Learning From Scale-Up Initiatives
Seniors’ Reading and Math NAEP Scores on Rise
At One D.C. School, iPads for Everybody
Ten Years of Preparing Youth for College, Editorial by Friendship PCS Chairman
Major Revision of Teacher Training Programs Urged by Panel of Top Educators
Interest in Opening D.C. Charter Schools Surges
Achievement First Receives $1 Million from Broad Foundation
Education Secretary Arne Duncan on How to Fix a Broken System
David Catania Seeks Education Panel Chairmanship
Michelle Obama’s Plan: 6,000 Salad Bars in Schools In 3 Years
Gray Says Budget Gap Won’t Stop ‘Robust Expansion’ of Infant and Toddler Care
Updated DC CAS Results for Charter Schools Released
Top Teachers Have Uneven Reach in District
Kids to D.C. City Council: Give Us a Safe Place to Go After School
New Effort Aims to Turn Teacher Education ‘Upside Down’
D.C. Offers Lesson in Charter Schools 101

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Learning From Scale-Up Initiatives

By Robert C. Granger
Education Week
November 17, 2010

In launching an unprecedented effort to improve school achievement and other youth outcomes by “scaling up” evidence-based programs, the Obama administration has given education a golden opportunity on the research front. With new funding, the administration has shown its commitment to supporting “what works.” These scale-up initiatives—including the White House’sSocial Innovation Fund, or SIF, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ efforts on teen-pregnancy prevention and home visitation, and the U.S. Department of Education’sInvesting in Innovation Fund, or i3,—present a real opportunity for us to learn to do this work better and make lasting impacts on the lives of young people. The i3 Fund is likely the effort most familiar to educators. Among the 49 successful i3 applicants are Success for All, KIPP’s Effective Leadership Development Model, Teach For America, and Reading Recovery, each of which will try to reproduce its effects in new communities, schools, and classrooms. This work faces a serious challenge, however. Research and prior scale-up efforts have shown that programs that are effective at small scale (perhaps because they were implemented in favorable circumstances by the original developer) have trouble maintaining that effectiveness when extended more broadly. We see that the expanded programs make a difference in some locations, but not others, and with some youths, but not enough.

So, how can we scale up good programs effectively? What leads to achieving robust implementation, reaching young people who need the services, and recognizing sites that can support innovation? More specifically, what are the right strategies for expanding such programs, what types of organizations can effectively implement them, and how do local policies and other conditions influence their effectiveness? When is the introduction of a new program an improvement on the status quo? Prior research gives policymakers and practitioners almost no guidance on these important issues, so they have to rely on their past experiences and hope their new work produces positive results at scale.

We need more than practitioner wisdom to improve the success rate of such initiatives—we need to learn from strong data as we go. The good news is that these initiatives allow us the chance to examine with whom and under what conditions programs can serve as the missing ingredients in the “what works” agenda.

Translating research into good policy and practice often requires a leap of faith. Now, we have the opportunity to make sure we land on our feet.

To learn more about what influences program effectiveness, we need three elements: (1) reliable estimates of a program’s impact in a large number of different sites, (2) good measures of the background characteristics of the participants, and (3) data on the conditions within and outside a program that might influence results.

The scale-up initiatives can meet the first criteria, at least potentially. Particularly in i3, proposals that received the biggest grants had to include strong impact evaluations of their expanded efforts. While these awards are grants and not contracts (funders have more control under a contract), funding agencies need to strongly encourage the winners to deliver on their promised impact evaluations. If such rigorous evaluations are done, we will know how much of a difference these innovations make in each new site. So, if the historical problem of varying effectiveness repeats itself, we will be poised to understand why.

For the second element, we can leverage the promised impact evaluations. For example, one finding common to evaluations is that programs are more effective for some subgroups of a target population than for others. Many educational interventions have little or no impact on schools, teachers, or students who do not really need the intervention, or on those who need more than the intervention can deliver. If the Department of Education asks the various local evaluators to gather a common set of baseline data for students involved in the i3 expansions, uniformly capturing information such as age for grade, English-language-learner status, and prior achievement, we could look across sites and groups of similar innovations for patterns. Maybe certain i3 strategies will be most effective with particular students. If we don’t gather common data on the students across sites and grants, we will never find out.

Similarly, for the third item, most developers believe that the innovations will make the most difference when implemented in communities or schools that have a commitment to a new effort, the human and financial resources to put an innovation in place, and few comparable programs already. However, this practical wisdom has not been confirmed by strong data. We should ask the local evaluators to gather uniform information on these factors across the sites, since variation is highly likely. Then, we can see if practical wisdom is borne out in results.

Gathering good data from these scale-up initiatives can also tell us if we’re thinking about past evidence in sensible ways. Is it as important as we think? Does it predict results under some circumstances, but not others? Using prior evidence as a condition of funding has led to concerns that some well-funded and well-evaluated innovations might stifle support for other deserving programs that do not yet have evidence of their positive impact. There is considerable variation in the evidence base for the i3 winners, and the same will likely be true in the other initiatives. The extent of prior evidence can be codified by a group such as the federal What Works Clearinghouse. With consistent data on how much evidence exists about the past performance of each winner, we can determine whether our current standards for evidence predict future effectiveness.

Translating research into good policy and practice often requires a leap of faith. Now, we have the opportunity to make sure we land on our feet. Thanks to rigorous evaluations of the effects of social programs, we know that they are sometimes effective and sometimes not. We need to use the scale-up initiatives to help us learn why. These recommendations will provide an understanding of the characteristics of youths, settings, and resources that predict effects. Knowing all this will help policymakers and practitioners target and support effective programs. In the longer term, it will help us improve outcomes for all young people.

ROBERT C. GRANGER is the president of the William T. Grant Foundation, based in New York City. He also recently chaired the National Board for Education Sciences, which is a presidentially appointed advisory panel for the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.

Vol. 30, Issue 12, Pages 26-27

Working in the Reggio Way!

de Miranda, Caracas, Venezuela.
 

Seniors’ Reading and Math NAEP Scores on Rise
By Catherine Gewertz
Education Week
November 18,2010

Twelfth graders’ reading and mathematics scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress have improved only modestly in the past four years, according to results released today, prompting renewed recognition that too few students leave high school well equipped for a promising future.

Results of NAEP, often called “the nation’s report card,” show that between 2005 and 2009, the two most recent administrations of the exam, 12th graders’ average reading scores rose 2 points, from 286 to 288, on a 500-point scale.

While higher than those of 2005, the latest reading scores are 4 points lower than those from 1992, the first NAEP reading assessment in the current trend line. The proportion of students performing at or above the “proficient” level rose from 35 percent in 2005 to 38 percent in 2009—considered statistically significant—although those figures are still lower than 1992 levels. One-quarter of high school seniors, however, are still reading below NAEP’s “basic” level, which means they are not considered to have mastered the material.

On the math part of the exam, average scores rose 3 points—also statistically significant—between 2005 and 2009, from 150 to 153, on a 300-point scale. A greater proportion of students scored at or above the proficient level than did so four years earlier—26 percent compared with 23 percent in 2005. More than a third of 12th graders languish below the basic level.

The 2009 math results cannot be compared with those before 2005, because a new framework introduced that year changed the exam content enough to invalidate such comparisons. (“NAEP Governing Board Gives Nod To More Complex 12th Grade Math,” August 30, 2006.)

Members of the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policy for NAEP, saw some positive news in the 2009 results, but lamented that the numbers weren’t higher. The reading scores “are not quite what they should be,” said West Virginia schools Superintendent Steven L. Paine, a NAGB board member. The math increases are “good but not spectacular,” said Kathi M. King, a NAGB member and math teacher from Maine. “The only good thing” about the trend, she said, “is that it’s in the right direction.”

