Grants/ School Party Kicks Off U.S. Senator Tom Udall's Visit

 

By Bob Tenequer

Cibola Beacon Staff Writer

October 16, 2012

 

 Mornings in Washington, D.C., U.S. Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) invites his constituents to his office for coffee. On Oct. 12, the tables were turned, when students in a fourth grade class at Mesa View Elementary School invited the Senator to a morning "smoothie" party. The smoothie party took place at the Future Foundations Family Center (FFFC). The students were the winners in the "Walk and Roll to School" day, having a 100 percent participation in the event. By winning the event the class was awarded a "smoothie" party with the Senator. Douglas (Buddy) Scott led the class in a formal toast to the Senator.

 

Jesse Chavez, a student, asked the Senator, "What made you want to become a Senator?" Sen. Udall replied, "I wanted to make the world a better place."

• He told the class that he first went to Washington, D.C. when he was in the first grade, when his father was elected to Congress from Arizona during President John F. Kennedy's administration in the sixties.
• "Never let anything hold you back, even though there may be bumps in the road," the Senator advised the students. "Don't give up and you will get there." "Promise me one thing," the Sen. Udall asked all of the students. "That all of you will continue to exercise and eat healthy."

Fourth grade teacher, Theresa Ratliff, said, "I was impressed by his sincerity and graciousness in talking with all the students. It was a wonderful experience. All the children said the Senator was inspiring."

 

After the smoothie party the Senator Udall toured the FFFC and was moved by the story of 12-year-old Crystal LaPierre, who was brutally murdered in 1993. The killing provided a sobering wake-up call to the community to provide a safe place for youth to gather. The Senator was impressed on how this tragic event brought the community together to build a facility for the children and families of the community.

 

The Senator then took a short walk to the school and participated in the groundbreaking ceremonies of the Pre-K Developmental playground. The playground will be completed in November. Mike O'Connell, principal, said the cost of playground equipment was around $72,000.

 

After leaving the leaving the school, Senator Udall attended a luncheon at the Cibola County Democratic headquarters in Grants on Santa Fe Avenue.

 

The Senator then visited to New Mexico State University-Grants' campus to meet with college staff and to tour the engineering classroom/lab and the Adult Basic Education classroom. President Felicia Casados expressed to the Senator that the county doesn't generate enough revenue to make improvements to the campus because of a low property tax base.

 

Senator Udall mentioned that some of the counties in the state are eligible for Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) funds. PILT funds typically pay for services such a police, fire protect, housing, social services, and transportation.

 

Jonathan Hebert, engineering faculty member, gave the senator a tour of the new engineering lab. Hebert expressed that is lab is designed to get away from the lectured centered classroom to a project-oriented classroom that works with community and regional cultures. Hebert showed the Senator a mechanical device that converts kitchen oil waste into bio-diesel.

• "The STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) areas are tremendously important," said Udall.

Thomas McGaghie, NMSU-Grants' Basic Adult Education Department informed the Senator that the program had the second largest graduating class in Cibola County, graduating 61 students. McGaghie told the senator that he is very concerned about the changes that are going into effect in 2014 regarding the GED test.

 

He also visited the nursing program classroom at the branch and met with Cibola General Hospital, CEO Mike Makosky, who explained the benefits of the collaboration between the hospital and the university's nursing program.

• The Senator said, "When it comes to nursing and healthcare, that is a area we really need to focus on."

Senator Udall spoke about the benefits of having a university presence in a rural community.

• "When universities really sink their roots into small communities they play an important part in building that community," he noted. "I really think that the rural communities are the heart and soul of New Mexico," said Udall. "I spend a lot of my time and my staff's time trying to understand what you need and what you want."

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Santa Fe/ Santa Fe Community College Receives $1 Million Federal Funding for YouthBuild

 

The Associated Press

Alamogordo Daily News

October 16, 2012

 

Santa Fe Community College is creating a new program to teach green building skills to at-risk youth.

 

SFCC says it has received $1 million from the U.S. Department of Labor to set up the program.

 

Officials say the program, which is part of a national alternative education effort called YouthBuild, will provide education and training to 60 disadvantaged Santa Fe County youth over a three-year period.

 

While the youth will be learning new skills and earning the equivalent of a high school diploma, community college officials say they will also be building healthier, affordable homes with cheaper operating costs.

 

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Santa Fe/ EDITORIAL: Starting Reform at the Top

 

The New Mexican

October 15, 2012

 

Superintendent Joel Boyd isn't wasting time in his charge to help reform the Santa Fe Public Schools. First up is his discussion about how best to structure secondary education, with a focus on what is happening at the city's two high schools - Santa Fe and Capital.

 

Tonight, Boyd will discuss a proposal to set up a ninth-grade academy and a multi-career pathways high school for grades 10-12, which would essentially mean the city would return to having one all-purpose high school. (The discussion will be before the Board of Education at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Educational Services Center on Alta Vista Street.)

