Cubero/ Grants/Cibola County Schools Proudly Opens New Cubero Elementary School
Cibola Beacon Report
September 7, 2012
The new $10 million Cubero Elementary School formally opened its doors with a ribbon cutting ceremony on Aug. 23.
"I am very honored to be a part of this celebration," said Kilino Marquez, Grants/Cibola County Schools superintendent, as he welcomed students, community members, staff and dignitaries to the opening ceremony.
- Marquez said, "It is unbelievable that in less than two years we have completed the construction of two new elementary schools in the school district. The first was the Milan Elementary School that was completed in September 2010.
- Liz Elkins, Cubero principal, said this school would serve as the hub for the community. "The school will bring together our families, children and the community," she said.
Takia Martin, a fifth grader, proudly did the honors cutting the ribbon to open the school to the community.
After nine months of work, the 37,000-square-foot facility, which was part of the phase one of the school construction project, was opened.
Phase two, which includes the playgrounds and the landscaping, will be completed in November, according to district officials.
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Estancia/ Schools in Estancia District To Get Updates
By Laurie Clark
Mountain View Telegraph
September 6, 2012
It's no wonder some improvements are needed at Estancia Municipal Schools - the sprawling school district has buildings that originally date to the 1950s and 1960s - Van Stone Elementary even dates back to the 1920s.
The school has several projects in different stages.
- First off, there's upgrades to the agriculture building, including freezers, a meat cutting facility, and improvements to the welding stations. This work should be done in a couple of weeks. Some work was also done on the concessions booth by the football field, including updating the electrical system.
- There's also changing rooms and restrooms being added close to the softball field, and improvements have already been completed for the football field, stadium and the track.
Perhaps the biggest change coming up is a brand new middle school, which is in the planning stages now. The old school is scheduled to be torn down in June 2013.
Middle School Principal Denise Smythe said a new building will be welcome.
"Currently, we're still on a boiler system, so as far as ... how much we are spending to keep that building running, it is just through the roof. Energy-wise we are not anywhere near energy efficient," said Smythe.
Smythe also said the cinder block walls of the middle school affect the energy efficiency, the roof is in very bad shape, and the layout of the school is outdated. Smythe said the classrooms are long and narrow - an awkward arrangement that makes it difficult for the students and teachers to communicate effectively.
"The correct instructional environment is not there," said Smythe.
However, Smythe said that alumni of Estancia Municipal Schools, who have fond memories of playing at the middle school gym, can rest easy. It will see some renovation, but it won't be torn down.
- "The gym at the middle school is very near and dear to so many people ... they're very, very connected to the gyms," said Smythe. "It will be really nice, completely renovated."
Many of the changes are thanks to the voters - the improvements to the high school's agriculture building, the concession stand and the softball complex were paid for with $730,000 of the last bond that passed.
The new middle school will be going up thanks mostly to the Public School Facilities Authority, which is contributing 69 percent of the cost.
- If the voters approve another bond in February, that money will make up the other 31 percent.
- The project should cost about $5 million.
Superintendent Audie Brown said there are a few other improvements everyone would like to see.
Currently the elementary school takes up three buildings. Brown said that, to save money, the school might be consolidated into two buildings to save on energy and upkeep.
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Deming/ NM Secretary for Workforce Solutions Celina Bussey: Education Vital to Job Market
By Matt Robinson
Deming Headlight Staff
September 6, 2012
New Mexico's Secretary of Workforce Solutions had a clear message for members of the Deming-Luna County Economic Development Corporation Thursday, that for the state to be successful and competitive among neighbors the "end product" of K-12 schooling needs to be better suited for employment.
Cabinet Secretary Celina Bussey was in Deming for the DLCEDC's monthly meeting and she used her time to describe improvements her department has made when dealing with businesses and residents, but her larger theme focused on making New Mexico more competitive through education and measures to improve social problems.
- "If I'm the education delivery system and I'm putting out a product that isn't relevant in the workforce, then where is the accountability," she asked, noting that there are 400,000 New Mexicans without a diploma or GED.
- Additionally, she said that 50 percent of students entering higher education are not ready or are signed up for remedial courses.
"The system is doing something wrong and we have got to change the system."
She pointed to an executive order issued by Gov. Susana Martinez that established the Employability Partnership of New Mexico as a step in the right direction to address issues with the workforce.
- The partnership brings together business leaders from across the state to meet and plan with government economic development officials and representatives from education.
- The goal of the group is to improve the "workforce delivery system," rid duplication of services and to make better use of funding to improve the agency's return on investment.
"We, as a state, have got to find things to do in our education system, in economic development, that are bigger, faster, smarter," she said.
Questions from the audience prompted her to shift her comments to social issues impacting the employability of New Mexico residents.
- She questioned the need for a minimum wage, saying it "probably outlived itself 30 years ago," and that
- unemployment insurance has also outlived its purpose and has "created more problems than safety nets."
She believes the private market drives the value of labor and products and that unemployment benefits extensions can create a reliance on the state instead of looking for work.
