Who should take AP classes?

14 Feb

Many schools and parents eagerly await US News’ annual ranking of the best high schools in America. The methodology used to rank the schools, according to US News is:

The first step determined whether each school’s students were performing better than statistically expected for the average student in the state. We started by looking at reading and math results for all students on each state’s high school test…. For those schools that made it past this first step, the second step determined whether the school’s least-advantaged students (black, Hispanic, and low income) were performing better than average for similar students in the state….Schools that made it through the first two steps became eligible to be judged nationally on the final step, college-readiness performance, using Advanced Placement and/or International Baccalaureate test data as the benchmarks for success. (AP is a College Board program that offers college-level courses at high schools across the country.) This third step measured which schools produced the best college-level achievement for the highest percentages of their students.

School rankings are heavily influenced by whether they offer advanced placement or AP courses. Best High School Methodology

AP is a program designed by the College Board, the same organization that designs and administers college entrance exams like the SAT and ACT. AP consists of more than 30 courses and exams, which cover a variety of subject areas. The College Board describes the value of AP.

Receive recognition by more than 90 percent of colleges in the United States and colleges in more than 60 other countries, which grant credit, advanced placement or both on the basis of AP Exam grades.

In other words, AP is designed to boast the chances of students in gaining admittance to colleges, especially those colleges who are known to be highly selective. AP Program

AP has been around since about 1957. In 2007, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities did an assessment of AP. One of its findings was:

Research indicates that students who succeed in AP exams are more likely to attend and succeed in college, and these correlations hold for all income levels and racial/ethnic groups. However, it isdifficult to establish a causal link between AP and college success, and there is conflicting evidence as to whether students who take AP courses but do not pass the exams will be more successful in college.

Researchers in Texas have compared the academic Success of entering college students who did not take AP coursework in high school , those who took courses but not the exams, and those who took both the courses and exams. They found that those who took both the courses and exams were most successful in college, and that those who took courses but not exams were more successful than those with no AP coursework. This research is significant because it took into account factors that affect college performance, such as SAT scores and participation in

the Free or Reduced Lunch Program. Yet, it did not control on motivation, which may be is a significant factor in college success. AASU Research

This research seems to say that a highly motivated person will succeed in college whether they have taken AP coursework or not. But, all things being equal, the AP program appears to help children in later academic work. The rigorous curriculum is given as the explanation for later student achievement.

A paper in the Southern Economic Journal by Klopfenstein and others looks at the link between AP coursework and college success.

Our research finds no conclusive evidence that, for the average student, AP experience has a causal impact on early college success. Our findings support a clear distinction between courses that are “college preparatory” and those that are “college level.” The former type of course emphasizes the development of skills needed to succeed in college, such as note taking, study skills, and intellectual discipline; the latter type assumes that such skills are already in place. At-risk high school students particularly benefit from skills-based instruction, including “how to study, how to approach academic tasks, what criteria will be applied, and how to evaluate their own and others’ work,” where writing and revising are ongoing…. It is important to recognize that prediction and causality are not the same, and that the practice of placing extraordinary weight on AP participation in the college admissions process absent evidence of human capital gains from program participation distorts incentives. Our research finds that AP course-taking alone may be predictive of college success, a finding that is consistent with College Board research by Dodd et al. (2007) but casts doubt on the notion that AP participation imparts a positive causal impact on college performance for the typical student. …

This report seems to conclude that the reason AP students are successful is that they are highly motivated to succeed and achieve. Southern Economic Journal

For a good overview of why students take AP courses, see Grace Chen’s article, How AP Classes Benefit a Public School Student’s Future:

According to the College Board, over 90 percent of colleges and universities in the United States will grant students college credit for AP coursework and passing test scores. With this college credit, students will be able to save, in many cases, thousands of dollars on waived course costs. For example, if a student passes the AP English Literature exam, then he or she will commonly be excused from taking the introductory college literature class required by the institution. With the ability to skip over basic courses, students are opened to a plethora of benefits, some of which include:

·         Saved tuition costs, as each AP test costs less than $90 (while each college class can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars)

·         With skipped courses, students have more time to pursue a double major, participate in study abroad opportunities or internships

·         Enjoy a more flexible college experience, as students’ schedules will be free from the basic, mandatory curriculum prerequisites

·         Students with enough AP credit can often graduate in a shorter period of time than students without AP credit

AP courses tend to attract students who are preparing for college and are very goal oriented. So, what if a student either doesn’t want to go to college or may want a career, should they take AP courses? Since the average person, according to Career Information Online will have three to five careers over the course of a life time, the best advice to everyone is prepare for any eventuality. Even if students don’t attend college after high school, they may attend later as part of a career change. Many former automobile workers are now getting college degrees in nursing and other fields, for example.

Huffington Post is reporting in the article, AP Exams: Most Students Who Should Be Taking The Tests Aren’t:

More than 60 percent of students considered to have AP potential didn’t take the exam last year, even though their PSAT scores showed they could perform well on one, according to a College Board report released last week. Overall, black, Latino and Native American students were less likely to take AP exams than their white and Asian counterparts.

“AP potential” as defined by the College Board is a 70 percent or greater likelihood that a student will score a 3 (out of 5) or higher on an AP exam. The “potential” is calculated based on more than 2 million public school PSAT/NMSQT takers in the class of 2011.

Of those, nearly 771,000 graduates were classified as having AP potential, but nearly 478,000 — about 62 percent — did not take a recommended AP subject. The study points out that underserved minorities were disproportionately impacted: 74 percent of Native American students, 80 percent of black students and 70 percent of Hispanic students did not take recommended AP subject tests. A majority of Asian students with AP potential took the exams — 42 percent did not — and 62 percent of white students with AP potential didn’t take the exams.

This year’s report echoes findings from last year’s, as the College Board report last February revealed that while the number of minority students taking the exam has increased, it is still disproportionately low. To add to that, those groups are also still struggling to excel in performance: Of the half million students who passed an AP exam in 2010, just 14.6 percent were Hispanic or Latino. Only 3.9 percent of passing students were black….

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/13/ap-exams-most-students-wh_n_1273980.html?ref=email_share

The question is not only should a particular student should take AP courses, but whether the choice should be between AP courses or an International Baccalaureate

Tamar Lewin has a great article in the New York Times which describes the International Baccalaureate program. In International Program Catches On In U.S. Schools Lewin reports:

The alphabet soup of college admissions is getting more complicated as the International Baccalaureate, or I.B., grows in popularity as an alternative to the better-known Advanced Placement program.

The College Board’s A.P. program, which offers a long menu of single-subject courses, is still by far the most common option for giving students a head start on college work, and a potential edge in admissions.

The lesser-known I.B., a two-year curriculum developed in the 1960s at an international school in Switzerland, first took hold in the United States in private schools. But it is now offered in more than 700 American high schools — more than 90 percent of them public schools — and almost 200 more have begun the long certification process.

Many parents, schools and students see the program as a rigorous and more internationally focused curriculum, and a way to impress college admissions officers.

To earn an I.B. diploma, students must devote their full junior and senior years to the program, which requires English and another language, math, science, social science and art, plus a course on theory of knowledge, a 4,000-word essay, oral presentations and community service….

“Our students don’t have as much diversity as people in some other areas, so this makes them open their eyes,” said Deb Pinkham, the program’s English teacher.

The I.B. program is used in 139 countries, and its international focus has drawn criticism from some quarters.

Some parents say it is anti-American and too closely tied to both the United Nations and radical environmentalism. From its start in 1968 until 1976, the program was financed partly by Unesco. It is now associated with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, and until recently it endorsed the Earth Charter, a declaration of principles of sustainability that originated at the United Nations.

“When there is a program at the school with a specific agenda, which in this case is the United Nations agenda, I have a problem with it,” said Ann Marie Banfield, who unsuccessfully opposed the adoption of the I.B. program in Bedford, N.H.

Others object to its cost — the organization charges $10,000 a year per school, $141 per student and $96 per exam — and say it is neither as effective as the A.P. program nor likely to reach as many students.

