teachers Unions In Education

Reform and the Teachers Unions

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART © http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                            http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©                                                                                  https://drwilda.com/

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

SACNAS scientists argue the superiority of diversity when discussing Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (Case No. 11-345)

4 Nov

Moi attended the SACNAS 2012 National Meeting in Seattle. Among the events on her calendar was a discussion with SACNAS board members about why diversity is important and the potential impact of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (Case No. 11-345), which is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. Moi met with:

Lee Bitsoi, (Navajo) EdD SACNAS Secretary,      Bioethics at Harvard

SACNAS Board Members:

Luis Echegoyen, (Cuban) PhD Chemistry,           University of Texas at El Paso

Juan Meza, PhD                                               Dean of Natural Sciences,

                                                                       Professor of Applied Math,                                                                                  UC at Merced

Gabriel Montano,PhD                                        Nanotechnology/Membrane                                                                        Biochemistry                                                                        Los Alamos National Laboratory

Not only do these gentlemen do research and attend conferences in addition to teaching and other activities, they see their roles as MENTORS to those who will attempt to fill their shoes. See, Review of 2012 SACNAS National Meeting in Seattle http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/2012/10/20/review-of-2012-sacnas-national-meeting-in-seattle/

Before discussing the SACNAS board members argument in favor of the superiority of diversity, a discussion of affirmative action is necessary.

Plessy v. Ferguson established the principle of “separate but equal” in race issues. Brown v.Board of Education which overturned the principle of “separate but equal.” would not have been necessary, but for Plessy. See also, the history of Brown v. Board of Education

If one believes that all children, regardless of that child’s status have a right to a good basic education and that society must fund and implement policies, which support this principle. Then, one must discuss the issue of equity in education. Because of the segregation, which resulted after Plessy, most folks focus their analysis of Brown almost solely on race. The issue of equity was just as important. The equity issue was explained in terms of unequal resources and unequal access to education.

People tend to cluster in neighborhoods based upon class as much as race. Good teachers tend to gravitate toward neighborhoods where they are paid well and students come from families who mirror their personal backgrounds and values. Good teachers make a difference in a child’s life. One of the difficulties in busing to achieve equity in education is that neighborhoods tend to be segregated by class as well as race. People often make sacrifices to move into neighborhoods they perceive mirror their values. That is why there must be good schools in all segments of the city and there must be good schools in all parts of this state. A good education should not depend upon one’s class or status.

The lawyers in Brown were told that lawsuits were futile and that the legislatures would address the issue of segregation eventually when the public was ready. Meanwhile, several generations of African Americans waited for people to come around and say the Constitution applied to us as well. Generations of African Americans suffered in inferior schools. This state cannot sacrifice the lives of children by not addressing the issue of equity in school funding in a timely manner.

The next huge case, like Brown, will be about equity in education funding. It may not come this year or the next year. It, like Brown, may come several years after a Plessy. It will come. Equity in education funding is the civil rights issue of this century. https://drwilda.com/2011/12/02/the-next-great-civil-rights-struggle-disparity-in-education-funding/ U.S. Supreme Court watchers are awaiting the decision in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (Case No. 11-345).

Mark Walsh reported in the Education Week article, Affirmative Action Case Up for Airing at High Court:

The future of affirmative action in education—not just for colleges but potentially for K-12 schools as well—may be on the line when the U.S. Supreme Court takes up a race-conscious admissions plan from the University of Texas next month.

That seems apparent to the scores of education groups that have lined up behind the university with friend-of-the-court briefs calling on the justices to uphold the plan and continue to recognize the need for racial diversity in the nation’s schools and classrooms.

“Long identified as essential to the missions of many postsecondary institutions and school districts in the United States, diversity has emerged as central to our nation’s overarching goals associated with educational excellence,” says a joint brief by the College Board, the National School Boards Association, and several other K-12 groups and others that deal with college admissions.

In an interview, Francisco M. Negrón Jr., the general counsel of the NSBA and a co-author of the brief, emphasized the stakes in the scope of the issues posed in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (Case No. 11-345), which is set for arguments Oct. 10.

“This is predominantly a higher ed. case, but our interests in K-12 diversity are not dissimilar to the interests of higher education,” he said.

Student Abigail Fisher challenged the University of Texas at Austin on admissions.

The Fisher case is one of the biggest of the court’s new term, and for now is the only education case on the docket.

