After the Bell Curve: Research starts the conversation about IQ, again

Human Intelligence has a very good summary of the Bell Curve book:

The Bell Curve, published in 1994, was written by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray as a work designed to explain, using empirical statistical analysis, the variations in intelligence in American Society, raise some warnings regarding the consequences of this intelligence gap, and propose national social policy with the goal of mitigating the worst of the consequences attributed to this intelligence gap. Many of the assertions put forth and conclusions reached by the authors are very controversial, ranging from the relationships between low measured intelligence and anti-social behavior, to the observed relationship between low African-American test scores (compared to whites and Asians) and genetic factors in intelligence abilities. The book was released and received with a large public response. In the first several months of its release, 400,000 copies of the book were sold around the world. Several thousand reviews and commentaries have been written in the short time since the book’s publication….

The Bell Curve, in its introduction, begins with a brief description of the history of intelligence theory and recent developments in intelligence thought and testing, through the eyes of the authors. The introduction concludes with six important assumptions that the authors build much of the Bell Curve’s case upon. These six assumptions regarding the validity of “classical” cognitive testing techniques include:

There is such a difference as a general factor of cognitive ability on which human beings differ.

All standardized test of academic aptitude or achievement measure this general factor to some degree, but IQ tests expressly designed for that purpose measure it most accurately.

IQ scores match, to a first degree, whatever it is that people mean when they use the word intelligent, or smart in ordinary language.

IQ scores are stable, although not perfectly so, over much of a person’s life.

Properly administered IQ tests are not demonstrably biased against social, economic, ethnic, or racial groups.

Cognitive ability is substantially heritable, apparently no less than 40 percent and no more than 80 percent.

The authors proceed to explain, using classical cognitive test results primarily, to explain how lower levels of measured intelligence impact an individual’s, or indeed an entire class or group of individual’s life in American society. The rest of the book is divided into four major parts. http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/bellcurve.shtml

Needless to say, this book ignited a firestorm.

Cam Soucy has written an excellent summary of IQ tests for the Livestrong site in the article, What Is the Definition of IQ Test?

History

French psychologist Alfred Binet developed the the first IQ-style tests at the beginning of the 20th century. The first tests were designed only to assess the intelligence of children. The U.S. military relied on intelligence testing to assess and place recruits during World Wars I and II. Psychologist David Wechsler used the military IQ tests as a model in devising his own test in 1949. Today, a group of tests derived from Wechsler’s work are the most widely used IQ tests.

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Tests

The fourth version of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, the WISC-IV, was released in 2009. A companion test, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, targets people 16 and older. Other frequently used IQ tests include the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, the Das-Naglieri Cognitive Assessment System and the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children.

Elements

IQ tests commonly assess the taker’s logical reasoning, math ability, spatial-relations skills, short-term memory and problem-solving skills.

Scoring

IQ tests originally were scored by dividing the subject’s “mental age,” as determined by which questions she answered correctly on the test, by her “chronological age,” her actual age in years, then multiplying that quotient by 100. For example, an 8-year-old child with a mental age of 12 would have an IQ of 125, with the calculation being 12/8 = 1.25, and 1.25 x 100 = 125. A person whose mental age precisely matched his actual age would have an IQ of 100, so a 100 IQ was defined as “average.”
Modern IQ tests no longer use such a formula. They simply compare a person’s test results with those of everyone else in the same age group, on a scale where 100 is defined as average intelligence.

Criticism

Criticism of IQ tests focuses on the content of the tests–that is, the type of questions they ask–and their application. Such areas as vocabulary and “logic” can be strongly influenced by culture and socioeconomics. For example, consider a test that asks what word goes best with “cup”: saucer, plate or bowl. The test may intend “saucer” to be the correct answer. However, a test-taker who grew up in a home where tables weren’t set in a formal fashion might not know what a saucer is. He may be just as “intelligent” as the next person, but his score will suffer because of cultural factors. Authors of IQ tests are continually refining tests to address such concerns; some tests have removed verbal elements entirely.
Even test creators argue that the results are only one tool for assessing a person’s abilities, and that “intelligence” in a person is not a fixed quality, but changeable–even from day to day. In reality, however, people and institutions tend to put great weight on IQ scores. Students have been labeled “learning disabled” based on the outcome of IQ tests alone. As authors revise their tests, they also are revising their instructions to stress the tests’ limited application

http://www.livestrong.com/article/130019-definition-iq-test/

Daniel Willingham, cognitive scientist and a psychology professor at the University of Virginia and author of “Why Don’t Students Like School?” His next book, “When Can You Trust The Experts? How to tell good science from bad in education,” will be published in July. He is written an interesting summary of his latest IQ study for the Washington Post.

In IQ: Willingham on the newest thinking, Willingham makes the following comments:

The American Psychological Association created a panel of eminent researchers to write a summary of what was known about intelligence, which would presumably contradict many of these claims. The panel published the article in 1996, a thoughtful rebuttal of many of the inaccurate claims in “The Bell Curve,” but also a very useful summary of what some of the best researchers in the field could agree on when it came to intelligence.

Now there’s an update. A group of eminent scientists thought the time was ripe to provide the field with another status-of-the-field statement. They argue that there have been three big changes in the 15 years since the last report:

(1) we know much more about the biology underlying intelligence; (2) we have a much better understanding of the impact of the environment on intelligence, and that impact is larger than was suspected; (3) we have a better understanding of how genes and the environment interact.

Some of the broad conclusions are listed below (note that these are close paraphrases of the article’s abstract).

The extent to which genes matter to intelligence varies by social class (genetic inheritance matters more if you’re wealthy, less if you’re poor).

Almost no genetic polymorphisms have been discovered that are consistently associated with variation of IQ in the normal range. “Crystallized” and “fluid” intelligence are different, both behaviorally and biologically.

The importance of the environment for IQ is established by the 12 to 18 point increase in IQ observed when children are adopted from working-class to middle-class homes. In most developed countries studied, gains on IQ tests have continued, and they are beginning in the developing world Sex differences in some aspects of intelligence are due partly to biological factors and partly to socialization factors. The IQ gap between blacks and whites in the United States has been reduced by 0.33 standard deviations in recent years.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/iq-willingham-on-the-newest-thinking/2012/05/12/gIQAB9J9JU_blog.html

Here is the citation and abstract of the work Willingham is commenting about:

Nisbett, R. E., Aronson, J., Blair, C., Dickens, W., Flynn, J., Halpern, D. F., & Turkheimer, E.

(2012, January 2). Intelligence: New Findings and Theoretical Developments. American Psychologist. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0026699

http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Nisbett-et-al.-2012.pdf

We review new findings and new theoretical developmentsin the field of intelligence. New findings include the following:

(a) Heritability of IQ varies significantly by social class. (b) Almost no genetic polymorphisms have been discovered that are consistently associated with variation in IQ in the normal range. (c) Much has been learned about the biological underpinnings of intelligence. (d) “Crystallized” and “fluid” IQ are quite different aspects of intelligence at both the behavioral and biological levels. (e) The importance of the environment for IQ is established by the 12-point to 18-point increase in IQ when children are adopted from working-class to middle-class homes. (f) Even when improvements in IQ produced by the most effective early childhood interventions fail to persist, there can be very marked effects on academic achievement and life outcomes. (g) In most developed countries studied,gains on IQ tests have continued, and they are beginning in the developing world. (h) Sex differences in aspects of intelligence are due partly to identifiable biological factors and partly to socialization factors. (i) The IQ gap between Blacks and Whites has been reduced by 0.33 SD in recent years. We report theorizing concerning (a) the relationship between working memory and intelligence, (b) the apparent contradiction between strong heritability effects on IQ and strong secular effects on IQ, (c) whether a general intelligence factor could arise from initially largely independent cognitive skills, (d) the relation between self-regulation and cognitive skills, and (e) the effects of stress on intelligence.

Here are some key findings of the study which deal directly with the Bell Curve:

Stress, Intelligence, and Social Class

One factor that Neisser and colleagues (1996) did not deal with extensively is stress. Chronic, continuous stress—what can be considered as “toxic” stress—is injurious over time to organ systems, including the brain. Chronically high levels of stress hormones damage specific areas of the brain—namely, the neural circuitry of PFC and hippocampus—that are important for regulating attention and for short-term memory, long-term memory, and working memory (McEwen, 2000). Although the extent to which the effect of early stress on brain development and stress physiology may affect the development of intelligence is not currently known, we do know that (a) stress is greater in low-income home environments (Evans, 2004) and (b) a low level of stress is important for self-regulation and early learning in school (Blair & Razza, 2007; Ferrer & McArdle, 2004; Ferrer et al., 2007). Research suggests that part of the Black–White IQ gap may be attributable to the fact that Blacks, on average, tend to live in more stressful environments than do Whites. This is particularly the case in urban environments, where Black children are exposed to multiple stressors. Sharkey (2010), for example, has recently found that Black children living in Chicago (ages 5–17) scored between 0.5 and 0.66 SD worse on tests (both the WISC-Revised and the Wide Range Achievement Test-3) in the aftermath of a homicide in their neighborhood. Sharkey’s data show that debilitating effects were evident among children regardless of whether they were witnesses to the homicide or had simply heard about it. An impressive study by Eccleston (2011) indicates that even stress on the pregnant mother may have enduring effects on her children. The children born to women in New York City who were in the first six months of pregnancy when 9/11 occurred had lower birth weights than children born before 9/11 or well after it, and the boys at the age of six were more than 7% more likely to be in special education and more than 15% more likely to be in kindergarten rather than first grade. Oddly, girls’ academic status was unaffected by mothers’ stress. Investigation of relations between early stress and intelligence thus seems an important direction for future research. A particularly important issue concerns the degree to which the effects of stress on the brain are reversible. These five unresolved issues are merely examples of some of the important contemporary paradoxes and unknowns in intelligence research. It is to be hoped that as much progress on these and other issues will be made in the next 15 years as has been made on some of the paradoxes and unknowns since the time of the Neisser et al. (1996) review.

IQ is not a simple concept and this newest research points to more questions than answers.

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Tags: Bell Curve, Daniel Willingham, Human Intelligence, Intelligence: New Findings and Theoretical Developments, IQ, IQ: Willingham on the newest thinking, What Is the Definition of IQ Test?