“We have 337 kids, and 80 of them take at least one of our 16 A.P. classes,” said John Eppolito, a parent who opposes the planned introduction of the I.B. in Incline Village, Nev. “If we switched to the I.B., the district estimates that 15 kids would get a I.B. diploma in two years.”

I.B. opponents have created a Web site, truthaboutib.com, to serve as a clearinghouse for their views.

Many schools, and many parents, see the I.B. partly as a way to show college admissions offices that students have chosen a rigorous program, with tests graded by I.B. examiners around the world. …[Emphasis Added]

One of the educators interviewed in the Lewin article observed that the IB program might be better suited for kids who are more creative and either are not as good or do not like to memorize. There shouldn’t be a one size fits all in education and parents should be honest about what education options will work for a particular child. Even children from the same family may find that different education options will work for each child.

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Tags: Advanced Placement, AP, AP Exams: Most Students Who Should Be Taking The Tests Aren't:, College Board, How AP Classes Benefit a Public School Student's Future:, International Baccalaureate Program

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When being poor is not enough: Defining homelessness

13 Feb

Many families either are, or know some one who is facing some tough choices in life because they have lost a job or had their income reduced. Ziba Kashef has a great Baby Center article, How to Talk to Your Child About Poverty and Homelessness The National Association for Education of Homeless Children and Youth provides Facts About Homeless Education:

How Many Children and Youth Experience Homelessness?
In the 2009-2010 school year, 939,903 homeless children and youth were enrolled in public schools. This is a a 38% increase from the 2006-2007 school year. It is important to note that this number is not an estimate of the prevalence of child and youth homelessness; in fact, it is an underestimate, because not all school districts reported data to the U.S. Department of Education, and because the data collected represents only those children identified and enrolled in school. Finally, the number does not include all preschool-age children, or any infants and toddlers.
The economic downturn and foreclosure crisis have had a significant impact on homelessness: according to a national survey, one in five responding school districts reported having more homeless children in the Fall of 2008 than over the course of the entire 2007-2008 school year.
Recent research indicates that child homelessness may be more widespread than school data suggest. A study published in the August 2009 edition of the American Journal of Public Health found that 7 percent of fifth-graders and their families have experienced homelessness at some point in their lives, and that the occurrence is even higher – 11 percent – for African-American children and those from the poorest households. The study used a very narrow definition of homelessness, only including families living in shelters or on the streets. Yet even with this narrow definition, the study suggests that in a classroom of 28 fifth-graders, two students would have been homeless at some point in their lives.
How is Homelessness Defined?
The federal definition of homelessness used by all public schools in the United States includes children and youth who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence. This definition specifically includes children and youth living in shelters, transitional housing, cars, campgrounds, motels, and sharing the housing of others temporarily due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or similar reasons. This is the same definition of homelessness used by Head Start, special education, child nutrition, and other federal family and youth programs.
The education definition of homelessness reflects the reality of family and youth homelessness. Emergency shelters in urban and suburban areas cannot meet demand, turning away requests for shelter. Many shelters place eligibility restrictions on families and youth; for example, many shelters do not admit families with adolescent boys, or do not allow unaccompanied minors. Rural and suburban areas may not have shelters at all. Families and youth may not have enough money to stay at a motel, or they may leave their homes in crisis, fleeing to the first available location. Youth who are homeless without an adult may be afraid to enter an adult shelter.
As a result of the lack of shelter, most students in homeless situations share housing with others temporarily, or stay in motels or other short-term facilities. These situations are precarious, damaging, crowded, unstable, and often unsafe, leading to extraordinary rates of mobility. According to the most recent federal data, of the children and youth identified as homeless and enrolled in public schools in the 2007-2008 school year, only 22 percent lived in shelters. Sixty-five percent lived doubled-up with other family members or friends, 7 percent lived in motels, and the remainder lived in unsheltered locations….
How Does Homelessness Affect Children and Youth’s Education?
In a life filled with uncertainty, loss, and deprivation, school is a place of safety, structure, and opportunity. Yet homeless children and youth face unique barriers to education. These barriers include being unable to meet enrollment requirements (including requirements to provide proof of residency and legal guardianship, and school and health records); high mobility resulting in lack of school stability and educational continuity; lack of transportation; lack of school supplies and clothing; and poor health, fatigue, and hunger. When these barriers are not addressed, homeless children and youth often are unable to attend, or even enroll in, school, which prevents them from obtaining the education that is both their legal right and their best hope of escaping poverty as adults.

http://naehcy.org/facts.html

The question of how homeless is defined is the subject of federal legislation.

Saki Knofo is reporting in the Huffington Post article, Homeless Advocates Divided Over Bill Aimed At Helping Kids:

Homeless kids have the right to an education. That’s the basic rationale behind the McKinney-Vento Act of 1987, a law meant to ensure that homeless kids receive the same quality of schooling as everyone else.

But with more families losing their homes as a result of the lingering effects of the recession, many homeless advocates say the law doesn’t go far enough to help them. Yet attempts by these advocates to change things have led to a bitter debate within the field of homelessness advocacy itself.

At the center of the debate is the question of who qualifies for government-subsidized housing. As it stands, anyone defined as homeless by the Department of Housing and Urban Development can apply for housing aid from the government. The problem is that HUD’s definition leaves out thousands who lack permanent homes — people who sleep on the couches of friends and relatives, or many who live in cramped motel rooms. Before approving aid in these cases, HUD requires proof that their arrangements are very tentative: either documentation of a lack of funds to afford a hotel room for more two weeks, or confirmation from the friend offering the couch that this setup can not be permanent. Providing such documentation is often a difficult hurdle for people living under these circumstances….

But not all advocates for the homeless are on board. The Corporation for Supportive Housing and the National Alliance to End Homelessness have opposed the bill, saying that it would expand the rolls of kids eligible for HUD aid without increasing the amount of funds. They worry that homeless people with the most pressing needs would suffer as a result.

“Our understanding is that this would have a bad impact on the worse-off kids,” said Steve Berg, an executive for the National Alliance to End Homelessness, “kids who are living on the streets and in abandoned buildings and in backs of cars.” Homeless advocates should devote their energy to getting Congress to enlarge the budget of HUD and other agencies that help the homeless, Berg said.

If Berg and his allies are now in the uncomfortable position of fighting a measure clearly intended to help homeless people, the same is true of several Democrats in the House. Representatives Maxine Waters, Mel Watt, and Luis Gutierrez — all established liberals — criticized the bill at the markup session.

To make the bill more palatable, Waters offered an amendment that would provide more funding for homeless children.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/11/homeless-children-bill_n_1269670.html?ref=email_share

Poverty not only affects economic opportunities for children and families, but poverty affects a nation’s prospects for development and growth. The best way to eliminate poverty is job creation, job growth, and job retention. The Asian Development Bank has the best concise synopsis of the link between Education and Poverty A good indication of the level of need in a given community is the number of children who qualify for free or reduced price lunch. The Annie E. Casey Foundation has compiled data about the number of children who receive a Free or Reduced Price Lunch

What government should be focused on is job creation. It is difficult, if not impossible to create and support a family without a job. Strong and functioning families are a key element to a child’s educational success.

Resources:

National Coalition for the Homeless

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Tags: Homeless Advocates Divided Over Bill Aimed At Helping Kids:, Homeless Education, How to Talk to Your Child About Poverty and Homelessness, National Association for Education of Homeless Children and Youth, National Coalition for the Homeless

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Dressing for success in school

12 Feb

There are several reasons I feel that all children deserve a good preschool and a good basic education. Those reasons center around the purpose of education which in addition to individual enrichment are the ability to understand and participate in the political process and the opportunity to acquire skills which will make them employable and able to care for themselves and their families. Tthe Washington Post reprinted a story from the Baltimore Sun about teachers in Howard County Time for Class, Teach; Take Out the Tongue Stud

It was a classic case of what not to wear.

Mary Schiller, a Howard County school system employee, walked down the aisle in a gray T-shirt that read “Yankees Suck.” To accent the outfit, she wore ripped jeans and flip-flops. “Is this school attire?” Mamie Perkins asked the crowd of teachers gathered in Reservoir High’s cafeteria.