The scores hold “worrisome” signs that students are not adequately prepared for success in college or work, said former Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, who is chairman of a NAGB commission that is researching how NAEP might be used as a measure of college and career readiness.

Comparison With Lower Grades

The academic portrait of the country’s high school seniors arrives as unprecedented levels of attention are being focused on improving young people’s readiness for college or careers. Precisely how NAEP achievement levels correlate with college or career readiness has not been established. A stack of special studies the board commissioned are expected to shed more light on that issue next year. (“Plans Advance to Link NAEP to College, Work Readiness,” Dec. 3, 2008.)

The scores drew a mix of reactions from education policy analysts. One point noted by some is the relative lack of progress for seniors compared with students in 4th and 8th grade. In reading, for instance, 4th and 8th graders’ NAEP scores rose 4 points between 1992 and 2005, while 12th graders’ declined by 4 points.

“Yes, there have been gains [for 12th grade], and they’re significant, but overall, the results are still disappointing, especially in comparison to the big gains at 4th and 8th grade,” said Tom Loveless, a Brookings Institution senior fellow who follows NAEP trends.

One possible explanation for 12th graders’ scores, he said, is that the exam doesn’t adequately reflect what students are actually studying in school. Another is that course content might not be as rigorous as course titles suggest. Mr. Loveless pointed out that math scores rose only 3 points, despite the fact that far more students are taking higher-level courses. Of those who took NAEP in 2009, 42 percent had taken precalculus or calculus. In 1982, only 10 percent of students had done so, according to figures from the National Center for Education Statistics.

Mr. Loveless and others also echoed a question that has long dogged the 12th grade NAEP: the possibility that 12th graders “blow off” the test. Since no consequences are attached to their performance, many have noted, they have no personal stake in doing well. Peggy G. Carr, the associate commissioner of assessment for the NCES, which oversees NAEP, said the agency is interested in working with states to embed NAEP items in higher-stakes state tests to see if that affects student motivation.

Michael W. Kirst, a Stanford University professor emeritus of education who focuses on college-readiness issues, saw the 12th grade NAEP scores as an encouraging sign that more students are building the skills necessary to succeed in postsecondary education. Mr. Kirst, who has examined the new math and reading frameworks in depth, said they are far more rigorous and demand skills much better matched to college than previous testing blueprints, so overall score gains of 2 and 3 points since 2005 are notable because they reflect progress on a tougher exam.

The new reading framework tilts more heavily toward informational texts that students would face in college or the workplace, such as textbooks and procedural manuals, and the new math framework presumes knowledge that reaches beyond the material covered in two years of algebra and one year of geometry, NAGB officials said.

First-Time State Results

With the 2009 report, state NAEP results were made available for 12th graders for the first time. States must participate in NAEP testing at the 4th and 8th grade levels in order to preserve eligibility for No Child Left Behind funding. But they are not required to do so at the 12th grade level, so state-by-state comparisons have not been possible. However, 11 states volunteered to include 12th graders in 2009.

The results show that five states—Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and South Dakota—had higher average scores than did the nation in both reading and math. Idaho and Illinois outscored the country in reading but not in math, and New Jersey did so in math but not in reading. Arkansas, Florida, and West Virginia turned in lower scores in both subject areas than the national average.

Even within high-scoring states, however, the report shows significant disparities among subgroups of students. White students in Connecticut, for instance, produced an average reading score of 301, while African-American students’ average in that state was 265. Females in New Hampshire outscored males by 18 points on average, and Massachusetts students whose parents had graduated from college outscored those whose parents hadn’t finished high school by 33 points. Similar patterns were seen in the nationwide scores, as the pool of students taking NAEP grows more diverse.

Achievement gaps among subgroups didn’t shrink between 2005 to 2009 in either reading or math, even though all racial and ethnic groups and both males and females turned in higher average math scores than they did in 2005. Progress was more uneven in reading: the only subgroups that made gains in the past four years were white students, males, and Asian-Americans.

The national score report shows that students who wrote long answers to questions involving reading at least once or twice a month and those who aspire to complete college or attend graduate school were much likelier to score well. Similarly, students who took more advanced math—particularly those who reached the level of precalculus—were much more likely to do well on NAEP.

Large portions of students learning English and those with disabilities are not included in NAEP. The 2009 report shows that on average, about one-third of students with disabilities are excluded from the reading and math exams. Among English-language learners, exclusion rates averaged 21 percent on the reading exam and 14 percent on the math. In some states, exclusion rates go much higher.

New Jersey, for instance, excluded 51 percent of its English-learners from the reading test, and Florida excluded 40 percent of its students with disabilities from the math exam.

At One D.C. School, Ipads For Everybody
By Michael Neibauer
Washington Business Journal
November 16, 2010

School computer labs are so passe. At one D.C. institution, middle schoolers are going mobile with the hottest technology around.

The “magical and revolutionary” iPad, as Apple describes it, is coming to Southeast D.C.’s Friendship Tech Prep Academy. Every student will get one, all paid for by the federal government.

With its wireless campus, interactive Promethean white boards and laptop carts, Friendship Tech may be better equipped than your office.

A fledgling arm of the Friendship Public Charter Schoolsystem, the college prep school serves 240 students in sixth and seventh grade out of a former Boys and Girls Club facility off Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. At full capacity, Friendship Tech will serve 700 students in grades 6-12.

The D.C. Office of the State Superintendent for Education awarded Friendship Tech a $410,000 Enhancing Education Through Technology (Ed Tech) grant to buy more than 240 iPads, and the associated applications and training.

Ed Tech is a U.S. Department of Education program designed to improve student achievement through technology, and ensure students are technology-fluent by the eighth grade. The $260 million annual program was augmented in fiscal 2009 with $650 million in stimulus funds, of which OSSE received $3.2 million.

“iPads are a quantum jump forward over PCs,” said Patricia Brantley, Friendship Charter’s chief operating officer. “Instead of learning to use technology, we now see students are truly using technology to learn.”

The iPad experiment is not Friendship’s first with new technology. But nothing to date, Brantley said, “compares with the iPad project.”
“The level of engagement from classroom teachers, students and parents around the iPad is unprecedented,” she said.

Ten Years of Preparing Youth for College, Editorial by Friendship PCS Chairman By Mark Lerner
The Washington Examiner
November 16, 2010

It was the 10th anniversary homecoming of my charter high school last week and amazing to think that just a decade ago it was an empty public school building-another sad symbol of the collapse of D.C.’s school system. Located on Minnesota Avenue in an underserved Northeast D.C. neighborhood teaming with underperforming schools, there weren’t many onlookers predicting success. But 10 years on, our Collegiate Academy celebrates many firsts.

Collegiate Academy was the first high school in the D.C. metro area to establish an Early College program. Sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, this initiative provides high school students opportunities to experience college and earn college credit. At our high school, professors from the University of Maryland and the University of the District of Columbia teach college-level classes in our classrooms and our students visit their campuses for classes. Today, 150 students participate in this program and nearly 1000 have participated in it over six years.

At Friendship, we are acutely aware that our high school may be the only place that many of our children and their parents encounter the expectation that they go to college. About three of four students are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunch. These facts mean that we must walk the extra mile to prepare students academically, emotionally and financially for the challenges of college. My vision of a college-preparatory neighborhood school created my mission to hire and retain excellent educators and mentors as well as to obtain vital financial aid.

We work hard to ensure that 100 percent of our graduating class is accepted to college. When Collegiate Academy was founded most school reformers estimated that the graduation rate for D.C. Public Schools was about half. Even today it is estimated to be 72 percent. By contrast, our high-school graduation rate is 96 percent. Getting students to understand what awaits them if they leave education without a high-school diploma or a college degree has been critical to our success.

