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 h1K4WUP14370; Wed, 19 Feb 2003 23:32:30 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2003 23:32:30 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <48260D52.398AC1D4.00169211@aol.com> 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: Dirose7@aol.com To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-assessment@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-ASSESSMENT:240] PEN weekly newsblast X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Mailer: Atlas Mailer 2.0 Status: O Content-Length: 21870 Lines: 378 Dear Assessment list serve members, Looking forward to some signs of spring. It's been a cold and snowy winter. I apologize for not keeping up with postings. Several of you have asked for the PEN weekly newsletter. Thank you for the reminders. Public Education Network Weekly NewsBlast "Public Involvement. Public Education. Public Benefit." *************************************************************************** SKINFLINT FEDERAL BUDGET LEAVES EDUCATION REFORM BEHIND George W. Bush's promise to end "the soft bigotry of low expectations" that allows poor children to fall permanently behind at school was one of his most popular campaign themes. Americans who view education as the country's top priority were further encouraged when Congress passed President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" act one year ago, promising to erase the achievement gap between rich and poor students. But the new presidential budget drops the ball. The money earmarked for aid to the country's poorest students is about 30 percent, or $6 billion, less than Congress called for last year. The department's behavior and Mr. Bush's skinflint budget send the wrong message to recession-ravaged states that are already looking for excuses to walk away from these expensive and politically sensitive reforms. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/08/opinion/08SAT1.html PUBLIC SCHOOLS TURN TO PROFESSIONALS TO RAISE MONEY For years, public schools sponsored car washes, dances and raffles to raise extra cash. Now, in increasing numbers, they are hiring professionals to solicit donations from individuals, corporations and foundations. Some fundraising efforts are as ambitious and sophisticated as those found in colleges. Should public schools be in the business of fundraising? Some critics of the practice express concerns that private fundraising is inequitable and does not address the needs of most public school students. And some superintendents resist the trend claiming they are educators first and foremost, not alms-seekers. But for many cash-strapped schools, outside dollars provide an indispensable financial transfusion that help secure many of the basics that wealthier schools take for granted. http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/02/13/fund.raising.ap/index.html PARENTS BUY IN TO PAYING FOR THE BASICS Forget buying new band uniforms or paying for the French club's trip to Paris. Now, with the sagging economy, increasing numbers of parents are being asked to raise money for the necessities of public schooling: desks, teachers' salaries, and building improvements. And to meet those demands, some parents are forming school foundations and local education funds to pay for programs and personnel that their schools can't afford. Read profiles of some local efforts to increase public responsibility for annually providing adequate funding for public schools. http://www.edweek.com/ew/ewstory.cfm?slug=22fundraiser.h22 GUIDELINES ON SCHOOL PRAYER ISSUED Schools that don't allow students to pray outside the classroom or teachers to hold religious meetings among themselves could face the loss of federal money, according to new guidelines issued by the U.S. Department of Education The guidelines reflect the Bush administration's push to ensure that schools give teachers and students as much freedom to pray as court rulings have allowed. According to the Associated Press, "The instructions broadly follow the same direction given by the Clinton administration and the courts. Prayer is generally allowed provided it happens outside of classroom instruction and is initiated by students, not by school officials." The new guidelines specify, however, that schools risk losing federal money if they don't comply. The AP reports "students taking part in assemblies may not be restricted in expressing religious ideas as long as they were chosen as speakers through 'neutral, evenhanded criteria.'" Critics worry that the new guidelines further blur the line between the separation of church and state at a time when the Bush administration is pressing an agenda of giving public tax dollars to private religious groups to provide an array of social and educational services. http://www.ed.gov/inits/religionandschools/prayer_guidance.html WHO FUNDS THE VOUCHER MOVEMENT? Providing government funds for religious and private schools has been an issue for many decades. State legislatures have waged ongoing battles. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, created in 1965, had to finesse the church/state issue by allowing Title I help to children from religious schools, as long as the instruction was in a "neutral setting," with both the setting and the Title I teachers provided by the local school district. Up until June 27, 2002, it was always clear: The government shall not pay for religious and private school education of any kind at the elementary and secondary school level. However, the Supreme Court recently gave the green light to Ohio’s voucher program, which allows state funds to be sent to religious schools for the education of some children from poor families in Cleveland. As a guide to help educators and the public understand the funders behind these efforts to divert public funds away from public schools, American Association of School Administrators has conducted research on the organizations and individuals who are major boosters of vouchers, as identified online and by Michigan and California initiative campaign contribution records. http://www.aasa.org/government_relations/other/07_30_01_voucher_supporters.htm TEACHER TAX RELIEF ACT LEAVES MANY TEACHERS BEHIND When it comes to using their own money to purchase classroom materials and supplies, some teachers have pockets deeper than Captain Kangaroo's. An effort to provide some relief for teachers who spend significant amounts to equip classrooms and enhance school programs, the Teacher Tax Relief Act allows some educators to recoup at least some of what they spend. Senator John Warner (R-VA) co-sponsored the Teacher Tax Relief Act of 2001. Speaking on the senate floor on behalf of the bill, he called teachers "overworked, underpaid, and all too often, under-appreciated." He said, "So many of our teachers, particularly those in the lower grades and those in schools which, for whatever reason, might not be as well financed as other institutions in our state, have taken from their own pockets, funds to buy school supplies which are needed to help their particular students in their classroom perform their educational responsibilities." http://teachers.net/gazette/FEB03/covera.html INVISIBLE DYSLEXICS: HOW PUBLIC SCHOOLS DISCRIMINATE AGAINST POOR CHILDREN This hard-hitting report finds that, despite that nation’s crusade for early literacy, at least 20 percent of the children in urban school districts can be called "invisible dyslexics:" that is, children whose problems in learning to read are either diagnosed too late and treated too little, or not diagnosed or treated at all. These children are permanently left behind. An unrecognized and hidden reason for this national failure is discrimination based on IQ and family background. Dyslexia is popularly perceived as a reading disability that afflicts high-IQ, usually middle or upper income children. Yet, reading scientists have found that: most reading difficulties, including dyslexia, are caused by core deficits in phonological awareness (the ability to connect speech and print); the deficits are found among children who are rich and poor, with high and low IQs (above the level of retardation); and the deficits can usually be identified as early as pre-kindergarten or kindergarten and effectively treated. Schools must raise their expectations for what low-income, low-IQ students can achieve. The report calls for actions to strengthen early identification and intervention, including elimination of the requirement of a discrepancy between IQ and achievement for eligibility under the "specific learning disabilities" category under special education laws. http://www.abell.org/publications/detail.asp?ID=76 STARTING EARLY, STARTING STRONG As a nation, we have adopted school readiness as our number one education goal, but public investment in preschool education remains very limited. In some states, for instance, the average educational expenditure for each younger child is only pennies for every dollar spent on a child enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade. Unlike most of our peer nations, the United States has no early education system. Rather, we have a patchwork of programs and arrangements for the 12 million young children who are in out-of-home care each day. Certainly, many children are looked after by warm, responsible caregivers. But parents must make a leap of faith each time they drop off their children, most of whom spend all or part of the day in informal settings that are subject to no regulation whatsoever. Perhaps predictably, researchers have found that the quality of most of those day-care, center-based programs ranges from mediocre to poor. This report outlines state efforts to improve both the quality and accessibility of quality day-care centers and early-childhood education programs. http://www.pewtrusts.com/ideas/ideas_item.cfm?content_item_id=1397&content_type_id=17&issue_name=Early%20childhood%20education&issue=26&page=17&name=Pew%2Dproduced%20Publications SCHOOLS THAT DO TOO MUCH: WASTING TIME AND MONEY IN SCHOOLS In her new book, Etta Kralovec