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The Healthy Schools Coalition fights for school-based efforts to combat obesity

12 May

In Childhood obesity: Recess is being cut in low-income schools moi said:

The goal of this society should be to raise healthy and happy children who will grow into concerned and involved adults who care about their fellow citizens and environment. In order to accomplish this goal, all children must receive a good basic education and in order to achieve that goal, children must arrive at school, ready to learn. There is an epidemic of childhood obesity and obesity is often prevalent among poor children. The American HeartAssociation has some great information about Physical Activity and Children http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/Physical-Activity-and-Children_UCM_304053_Article.jsp#.TummU1bfW-c

Unfortunately, many low-income children are having access to physical activities at school reduced because of the current recession.

Sandy Slater is reporting in the Education Nation article, Low-Income Schools Are Less Likely to Have Daily Recess

Here’s what we know:

• Children aged six to 17 should get at least one hour of daily physical activity, yet less than half of kids aged six to 11 get that much exercise. And as kids get older, they’re even less active.

• The National Association of Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) recommends that elementary school students get an average of 50 minutes of activity each school day – at least 150 minutes of PE per week and 20 minutes of daily recess.

• Kids who are more active perform better academically.

As a researcher and a parent, I’m very interested in improving our understanding of how school policies and practices impact kids’ opportunities to be active at school. My colleagues and I recently conducted a study to examine the impact of state laws and school district policies on PE and recess in public elementary schools across the country.

During the 2006 to 2007 and 2008 to 2009 school years, we received surveys from 1,761 school principals in 47 states. We found:

• On average, less than one in five schools offered 150 minutes of PE per week.

• Schools in states with policies that encouraged daily recess were more likely to offer third grade students the recommended 20 minutes of recess daily.

• Schools serving more children at highest risk for obesity (i.e. black and Latino children and those from lower-income families) were less likely to have daily recess than were schools serving predominantly white students and higher-income students.

• Schools that offered 150 minutes of weekly PE were less likely also to offer 20 minutes of daily recess, and vice versa. This suggests that schools are substituting one opportunity for another instead of providing the recommended amount of both.

• Schools with a longer day were more likely to meet the national recommendations for both PE and recess.

http://www.educationnation.com/index.cfm?objectid=ACF23D1E-229A-11E1-A9BF000C296BA163&aka=0

The gap between the wealthiest and the majority is society is also showing up in education opportunities and access to basic health care. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/childhood-obesity-recess-is-being-cut-in-low-income-schools/

Susan Heavey of Reuters in reporting in the article, Childhood Obesity Target Of Campaign Urging U.S. Government To Improve School Resources For Healthy Students, which was posted at Huffington Post:

A coalition of health advocacy groups on Wednesday urged the U.S. government to put more resources into school-based efforts to improve health and fight obesity among youth.

The recommendations by the Healthy Schools Campaign and Trust for America’s Health were backed by more than 70 groups including the American Cancer Society and the National Education Association.

In a report, they urged the Department of Education to offer grants to promote healthy living initiatives, fund staff training to include wellness programs, support school efforts aimed at nutrition and exercise and track results of such programs.

“The link between health and learning is clear. Healthy, active and well-nourished children are more likely to attend school, be engaged, and be ready to learn. Often, however, the school setting does not support health,” the two nonprofit groups said in their report.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said data linking health and academic success is compelling and that schools must think creatively to work wellness into a variety of subjects.

“When you do things well, children are successful,” he said at an event to release the proposal at the National Press Club. But when they don’t get a chance to be active or are hungry “bad things happen to them.”

The proposal follows findings released earlier this week that the number of obese Americans is expected to soar without dramatic changes. More than 40 percent of U.S. adults are expected to be obese by 2030, according to a government-funded study released on Monday.

Because obesity is increasingly starting earlier in life, experts see reaching kids and teaching them healthy habits as a key step to stemming American’s growing waistline. One-third of children aged 2 to 19 are overweight or obese, statistics show.

An effort needs to be made now, the groups urged, and could be done with current Education Department funding and authority.

They said wellness should not be “relegated to an occasional health lesson or physical education class – it is part of math, science, lunch and everything in between.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/09/us-government-urged-to-fi_n_1504319.html?ref=email_share

See, Groups Offer Ways for Feds to Improve Student Well-Being http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/05/11/31health.h31.html?tkn=VMSF8T%2BwDBQibjzZZ5JDJIRUzSoPPMTtAHvA&intc=es

The Healthy Schools Campaign works with a number of organizations. According to their site:

Health in Mind is based on a vision statement for healthy students and healthy schools. More than 70 organizations representing the nation’s education and health stakeholders have signed on to this vision. We invite you to view a list of organizations that have signed on to the Health in Mind vision here.

Their press release describes their recommendations.

Here is the press release from the Healthy Schools Campaign:

Press Release

Contact: Brittany Wright, Media and Outreach Specialist
Office: (312) 419-1810 / Mobile: (312) 560-7833
brittany@healthyschoolscampaign.org

Education and Public Health Research and Advocacy Organizations Present Secretaries Duncan and Sebelius with Recommendations to Close the Achievement Gap by Addressing School Health
Health in Mind Spotlights Actionable Solutions to Urgent Education and Health Challenges

Washington, D.C., MAY 9, 2012 – Healthy Schools Campaign (HSC) and Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) today released actionable policy recommendations focused on supporting schools in addressing health and wellness in order to improve student learning and achievement. The recommendations were presented to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.

“Healthy students are better prepared to learn and succeed in school,” said Rochelle Davis, President and CEO of HSC, a national advocacy organization that focuses much of its work on improving the food and fitness environment in Chicago schools. “An increasing body of research backs up this common-sense notion. This is especially critical in light of the vast health disparities that exist in our nation. Unless we address health and wellness in schools, our nation’s efforts to close the achievement gap will be compromised.”

The recommendations, Health in Mind, note that incorporating health and wellness into school culture and environment, student services and curricula can support student health, help close the achievement gap and ensure this generation does not become the first in American history to live shorter, less healthy lives than their parents.

Two years ago, the Affordable Care Act created the National Prevention and Health Promotion Council (NPC), which brought together 17 federal cabinet agencies and offices from across the government to address prevention. The NPC released the National Prevention Strategy, which commits the entire federal government, not just the health agencies, to integrating health into their work.

“T he Strategy and these recommendations represent a major culture shift in how the nation views health – health will no longer be separated from education, transportation, housing and other clearly connected policies,” said Jeff Levi, executive director of TFAH and Chair of the Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health. “Health in Mind’s focus on students and schools promises to have a long-term payoff by improving education and the quality of life for today’s kids as they grow up – they will do better in school and be healthier.”

Health in Mind focuses on several federal initiatives and policies that can broadly benefit the health, well-being and education of the nation’s students. Some of the recommendations include:

Prepare principals and teachers to promote student health and wellness through professional development programs and in-service training that equips them to identify and address student health issues while creating classroom and school environments that support all students’ wellness.

Provide schools with strategies to partner with parents as agents of change for integrating health and wellness into education.

Incorporate health and wellness into school metrics and accountability systems to allow schools to make data-driven decisions about how health and wellness impact student learning.

Incorporate health and wellness into recognition programs to motivate schools to adopt policies and practices that promote student health and wellness.

Increase the Department of Education’s capacity to provide leadership and guidance on integrating health and wellness into schools as a way to improve academic performance.

Reduce barriers that schools face when seeking reimbursement for health services delivered to Medicaid-eligible students, providing a level of funding that can increase access to health and prevention services, particularly through school nursing.

Re-think the role schools can play in our nation’s prevention efforts and the ways that the Department of Health and Human Services can support schools in creating the conditions for health.

“Together, we can create the conditions for health and well-being in our nation’s schools,” said Gail Christopher, vice president – program strategy for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, a partner and funder of this work. “Implementing these recommendations can build on existing momentum and accomplish meaningful change that shapes children’s health and learning for a lifetime.”

At the presentation of recommendations, union leaders representing the nation’s teachers voiced support for prioritizing health in schools.

“The link between student health and student achievement is not theoretical—it is a fact.” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. “Yes, there are many educational and academic issues that we need to address. But making schools better also means that we must create environments that provide steady support for health and good nutrition.”

“Our members work with students every day whose health and school conditions impede their ability to learn,” said National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel. “That’s why NEA members are taking the lead to advocate for school and learning conditions that result in a higher level of student engagement and fewer absences.”

More than 70 organizations signed on to the Health in Mind vision statement also presented at the briefing.

For more information or to view the full recommendations please visit http://www.healthyschoolscampaign.org/healthinmind .

Welcome

Vision

Executive Summary

Recommendations

Press Release

Event

Who We Are

http://www.healthyschoolscampaign.org/getinvolved/action/healthinmind/release.php

Moi said in Race, class, and education in America:

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

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/race-class-and-education-in-america/

To quote Yogi Berra, ” It’s deja vu all over again“

Louisiana study: Fit children score higher on standardized tests https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/louisiana-study-fit-children-score-higher-on-standardized-tests/

School dinner programs: Trying to reduce the number of hungry children https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/school-dinner-programs-trying-to-reduce-the-number-of-hungry-children/

Children, body image, bullying, and eating disorders https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/children-body-image-bullying-and-eating-disorders/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Tags: Childhood Obesity, Childhood Obesity Target Of Campaign Urging U.S. Government To Improve School Resources For Healthy Students, Groups Offer Ways for Feds to Improve Student Well-Being, Healthy Schools Campaign, Low-Income Schools Are Less Likely to Have Daily Recess

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Categories Dr Wilda

Study: When teachers overcompensate for prejudice

10 May

In Harlem movie and the hard question: Does indigenous African-American culture support academic success? https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/harlem-movie-and-the-hard-question-does-indigenous-african-american-culture-support-academic-success/ Moi discussed some of the cultural challenges faced by African-American students. People want an education for a variety of reasons. Some have a love of learning. Others want to attend a good college or vocational school. Still others, see an education as a ticket to a good job. Increasingly for schools, the goal is to prepare kids with the skills to attend and succeed at college. In order to give children the skills to succeed, schools need teachers who are effective at educating their population of kids. There are many themes in the attempt to answer the question, what will prepare kids for what comes after high school. What will prepare kids for what comes after high school is a good basic education. The schools that provide a good basic education are relentless about the basics.