 

All of this is preliminary, of course, but we think Boyd's focus on high school education is smart. After all, fixing the dropout rate is perhaps his biggest challenge. With Santa Fe's graduation rate at 56.5 percent, it is clear that the district might need to make changes at how high school education is delivered.

 

We won't venture an opinion on whether this is the way forward - it's too preliminary.

• But we do like the notion of ninth-graders in a separate school, so long as they are given extra help and support to succeed in high school. In addition to providing a cocoon for them to transition into high school life, a ninth-grade academy would unite all parts of the city.
• We also like a high school that focuses on preparation for life, whether that be college or work. All students should be prepared for college; but we also know that many young people will be going to work, and high school should help them prepare for decent jobs. There's no shame in wanting to be a carpenter instead of a doctor. High school can help prepare young people for whatever career they want.

We also hope, as the discussion moves forward, that more attention is paid to increasing choices for high school students within the public schools.

 

A student who wants to fast track should be able to graduate early; students uncomfortable in traditional classes need other opportunities. Rather than thinking of reform as consolidation of the two high schools, we hope to see a restructuring of high school that supports student goals, whatever they might be. We look forward to hearing more details and to a vigorous debate on what high school should be in this new century.

 

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Washington DC/ States Punch Reset Button Under NCLB

Many revise subgroup goals

 

By Michele McNeil

Education Week, Vol. 32, Issue 8 [Edweek.org]

October 16, 2012

 

Given the flexibility to revise their academic goals under the No Child Left Behind Act, a vast majority of the states that received federal waivers are setting different expectations for different subgroups of students, an Education Week analysis shows. That marks a dramatic shift in policy and philosophy from the original law.

 

The waivers issued by the U.S. Department of Education let states abandon the goal of 100 percent proficiency in reading and mathematics for all students and instead hold schools accountable for passing rates that vary by subgroup-as long as those schools make significant gains in closing gaps in achievement.

 

The leeway to set the new academic goals tacitly acknowledges that the 100 percent goal is unrealistic. But it also means that members of racial and ethnic minorities, English-language learners, and students with disabilities will fail to master college- and career-readiness standards by the end of the 2016-17 school year at greater rates in most waiver states.

 

Offered the new flexibility, only eight states-Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Oregon-set the same targets for all students, according to the Education Week analysis of the 34 new state accountability plans. (Wisconsin has the same goal in 2017 for all students, but sets different targets until then.)

 

"The big benefit of NCLB was always that the goals were the same for all subgroups and all schools. I'm not sure we are even beginning to understand what the implications are for what the [federal] department has allowed," said Candace Cortiella, the director of the Advocacy Institute, a Marshall, Va.-based group that works on behalf of students with disabilities. Her group has fought against varying expectations spelled out in her state's waiver plan.

 

"I think it is sending a bad message," Ms. Cortiella said.

 

Although virtually all observers agree now that the NCLB law's demand of 100 percent proficiency for all students is unworkable, many also say the message was important-that schools should be able to get all students to achieve at grade level in math and reading within 12 years after the law took effect. Now, the message is different, and seemingly more realistic: Academic goals can vary, even by subgroup, as long as states significantly close achievement gaps.

 

Among the examples of the new goals:

• In the District of Columbia, by the end of the 2016-17 school year, the goal for reading is 70 percent proficiency among black students and 94 percent among white students.
• In Georgia, the goal for elementary and middle school math is 79 percent proficiency for students with disabilities and 92 percent for the all-student average.
• In New Jersey, the goal for math proficiency for English-learners is 73 percent; for white students, it's 93 percent.

"We never and won't intend this to be the end of the journey. This is what people are supposed to do in five years," said Amy Wilkins, the vice president for government affairs and communications of the Education Trust, a Washington-based group that advocates on behalf of disadvantaged children.

 

Her group, which supports that element of the waivers, studied schools with the biggest academic gains and determined that expecting schools to cut the achievement gap in half was both realistic and ambitious.

 

"We want more growth for the kids who are furthest behind," she said.

 

Wave of Flexibility

President Barack Obama announced plans for the waivers last year as Congress continued to stall in rewriting the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, whose latest version, NCLB, was signed into law by President George W. Bush in January 2002. Now, 33 states and the District of Columbia have won flexibility in meeting parts of the law, and 11 other states have waiver applications pending.

 

The waivers require states to:

• adopt standards for ensuring students are college- and career-ready, and
• tie state tests to those standards;
• adopt differentiated accountability systems that focus on 15 percent of the most troubled schools; and
• craft guidelines for teacher and principal evaluations that will be based partly on students' academic growth and be used for personnel decisions.

In return, states will no longer have to face the law's deadline, the end of the 2013-14 school year, for bringing all students to proficiency in reading and math; their schools will no longer face sanctions for not making adequate yearly progress, or AYP; and districts will be freer to move around their federal Title I money for disadvantaged students.