She also believes that drug testing more job applicants and recipients of unemployment benefits would be a move in the right direction, but said keeping potential employees off drugs should begin with telling young adults that drug use can hurt their chances of being employed.
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Santa Fe/ Santa Fe School for the Arts & Sciences' Reading Program Aims To Hook Kids on Books
By Kathaleen Roberts
ABQ Journal Staff Writer
September 7, 2012
Luring kids away from TV and video games and into reading is hard, especially when they come from homes without a single book.
A group of students centered in the Santa Fe School for the Arts & Sciences were appalled to learn that New Mexico ranks 49th in the nation in literacy. Every year, approximately half of our high school students drop out and 46 percent of our residents are functionally illiterate.
These students designed a program to convince non-readers that reading can be fun.
- They reached more than 1,000 Santa Fe area students with "Hooked on Books."
- When they learned some couldn't read well enough to enter a contest, they created a two-week reading camp in July called "Reading Is Magic."
The camp was based on intensive phonics through hands-on activities and games. The kids began as a page, then grew through the ranks to become a knight, prince or princess through playing phonics-based games like Word Jousting, Reading Baseball or Vocabulary Twister. Their achievements were rewarded with royal accessories like crowns, magic wands and swords.
Many of the young readers were from one to two years behind in school and in danger of being held back.
"The kids all grew an average of one year in their reading skills," said Rayna Dineen, the school's principal. "The kids loved it. They did not want to come home."
On Saturday, six Hooked on Books members have been asked to give a TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) talk about the literacy program before a crowd of 700 at Albuquerque's National Hispanic Cultural Center. Devoted to "ideas worth spreading," TED is an international nonprofit whose speakers have included Bill Gates and magician David Blaine. The talks are available both on TV and the Web. In Santa Fe, the talk will be simulcast at Flying Star in the Railyard.
The reading program was spearheaded by a wave of positive peer pressure.
- Last fall, the students formed a steering committee called Youth United, comprised of about 50 youths from across Santa Fe and Los Alamos ranging from ages 14-17.
- They met every other Saturday.
- First, they decided they needed prizes to jumpstart learning.
- They knew once a student grasped the joy of words, their adventures would never stop.
- A national Albertson's nonprofit program awarded the group $10,000.
The students met with the Santa Fe Public Schools superintendent, principals and librarians, all of whom jumped on the concept and emailed fliers throughout the schools. Entrants could choose a reading contest based on the requirements and prizes. Once they entered, they received a "Hooked on Books" wristband, Dineen said. The colorful bands soon became collector's items as kids entered multiple contests.
The first prize was an iPad. Other incentives ranged from ice cream coupons to Kindles and skateboards to a free trip to the Los Angeles red carpet premiere of "The Hunger Games."
Working with the struggling students was just the beginning.
"Kids started to tell us, 'We don't have books to read,' " Dineen said. "One kid from Capital (High School) said, 'We've never had a book in our home.' "
Many of their families arrived in Santa Fe speaking only Spanish, she added.
- Merari Santos, 14, struggled with reading when he was 10 years old. Now a 10th-grader at the New Mexico School for the Arts, he is one of six speakers slated for the TED talk. Santos worked with younger students at the reading camp.
His parents immigrated to this country from Guatemala, each armed with just three years of schooling.
"I didn't get the help I needed at home," Santos said. "My parents didn't have books. It seemed too hard, because I didn't have the motivation."
His life turned around when he read "I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust" by Livia Bitten-Jackson.
"The history part of it shocked me," he said. "It opened up a new world for me."
He wanted to ignite that same passion for reading in others.
"They were kind of shy" at first, he said of the campers. "But after I started reading books on the couch and playing games with them, they came every morning."
- Fourteen-year-old Kendra Carmona was motivated by her 10-year-old brother, who also had reading problems. Carmona is a ninth-grader at the New Mexico School for the Arts.
"My little brother doesn't read much," she said. But "he participated in this contest. I've never seen him complete a whole book. Now he reads more often.
"I grew up not really reading books until I found the first 'Twilight' book," she continued. "I see so many kids down about reading. They just see it as something they do for school and for grades."
- Lauren Sarkissian, 14, also a School for the Arts ninth-grader, said some of the youngsters suffered from disabilities and only needed some one-on-one attention. Sarkissian designed the program logo - a fishhook dangling a book with the caption "Reel in Readers."
The young tutors watched as their students' confidence bloomed. No one broke down or drifted off into boredom.
"If kids could read, so many doors and possibilities would be unlocked," Sarkissian said. "They could get better jobs, they could make more money, there would be less crime. There's this whole domino effect.
- "There's so many worlds inside books," said Eugene Matias, 16, also from the School for the Arts. "If you don't read, you get stripped of the good stuff inside books."
Group members also donated a barrage of books. They painted bookshelves and installed them in places where kids wait, Dineen explained: the Division of Motor Vehicles, the Christus St. Vincent emergency room, the state's Children, Youth and Families Department offices, and urgent care and pediatric clinics. Readers can borrow and then donate back to the book pool. Local businesses responded by creating their own lending libraries.
