PSFA Daily News Digest

27 November 2012

www.nmpsfa.org 

Barbara Riley, Editor  ·  Email:  newsdigest@nmpsfa.org 

Santa Fe/ NM Land Office Earns $3.85 Million in November Lease Sale

The Associated Press

Alamogordo Daily News

November 27, 2012

This month's oil and natural gas lease sale has netted $3.85 million for the New Mexico Land Office.

The 29 parcels that were offered for lease in November were located in Lea, Eddy, San Juan and Chaves counties. The highest bid of $930,000 came from Ronald Miles of Roswell for 304 acres in Lea County.

The bids earned from the sale go directly to trust beneficiaries that include public schools, hospitals and universities.

The next lease sale will be Dec. 18 in Santa Fe.

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Santa Fe/ SFPS State of the Schools Address Notes Progress and Work to be Done 

By Steve Terrell

The New Mexican

November 26, 2012

Joel Boyd, who has been superintendent of Santa Fe Public Schools for less than four months, didn't pull many punches about the state of schools in the district.

"We know that under 50 percent of our students are proficient in literacy and less than 40 percent are proficient in math. Our graduation rate remains around 60 percent," he said at his "State of the Schools" address at the Capitol Rotunda on Monday.

• A new federal Department of Education study released Monday shows New Mexico's four-year graduation rate to be 63 percent.
• Only Nevada, Washington, D.C. and the Bureau of Indian Education had lower graduation rates.
• This is the first report in which all the states used a uniform rate calculation, making comparisons between them much more reliable.

"Our schools have made progress, but at this rate it will take more than 100 years to reach our goals of every child proficient," Boyd said. "If we do nothing different, we're bound to lose generation upon generation of students. I know, based upon conversations with this community, that's a reality that is unacceptable to every family and every member of this community."

But Boyd said he's optimistic. He said he's encouraged by what he's seen of school staff and community members that the goal of making Santa Fe Public Schools the highest performing district in the state is a possibility.

Boyd began his speech by looking at the bright side.

• He noted that Wood Gormley received an A under the state's new A to F rating system.
• It was one of 39 schools in the state to receive the top mark.
• "We're also proud to have nine schools that improved by at least one grade on the A to F system," Boyd said. (Four Santa Fe schools, however, dropped by a grade level between January and July.)

He also mentioned "career academies" established at Capital High School in which local businesses and professionals help teachers prepare courses for various career fields. Boyd said that 89 percent of the first students in the medical career academy are in college or working in the medical field.

Boyd said that unlike some school districts in the country, Santa Fe Public Schools views bilingual students as "an asset, not an obstacle." He praised school language programs in several schools as models for the district.

• He also talked about the Common Core Standards being implemented in Santa Fe schools - and all over the country. The new standards will assure a quality education for all students no matter what school they attend, Boyd said.
• And he spoke about overhauling the technology used in the classrooms. With the help of Apple, the district has been able to establish 22 "Apple classrooms," which use technology to enhance education, he said.

But Boyd said there are still areas that need more focus. While he lauded existing relationships with community organizations and private businesses, he said some have expressed frustration over coordination and lack of accountability in partnership programs.

Some community partners aren't sure their time and money are making a difference in the schools, he said, and, "I've been told that some of our larger national donors steer clear of Santa Fe and New Mexico. They don't believe we have a reform platform that can bring about change in our schools. I've been told that large companies are hesitant to come to Santa Fe because we don't have a strong public school system."

Boyd said he's been working with the Santa Fe Community Foundation, which is helping to coordinate more than 65 nonprofit groups to "develop a strategic use of community resources."

"We know that our teachers need a raise," he said. "They deserve a raise." Boyd said he's committed to raising teachers' salaries, but he has to be sure there are recurring funds to sustain pay increases. "I will not allow to happen here what happened in Oakland and other school districts, where the district went into a budget deficit because of lack of proper planning for staff raises."

He said one of the first things he did was establish a committee to work with the teachers union to identify possible revenue for wages. That panel will present its findings at the beginning of next year.

To help pay for teacher raises, Boyd suggested several steps that would require legislative action - action that probably won't come easy.

The state needs to change the school funding formula, Boyd said, so that the high cost of living in areas like Santa Fe is taken into consideration for allocating money to the schools. Some legislators have been trying to make such a change for years with no success.