insists that schools scale back or even eliminate activities that aren't central to their educational mission. She cites a long list of such activities, from drug-awareness programs to student fund-raising events that she believes distract teachers and students from learning. But competitive sports get most of her attention. While Kralovec acknowledges that athletics have value -- indeed, she asserts that they're "vitally important to adolescent development" -- she also feels that they drain resources from classrooms and disrupt the education process. She suggests instead that community organizations take over the operation of sports teams. In this interview, Kralovec discusses the hidden costs of sports and extracurricular activities. http://www.teachermagazine.com/tmstory.cfm?slug=05interview.h14 MEASURING PROGRESS, MOVING FORWARD: TEACHING IN THE SOUTHEAST This policy brief focuses on outlining indicators of teacher preparation, induction and professional development, testing and accountability, and working conditions. Measuring progress on these critical teaching quality indicators is key to increasing student achievement. The authors intend this report to motivate communities to gather and examine teacher and teaching quality data in productive ways. Without rich and reliable sources of information, policymakers, practitioners, and the public cannot make important connections between teacher performance and student achievement http://www.teachingquality.org/resources/SECTQpublications/SASSbrief.htm AT THE TURNING POINT: THE YOUNG ADOLESCENT LEARNER Young adolescents -- children between the ages of ten and fourteen -- are at a critical stage of intellectual development. Research suggests that during these years, students either commit to lifelong learning or lose interest in school altogether. Turning Points believes that middle schools are the critical bridge between childhood and a successful adulthood, and challenges middle schools to meet the unique needs of young adolescents in order to prepare students for future success. Yet most middle-level educators are not well prepared or specially trained to teach this age group. Most states do not require middle grades licensure or certification and as a result, high-quality middle grade teacher preparation has not been widely available. http://www.turningpts.org/ THE CONTINUING NEED FOR EVERY STATE TO TAKE ACTION ON RURAL EDUCATION Nearly one in three of America’s school-age children attend public schools in rural areas or small towns of fewer than 25,000 people. A new 50-state report and state-by-state ranking from the Rural School and Community Trust suggests an urgent need for policymakers to pay attention to rural education issues across the U.S. The report’s conclusion: specific policy attention to rural school needs is critically needed in many states. The report, which is geared to state education policymakers and the rural people they serve, aims to shed light on an often-neglected facet of American public education. The report uses two gauges: the Importance Gauge to determine the factors that combine to make rural education important to a particular state, and the Urgency Gauge to determine the factors that combine to make it imperative that policymakers pay attention to rural education issues. The two gauges are merged to determine a national "Rural Education Priority" ranking for each state. http://www.ruraledu.org/keep_learning.cfm?record_no=647 EXPERT GUIDES SCHOOL DISTRICT APPROACH The Charleston County School Board is out to change its reputation. After years of criticism for being uncooperative and micromanaging the school district, the board is working with a top expert to change how it approaches everything from board meetings to improving student achievement. John Carver, a consultant and author who travels across the United States talking to school boards about how they should work, will be in Charleston for a two-day board workshop. "This guy is sort of the guru of effective board operations," said Jon Butzon, executive director of the Charleston Education Network, a local education fund, which helped bring Carver to town. Carver is known internationally as the creator of the policy governance model, which introduces a system of governance in which the board has full authority and full accountability. Under his model, the board is held responsible for how well the school system works, but the superintendent is in charge of running the district. The board's job is to set up a system in which the administration can succeed. It calls on the board to set clear expectations, then check to see if those expectations are met. The board holds the superintendent responsible for meeting expectations. The model purports to help boards find a balance between being a rubber stamp and micromanaging. http://charleston.net/stories/020503/loc_05carver.shtml PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN MIGRANT EDUCATION IS AT HOME, NOT AT SCHOOL The traditional definition of parent involvement many times doesn't work when it