If everything works well in a classroom, the children arrive ready to learn and the teacher has deep subject matter knowledge, which is transmitted to the students. The intangibles are how the knowledge is transmitted and what affects knowledge transmission. Research regarding the halo effect may indicate that transmission of knowledge can be affected by student perceptions.

The ‘halo effect’ is a classic finding in social psychology. It is the idea that global evaluations about a person (e.g. she is likeable) bleed over into judgments about their specific traits (e.g. she is intelligent). Hollywood stars demonstrate the halo effect perfectly. Because they are often attractive and likeable we naturally assume they are also intelligent, friendly, display good judgment and so on. That is, until we come across (sometimes plentiful) evidence to the contrary.

John Nisbett and others wrote the original halo effect study Evidence for Unconscious Alterations of Judgments If the goal is to model behaviors and impart skills which allow children the optimum number of life choices, what does modeling a tongue stud represent?

Brian Resnick has written an intriguing article for National Journal, When Teachers Overcompensate for Racial Prejudice:

The performance gap between white and minority students is one of the most persisting problems in American education. Since the 1990s, the performance gap, as reported by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, has more or less stagnated. While a multitude of factors contribute to the disparity — most glaringly the quality of instruction in poorly funded schools — there are some underlying psychological factors as well.

One widely documented phenomenon is called stereotype threat: When confronted with a racial bias (for example, a suggestion that black students do not perform well on a task), stereotyped students actually don’t do as well compared to control groups. This, in part, explains why black students may not perform as well on high-stakes tests such as the SATs. Some studies have even shown that the threat can diminish short-term memory.

Another psychological roadblock, as outlined in a recent study in the Journal of Educational Psychology, is a tendency for white teachers to judge minority students’ work less critically than white students’.

It’s called positive feedback bias, but its effects are largely negative. “There’s nothing wrong with getting positive feedback,” says Kent Harber, lead researcher of the study. But “what happens is that when the feedback is inaccurate, it doesn’t provide a valid fix as to where a student is actually performing. Then they don’t know where they need to best direct their efforts. It’s like having a biased compass.”

Furthermore, the minority students are implicitly aware that this is happening, which increases their distrust of their white teachers and fuels disinterest in schoolwork.

“When black students get positive feedback from a white, and they believe that the white is aware of their race, not only does their self esteem not get bolstered by the positive feedback — it is actually depressed,” Harber says.

In the study, 126 teachers from the New York metropolitan area were asked to edit essays supposedly written by a black, Latino, or white student. They weren’t told the the student’s racial demographics, but the researchers provided students’ names that hinted at it (Taisha or Jarell for black students, Mark or Molly for white students). The teachers were told their comments would be delivered back to the students. In actuality, there were no students and the essays were assembled to mimic a C-grade level ability.

The researchers found that the teachers were indeed not grading the black and Latino students as critically as the white ones. This trend has been documented before, but the deeper question Harber and his colleagues were trying to answer was the source of the teacher’s motivation. What compelled them to be less critical of minority students?

Political correctness is often seen as an effort to keep up appearances, but Harber’s group found that something different was going on here. The teachers were trying to preserve a self image of being unbiased. The research group came to this conclusion this because the teachers didn’t show bias toward the objective aspects of the essay — the grammar or the spelling — but rather the subjective aspects like ideas and logic. And as the paper states, “criticizing subjective features of writing raises the risk of appearing unfair because there are few established standards to justifying such criticism.”

“There might be multiple causes [for positive feedback bias], but the one that seems particularly potent is a self-image concern, that the whites don’t want to see themselves as prejudiced, independent of how other people see them,” Harber says. “What happens, I believe, is their focus gets distracted from what are the needs of the students to what are ways that I can restore my self image.”

So how can this problem be solved? Harber and his colleagues found that teachers who have greater social support at school are less likely to show a positive feedback bias toward black students. The theory is that teachers with support feel less anxious about their performance and can concentrate on being fair graders.

http://news.yahoo.com/teachers-overcompensate-racial-prejudice-161229821.html;_ylc=X3oDMTNsMnZqdms3BF9TAzk3NDc2MTc1BGFjdANtYWlsX2NiBGN0A2EEaW50bAN1cwRsYW5nA2VuLVVTBHBrZwNkYWZkODM5NS04YjNkLTM4OTYtYTYyZC1mYzUyNGE0MTRiY2MEc2VjA21pdF9zaGFyZQRzbGsDbWFpbAR0ZXN0Aw–;_ylv=3

Citation:

Database: PsycARTICLES

[ First Posting ]

Students’ Race and Teachers’ Social Support Affect the Positive Feedback Bias in Public Schools.

Harber, Kent D.; Gorman, Jamie L.; Gengaro, Frank P.; Butisingh, Samantha; Tsang, William; Ouellette, Rebecca

Journal of Educational Psychology, Apr 30 , 2012, No Pagination Specified. doi: 10.1037/a0028110

Abstract

This research tested whether public school teachers display the positive feedback bias, wherein Whites give more praise and less criticism to minorities than to fellow Whites for equivalent work. It also tested whether teachers lacking in school-based social support (i.e., support from fellow teachers and school administrators) are more likely to display the positive bias and whether the positive feedback bias applies to Latinos as well as to Blacks. White middle school and high school teachers from 2 demographically distinct public school districts gave feedback on a poorly written essay supposedly authored by a Black, Latino, or White student. Teachers in the Black student condition showed the positive bias, but only if they lacked school-based social support. Teachers in the Latino student condition showed the positive bias regardless of school-based support. These results indicate that the positive feedback bias may contribute to the insufficient challenge that undermines minority students’ academic achievement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

There are many causes for the disparity in education outcome for many children of color. Along with family situation, low-income status, low-performing schools, and cultural norms, more attention must be paid to the expectation of teachers regarding children who they judge as not likely to succeed.

Who says Black children can’t learn? Some schools get it https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/who-says-black-children-cant-learn-some-schools-gets-it/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Tags: Evidence for Unconscious Alterations of Judgments, Halo Effect, Racial Prejudice, Students' Race and Teachers' Social Support Affect the Positive Feedback Bias in Public Schools., When Teachers Overcompensate for Racial Prejudice:

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Linda Darling-Hammond on teacher evaluation

9 May

Moi wrote in The search for quality teachers goes on:

Moi received the press release about improving teacher training standards from the Commission on Standards and Performance Reporting which is an outgrowth of he Teacher Education Accreditation Council, or TEAC, and the far larger and older National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, or NCATE now called CAEP. Trip Gabriel has an article in the New York Times,Teachers Colleges Upset By Plans to Grade Them about the coming U.S. News Report on teacher colleges. This project is being underwritten in part by the Carnegie Corporation and Broad Foundation. A test of the proposed project was completed in Illinois. You can go here to get a copy of the report. The National Council on Teacher Quality has information about the project at their site.

Stephen Sawchuck is reporting in the Education Week article, Teacher-Prep Accreditor Names Standards-Setting Panel:

An external panel that includes several prominent critics of teacher education has been tapped to craft the performance standards for the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, the new organization’s leaders announced last week.

Among the standards under consideration: how programs ensure that candidates know their content; the programs’ ability to recruit an academically strong pool of candidates; their success in training teachers to use assessment data effectively; and the performance of their graduates in classrooms….http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/02/29/22ncate.h31.html?tkn=WOXF5rXjv53mA6unhcaGNw3WZSn30CHE9YxX&intc=es

According to to the press release of CAEP:

The Commission is taking the recommendations of a Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation and Partnerships for Improved Student Learning to the next level. The Panel’s report, released a year ago, said it was time to “turn teacher education upside-down.” That Panel urged increased oversight and expectations for educator preparation and the expansion of new delivery models in which teacher candidates work more directly in clinically based settings from the beginning of their preparation as in medical education. The panel also called for preparation programs to operate in new types of partnerships between higher education and P-12 schools in which both systems share responsibility for preparation.

Strong Accountability Tied to New Data Systems, Assessments

The development of longitudinal data systems and of a new generation of performance assessments will dramatically improve the quantity and quality of evidence of student and teacher performance, allowing programs to study the impact of graduates on student outcomes within the accreditation process. New, more robust assessments, such as the TPA (Teacher Performance Assessment) being pilot tested in more than 25 states, and tools such as observational protocols and student feedback, will help identify effective teaching practices. Information from these assessments will inform preparation programs and will provide new data points previously unavailable….

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/the-search-for-quality-teachers-goes-on/

Every population of kids is different and they arrive at school at various points on the ready to learn continuum. Schools and teachers must be accountable, but there should be various measures of judging teacher effectiveness for a particular population of children. Perhaps, more time and effort should be spent in developing a strong principal corps and giving principals the training and assistance in evaluation and mentoring techniques.

Three recent articles examine teacher effectiveness from the perspective of students training to become teachers, teachers, and students. The first article examines a very effective teacher training program. Amy Hetzner and Becky Vevea of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have written the article, How Best to Educate Future Teachers which is part of a series

Dave Eggers and NÍnive Clements Calegari have a provocative article in the New York Times, The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries

At the moment, the average teacher’s pay is on par with that of a toll taker or bartender. Teachers make 14 percent less than professionals in other occupations that require similar levels of education. In real terms, teachers’ salaries have declined for 30 years. The average starting salary is $39,000; the average ending salary — after 25 years in the profession — is $67,000. This prices teachers out of home ownership in 32 metropolitan areas, and makes raising a family on one salary near impossible.

The Center for American Progress has a report by Frank Adamson and Linda Darling Hammond.

In the report, Speaking of Salaries: What It Will Take to Get Qualified, Effective Teachers In All Communities Adamson and Darling- Hammond write:

As Education Trust President Kati Haycock has noted, the usual statistics about teacher credentials, as shocking as they are, actually understate the degree of the problem in the most impacted schools:

The fact that only 25% of the teachers in a school are uncertified doesn’t mean that the other 75% are fine. More often, they are either brand new, assigned to teach out of field, or low-performers on the licensure exam … there are, in other words, significant numbers of schools that are essentially dumping grounds for unqualified teachers – just as they are dumping grounds for the children they serve.The problem of inequitably distributed teachers has continued to be a widespread major concern despite the intentions expressed in NCLB as well as noteworthy progress in some states. Disparity in the access of rich and poor children to well-qualified teachers is one of the constant issues surfaced in the more than 40 state school finance suits that are currently active across the country.