It involves Abigail Fisher, a white applicant who was denied admission to the University of Texas at Austin in 2008 under the university’s “holistic review” program. That program may take race into account for the quarter of places in UT-Austin’s entering freshman class not filled by the Texas law that guarantees admission to high school students who finish in the top 10 percent of their graduating classes.

Lawyers for Ms. Fisher say that but for the consideration of race, she would have been admitted. They say that the Texas program should be struck down under the 14th Amendment’s equal-protection clause because it fails the requirement for a narrowly tailored race-conscious program set forth in the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger. That 5-4 decision involved the University of Michigan law school, and the majority opinion by then-Justice Sandra Day O’Connor expressed a desire for all use of affirmative action in education to end within 25 years….  http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/09/28/06scotus.h32.html?tkn=XUOFyffLI8gEbWxzrz2Nk2RMFlvQXv3nnePW&cmp=clp-edweek

The theory of “affirmative action” has evolved over time.

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

“Affirmative action” means positive steps taken to increase the representation of women and minorities in areas of employment, education, and business from which they have been historically excluded. When those steps involve preferential selection—selection on the basis of race, gender, or ethnicity—affirmative action generates intense controversy.

The development, defense, and contestation of preferential affirmative action has proceeded along two paths. One has been legal and administrative as courts, legislatures, and executive departments of government have made and applied rules requiring affirmative action. The other has been the path of public debate, where the practice of preferential treatment has spawned a vast literature, pro and con. Often enough, the two paths have failed to make adequate contact, with the public quarrels not always very securely anchored in any existing legal basis or practice.

The ebb and flow of public controversy over affirmative action can be pictured as two spikes on a line, the first spike representing a period of passionate debate that began around 1972 and tapered off after 1980, and the second indicating a resurgence of debate in the 1990s leading up to the Supreme Court’s decision in the summer of 2003 upholding certain kinds of affirmative action. The first spike encompassed controversy about gender and racial preferences alike. This is because in the beginning affirmative action was as much about the factory, the firehouse, and the corporate suite as about the university campus. The second spike represents a quarrel about race and ethnicity. This is because the burning issue at the turn of the twentieth-first century is about college admissions.[1] In admissions to selective colleges, women need no boost; African-Americans and Hispanics do.[2] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/affirmative-action/

Stanford provides a good analysis of the theory.

In the effort to produce diverse campuses many colleges use a “holistic” admissions policy. Scott Jaschik writes in the Inside Higher Education article, ‘Holistic’ Controversy:

The University of California at Los Angeles uses a “holistic” approach to undergraduate admissions. Each applicant is reviewed not only for test scores and grades, but for low socioeconomic status, a disadvantaged background and evidence of the ability to overcome challenges (among other qualities). Holistic admissions (used by many leading colleges and universities, some of which also consider a candidate’s race and ethnicity) is designed to evaluate each applicant as more than just a set of numbers.

Proponents of holistic admissions say that it evens the playing field for those who didn’t go to the best high schools or couldn’t afford enriching summer travel or SAT tutors. And because holistic admissions avoids automatic cutoff or admission scores for students from any group, proponents hope it can help diversify student bodies without running afoul of court rulings or attracting lawsuits. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/10/31/debate-over-admissions-and-race-ucla

Many educators have long recognized that the impact of social class affects both education achievement and life chances after completion of education. There are two impacts from diversity, one is to broaden the life experience of the privileged and to raise the expectations of the disadvantaged. Social class matters in not only other societies, but this one as well.

A few years back, the New York Times did a series about social class in America. That series is still relevant. Janny Scott and David Leonhardt’s overview, Shadowy Lines That Still Divide describes the challenges faced by schools trying to overcome the disparity in education. The complete series can be found at Social Class

Moi’s discussion with Drs. Bitsoi, Echegoyen, Meza, and Montano really was a discussion framed by the scientific method. Keep in mind the good doctors are all scientists. Their argument for a “holistic” approach in college admissions is the role of diversity in scientific inquiry and their argument that diversity in scientific teams produces better results. To a man, they argue that diversity and excellence are not mutually exclusive, but highly compatible. In fact, they argue, that diversity produces excellence of result. They used examples of the impact of the SACNAS method of mentoring young scientists who were selected for mentoring using a “holistic” appraisal of their qualifications. With mentoring and support these young scientists blossomed. The bottom line is that in order for this society to find the answers to problems which vex society, there must be a diverse set of skills and minds to problem-solve.

