Return-Path: <nifl-assessment@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id gAIDliX29704; Mon, 18 Nov 2002 08:47:44 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 08:47:44 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <sdd8a897.012@LOMAIL.lakeorion.k12.mi.us> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-assessment@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-assessment@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-assessment@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "MARYANNE THORNDYCRAFT" <MTHORNDYCRAFT@lakeorion.k12.mi.us> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-assessment@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-ASSESSMENT:228] Re: Clips & Cross posts - PEN Weekly X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise Internet Agent 6.0.2 Status: O Content-Length: 19052 Lines: 470 Thanks for including this on our list serve. I do enjoy reading this and passing it on to others in our district. >>> Dirose7@aol.com 11/17/02 11:27PM >>> Good Morning, I am forwarding a long PEN newsblast because there is lots of interesting information. Several of you have told me that you find it valuable. Enjoy. Public Education Network Weekly NewsBlast "America's Favorite Free Newsletter on Improving Public Education" ************************************************************************** WHAT TESTS CAN & CANNOT TELL US State and national policymakers are relying on large-scale tests more than ever to make high-stakes decisions about students and schools. States are using these tests to motivate students to study harder and hold teachers and administrators accountable for raising student achievement. Some states are also requiring students to pass tests before they can graduate or be promoted to the next grade. Throughout the country, parents, reporters, and other citizens are scrutinizing test scores to make judgments about the quality of schools in their community. This dependence on tests will increase as states implement the No Child Left Behind Act. Under this new federal law, states must test students every year in grades 3 through 8 and once during high school, and use the resulting scores to help determine whether schools and school districts are doing an adequate job of educating students. In this environment, it's critical that policymakers, reporters, parents, and others understand both the strengths and limitations of tests. Large-scale tests can do some things quite well. Critics of testing often downplay these advantages or fail to offer practical alternatives for evaluating the performance of large groups of students. But tests also have limitations, as scientists who design and study tests are among the first to point out. http://www.cep-dc.org/testing/testtalkoctober2002.htm TEACHING FOR WISDOM IN OUR SCHOOLS According to Robert Sternberg, we are teaching students to be intelligent and knowledgeable, but not how to use their intelligence and their knowledge. Schools need to teach for wisdom, not just for factual recall and superficial levels of analysis. When schools teach for wisdom, they teach students that it is important not just what you know, but how you use what you know -- whether you use it for good ends or bad. They are teaching for what the Bush administration referred to recently, in a White House conference, as the "fourth R": responsibility. Read about Sternberg's four fallacies of thinking: omniscience, egocentrism, omnipotence, and invulnerability. http://www.edweek.com/ew/ewstory.cfm?slug=11sternberg.h22 NO CHILD LEFT UNRECRUITED Should the military be given the names of every high school student in America? Buried deep within the No Child Left Behind Act is a provision requiring public secondary schools to provide military recruiters not only with access to facilities, but also with contact information for every student -- or face a cutoff of all federal aid. To many educators, requiring the release of personal information intrudes on the rights of students. "We feel it is a clear departure from the letter and the spirit of the current student privacy laws," says Bruce Hunter, chief lobbyist for the American Association of School Administrators. Until now, schools could share student information only with other educational institutions. "Now other people will want our lists," says Hunter. "It's a slippery slope. I don't want student directories sent to Verizon either, just because they claim that all kids need a cell phone to be safe." The new law does give students the right to withhold their records. But school officials are given wide leeway in how to implement the law, and some are simply handing over student directories to recruiters without informing anyone -- leaving students without any say in the matter. http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2002/45/ma_153_01.html SUCCESSFUL COMMUNITY ORGANIZING FOR SCHOOL REFORM Many educators say that they cannot do the work of educating children alone, particularly low- and moderate-income children and children of color. Unfortunately, there are few mechanisms that allow parents and community members in low-income neighborhoods to play a meaningful role in the education of their children. For many people involved in education, parent participation is not seen as important or meaningful. As Lucy Ruiz, a parent and an organizer with the Alliance Organizing Project in Philadelphia put it, "Parents are seen as the pretzel sellers." The common viewpoint is that parents are seen as the people who drop their kids off at school, conduct fundraisers, and occasionally volunteer time in a classroom. Community organizing seeks to change that dynamic. A recent report from Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform and Research for Action documents the methods used in community organizing for school reform and provide measures for evaluating their success. http://www.crosscity.org/programs/indicators/findings.htm NAVIGATING RELIGION IN THE CLASSROOM The "sacred public school," with the Protestant Bible as its centerpiece, prevailed in U.S. public education through the 19th century. But a turn-of-the-century push to remove all religious instruction from the public schools left just a few vestiges of the Protestant school model -- devotional Bible readings and organized prayer -- remaining as the 20th century emerged. Then cultural shifts of the mid-20th century and court decisions of the 1960s altered the model further, and public schools became viewed erroneously as places where religion was not addressed. Worried that they might be perceived as endorsing religious