 

States also got to reset their "annual measurable objectives," or AMOs, which previously had to escalate each year until they hit 100 percent at the end of 2013-14 for all students. One of the hallmark pieces of the NCLB accountability system was that all students-including smaller groups of students at risk academically-were expected to achieve grade-level proficiency, and schools were held accountable if they didn't.

• "The fact is, many educators didn't take NCLB seriously because it assumed all children start from the same place and learn at the same rate. That's just not reality," U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington earlier this month.
• "Personally, I am less concerned about performance targets and goals," he said, "than I am about getting results-and at the end of the day, the result that matters most is whether kids are learning and gaps are narrowing."

Under the waivers, states had three options in resetting their annual goals for each subgroup in reading and math:

• to reduce the achievement gap between subgroups of at-risk students and all students by half within six years;
• to achieve 100 percent proficiency for all subgroups by 2020; or
• some "other" state-designed method that was just as rigorous as the first option.

Only Arizona set its goal at 100 percent proficiency by 2020, according to the Education Week analysis. Eleven states picked the first option, which necessarily requires setting different performance goals for different groups of students. The rest picked the "other" method and designed their own AMOs-most of which also set varying goals among the subgroups.

• "Of course it bothers me," President Obama said in an NBC News interview last month when he was asked about whether it was acceptable to set different goals for different groups of students.
• "One of the good things about No Child Left Behind was to say all kids can learn," Mr. Obama said. "Black, white, Hispanic, doesn't matter. That everybody should be able to achieve at a certain level.
• "But the problem that you had was, because it was under-resourced," he said, "and because some kids were coming into school, a lot of minority kids were coming into school, already behind, the schools were not going to be meeting these standards, weren't even coming close to meeting these standards."

In Nevada, the state set reading goals that range from 81 percent proficiency in elementary school to 99 percent proficiency in high school. The trajectory for math is similar. And, state education department officials note, the goals are the same for all students.

"We don't have any need to distinguish among the subgroups. They all have got to come up," said James W. Guthrie, the state's superintendent of public instruction. "We have to push up our expectations for all students."

 

The waivers also changed one other aspect of the AMOs: their role in state accountability systems. The law used AMOs as the main driver that would determine which schools, and students, received interventions. Now, the waivers allow the AMO to take a back seat to states' tailor-made accountability systems.

 

At least 10 states are using A-F or five-star grading systems, which, for the most part, determine how schools fare.

 

That's potentially a problem, said Ms. Wilkins of the Education Trust. "You could set really aggressive AMOs, but if they don't determine schools' status or rewards, what impact does that have?" she asked.

 

'Safe Harbor' Provision

Federal policy experts note that NCLB had a built-in escape hatch from universal goals for all students called "safe harbor." That provision allowed schools to make adequate progress on their goals-even if one or more of their subgroups didn't hit the AMOs-as long as those subgroups showed a certain amount of growth.

 

One of the biggest problems with the new waiver plans is the messaging, or "optics," said Maria Ferguson, the director of the Center on Education Policy, based at George Washington University in Washington.

 

"The 100 percent-that just sounded wonderful," she said. "But we saw what came of it. There's that fine line between wonderful and realistic."

 

Walking that fine line is proving tricky-even for the advocacy groups that want to see significant improvement among students deemed at risk of academic failure.

 

"On one hand, there's so much evidence that if we set the same high expectations, that students will meet them or come farther than we think they can," said Lindsay E. Jones, the senior director for policy and advocacy services at the Arlington, Va.-based Council for Exceptional Children. "On the other hand, we were faced with this 100 percent. That doesn't make sense. It led people to play with the numbers."

 

In Virginia, which saw the biggest uproar so far over new AMOs, civil rights groups protested what they saw as low expectations for racial minorities and students with disabilities, and for what they viewed as an inattention to closing achievement gaps.

 

"We are deeply concerned when performance standards are not equal across the board," the Virginia State Conference of the NAACP said in a statement once Virginia's AMOs were released in August.

 

The state is now revising its AMOs so that schools must achieve 73 percent proficiency for all students by 2017.

 

"AMOs were never meant as aspirational goals for different subgroups," said Charles Pyle, a state education department spokesman.

 

But there's a bigger problem with the waivers than the message, argues Sandy Kress, a lawyer in Austin, Texas, who as an education aide to President Bush helped craft the NCLB law in 2001. The law's goal was to get students to basic, grade-level proficiency, Mr. Kress said, not to mastery of new college- and career-readiness standards.

 

"Why, after 12-plus years, can't we expect virtually all of our children to achieve at a basic level?" said Mr. Kress.

 

Changing the focus to college and career readiness standards lets states off the hook for getting over that grade-level bar, he said.