We use data to track students’ performance and encourage a dialogue about it with students and parents: many of our students from regular public schools arrive at Collegiate several grade levels behind. Our work in this area was recognized when Collegiate Academy was the first high school in the District to receive the demanding EPIC-Effective Practice Incentive Community-award that recognizes schools that demonstrate significant gains on standardized test scores.

Beyond test scores, Collegiate Academy has developed a comprehensive Advanced Placement program. These are college-level courses that are common in private and selective high schools and are much more rigorous than D.C.’s standardized tests. More than 400 Collegiate students are currently taking AP courses in subjects such as world history, macroeconomics, psychology, calculus and English language and composition.

Collegiate Academy also offers students the opportunity to earn scholarships that pay their way through college. Last year, 114 students earned Achievers Scholarships funded by the Gates Foundation. And Collegiate was the first and only D.C. high school to graduate more students with prestigious Posse Scholarships than any other high school in the nation.

From our afterschool programs, which extend the school day and week, to our Leadership Development Academy and community service initiatives that connect students to leaders and community issues, we prepare students for college. Students need to be curious learners to succeed at college and Collegiate encourages them to develop academically by offering courses in the arts, law and business.

Realizing that we must encourage our students every step of their way to college, we instituted paid summer internships at our District office for our high-school graduates who are at risk of not taking up college places in the fall.

I feel enormous pride when I learn of what Collegiate Academy’s students have accomplished. Their achievements were hard to imagine contemplating a school system that had failed a generation of children 10 years ago. I’ve seen our students’ many first-time achievements, as have Melinda Gates and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, both of whom visited this year. Many have returned from college to their communities in this city to the lasting benefit of us all.

Some of our students have graduated from Morehouse College, where I myself graduated, to Georgetown University, to the University of Virginia and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and countless other lesser-known colleges. Before them are jobs and careers that are rewarding for themselves and for others that would never have been available to them without a college degree. High expectations got them there.
Looking Through a Global Lens at Mathematics
Asia Society
Schools are constantly looking for ways to create engaging and rigorous courses which motivate, spark inquiry, nurture curiosity and imagination, and promote intense learning that leads to positive action.

In a globally focused school, learners are deeply engaged in studying the world around them in these very ways. They explore issues close to home and those beyond the borders of their state and nation. Students connect with peers around the world to work and learn collaboratively about matters that impact them all. As some programs have proven, a school can thoroughly teach district- and state-required content, enable students to perform well on standards-based assessments and simultaneously instill global competencies.

Is it possible to do it all? Yes, it is. In the upcoming months, this newsletter will show you how through articles examining different curricular areas. This month we look at an area often cited as the most difficult to infuse with international knowledge and skills: mathematics.

Major Revision of Teacher Training Programs Urged by Panel of Top Educators
By Michael Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
November 16, 2010
Programs that train teachers need to be radically revised, according to a panel composed of some of the country’s top educators, and eight states, including Maryland, have signed on to adopt the recommendations, scheduled to be released Tuesday.

Teacher-training programs have long been criticized for not putting enough emphasis on inside-the-classroom practice, and the recommendations suggest turning programs “upside-down” by putting practical training first and foremost. They advise creating formal mentorship programs for student teachers akin to those at medical schools and suggest that more scrutiny be given to teaching programs.

“This is a seismic moment for teacher education,” said Nancy L. Zimpher, chancellor of the State University of New York and co-chairwoman of the panel that wrote the report. The panel also included the heads of several of the country’s largest education schools, government officials and the leaders of the country’s two main teachers’ unions.

Teacher preparation needs “to connect what you know to what you’re able to do,” Zimpher said. She praised the report for taking a “systematic” approach to improving standards for teacher preparation.

Nationwide, about 150,000 new teachers enter the workforce each year, according to the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, four-fifths from traditional university- or college-based training programs.

But a growing number come from programs such as Teach for America, which bypass traditional education schools, in part because of a perception that the standard routes for teacher preparation have become less useful.

Teach for America argues that the teachers it puts in challenging classrooms after a five-week summer training program are just as ready to teach as their peers who have been through standard teacher-preparation classes. Those assertions have been controversial, but the program has grown in popularity and plans to double in size over the next four years with the help of a $50 million federal grant it won in August.

But even many educators who are skeptical of Teach for America agree that most teacher-preparation programs don’t give their trainees enough practical experience.

In Maryland, the education department signed on to implement the recommendation, although officials say they are already mostly in compliance. California, Colorado, Louisiana, New York, Ohio, Oregon and Tennessee also have pledged to implement the recommendations.

“We feel we’re already implementing much of what’s recommended here,” said Maryland Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick. “I don’t think it’s consistent across this country.”

She said Maryland has found that teachers who have had extensive in-classroom experience before they start teaching full time tend to stay on the job longer than their peers.

She also said the state planned to use a new system to track student performance back to teachers and to the teaching schools that trained them. For now, she said, it would be “diagnostic,” a way to help teaching programs find the areas they need to improve. She said she might be interested in using student performance data in reaccreditation decisions, as Louisiana started to do last year.

The state school system also will try to reduce the number of people receiving training to teach in elementary schools in favor of harder-to-staff areas such as math, science and early childhood, another component of the report, she said.

“Accreditation is being broadly criticized today,” said Arthur Levine, former president of Teachers College at Columbia University, who was on the panel. “What we’re having now is an education war over the best way to prepare people.

Interest in Opening D.C. Charter Schools Surges
By: Lisa Gartner
The Examiner
November 12, 2010

More than 50 people are interested in opening charter schools in the District, the most enthusiasm that the school board has ever seen.

Teachers, principals and people from all walks of life — including psychiatrists and entrepreneurs — packed a Columbia Heights conference room for a D.C. Charter School Board information session on charter application guidelines.

“I was surprised by the session, to see that large number,” said school board member Darren Woodruff, chairman of the schools oversight committee. “You would think with the growth we’ve already had, you’d see a smaller number of people coming out for charters to be authorized, but that hasn’t been the case.”

Woodruff said attendance was high at last year’s sessions, but not like this — and there’s another session planned for December.

The board approved four schools, out of 13 completed applications last year, set to open next fall.

Woodruff said the board likely will approve more than four schools to open in fall 2012, with an emphasis on early-childhood development and high schools. “We’ll be looking for value added to our current portfolio of schools,” he said.

Charter schools spokesman Audrey Williams said an increased interest in education reform — such as documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman’ ” and Oprah Winfrey’s own investment — contributed to the high turnout. “People are seeing where they can help improve or add to the whole education reform effort in the District, and they want to give it a try.”

Currently, 52 D.C. charter schools with more than 90 campuses serve 27,660 students. An annual report from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools found that 38 percent of D.C. public school students are enrolled in charter schools, a rate second in the nation only to New Orleans.

D.C. charter schools’ enrollment increased 7 percent over last school year, while D.C. Public Schools celebrated its first enrollment increase in 39 years — a more modest bump of about 1.6 percent to 46,515.

Erin Dillon, senior policy analyst for independent think tank Education Sector, said that the local charter system’s strong framework and solid funding make it an attractive playground for entrepreneurs, but that demand may soon outstrip itself.

“Eventually the market will be saturated and charter schools will have to start competing with themselves for enrollment,” Dillon said. “That will bring change and turnover in schools, which isn’t always the best thing for the community.”

lgartner@washingtonexaminer.com
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/dc/2010/11/interest-opening-dc-charter-schools-surges#ixzz162AHmG4J

Achievement First Receives $1 Million from Broad Foundation
Philanthropy News Digest
November 18, 2010
The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation has announced a two-year, $1 million grant to New Haven-based Achievement First to expand its network of charter schools and serve an additional 6,500 low-income students.

The organization will use the grant to identify and cultivate strong leaders for the new schools, recruit a core of “excellent” classroom teachers, and provide curricular and instructional support during the development of each new school. With support from the Broad Foundation, the organization hopes to nearly double the number of public charter schools it operates in New York and Connecticut and will expand into Rhode Island, in partnership with the Rhode Island Mayoral Academies.