comes to migrant education, according to Gerardo Lopez, an assistant professor at the Indiana University School of Education in Bloomington. Lopez focuses in his research on migrant students and their parents, the majority of whom are Latino. He said most educators view parent involvement as coming to school, meeting the teachers and working with them for the benefit of their child. "I challenge this view, because many migrant parents whose students are successful don't even visit the schools; their involvement is in the home. This leaves us to determine if this type of home involvement is equal to the physical presence in the school," he explained. "We are looking at what schools are doing to involve Latino parents," he continued. "They spend a lot of time, money and energy on traditional parent involvement issues instead of building on ways Latino parents are already involved with their children." For example, Lopez said, many migrant parents take their children to work with them in the fields so the children can learn the value and lessons of hard work and the consequences of not continuing their studies. "The students learn that hard work is necessary to provide for the family unit and that education will allow them to provide a better life for their future families," he said. http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/spew4th.pl?ascribeid=20030203.074545&time=08%2031%20PST&year=2003&public=1 PLANNING FOR FAILURE In this article, Mike Schmoker criticizes most "school improvement plans" for preventing -- rather than promoting -- better teaching, and hence higher levels of learning. In his view, most improvement plans lack the coherence and collaboration required for real and lasting school improvement. But there's hope, he says. A growing number of educators in our schools and districts are resisting the institutional inertia behind failed improvement models. And they are succeeding mightily with simple plans that focus on the collaborative structures essential to improving instruction. http://www.edweek.org/ew/newstory.cfm?slug=22schmoker.h22 |---------------GRANT AND FUNDING INFORMATION--------------| "Coming Up Taller Awards" These awards recognize and support outstanding after-school and out-of-school arts and humanities programs for children and youth. The awards highlight the important role that educators, curators, historians, scholars, librarians, and performing and visual artists play in children's lives. Libraries and museums that meet the criteria for a Coming Up Taller Award are encouraged to apply. Each year, ten awards of $10,000 each are presented. In addition, a Certificate of Excellence is given to all semifinalists. Nomination deadline: April 4, 2003. http://www.cominguptaller.org/awards.html "Teacher Lesson Competition" The National Archives and National History Day are pleased to announce a unique opportunity for history and social studies teachers to develop document-based lesson plans for national awards and distribution. Teachers are invited to develop and test a classroom lesson focusing on one or several of the 100 Milestone Documents in United States history. Awards in four categories will be announced at the annual National History Day national competition June 15-19, 2003 at the University of Maryland at College Park. Winners will have lessons published and receive prizes at a national ceremony that the President is scheduled to attend. Lessons should be mailed by March 1, 2003. http://www.ourdocuments.gov/content.php?page=teachers_toolbox "State Farm Youth Service Grants" The State Farm Good Neighbor Service-Learning Award enables youth and educators to bring positive benefits of service learning to more young people. This grant is for both young people ages 5-25 and teachers to implement service-learning projects for National Youth Service Day 2003, April 11-13th. Fifty grants of $500 each will be available to young people and fifty grants of $1,500 will be available to teachers (to engage classes). Application deadline: February 28, 2003. http://www.ysa.org/awards/award_grant.cfm "School Funding Services Grant of the Week" Each week School Funding Services, a division of New American Schools, features a new grant on their website. This week they highlight the NEA Foundation for the Improvement of Education's Leadership and Learning Grants. http://www.schoolfundingservices.org/newsViewer.asp?docId=2546 "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 "Teachers can do little to rectify the devastating home lives many children endure; but we can provide another reality when children are in school, creating an environment where they feel safe, accepted, nurtured and respected. In this environment, children can be taught alternatives to the violence that surrounds all of us, helping them perceive hopeful options for their futures." -Naomi Drew (author/educator), "The Peaceful Classroom in Action" Have a great day. Diane Rosenthal NIFL Assessment Moderator Executive Director LVA SG (203)324-5214
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