 

"You have to walk before you can run. If a student can't perform at the old, lower level, how can we teach them to a higher level?"

Mr. Kress said. "That's why the old goals were good ones."

 

Achievement-Goal Scorecard

The U.S. Department of Education is allowing states that receive waivers under the No Child Left Behind Act to set different goals for different groups of students so long as they cut the achievement gap in half, at a minimum. Some, but not all, waiver states have taken that flexibility. New goals have some states set for the end of the 2016-17 school year and how they vary by subgroup include:

States setting goals that vary by subgroup for cutting the achievement gap in half:

• Delaware

Goals include: 74.7 percent proficiency in English-language arts for black students, 70.7 percent of English-learners, and 87.3 percent of white students.

• District of Columbia

Goals include: 94 percent proficiency in math for white students, 77 percent for Hispanic students, and 71 percent for black students.

• Georgia

Goals include: 98 percent proficiency in reading for white students in elementary and middle grades, 94 percent for black students, and 95 percent for Hispanic students.

• Minnesota

Goals include: 82 percent proficiency in 11th grade math for white students, 62 percent for black students, and 66 percent for Hispanic students.

• Mississippi

Goals include: 90 percent proficiency in reading/language for white students, 85 percent for Hispanic students, and 80 percent for black students.

• New Jersey

Goals include: 93 percent proficiency in math for white students, 78 percent for black students, and 83 percent for Hispanics.

• North Carolina

Goals include: 91 percent proficiency in reading for white students in grades 3-8, 79 percent for low-income students, and 70 percent of students with disabilities.

• Utah

Goals include: 76 percent proficiency in math in grades 3-8 for black students, 91 percent for white students, and 83 percent for low-income students.

 

States setting goals that are the same for all students:

• Nevada

Goals include: 81 percent proficiency in elementary-school reading and 89 percent in elementary-school math.

• Wisconsin

Goals include: 50 percent proficiency in reading and 65 percent in math.

 

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, individual state waiver applications

 

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Washington DC/ Are You Tech-Ready for the Common Core?

 

By Michelle R. Davis [Education Week Assistant Editor Catherine Gewertz contributed to this article]

Education Week, Vol. 32, Issue 8 [Edweek.org]

October 16, 2012

 

School districts are raising concerns about their ability to be technologically ready to give Common Core State Standards assessments to students online in two years. Administrators say they remain uncertain about the types of devices to buy, the bandwidth they need, and the funding available for technology improvements.

 

An initial round of data collection launched to determine technology gaps for schools preparing for the common-core online assessments has so far had limited participation from districts and many states. And state and national education groups are detecting a rising level of anxiety among school and district leaders regarding the technology they feel is necessary to implement online testing by the 2014-15 deadline.

 

Some districts "are panicked about getting ready for it, but some are not even in a place where they know enough to be panicked yet," says Ann Flynn, the director of educational technology for the Alexandria, Va.-based National School Boards Association. "I won't say they're in denial, but it's going to be a real challenge for a lot of districts."

• Superintendent Kaylin Coody of Oklahoma's 1,800-student Hilldale school system says her district doesn't have the staff or technology it will need to implement the common-core assessments. For example, though the district's elementary school has 400 students, the building has only 43 computers.
• "With the current financial constraints facing Oklahoma public schools, I do not see how most of us will be able to provide adequate hardware and prepare staff to manage the level of testing being planned, especially in a short testing window," Coody writes in an e-mail.

The vast majority of states have adopted the new standards in English/language arts and mathematics and have also signed on to provide online testing under the standards starting in the 2014-15 school year.

 

Two consortia received federal funding to create online tests; both intend to use technology for interactive test questions, simulations, new graphics, and faster exam results.

 

The two groups-the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC-are also in the process of sketching out the technology standards schools will need for the assessment process.

 

Both consortia have released some technology guidelines that call for having specific technologies in place, such as computing devices that have at least 1 gigabyte of computer memory, a screen display size of 9.5 inches or greater, and access to the Internet.

 

Thin on Tech. Data

But a free, Web-based Technology Readiness Tool-introduced earlier this year to collect information about the types of technology schools and districts now have-has not gathered as much data as the consortia had hoped.

 

At a meeting in early August of the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policy for the federally sponsored National Assessment of Educational Progress, Jeff Nellhaus, PARCC's director of assessment, reported that only 36 percent of schools in the states backing his coalition responded to the first round of the survey, which closed July 15.

 

Joe Willhoft, the executive director of Smarter Balanced, said his consortium had "thin results" as well.

 

According to the consortia, 32 states and the District of Columbia each submitted information on five or more schools. About 25,000 schools submitted comprehensive information about their technology status. The two consortia have a combined 44 states and the District of Columbia as members.

 

A low response rate to the survey of schools' current technology profiles could point to a lack of infrastructure and the ability to assemble the technology data, some observers say.

