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- 30,000,000,000 pieces of content are shared every month on the Internet.
- 127 Trillion emails were sent on the Internet in 2010.
- There are 255,000,000 websites on the worldwide web.
- 48,000,000,000 apps (applications) have been downloaded
- By 2013, there will be one trillion devices that can connect to the Internet. That’s 140 per person. In 2007, there were 500 million.
- In February 2011, eBook sales reached 90,300,000. Paperback sales at the same time were 81,200,000
- 1 out of 8 couples met on the Internet.
- Personal MySpace pages are visited 30 times a day.
- There are 2.7 trillion searches on Google each month.
- The number of text messages sent each day is greater than the population of the world.
- The average teenager sends 2,272 text messages per month. That is almost 76 per day.
How are you using the Internet in your classroom/school? How are your students?
Because of the mild winter, schools have been able to save “snow makeup days”. So a number of them have decided to shorten the school year in order to save money. This has been taking place in Westmont, Illinois, Warren Count, Kentucky and Burlington, Vermont. In Marion County, West Virginia, students will not go to school on 6 scheduled Fridays.
While this may sound like a good idea, it leave parents searching to find day care or taking off from work or finding outside help. How much money can schools be saving? They still have to pay for salaries? It’s not that children need the additional instructional time, it must be about saving money.
The results are now public from the 2011 federal testing program known as NAEP, the National Assessment of Educational Progress. And once again, schools on the nation’s military bases have outperformed public schools on both reading and math tests for fourth and eighth graders.
At the military base schools, 39 percent of fourth graders were scored as proficient in reading, compared with 32 percent of all public school students.
Even more impressive, the achievement gap between black and white students continues to be much smaller at military base schools and is shrinking faster than at public schools.
On the NAEP reading test, black fourth graders in public schools scored an average of 205 out of 500, compared with a 231 score for white public school students, a 26-point gap. Black fourth graders at the military base schools averaged 222 in reading, compared with 233 for whites, an 11-point gap.
In fact, the black fourth graders at the military base schools scored better in reading than public school students as a whole, whose average score was 221.
How to explain the difference?
Military schools are not subject to former President George W. Bush’s signature education program, No Child Left Behind, or to President Obama’s Race to the Top. They would find that standardized tests do not dominate and are not used to rate teachers, principals or schools.
At military schools, standardized tests are used as originally intended, to identify a child’s academic weaknesses and assess the effectiveness of the curriculum.
Under Mr. Obama’s education agenda, state governments can now dictate to principals how to run their schools. In Tennessee — which is ranked 41st in NAEP scores and has made no significant progress in closing the black-white achievement gap on those tests in 20 years — the state now requires four formal observations a year for all teachers, regardless of whether the principal thinks they are excellent or weak. The state has declared that half of a teacher’s rating must be based on student test scores.
Principals at military bases have discretion in how to teachers. For the most effective, she does one observation a year. That gives her and her assistant principal time for walk-through visits in every classroom every day.
“We don’t micromanage,” said Marilee Fitzgerald, director of the Department of Defense Education Activity, the agency that supervises the military base schools and their 87,000 students. “Individual schools decide what to focus on.”
The average class in New York City in kindergarten through the third grade has 24 students. At military base schools, the average is 18, which is almost as good as it is in the private schools where leaders of the education reform movement — Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York; the former education chancellor in New York City, Joel I. Klein; and Bill Gates of Microsoft — have sent their children.
A 2001 study on the success of the military base schools by researchers at Vanderbilt University cites the importance of the smooth relations between the teachers’ union and management, and Ms. Fitzgerald said that continued to be true.
Helping children succeed academically is about a lot more than what goes on inside the schools. Military parents do not have to worry about securing health care coverage for their children or adequate housing. At least one parent in the family has a job.
The military command puts a priority on education.
A family’s economic well-being has considerable impact on how students score on standardized tests, and it is hard to make exact comparisons between military and public school families. But by one indicator, families at military base schools and public schools have similar earnings: the percentage of students who qualify for federally subsidized lunches is virtually identical at both, about 46 percent.
What is clear is that the base schools have made impressive progress in narrowing the achievement gap.
In the last decade, the gap in reading between black and white fourth graders at base schools has decreased to 11 points this year (233 compared with 222), down from a 16-point difference in 2003 (230 compared with 214), a 31 percent reduction. In public schools, there has been a much smaller decrease, to a 26-point gap this year (231 compared with 205) from 30 points in 2002 (227 compared with 197), a 13 percent reduction.
The military has a far better record of integration than most institutions. Almost all of the 69 base schools are in the South. They were opened in the 1950s and ’60s because the military was racially integrated and did not want the children of black soldiers to attend racially segregated schools off base.