He also said the state needs to keep the current rate at which the state taps money from interest on a state permanent fund for education. Currently that rate is 5.8 percent, but it's scheduled to go down to 5.5 percent next year - which will mean $35 million less for schools statewide - and to 5 percent in four years.

State Rep. Jim Trujillo, D-Santa Fe, who attended the speech, has tried to pass constitutional amendments to prevent the impending decrease, but hasn't been successful. He said the proposed Legislative Finance Committee budget might contain enough money to cushion the impact on the schools this year.

Boyd also called for legislative changes to allow mill levy funds to be used for building maintenance as well as construction. However, Sen. Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, who also attended the speech, said this would require a constitutional amendment.

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Santa Fe/ Superintendent Joel Boyd's State of the Schools Address: School District To See Changes

By T.S. Last

ABQ Journal Staff Writer

November 27, 2012 

Santa Fe Public Schools Superintendent Joel Boyd ended his first State of the Schools address Monday night with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous Letter from Birmingham Jail that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

Only in this context, the word "education" could be used in place of "justice."

Speaking before a crowd of about 100 mostly school district personnel at the Capitol rotunda, Boyd reflected on changes that have already occurred during his first four months on the job and what is yet to come.

• "Coming from outside offers an opportunity to view through a different lens," said Boyd, a Harvard-educated 33-year-old who came to Santa Fe after serving as assistant superintendent for the School District of Philadelphia.

But Boyd often referred to what he learned from people who have been involved in the school system - teachers, principals, parents and the students themselves - for providing him with a clearer picture of where the Santa Fe Public Schools district is and where it should be going.

Boyd began by emphasizing some positives:

• Nine of the district's schools improved at least one grade level on the state Public Education Department's A to F grading scale, and
• one school, Wood Gormley Elementary, ranked as one of the state's top-performing schools.
• He said he was encouraged by the work ethic of staff members districtwide and is confident that more successes are in store.

Boyd outlined some of the changes he's already started, including increasing efficiency and improving coordination within the district.

• Boyd said reorganizing the central office freed up $500,000 that can be redirected to classrooms, and a new method to evaluate schools by placing them in "achievement zones" will help the district allocate resources when and where they are needed.
• Technology needs an overhaul, Boyd said. Internal systems are being revamped; computers are being replaced in classrooms; and recently signed contracts with Apple Inc. and Staples are helping to keep costs in check, he said.

Boyd said he was encouraged by the number of organizations that have offered help and resources, among them Adelante, Warehouse 21, Santa Fe Community Foundation and the Hispano and Santa Fe chambers of commerce.

• "We look forward to continued partnerships in the community and in our schools," he said.

Through public forums, Boyd said, he learned from parents that there's a perception of inequality in how resources are allocated within the district. The biggest concern, he said, were barriers impeding Spanish-speaking students.

• "I want to make it very clear," he said, "that it is our belief that high-quality education is a civil right, regardless of race or socioeconomic status."
• Boyd said he considered bilingualism an asset for all students, providing greater opportunities in an increasingly globalized market.

The superintendent talked about the creation of a parent academy to provide parents with education in subject areas they desire, engaging parents and getting them more involved with the school district.

As for Santa Fe's teachers, who haven't received a raise in nearly five years, Boyd said he's committed to increasing their salaries, but it will take planning and careful analysis to not put the district at financial risk.

• "We know teachers need a raise; they deserve a raise," he said.

Boyd noted that one of the first things he did as superintendent was to form a competitive wage committee, whose findings will be included in a report due out early next year.

Boyd said the district is pursuing avenues to free up money that could be offered to teachers.

• He called for a change in the state's public schools funding formula, which he said doesn't take into consideration Santa Fe's high cost of living.
• Altering the formula to take into account the district's high minority population,
• tapping the permanent fund and
• advocating greater flexibility in funding during the upcoming legislative session were other ways the district could benefit, he said.

While Boyd said he had the support of local legislators, the reach would have to extend beyond Santa Fe for the measures to be passed.

Boyd said a lot of optimism surrounds Santa Fe schools, but there still is a long way to go. The fact that more than 50 percent of students were scoring below proficiency in state-mandated reading and math tests, and that only about 60 percent of the school's high school student graduate, is "unacceptable."