Download this report (pdf)

Download the executive summary (pdf)

Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford has written a new report about teacher evaluation.

In the Washington Post article, Teacher evaluation: What it should look like, Darling-Hammond summarizes her new report on teacher evaluation:

Darling-Hammond’s report, entitled “Creating a Comprehensive System for Evaluating and Supporting Effective Teaching,” explains the essential components of any fair teacher evaluation system — and provides examples of where it is working. Here are the necessary criteria she says should be part of an effective teacher-evaluation system:

1. Teacher evaluation should be based on professional teaching standards and should be sophisticated enough to assess teaching quality across the continuum of development from novice to expert teacher.

2. Evaluations should include multi-faceted evidence of teacher practice, student learning, and professional contributions that are considered in an integrated fashion, in relation to one another and to the teaching context. Any assessments used to make judgments about students’ progress should be appropriate for the specific curriculum and students the teacher teaches.

3. Evaluators should be knowledgeable about instruction and well trained in the evaluation system, including the process of how to give productive feedback and how to support ongoing learning for teachers. As often as possible, and always at critical decision-making junctures (e.g., tenure or renewal), the evaluation team should include experts in the specific teaching field.

4. Evaluation should be accompanied by useful feedback, and connected to professional development opportunities that are relevant to teachers’ goals and needs, including both formal learning opportunities and peer collaboration, observation, and coaching.

5. The evaluation system should value and encourage teacher collaboration, both in the standards and criteria that are used to assess teachers’ work, and in the way results are used to shape professional learning opportunities.

6. Expert teachers should be part of the assistance and review process for new teachers and for teachers needing extra assistance. They can provide the additional subject-specific expertise and person-power needed to ensure that intensive and effective assistance is offered and that decisions about tenure and continuation are well grounded.

7. Panels of teachers and administrators should oversee the evaluation process to ensure that it is thorough and of high quality, as well as fair and reliable. Such panels have been shown to facilitate more timely and well-grounded personnel decisions that avoid grievances and litigation. Teachers and school leaders should be involved in developing, implementing, and monitoring the system to ensure that it reflects good teaching well, that it operates effectively, that it is tied to useful learning opportunities for teachers, and that it produces valid results.

Darling-Hammond explains why using value-added models is a bad idea. She notes that they:

* are “highly unstable,” as teachers’ ratings “differ substantially from class to class and from year to year;”

* are significantly affected by differences in students — even when value-added formulas attempt to control for various factors such as prior achievement and student demographic variables.

* cannot adequately deal with the various influences on a student that could affect performance on a test, both in school and out of school — and “these matter more than the individual teacher in explaining changes in scores.”

This does not mean, however, that student achievement should not be included in a teacher evaluation system. A variety of other measures of student learning are useful in teacher evaluation, including evidence taken from classroom assessments and student science investigations, research papers or art projects.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/teacher-evaluation-what-it-should-look-like/2012/05/08/gIQAaK0qBU_blog.html

Citation:

Darling-Hammond, L. (2012). Creating a comprehensive system for evaluating and supporting effective teaching.

Stanford, CA. Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education.

Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education

Barnum Center, 505 Lasuen Mall

Stanford, California 94305

Phone: 650.725.8600

scope@stanford.edu

http://edpolicy.stanford.edu

http://edpolicy.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/creating-comprehensive-system-evaluating-and-supporting-effective-teaching.pdf

Everyone is searching for the magic formula to produce a bumper crop of quality teachers.

Could newest teaching strategy be made in Japan?

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/could-newest-teaching-strategy-be-made-in-japan/

New Harvard study about impact of teachers

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/new-harvard-study-about-impact-of-teachers/

Is it true that the dumbest become teachers?

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/is-it-true-that-the-dumbest-become-teachers/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Tags: Commission on Standards and Performance Reporting, Creating a comprehensive system for evaluating and supporting effective teaching., eacher-Prep Accreditor Names Standards-Setting Panel:, Effective Teachers In All Communities, How Best to Educate Future Teachers, National Council on Teacher Quality, Speaking of Salaries: What It Will Take to Get Qualified, Teacher Evaluation What It Should Look Like, Teachers Colleges Upset By Plans to Grade Them, The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries

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Categories Dr Wilda

Louisiana study: Fit children score higher on standardized tests

8 May

In Government is trying to control the vending machine choices of children, moi said:

The government’s attempt to reduce childhood obesity is moving from the school cafeteria to the vending machines.

The Obama administration is working on setting nutritional standards for foods that children can buy outside the cafeteria. With students eating 19 percent to 50 percent of their daily food at school, the administration says it wants to ensure that what they eat contributes to good health and smaller waistlines. The proposed rules are expected within the next few weeks.

Efforts to restrict the food that schoolchildren eat outside the lunchroom have long been controversial.

Representatives of the food and beverage industries argue that many of their products contribute to good nutrition and should not be banned. Schools say that overly restrictive rules, which could include banning the candy sold for school fund-raisers, risk the loss of substantial revenue that helps pay for sports, music and arts programs. A study by the National Academy of Sciences estimates that about $2.3 billion worth of snack foods and beverages are sold annually in schools nationwide.

Nutritionists say that school vending machines stocked with potato chips, cookies and sugary soft drinks contribute to childhood obesity, which has more than tripled in the past 30 years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that about one in every five children are obese. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/21/us/politics/new-rules-planned-on-school-vending-machines.html?_r=1&hpw

The issue of childhood obesity is complicated and there are probably many factors. If a child’s family does not model healthy eating habits, it probably will be difficult to change the food preferences of the child. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/government-is-trying-to-control-the-vending-machine-choices-of-children/

There are centers around the U.S. focused on studying children’s health and well-being. The Cecil J. Picard Center describes it’s mission:ut Us

What We Do

The Cecil J. Picard Center for Child Development and Lifelong Learning is a research center comprised of a multidisciplinary group of evaluation and research professionals who focus on early childhood, K-12 education, school-based health, poverty’s effects on families, and lifelong learning. As an integral part of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s research mission, the Center provides high-quality, rigorous evaluations of programs that are implemented to address learning from birth through adulthood. Applied research is continually conducted in all areas of education, health, and well-being to ensure a prosperous and healthy future for all of Louisiana’s children.

Learn more about the Picard Center with our fact sheet.

Our Mission

Improve the lives of Louisiana’s children and families by providing high-quality program evaluation, applied research and technical assistance in the areas of education, health, quality of life and workforce, and investigating ways to bring scientifically based research to bear on public policy. http://www.picardcenter.org/aboutus/Pages/AboutUs.aspx

Here is a portion of the press release from the Picard Center describing it’s report on chidren’s fitness:

Report: Physically Fit Students Tend to

Score Higher on Standardized Tests

Picard Center Analyzes Fitness and Academic Data on Louisiana Students

Click here to download the infographic

May 1, 2012

LAFAYETTE, La. – Students with cardiovascular fitness tend to score higher on standardized academic tests, according to a recent health report released by the Picard Center for Child Development and Lifelong Learning at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. The report notes that students with cardiovascular fitness may score up to 5% higher on standardized tests than children who are classified as unfit (average of 16 points higher in English Language Arts and average of 19 points higher in Math).

More than 100,000 schoolchildren from approximately 300 schools and 18 districts across Louisiana participated in health-related fitness assessments during the 2010-11 school year. (Of this sample, more than 78,000 records were used in the statewide fitness data analysis, and more than 19,000 student records were used in the fitness-academic data analysis.)

Students participated in five fitness subtests, each measuring a different quality of fitness, such as aerobic capacity, muscle strength, endurance, and flexibility. Additionally, Body Mass Index (BMI) data were gathered from students, which is a measurement of a student’s weight in relation to their height and serves as an indicator of an individual’s risk for certain chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and Type 2 diabetes.

In its analysis of cardiovascular fitness and academic performance, Picard researchers included students who completed a scored aerobic capacity assessment (ages 10 and above) and had LEAP or iLEAP scores (grades 3–9). This sample included more than 19,000 students.

Of this sample:

· Students who passed the cardiovascular fitness assessment scored an average of 16 points higher on the 2011 English-Language (ELA) portion of the state standardized tests. (326 for students who passed cardio test vs. 310 for students who did not).

· Students who passed the cardiovascular fitness assessment scored an average of 19 points higher on the 2011 Math portion of the state standardized tests. (334 for students who passed cardio test vs. 315 score for students who did not).

· These findings are comparable to similar studies in other states, such as the Texas Youth Fitness Study and the California Physical Fitness Test.

“Based on these findings, the results suggest there are statistically significant differences in children who are aerobically fit and those who are not. This translates into real academic gains for students as well as potentially positive health outcomes,” notes Dr. Holly Howat, co-principal investigator for Coordinated School Health.

“Fitness assessment is one part of many components of strategies to prevent childhood obesity in that it connects the schools’ efforts with parental/community involvement. Teachers can assess their curriculum while parents are invited to learn more about their child’s fitness in an effort to collectively prevent childhood obesity,” said Dr. Joan Landry, physical health research project director.

One in Five Students Classified as Obese

Findings in the statewide analysis of fitness data on more than 78,000 children include:

·   56% of students in Louisiana had a healthy Body Mass Index (BMI), and 44% of students had an unhealthy Body Mass Index (BMI), which includes overweight, obese, and underweight.

    ◦ More than 1 in 5 students (22%) are classified as obese by their BMI scores.

· Only 37% of the students who participated in the shuttle run subtest (cardiovascular endurance measure) meet the minimum fitness standard for cardiovascular fitness for their age and gender.

Dr. David Bellar, assistant professor for the University’s Kinesiology department, notes, “There has been evidence recently that links aerobic exercise to increased ability to form memories as well as an increase in the absolute amount of oxygenated blood delivered to the brain. While these findings still need more thorough evaluation, in light of the findings from the Picard Center, it can be suggested that children adhere to the USDA’s 2005 recommendation of 60 minutes of physical activity daily in order to promote health and academic success.”