The announcement comes on the heels of a flurry of grants to Achievement First, including a two-year, $1.7 million award from the U.S. Department of Education and a commitment from theWalton Family Foundation to provide $250,000 for each new Achievement First School that opens.

“Achievement First schools help their students make dramatic academic gains and prepare them for success in college and the real world,” said Broad Foundation founder Eli Broad. “As more families demand quality public school choices for their children, we are proud to help these outstanding public charter schools expand access for underserved students.”

“The Broad Foundation Awards $1 Million Grant to Expand Achievement First Schools in Northeast U.S.” Broad Foundation Press Release 11/16/10.
 

Education Secretary Arne Duncan on How to Fix a Broken System
By Rebecca BlumensteinREBECCA BLUMENSTEIN
The Wall Street Journal
November 22, 2010

Education, just about everyone seems to agree, is broken in the U.S. The country has tumbled down the international rankings in several measures of educational excellence. Education Secretary Arne Duncan talked with The Wall Street Journal’s Rebecca Blumenstein about what’s being done to fix the system and what still needs to be done.

Here are edited excerpts of that discussion.

Plenty of Obstacles

REBECCA BLUMENSTEIN: There are going to be a lot of budget cuts, there are going to be moves to curb property taxes, and the unions are going to be an obstacle to change. Is President Obama, and are you, willing to fully confront the unions, which obviously are a key constituency of the Democratic party?

ARNE DUNCAN: Well, let me tell you what has happened. Thanks to Race to the Top, you have 37 states that historically dumbed down standards—essentially not because of unions but due to political pressure, due to politicians wanting their students to look good—we’ve seen all these states now adopting common college- and career-ready standards. This is an absolute game changer.

We have this next generation of assessments coming. We saw more than three dozen states remove barriers to charter schools and innovation. We had a couple states that had laws on their books that prohibited the linking of student achievement to teacher evaluations; all those laws have been eliminated. So there’s been a massive amount of change. And we’re going to continue to push for dramatic change.

MS. BLUMENSTEIN: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg just said that when layoffs do happen, that many states have laws that basically require that the most senior teachers are kept and the least senior teachers go. Often, the best, most energetic teachers are young and the schools don’t have an ability to get rid of who they want to. Are you going to push for changes to those laws?  

MR. DUNCAN: Well, those actually are changing and have changed in many places. Much broader than that, we’ve had very few incentives and lots of disincentives for the best teachers and the best principals to go to neighborhoods that need the most help. And so if we’re serious about closing achievement gaps, we have to close what I call the opportunity gap. And we’re putting a huge amount of resources into figuring out how to systematically get the hardest-working, the most committed teachers and principals into underserved communities.

MS. BLUMENSTEIN: Are you and the president willing to confront the unions if they stand as obstacles to change in various areas?

MR. DUNCAN: We’re going to confront everybody and have been—including the unions. And everyone has to change, so anyone who thinks that unions are the only challenge is missing the boat. We have to challenge parents; we have to challenge students themselves; we have to challenge school-board members; we have to challenge politicians at the local, state and federal level.

Our Department of Education has been a huge part of the problem. We’ve been this large, compliance-driven bureaucracy, and we’re fundamentally trying to change the business we’re in. We’re trying to become this engine of innovation and scale up what works, putting a huge amount of discretionary resources behind districts, states, nonprofits and local schools that are doing things in a very different way.

Legislative Prospects

MS. BLUMENSTEIN: Education is the one area where people see a realistic shot at some bipartisan agreement in the new Congress. What is your priority? Are you going to be pushing for reform on the No Child Left Behind Act?

MR. DUNCAN: Yeah. I think there’s a lot in the current law that’s broken. There are pieces that work, but there are lots of really perverse incentives in it.

We’ve worked very closely with House and Senate leadership, Republicans and Democrats, for months. I actually talked to the incoming speaker [Rep. John Boehner] today. And we’re committed to working very, very closely.

MS. BLUMENSTEIN: Why should reforming No Child Left Behind be the top priority over performance pay or any other measures?

MR. DUNCAN: It’s not over anything. All that’s part of it.

What worked in No Child Left Behind is there was a laser-like focus on the achievement gap and disaggregating data. Historically, our country loved to sweep those sorts of tough facts under the rug. And thanks to No Child Left Behind, that’s never going to be the case.

Having said that, lots of things are broken. It was very punitive. Almost no rewards for success. It was very prescriptive. It was top down from Washington. It led to a dumbing down of standards. And it led to a narrowing of the curriculum. So we can reverse all of those things.

We can reward excellence, reward great teachers, great principals, great schools, districts, states.

We have folks beating the odds, raising achievement for students every single day. We need to shine a spotlight and give them more resources.

We want to put $1 billion behind what we’re calling a well-rounded education. So yes, reading and math are fundamental; they’re foundational. But we need science, we need social studies, we need foreign language, we need dance and drama and art and music and [physical education].

The Role of Business

MS. BLUMENSTEIN: What can the people in this room do to influence the outcome?  

MR. DUNCAN: I think the most important thing this room can do would be to challenge us and challenge the country to make this the country’s priority in the new year. Your leadership in demanding and driving change—we have not, frankly, had enough passion, enough push from the business community. And your collective voice is extraordinarily powerful.

MS. BLUMENSTEIN: President Obama has a goal of increasing college graduation rates. I believe the U.S. has now sunk to No. 9 in the world and he wants to make us No. 1 by 2020. How is he going to do that, given the state of public education?

MR. DUNCAN: We’re putting a huge emphasis on early-childhood education, which is a long-term play. We’ve talked a lot about K-to-12 reform.

We’ve also put a huge amount of money to make college more affordable, have increased Pell grants, lots of money behind community colleges. And so with a comprehensive—we call it cradle to career—continuum of change, we basically need about another eight million young people to graduate.

David Catania Seeks Education Panel Chairmanship
By Tim Craig
Washington Post
November 22, 2010

 D.C. Council member David A. Catania (I-At large) is vying to become the next chairman of the city’s Education Committee, saying he wants to take his “skill set and apply it to school reform.”

Catania, the second-ranking council member in seniority, said he has already begun considering how he would run the committee that has oversight over the city’s 50,000-student school system.

In the coming weeks, Council Chairman Elect Kwame Brown (D) will be deciding committee chairmanships. Catania now chairs the Health Committee.

When Mayor-elect Vincent C. Gray (D) was elected council chairman in 2006, he moved education to the Committee of the Whole, which all 13 council members sit on and which Gray chairs. Gray said that education was so important that all members should have a stake in it.

But Catania argues that education should be broken out as a stand-alone committee.
“If the last four years tell us anything, education is an overwhelmingly important subject matter, and it’s difficult for the chairman of the council to run the institution and chair the most significant subject matter in the city,” Catania said. “It’s overwhelming, and we should go back to having a separate committee.”

Catania said that he did not know Brown’s plans. But many council observers speculate that Brown may place another subject matter, such as economic development, in the Committee of the Whole and allow a council member to take over the Education Committee.

As a chairman, Catania is known as aggressive in oversight. At times, he’s been accused of trying to micromanage the Health Department, but his supporters note he’s been able to implement numerous reforms within the agency.

If Catania doesn’t get to chair a newly-formed Education Committee, he said, he would want to continue to chair the Health Committee.

Brown says he hasn’t decided on chairmanships yet. “I haven’t talked through anything.”
Michelle Obama’s Plan: 6,000 Salad Bars in Schools in 3 Years
By Kelli Kennedy
HuffPost
November 22, 2010

MIAMI — First lady Michelle Obama had Miami elementary school students cheering Monday over a typically contentious dinner topic – vegetables. Even the green ones.