As he's said many times before, Boyd said there is no silver bullet to get the district to the standards it has set. It will take a collaboration of parents, teachers, principals and administrators to get it done.

• "Through hard and steady work, each day brings opportunity," he said.

Boyd's speech drew high marks from those in attendance.

"I thought it was exciting and inspiring," said George Donoho Bayless, who works as a substitute teacher for the district. "He's a dynamic leader now and I think will be even more so once he gets going."

Bayless added that he thought the parent academy was a great way to reach out to parents.

Bernice Garcia Baca, head of the local teachers union, said she believes that Boyd is committed to giving teachers a raise. She took issue, however, with his references to first-year teachers. It's not just about recruiting teachers, she said. Those, like her, who have worked in the district for decades cannot be ignored, she added.

Linda Besett, principal at Wood Gormley Elementary, said she loved Boyd's enthusiasm and vision.

"I definitely agree that Santa Fe must improve to the benefit of our boys and girls and prepare them for the future," she said.

Nava Elementary Principal Brenda Korting said she, too, was inspired.

"I'm hopeful. We're all hopeful. But it's not just hope; it'll also take a lot of hard work," she said. "There's an urgency to do that for students, and the students deserve it."

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Las Cruces/ Doña Ana County to Hear about Schools Spending Share of Spaceport Tax

Las Cruces Sun-News Report [Education excerpt]

November 26, 2012

Doña Ana County officials will hear updates Tuesday about how local schools are spending their share of a Spaceport America tax.

Officials from the Las Cruces Public Schools; the Gadsden Independent School District; and Hatch Valley Public Schools are slated to address the county commission at 9 a.m. Tuesday.

• The school districts each receive a portion of a 1/4 of 1 percent Spaceport America gross receipts tax that's in place in the county.
• Most of the voter-OK'd measure funds spaceport construction.
• But a portion is diverted to schools, with the aim of readying students in preparation for aerospace-related jobs.

The meeting is slated to happen at the Doña Ana County Government Center, 845 N. Motel Blvd.

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ABQ/ Citizen Schools Program Teaches Skills for 21st Century

By Patrick Lohmann

ABQ Journal Staff Writer

November 27, 2012  

As part of his after-school apprenticeships in stop-motion moviemaking, philanthropy and food journalism, 13-year-old Brian Robison was surprised to learn he had picked up other skills aimed at preparing him for college and beyond.

"I didn't realize I was listening actively," Robison said.

Robison, an eighth-grader at Van Buren Middle School, and about 75 of his peers spend three hours a day after school Monday through Thursday going over their homework with tutors or learning skills from experts in fields as diverse as ecology, cooking, rocket-building and rugby.

Active listening is one of the overarching, 21st century skills that teachers and volunteers hope to stress for all students.

The extended school day is part of the Citizen Schools program, which helps sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders become inspired about learning and gain necessary skills for the 21st century, Citizen Schools spokeswoman Holly Trippett said in a recent phone interview from her Boston office.

• The program spends $1,800 to $2,500 per student per semester, thanks to funding from Google, the Carnegie Foundation of New York and others, she said.
• At Van Buren, teachers, volunteer experts and Citizen Schools employees work to improve students' academic performance and make them passionate about potential careers.

"Being able to see their growth and improving their Cs and Ds to As and Bs is really rewarding," said Velina Chavez, Van Buren Citizen Schools campus director. "They've become master moviemakers, master rugby players, master scientists of the bosque."

In one Van Buren classroom recently, a group of students oohed and ahhed at a red-tailed hawk that the Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Program brought in as part the "Bosque Biology Bonanza" apprenticeship.

Next door, students sat in a dimly lit room and discussed the finer points of stop-motion films, sharing tips about how to prevent the camera tripod from wobbling too much between shots.

Down the hall, aspiring middle school chefs learned how to pronounce "Worcestershire" and marveled at the steaming pan of green chile chicken enchiladas they had prepared.

And outside, boys and girls ran through a rugby passing drill with help from local players, pausing to do four pushups.

"I think that sports is something you can carry through your entire life," rugby apprenticeship teacher Allegra Howell said. "Rugby really builds community."