"We hope it will inspire other kids to do their own Hooked on Books program," Dineen said. "They're just so excited to be motivated. Between TV and video games, they have so much competition."
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Boston MA/ Is Top-Ranked Massachusetts Messing with Education Success?
Massachusetts public schools produce students who are top in the nation in reading and math. Here's what the state did to get there, and here's why its shift to the new Common Core standards worries some experts.
By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo
CSMonitor.com
September 5, 2012
Heidi Stevens recalls the day that got her thinking about uprooting her family from California to move to Massachusetts. Frolicking with her boys at a playground in 1998, she wished some teenagers a happy Independence Day.
She was met with blank stares. "You know, the Fourth of July," she offered. Then they smiled and nodded, and she prodded a bit: "Do you know who we got our independence from?" One guessed France, another Mexico, and the last one said the Indians. "They were not kidding," Ms. Stevens says.
She enrolled her older son in first grade that year but wasn't happy with the emphasis on "creative spelling" and art projects. So she traveled to Massachusetts and visited public schools in Northampton, a town that boasts five colleges and universities within a short radius.
"We knew Massachusetts was a fabulous state for public education," she says. And she and her husband, both graphic designers, figured they could work from about anywhere.
The enthusiasm and skill of the second-grade teacher at the school in the Leeds neighborhood of Northampton "blew me away," Stevens says. "Meeting her sealed the deal that we would buy a house in that district."
They haven't been disappointed living in a state that by many measures sets the gold standard for public education in the United States.
In national reading and math tests, the state's fourth- and eighth-graders have scored the best since 2005. Compared with the national average, greater shares of students here graduate from high school and score high on college-level Advanced Placement (AP) exams. The state even compares respectably with some of the top-performing countries.
Education's roots run deep in Massachusetts - home of the first public school in America and some of the best universities in the world. Its success, education leaders say, results primarily from a two-decade commitment to set high standards; hold students, teachers, and schools accountable; and offer funding and other key supports to help them reach expectations.
Other states have looked to the Bay State as a model in recent years as they've tweaked their own education strategies.
Massachusetts is "one of the major success stories in the country," says Gene Wilhoit, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers in Washington.
But now Massachusetts, like 45 other states and the District of Columbia, is revising its curriculum as part of a collaboration called the Common Core State Standards - a new chapter in education reform premised on the idea that to compete globally, the benchmarks for reading and math in all states need to reflect a richer set of skills to equip students for 21st-century demands.
Massachusetts could be a good test case for whether the Common Core approach lives up to that lofty rhetoric. President Obama has pushed for it through federal funding incentives, though critics say he has strong-armed states into de facto national standards, chipping away at state control.
- For some education observers, Massachusetts has broken the axiom "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," and is in danger of watering down a key element of its success.
- Others say just the opposite - that the new common standards are at least as strong as Massachusetts' previous ones and could catapult more states to heights that the Bay State has already achieved.
"One of the provisions ... was that no state would have to lower its standards in order to adopt the Common Core.... So the Massachusetts standards became a benchmark [in] developing the [new standards]," says Mr. Wilhoit, whose organization is coordinating the Common Core initiative.
Despite the state's attainments, there are always areas to improve, education leaders here say - particularly when it comes to achievement gaps for minority and low-income students
"One of our greatest potential hurdles will be complacency," says Mitchell Chester, Massachusetts commissioner of elementary and secondary education. "Once we are satisfied that we're doing it better than anyone else and that's good enough ... others will pass us by."
A key spark for education reform came in 1983 with "A Nation at Risk," a report warning that student achievement wasn't keeping pace - at home or abroad.
"In Massachusetts, people really took the report seriously," says David Driscoll, who became the state's deputy commissioner of education in 1993 and served as commissioner from 1999 to 2007.
Leaders from state government, education, and business came together to form the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993, creating high standards and curriculum frameworks in math, reading, social studies, and science, as well as related tests for fourth-, eighth-, and 10th-graders - the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS).
To give those standards teeth, certain scores on 10th-grade tests became a requirement for high school graduation. Students scoring too low receive extra help and can retake the tests.
The emphasis on high-stakes testing led some teachers and parents to protest, worried that it would nudge borderline students into dropping out - a debate that later resonated nationally because of the testing regimen established by the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
"There was tremendous pushback, bills filed every year to do away with it, but we stuck with it," Mr. Driscoll says.
After the new system took hold, significant learning gains among Massachusetts students were reflected in both state and national tests.
The MCAS "made us feel as if Massachusetts had higher standards of learning than other states because that test is harder than other, average tests," Stevens says.
One big reason people came to accept the reforms:
- The state boosted education funding by more than 10 percent for each of the first six years - targeting the money largely to schools and districts with the highest needs.
- To date, the 1993 law has channeled $34.5 billion in extra state funding to school districts.
Strategies to boost achievement in Boston - the state's largest district - have included double blocks of time for reading and math instruction, as well as efforts "to get the best teachers teaching the kids that needed the most support," says Thomas Payzant, Boston's superintendent from 1995 to 2006.