“Even with all the advancements made in medical science, children today are less likely to live as long as their parents. Diseases that were once thought to affect adults are now seen in school-aged students, such as Type II diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and depression,” notes Dr. Wilson Campbell, kinesiology professor at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. (Dr. Campbell is one of the regional partners of the Picard Center and provides expertise to improve child health in North Louisiana.) Continuing, he says, “Louisiana Act 256 and the Picard Center are helping school districts empower students to make wise decisions about their health and wellness.”

Recommendations for Physical Activity and Fitness

·   State stakeholders: Advocate for physical education and physical activity daily in public schools. Enforce current legislature regulating minimum physical and health education minutes in schools.

·   School district administrators: Protect time during the school day for physical activity and ensure physical education requirements are being met.

·   School-level educators: Implement physical education requirements and seek innovative ways to include physical activity throughout the school day.

·   Parents and families: Advocate for children’s health, including daily physical activity for children in all grades (Pre K–12) and follow the USDA MyPlate guidelines, which includes making half of your plate fruits and vegetables.

·   All Louisiana residents: Recognize the impact of physical health and fitness on learning and academic outcomes.

For More Information

State information: Dr. Joan Landry, physical health research project director: e-mail: joan.landry@louisiana.edu; (phone) 337.482.1554

District information: Contact your district.

ABOUT THE PICARD CENTER

The Cecil J. Picard Center for Child Development and Lifelong Learning is a research center comprised of a multidisciplinary group of evaluation and research professionals who focus on early childhood, K-12 education, school-based health, poverty’s effects on families, and lifelong learning. As an integral part of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s research mission, the Center provides high-quality, rigorous evaluations of programs that are implemented to address learning from birth through adulthood. Applied research is continually conducted in all areas of education, health, and well-being to ensure a prosperous and healthy future for all of Louisiana’s children.

http://www.picardcenter.org/newsroom/newsreleases/Pages/Act256Addendum.aspx

Physically fit children are not only healthier, but are better able to perform better in school.

New emphasis on obesity: Possible unintended consequences, eating disorders https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/new-emphasis-on-obesity-possible-unintended-consequences-eating-disorders/

Seattle Research Institute study about outside play https://drwilda.wordpress.com/tag/childrens-physical-activity/

Our goal as a society should be:

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

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Tags: Cecil J. Picard Center, Childhood Obesity, Children's Health, New Guidelines Planned on School Vending Machines:, Report Physically Fit Students Tend to Score Higher on Standardized Tests

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Categories Dr Wilda

National Education Policy Center study compares spending by charters and public schools

7 May

Charter schools invoke passion on both sides of the argument as to whether they constitute good public policy. A good analysis of the issues can be found at Public Policy Forum Charter Schools: Issues and Outlooks presented by Judy Doesschate and William Lake http://www.rockinst.org/pdf/public_policy_forums/2007-03-28-public_policy_forum_charter_schools_issues_and_outlook_presented_by_judy_doesschate_and_william_lake.pdf Another good summary of the arguments for and against school choice can be found at Learning Matters analysis which came from the PBS program , News Hour. In DISCUSS: Is School Choice Good Or Bad For Public Education? several educators examine school choice issues. http://learningmatters.tv/blog/web-series/discuss-is-school-choice-good-or-bad-for-public-education/8575/

The National Education Policy Center examines one aspect of the charter school debate, the question of equitable funding between charters and public schools. The conclusion is the data does not support one conclusion. Here is the press release:

Contact: Bruce Baker, (732) 932-7496, x8232, bruce.baker@gse.rutgers.edu
William J. Mathis, (802) 383-0058, wmathis@sover.net

URL for this press release: http://tinyurl.com/d8dlmeb

BOULDER, CO (May 3, 2012) — Do charter schools live up to their supporters’ claim that they deliver a better education for less money?

While previous research has focused on the first half of that claim – education quality — a new report published by the National Education Policy Center examines the second half – what charters spend.

Schools operated by major charter management organizations (CMOs) generally spend more than surrounding public schools, according to Spending by the Major Charter Management Organizations: Comparing Charter School & Local Public District Financial Resources in New York, Ohio and Texas.

The finding is significant, especially when programs such as the U.S. Department’s “Race to the Top” are directing more resources to charters deemed to be successful. The NEPC report presents new research on this question by Rutgers University Education Professor Bruce Baker, working with University of Colorado Boulder doctoral students Ken Libby and Kathryn Wiley. The research team examined spending in New York City, Ohio and Texas.

“Charter school finances are hard to measure,” says Baker. “Charters generally receive both public and private funds. Also, in-kind assistance and resources from districts and states to charters vary greatly. Yet we can see that the most successful charters, such as KIPP and the Achievement First schools, have substantially deeper pockets than nearby traditional schools.”

The report explains that most studies highlighting or documenting a successful charter school have sidestepped or downplayed cost implications while focusing on specific programs and strategies in those schools. The broad conclusion across these studies is that charter schools or traditional public schools can produce dramatic improvements to student outcomes in the short- and long-term by implementing “no excuses” strategies and perhaps wrap-around services. Most charter school studies conclude that these strategies either come with potentially negligible costs, or that higher costs, if any, are worthwhile since they yield a substantial return.

But according to Spending by the Major Charter Management Organizations, a “marginal expense” may be larger than it sounds. An additional $1,837 expense in Houston for a KIPP charter school, where the average middle school operating expenditure per pupil is $7,911, equals a 23 to 30 percent cost increase.

“A 30 percent increase in funding is a substantial increase by most people’s definition,” says Baker.

The study compares per-pupil spending of charter schools operated by CMOs to the spending in nearby district schools. The report’s authors examined three years of data, including information on school-level spending per pupil, school size, grade ranges and student populations served. For charter schools, the report’s authors drew spending data from government (and authorizer) reports as well as IRS non-profit financial filings (IRS 990s). Notably, the data from these two different sources matched only for New York City; the data reported for Texas and Ohio from the two sources varied considerably.

The study found many high-profile charter network schools to be outspending similar district schools in New York City and Texas. But it also found instances where charter network schools are spending less than similar district schools, particularly in Ohio. In Ohio, charters across the board spend less than district schools in the same city.

In contrast, KIPP, Achievement First and Uncommon Schools charter schools in New York City, spend substantially more ($2,000 to $4,300 per pupil) than similar district schools. Given that the average spending per pupil was around $12,000 to $14,000 citywide, a nearly $4,000 difference in spending amounts to an increase of some 30 percent.

Similarly, some charter chains in Texas, such as KIPP, spend substantially more per pupil than district schools in the same city and serving similar populations. In some Texas cities (and at the middle school level), these charters spend around 30 to 50 percent more based on state reported current expenditures. If the data from IRS filings are used, these charters are found to spend 50 to 100 percent more.

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC) at the University of Colorado Boulder produced Spending by the Major Charter Management Organizations: Comparing Charter School & Local Public District Financial Resources in New York, Ohio and Texas, with funding from the Albert Shanker Institute (http://www.shankerinstitute.org/) and from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice (http://www.greatlakescenter.org).

Here is a portion of executive summary:

Overall, charter spending variation is large as is the spending of traditional public schools. Comparative spending between the two sectors is mixed, with many high profile charter network schools outspending similar district schools in New York City and Texas, but other charter network schools spending less than similar district schools, particularly in Ohio.

We find that in New York City, KIPP, Achievement First and Uncommon Schools charter schools spend substantially more ($2,000 to $4,300 per pupil) than similar district schools. Given that the average spending per pupil was around $12,000 to $14,000 citywide, a nearly $4,000 difference in spending amounts to an increase of some 30%. In Ohio, charters across the board spend less than district schools in the same city. And in Texas, some charter chains such as KIPP spend substantially more per pupil than district schools in the same city and serving similar populations, around 30 to 50% more in some cities (and at the middle school level) based on state reported current expenditures, and 50 to 100% more based on IRS filings. Even in New York where we have the highest degree of confidence in the match between our IRS data and Annual Financial Report Data, we remain unconvinced that we are accounting fully for all charter school expenditures.

Here is a portion of the conclusion:

Conclusions and Implications

These analyses take an important step forward in comparing charter school spending to traditional public schools serving similar children, in similar grades and in the same city, and across multiple contexts. Further, we are able to make comparisons, with varying degrees of success, across three distinct charter school environments, based on data covering numerous major Charter Management Organizations and individual schools.

To no surprise, what we find is that charter school spending relative to public school spending varies widely. It varies widely partly because charter school spending itself varies and partly because the spending of surrounding schools varies across contexts. We find that in New York City, no charter network included in our analysis systematically spends less per pupil than comparable NYC public schools. Most spend more, and some spend substantially more. KIPP, Achievement First and Uncommon schools spend 20% to 30% more per pupil than similar traditional public schools in the city.

This finding is consistent with other data on charter school finance in New York City. First, the Independent Budget Office reports discussed above indicate that co-located charter schools receive slightly higher public subsidy levels than traditional public schools in the city. We make our comparisons against traditional public schools serving the same grade level and similar populations. Charter schools in NYC have much lower special population concentrations and city schools with lower special education shares spend less than the citywide average. Further, charter schools in our sample raise substantial additional philanthropy, above and beyond the public subsidy level. These margins of additional expenditure are also consistent with our summary and critique of the poorly-documented accounts of Fryer and colleagues regarding New York City charter schools.

Our findings regarding charter schools in Texas and Ohio are more mixed, perhaps because they appear to be hampered by data inconsistencies. We are relatively confident in the finding that Ohio charter schools appear to be spending less than otherwise similar traditional public schools in the same Ohio cities, but not as confident that we have captured precisely the magnitude of the gap, since IRS filing data appear to incompletely capture charter spending in Ohio. In Texas, IRS filing data do consistently report higher expenditures than state documented current expenditures, as expected. But, there are huge differences in spending across Texas charter schools, with some spending much less than district schools and others spending much more….

The one charter management organization that operates across settings—KIPP—consistently spends more than neighboring district schools regardless of setting, but with some variation by grade level (note that we lacked sufficient data on the Ohio KIPP school). That said, Ohio and Texas are likely among the best cases for conducting such analyses because data are available on school site expenditures. In other states, these types of analyses are simply not yet possible. And this matters if we’re to get a grasp on not only “what works,” but the equally important question of how much it costs.