About 350 students participate in Citizen Schools statewide, with two other programs at De Vargas Middle School in Santa Fe and the Mescalero Apache School on the Mescalero Apache Reservation.

In each of the apprenticeships, a program employee works alongside the experts to stress the objective of preparing students for college and the 21st century. The "21st century objectives" include active listening, communication, data analysis, technology and advanced literacy.

The Citizen Schools program began in Boston in 1995. A 2010 study of Boston middle school students found that participants had high school graduation rates of 71 percent, 12 percent higher than other students.

Citizen Schools didn't have data specific to New Mexico.

Before Robison began his after-school apprenticeships, he said he had difficulty speaking with adults and expressing his ideas. Since he's begun participating, Robison said he's become a better leader among his peers and has new career aspirations.

"I think being the president would be a good idea," Robison said. "When I told my brother that, he was amazed that I would set such a high goal."

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ABQ/ COLUMN: Gov. Susana Martinez Shows Support for Charter Schools

By Bruce Hegwer  [Executive director of the New Mexico Coalition for Charter Schools]

ABQ Journal

November 27, 2012  

I want to give Gov. Susana Martinez a big 'thank you" for attending the New Mexico Coalition for Charter Schools' 12th Annual Conference and addressing the attendees. The governor's appearance was a very pleasant surprise to nearly 500 charter school leaders and Governing Council members. Her speech to the group, which resulted in a rousing standing ovation, pledged her support of charter schools, their funding, and the creation of future quality charter school options for parents. Recognizing charter schools as an effective option for parents, Gov. Martinez presented several facts about charter schools using the new A-F grading system for schools:

• Four of the top 10 schools in New Mexico are charter schools;
• Forty schools in New Mexico earned an A. While comprising only 10 percent of the total number of schools, 10 of the 40 schools receiving an A were charter schools; and
• Charter schools closed the achievement gap between the lowest performing students and the highest performing students 20 percent faster than traditional schools.

While citing the successes of charter schools, the governor challenged the audience to continue to set even higher standards. She asked for charters to continue to be leaders in education reform and to challenge the status quo. The governor asked the attendees to join her in her efforts to improve education for students in New Mexico by supporting her reform initiatives.

By nature, charter schools, and the people who work in them, are reformers of education. Supporting initiatives aimed at improving education go hand-in-hand with the charter philosophy. Charters were created with the intent of changing the status quo. Thus, it makes sense for New Mexico charter leaders to embrace and support changes to an educational system that is rated among the lowest in the country.

Charters schools, like the governor's reform initiatives, started with the idea that with changes, improvement is possible. While success is not automatically guaranteed, reform is about taking a risk with the intent that trying something new, modifying that "something" along the way, and measuring the changes, that improvement will occur. What we do know is that if we do nothing, nothing will change.

Under the new A-F grading system for schools, four of the top 10 public schools in New Mexico are charter schools. The top ranking schools are:

• Southwest Intermediate Learning Center Charter,
• Alice King Community Charter School, and
• Albuquerque Institute of Math and Science in Albuquerque; and
• Sidney Gutierrez Middle Charter School in Roswell.

 Congratulations to these charter schools, and all the charter schools that are improving education in New Mexico, for "Making the Grade."

New Mexico charter schools are leading education reform in other ways as well.

• While Sandia High School is getting recognition for starting an International Baccalaureate diploma program,
• Cottonwood Classical Preparatory School, a tuition-free public charter school in Albuquerque, already has a successful IB diploma program.
• Other charter schools in New Mexico offering IB programs include: Corrales International,
• The International School at Mesa del Sol, New Mexico International School, and Cien Aguas.

Additionally at the 2012 Conference, there were seven awards given to distinguished charter school and community leaders:

• The Public Academy for Performing Arts (PAPA) was awarded the 2012 Charter School of the Year;
• The 2012 Charter School Student of the Year was Noel Encinas;
•  Ray Nance of The ASK Academy received the 2012 Charter School Teacher of the Year award;
• Cindy Montoya of the New Mexico School for the Arts received the award for 2012 Charter School Principal of the Year;
• Retiring Sens. Mark Boitano and Cynthia Nava, who have been instrumental in the creation and growth of charter schools in New Mexico, were presented with Distinguished Service Awards; and
• The 2012 Legislator of the Year Award was presented to Sen. John Sapien for his efforts to pass Senate Bill 446, requiring contracts between charter schools and the chartering authority.