- In the 2010-11 school year, 97 percent of Massachusetts teachers were licensed specifically in the area they taught, and
- all teachers are required to earn a master's degree during their career, says Paul Toner, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association.
- Moreover, a statewide testing system for teacher applicants has helped bring up the quality of education.
Another factor: The state reform law set up a rigorous approval process for charter schools, many of which boast strong academic achievement.
Many parents in the state have high education levels and good incomes, making it easier to support their children's education. In addition, Mr. Toner says, school districts are relatively small, allowing for teachers to know the community better; any student can enroll in an AP course; and all students are encouraged to take college-entrance exams such as the SAT.
With high-stakes testing, some students do have to drill basic skills rather than enjoy a well-rounded curriculum as they approach 12th grade, Toner says, but "you'd have to admit that by having a graduation requirement ... it got kids' and families' attention and you could see the proficiency numbers on the exams [going] up."
Stevens says she has seen over time how the MCAS pressures teachers and presents a rather rigid structure for some learners. But her sons received a well-rounded education, including early opportunities to play musical instruments, which weren't available in California at the time. Older brother Nicholas O'Connor is now studying engineering at Boston College, and Benjamin O'Connor is a high school junior hoping to study marine biology.
"We understand the value of an education," Stevens says. "It's the one thing you can give your child that will last their whole life.
Because of Massachusetts' success story, education policies here are watched and sometimes "emulated by other states," Wilhoit says.
- Texas, for example, adopted new math standards this year after a democratic process - starting with a draft based in part on standards from high-performing states, including Massachusetts, says Todd Webster, chief deputy commissioner of the Texas Education Agency. Texas is sticking with those standards rather than adopting the Common Core.
But Massachusetts' future doesn't look as rosy to observers such as Jamie Gass, director of the Center for School Reform at the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research, a conservative-leaning group in Boston.
"Massachusetts made historic gains ... but in the last four or five years, a lot of those policy gains have been rolled back," he says. "There are other states that are nipping at our heels ... [and] Massachusetts has kind of plateaued."
Particularly problematic, he says, is the state's decision to jump on the Common Core bandwagon. Massachusetts' standards were a model, he says, and the Common Core standards are of lower quality. For instance, standards for English-language arts used to be based largely on classic literature and poetry, which have a rich vocabulary, but the Common Core emphasizes more informational text, Mr. Gass says. To him it's part of a "trendy fad" focusing on workforce-development goals and "softer" 21st-century skills.
Commissioner Chester defends the state's decision to adopt the Common Core, saying it "advanced what we already had on the table."
Collaboration is increasing among states as more leaders look at the bigger picture of the global economy, Chester says: "When [there are] 50 different sets of standards [and testing] ... you're not necessarily giving children and parents honest and accurate information about how they measure up in a world where state boundaries are less and less relevant to your economic opportunities."
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Washington DC/ Virtual Education Addresses Teacher-Certification Questions
States grapple with how to ensure the quality of online educators
By Robin L. Flanigan
Education Week, Vol. 32, Issue 2 [Edweek.org]
August 29, 2012 [posted online 9/7/12]
Now that 40 states have virtual schools or initiatives in the works to open them, more attention is going to the skills particularly required of online teachers.
Such teachers need to rely especially heavily on written communication, ensure academic integrity from afar, and not only be able to understand how new technological tools function, but also to use them in pedagogically sound ways.
But how should state education officials ensure that online teachers have those skills?
Though Georgia, in 2006, was the first state to offer an optional certification for online teaching, and several other states since have found their own answers, that question remains an uneasy one for many in education who are trying to ensure teacher quality while keeping up with virtual education in general. One big trend with implications for teacher preparation is the recent surge in blended learning, which combines elements of traditional and online teaching.
- "We certainly can't ignore that this is going on across all our borders, and there's a lot of interest at the state level about it, but the conversations are all over the place right now," said Phillip Rogers, the executive director of the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification, or NASDTEC, a Washington-based group that represents those responsible for the preparation, licensure, and discipline of educators.
To help facilitate those conversations, NASDTEC launched a chat room and blog in July. The executive board this fall will discuss whether to initiate formal conversations on the topic of certification of online educators, and the association will discuss whether to make online certification part of the next NASDTEC Interstate Agreement, which outlines the types of educator certificates accepted in each state.
"I think states are going to respond with different kinds of approaches to [the certification for online teachers]," said Mr. Rogers, "but we need to be able to help our members have some confidence that the people in their districts have the ethics, confidence, and qualifications to teach online."
- Wisconsin is one of the few states to have separate requirements for virtual teachers. Since 2010, such teachers have been required to complete at least 30 hours of professional development.
- In March of this year, the Virginia legislature advanced Gov. Bob F. McDonnell's "Opportunity to Learn" education agenda, which included a requirement that the state board of education develop licensure criteria for virtual teachers.
- The Hawaii Teacher Standards Board, during the 2012-13 school year, will consider adding online teaching either as a stand-alone licensing field or an endorsement. Although based in Honolulu, the board understands the benefits of online teaching in a state with many rural, hard-to-reach areas, Executive Director Lynn Hammonds said.