The road to painting a clearer picture of charter school spending and the “costs” of charter models should take two different but concurrent paths forward. First, we must continue to make strides in improving the precision with which we are able to compare marginal spending differences across organizational units like schools or districts. Put simply, we need more comparable spending measures. We need such measures in order to make more accurate judgments about the relative efficiency of charter schools and about the relative equity of their available resources. One cannot accurately compare the relative efficiency in producing student outcomes, of one set of schools to another, where the spending measure for one set of schools is incomplete or where the spending measure for the other set of schools may include expenditures on the children in the first set. Similarly, one cannot make reasonable judgments about resource equity across children attending different types of schools where resource measures are incomplete and beneficiaries of resources are unclear.

Second, beyond looking at average expenditure differences by schools we must also begin to dig deeper into understanding the cost structure of providing specific programs and services—most notably, those programs and services that work, or that make successful charter schools tick. Determining cost structure requires: breaking the expenditures down into their parts, rather than viewing them as a whole; figuring out which programs, strategies or reforms are causing improved outcomes; determining the ingredients of successful strategies—the people, materials, supplies, equipment, physical space, and time it takes to implement these strategies; and then, calculating the cost of each factor and the cumulative cost of putting it all in place.

The substantial variation in resources introduced into urban education systems by the emergence of well-funded and less-well-funded charter schools creates significant equity concerns. Certainly cities like Houston and New York have long histories of offering competitive district-operated magnet schools of choice that have received more resources than other city schools. But these cities have also in the past decade begun to tackle this issue and design within-district resource allocation formulas intended to improve funding equity and predictability across schools.50 The press for improved within-district equity came in part from public pressure to deconstruct the system of elitism which revolved around academic competition for access to better resources. The emergence of well-endowed charter schools that are oversubscribed and have long waiting lists has replaced the old system with one in which access to more adequate educational resources is now contingent on winning a lottery.http://www.greatlakescenter.org/docs/Policy_Briefs/Baker_CharterSpending.pdf

Citation:

Baker, B.D., Libby, K., & Wiley, K. (2012). Spending by the Major Charter Management Organizations: Comparing charter school and local public district financial resources in New York, Ohio, and Texas. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. Retrieved [date] from http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/spending-major-charter.

This material is provided free of cost to NEPC’s readers, who may make non-commercial use of the material as long as NEPC and its author(s) are credited as the source. For inquiries about commercial use, please contact NEPC at nepc@colorado.edu.

There is no one “magic bullet” or Holy Grail in education. There is what works to produce academic achievement in a given population of students.

The Center for Education Reform releases 2012 charter school law guide https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/the-center-for-education-reform-releases-2012-charter-school-law-guide/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Tags: Charter School, Charter School Funding, DISCUSS: Is School Choice Good Or Bad For Public Education?, Education Funding, National Education Policy Center, Spending by the Major Charter Management Organizations

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Categories Dr Wilda

Interns: the new indentured servants?

6 May

When one thinks of interns, one usually thinks of an eager young undergraduate trying to make a favorable impression on a future employer. Steven Greenhouse reported in the New York Times that the The unpaid Internships, Legal or Not

The question is whether employers caught in a vice between declining revenue and rising costs are using internships as a source of labor without having to comply with labor regulations?

Steven Greenhouse did a follow-up article which reported about new labor regulations from California. In California Labor Depart. Revises Guidelines on When Interns Must be Paid Greenhouse reports in the New York Times about the California rules.

Greenhouse explores an even more troubling trend in his New York Times article, With Jobs Few, Internships Lure More Graduates to Unpaid Work:

Melissa Reyes, who graduated from Marist College with a degree in fashion merchandising last May, applied for a dozen jobs to no avail. She was thrilled, however, to land an internship with the Diane von Furstenberg fashion house in Manhattan. “They talked about what an excellent, educational internship program this would be,” she said.

But Ms. Reyes soon soured on the experience. She often worked 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., five days a week. “They had me running out to buy them lunch,” she said. “They had me cleaning out the closets, emptying out the past season’s items.”

Ms. Reyes finally quit when her boss demanded that she also work both days of a weekend. She now works part time as a model. Asked about her complaints, the fashion firm said, “We are very proud of our internship program, and we take all concerns of this kind very seriously.”

The Labor Department says that if employers do not want to pay their interns, the internships must resemble vocational education, the interns must work under close supervision, their work cannot be used as a substitute for regular employees and their work cannot be of immediate benefit to the employer.

But in practice, there is little to stop employers from exploiting interns. The Labor Department rarely cracks down on offenders, saying that it has limited resources and that unpaid interns are loath to file complaints for fear of jeopardizing any future job search.

No one keeps statistics on the number of college graduates taking unpaid internships, but there is widespread agreement that the number has significantly increased, not least because the jobless rate for college graduates age 24 and under has risen to 9.4 percent, the highest level since the government began keeping records in 1985. (Employment experts estimate that undergraduates work in more than one million internships a year, with Intern Bridge, a research firm, finding almost half unpaid.)

“A few years ago you hardly heard about college graduates taking unpaid internships,” said Ross Eisenbrey, a vice president at the Economic Policy Institute who has done several studies on interns. “But now I’ve even heard of people taking unpaid internships after graduating from Ivy League schools.”

Matt Gioe had little luck breaking into the music and entertainment industry after graduating with a philosophy degree from Bucknell last year. To get hands-on experience, he took an unpaid position with a Manhattan talent agency that booked musical acts. He said he answered phones and looked up venues. Although he was sometimes told to make bookings, he said he received virtually no guidance on how to strike a deal or how much to charge. But the boss did sometimes ask him to run errands like buying groceries.

“It was basically three wasted months,” he said.

Mr. Eisenbrey said many companies were taking advantage of the weak labor market to use unpaid interns to handle chores like photocopying or running errands once done by regular employees, which can raise sticky legal questions.

Eric Glatt, who at age 40 interned for the movie “Black Swan,” is one of the few interns with the courage to sue for wages over the work he did.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/business/unpaid-internships-dont-always-deliver.html?hp

Before accepting an internship, the potential intern should ask some questions.

Scholarship. Com has some great questions for undergraduates in the article, With Jobs Few, Internships Lure More Graduates to Unpaid Work

When do I want to be an intern?

Most internships will last either a semester or a summer. It’s up to you to determine how much time you’re willing (and able) to take off from school to take on an internship, and when you’re able to take that time away from your academics. Summer internships will be more competitive, as more apply for those.

Can I afford to take an unpaid position?

Unfortunately, many internships out there, especially those in the communications and arts fields, are unpaid. You’ll need to ask yourself then whether you’re able to take on the added expense of an unpaid internship, as you probably won’t have time to hold down a full-time paying job in the meantime.

How independent am I?

Depending on the position, you’ll either have a lot of guidance or a lot of autonomy when it comes to your internship experience. If you know you’d like a bit more freedom, consider internships that come with some room to make that experience your own. If you know you’d like more guidance, and perhaps a mentor, find positions that would offer you that.

Will this experience help me down the road?

Outside of the obvious benefit of padding your resume, the right internship can also be your foot in the door of your chosen industry once you’ve graduated. The people you meet while at your internship may also be good contacts to have once you’re out there on job market looking for a paid full-time position.

Do I need an internship related to my major?

An internship can either reinforce your interest for your chosen field of study or could serve to give you some experience in an area you had not considered before. While you should certainly look for positions related to your major if you’re sure you’ll be sticking with that post-graduation, if you’re not sure, it may make sense to broaden your search.

What have former interns said about this position?

While an internship may seem great on paper and even better during an internship interview, you may not get an honest assessment of the experience until you talk to former interns. If the internship provider balks at the request, talk to your college’s career center; certainly there’s someone from your school who has worked with that provider in the past.

Am I willing to look beyond my city, even state, for an opportunity?

Depending on where you’re attending college, there may be better opportunities elsewhere in terms of internships, especially if you live in a college or small town with fewer internship providers. Think about whether you’d consider internships outside of your campus bubble; the competition may also be less fierce elsewhere.

Does this opportunity come with any additional benefits?

Some internships will offer a modest salary or stipend. Others may offer mileage or travel reimbursements or insurance outside of a traditional paycheck. Think about what would sweeten the deal for you and what your priorities are when looking for an internship.

Do I need academic credit?

Some internship providers will only accept applicants looking for college credit in exchange for their work there, especially if the experience is unpaid. Your college may have similar requirements for internships, so make sure you do your research to know whether you’re eligible or interested in an internship that offers academic credit.

What kinds of responsibilities will I have at this internship?

This is an important question to ask, even before you meet with the internship provider at an interview. Unless you’re just looking for any kind of experience to pad your resume with, you probably want to know what you’ll be doing day in and day out at your internship, and whether the job fits with what you’d like to do after graduation.

http://www.scholarships.com/resources/campus-life/internships/top-10-questions-to-ask-before-choosing-an-internship/

For the college graduate, the questions will focus on what skills are developed in the internship which will assist the intern in securing employment.

Case Western Reserve University has an excellent set of questions in the article, Questions to Ask an Employer:

Describe the type of work I would be doing or the types of projects I will be working on.

What makes this organization unique?

What are the short-term and long-term objectives of the organization?

How is the training or orientation program for new employees structured?

What characteristics would the ideal job candidate have for this position?

Can you tell me about the people/positions I would be reporting to?

What do you see as the most challenging aspects of the position?

When and how will job evaluations take place?

When can I expect to hear from you about my candidacy?

What have other [co-ops, interns, new employees] done at the company in the past?

How many [co-ops, interns] are typically employed by the company at one time?

What percentage of your [co-ops, interns] are hired after graduation?

What are the areas of anticipated growth for the company?

What is the structure of the company and how does this department fit in?

What are the opportunities for advancement?

What is your (the interviewer’s) position in the company? (Ask for a business card)

Does the company assist with relocation [if necessary]?

What is the next step in this search?

When can I expect to hear from you about my candidacy?