The first lady ate some cherry tomatoes and fresh herbs with the students, who were the first in the country to receive a free salad bar as part of her new initiative to get more veggie displays into school cafeterias.

“If you’re going to change your habits, you’ve got to be ready to try some new stuff…trying some vegetables you might not normally eat,” Obama told students at Riverside Elementary.

Only about 15 percent of public school cafeterias have salad bars. Dozens of schools want to add them, but can’t afford the $2,500 equipment display or the produce to stock it, said Lorelei DiSogra, vice president of nutrition and health for the United Fresh Produce Association. The organization is donating 6,000 salad bars to schools, mostly in low-income neighborhoods, over the next three years as part of Obama’s Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools initiative.

The first lady has championed healthy eating, even planting a vegetable garden at the White House, to help combat childhood obesity rates that have tripled over the past three decades. Obesity-related health care costs are about $147 billion per year, according to The White House.

On Monday, she encouraged members of Congress to “do their part,” referring to the stalled child nutrition bill that aims to improve school lunches and expand feeding programs for low-income students. Anti-hunger groups and more than 100 Democrats protested the use of food stamp dollars to pay for it.

The proposed new nutrition standards call for using leaner meats and whole wheat buns in school lunchrooms and stocking vending machines with less candy and fewer high-calorie drinks.

Congressional passage of the bill would be only the first step. Decisions on what kinds of foods could be sold – and what ingredients might be limited – would be left to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Dressed in a chic tangerine pantsuit and matching patent leather flats, Obama admired the school’s garden, saying her own garden yielded a good harvest this year.

“You guys are showing that without a stitch of land you can plant a garden because you’ve done it in cement boxes. You don’t have to have a big field to plant vegetables,” Obama said. “They aren’t just fun to plant but they’re critical to your health.”

The first lady chatted with students of the predominantly Latino school in small groups, showing them how to dice scallions to add flavor and explaining that yellow squash doesn’t have much taste, but it’s still tasty mixed with other vegetables.

With the first lady’s endorsement, students ventured into eating food many had never tried before. One student ate an entire green pepper. Another munched on a whole cucumber.

Yurys Otero said he doesn’t like green beans, but would eat cucumbers and spinach from the new salad bar.

“I used to say broccoli – yuck. But brother told me to try it and it’s good,” said the 5th grader.

Gray Says Budget Gap Won’t Stop ‘Robust Expansion’ of Infant and Toddler Care
By Bill Turque
The Washington Post
November 19, 2010

Mayor-elect Vincent C. Gray said Friday that the city’s financial predicament will not keep his administration from expanding access to infant and toddler care, an initiative he regards as the next step in creating a “birth-through-24 continuum” of public education in the District.

“I know we’re in a fiscally challenged era. I didn’t miss that,” Gray told a spirited gathering of educators at a conference sponsored by Pre-K for All D.C., a nonprofit group focused on promoting early child care and education.

But Gray, in his first major education speech since the Nov. 2 election, said budget pressures also create opportunities to bring new clarity to priorities. A “robust expansion” of infant and toddler care – with a focus on children with special needs or those at risk of developmental delays – is critical to controlling education costs later in life, Gray said.

“Doesn’t that make sense? It will reduce the number of children who wind up in special education, sometimes outside of our system, at a huge social and financial cost,” Gray said. The District pays an estimated $280 million a year in tuition and transportation costs to support special education students in private schools.

The District spends about $200 million a year in federal and local funds on early childhood programs. A fraction of that, perhaps $10 million to $20 million, goes to infant and toddler care, officials said. During the campaign, Gray cited waiting lists with as many as 6,000 families seeking infant and toddler services.

Gray, who is facing a $175 million gap in the current District budget and as much as a $400 million shortfall before approval of the fiscal 2012 budget next year, did not say how much he thought the city could afford. But after his speech, he said the expansion could be funded in part by more effective use of federal dollars that are currently spread across a series of disparate programs supporting early childhood education. He said the city would also look to private and philanthropic partners for more help.

Gray sees an infant and toddler initiative as a logical extension of his work as D.C. Council chairman, when he played a key role in a $40 million expansion of pre-K slots for 3- and 4-year-olds in the District’s public schools, public charter schools and community-based organizations. In September, officials reported that the District had effectively achieved “universal Pre-K” with enrollment of approximately 16,000 children.

Gray said he wanted to see the District’s early childhood programs evolve and improve by following the markers set down by the federal Race to the Top grant competition. The program has awarded $75 million to the city over the next four years in exchange for the District’s commitment to improve academic standards and assessments, data systems and teacher quality and to close persistently failing schools.

Although Race to the Top is focused on K-12 education, Gray said it was a useful template. “There is absolutely no reason we shouldn’t use it as a catalytic agent to focus on all public education at the front end and the back end,” he said.

Gray called on the University of the District of Columbia to lead the way in establishing accelerated credentialing programs for infant and toddler professionals, similar to its efforts on behalf of early childhood teachers.

Gray said he also wanted to bring a new rigor to evaluating teacher performance in the early childhood sector by introducing evaluation systems similar to the IMPACT regimen now employed in D.C. public schools. Among those he mentioned was ECERS, or Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale, used in early childhood pre-K and kindergarten.

“So we can say we are absolutely ensuring accountability in those classrooms,” he said.

http://www.dcpubliccharter.com/News-Room.aspx?id=161

Contact: Audrey Williams 202-328-2748
awilliams@dcpubliccharter.com

Washington, D.C. — District of Columbia public charter school students in secondary schools continued to show modest progress in both mathematics and reading on the District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System (DC CAS) tests. In the final analysis released today by the DC Public Charter School Board, the results showed that secondary charter school students continue to show the highest proficiency rates. While only five (5) charter schools met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), as required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), several schools made gains in proficiency over last year’s tests. This year the bar was raised from 60.5% in reading and 55.2% in math for elementary schools, and 57.69% in reading and 55.4% in math for secondary schools. The proficiency targets for this year are 73.7% in reading and 70.1% in math for elementary schools; and 71.8% in reading and 70.3 % in math for secondary schools. (Click here for the complete AYP list of schools.)

After a three-week appeals process, the final results among the charter sector show that secondary schools had the highest proficiency rates. Washington Latin Middle School students had the highest proficiency rate overall in reading (83%) and math (81%). KIPP DC: Key Academy Middle School had the highest math proficiency rate of 81%. Thurgood Marshall Academy had the highest proficiency rates in math (71%) at the high school level. In the elementary schools, Achievement Preparatory Academy had the highest proficiency in both subjects with 77% in reading and 80% in math. St. Coletta Special Education PCS, which serves students with significant cognitive disabilities, administered the DC CAS Alternative Assessment instead of the general assessment DC CAS. (Click here to see the proficiency rates of all schools.)

The goal of the NCLB legislation is to ensure that all students will be proficient or better in reading and math by 2014. To reach that goal, each year schools and districts must meet ever-increasing AYP targets. The three determining factors for making AYP are proficiency targets for reading and math; graduation rates for high school and attendance for elementary and middle school; and 95% participation rate on the test. All student populations must meet AYP targets or safe harbor for the school to meet AYP.

“Performance on the DC CAS test is a critical barometer that the Board looks to as it evaluates a school’s achievement,” said PCSB Board Chair Brian Jones. “While we’re happy to see the gains and growth of students enrolled in the most effective charter schools, we are not complacent. In our continuing effort to raise the bar on charter school performance, the Board will be looking for significantly improved DC CAS scores this year,” Jones said.

A handful of schools showed gains of more than 20 points over last year’s results. Roots PCS Kennedy Street campus showed tremendous improvement in math by increasing proficiency by 46 points, and Potomac Lighthouse PCS improved math proficiency by 33 points. Achievement Prep Academy and William E. Doar, Jr. Middle and High School campus significantly improved their reading proficiency by 21 points each.