“No!” the teachers yelled back. “Mary calls that her grunge look,” Perkins, the system’s chief of staff, said laughing. “It’s perfect for Saturday.”

Howard teachers are being told to ditch their inappropriate duds in the workplace. Thursday, the system held a fashion show for 200 new teachers that showed them appropriate — and inappropriate — ways to dress in the classroom.

This year, for the first time, the school system has circulated a pamphlet, “Expectations for Professional Attire,” among employees. The guidelines were devised after officials noticed a decline in professional dress among some teachers.

The message is that the following are frowned upon: garments that expose underwear; sheer clothes; torn, tattered or disheveled clothes; flip-flops; hats; clothing with obscene, vulgar or profane language or illustrations; clothing with sexual overtones; and shorts for employees who do not teach physical education.

The expectations also list as inappropriate visible tattoos or brands that are provocative or obscene; and jewelry or other objects that are connected to the nose, tongue, lip, eyebrow or other exposed body part that may be “deemed a safety issue,” the pamphlet says. “We’re not trying to be the fashion police,” said Perkins, who served as the fashion show’s emcee. “We are a professional workplace. We want to make sure we remain that way in sharing these standards.”

Howard appears to be alone in its effort. The school system’s committee of teachers, administrators and union leaders, which created the guidelines, did not find any other area system with a similar approach to employee attire, according to Sue Mascaro, director of staff relations. She modeled an inappropriate outfit in the fashion show that consisted of a form-fitting shirt, a denim miniskirt and flip-flops.

Particularly in the elementary grades it is important that teachers model appropriate behavior and appropriate attire. Given the number of children in distressed circumstances in contemporary society, it is important that schools be one institution where appropriate behavior is modeled. Another purpose of a good basic education is to equip children with the skills and the ability to make choices about their life. It has been my observation that many in education, not all, like to “rage against the machine” or what they perceive to be the dominant political dynamic. That is their right during their off hours. If a child wants to grow up and lead JP Morgan Chase, that is THEIR choice and THEIR right as well. The teacher is there to equip the child with the skills to follow THEIR dream. Many children come from families and backgrounds who are not as equipped to nurture and promote the child’s dreams as other families are. All children deserve a chance and a teacher modeling professional dress is an important part of the education of these children.

Moi supposes that after “business casual” probably degenerated into P.J.s and flipflops, banking giant UBS put the brakes on and delivered a dress code to its employees. Huffington Post has a good synopsis of the code along with a link to the actual document at the post, UBS 43′ Page Dress Code Warns Employees Not to Show Underwear::

UBS’ 43-Page Dress Code Warns Employees Not To Show Underwear t took no fewer than 43 pages for the human resources department at the Swiss bank UBS AG to establish what bank personnel should consider acceptable corporate attire.

The Wall Street Journal has the goods on the clothing guidelines for the bank that was embroiled in a nasty tax evasion scandal that lead to UBS paying the U.S. government $780 million in fines.

The UBS look book commands that employees wear suits of dark grey, black or navy blue, since these colors “symbolize competence, formalism and sobriety.” Among the “dos” and “don’ts” for women: “Make sure to touch up hair regrowth regularly if you color your hair.” Men are commanded to, “Schedule barber appointments every four weeks to maintain your haircut shape.”

Neither sex is allowed to “allow their underwear to appear,” wear short-sleeved shirts or, strangely, cuff links.

You can see the entire brochure here (courtesy of John Carney at CNBC’s NetNet,
who’s pulled a French-language page that walks you through how to properly tie a
proper tie.)

The link to the Dress Code

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/15/ubs-has-a-43page-dress-co_n_797245.html

As fewer and fewer folks exercise common sense maybe some type of dress code outlining expectations is making more sense. Aside from teaching kids the basics like reading, writing, and math, schools will have to model skills which help children participate in society.

Now, Valerie Strauss is reporting in the Washington Post article, Virginia school district may ban cross-gender dressing:

Here’s a problem that has somehow been ignored by nearly every school district in the country: Cross-gender dressing. But now a Virginia school district is considering a ban against it and that could start a whole new trend.

The school board in Suffolk, a district with about 14,400 students about 20 miles from Norfolk, is expected to vote next month on a dress code that would prohibit students from clothing “not in keeping with a student’s gender” and that “causes a disruption and/or distracts others from the education process or poses a health or safety concern,” Reuters reported.

Why is this coming up now?

A district spokeswoman said that some high school teachers had complained that some males were dressing like girls and that other students had objected.

Some board members say they support a ban on such dressing as an anti-bullying measure. Reuters said that board Vice Chairwoman Thelma Hinton cited the killing of a 15-year-old student in California who was a cross-dresser as part of the reason she supports a ban.

Gay rights and civil liberties organizations are opposed to a ban, saying that it would violate the right to free speech as well as be sexually discriminatory.

Reuters quoted James Parrish, executive director of Equality Virginia, as saying, “If a girl comes to school wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, is that considered cross-gender dressing?”

This ranks up there with the effort — later reversed after an outcry — by Republicans in the Michigan legislature to insert language in anti-bullying legislation that said the bill “does not prohibit a statement of a sincerely held belief or moral conviction” of a student or school worker. That was seen by activists as allowing bullies to prey on other students — especially those who are gay, lesbian or transgender, and to watch someone be bullied who they think might deserve it without trying to stop it.

Hopefully, cooler heads in Suffolk will have prevailed by the time the vote is taken and the school board can get back to finding legitimate ways to stop bullying.

It takes time and real commitment on the part of an entire school community to confront bullying. Government statistics show that at least a third of students ages 12 to 18 report being bullied during the school year. Most states have laws that make bullying illegal, but enforcement is scant.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/virginia-school-district-may-ban-cross-gender-dressing/2012/02/12/gIQAiCQn8Q_blog.html

Maybe the students should asking the question what will it take to make me a success in the environments I have to exist?

Joyce M. Rosenberg of AP in the article, Underdressed? Dress Codes Can Prevent Sticky Situations published in Seattle Times writes:

The job market is very competitive.

Dress-code problems aren’t confined to the summer months. But they do tend to be more frequent than in colder months, when everyone is covering up. If your company doesn’t have a dress code, now is a good time to implement or suggest one.

Chances are, most of us have a sense of how we should dress for work. But having a dress code will help avoid problems or resolve them easily.

It’s perfectly legal

A staffer in cutoffs may protest when told that he’s inappropriately dressed for work. But employers are allowed to require employees to wear certain kinds of clothes, and to ban other types from the workplace. Consider that uniforms are required in some jobs, and that some clothes can be forbidden because of safety issues.

Companies also are allowed to determine what kind of atmosphere they are trying to project, and to require employees to conform.

The law does require that a dress code be gender-neutral. That means that both sexes are being told to dress appropriately. And it’s against the law to discriminate against someone’s religious beliefs — for example, by banning turbans or dreadlocks that are worn for religious reasons.

The right impression

The biggest concern that most employers have when it comes to how staffers dress is the impression that customers have of the company. Many don’t want receptionists to have exposed bra straps and a very short skirt, or sales associates in T-shirts….

All in the details

Most successful dress codes are specific. Gibbs recommends listing what isn’t acceptable; for example, tank tops, shirts without collars, see-through fabrics, ripped or dirty jeans….

Enforcing the issue

If a co-worker has crossed the wardrobe line, let a supervisor know. Gibbs says managers should speak privately to their staffers who are dressing inappropriately, and remind them about the dress code and the reasons for it.

He says a successful policy indicates that those who violate it will be asked to change what they wear. If an employee resists, it may become a performance and disciplinary issue.

If the clothing culprit is a young person who has never had a job before, don’t assume that someone has given him or her advice about dressing properly for work. Gibbs suggests having a conversation with such staffers. Let them know the company wants them to be successful, and discuss what proper workplace clothing is or refer them to the dress code. http://blog.nwjobs.com/careercenter/underdressed_dress_codes_can_help_prevent_sticky_situations.html

Schools should think about how they are preparing kids for a very competitive workplace.