viewpoints, many teachers shied away from even legitimate lessons on the role of religious leaders or religious thought in history and culture. Publishers were squeamish as well. One observer remembers a 1980s world geography textbook with "one page on major religions in the entire book." Another textbook series referred to the Pilgrims as "travelers." Now, the picture is changing once again. This article highlights new thinking on the role of religion in the classroom and offers four general guidelines for educators: (1) focus on studies about religion, not the practice of religion; (2) be academic, not devotional; (3) strive for student awareness of religions, but not press for student acceptance of any religion; (4) expose students to a diversity of religious views, but not impose any particular view. http://www.nea.org/neatoday/0211/cover.html GRADING GROWN-UPS 2002: HOW DO AMERICAN KIDS AND ADULTS RELATE? American adults agree to a surprising degree on what kids need from them. Findings in two major national studies show that only a small percentage of adults are deeply engaged in promoting the healthy development of young people outside their own families. A new report reveals agreement about some fundamental priorities for youth-adult relationships, as well as some eye-opening input on how and why adults are dropping the ball. Adults and teens have more in common than some might imagine -- at least in terms of their attitudes about how the generations should connect. Yet when it comes to providing children and youth with guidance and support, adults score pretty low on the curve. The findings shed light on the ways in which adults are -- or are not -- positively influencing "other people's kids." http://www.search-institute.org/norms/ DOES IT WORK? Journalists using the most exacting method available to social science -- that is, counting -- have determined that the phrase ''scientifically based research'' occurs more than 100 times in the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). The government, for example, will award $5 billion over six years to states and districts where reading is taught using "scientifically based" methods. According to James Traub, the passage of NCLB may ultimately be recalled as the moment when education came to be treated more like medicine -- a science that advances according to the findings of impartial research -- than moral philosophy or folk wisdom. According to Traub, using more objective measures of student proficiency may help us attain a great deal more clarity than we have now about the effectiveness of educational pedagogy and practices. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/10/edlife/10CHILD.html TURN RECESS INTO JOB TRAINING Edison School chief Chris Whittle recently suggested that schools use student labor to cut costs in order to help companies like his earn a profit. It is not clear if Whittle was hinting that kids should cut grass, trim trees, wash windows, replace light bulbs, or get involved in classroom instruction. In this satirical piece, Jac VerSteeg asks why we should stop at manual labor. Why not have kids drive buses, teach music, and run computer labs? Is the idea as far fetched as it seems? http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/epaper/editions/tuesday/opinion_d3dbade1669ba08800ec.html ALL DAY KINDERGARTEN A PLUS All-day kindergarten is helping to close the literacy gap between white students and students of color in Minneapolis schools, according to a new study. Using a new test given by retired teachers, researchers saw that students of color who spend a few more hours a day in kindergarten gain literacy skills faster than their in half-day classes. The study suggests all-day kindergarten may be an important tool to close the achievement gap, which has been a key issue in Minnesota and the nation. "We now have real evidence here if you keep students in school longer and give them early literacy intervention, you can significantly improve their performance,'' said Superintendent Carol Johnson. "This extra boost in kindergarten, particularly for students from poor families, is really an important part of accelerating growth.'' http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/living/education/4504749.htm HOW CLASS SIZE MAKES A DIFFERENCE Though researchers continue to debate the issue of class size, wide agreement exists that the critical question is not whether class size can make a difference in student achievement, but how and under what circumstances it does. Highly related are questions of class size reduction (CSR) costs. Do they outweigh its benefits? Are other alternatives more cost effective? Finally, for those designing CSR policies, especially on a large scale, many questions must be addressed about the implementation trade-offs of differing policy options and how these may affect student outcomes. This brief addresses each of these concerns, drawing from the experiences of a number of states and districts with some track record implementing CSR. It starts from the position that class size reduction is not a silver bullet or an end in itself. Rather, CSR is one approach that has been shown effective in reaching the real goal: improved early learning. Success depends on getting the numbers down and on policies that support schools' ability to take advantage of the opportunities CSR presents. http://www.serve.org/assessment/accountability/lessons.html CHARLOTTE SCHOOLS RESEGREGATING UNDER CHOICE PLAN Once known as "The city that made busing work," Charlotte has decided that it is no longer that place. Instead, Charlotte has embraced choice while promising every child a quality education. The decision has accelerated racial resegregation in the state's largest school district, cementing a trend that began almost a decade ago. It has also reframed the debate over how to make sure all students get a good education. http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1884353p-1872201c.html FOSTER KIDS FUNNEL INTO STRUGGLING SCHOOLS Thousands of children removed from abusive or neglectful parents and placed in foster care show up in Chicago public schools and try to learn despite a host of personal problems. According to a new investigative report, many of them end up in just a small number of the city's 600 schools. This concentration creates an extraordinary challenge for schools under intense pressure to raise student achievement, school principals say. But officials counter that principals are using foster children as an excuse for poor performance. Children's advocates, however, say the schools and the state both need to do a