Title I schools that have missed AYP for two consecutive years, must comply with NCLB sanctions which include required supports and services for students and teachers, and developing a plan to improve student achievement.

D.C. Charter Schools that Met AYP

Achievement Preparatory Academy
DC Preparatory Academy – Edgewood Elementary (safe harbor)
Mary McLeod Bethune Academy (safe harbor)
*St. Coletta Special Education
William E. Doar, Jr. Middle & High School (safe harbor)

(Safe harbor: A school may make AYP if it reduces the percentage of students scoring below proficient by at least 10%, compared to the prior year, as long as the school also meets the target for graduation or attendance and meets the 95 % participation rate.)

Top 10 Proficiency Rates for the D.C. Charter Schools

*St. Coletta, which serves students with significant cognitive disabilities, administered the DC CAS Alternative Assessment instead of the general assessment DC CAS.

*St. Coletta, which serves students with significant cognitive disabilities, administered the DC CAS Alternative Assessment instead of the general assessment DC CAS

Top Teachers Have Uneven Reach in District
By Bill Turque
Washington Post
November 14, 2010

The District’s most affluent ward has more than four times as many “highly effective” public schoolteachers as its poorest, underscoring a problem endemic to urban school systems: Their best educators often do not serve the children who need them most.

The inequity is reflected in the distribution of teachers judged to be most effective under the school district’s rigorous new evaluation system, known as IMPACT. Just 5 percent of the 636 top performers work in Southeast Washington’s Ward 8, home to many of the city’s lowest-achieving schools and its highest concentration of children living in poverty.

In contrast, 22 percent of the top-performing teachers are in affluent Ward 3 in Northwest Washington, home to some of the most successful and sought-after public schools. The area has eight fewer schools than Ward 8 and about 60 percent of Ward 8′s enrollment.

The imbalance represents a significant challenge for Mayor-elect Vincent C. Gray (D) and interim Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson, who have pledged to continue the reform measures initiated by former chancellor Michelle A. Rhee. Research frequently cited by Rhee and her supporters suggests that low-achieving children who have three highly effective teachers in successive years can make dramatic academic gains.

Officials caution that many children in Ward 8 and other parts of the city attend school outside their neighborhoods, but they also acknowledge the need to address the maldistribution of teaching talent. Among the measures they have introduced are performance bonuses that are doubled for educators who excel in high-poverty schools.

Henderson was not available to comment. In a statement, spokeswoman Safiya Simmons said: “Although we’ve made great progress – there are highly effective educators in every ward – we acknowledge that there’s still much to do.”

The imbalance is the result of longtime personnel practices in the District and other big public school systems, where traditional lock-step salary schedules provide no financial incentive for teachers to accept jobs in low-performing schools. Seniority rules often allow seasoned educators to transfer to less-challenging posts, leaving behind a higher proportion of younger, greener instructors.

“Good teachers have always transferred over time to easier schools, because there are so few other ways to reward yourself,” said Kati Haycock, president of the Education Trust, a nonprofit organization that promotes widening educational opportunities for minority and low-income students.

Veteran teachers say spots at schools with high rates of poverty and discipline issues have sometimes been used as punishment, while assignment to a more successful school might be doled out as a reward.

Elizabeth Davis, who has spent most of her 35-year career in Ward 7 and 8 schools, recalled the offer she received from an administrator after winning a teaching award from the MetLife Foundation in May 2007.

“He said, ‘Because you’re a good teacher, you should be in a better school,’ ” Davis said.

Others say the scarcity of top teachers reflects a broader inequity in the distribution of resources in the school system.

“We are catering to folks who don’t live this side of the river,” said Absalom Jordan, chairman of the Ward 8 Education Council. “We still have an education system in the District of Columbia that is separate and unequal.”

The 636 teachers, who represent about 15 percent of the city’s teacher corps, won their highly effective designations during the 2009-10 school year under IMPACT, which was introduced by Rhee.

Teachers are assessed through five classroom observations and detailed criteria that include the ability to explain content clearly, to respond effectively to student misunderstandings and to provide multiple ways to learn course material. For math and reading teachers in grades 4 through 8, 50 percent of the evaluation is based on student growth on the DC-CAS standardized tests.

The collective bargaining agreement approved by teachers last summer provides for performance bonuses for teachers who achieve highly effective status. The highest annual bonuses – as much as $25,000 – are available for highly effective teachers in schools where 60 percent or more of the children are from families that meet federal income guidelines for free or reduced-price lunch. All 21 schools in Ward 8 fall into that category, commonly used by schools as a measure of household poverty.

“All the big financial incentives go to the teachers in the low-income schools,” said Jason Kamras, the D.C. schools official who is the principal architect of IMPACT. “We’re placing a clear priority on serving our children in low-income schools.”

It is hoped that other provisions in the new contract will make a difference, Kamras said, including one that gives principals more discretion over hiring from the annual pool of teachers who lost jobs because of enrollment declines or program changes.

But the bonus system has attracted criticism from some teachers because the contract requires that they waive certain job protections in exchange for the money. It is not known how many have declined the payments.

And critics say IMPACT disadvantages teachers in schools where challenging conditions make learning difficult. They say that the system does not assess the value or effectiveness of teachers who must contend with large numbers of children from broken or dysfunctional homes and dangerous neighborhoods.

“I think the teachers in a lot of instances are doing a lot more than teaching,” said D.C. Council member Yvette Alexander of Ward 7, where just 51 teachers designated highly effective are assigned. “They are counselors and social workers. And until you can address all of these issues, I don’t think it’s fair to evaluate them as effective or ineffective based on student outcomes.”

Kamras said predicted rates of test-score growth in classes where teachers are judged for their “value added” are adjusted for factors such as special education and free lunch.

But teachers said the evaluation system will probably never account for the intangible ways in which they support their students. Bill Rope, a teacher at Hearst Elementary in Ward 3, recalled a colleague at another school who spent his own money and held fundraisers to take his sixth-graders on an annual post-”graduation” trip to Canada so they could experience another country.

“Of course, he couldn’t get any credit under IMPACT for that,” Rope said.

Kids to D.C. City Council: Give Us a Safe Place to Go After School
By Carol Scott
Change.org
November 19, 2010

Today after school, 15 children plan to take a field trip to the City Council offices of Washington D.C. for a lesson on local government.

This won’t be an ordinary civics lesson, though. This will be an education on whether city leaders can cut through red tape so that a local nonprofit isn’t penalized for running a much-needed summer day camp for low-income DC children.

City Gate, a DC nonprofit that focuses on needy children, youth and international residents, is struggling to pay its bills this holiday season because a $60,000 grant they were promised from city money has still not been paid. Leaders at the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) now say the grant, promised to pay for a summer day camp City Gate ran this past summer, no longer exists. It’s an example of how organizations that pledge to do good can be hobbled by bureacratic inertia and a maze of contradicting regulations.

Here’s the brief summary: The city’s OSSE promised a large grant to a nonprofit named YES (Youth Engaged for Success); a part of that money was pledged to City Gate. Due to an unrelated matter, the city’s relationship with YES broke down. After hearing about trouble with YES, City Gate asked the city’s OSSE if they should keep operating the day camp program; OSSE told them yes, says Rev. Lynn Bergfalk, the founder of City Gate. But then, at the end of the summer, after City Gate ran the summer camp, they found out that the city was no longer going to pay the grant.

What’s the point of all of these details? First of all, to show how convoluted the world of nonprofit grantmaking is. As a Change.org reader pointed out in my first post about City Gate, nonprofits are subject to a large amount of restrictions and paperwork in order to qualify for grants. This is as it should be; but in this case, the restrictions are preventing good work from being done.