 

However, Tony Alpert, the chief operating officer for Smarter Balanced, cautions that it was just the first of several rounds of data collection, and that the two coalitions expect to collect significantly more information. "We're limiting the conclusions we make based on the data," he says.

 

The consortia released few findings from the initial round of data-gathering, but did say that computer memory capacity, or RAM, does not appear to be a problem for most schools responding to the survey, and that neither does screen size of computer devices. Most districts are using desktops and laptops or netbooks, although the use of tablets is growing, Alpert says.

• Louisiana, though, took the data collection one step further. With the information collected through the readiness tool, the parameters provided by the consortia, and the state's own estimates of how long the testing window is likely to be and how many hours the testing may take, Louisiana estimated schools would need a 7-to-1 ratio of students to devices.

The state found its schools have 197,898 devices available for online testing, but only 67,038 met new device standards, which excluded machines using Windows XP, for example, since Microsoft has said it plans to stop supporting the program. Only five districts met the minimum device-readiness requirements, and only two districts met both the device- and network-readiness guidelines for online testing, says Carol Mosley, the K-12 E-rate director and a management consultant for the Louisiana Department of Education.

 

But Mosley says she's working closely with districts and feels confident that small upgrades and investments will put many more schools in the "ready" category. The state is also being creative about helping districts find refurbished devices to purchase, grouping districts together for buying power, and pushing districts to share technology know-how.

 

The districts "don't have to depend just on the state. They can rely on each other, too," Mosley says. "We're all in this boat together."

 

'Source of Anxiety'

The reality is there's a vast range of common-core technology readiness among states.  Some already do their state assessments online; others still use paper and pencil.  And some states have collected significant data on schools' technology profiles, while others have not.

• Georgia, for example, already had a statewide technology survey in place and submitted that information through the readiness tool. The state offers districts the ability to administer state assessments online, though many haven't done so.

"Some districts haven't dipped their toe into online testing, and they are really, really hesitant," says Melissa Fincher, Georgia's associate superintendent for assessment and accountability. "There are so many unknowns about the [common core] assessment. We know there's going to be a deficit, but we don't yet know where we stand."

• In neighboring Tennessee, the assistant commissioner for curriculum and instruction, Emily Barton, predicts that inadequate bandwidth and devices will be two big technology problems for schools.

"Overall, this is definitely a source of anxiety for everyone in the country, not just Tennessee," she says.

 

Since schools still do not know how long the common-core tests will take to administer, it's hard to determine the number of devices that might be needed.

 

"There are many answers that are not yet firm, so we can't easily fix on the number of devices we're going to need," she says.

• Some of those uncertainties are causing problems for school districts in South Dakota, says Jim Holbeck, the superintendent of the state's 3,000-student Harrisburg district, who is also president of the School Administrators of South Dakota and the South Dakota School Superintendents Association. Schools still aren't sure which devices to buy, but want to make sure students are familiar with using those devices well before they have to take the online common assessments, he says.

"Our fear is, are we going to have a test that accurately shows what our kids know, or will the results be unreliable because the kids are taking it in a different format?" he says.

 

In addition, bandwidth is a huge concern for districts, Holbeck says. The state provides a minimum level of bandwidth, he adds, "but if we want more, we have to pay for it," and school budgets have little extra money.

• In Washington state, Raj Manhas, the superintendent of the 14,000-student North Thurston schools, says districts must turn to the voters for approval on tax levies for technology purchases. Twice in recent years, voters have rejected technology levies for his district.

A general fund levy was approved, however, and Manhas is using part of that money to buy new devices for the common core. But he's concerned about the "technology gap" between districts that serve wealthier communities and districts with lower-income families.

 

While he fully supports the concept of common standards, Manhas says that "sometimes when national policies are made, the corresponding resources are not planned for."

 

Readiness Questions to Ask

• What are your digital-conversion planning objectives and how will they support implementing the common core and preparing for the new college- and career-ready assessments?
• Have you developed a phased plan for improved access that incorporates textbook and open-resources savings?
• What resources can be reallocated to support deployment? What savings can be secured through adoption of digital resources?
• Have you supported adoption of blended-learning models that leverage teacher talent?

SOURCE: Digital Learning Now!

 

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Columbus OH/ State Auditor: School Districts' Data Scrubbing Driven by "Mal-Intent"

 

By Jackie Zubrzycki

October 15, 2012

 

As the investigation into attendance-data tampering in Ohio's school districts continues, Ohio's state Auditor David Yost has said that his interviews have led him to believe there was "mal-intent" on the part of some school and district officials, The Columbus Dispatch reports.

 

As reported this summer, school officials in several Ohio school districts withdrew and then re-enrolled students with poor attendance records, which means those students' test scores didn't "count" for schools' performance report cards.