better job of educating these children. http://catalyst-chicago.org/11-02/1102main1.htm THE AVERAGE TEACHER Anyone who watches "Boston Public" each week and isn't an education professional would assume the following: Most U.S. teachers are hip, young things who work in schools of weapon-wielding, oversexed teens; and they spend much of their time obsessing about kids' personal problems rather than writing lesson plans. For a more accurate profile of teachers today, Teacher Magazine turned to the U.S. Current Population Survey and the recently released Schools and Staffing Survey, which asked more than 42,000 public school teachers scores of questions about their work lives. Are you surprised to learn that the average teacher in America is a 42-year-old married white woman? Read more. http://www.teachermagazine.org/tmstory.cfm?slug=03average.h14 TIPS FOR NONPROFIT ACCOUNTABILITY Public expectations of nonprofits are significantly higher than for business...and most nonprofits meet that higher standard. Now more than ever there is an opportunity to exceed public expectations and re-build any trust that may have been lost. When nonprofits are perceived as acting in less than professional, irresponsible or ethically questionable ways, public reaction can quickly rise to feelings of betrayal and violation of trust. Distrust in one nonprofit can result in a "halt" to giving to all nonprofits. The following "sniff test" provides a short set of best practices and ethical behaviors to help build transparency and trust especially when combined with rigorous proactive and remedial action back home. http://www.pnnonline.org/article.php?sid=734 |---------------GRANT AND FUNDING INFORMATION--------------| "The Coca-Cola Foundation" The Coca-Cola Foundation encourages new solutions to countless problems that impede educational systems today, and it supports existing programs that work. Because the challenges for education are so broad, the Foundation's commitment is multifaceted. It offers support to public and private colleges and universities, elementary and secondary schools, teacher-training programs, educational programs for minority students, and global educational programs. Next application deadline: December 1, 2002. http://www2.coca-cola.com/citizenship/foundation_guidelines.html "The Infinity Project" The Infinity Project is a nationally recognized partnership between leading research universities, industry, government, and K-12 educators to help school districts incorporate modern engineering and technology in their high school curricula. Project officials are now accepting applications from schools interested in offering their engineering curriculum during the 2003-04 school year. The grants can be used to purchase textbooks for the program, acquire the needed technology, or provide professional development for teachers. Each grant covers approximately half the cost of implementing the Infinity Project's engineering curriculum. The program will make grants to 80 qualifying schools. Application deadline: December 15, 2002. http://www.infinity-project.org "EDS Technology Grants" The EDS Technology Grant program helps schoolteachers of children ages 6 through 18 purchase information technology products and services that will improve their students' ability to learn. Grants of $1,500 are awarded each year to teachers worldwide through a competitive application process. The grants are awarded to teachers through their schools. Grants must be used to pay for technology products, training and services not provided to the teacher by the school or the school district. Examples of qualified grant expenditures include, but are not limited to, computer software and hardware; multimedia equipment such as digital cameras and Web-Cams, CD-ROM libraries, scanners and video boards; modems, Internet access, and technical training. Application deadline: January 17, 2002. http://eds.com/community_affairs/com_tech_grants_03.shtml "FastWEB" FastWEB is the largest online scholarship search available, with 600,000 scholarships representing over one billion in scholarship dollars. It provides students with accurate, regularly updated information on scholarships, grants, and fellowships suited to their goals and qualifications, all at no cost to the student. Students should be advised that FastWEB collects and sells student information (such as name, address, e-mail address, date of birth, gender, and country of citizenship) collected through their site. http://www.fastweb.com/ "Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE)" More than 30 Federal agencies formed a working group in 1997 to make hundreds of federally supported teaching and learning resources easier to find. The result of that work is the FREE website. http://www.ed.gov/free/ "Fundsnet Online Services" A comprehensive website dedicated to providing nonprofit organizations, colleges, and Universities with information on financial resources available on the Internet. http://www.fundsnetservices.com/ "Department of Education Forecast of Funding" This document lists virtually all programs and competitions under which the Department of Education has invited or expects to invite applications for new awards for FY 2003 and provides actual or estimated deadline dates for the transmittal of applications under these programs. The lists are in the form of charts -- organized according to the Department's principal program offices -- and include programs and competitions the Department has previously announced, as well as those it plans to announce at a later date. Note: This document is advisory only and is not an official application notice of the Department of Education. http://www.ed.gov/offices/OCFO/grants/forecast.html "eSchool News School Funding Center" Information on up-to-the-minute grant programs, funding sources, and technology funding. http://www.eschoolnews.com/resources/funding/ "Philanthropy News Digest-K-12 Funding Opportunities" K-12 Funding opportunities with links to grantseeking for teachers, learning technology, and more. http://fdncenter.org/funders/ "School Grants" A collection of resources and tips to help K-12 educators apply for and obtain special grants for a variety of projects. http://www.schoolgrants.org QUOTE OF THE WEEK "It is interesting that the public has given so much attention to the failures of corporate CEOs, but they don't hold school leaders to the same accountability." -Roberts T. Jones (president & CEO, National Alliance of Business) Diane Rosenthal NIFL Assessment List Moderator Executive Director LVASG (203)324-5214
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