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Tags: School Dress Codes, Suffolk School District, Teach; Take Out the Tongue Stud, Time for Class, UBS 43' Page Dress Code Warns Employees Not to Show Underwear:, Underdressed? Dress Codes Can Prevent Sticky Situations

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A cautionary tale: Riding the 71 bus and the death of Whitney Houston

11 Feb

This is a portion of the Seattle Times article, Whitney Houston, superstar of records, films, dies:

Houston’s publicist, Kristen Foster, said the cause of death was unknown.

Rosen said police received a 911 call from hotel security about Houston at 3:43 p.m. Saturday. Paramedics who were already at the hotel because of a Grammy party unsuccessfully tried to resuscitate the singer, he said.

Houston’s end came on the eve of music’s biggest night – the Grammy Awards. It’s a showcase where she once reigned, and her death was sure to cast a heavy pall on Sunday’s ceremony…

At her peak, Houston was the golden girl of the music industry. From the middle 1980s to the late 1990s, she was one of the world’s best-selling artists. She wowed audiences with effortless, powerful, and peerless vocals that were rooted in the black church but made palatable to the masses with a pop sheen….

But by the end of her career, Houston became a stunning cautionary tale of the toll of drug use. Her album sales plummeted and the hits stopped coming; her once serene image was shattered by a wild demeanor and bizarre public appearances. She confessed to abusing cocaine, marijuana and pills, and her once pristine voice became raspy and hoarse, unable to hit the high notes as she had during her prime.

“The biggest devil is me. I’m either my best friend or my worst enemy,” Houston told ABC’s Diane Sawyer in an infamous 2002 interview with then-husband Brown by her side.

It was a tragic fall for a superstar who was one of the top-selling artists in pop music history, with more than 55 million records sold in the United States alone.

She seemed to be born into greatness. She was the daughter of gospel singer Cissy Houston, the cousin of 1960s pop diva Dionne Warwick and the goddaughter of Aretha Franklin....http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/entertainment/2017485885_apusobitwhitneyhouston.html

The 71 bus was crowded, it usually is. The run is from downtown to the university district. I don’t know how many thousands attend the University of Washington, but they all seem to be riding the bus at the same time. It promised to be an uneventful trip from city center to the “district.”

I was at the end of a seat because my seatmate took over half the bench seat. But, I was happy to be sitting down and not be a strap hanger. I just wanted to close my eyes and think about nothing in particular. The gangly, black guy across from me, said “hey, did you know that Whitney Houston died?” I said that that was the first I had heard about her death. Then I asked, drugs? He said “yeh, probably, but nobody said nothing about it.” I said I wondered what causes people to start with drugs. He began to tell me his story.

At this point, I didn’t know his name or even why he began talking to me. He said that he had taken just about every drug imaginable and had even come back from the dead a couple of times. He once had a wife, children, and other family. He had made a lot of money in the fishing industry in Alaska in the 70’s. Proudly he told me about managing a team of over 75 and being respected for that. “That was something for a black man in the 70’s.” he said he made over $1400 per week back then. What happened, I said. “We were young, reckless, and we wanted to try everything because we thought nothing could touch us.” Eventually he was using heavily and began dealing to support his habit. Other members of his family including his wife were using as well.

He asked me if I worked for METRO, the local bus company. No, I said, I’m a writer. Why did you think I worked for METRO? “Because your jacket has the METRO colors.” I’m guessing he probably likes hitting on bus drivers. The conversation continued. How do you get out of the drug life, I asked. “You die, you relapse, you struggle.” He talked about his struggles. The fact that the AA he liked to attend because it was a small group folded and how hard it was for him to go to a bigger group of thirty or so. Why, I asked. “Because out of thirty folks, about ten of them will relapse and that is discouraging.” He is currently on methadone and his tests have been coming up clean. Now, “I just want to tell the truth, I just want a real life.”

His bus stop approached. I asked him if I could have his first name and whether it would be OK if I wrote about his story. “My name is Ron and I just might read your blog.”

I’m guessing, Ms. Houston never made it to the point where she just wanted to tell the truth.

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Tags: Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, METRO, Seattle, Whitney Houston

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3rd world America: Money changes everything

11 Feb

Annalyn Censky reported in the CNN Money story, Poverty rate rises in America:

The nation’s poverty rate rose to 15.1% in 2010, its highest level since 1993. In 2009, 14.3% of people in America were living in poverty….

About 46.2 million people are now considered in poverty, 2.6 million more than last year.

The government defines the poverty line as income of $22,314 a year for a family of four and $11,139 for an individual. The Office of Management and Budget updates the poverty line each year to account for inflation.

How the rich became the über rich

Middle-class wealth falls: For middle-class families, income fell in 2010. The median household income was $49,445, down slightly from $49,777 the year before.

Median income has changed very little over the last 30 years. Adjusted for inflation, the middle-income family only earned 11% more in 2010 than they did in 1980, while the richest 5% in America saw their incomes surge 42%….

Amplifying that trend, the bottom 60% of households saw their income fall last year, while households making $100,000 or more enjoyed a rise in income.

Check the poverty rate in your state

More children in poverty: The poverty rate for children under age 18 increased to 22% in 2010, meaning more than 1 in 5 children in America are living in poverty.

Meanwhile, the poverty rate for adults ages 18 to 64 rose to 13.7%.

For people 65 and older, the poverty rate was barely changed at 9%.

Following the recession, fewer young adults are moving out of their parents’ homes. Last year, 5.9 million young adults age 25 to 34 still lived with their folks, compared with 4.7 million before the recession.

Race and gender factors: By race, the poverty rate was lowest for non-Hispanic whites at 9.9%.

Blacks had the highest rate at 27.4%, followed by people of Hispanic origin at 26.6%. Asians had a poverty rate of 12.1%.

About 14% of men were below the poverty line, compared to 16.2% of women.

Families headed by a married couple had only a 6.2% poverty rate, whereas families with a single mother had a 31.6% rate, and families with a single father had a 15.8% rate.http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/13/news/economy/poverty_rate_income/index.htm

The increased rate of poverty has profound implications if this society believes that ALL children have the right to a good basic education. Moi blogs about education issues so the reader could be perplexed sometimes because moi often writes about other things like nutrition, families, and personal responsibility issues. Why? The reader might ask? Because children will have the most success in school if they are ready to learn. Ready to learn includes proper nutrition for a healthy body and the optimum situation for children is a healthy family. Many of societies’ problems would be lessened if the goal was a healthy child in a healthy family. There is a lot of economic stress in the country now because of unemployment and underemployment. Children feel the stress of their parents and they worry about how stable their family and living situation is.

Sabrina Tavernise wrote an excellent New York Times article, Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Say

It is a well-known fact that children from affluent families tend to do better in school. Yet the income divide has received far less attention from policy makers and government officials than gaps in student accomplishment by race.

Now, in analyses of long-term data published in recent months, researchers are finding that while the achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed significantly over the past few decades, the gap between rich and poor students has grown substantially during the same period.

“We have moved from a society in the 1950s and 1960s, in which race was more consequential than family income, to one today in which family income appears more determinative of educational success than race,” said Sean F. Reardon, a Stanford University sociologist. Professor Reardon is the author of a study that found that the gap in standardized test scores between affluent and low-income students had grown by about 40 percent since the 1960s, and is now double the testing gap between blacks and whites.

In another study, by researchers from the University of Michigan, the imbalance between rich and poor children in college completion — the single most important predictor of success in the work force — has grown by about 50 percent since the late 1980s.

The changes are tectonic, a result of social and economic processes unfolding over many decades. The data from most of these studies end in 2007 and 2008, before the recession’s full impact was felt. Researchers said that based on experiences during past recessions, the recent downturn was likely to have aggravated the trend.