What’s worse, the back-and-forth administrative drama of this situation obscures the larger issue: the fact that D.C. kids in Ward 8 — one of the poorest sections of the city — need somewhere safe to go after school. City Gate provided it, after being promised money from the city to cover staff and administrative costs. Now, City Gate is dipping into savings and credit cards to pay staff salaries, and may be less able to serve the community that so desperately needs City Gate’s help.

Today, children who benefit from City Gate’s myriad programs for them and their families will visit City Council offices. They’ll ask for the help of adults to wade through this convoluted problem. Will city leaders find a solution? In a message from OSSE, the department “continues to devote a number of staff resources to resolve the number of problems around this grant.” In this impromptu civics class, what lesson will they learn?

Pilot Program to Make Teacher Education More Like Medical Training Headed to Eight States
From staff and wire reports
November 19, 2010

Eight states are beginning a national pilot program to transform teacher education and preparation to emphasize far more in-field, intensive training—as is common practice in medical schools.

“Teaching, like medicine, is a profession of practice,” said State University of New York Chancellor Nancy Zimpher, who is co-chairwoman of the expert panel that released a report on the recommended changes Nov. 16 in Washington, D.C. “Making clinical preparation the centerpiece of teacher education will transform the way we prepare teachers.”

The pilot program—developed by K-12 and higher-education officials, along with teachers unions, to improve instruction—is being rolled out in California, Colorado, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and Tennessee. The states agreed to implement the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation and Partnerships for Improved Student Learning, created by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE).

Instead of exposing student teachers to varied classroom experiences at the end of their academic pursuit, the new system would put student teachers into classrooms earlier and more often. It could include rounds, similar to the system used in teaching hospitals in which mentors provide constant critiques to students in real-life situations.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the Nov. 16 gathering, which was webcast nationally, that too many colleges stress theory with too little classroom time.

“There is little or no accountability for turning out effective teachers,” Duncan said, calling for “outcome-based” reviews of teacher education programs. “It is time to start holding teacher preparation programs far more accountable for the impact of their graduates on student learning and achievement.”

The expert panel also recommends more online and video demonstrations, as well as case-study analysis by teachers. Video evaluations of teachers-in-training already are being tested in 19 states.

“This is huge, a real turning point,” Zimpher told the Associated Press.

She said the new model will “turn teacher education upside down” and could be in colleges within two years. And in states with pilot programs, the first elements likely will be in place beginning in the fall 2011 semester.

States with pilot programs will work with school districts and their regional teacher colleges, with an emphasis on improving instruction in high-need, low-income urban and rural districts.

The reform would make teacher education and continuing education a shared responsibility of schools and universities.

“NCATE’s call for prospective teachers to receive more clinical experience is a smart first step in a profession that sees nearly half of teachers exit in their first five years of teaching,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

“The recommendation that teacher education programs work more collaboratively with school districts will help ensure that teacher preparation and hiring are more closely aligned to the needs of communities. Other recommendations—from establishing new research standards to revamping higher-education staffing and instruction—also will help upgrade and update teacher education programs.”

In yet another sign of shakeup in the teacher education process, NCATE and the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC) last month said they’re in the process of consolidating to form a new accrediting body: the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP).

CAEP’s goals include raising the quality of teaching in the nation’s K-12 schools, as well as creating high accountability standards for teacher colleges.

A 14-member Joint Design Team, composed of equal numbers of NCATE and TEAC leaders, met frequently during the past two years to develop the groups’ consolidation plan. During a two-year transition period, the Joint Design Team will function as the interim CAEP board of directors. The president of TEAC, Frank B. Murray, will chair this board; the president of NCATE, James G. Cibulka, will become CAEP’s president and CEO.

The interim CAEP board will select the initial CAEP board when consolidation is complete, but the chair and president will remain in office.

“We have not approached our task as merely unifying NCATE and TEAC with the least possible change to two accrediting systems that are already quite similar,” says a joint statement by Cibulka and Murray. “Rather, we have set a much more ambitious goal: to create a model unified accreditation system” for ensuring high-quality teacher education.

D.C. Offers Lesson in Charter Schools 101
By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post
November 15, 2010

The next crop of would-be D.C. charter school operators gathered in a gray conference room on 14th Street one night last week, more than 30 hopeful men and women, each with his or her own pitch.

“Hello,” began one woman. “I am a founder of Believe Charter School. We believe every child in D.C. has the right to a high-quality, first-class education.”

“Hi,” another woman began, offering her idea. “I’m soft-spoken. Sorry. I believe it’s important to prepare kids adequately and empower them.”

“I am a psychologist,” said an older man in a pinstripe suit, “and each day I go home depressed because I see so many 10th- , 11th- and 12th-graders who can’t read.”

The meeting was convened by the District’s public charter school board to explain the application process for opening a charter school, a list of requirements that fits into an hour-long PowerPoint presentation.

The District can approve up to 20 new charters each year. Of 13 applications last year, four schools were conditionally approved to open in fall 2011. In general, business is booming.

The city has 96 charter schools, which enroll more than 28,000 children, or about 38 percent of public school students, the largest percentage of any school system in the nation.

Essentially entrepreneurial ventures, charters receive public school money but have a higher degree of autonomy than traditional public schools in how they teach and operate.

The theory is that public education should be a competitive marketplace of choices.

Charters are supposed to encourage innovation, provide parents with a viable option to traditional public schools and spur struggling schools to improve.

More than two decades into the experiment, though, their academic results vary widely across the country and in the District, which pro-charter groups say has one of the best laws governing charters in the country.

Although some charter schools, notably the Knowledge Is Power Program, or KIPP Academy, perform exceedingly well, standardized reading and math scores among charter students as a whole remained relatively flat this year.

GRANTS & SCHOLARSHIPS

DHS Scholarship Program
Deadline: January 5, 2011
Eligibility: Students pursuing basic science and technology innovations
Supporting students interested in pursuing the basic science and technology innovations that can be applied to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security mission.

Undergraduate students

U.S. citizenship required

Funding available for fall 2011

Full tuition and monthly stipends

Includes 10-week summer internships at federal research facilities or DHS Centers of Excellence

Complete information is available online at

http://www.orau.gov/dhsed/

Questions regarding the DHS Scholarship Program can be sent via e-mail to

dhsed@orau.org

Upcoming Events

National Council on Educating Black Children
April 28, 2011
Rio All -Suite Hotel Las Vegas, NV
National Council on Educating Black Children (NCEBC) is a premier non-profit and civil rights organization with a distinguished focus on improving educational opportunities and outcomes for African American children. By galvanizing “coalitions of the willing”, NCEBC is aggressively implementing solutions that elevate communities by empowering stakeholders who are ready to “take responsibility” for their villages. Everyone who touches on educational achievement and enhancement for African American children is welcome to share and learn. Last year’s annual convention attracted over 450 attendees, including first-time participants and life-long educators, and parents from a wide range of background interests and expertise. Conference Objectives

Showcase the best and proven programs throughout the country that are increasing African American male achievement and development.

Introduce effective programs that increase advocacy and building of the “Public Will” to improve quality of life and increase opportunities to learn for all children, especially African American males.

Engage policy discussions that increase capacity to access financial support NCEBC’s initiatives and programs, particularly those that directly impact African American males

Provide materials and strategies to break down barriers that deny African American children (males in particular) access to the resources necessary for high academic performance

Important Dates

All session proposals & papers are due: December 31, 2010

Notification of acceptance: End January 2011

Pre-conference materials due (for printing & media release): February 15, 2011

Presentation materials (PowerPoint presentations, etc.) due: March 31, 2011

Theme & Topics

This year’s theme is “A Blueprint for Action: Educating Minds and Removing Barriers.” NCEBC has outlined four convention topics inviting schools, families and community leaders to “come and be a part of the solution.”

Creating a Healthy Learning Environment in schools to Inspire Success Among Black students especially males.