I have mixed feelings about No Child and the Race for the Top. As in life, there are good things and bad things in both. What is for me a major problem, is the emphasis on testing. Testing is one way of measuring achievement. It is not the only way! Educators use tests to determine what to do next not to place blame on students, parents and educators. In the present political-educational enviornment, we have people who would rather fix the blame than fixing the process that causes the failure.
| August 28, 2012 | to | August 30, 2012 |
Franklin will be keynoting a session for the Mississippi Department of Education’s Office of Dropout Prevention.
Any regular reader of this blog knows my affection for Diane Ravitch’s work. Ms. Ravitch who was an Under Secretary of Education in the US Department of Education has admitted she was incorrect in supporting “No Child Left Behind” and the charter school movement. I find it fascinating that so few individuals will admit to their mistakes. Below are some of her comments in a keynote that she delivered at the Opportunity to Learn Summit, in Washington, D.C.
“I thought testing would help diagnose the problem and help teachers identify kids’ needs and that charters would serve the underserved and collaborate with public schools. I was wrong on all accounts.
- 80 percent of charters in Michigan are for-profit.
- In Ohio, cyber charters get full funding with no facilities and 100:1 student-teacher ratios.
- In Colorado, virtual schools have a 25 percent graduation rate.
- Florida pumps billions of dollars into vouchers that support deregulated schools with terrible conditions.
- After 21 years of vouchers and competition, black students in Milwaukee have the lowest scores across nation.
- Under mayoral control since 2002, market reforms and choice have left the achievement gap virtually unchanged in New York City public schools.
- In Washington, D.C., Hispanic, black, and low-income students have the largest achievement gap (a 65-point difference) of any city in the nation.
- Chicago closed 100 neighborhood schools but is still one of the lowest districts in the nation. There have been no gains for black students since 2002 and none for Hispanics since 2005.
- By 2014, all public schools could be labeled failures.
Profits and punishment seem to be the point of current education policies. Although NCLB documents gaps, it does nothing to address the conditions causing these gaps, she added. “Congress is still patting itself on the back for identifying a problem (that we already knew) but doing nothing meaningful to solve it,” she said.
Ms. Ravitch attempted to inject some common sense into the education reform agenda:
- NCLB is based on a phony claim: the “Texas miracle.” In reality, dropouts soared and Texas was in the middle of the pack on assessments.
- Tests should only be used for diagnostic purposes, such as determining whether a student can read.
- No achievement gap was ever closed by closing schools.
- In high-achieving countries like Finland, testing takes a backseat to creativity, innovation, and whole child education.
She also asked some key questions:
- Why are we racing to the top? (A: The top is occupied by the children of the 1 percent; they’re not going anywhere.)
- Why would we give more credibility to standardized tests than to the judgment of educators and parents?
- Why is there not enough money to provide the basic public services that every child needs?
When asking who gets left behind, Ravitch said we must look at the two gaps of race and income and consider what policies directly address disparities between these groups. Simply raising the bar and punishing those who do not clear it will not help kids already struggling to do math or speak English, she said.
“We need to start investing in children!” Ravitch declared. She reminded the audience that the racial achievement gap was cut in half in the ’70s and ’80s, with gains largely attributed to desegration and expanding federal assistance like Head Start, Title 1, and early childhood programs.
Ravitch added that change won’t be easy or cheap, but we can make the first step by doing one simple thing: “Realizing that what we’re doing now is not working and never will.”
The Office of Juvenile Justice & Dropout Prevention have announced the following grants. PLEASE NOTICE THE SHORT TURN AROUND TIMEFRAME.
Applicants Sought for Tribal Youth Program Research
Application deadline: May 2, 2012
Applications are requested for Tribal Youth Field-Initiated Research and Evaluation Programs. This solicitation will fund rigorous research and evaluation initiatives that advance OJJDP’s mission to prevent and respond to juvenile delinquency, substance abuse, and victimization, with a focus on tribal youth, their families, and their communities. (OJJDP)
Apply for Violence Prevention Program Funding
Application deadline: May 1, 2012
OJJDP is accepting applications for the Community-Based Violence Prevention Demonstration Program. This program provides funding for localities to replicate proven multidisciplinary, community-based strategies to reduce violence. (OJJDP)
As a former history teacher, I am upset with the fact that only about a third of American adults can name all three branches of government, and a third can’t name any. Fewer than a third of eighth graders could identify the historical purpose of the Declaration of Independence. And that a Republican presidential candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who recently misstated the number of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor developed iCivics, an online program aimed at middle school students. This free curriculum includes lesson plans and games that are linked to subjects and skills that various states require students to master. The program also promotes public service projects.