What skills or attributes are you seeking in a candidate that I have not addressed?

http://studentaffairs.case.edu/careers/tips/interviewing/ask.html

In a tight economy, people are desperate for just about any type of opportunity. Don’t let this desperation play into the avarice of an employer who sees the potential intern as unpaid labor with no thought of providing either training or a path to a permanent position.

This seemingly innocuous issue is a real sleeper.

Tags: California Labor Depart. Revises Guidelines on When Interns Must be Paid, Intern, Questions to Ask an Employer, The unpaid Internships Legal or Not, Unpaid internship, With Jobs Few Internships Lure More Graduates to Unpaid Work

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Categories Dr Wilda

Does school start too early?

5 May

The goal of this society should be to raise healthy and happy children who will grow into concerned and involved adults who care about their fellow citizens and environment. In order to accomplish this goal, all children must receive a good basic education and in order to achieve that goal, children must arrive at school, ready to learn. Moi wrote about the fact that school children need sleep in Teens need sleep https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/teens-need-sleep/

Reuters is reported in the article, Too Little Sleep Raises Obesity Risk In Children

Children aged four and under who get less than 10 hours of sleep a night are nearly twice as likely to be overweight or obese five years later, according to a U.S. study.

Researchers from the University of California and University of Washington in Seattle looked at the relationship between sleep and weight in 1,930 children aged 0 to 13 years old who took part in a survey in 1997 and again five years later in 2002.

For children who were four years old or younger at the time of the first survey, sleeping for less than 10 hours a night was associated with nearly a twofold increased risk of being overweight or obese at the second survey.

For older children, sleep time at the first survey was not associated with weight status at the second survey but current short sleep time was associated with increased odds of a shift from normal weight to overweight status or from overweight or obese status at follow up. Dr. Janice F. Bell from the University of Washington said this study suggested that early childhood could be a “critical window” when nighttime sleep helps determine a child’s future weight status. According to the National Sleep Foundation, toddlers aged one to three years old should sleep for 12 to 14 hours a night; preschoolers, aged 3 to 5 years old, should sleep 11 to 13 hours, and 5- to 10-year-olds should get 10 to 11 hours. Teens should get 8.5 to 9.25 hours of sleep nightly.

Several studies have linked short sleep to excess weight in children and teens, Bell and fellow researcher Dr. Frederick Zimmerman from the University of California noted in their report.

But many of these studies have been cross-sectional, meaning they looked at a single point in time, which makes it difficult to determine whether not getting adequate sleep caused a child to become obese, or vice versa.

These findings, said the researchers, suggest there is a critical time period prior to age five when adequate nightly sleep may be important in terms of a healthy weight later on.

Children need proper nutrition and sleep not only to be healthy and happy, but to be ready to learn.

Amanda L. Chan is reporting in the Huffington Post article, Excessive Daytime Sleepiness Linked With Attention Problems In Kids: Study:

If your child is having trouble focusing while doing schoolwork, you might need to take a look at his or her sleep habits, a new study suggests.

New research published in the journal SLEEP shows that excessive daytime sleepiness (or EDS) is linked with an increased risk of trouble paying attention at school, being hyperactive, difficulty learning and conduct problems.

“When children are referred for neurobehavioral problems, they should be assessed for potential risk factors for EDS,” study researcher Susan Calhoun, Ph.D., of Penn State University, said in a statement. “Recognizing and treating EDS can offer new strategies to address some of the most common neurobehavioral challenges in young school-age children.”

The study included 508 children who were part of the Penn State Child Cohort. The researchers conducted sleep testing on them and had the parents report whether their children had any excessive daytime sleepiness. Then, they divided the children up into two groups: One that had the excessive daytime sleepiness, and one that didn’t.

The researchers found that excessive daytime sleepiness was linked with “neurobehavioral (learning, attention/hyperactivity, conduct) problems and poorer performance in processing speed and working memory,” researchers wrote in the study.

Rather, researchers found that factors like depression or anxiety, inattention, obesity, asthma and trouble falling asleep were linked with excessive daytime sleepiness in the kids (even those who “got enough sleep” during the sleep testing, and didn’t have sleep apnea).http://www. huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/04/excessive-daytime-sleepiness-attention-kids-focus_n_1471670.html?ref=email_share

Here is the abstract for the study:

Study Objectives:

Although excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) is a common problem in children, with estimates of 15%; few studies have investigated the sequelae of EDS in young children. We investigated the association of EDS with objective neurocognitive measures and parent reported learning, attention/hyperactivity, and conduct problems in a large general population sample of children.

Design:

Cross-sectional.

Setting:

Population based.

Participants:

508 children from The Penn State Child Cohort.

Interventions:

N/A.

Measurements and Results:

Children underwent a 9-h polysomnogram, comprehensive neurocognitive testing, and parent rating scales. Children were divided into 2 groups: those with and without parent-reported EDS. Structural equation modeling was used to examine whether processing speed and working memory performance would mediate the relationship between EDS and learning, attention/hyperactivity, and conduct problems. Logistic regression models suggest that parent-reported learning, attention/hyperactivity, and conduct problems, as well as objective measurement of processing speed and working memory are significant sequelae of EDS, even when controlling for AHI and objective markers of sleep. Path analysis demonstrates that processing speed and working memory performance are strong mediators of the association of EDS with learning and attention/hyperactivity problems, while to a slightly lesser degree are mediators from EDS to conduct problems.

Conclusions:

This study suggests that in a large general population sample of young children, parent-reported EDS is associated with neurobehavioral (learning, attention/hyperactivity, conduct) problems and poorer performance in processing speed and working memory. Impairment due to EDS in daytime cognitive and behavioral functioning can have a significant impact on children’s development.

Citation:

Calhoun SL; Fernandez-Mendoza J; Vgontzas AN; Mayes SD; Tsaoussoglou M; Rodriguez-Muñoz A; Bixler EO. Learning, attention/hyperactivity, and conduct problems as sequelae of excessive daytime sleepiness in a general population study of young children. SLEEP 2012;35(5):627-632.

Table of Contents

http://www.journalsleep.org/ViewAbstract.aspx?pid=28507

Lindsey Tanner, AP medical writer in a story which was reprinted at SeattlePI.Com reports on a study which says teens do better with later start times for school. In Study Shows Teens Benefit From Later School Day Tanner reports:

Giving teens 30 extra minutes to start their school day leads to more alertness in class, better moods, less tardiness, and even healthier breakfasts, a small study found.

“The results were stunning. There’s no other word to use,” said Patricia Moss, academic dean at the Rhode Island boarding school where the study was done. “We didn’t think we’d get that much bang for the buck.”

The results appear in July’s Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. The results mirror those at a few schools that have delayed starting times more than half an hour.

Researchers say there’s a reason why even 30 minutes can make a big difference. Teens tend to be in their deepest sleep around dawn – when they typically need to arise for school. Interrupting that sleep can leave them groggy, especially since they also tend to have trouble falling asleep before 11 p.m.

“There’s biological science to this that I think provides compelling evidence as to why this makes sense,” said Brown University sleep researcher Dr. Judith Owens, the study’s lead author and a pediatrician at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, R.I.

An Archives editorial said the study adds to “a growing body of evidence that changing the start time for high schools is good for adolescents….”

Overall, 201 high school students completed sleep habit surveys before and after the nine-week experiment last year. The results were so impressive that the school made the change permanent, Moss said.

Starting times were shifted from 8 to 8:30. All class times were cut 5 to 10 minutes to avoid a longer school day that would interfere with after-school activities. Moss said improvements in student alertness made up for that lost instruction time. [Emphasis Added]

Finley Edwards has written an interesting Education Next article, Do Schools Begin Too Early?

Proponents of later start times, who have received considerable media attention in recent years, argue that many students who have to wake up early for school do not get enough sleep and that beginning the school day at a later time would boost their achievement. A number of school districts have responded by delaying the start of their school day, and a 2005 congressional resolution introduced by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) recommended that secondary schools nationwide start at 9:00 or later. Despite this attention, there is little rigorous evidence directly linking school start times and academic performance.

In this study, I use data from Wake County, North Carolina, to examine how start times affect the performance of middle school students on standardized tests. I find that delaying school start times by one hour, from roughly 7:30 to 8:30, increases standardized test scores by at least 2 percentile points in math and 1 percentile point in reading. The effect is largest for students with below-average test scores, suggesting that later start times would narrow gaps in student achievement.

The primary rationale given for start times affecting academic performance is biological. Numerous studies, including those published by Elizabeth Baroni and her colleagues in 2004 and by Fred Danner and Barbara Phillips in 2008, have found that earlier start times may result in fewer hours of sleep, as students may not fully compensate for earlier rising times with earlier bedtimes. Activities such as sports and work, along with family and social schedules, may make it difficult for students to adjust the time they go to bed. In addition, the onset of puberty brings two factors that can make this adjustment particularly difficult for adolescents: an increase in the amount of sleep needed and a change in the natural timing of the sleep cycle. Hormonal changes, in particular, the secretion of melatonin, shift the natural circadian rhythm of adolescents, making it increasingly difficult for them to fall asleep early in the evening. Lack of sleep, in turn, can interfere with learning. A 1996 survey of research studies found substantial evidence that less sleep is associated with a decrease in cognitive performance, both in laboratory settings and through self-reported sleep habits. Researchers have likewise reported a negative correlation between self-reported hours of sleep and school grades among both middle- and high-school students.

I find evidence consistent with this explanation: among middle school students, the impact of start times is greater for older students (who are more likely to have entered adolescence). However, I also find evidence of other potential mechanisms; later start times are associated with reduced television viewing, increased time spent on homework, and fewer absences. Regardless of the precise mechanism at work, my results from Wake County suggest that later start times have the potential to be a more cost-effective method of increasing student achievement than other common educational interventions such as reducing class size. http://educationnext.org/do-schools-begin-too-early/#.T6VoSf7Lvpo.email

The reason for the start times for school start times is often because of the bus schedules and other transportation issues. There really shouldn’t be a one size fits all approach, but as the education units get bigger, there tends to be a one size approach, because large entities can’t deal with complexity. That is why many prefer charters and increasingly for high schools, small schools within schools.