Retooling Training
Some states prefer endorsements that hone skills and make online teachers more marketable-without adding any additional requirements.
- Idaho favored one endorsement, moving away from a proposed mandate in 2010 that would have required online teachers to undergo extra training to teach in a solely virtual environment. Eligible candidates must, among other standards, have completed at least 20 semester credit hours in online teaching and learning in a state-approved program or show mastery through proof of experience, and demonstrate knowledge of online education and human development.
The endorsement competencies are aligned with Idaho's online teaching standards as well as the National Educational Technology Standards for teachers at the transformative level, set by the International Society for Technology in Education. The Washington-based ISTE promotes innovative uses of technology. According to ISTE, a teacher who reaches the transformative level has demonstrated a high level of flexible awareness and proficiency in transforming education through the use of technology.
Those alignments are guiding a first-time attempt at Boise State University, one of three universities in Idaho to offer an approved online-endorsement program, to provide master's-degree students a field experience in online teaching this fall. The partnership is with the state-sponsored Idaho Digital Learning Academy, which registered more than 17,000 enrollments in grades 6-12 in 2011-12.
"The demand from preservice teachers is growing," said Kerry Rice, the interim chairwoman of Boise State's department of educational technology, who ran the task force charged with crafting standards for the endorsement. "There isn't a specific set of strategies developed yet, so we're making it up as we go along."
The university plans to offer the endorsement at the undergraduate level by 2013-14 at the earliest.
Idaho state schools Superintendent Tom Luna said he's encouraged by both initiatives.
"I've been involved in a number of meetings and conversations focusing on the work of our colleges of education, and I've made the comment that I think they're graduating students that are the best educated but the least prepared for the 21st-century classroom," he said. "We seem to advance at a slower pace than the rest of the world around us, and we need to get caught up."
Particularly with the surge in blended learning environments, more colleges and universities need to be retooling their teacher-preparation programs, according to Susan D. Patrick, the president and chief executive officer of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, or iNACOL, based in Vienna, Va. Part of her advocacy work includes spreading that message when groups representing colleges of education ask for information about iNACOL's national standards for online teaching.
"It's a beginning, but we need to get out there more and help them understand that there's just no reason new teachers coming out of these programs should be without these skills," she said.
On the policy front, Ms. Patrick added: "I'm pretty much on the road every week at state capitols, talking to policymakers, and I bring this up even if I have only five minutes with them. They're not realizing the importance of this, either."
'Hot Topic'
Educators are just as concerned about receiving assurances they'll be qualified to teach in an online classroom.
- "This is a hot topic on our radar, not only with our own online teachers, but with schools and districts," said Dawn Nordine, a member of the State Virtual School Leadership Alliance, which includes eight state virtual schools. She is the executive director of the 3,000-student Wisconsin Virtual School, a supplemental online-course provider based in Tomahawk, Wis.
Some education advocates suggest that states should steer away from certification rules altogether, and instead use as a basis benchmarks already established by groups such as iNACOL and the Atlanta-based Southern Regional Education Board, both of which have national standards for online teaching.
- "I believe there should be standards for teachers who work for an online school, but my biggest concern is that the very best instructors aren't necessarily the ones who have state-mandated credentials," said Terry Stoops, the director of education studies at the John Locke Foundation, a think tank based in Raleigh, N.C. He contends that competent higher education faculty members, private-sector professionals, private school educators, and independent scholars without those credentials are disqualified from employment in virtual schools when they could be offering a valuable service in a fast-growing market.
"Requirements are restrictions that don't equal quality," Mr. Stoops said. "It would be a much smarter idea to open these schools up to as many candidates as possible, and to focus on skills, relevant knowledge, and experience rather than credentials that seldom correlate to high student performance and teacher quality."
Those considering whether to offer a certification or endorsement program often ask whether it would be easier to establish a universal certificate that would outline specific, objective performance standards and allow for true reciprocity across state lines. A national alliance of nonprofit organizations, universities, and education agencies founded the Leading Edge Certification in 2010 to do just that. As the first of five certification areas, the alliance's online and blended teacher certification, based on iNACOL standards, was launched in 2011 to guide professionals in educational technology and curriculum innovation.
Yet the real question, given that targeted professional development for online teachers already exists, is whether formal certification programs should even be a priority, said John Watson of the Evergreen Education Group.
- "It's easy to envision a policy requirement getting us into places that make it hard for innovation to happen," said the founder of the private consulting and advisory firm, based in Durango, Colo. "If we can come up with a different way of doing things, it should be allowed. Policies, if we're not careful, can undermine that flexibility."
Whatever answer makes the most sense for each state, with predictions from iNACOL that half of all high school courses will be taught online by 2019, Ms. Patrick is hoping that training efforts for virtual teachers pick up momentum.
"I'm always looking at things from a global perspective, and we're getting so far behind with this," she said. "We have a lot of work to do."