The question which this society has to answer is how to provide a good education for ALL despite their race or social class. The SACNAS scientists fully support a “holistic” approach approach to college admissions.

Related:

Is there a ‘model minority’ ??                                               https://drwilda.com/2012/06/23/is-there-a-model-minority/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART © http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                               http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©                                                                                  https://drwilda.com/

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Common Sense Media report: Media choices at home affect school performance

1 Nov

Moi wrote in Study: Children subject to four hours background television daily:

Let’s make this short and sweet. Park your kid in front of the television and you will probably be raising an overweight idiot. Tara Parker-Pope has a great post at the New York Times blog. In the post, TV For Toddlers Linked With Later Problems Parker-Pope reports:

Toddlers who watch a lot of television were more likely to experience a range of problems by the fourth grade, including lower grades, poorer health and more problems with school bullies, a new study reports.

The study of more than 1,300 Canadian schoolchildren tracked the amount of television children were watching at the ages of about 2 and 5. The researchers then followed up on the children in fourth grade to assess academic performance, social issues and general health.

On average, the schoolchildren were watching about nine hours of television each week as toddlers. The total jumped to about 15 hours as they approached 5 years of age. The average level of television viewing shown in the study falls within recommended guidelines. However, 11 percent of the toddlers were exceeding two hours a day of television viewing.

For those children, each hour of extra TV exposure in early childhood was associated with a range of issues by the fourth grade, according to the report published in the May issue of The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. Compared with children who watched less television, those with more TV exposure participated less in class and had lower math grades. They suffered about 10 percent more bullying by classmates and were less likely to be physically active on weekends. They consumed about 10 percent more soft drinks and snacks and had body mass index scores that were about 5 percent higher than their peers.

Well duh, people. You probably already knew this. Guess why you have feet attached to your legs? So, you and the kids can walk around the neighborhood and the park. Better yet, why don’t you encourage your children to play. https://drwilda.com/2012/09/16/play-is-as-important-for-children-as-technology/

https://drwilda.com/2012/10/02/study-children-subject-to-fours-background-television-daily/

Teachers were surveyed about how how home media choices affect a child’ ability to learn.

Here is the press release from Common Sense Media:

Entertainment Media Diets of Children and Adolescents May Impact Learning

Teachers cite negative effect on students’ attention spans, writing, and face-to-face communication

For immediate release

Thursday, November 1, 2012

San Francisco, CA — A new study on the role of media and technology in kids’ lives reveals that many teachers suspect the quantity and quality of kids’ at-home media choices may be negatively impacting their in-class performance.

The report, “Children, Teens, and Entertainment Media: The View from the Classroom,” is the latest research from Common Sense Media’s Program for the Study of Children and Media. Based on a nationally representative survey of 685 classroom teachers, the findings include:

  • 71% of teachers believe students’ entertainment media use — the TV shows, video games, texting, and social networking they do for fun at home — has hurt students’ attention spans “a lot” or “somewhat”;
  • 59% believe such media use has hurt students’ abilities to communicate face to face;
  • 58% say students’ writing skills have been negatively impacted by their use of entertainment media; and
  • Nearly half of teachers (48%) believe students’ media use has hurt the quality of their homework.

These concerns about the impact of entertainment media on students’ academic skills were consistent whether the teachers described themselves as “tech-savvy” or less comfortable with new media; whether they were new to the classroom or teaching veterans; and whether they taught at high- or low-income schools. Among teachers who say their students’ academic skills have mainly been hurt by entertainment media, more than two-thirds point the finger at video games (68%) and texting (66%).

At the same time, 63% of teachers say entertainment media has helped students hone their ability to find information quickly and efficiently, and 34% say it has helped students’ ability to multi-task effectively.  

“The social, emotional, and cognitive impact of media and technology on our kids is of paramount importance to Common Sense Media,” said James P. Steyer, founder and CEO, Common Sense Media. “We know that our children learn from the media they consume. This survey is yet another reminder of how critical it is to consistently guide our kids to make good media choices and balance the amount of time they spend with any media and all of their other activities.”

In terms of social development, more than two-thirds of teachers (67%) believe that entertainment media has a “very” or “somewhat” negative impact on students’ sexualization, and 61% say the same about students’ ideas about relationships between boys and girls. Among teachers who believe students’ social development has been negatively affected by entertainment media, the blame falls primarily on television (71%), movies (61%), music (56%), and social networking (55%). In comments throughout the online survey, several teachers noted a positive impact from entertainment media on students’ engagement with the world and their exposure to diverse viewpoints.  