Albert Einstein School of Medicine study: Abnormal breathing during sleep can lead to behavior problems in children https://drwilda.wordpress.com/tag/sleep-disordered-breathing-in-a-population-based-cohort-behavioral-outcomes-at-4-and-7-years/

Tags: children and sleep, Excessive Daytime Sleepiness Linked With Attention Problems In Kids: Study:, School start time, sleep deprivation, Study Shows Teens Benefit From Later School Day, Too Little Sleep Raises Obesity Risk In Children

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Categories Dr Wilda

What parents need to know about ‘texting’

4 May

Jan Hoffman does masterly reporting in the New York Times article, A Girl’s Nude Photo, Altered Lives which provides the anatomy of a childhood mistake because of “sexting.”

One day last winter Margarite posed naked before her bathroom mirror, held up her cellphone and took a picture. Then she sent the full-length frontal photo to Isaiah, her new boyfriend.

Both were in eighth grade.

They broke up soon after. A few weeks later, Isaiah forwarded the photo to another eighth-grade girl, once a friend of Margarite’s. Around 11 o’clock at night, that girl slapped a text message on it.

“Ho Alert!” she typed. “If you think this girl is a whore, then text this to all your friends.” Then she clicked open the long list of contacts on her phone and pressed “send.”

In less than 24 hours, the effect was as if Margarite, 14, had sauntered naked down the hallways of the four middle schools in this racially and economically diverse suburb of the state capital, Olympia. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of students had received her photo and forwarded it.

In short order, students would be handcuffed and humiliated, parents mortified and lessons learned at a harsh cost. Only then would the community try to turn the fiasco into an opportunity to educate.

Hoffman goes on to report about the contact the participants had with the criminal justice system and how the prosecutor settled on a criminal charge. This incident has had an effect not only on the immediate participants, but the community as well. This definitely is a must read.

Parents should discuss what happened to the victim with their children:

THE VICTIM

When the police were finished questioning Margarite at Chinook in January 2010, her mother, a property manager, laid down the law. For the time being, no cellphone. No Internet. No TV.

Margarite, used to her father’s indulgence and unfettered access to technology, was furious.

But the punishment insulated Margarite from the wave of reaction that surged online, in local papers and television reports, and in texted comments by young teenagers throughout town. Although the police and the schools urged parents to delete the image from their children’s phones, Antoinette heard that it had spread to a distant high school within a few days.

The repercussions were inescapable. After a friend took Margarite skating to cheer her up, he was viciously attacked on his MySpace page. Kids jeered, telling him to change schools and go with “the whore.”

The school to which Margarite had transferred when she moved back in with her mother was about 15 miles away. She badly wanted to put the experience behind her. But within weeks she was recognized. A boy at the new school had the picture on his cellphone. The girls began to taunt her: Whore. Slut.

Margarite felt depressed. Often she begged to stay home from school.

In January, almost a year to the day when her photo went viral, she decided to transfer back to her old district, where she figured she at least had some friends.

The episode stays with her still. One recent evening in her mother’s condominium, Margarite chatted comfortably about her classes, a smile flashing now and then. But when the moment came to recount the events of the winter before, she slipped into her bedroom, shutting the door.

As Antoinette spoke about what had happened, the volume on the television in Margarite’s room grew louder.

Finally, she emerged. The smell of pizza for supper was irresistible.

What is it like to be at school with her former friend?

“Before I switched back, I called her,” Margarite said. “I wanted to make sure the drama was squashed between us. She said, were we even legally allowed to talk? And I said we should talk, because we’d have math together. She apologized again.”

What advice would Margarite give anyone thinking of sending such a photo?

She blushed and looked away.

“I guess if they are about to send a picture,” she replied, laughing nervously, “and they have a feeling, like, they’re not sure they should, then don’t do it at all. I mean, what are you thinking? It’s freaking stupid!”

Parents must talk to their children about the appropriate use of technology.

Jessica Citizen (Tecca) has a very parent-friendly Time article, 92 Teen Text Terms Decoded for Confused Parents:

These days, teens are texting more than ever, but the advent of QWERTY smartphone keyboards, predictive text, autocorrect, and the removal of message character limits should allow young social butterflies the opportunity to type full, real words. However, the confusing shorthand continues to live on anyway. With the help of Twitter, the microblogging site that still limits each post to a mere 140 characters, abbreviated slang appears to be here to stay.

http://techland.time.com/2012/05/03/92-teen-text-terms-decoded-for-confused-parents/#ixzz1tvyDjnEp

Citizen includes a list of the most popular terms in her article.

For those who are unable or unwilling to set and observe personal boundaries, Apple just may bail you out. Alexia Tsotsis is reporting at Tech Crunch, Apple Patents Anti-Sexting Device So, for the stupid and truly clueless, looks like Apple is about to come to your rescue. Common Sense Media has some great resources for parents about teaching children how to use media responsibly. Their information about Talking About “Sexting” is excellent.

We live in a society with few personal controls and even fewer people recognize boundaries which should govern their behavior and how they treat others. Aretha Franklin had it right when girlfriend belted out, “Respect.”

In my day, we didn’t have self-esteem, we had self-respect, and no more of it than we had earned.

~Jane Haddam

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline…

~Abraham J. Heschel

He that respects himself is safe from others; he wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.

~Frederick Douglass

Tags: 92 Teen Text Terms Decoded for Confused Parents, A Girl's Nude Photo, Altered Lives, Apple Patents Anti-Sexting Device, Sexting, Talking About "Sexting", Technology and children, Texting

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Categories Dr Wilda

New York City Schools set social media guidelines for teachers and students

2 May

Allie Townsend reported at Time about a Massachusetts school district’s rule which attempts to keep teachers from acting like morons. In Hey Teach Get Off the Facebook: District Bans Teacher-Student Friendships Townsend reported:

School officials in Norton, Mass., having issued a ruling against online connections between teachers and current or former students. Worried about potential inappropriate Internet communications between teacher and pupil, the board made a plea to teachers to avoid social media relationships with students – or else.

As inappropriate teacher-student Facebook scandals have been made public in recent weeks (three in New York public schools alone) school boards are attempting to eliminate the possibility of a problem by issuing rules to faculty and staff forbidding social media connections with students, mainly on sites Facebook or MySpace. “We want to head it off at the pass,” one school board member told the Boston Globe. “Teachers know this already, but we wanted to have something official on the books.”

More and more school districts are considering rules about social media contact between teachers and students.

Lisa Fleisher is reporting in the Wall Street Journal article, City Lays Out Digital Rules For Teachers:

The Department of Education also is considering asking parents to sign consent forms before children participate in social-media activities and before their children’s work or pictures appear online, and informing parents about how social media is being used in schools.

“In an increasingly digital world, we seek to provide our students with the opportunities that multi-media learning can provide—which is why we should allow and encourage the appropriate and accepted use of these powerful resources,” schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said in an e-mail to principals.

The city in May will start providing training sessions for teachers and spotlight examples of the best uses of social media in classrooms. In laying down the guidelines, the department is trying to balance free-speech rights and the educational benefits of online learning with the dangers it sees in teachers and students getting too comfortable in less-traditional settings.

“In this digital era, the lines between professional and personal endeavors are sometimes blurred,” the guidelines say. Teachers should reject friend requests or other contact with students on their personal accounts, the guidelines say.

As the popularity of Facebook and Twitter has increased, so have the complaints about inappropriate student-teacher contact. The number of complaints received by the Special Commissioner of Investigation for schools that referenced Facebook leaped to 59 in 2010 from two in 2008, though they were not all substantiated.

After a series of arrests of education department employees on sexual-assault charges, Mr. Walcott spoke about how the department was reviewing its social-media policy and favored a total ban, but the department said the timing was unrelated. The guidelines have been in the works for about six months, department officials said.

Still, teachers have been disciplined for inappropriate comments, such as one who wrote that a student looked “sexy.”

There aren’t consequences for not abiding by the guidelines, as long as other department policies about appropriate conduct are followed, schools spokesman Matthew Mittenthal said. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303916904577376541510305510.html

Here is the document:

NYC Department of Education Social Media Guidelines

View Document

See, Social Media Rules Limit New York Student-Teacher Contact http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/nyregion/social-media-rules-for-nyc-school-staff-limits-contact-with-students.html

Children are not mature and adults can not expect the same level of maturity that most adults are presumed to have. Immature people, like kids, will take even harmless interactions and embellish and broadcast them to the world at large. The safest course of action for for teachers who want to be viewed as teacher professionals is to use common sense when using all social media and never put yourself in a situation with a student which can be viewed as compromising.

Teachers and others in responsible positions who deal with children must exercise common sense and not put themselves in situations which at the minimum will be awkward and which will lead to activity which is inappropriate.

Boundaries people. Boundaries.

If you are too stupid to use caution or you can’t exercise caution, society will begin to impose sanctions against those engaged in inappropriate activity with children. Engaging in inappropriate activity with children does not make you too sexy, it makes you too stupid!

Tags: ey Teach Get Off the Facebook: District Bans Teacher-Student Friendships, New York Public Schools, New York Schools Digital Media Rules, Social Media, Social Media Rules Limit New York Student-Teacher Contact, Teachers and Students

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Categories Dr Wilda

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After the Bell Curve: Research starts the conversation about IQ, again

History

The Healthy Schools Coalition fights for school-based efforts to combat obesity

Linda Darling-Hammond on teacher evaluation

Louisiana study: Fit children score higher on standardized tests

Seattle Research Institute study about outside play https://drwilda.wordpress.com/tag/childrens-physical-activity/

National Education Policy Center study compares spending by charters and public schools

The Center for Education Reform releases 2012 charter school law guide https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/the-center-for-education-reform-releases-2012-charter-school-law-guide/

Interns: the new indentured servants?

When do I want to be an intern?

Can I afford to take an unpaid position?

How independent am I?

Will this experience help me down the road?

Do I need an internship related to my major?

What have former interns said about this position?

Am I willing to look beyond my city, even state, for an opportunity?

Does this opportunity come with any additional benefits?

Do I need academic credit?

What kinds of responsibilities will I have at this internship?

Does school start too early?

Study Objectives:

Design:

Setting:

Participants:

Interventions:

Measurements and Results:

Conclusions:

Citation:

http://www.journalsleep.org/ViewAbstract.aspx?pid=28507

What parents need to know about ‘texting’

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