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Denver CO/ Colorado State to Offer Credits for Online Class
By Tamar Lewin
New York Times
September 6, 2012
As millions of students have flocked to free "massive open online courses," or MOOCs, in recent months, higher education experts have focused on two big questions: whether universities will begin to offer credit for such courses, and what might be done to prevent cheating.
On Thursday, the first glimmers of answers began to emerge.
Colorado State University's Global Campus said it would give three transfer credits to students who complete Introduction to Computer Science: Building a Search Engine, a free course offered by Udacity, and take a proctored test. While the Global Campus is apparently the first American institution to offer credit for a Udacity MOOC, several European universities have already done so.
- "Our students have been asking for credit for the courses for a while, and Colorado State has been very excited about online ed, so this was those things coming together," said David Stavens, Udacity's co-founder.
- Almost 200,000 students have enrolled in the class, which is the company's introductory computer science offering, and its most popular, Mr. Stavens said. "We're talking with other schools, but we're not ready to name them yet," he added.
Also on Thursday, edX, the Harvard-M.I.T. online collaboration, announced that students in its MOOCs would be able to take proctored final exams at Pearson VUE's brick-and-mortar testing centers around the world, where their identity can be verified.
- "This will take online learning to the next level," said Anant Agarwal, the president of edX. "Students who take our courses will be able to go to a proctoring center and take the test."
EdX, like others who offer massive open online courses, gives out certificates of mastery to everyone who completes them. But now, the certificate given those who take the system under the existing honor code will be different from the one for those who choose to take proctored exams, for a "modest" fee, not yet announced. Students will be able to take their final exams at any of Pearson VUE's 450 testing centers in more than 110 countries.
The proctored certificates, Mr. Agarwal said, should be valuable to students who want to prove their skills to potential employers. Initially, he said, proctored tests will be available for only one of the seven courses - he would not say which one - M.I.T., Harvard and Berkeley are offering at edX this fall.
Udacity announced its arrangement with Pearson VUE earlier this year.
- Only students who take a proctored test at a Pearson VUE center, for a fee of $89, will be eligible for credit at Colorado's Global Campus. But Bob Whelan, the president of Pearson VUE, said it would be some time before either edX or Udacity exams are ready.
Andrew Ng, a co-founder of Coursera, which offers 123 MOOCs from 16 universities, said his company was exploring different options for verifying students' identities and work originality. "Pearson is one way to do this, but there may be others," he said. "We are also thinking about automatic plagiarism detection programs."
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Yonkers NY/ City Courts Investors to Fix Schools
Considers unusual partnerships to fund renovations
By Bob Sechler
Wall Street Journal
September 7, 2012
Officials in Yonkers, N.Y., are looking to partner with investors to raise $1.7 billion for renovating the city's crumbling public schools, in an unusual approach to education funding that is being watched by other cash-strapped school systems.
U.S. school districts traditionally finance infrastructure improvements by issuing bonds backed by local tax revenue, and they routinely maintain facilities through their operating budgets.
- The Yonkers school district, which sits just north of New York City, is weighing plans to contract with investors to pay for improvements and maintenance for as long as 30 years on more than three dozen school buildings with an average age of 73.
- In exchange, the investors would receive a steady stream of payments from the city and the state-which helps fund the district.
- The investors also might be able to use school facilities after school hours for profit, sharing any proceeds with the district.
Joseph Bracchitta, chief administrative officer for Yonkers schools, said the district would consider ideas from investors such as a for-profit health club at a new school gym. "Everything is on the table," he said, emphasizing that the district would have to agree to any plans.
"It's definitely to our benefit if [private investors] can develop separate revenue streams," he said.
Low interest rates make issuing debt relatively cheap right now. But district officials say there are advantages to the idea of contracting with private investors.
- Such a contract could help minimize the need for new local taxes or budget cuts to cover the renovations, while
- offloading the risk of cost overruns to private investors and avoiding the need to staff-up for a huge, multi-phased construction project.
- Investors, meanwhile, potentially would get returns above standard bonds, with the added security of an investment in hard assets.
Similar partnerships with the private sector have been used widely in the U.S. to finance revenue-producing infrastructure like toll roads and bridges. If it proceeds, the Yonkers plan could set a model for adapting the structure to large public school systems at a time when many are having to slash budgets while struggling to maintain aging facilities.
- "We're following [Yonkers's effort] with a good deal of interest," said David Lever, executive director of Maryland's Public School Construction Program, which oversees funding for the state's school projects. Mr. Lever said Maryland officials are exploring public-private partnerships, among other means, to help pay for more than $15 billion in needed renovations and new construction, though he noted that for-profit, after-hours operation of school facilities isn't currently among the considerations.
- There have been smaller attempts in the U.S. to use the public-private model to finance education. In 1999, for example, the Washington, D.C., school system contracted with a private developer to build a single school, Oyster Elementary, in exchange for rights to build an apartment complex on school-owned land nearby.
Mary Filardo, executive director of the 21st Century School Fund, a D.C.-based nonprofit that led the Oyster project, said it involved difficult trade-offs, with the school giving up part of a play area to make room for the apartments. Ms. Filardo, whose group advocates modernization of urban public schools, cautioned that public-private partnerships shouldn't be viewed as cost-free panaceas.