Civics education involves explaining the structure of U.S. government, including the meaning and influence of the Constitution and its evolution over time. Limited knowledge about the three branches of government — executive, legislative and judicial — emerges starkly in Annenberg surveys, which also found that 15% of adults correctly named John Roberts as United States chief justice, but almost twice as many (27%) could identify Randy Jackson as a judge on the television show “American Idol.”
The iCivics effort avoids ideological battles, but its games delve deeply into government process. In one, a player can take on the role of president, addressing Congress, choosing policy priorities, managing federal departments and selecting legislation to sign or veto. Another game allows students to step into the role of advocate on famous Supreme Court cases, many of which resonate still, such as Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, which outlawed segregation but failed to accomplish full integration.
Part of the problem is that No Child Left Behind Act, which emphasized reading and math instruction with required testing and omits the testing of history and science. The failure to emphasize history will result (and is resulting) in a less knowledgeable electorate. But maybe that is the aim.
About 15 percent of the nation’s charter schools close—and that’s not a bad thing, according to a
newly released report, which argues that those shutdowns are proof that the system weeds out institutions that can’t cut it for one reason or another. Of roughly 6,700 charter schools that have opened in the United States, 1,036 have closed since 1992, says a report unveiled today by the Center for Education Reform.
The center advocates for charters and school choice, in its report, “The State of Charter Schools,” as the “first-ever national analysis” of the charters that have closed shop over the past two decades.
So why do charter schools close?
The greatest portion of them, 41.7 percent, go under for financial reasons, the center found. Mismanagement—which could be misspending, failure to provide adequate programs or materials, or an overall lack of accountability—is the next most likely reason, at 24 percent, followed by academic problems, at 18.6 percent.
Of the rest, 4.6 percent close because of problems with their facilities. “District obstacles” are another barrier, at 6.3 percent. The report maintains that in those cases, school systems may saddle charters with unrealistic paperwork or regulatory burdens or treat them with outright hostility.
So is the closing of charter schools a good thing or a bad thing in your opinion? Public schools that are performing poorly are rarely or never closed. What bothers me is that over 40% of charter schools are being closed because of financial problems and not because they are not performing better than the traditional public schools they were supposed to replace.
Data exists which shows a correlation between actively involved parents and student success. There’s no question that a great teacher can make a huge difference in a student’s achievement, and we need to recruit, train and reward more such teachers. But here’s what some new studies are also showing: We need more involved parents. Parents more focused on their children’s education can also make a huge difference in a student’s achievement.
How do we know? Every three years, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or O.E.C.D., conducts exams as part of the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, which tests 15-year-olds in the world’s leading industrialized nations on their reading comprehension and ability to use what they’ve learned in math and science to solve real problems — the most important skills for succeeding in college and life. America’s 15-year-olds have not been distinguishing themselves in the PISA exams compared with students in Singapore, Finland and Shanghai.
To better understand why some students thrive taking the PISA tests and others do not, Andreas Schleicher, who oversees the exams for the O.E.C.D., was encouraged by the O.E.C.D. countries to look beyond the classrooms. So starting with four countries in 2006, and then adding 14 more in 2009, the PISA team went to the parents of 5,000 students and interviewed them “about how they raised their kids and then compared that with the test results” for each of those years. Two weeks ago, the PISA team published the three main findings of its study:
“Fifteen-year-old students whose parents often read books with them during their first year of primary school show markedly higher scores in PISA 2009 than students whose parents read with them infrequently or not at all. The performance advantage among students whose parents read to them in their early school years is evident regardless of the family’s socioeconomic background. Parents’ engagement with their 15-year-olds is strongly associated with better performance in PISA.”
Schleicher explained that “just asking your child how was their school day and showing genuine interest in the learning that they are doing can have the same impact as hours of private tutoring. It is something every parent can do, no matter what their education level or social background.”
For instance, the PISA study revealed that “students whose parents reported that they had read a book with their child ‘every day or almost every day’ or ‘once or twice a week’ during the first year of primary school have markedly higher scores in PISA 2009 than students whose parents reported that they had read a book with their child ‘never or almost never’ or only ‘once or twice a month.’ On average, the score difference is 25 points, the equivalent of well over half a school year.”
Yes, students from more well-to-do households are more likely to have more involved parents. “However,” the PISA team found, “even when comparing students of similar socioeconomic backgrounds, those students whose parents regularly read books to them when they were in the first year of primary school score 14 points higher, on average, than students whose parents did not.”
The kind of parental involvement matters, as well. “For example,” the PISA study noted, “on average, the score point difference in reading that is associated with parental involvement is largest when parents read a book with their child, when they talk about things they have done during the day, and when they tell stories to their children.” The score point difference is smallest when parental involvement takes the form of simply playing with their children.