“With income declines more severe in the lower brackets, there’s a good chance the recession may have widened the gap,” Professor Reardon said. In the study he led, researchers analyzed 12 sets of standardized test scores starting in 1960 and ending in 2007. He compared children from families in the 90th percentile of income — the equivalent of around $160,000 in 2008, when the study was conducted — and children from the 10th percentile, $17,500 in 2008. By the end of that period, the achievement gap by income had grown by 40 percent, he said, while the gap between white and black students, regardless of income, had shrunk substantially.

Both studies were first published last fall in a book of research, “Whither Opportunity?” compiled by the Russell Sage Foundation, a research center for social sciences, and the Spencer Foundation, which focuses on education. Their conclusions, while familiar to a small core of social sciences scholars, are now catching the attention of a broader audience, in part because income inequality has been a central theme this election season.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/education/education-gap-grows-between-rich-and-poor-studies-show.html?emc=eta1

Teachers and schools have been made TOTALLY responsible for the education outcome of the children, many of whom come to school not ready to learn and who reside in families that for a variety of reasons cannot support their education. All children are capable of learning, but a one-size-fits-all approach does not serve all children well. Different populations of children will require different strategies and some children will require remedial help, early intervention, and family support to achieve their education goals.

Richard D. Kahlenberg, , a senior fellow at The Century Foundation wrote the informative Washington Post article, How to attack the growing educational gap between rich and poor

In fact, research published by The Century Foundation and other organizations going back more than a decade shows that there are an array of strategies that can be highly effective in addressing the socioeconomic gaps in education:

* Pre-K programs. As Century’s Greg Anrig has noted, there is a wide body of research suggesting that well-designed pre-K programs in places like Oklahoma have yielded significant achievement gains for students. Likewise, forthcoming Century Foundation research by Jeanne Reid of Teachers College, Columbia University, suggests that allowing children to attend socioeconomically integrated (as opposed to high poverty) pre-K settings can have an important positive effect on learning.

* Socioeconomic Housing Integration. Inclusionary zoning laws that allow low-income and working-class parents and their children to live in low-poverty neighborhoods and attend low-poverty schools can have very positive effects on student achievement, as researcher David Rusk has long noted. A natural experiment in Montgomery County, Maryland, showed that low-income students randomly assigned to public housing units and allowed to attend schools in low-poverty neighborhoods scored at 0.4 of a standard deviation higher than those randomly assigned to higher-poverty neighborhoods and schools. According to the researcher, Heather Schwartz of the RAND Corporation, the initial sizable achievement gap between low-income and middle-class students in low-poverty neighborhoods and schools was cut in half in math and by one-third in reading over time.

* Socioeconomic School Integration. School districts that reduce concentrations of poverty in schools through public school choice have been able to significantly reduce the achievement and attainment gaps. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, for example, where a longstanding socioeconomic integration plan has allowed students to choose to attend mixed-income magnet schools, the graduation rate for African American, Latino, and low-income students is close to 90 percent, far exceeding the state average for these groups.

* College Affirmative Action for Low-Income Students. Research finds attending a selective college confers substantial benefits, and that many more low-income and working-class students could attend and succeed in selective colleges than currently do. Research by Anthony Carnevale and Stephen J. Rose of Georgetown University for the Century volume, America’s Untapped Resource: Low-Income Students in Higher Education , found that selective universities could increase their representation from the bottom socioeconomic half of the population from 10 percent to 38 percent, and overall graduation rates for all students would remain the same.

In addition to these ideas, Century Foundation research by Gordon MacInnes has highlighted promising programs to promote the performance of low-income students in New Jersey. Forthcoming research will suggest ways to revitalize organized labor, a development that could raise wages of workers and thereby have a positive impact on the educational outcomes of their children. We will also be exploring ways to strengthen community colleges as a vital institutions for social mobility.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/how-to-attack-the-growing-educational-gap-between-rich-and-poor/2012/02/10/gIQArDOg4Q_blog.html

There is no magic bullet or “Holy Grail” in education. There is only what works to produce academic achievement in each population of children. That is why school choice is so important.

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Tags: Education Disparity, Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, How to attack the growing educational gap between rich and poor, Poverty and Education, Poverty rate rises in America

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Categories Dr Wilda

The ‘whole child’ approach to education

10 Feb

Moi writes this blog around a set of principles which are:

All children have a right to a good basic education.

Education is a partnership between the student, parent(s) or guardian(s), the teacher(s), and the school. All parts of the partnership must be active and involved.

Society should support and foster strong families.

Society should promote the idea that parents are responsible for parenting their children and people who are not prepared to accept that responsibility should not be parenting children.

The sexualization of the culture has had devastating effects on children, particularly young women. For many there has been the lure of the “booty call” rather than focusing on genuine achievement.
Education is a life long pursuit

Many children do not have a positive education experience in the education system for a variety of reasons. Many educators are advocating for the “whole child” approach to increase the number of children who have a positive experience in the education process.

The National Education Association (NEA) describes the “whole child” approach to learning in the paper, Meeting the Needs of the Whole Child:

Meeting the needs of the whole child requires:

• Addressing multiple dimensions, including students’ physical, social and emotional health and well-being.

• Ensuring equity, adequacy and sustainability in resources and quality among public schools and districts.

• Ensuring that students are actively engaged in a wide variety of experiences and settings within—and outside—the classroom.

• Providing students with mentors and counselors as necessary to make them feel safe and secure.

• Ensuring that the condition of schools is modern and up-to-date, and that schools provide access to a broad array of resources.

• Reducing class size so that students receive the individualized attention they need to succeed.

• Encouraging parental and community involvement. http://www.educationvotes.nea.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/WholeChildBackgrounder.pdf

ASCD, (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) along with the NEA is leading in the adoption of the “whole child” approach.

Sean Slade, director of Healthy School Communities, a program of the ASCD, an education leadership organization wrote the Washington Post article, Taking a stand for ‘the whole child’ approach to school reform.

A whole child approach to education enhances learning by addressing each student’s social, emotional, physical, and academic needs through the shared contributions of schools, families, communities, and policymakers. It is a move away from education policy that far too narrowly focuses on student standardized test scores as the key school accountability measure and that has resulted in the narrowing of curriculum as well as rigid teaching and learning environments.

The true measure of student success is much more than a test score, and ensuring that young people achieve in and out of school requires support well beyond effective academic instruction. The demands of the 21st century require a new approach to education to fully prepare our nation’s youth for college, career, and citizenship.

Our last two Vision in Action Award Winners, Price Laboratory School (PLS) in Iowa and Quest Early College High School in Texas, exemplify what we mean. Both of these schools work to ensure that each child is healthy, safe, supported, engaged and challenged, whether it is through foundation of daily physical education for all grades K-12; or the weekly health programs promoting empowerment, fresh and organic foods, as is the case at Price Lab; or yearlong personal wellness plans, and a focus on social/emotional as well as physical health at Quest

Lessons and projects extend outside the classroom walls and into the local community. They are adapted to engage students and reworked to provide for personal learning styles and interest. Advisory groups – or “families” as they are called at Quest – abound and are a crucial part in making each teacher, student and family feel respected. And in both schools all are expected to achieve and are provided the mechanisms to do so. They don’t just set the bar high. They provide the steps and supports to get over that bar.

Both schools have gone beyond just a vision for educating the whole child to actions that result in learners who are knowledgeable, emotionally and physically healthy, civically active, artistically engaged, prepared for economic self-sufficiency, and ready for the world beyond formal schooling.

But this ideal should not be found only in the the occasional school. It should be found in all schools….

If you think a child’s worth is more than a test score, sign ASCD’s petition to create a President’s Council on the Whole Child.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/taking-a-stand-for-the-whole-child-approach-to-school-reform/2012/02/05/gIQARBcM0Q_blog.html

Many of the schools and neighborhoods facing challenges are where there are pockets of high unemployment and underemployment with high levels of family instability. Children in these neighborhoods face a myriad of challenges which require an more comprehensive approach to education. See, Christina Silva’s Huffington Post article, 1 in 5 U.S. Children Lives in Poverty

ASCD is promoting the Whole Child Initiative:

Explore resources and opportunities for action here and on www.wholechildeducation.org, and together we’ll change the face of education policy and practice. Find sets of indicators related to each tenet below. Taken together across all five tenets and the central necessities of collaboration, coordination, and integration, these indicators may serve as a needs assessment, set of strategic goals and outcomes, framework for decision making, or the definition of what a whole child approach to education truly requires. Download the indicators (PDF).