"It was just a different kind of tax," she said. "People have to say, 'What are we prepared to sacrifice?' "
Such partnerships have been used more commonly in education in the U.K. and Canada, with mixed results. In some cases, cost savings haven't met initial forecasts, while in others community members have complained about limits on their use of facilities.
- In Alberta, Canada, restrictions on the use of some schools built under a $634 million public-private partnership have caused friction, irking community members who sought space for day-care centers and other services. Tim Chamberlin, a spokesman for the Alberta Education Department, said such issues have been addressed since that first deal in 2007 by attempting to resolve them upfront. The province currently is readying its third such deal.
The financial structures have "worked for Alberta communities," Mr. Chamberlin said. "The students in our communities are getting quality schools."
Yonkers officials say a feasibility study of the public-private approach could be completed later this month. One thing they need to determine is how state laws might need to change so the district can use state money earmarked for its traditional bond payments to pay investors in a public-private partnership. State legislators would need to sign off on such changes, which could present a significant hurdle to the proposal's success.
The district says it would try to outline all of its requirements in any contract, so it would have leverage if the private operator cut corners on maintenance. If it goes through with the plan, the work likely would be put out for bid in phases, Mr. Bracchitta said.
The local teachers union has supported exploring the concept, but wants to be involved in the decision and have safeguards in place to ensure continued community involvement in schools, according to Pat Puleo, president of the Yonkers Federation of Teachers.
The idea is already drawing interest from potential investors. If it's successful, "this could be the gateway to a lot more" such deals involving U.S. public schools, said Frank M. Rapoport, a senior partner at law firm McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP, which is part of an investment team aiming to bid for the Yonkers project if the district pursues it. He declined to name the other partners, but said he is aware of three additional teams that are interested as well.
If the plan doesn't go forward, Mr. Bracchitta said, the district would need to finance the huge amount of needed improvements through bonds and beef up spending substantially on construction management, debt service and maintenance. "What we are looking at are very, very, very large, permanent increases in the district's budget that have nothing to do with the instructional program," he said.
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Washington DC/ California Spending More on Prisons Than Colleges
By Aaron Sankin
Huffington Post
September 6, 2012
There's a direct relationship between how much money the Golden State spends on prisons and how much it spends on higher education, according to a report put out by the non-partisan public policy group California Common Sense. When one goes up, the other goes down.
And, at least in California, the former has been going up a lot more than the latter.
The study, entitled Winners and Losers: Corrections and Higher Education in California, looked at the state's general fund expenditures on corrections and higher education from the period between 1981 and 2011.
Since 1980, higher education spending has decreased by 13 percent in inflation adjusted dollars, whereas spending on California's prisons and associated correctional programs has skyrocketed by 436 percent.
- The state now shells out more money from its general fund for the prison system than the higher education system. (When combined with K-12 education, the state's overall education spending dwarfs its prison expenditures.)
- 55 percent of the growth of corrections spending is the result of the state simply putting more people in jail. Over the past three decades, the number of inmates in California facilities has increased eight times faster than size of the overall population.
The report notes that, while the average salaries for employees of the state's world-renowned higher education system have stagnated or even dropped with regard to inflation, prison guards have seen sustained salary increases.
- Correctional officers in California typically make somewhere between 50 and 90 percent more than comparable jobs in the rest of the country.
California Correctional Peace Officers Association spokesperson Ryan Sherman defended the high salaries. "Buying a house in the Bay Area is extremely expensive. There's a number of prisons in the Bay Area and so the officers need to be compensated appropriately in California," he explained to NBC Bay Area, noting that many prison employees have taken pay cuts in recent years. "[California Highway Patrol] officers are paid more than correctional officers and it's the same standards, same hiring practices they go through, so I don't know that they're paid too much. I think they actually deserve more."
Prison guards aren't the only part of the state's penal system that has gotten considerably more expensive over time.
A 2009 investigation by the state's Legislative Analyst's Office noted that, over the previous decade, state spending per inmate has increased by two-thirds, largely due to a federal court order to improve prisoner health care, increased spending on rehab programs and the aforementioned employee compensation increases.
California's general fund is the sole source of state-level funding for its prison system, while special funds derived from specific funding sources are earmarked for channeling money into its education system. Due to the state's ongoing budget crisis, those special funds are increasingly being borrowed from to close the ever-growing hole in the general fund budget.
The report states that in 1980, over two-thirds of all the money spent on secondary education came from the state government. At present, that percentage has shrunk to about one-fourth.
As a result, the higher education system has been forced to rely more heavily on student tuition. In 2009, mass student protests erupted when the University of California's Board of Regents voted to hike tuition by 32 percent. The following year saw another eight percent tuition increase.
A 20 percent hike has been threatened for the next school year if California voters reject the tax measure pushed by Governor Jerry Brown.
Brown has also instituted a program called "realignment" designed to both cut the state's prison spending and comply with a 2011 U.S. Supreme Court ruling mandating the California get serious about solving its dire prison overcrowding population.