• Earlier this month, the auditor released an interim report that found "questionable" practices in the Cleveland, Marion County, Columbus City, Toledo, and Campbell City school districts.
• The situation in each district was slightly different. In Toledo, for instance, unenrolling students who had more than five unexcused or 20 excused absences marked a return to an old policy; in Cleveland, there was no clear documentation of the actions.

The report does not establish malicious intent from the districts. Yost told the Associated Press at the time that "the kind of work we've done here is necessary to support a criminal prosecution, but it's not sufficient." But in last week's conversation with the Columbus board, he said he thought there was evidence that at least some of those involved did intentionally tamper with the data.

 

Officials from Columbus changed their explanation last week, after the auditor gave his interim report.

• Columbus school officials had initially said they were not aware school officials were changing attendance records, but now echo their counterparts in Toledo, saying they were confused by state guidance on when to withdraw students who've been regularly absent. This shift in Columbus's argument came after Yost said that criminal investigations for data tampering would likely depend on the intent of the adjustments.

The Dispatch reports that Yost said arguing that the tampering is due to confusion about the state's policy on when to withdraw students is "'to strain at gnats and swallow camels'-or to fuss about trifles while ignoring more serious issues."

 

The next report should come out late next week, and will examine attendance data in districts with school funding levies on the ballot in this fall's election, according to Carrie Bartunke, a spokeswoman for the auditor's office.

 

The final report is slated to be released at the beginning of the new year, and will likely go farther in establishing the intent of the officials involved. The Dispatch reports that Yost was encouraging the districts to begin to improve their attendance policies now.

 

The interim report recommends that the state create independent oversight of districts' attendance data, saying that there's a conflict of interest now:

• Districts are responsible for reporting their data, but also have an interest in making sure their data is presented in the best possible light.
• The current reporting system allows districts to see a projected report card score when they submit their data, which could then lead them to choose to "scrub" data to improve that score.
• To discourage that from happening, the auditor's report recommends that districts not have access to the projected score.

Yost has also been advocating for the state to have access to individual students' data. The current system, which divorces student traits like name and age from the identifying student number, aims to protect students' privacy but can lead to confusion-and, Yost says, has hampered his investigation.

 

Some of the Ohio schools involved do receive financial incentives for improvement or high performance on the tests, according to the interim report, though it does not say which ones.

 

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Denver CO/ Denver: Fastest Growing Large Urban School District in US

 

By Karen Auge

The Denver Post [Colorado Classroom covers local and state education issues affecting K-12 and higher education students in the state

October 15, 2012

 

Enrollment in Denver Public Schools has grown 14 percent over the past five years, making it the fastest-growing large urban district in the country, the district reports.

 

DPS figures show its student population has grown by 10,300, since 2007, to 84,131 students.

 

Superintendent Tom Boasberg attributed the growth partly to the influx of new students from growing neighborhoods like Stapleton, and partly to Denver schools getting better.

• "Clearly the schools are benefitting from the city being a more attractive place to live and as part of virtuous cycle, more and more people are coming to live in the city because the schools are much better," Boasberg said.

The gains came during a period in which many of the largest urban districts experienced double-digit declines in student population, according to numbers compiled by the Council for Great American Schools. The council's data show DPS outgrew the 67 other districts it tracked.

 

The state still ranks the district in its lowest performing category. But, Boasberg said, in the most recent round of standardized tests DPS scored the greatest achievement growth of any of the state's largest districts.

 

The district is perhaps proudest of its gains in middle school. Just a decade ago, a child entering sixth grade was often a signal for a family to high tail it out of the city and into the suburbs.

 

Between 2002 and 2007, middle school enrollment declined by 1,300 students, or 8 percent, in Denver.

 

Contrast that to the most recent five-year period, when middle school enrollment grew by 16.5 percent.

 

The improvement in middle schools, and the middle school choices that keep families in the district result from a two-pronged approach of investing in improvements for neighborhood schools and "at same time welcoming and encouraging high performing new schools, both district-run and charter," he said.

 

In addition, Boasberg said ninth-grade enrollment has jumped 60 percent in the far northeast area of the city, including the Montbello and Green Valley Ranch neighborhoods. Those areas have benefited from an influx of capital and effort to transform what had been poor schools, closing some and reinventing others.

 

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Longmont CO/ Seeking Aid, School Districts Change Teacher Evaluations

 

By Motoko Rich

New York Times

October 15, 2012

 

In an exercise evoking a corporate motivation seminar, a group of public school teachers and principals clustered around posters scrawled with the titles of Beatles songs. Their assignment: choose the one that captured their feelings about a new performance evaluation system being piloted in their district.

 

Jessicca Shaffer, a fifth-grade teacher in this suburban community northeast of Boulder, joined the group assembled around "Eight Days a Week." (Other options: "We Can Work It Out" and "Help!")