Whole Child Tenets

Each student enters school healthy and learns about and practices a healthy lifestyle.

Each student learns in an environment that is physically and emotionally safe for students and adults.

Each student is actively engaged in learning and is connected to the school and broader community.

Each student has access to personalized learning and is supported by qualified, caring adults.

Each student is challenged academically and prepared for success in college or further study and for employment and participation in a global environment.

http://www.ascd.org/whole-child.aspx

In order to ensure that ALL children have a basic education, we must take a comprehensive approach to learning.

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

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Tags: ASCD, Children and Poverty, Healthy School Communities, Meeting the Needs of the Whole Child:, NEA, whole child approach, Whole Child Initiative:

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Categories Dr Wilda

Helping community college students to graduate

8 Feb

Tamar Levin of the New York Times reported on the trend of community colleges offering four year degrees in the 2009 article, Community Colleges Challenge Hierarchy With 4-Year Degrees More people are switching careers several times during their working career and that means that they must be retrained. Many students cannot afford a traditional four year college either in terms of cost or time spent away from home. Community colleges have always offered these students educational opportunity. See, Robert Franco’s The Civic Role of Community Colleges: Preparing Students for the Work of Democracy

Community colleges were created to democratize both American higher education and the students who came through their open doors (Brint and Karabel 1989; Gleazer 1994). However, some observers have argued that community colleges have become overly focused on diverting students into low- and mid-level occupations and that they have not played a major role in transforming perpetuated structures of inequality. With a rapid growth trajectory, America’s 1,166 community colleges now serve increasingly diverse populations. Community college leaders need to recommit to three essential missions: developing strong transfer programs that provide students with equal educational opportunities; preparing students for twenty-first century careers; and preparing students for the work of democracy in the world’s dominant democracy. Service-learning is the leading pedagogy that community colleges can employ to achieve these missions and truly become civically engaged campuses in the communities they serve.

Daniel de Vise has a great article in the Washington Post, 25 Ways to Reduce the Cost of College which reports online information from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. Going to a community college is one way to reduce the cost of college.

The Lumina Foundation provides the following statistics:

Forty-six percent are 25 or older, and 32 percent are at least 30 years old. The average age is 29.

Fifty-eight percent are women.

Twenty-nine percent have annual household incomes less than $20,000.

Eighty-five percent balance studies with full-time or part-time work. More than half (54 percent) have full-time jobs.

Thirty percent of those who work full time also attend classes full time (12 or more credit hours). Among students 30-39 years old, the rate climbs to 41 percent.

Minority students constitute 30 percent of community college enrollments nationally, with Latino students representing the fastest-growing racial/ethnic population.

Source: The American Association of Community Colleges, based on material in the National Profile of Community Colleges:Trends & Statistics, Phillippe & Patton, 2000.

Many of those attending community college will need a variety of assistance to be successful in their academic career.

Jennifer Gonzalez reports in the Education Week article, Multiyear Study of Community-College Practices Asks: What Helps Students Graduate?

The first of three reports, “A Matter of Degrees: Promising Practices for Community College Student Success” was released last week. It draws attention to 13 strategies for increasing retention and graduation rates, including fast-tracking remedial education, providing students with experiential learning, and requiring students to attend orientation.

The strategies specified in the report are not new. In fact, many of them can be found at two-year colleges right now. But how well those strategies are working to help students stay in college and graduate is another matter. The report found peculiarities among responses on similar topics, suggesting a disconnect between institutions and students, while also raising questions about how committed institutions are to their own policies and programs.

For example, 74 percent of students said they were required to take academic-placement tests, but only 28 percent said they used materials or resources provided by the college to prepare for those tests. While 44 percent of participating colleges report offering some sort of test preparation, only 13 percent make test preparation mandatory, the report said.

Also, 42 percent of part-time students and 19 percent of full-time students work more than 30 hours per week. More than half care for dependents. But only 26 percent of entering students reported that a college staff member counseled them about how many courses to take while balancing commitments outside of class.

Colleges need to figure out a way to better align their programs and policies with the needs and realities of their students, Ms. McClenney says. The report found a sizable gap between the percentage of students who plan to graduate and those who actually do, suggesting that what colleges think works may not be helping retain and graduate students. In fact, fewer than half (45 percent) of entering community-college students actually graduate with either a certificate or associate degree within six years after enrolling at an institution, according to the report….

Requiring Success

This is the first time that the research organization has analyzed data from four surveys and combined the results into a multiyear project. The responses came from the Community College Survey of Student Engagement, the Survey of Entering Student Engagement, the Community College Faculty Survey of Student Engagement, and the newly created Community College Institutional Survey….

A major stumbling block for community-college students is remedial education. Many students languish in those reading, writing, or math classes and eventually drop out, curtailing their transfer or graduation plans. The problem is especially acute among minorities and low-income students.

But the report says that among institutions that have accelerated or fast-tracked remedial courses, only 13 percent require students to enroll in those courses. That’s a missed opportunity, because earlier research suggests that students who take those intensive classes perform equally as well as, or better than, students in traditional remedial education.

The report found similar results regarding orientation services, which include providing students with information on navigating the library and finding support services such as academic and mental-health counseling. Previous research shows that participation in orientation leads to greater use of support services and improved retention of at-risk students, the report says. However, among colleges that offer orientation programs, only 38 percent report that they require it for all first-time students.

http://chronicle.com/article/Community-College-Study-Asks-/130606/

Ashley Marchand writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education about strategies which can help community college students succeed.

In 6 Strategies Can Help Entering Community-College Students Succeed, Marchand reports:

The six benchmarks listed in the report offer staff members and administrators ideas about how to help more students stay in college and graduate or transfer. They are fostering “college readiness” programs for high-school students, connecting early with students, encouraging faculty and staff members to have high expectations for students, providing a clear academic path, engaging students in the learning process, and maintaining an academic and social-support network. http://chronicle.com/article/6-Strategies-Can-Help-Entering/64871/

In the article, Community Colleges Address Financial Barriers to Success For Low-income Students which was published in the Sacramento Bee:

Of the close to 8 million credit students annually attending community colleges, 46% currently receive some form of financial aid (state, federal, or institutional). The additional benefits the students might access through BACC include a range of federal programs, such as those that provide health insurance, food, and child care. Such support services are especially critical for community college students, many of whom juggle work, studies, and family responsibilities. http://www.sacbee.com/2012/02/08/4248177/community-colleges-address-financial.html

Given the numbers of students attending community college and the population demographic, more must be done to help this students graduate.

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Tags: 25 Ways to Reduce the Cost of College, Accountability in Education, Community College Graduation, Community Colleges Address Financial Barriers to Success For Low-income Students, Equity in Education, Multiyear Study of Community-College Practices Asks: What Helps Students Graduate?, The Civic Role of Community Colleges: Preparing Students for the Work of Democracy

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Categories Dr Wilda

A B.A., not a high school diploma is the new threshold degree

7 Feb

Laura Pappano reports in the New York Times article, The Master’s As the New Bachelor’s

Call it credential inflation. Once derided as the consolation prize for failing to finish a Ph.D. or just a way to kill time waiting out economic downturns, the master’s is now the fastest-growing degree. The number awarded, about 657,000 in 2009, has more than doubled since the 1980s, and the rate of increase has quickened substantially in the last couple of years, says Debra W. Stewart, president of the Council of Graduate Schools. Nearly 2 in 25 people age 25 and over have a master’s, about the same proportion that had a bachelor’s or higher in 1960.

“Several years ago it became very clear to us that master’s education was moving very rapidly to become the entry degree in many professions,” Dr. Stewart says. The sheen has come, in part, because the degrees are newly specific and utilitarian. These are not your general master’s in policy or administration. Even the M.B.A., observed one business school dean, “is kind of too broad in the current environment.” Now, you have the M.S. in supply chain management, and in managing mission-driven organizations. There’s an M.S. in skeletal and dental bioarchaeology, and an M.A. in learning and thinking.