Realignment is designed to shift non-serious, non-violent, non-sexual convicts (read: drug offenders) to county jails, instead of state penitentiaries, where local sheriffs have significantly more freedom in what methods they're able to employ.
Officials hope that realignment with not only improve the conditions inside California's jails, but also decrease their overall cost.
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Washington DC/ OPINION: World Class Teachers for 61M Out-of-School Youth
By Ed Gragert [Executive Director Emeritus of iEARN-USA]
Huffington Post
September 6, 2012
Millions of students across the U.S. will start heading back to school in upcoming weeks, excited about a new school year and looking forward to seeing last year's friends again after three months of summer vacation. Discussions will focus on the weight of their backpacks, the amount of technology they should have at their fingertips and how much homework a new teacher will assign.
Yet, 61 million young people around the world of elementary school-age will not be going back to school because they face obstacles that prevent them from even getting into a school. Many others, including many who are able to gain access to schools, are not learning effectively. For example, in India it is estimated that 46.3 percent of fifth graders cannot read at 2nd grade level and 64 percent of fifth graders cannot do basic division math.
A quality education is a basic human right. It is the key to development and a solution to critical global issues that affect us all. Through education, particularly of girls and women, families are healthier, smaller, more entrepreneurial and financially better off. Without investing in education, development aid and other interventions will only provide important short-term relief, but not systemic improvement to break the cycle of poverty.
Important initiatives are being launched globally to both draw attention to the critical importance of education internationally and to frame the policy guidelines surrounding goals for the post-2015 MDG [Millennium Development Goals] for education.
- For example, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, is set to announce his "Education First" initiative on September 26.
- And the Brookings Institution is working to help frame the discussion by focusing on the principle that a basic education is a human right.
But, these and other policy efforts need to be backed up with funds for program implementation. According to UNESCO, education accounts for just 2 percent of humanitarian aid - even though we know that education is the key to success in the other development areas of health, population growth, entrepreneurship, and environmental sustainability.
- Other non-governmental organizations, like the Campaign for Global Education-US, are coming together to support its coalition members' initiatives, like that of 10x10, which is developing a feature film on ten obstacles facing 10 girls in 10 countries as a way of illustrating the role education plays in development.
- GCE-US is working with 10x10 to advance a set of policy "asks" as part of an advocacy campaign to heighten awareness of education issues at home and abroad.
- Support is coalescing around efforts to enact Education for All legislation and also to funnel USAID funding through such multilateral funding institutions such as the Global Partnership for Education.
On a parallel track within the education community in the U.S., the NEA and AFT, representing the vast majority of educators in the U.S. are helping to revise a Lesson for All curriculum that will soon be mapped to the Common Core State Standards for U.S. teachers nationwide to use to when teaching about global issues, that uses the international state of education as a curriculum focus.
Similarly, youth-oriented organizations like School Girls Unite, Model 26, Results Educational Fund and New Global Citizen are mobilizing teachers and young people around the U.S. to call for the U.S. to be a leader in addressing education needs for all young people, regardless of where they are born.
At the core of all these initiatives is the need for trained teachers to introduce both basic principles of literacy and numeracy, but also critical thinking and local/global citizenship skills.
- We need World-Class Teachers for world-class learning.
- Building schools and equipping them with materials and technology need to go hand-in-hand with hiring teachers in sufficient numbers and giving them the skills (technology, individualized and project-based learning, etc.) necessary to teach effectively so that students can learn the skills for success in our 21st century globalized world.
This is not an easy or inexpensive challenge.
We have seen in the U.S., for example, for every dollar spent on computer hardware, schools need to allocate considerably more for professional development for teachers to gain the skills needed to use them effectively in the classroom.
Teachers, like all professionals, need on-going professional development to upgrade skills and methodologies. However, unlike other professionals (doctors, dentists, pharmacists, etc.) there is no easy way in many countries to recoup that training through fees paid by the users of the professions' services.
In looking at post-2015 global education goals and benchmarks, governments must be ready to allocate the funds needed for sufficient numbers of teachers to be hired to ensure a manageable class size.
- Class sizes internationally in low-income countries can often exceed 75, or even 100 students, particularly after countries eliminate school fees and open their doors to all young people.
- For a fascinating look at Kenya as a case study, see the feature length film: "The First Grader."
- A prominent newspaper in Kampala, Uganda reported in July 2012 that some classrooms in that country have up to 180 students. While class size is not the sole factor in students receiving a quality education, attention to individualized learning needs is simply not possible in such situations.
- World Class Teachers need a professional setting in which they and their students can succeed.
As countries look at how they are to assess student learning in a quality education, teachers will also need professional development on how to go beyond simple examinations to measure ability to read sentences (as important as literacy is).
They will also need to learn from others how to measure what may well be new areas of learning, such as critical thinking, empathy, collaboration, civic engagement, and others. This too will require teachers who have new skills and measurement techniques and rubrics in all parts of the globe - and therefore, additional professional development - to enable them to be World Class Teachers.
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