• "If we truly had 52 weeks of school a year, we still would not have enough time to do everything we have to do," Ms. Shaffer said, sounding a common note of exasperation. "I am supersaturated."
• An elementary school literacy coach wondered whether the evaluations would produce anything other than extra paperwork. "Are they going to be giving us true feedback?" she asked. "Or are they just going to be filling out a form?"

The teachers and administrators, who gathered last month in the boardroom of the St. Vrain Valley School District for a daylong training session on evaluating teachers through classroom observations, echoed anxieties that are rippling through faculty lounges across the nation.

 

Fueled in part by efforts to qualify for the Obama administration's Race to the Top federal grant program or waivers from the toughest conditions of No Child Left Behind, the Bush-era education law, 36 states and the District of Columbia have introduced new teacher evaluation policies in the past three years, according to the National Center on Teacher Quality, a nonprofit research and advocacy group. An increasing number of states are directing districts to use these evaluations in decisions about how teachers are granted tenure, promoted or fired.

 

Proponents say that current performance reviews are superficial and label virtually all teachers "satisfactory." "When everyone is treated the same, I can't think of a more demeaning way of treating people," Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education, said in a telephone interview. "Far, far too few teachers receive honest feedback on what they're doing."

 

So far, attention has focused mainly on one element of the new evaluation systems, the requirement that districts derive a portion of a teacher's rating from student performance on standardized tests. Anger over the use of test results exploded during the strike by the Chicago Teachers' Union last month. But most of the new state policies also include a component based on classroom observations by principals, peers or outside evaluators.

 

Advocates of the new evaluations, including Secretary Duncan, have repeatedly emphasized the importance of professional reviews including "multiple measures" of performance.

 

During the St. Vrain seminar, officials from the Colorado Department of Education walked administrators and teachers through a model rubric for classroom observations that the Education Department had developed to guide principals in assessing teachers. At 24 pages, the rubric serves as a checklist of broad ideals, asking whether a teacher "motivates students to make connections to prior learning" or "provides instruction that is developmentally appropriate for all students."

 

The new Colorado evaluation system was developed in response to a 2010 bill requiring that all principals, teachers and other licensed school staff be reviewed annually.

• Half of a teacher's score is determined by student achievement on a range of tests;
• the other half is based on an evaluation of "professional practice" - what can be observed in class as well as gleaned from lesson plans and other instructional materials.

Even those who are skeptical about the value of using test scores to rate teachers say that classroom observations, done well, can help teachers improve.

 

"It can be very powerful and it is more stable and reliable" than measures that look at test scores, said Linda Darling-Hammond, an education professor at Stanford University. But, she added, "one of the big challenges we have is to create systems that are manageable, doable and not overwhelming."

 

For teachers, the biggest fear is that a poor evaluation could lead to job loss.

 

Under the new Colorado law, teachers can be rated highly effective, effective, partially effective or ineffective. Starting in the 2014-15 school year, anyone who receives an "ineffective" or "partially effective" rating for two consecutive years will be stripped of the state's equivalent of tenure status, said Katy Anthes, the executive director of educator effectiveness at the state Education Department. To qualify for tenure, a new teacher must be rated at least "effective" for three consecutive years.

 

During the St. Vrain training session, officials from the state Education Department sought to tamp down fears that the new evaluations were designed to weed out or shame underperforming teachers. "It is not about a 'gotcha' game," Mike Gradoz, a consultant with the department, told the teachers and principals. "It is about elevating the game so you get better at what you already do."

 

To help acquaint the principals and teachers with the state's rubric, Mr. Gradoz and another trainer walked them through a mock scoring exercise. In one case study, the phantom teacher earned a "partially proficient" rating for failing to establish a "safe, inclusive and respectful learning environment" and showing weak evidence of lesson planning.

 

Mr. Gradoz asked the group how they would respond to such a rating. Joe Mehsling, a veteran principal, got right to the point. "If it is a rookie, there is hope," he said. "If it is a veteran, time to start counseling out."

 

During a break, Mr. Mehsling said the new system - and the mandated consequences - would indeed make it easier for principals to fire low-performing teachers. "The elephant in the room that we are dancing around is the fact that public education has not done a good job on our own dismissing ineffective teachers," Mr. Mehsling said.

 

But, he added, such teachers represented only 1 or 2 percent of those in classrooms. The new systems, he said, could subject the best teachers to onerous observation and bureaucracy so that principals could justify firing a few bad eggs. "It is taking a sledgehammer where an ice pick would have been effective," he said.

 

Still, Mr. Mehsling said the new evaluation systems could result in more objective reviews. "I think it is going to be more work," he said. "But I think it is going to be more meaningful."

 

In that, he was joined by many principals and teachers at the training session.

 

"The current system has no rubric so it is harder to know what you are checking for," said Janis Hughes, a principal who attended the training.

 

The following day, Ms. Hughes, who has been the principal for more than a decade at Burlington Elementary, a diverse neighborhood school where about 41 percent of the students qualify for free and reduced-price lunches, dropped by to observe Brian Huey, a fourth-grade teacher.