Monitoring homework; making sure children get to school; rewarding their efforts and talking up the idea of going to college. These parent actions are linked to better attendance, grades, test scores, and preparation for college. The study found that getting parents involved with their children’s learning at home is a more powerful driver of achievement than parents attending P.T.A. and school board meetings, volunteering in classrooms, participating in fund-raising, and showing up at back-to-school nights.
To be sure, there is no substitute for a good teacher. There is nothing more valuable than great classroom instruction. But let’s stop putting the whole burden on teachers. We also need better parents. Better parents can make every teacher more effective.
Drawn from a NY Times article by Thomas Friedman
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According to a new analysis of high school completion from the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center finds that the national graduation rate stands at 71.7 percent for the class of 2008, the most recent year for which data are available. The overall graduation rate for public high school students jumped nearly 3 percentage points from 2007 to 2008, more than offsetting the nationwide declines of the previous two years. Each major racial and ethnic group also posted gains of at least 2 percentage points, with African-American students improving most rapidly.
That projection equals nearly 1.2 million students from this year’s high school class will fail to graduate with a diploma. That amounts to 6,400 students lost each day of the year, or one student every 27 seconds. To bring it to a visual level, that equals 160 school buses, filled with children leaving school every day, never to return.
What is particularly vexing is that there are still graduation gaps along the lines of race, gender, and geography. Asian-Americans and whites remain the nation’s highest-performing groups, posting graduation rates of 83 percent and 78 percent, respectively, for the class of 2008. The nation’s graduation rate rose by 6.1 percentage points over all of the past decade. During the same period, the black-white graduation gap narrowed by 2 points, owing to the more rapid progress made by African-Americans. Because improvement for whites outpaced that of other groups, though, the gaps between Native Americans and whites and between Latinos and whites have widened somewhat since 1999.
Among Latinos in the class of 2008, 58 percent finished high school with a diploma, while 57 percent of African-Americans and 54 percent of Native Americans graduated. On average, 68 percent of male students earn a diploma compared with 75 percent of female students, a 7-percentage-point gender gap that has remained virtually unchanged for years. High school completion rates for minority males consistently fall near or below the 50 percent mark.
Suburban districts graduate considerably more students on average than do those serving urban communities, 76 percent vs. 64 percent. Regardless of location, graduation rates in districts characterized by heightened levels of poverty or racial or socioeconomic segregation fall well below the national average, typically ranging from 58 percent to 63 percent.
In addition, the 44-percentage-point chasm separating the highest- and lowest-performing states remains alarming. The national leaders—New Jersey, North Dakota, Vermont, and Wisconsin—each graduate more than 80 percent of their high school students. At the other extreme of the rankings, fewer than six in 10 students finish high school in the District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, and South Carolina. Overall, graduation rates in about half the states fall within 5 points of the national average of 72 percent.
Graduation rates have also risen in a large majority of states during the past decade. Thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia have posted gains ranging from a fraction of a percent to 20 percentage points over that time span. Among the states that have lost ground, all but one of the declines were on the order of 5 percentage points or less.
Urban districts, perhaps predictably, occupy the lowest spots on the rankings, often graduating no more than half their students and as few as one-third. Montgomery County, Md., and Fairfax County, Va., respectively, rank first and second among the nation’s largest districts, with graduation rates topping 85 percent, more than 50 percentage points higher than Detroit, the lowest-ranked district.
Median earnings for prime working-age adults (25 to 54) steadily increase as levels of educational attainment rise. A typical worker with at least a four-year college degree earns about $50,000 per year, compared with a median income of $30,000 among those with a two-year degree and about $18,500 for those with no more than a high school diploma. Income data from 2009 show that annual earnings increase significantly as workers acquire progressively higher levels of education. Median earnings for adults who have not completed high school stand at only $12,000. Acquiring a high school diploma generates an additional $10,000 of earnings on average, with any amount of postsecondary education (including an associate degree) raising income an additional $8,000 a year, to almost $30,000. The typical four-year degree-holder earns about $50,000 a year.
Twenty-?ve individual school systems account for one in every ?ve nongraduates nationwide for the class of 2011.
As I have indicated in the past, we do not know what “career readiness” means. Data indicate that many of the jobs of the future have not been clearly defined and according to many business magazines, many companies which will employ graduates haven’t even opened. So schools are preparing students for jobs that may not exist.
The expectation that every student needs to be college-ready is also a fallacy. We need graduates who are capable of building and repairing equipment, automobiles and computers instead of sending these jobs offshore. Many of our students who have followed the rules and gone to college and graduated cannot find work and are not burdened with large loans.
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