The Pew Research Center has a report, Is College Worth It? Amanda Paulson of the Christian Science Monitor has a great article, Does Everyone Need A College Degree? Maybe Not Says Harvard Study about a new Harvard study.

A new report released by Harvard Wednesday states in some of the strongest terms yet that such a “college for all” emphasis may actually harm many American students – keeping them from having a smooth transition from adolescence to adulthood and a viable career.

“The American system for preparing young people to lead productive and prosperous lives as adults is clearly badly broken,” concludes the report, “Pathways to Prosperity” (pdf).

Harvard has quite a bit of press about the report. Jill Anderson has written the press release, Pathways to Prosperity Seeks to Redefine the American Education System which is at the Harvard site. The point of the report is whether there should be a variety of post-high school paths and not just the focus on a B.A. Still, there should be post-high school training which would provide additional skills.

Alexander Eichler is reporting in the Huffington Post article, Many With Only High School Degree Laid Off During Weak Recover:

Among those Americans with only a high school degree who have lost a job since 2007, a third became unemployed after the official end of the recession, according to The Washington Post.

It’s a troubling statistic in its own right — job seekers without a college degree are having serious difficulty finding work in the current market, and the unemployment rate for high school graduates is more than twice that of college grads — but it also underscores the fact that, for many Americans, the recovery hasn’t felt very different from the recession that preceded it.

Economists consider the Great Recession to have ended in the summer of 2009, nearly three years ago. That’s the point when the economy stopped outright shrinking and began growing again. But the subsequent period of modest expansion has been marked by job cuts, uncertainty and a gradual erosion of financial security for many Americans. These conditions are expected to remain pronounced for a long time to come.

U.S. employers cut 529,973 jobs in 2010, according to the outplacement company Challenger, Gray & Christmas. In 2011, that number rose to 606,082. At the same time, wages and benefits barely grew, with the high jobless rate giving employers little incentive to pay workers more. Today, there are still nearly 13 million Americans looking for work.

It’s not that life has gotten much better for those with a job either. All together, median household incomes have now fallen more in the recovery than they did during the recession.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/07/jobless-recovery_n_1260678.html?ref=email_share

A one size fits all approach does not work. Those who do not seek additional training after high school, whether high school or vocational school are at a competitive disadvantage in the global economy. See, The International Baccalaureate program and vocational students https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/the-international-baccalaureate-program-and-vocational-students/

Resources:

A publication by the government Why Attend College? Is a good overview

Article in USA Today about gap year

gap year articles

Advantages of Going to a Vocational School

Vocational School Accreditation

Accredidating Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology

Tags: College, Does Everyone Need A College Degree? Maybe Not Says Harvard Study, High School, Is College Worth It?, Many With Only High School Degree Laid Off During Weak Recovery, Pathways to Prosperity Seeks to Redefine the American Education System, The Master's As the New Bachelor's

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Categories Dr Wilda

New research: School principal effectiveness

7 Feb

Melanie Smollin has an excellent post at Take Part, Five Reasons Why Teacher Turnover Is On The Rise

With approximately 1.6 million teachers set to retire in the next decade, replenishing America’s teaching force should be a top priority. But filling classrooms with new teachers is only half the battle. Retaining them is equally important.

Numerous studies show that teachers perform best after being in the classroom for at least five years. According to a McKinsey study, 14 percent of American teachers leave after only one year, and 46 percent quit before their fifth year. In countries with the highest results on international tests, teacher turnover rates are much lower—around 3 percent.

This constant cycling in and out of new teachers is a costly phenomena. Students miss being taught by experienced educators, and schools and districts nationwide spend about $2.2 billion per year recruiting and training replacements.

Why are so many new teachers fleeing the profession after so few years in the classroom? Here are the top five reasons teacher turnover is an ongoing challenge:

5. BURNOUT: A recent U.C. Berkeley study of Los Angeles charter schools found unusually high rates of teacher turnover. At the 163 charter schools studied, teacher turnover hovered around 40 percent, compared to 15 percent at traditional public schools.

Since demands on charter school educators are seemingly boundless, including extended hours, researchers theorized, burnout is a viable explanation for the teacher exodus. “We have seen earlier results showing that working conditions are tough and challenging in charter schools,” explained U.C. Berkeley’s Bruce Fuller. “Charter teachers wear many hats and have many duties and are teaching urban kids, challenging urban kids, but we were surprised by the magnitude of this effect.”

4.THREAT OF LAYOFFS: In response to annual budget shortfalls, districts nationwide have sent pink slips to tens of thousands of teachers each spring for the past four years. In 2011, California sent out 30,000.

Retired teacher and author Jaime O’Neill believes this ongoing threat to job security has a destabilizing effect. As a new teacher, he wrote, you can expect your job “threatened each and every year when the annual state budget reveals once more that big cuts to education are coming, that you’ve been pink slipped until or unless there’s a last-minute reprieve. That yearly panic will cause you to wonder why you ever went into teaching in the first place, and you will surely make plans to seek other employment with each mention of just how precarious your employment is.”

3. LOW WAGES: U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently said that teachers should earn between $60,000 and $150,000 per year. That’s a far cry from the current national average starting salary for teachers, which is $35,139.

Linda DeRegnaucourt, an accomplished high school math teacher, told CNN that after working for five years without a raise, and taking home an annual salary of $38,000, she simply cannot afford to continue doing the job she loves. DeRegnaucourt, like many other teachers, will leave the profession to pursue a more lucrative career.

2. TESTING PRESSURE: Since the No Child Left Behind Act was introduced in 2001, standardized test scores in math and reading have become the most important accountability measure used to evaluate schools.

Studies show that pressure to raise student test scores causes teachers to experience more stress and less job satisfaction. Many educators resent narrowing curriculum and stifling creativity in favor of teaching to the test.

On the National Center for Education Information’s “Profile of Teachers in the U.S. 2011,” the majority of comments submitted by survey respondents were “expressions of strong opposition to the current emphasis on student testing.”

As states increasingly rely on standardized test scores to evaluate individual educators, determine teacher pay and make lay-off decisions, testing pressure will only increase.

1. POOR WORKING CONDITIONS: When the Gates foundation polled 40,000 teachers about job satisfaction, the majority agreed that supportive leadership, time for collaboration, access to high quality curriculum and resources, clean and safe buildings, and relevant professional development were even more important than higher salaries.

But working conditions in many public schools remain far from this ideal—especially for beginning teachers, who are most likely to be assigned to the highest-need schools. Despite the added challenges they face, these teachers are often given few resources and little professional support.

The number one reason why teachers leave the profession has to do with working conditions. A key influencer of the environment of a school and the working conditions is the school principal.

Gregory Branch, Eric Hanushek, and Steven Rivkin are reporting in the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Educational Research report, Estimating Principal Effectiveness:

VI. Conclusion

An important facet of many school policy discussions is the role of strong leadership, particularly of principals. Leadership is viewed as especially important in revitalizing failing schools. This discussion is, however, largely uninformed by systematic analysis of principals and their impact on student outcomes.

Understanding the impact of principals on learning is a particularly difficult analytical problem. The non-random sorting of principals among schools and consequent difficulty separating the contributions of principals from the influences of peers and other school factors raise questions about the degree to which principals are responsible for differential outcomes.

Panel data on student performance that are linked to principals and schools permit circumventing the most serious difficulties in identifying principal effectiveness.

Embedded within a value-added that controls for initial student achievement, we investigate models of principal fixed effects, both with and without school fixed effects, and models of returns to principal tenure at a school. These provide alternative measures of principal effectiveness that deal with different types of potentially confounding influences.

The results suggest the existence of substantial variation in principal effectiveness, particularly in higher poverty and lower achieving schools. In fact the variance estimates for principal effectiveness are roughly twice as large in high as opposed to low poverty schools and in low as opposed to high achieving schools.