 

Mr. Huey, who shaves his head and wears a tiny silver hoop in each ear, began by asking the children to define the word of the day: "disposition."

 

Quietly segueing into a math lesson, he wrote a multiplication word problem on a whiteboard. The students worked independently, and then Mr. Huey helped guide them through several strategies that would help them arrive at the right answer.

 

Next the class gathered on the rug for a review of geometry concepts. "What are the dimensions of that rectangle?" Mr. Huey asked one boy.

 

The boy paused. A girl who had piped up several times during the lesson was eager to showcase her knowledge again. "It is also known as a perimeter!" she blurted.

 

"Let's not cheat his thinking," Mr. Huey said gently.

 

Ms. Hughes, watching from the back of the room, noticed. "He engaged Janelle but did it in a respectful, nice way," she said. "But it also let her know she can't dominate the conversation."

 

Such observations, Ms. Hughes said, would easily fit into the state's model rubric. (Page 10: The teacher "ensures that all students participate with a high level of frequency.")

 

In general, Mr. Huey said, "when I looked over what the criteria are, they sound fair."

 

"It's just good teaching," he added.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

New York NY/ Alvin Roth: Man Behind City's High School Admissions Wins 2012 Economics Nobel Prize

 

By Lisa Fleisher

Reuters/Wall Street Journal

October 15, 2012

 

Signing up to attend high school, a seemingly mundane task, used to be a nerve-racking game of strategy for more than 90,000 New York City students.

 

The system was so complex, in fact, that the man who helped with its redesign was awarded a shared Nobel Memorial Prize in economic sciences on Monday for his work.

 

Before Alvin Roth and his team overhauled New York City high-school admissions in 2003, nervous eighth-graders would select up to five of the city's more than 500 high-school programs, send their preferences in the mail and wait.

• Principals would rake through applications. Some would only admit students who ranked their school as their first choice.
• Others were interested in kids with the highest test scores, while
• some principals thought good attendance was more important.

But that wasn't all. Schools had different admissions practices:

• some schools were open-admission,
• others gave priority to those who live nearby,
• some evaluated students individually and
• still other schools had quotas for accepting a certain number of high-, middle-, and low-scoring students.

In this first round of admissions, principals would send offers to about 50,000 students. Many students wouldn't get a single offer from any high school, while about 17,000 students received multiple offers, according to a paper Roth wrote in 2005. Students would accept an offer, and schools would go through another round of offers.

 

Many students would end up disappointed; about 30,000 would be automatically assigned to schools that weren't in their top five.

 

What Roth - who attended Martin Van Buren High School in Queens - and co-researchers Atila Abdulkadiroglu and Parag Pathak realized was that the system was congested. Too many kids were applying for too few spots, and vice versa; principals were competing for a sliver of the student population.

 

Savvy principals and families would try to game the system. Students would rank their true first choice second, while principals would secretly hold back slots and pretend they had fewer seats available.

 

The situation was so difficult, people would try to pull strings to get their children into school, said Eric Nadelstern, who retired from the city Department of Education in 2011 after about 40 years as a teacher, principal or administrator.

 

"It might be as legitimate as the family comes to see the superintendent and makes a compelling case, or as illegitimate as a politician calling in a favor for a particularly loyal constituent," Nadelstern said. "Both of those things happened regularly."

 

In 2003, the city decided enough was enough. Officials wanted to move toward a system that was centralized and more efficient. They asked Roth, whose specialty was non-traditional markets, and his colleagues to try to create a system similar to one they'd designed to match medical-school students to resident programs.

• They created an algorithm that would allow students to rank up to 12 schools.
• Then, a central clearinghouse for applications would match students to schools, based on multiple, internal rounds of application and acceptance.
• Instead of going through only one round of internal applications and rejections before making offers, the city would run an algorithm and try to get as many matches as possible between where the students wanted to go to school and which students the schools wanted to accept.

For fall 2004-2005 admissions, the first year the new system was in place, about 3,000 more students received one of their top five preferences than before. In addition, only 3,000 students were automatically assigned to a high school that wasn't on their original list. Most of the increase in matches, the economists said, was because students were allowed to list up to 12 preferred schools - up from five.

 

Even though the admissions process has been streamlined, critics say it's too stressful and confusing for students.

 

"If you go into a junior high school the day the [offer] letters come out, you'll see kids weeping in the hallways," said Clara Hemphill, editor of InsideSchools.org at The New School. "When you make the market systems more efficient, you're still going to have strong schools and weak schools."

 

Schools officials acknowledge that even the new process isn't going to please everybody.

 

"It is not perfect. It is not all things to all people. It can always improve," said Marc Sternberg, the city's deputy chancellor for portfolio planning, which oversees the mix of schools. "But [it's] categorically light years better than what we had before."