Fostering Personal and Emotional Motivators for Successful environments that are educating black students especially Black boys.

Strengthening the Family Unit to Raise Successful Children.

Building Community coalitions and Social Conditions that Foster Success for black students especially Black males.

In this call, we seek proposals for:

Presentations

Panels

Research

Posters (visual presentations to be informally presented in circulation area)

When submitting a proposal for a regular session, please include:

Name of NCEBC Conference Topic Addressed (see above)

Type of presentation

Title of session/presentation

Name of Presenter(s)

Full contact information on the person submitting (sole contact person)

Core issues addressed

Summary or Abstract (up to 500 words)

Submission Instructions

Please submit proposal materials to:

NCEBC Convention Committee

3717 N. Meridian Street, Suite 504

Indianapolis, IN 46208

OR email: ncebc@sbcglobal.net

International Conference on Knowledge Generation, Communication and Management
March 27, 2012

Orlando, Florida USA

We invite you to submit a paper/abstract to The SPRING 5th International Conference on Knowledge Generation, Communication and Management: KGCM 2011 (www.2011iiisconferences.org/kgcma), to be held in Orlando, Florida, USA, on March 27th – 30th, 2011 ~ Orlando, Florida USA.

The deadlines for SPRING KGCM 2011 are the following (Check the web site for possible extensions or new set of deadlines):

Papers/Abstracts Submission and Invited Session Proposals: December 17th, 2010
Authors Notifications: February 7th, 2011
Camera-ready, full papers: February 22nd, 2011

Technical keynote speakers will be selected from early submissions because this selection requires an additional evaluation according to the quality of the paper, assessed by its reviewers, the authors’ CV and the paper’s topic.

Submissions for Face-to-Face or for Virtual Participation are both accepted. Both kinds of submissions will have the same reviewing process and the accepted papers will be included in the same proceedings.

All Submitted papers/abstracts will go through three reviewing processes: (1) double-blind (at least three reviewers), (2) non-blind, and (3) participative peer reviews. These three kinds of review will support the selection process of those papers/abstracts that will be accepted for their presentation at the conference, as well as those to be selected for their publication in JSCI Journal.

Pre-Conference and Post-conference Virtual sessions (via electronic forums) will be held for each session included in the conference program, so that sessions papers can be read before the conference, and authors presenting at the same session can interact during one week before and after the conference. Authors can also participate in peer-to-peer reviewing in virtual sessions.

Authors of accepted papers who registered in the conference can have access to the evaluations and possible feedback provided by the reviewers who recommended the acceptance of their papers/abstracts, so they can accordingly improve the final version of their papers. Non-registered authors will not have access to the reviews of their respective submissions.

Registration fees of an effective invited session organizer will be waived according to the policy described in the web page (click on ‘Invited Session’, then on ‘Benefits for the Organizers of Invited Sessions’), where you can get information about the ten benefits for an invited session organizer. For Invited Sessions Proposals, please visit the conference web site, or directly tohttp://www.2011iiisconferences.org/kgcma/organizer.asp

Authors of the best 10%-20% of the papers presented at the conference (included those virtually presented) will be invited to adapt their papers for their publication in the Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics.

Best regards,

SPRING KGCM 2011 Organizing Committee

If you wish to be removed from this mailing list, please send an email to remove@mail.2011iiisconferences.org with REMOVE MLCONFERENCES in the subject line. Address: Torre Profesional La California, Av. Francisco

Space Station Astronauts to Downlink With Students for International Ed. Week
November 23, 2010
Online
To highlight International Education Week (IEW), NASA and the U.S. Department of Education will host a live long-distance call for students with International Space Station residents Scott Kelly, Shannon Walker and Doug Wheelock.

NASA Associate Administrator for Education Leland Melvin and Secretary of Education Arne Duncanwill join students from Hart Middle School and Deal Middle School in Washington D.C. to discuss living and working in space with the ISS crew.

The downlink is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 23, from 11:20 to 11:40 a.m. EST, and will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website. The event will take place at the Department of Education’s auditorium located at 400 Maryland Avenue, S.W. in Washington.

Both schools have teachers from the Teach for America program who helped develop the event. Teach for America is a network of top college graduates and professionals who commit to teach for two years to expand educational opportunities in urban and rural public schools.

This year’s IEW theme is “International Education: Striving for a Sustainable Future.” IEW continues a long-standing partnership between NASA and the Education Department that celebrates the benefits of international education and exchange worldwide.

Kelly, Walker and Wheelock are living and conducting science experiments aboard the space station for about six months. Wheelock, who is commander of the station’s Expedition 25, and Walker are due to return to Earth Thursday, Nov. 25. Kelly will remain on board, serving as the Expedition 26 commander until March.

The live, in-flight education downlink is one of a series with educational organizations in the U.S. and abroad to improve teaching and learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It is an integral component of Teaching From Space, a NASA Education program that promotes learning opportunities and builds partnerships with the education community using the unique environment of space and NASA’s human spaceflight program.

For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

RESOURCES
NECBC 2011 Convention Registration
http://ncebc.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/2011-NCEBC-Convention-Brochure.pdf
Rennie Centre for Educations Research and Policy
http://www.nmefdn.org/uploads/RennCentrEducatorSurveyReport.pdf
Weekend Warrior Series
Friday School Visit: Your choice of either middle or elementary.

Excel Academy (Middle): Excel Academy Charter School prepares middle school students to succeed in high school and college, apply their learning to solve relevant problems, and engage productively in their communities. See their amazing results here.

Democracy Prep Blackstone Valley (Elementary): The mission of Democracy Prep Public Schools is to educate responsible citizen-scholars for success in the college of their choice and a life of active citizenship. DPBV first opened its doors to 76 kindergarten scholars in August 2009. Democracy Prep Blackstone Valley will grow to serve scholars in kindergarten through the 4th grade.

To Register: Please complete this application and email it to WWS@buildingexcellentschools.org. You will receive an email confirming receipt of your application followed by a short survey to complete your registration.

Click here for the Weekend Warrior Series Application.

For more information or to submit your application, please email WWS@buildingexcellentschools.org.

Julianne Wurm is the author of a best-selling book entitled, Working in the Reggio Way: A Beginner’s Guide for American Teachers, based on three years of living in Italy and original research she conducted in the famous schools of Reggio Emilia, Italy. She is currently at work on her next 2 books, exploring a more complex set of questions involved in working in Reggio-inspired ways and focusing attention on the 0-3 component of the Reggio approach, the Nido. As well, Ms. Wurm is documenting her own work with a number of schools as their process unfolds and the teachers and families engage in teaching and learning using Reggio-inspired ways.

December 3, 2010

Day 1: Working in the Reggio Way 9 am- 3 pm

This follows the outline of Julianne’s first book and is lively and engaging! We explore establishing an educational vision, environment, time, projects, documentation and participation.

December 4, 2010

Day 2: More Working in the Reggio Way 9 am – 3 pm . Where are we now? Lessons from the last 8 years . Americanisms . Sopratutto: tenets of Reggio-inspired practice . American Challenges/Projects up close/ student-centered versus teacher directed . Assemblea and the Pedagogy of Listening: The heart of the educational program . Documentation/Projects .The Nido And so much more.

These days build on one another and you can attend the first the second or both!

$100 per person for one day $190 for both days. Lunch included in registration- contact Julianne for group rates:Julianne@juliannewurm.com<mailto:Julianne@juliannewurm.com>

Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington
6125 Montrose Road
Rockville, MD 20852
p 301-348-3714
f 301-881-3716

agordon@jccgw.org<mailto:agordon@jccgw.org><mailto:agordon@jccgw.org<mailto:agordon@jccgw.org>>

www.jccgw.org<http://www.jccgw.org><http://www.jccgw.org/>

Click here to register. http://www.eventbrite.com/event/795129253