Allowance for test issues including measurement error and test difficulty does not change these results. These results are consistent with a hypothesis that principal skill is more important in the most challenging schools.

Contrary to commonly held views, more effective principals are less likely to switch districts and are more likely to remain in the same school. This skill-biased moving is particularly prevalent in schools with lower initial achievement.

The initial results suggest that principal movements parallel teacher movements. Specifically, principals are affected by the racial and achievement distribution of students in schools, and this enters into mobility patterns. Yet the common view that the best leave the most needy schools is not supported.

An important element of the role of principals is how they interact with teachers. Our on-going analysis links principals to measures of teacher effectiveness to understand how principals affect teacher outcomes. http://www.caldercenter.org/upload/CALDER-Working-Paper-32_FINAL.pdf

See, Principals Matter: School Leaders Can Drive Student Learning http://www.huffingtonpost.com/Karin%20Chenoweth/principals-matter-school-_b_1252598.html?ref=email_share

In lay person speak, what they are saying is that a strong principal is a strong leader for his or her particular school. A strong principal is particularly important in schools which face challenges. Now, we get into the manner in which strong principals interact with their staff – is it an art or is it a science? What makes a good principal can be discussed and probably depends upon the perspective of those giving an opinion, but Gary Hopkins of Education World summarizes the thoughts of some educators:

Top Ten Traits of School Leaders

Last month, 43 of the Education World Principal Files principals participated in a survey. The result of that survey is this list of the top ten traits of school leaders, presented in order of importance.

1. Has a stated vision for the school and a plan to achieve that vision.

2. Clearly states goals and expectations for students, staff, and parents.

3. Is visible — gets out of the office; is seen all over the school.

4. Is trustworthy and straight with students and staff.

5. Helps develop leadership skills in others.

6. Develops strong teachers; cultivates good teaching practice.

7. Shows that he or she is not in charge alone; involves others.

8. Has a sense of humor.

9. Is a role model for students and staff.

10. Offers meaningful kindnesses and kudos to staff and students.

http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin190.shtml

These traits can be summarized that a strong principal is a leader with a vision for his or her school and who has the drive and the people skills to take his or her teachers and students to that vision.

Resources:

The Performance Indicators for Effective Principal Leadership in Improving Student Achievement

http://mdk12.org/process/leading/p_indicators.html

Effective Schools: Managing the Recruitment, Development, and Retention of High-quality Teacher

http://www.caldercenter.org/upload/Effective-Schools_CALDER-Working-Paper-37-3.pdf

What makes a great principal?

http://www.greatschools.org/improvement/quality-teaching/189-what-makes-a-great-principal-an-audio-slide-show.gs

Tags: Estimating Principal Effectiveness:, Five Reasons Why Teacher Turnover Is On The Rise, Principal Effectiveness, Principal Evaluation, Principals Matter: School Leaders Can Drive Student Learning

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Categories Dr Wilda

Defining basic education: Good schools and effective schools

6 Feb

One of the mantras of this blog is that education is a partnership between the student, parent(s) or guardian(s), teacher(s), and the school. All parts of the partnership must be involved. 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 in America

Teachers and administrators as well as many politicians if they are honest know that children arrive at school at various points on the ready to learn continuum. Teachers have to teach children at whatever point on the continuum the children are. The question for those who believe that ALL children should receive a good basic education is whether there is a difference between good and effective schools.

Joanne Yatvin, is a longtime public school educator, author and past president of the National Council of Teachers of English. She teaches part-time at Portland State University and is writing a book on good teaching in high poverty schools. Yatvin has written a thoughtful Washington Post piece, The difference between good schools and effective schools.

I just found a book review I wrote for The Elementary School Journal in 1986. The book I reviewed was McDonogh 15: Becoming a School by Lucianne Bond Carmichael. (If you’ve never read it, you should get a copy, read it, and hold it close to your heart forever. Better yet, buy several copies and send them to your federal and state legislators.)

Reading it reinforced and expanded my own idea of what a truly good school is and the specific things it does to empower its students and strengthen its teachers. I will quote one section of my review: a definition and description of a good school based partly on Carmichael’s experience as a principal and partly on my own. Because I am taking the quoted section out of context and because educational terminology has changed over the years, I have altered some of it but the meaning remains the same:

To help you und erstand what I have learned from McDonogh 15, I will describe a good school as I know it and compare it to today’s popular ideal called an ”effective school.” Let me start with a general definition of a good school and go on with more detailed descriptions of both types of schools:

A good school is a place where children learn enough worthwhile things to make a strong start in life, where a foundation is laid that supports later learning, and where children develop the desire to learn more.

Specifically, a good school mirrors the realities of life in an ordered, adult society; it is rational and safe, a practice ground for the things people do in the outside world. The school creates a sense of community that permits personal expression within a framework of social responsibility. It focuses on learnings that grow through use–with or without more schooling–such as communication skills, decision making, craftsmanship, and group interaction. It makes children think of themselves as people who find strength, nourishment, and joy in learning.

In contrast, the effective school looks at learning in terms of test scores in a limited number of academic areas. It does not take into consideration problem-solving abilities, social skills, or even complex academic skills. It does not differentiate between dynamic and inert knowledge; it ignores motivation. When we hear of a school where test scores are in the 90^th percentile, should we not also ask what that school does to prepare students to live the next sixty years of their lives?

A good school has a broad-based and realistic curriculum with subject matter chosen not only for its relevance to higher education and jobs, but also for family and community membership and personal enrichment. It uses teaching practices that simulate the way people live in the outside world. Children are actively involved in productive tasks that combine and extend their skills. They initiate projects, make their own decisions, enjoy using their skills, show off their accomplishments, and look for harder, more exciting work to do.

The effective school asks much less. Children who “cover” a traditional curriculum in order to “master” as much of it as possible are not initiators, seekers, or builders. They are at best reactors. The knowledge they dutifully soak up is not necessarily broad based or useful. It is taught because it is likely to appear on tests. It is quickly and easily forgotten.

Any school can become a good school when its teachers have made the connections to life in the outside world that I have been talking about. It operates as an organic entity—not a machine—moving always to expand its basic nature rather than to tack on artificial appendages. A good school is like a healthy tree. As it grows, it sinks its roots deep into its native soil: it adapts to the surrounding climate and vegetation; its branches thicken for support and spread for maximum exposure to the sun: it makes its own food; it heals its own wounds; and, in its season, it puts forth fresh leaves, blossoms, and fruit.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-difference-between-good-schools-and-effective-schools/2012/01/31/gIQAlQIlsQ_blog.html

There are certain elements that successful schools share. The Wisconsin Department of Education has a good guide about successful schools. Chapter One, Characteristics of Successful Schools , lists key elements:

Chapter 1 describes the seven characteristics that comprise a successful school. Briefly, they are:

Vision: having a common understanding of goals, principles and expectations for everyone in the learning-community

Leadership: having a group of individuals dedicated to helping the learning-community reach its vision

High Academic Standards: describing what students need to know and be able to do

Standards of the Heart: helping all within the learning community become caring, contributing, productive, and responsible citizens

Family School and Community Partnerships: “making room at the table” for a child’s first and most influential teachers

Professional Development: providing consistent, meaningful opportunities for adults in the school setting to engage in continuous learning

Evidence of Success: collecting and analyzing data about students, programs, and staff http://dpi.wi.gov/cssch/cssintro.html

Schools must be relentless about the basics for their population of kids.

What does it Mean to Be Relentless About the Basics:

Students acquire strong subject matter skills in reading, writing, and math.
Students are assessed often to gauge where they are in acquiring basic skills.
If there are deficiencies in acquiring skills, schools intervene as soon as a deficiency assessment is made.
Schools intervene early in life challenges faced by students which prevent them from attending school and performing in school.
Appropriate corrective assistance is provided by the school to overcome both academic and life challenges.

Tags: Characteristics of Successful Schools, Effective Schools, Good Schools, Shadowy Lines That Still Divide, Social Class in America, The difference between good schools and effective schools.

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Categories Dr Wilda

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