“There have been several important surveys of teachers about the use of media and technology as a learning tool in the classroom, but few, if any, that explore what teachers think about the impact of media use by students at home,” said Vicky Rideout, president of VJR Consulting, who authored the study for Common Sense Media. “Teachers’ opinions are important because besides parents, teachers are the adults who spend the greatest amount of time with children and adolescents every day.”

While the survey offers educators’ unique and important perspective on entertainment media use and academic performance and social development, it does not quantify academic achievement and correlate results with children’s patterns of media use. For more information about the key findings of this survey, or for details about the Program for the Study of Children and Media, visit www.commonsense.org/research.

Methodology
The report is based on a survey of 685 public and private K-12 classroom teachers in the U.S. It was conducted for Common Sense Media by Knowledge Networks, now a part of GfK Group, from May 5-17, 2012. The survey was conducted online among a nationally representative sample of teachers who had been recruited to the online panel through probability-based sampling methods including address-based sampling and random-digit-dial telephone surveys. “Entertainment media” was defined as the TV shows, music, video games, texting, iPods, cell phone games, social networking sites, apps, computer programs, online videos, and websites students use for fun outside of school. The exact question wording is included in the full report, along with many verbatim comments from individual teachers.    

About Common Sense Media
Common Sense Media is dedicated to improving the lives of kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in a world of media and technology. We provide families with the advice and media reviews they need in order to make the best choices for their children. Through our education programs and policy efforts, Common Sense Media empowers parents, educators, and young people to become knowledgeable and responsible digital citizens. For more information, visit: www.commonsense.org.

Press Contacts
Crista Sumanik
csumanik@commonsense.org
415-553-6780

Julia Plonowski
jplonowski@commonsense.org
415-553-6728

Citation:

Children, Teens, and Entertainment Media: The View From The Classroom

A Common Sense Media Research Study – NEW REPORT

November 1, 2012

A national survey of teachers about the role of entertainment media in students’ academic and social development.

Read the summary

Download the full report

Some parents use television and technology as a substitute for appropriate childcare.

In Television cannot substitute for quality childcare, moi wrote:           Sarah D. Sparks reports in the Education Week article, Is Television the New Secondhand Smoke?

Prior research suggests background television can have a “chronic disruptive impact on very young children’s behavior.” Studies have linked background television to less focused play among toddlers, poorer parent-child interaction, and interference with older students’ ability to do homework.

“For every minute of television to which children are directly exposed, there are an
additional 3 minutes of indirect exposure, making background exposure a much greater
proportion of time in a young child’s day,” the study noted.

“Considering the accumulating evidence regarding the impact that background television exposure has on young children, we were rather floored about the sheer scale of children’s exposure with just under 4 hours of exposure each day,” Lapierre said in a statement on the study. Lapierre and his fellow researchers recommended that parents, teachers and early childcare providers turn off televisions when no one is watching a particular program and that parents prevent children from keeping a television in their rooms.

It’s easy to think about this as just one more alarm about how our modern media environment is ruining our kids. Yet the more interesting take-away from this field of research is how critical it is for children to learn actively and socially. Children learn from adults speaking to, with and around them, and from actively engaging with their world.

Anything that limits or distracts from that active interaction can be a problem, but not an insurmountable one. For example, researchers at the University of Washington’s Learning in Formal and Informal Environments, or LIFE, Center, is doing some fascinating work on the potential benefits of interactive media. There’s also been some interesting work on using video conferencing to read with children. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2012/04/is_television_the_new_secondha.html?intc=es

If watching television is not an appropriate activity for toddlers, then what are appropriate activities? The University of Illinois Extension has a good list of Age-Based Activities For Toddlers

See, How to Have a Happier, Healthier, Smarter Baby

Parents must interact with their children and read to them. Television is not a parental substitute. https://drwilda.com/2012/04/23/television-cannot-substitute-for-quality-childcare/

Related:

UK study: Overexposure to technology makes children miserable https://drwilda.com/2012/10/31/uk-study-overexposure-to-technology-makes-children-miserable/

Study: Teens who are ‘sexting’ more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior                                                                           https://drwilda.com/2012/09/17/study-teens-who-are-sexting-more-likely-to-engage-in-risky-sexual-behavior/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART © http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                        http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©                                                                                   https://drwilda.com/

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Newer Entries →