Congratulations to these award winners for helping to reform education in New Mexico.

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ABQ/ OPINION: Separate Standards Mean Lower Expectations

By Leonard Pitts [Syndicated columnist]

ABQ Journal

November 27, 2012  

I take this one personally. Let me tell you why.

As I recall, I scored 960 on my SAT. This was good enough for second best in my class and many congratulations and backslaps from teachers and administrators.

Based on that, I thought I'd done pretty well.

So I'm in college, right? Freshman year, and I get to talking with my roommate, this white guy named Reed, about our SAT scores. Reed's kind of sheepish, finally confessing that he scored "only" about 1200.

That's when I realized I had not done pretty well.

I had done pretty well for a student of John C. Fremont High, in the poverty, crime and grime of South Los Angeles. I had done pretty well for a black kid.

As it happens, I started classes at the University of Southern California at 15 years of age, got good grades and came out four years later with my degree. So there was nothing wrong with my brain.

I've always suspected my modest SAT score and the fact that I was encouraged to celebrate it said less about me than about the expectations others had of me - and kids like me.

So yes, it touches me in a raw spot, this news that two states - Florida and Virginia - have adopted new education standards under which they would set different goals for students, based on race, ethnicity and disability.

Like many other states, Florida and Virginia requested waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act's unrealistic goal of having every child at grade level in reading and math by 2014. But these states used their waivers to create separate and unequal performance standards for their black, white, Hispanic, Asian and disabled children.

Last month, for example, Florida set a goal of having 86 percent of white kids at or above grade level in math by 2018. For black kids, the goal is 74 percent.

Virginia is wrestling with similar standards.

In fairness, both states would want you to know a couple of things.

First, that these dissimilar standards reflect the achievement gap, the fact that kids do not start toward the goal from the same place. Black kids may have to cover more ground to reach a lower benchmark because they are starting from further behind.

The second thing is that these are interim goals and the ultimate goal remains the same: close the achievement gap and educate every child to her fullest potential.

Understood.

But if that's what these standards are, can we talk for a moment about what they feel like?

The best analogy I can give you is based in the fact that some coaches and athletic directors have noted a steep decline in the number of white kids going out for basketball. They feel as if they cannot compete with their black classmates.

What if we addressed that by lowering the rim for white kids? What if we allowed them four points for each made basket?

Can you imagine how those white kids would feel whenever they took the court? How long would it be before they internalized the lie that there is something about being white that makes you inherently inferior when it comes to hoops, Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki notwithstanding?

Indeed, for all the talk about the so-called "reverse racism" of affirmative action, I have long argued that the real problem with it - and the reason it needs an expiration date - is that it might give African-American kids the mistaken idea they carry some inherent deficiency that renders them unable to compete with other kids on an equal footing.

We should be wary of anything, however well-intentioned, however temporary, which conveys that impression to our children.

I am proof we have been doing just that for a very long time. And it burns - I tell you this from experience - to realize people have judged you by a lower standard, especially when you had the ability to meet the higher one all along. So this "interim" cannot end soon enough.

Because ultimately, you do not fix education by lowering the bar. You do it by lifting the kids.

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Washington DC/ States Report New High School Graduation Rates Using More Accurate, Common Measure

U.S. Department of Education Press Release

November 26, 2012

The U.S. Department of Education released data today detailing state four-year high school graduation rates in 2010-11 - the first year for which all states used a common, rigorous measure.

The varying methods formerly used by states to report graduation rates made comparisons between states unreliable, while the new, common metric can be used by states, districts and schools to promote greater accountability and to develop strategies that will reduce dropout rates and increase graduation rates in schools nationwide.

The new, uniform rate calculation is not comparable in absolute terms to previously reported rates. Therefore, while 26 states reported lower graduation rates and 24 states reported unchanged or increased rates under the new metric, these changes should not be viewed as measures of progress but rather as a more accurate snapshot.

• "By using this new measure, states will be more honest in holding schools accountable and ensuring that students succeed," said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. "Ultimately, these data will help states target support to ensure more students graduate on time, college and career ready."

The transition to a common, adjusted four-year cohort graduation rate reflects states' efforts to create greater uniformity and transparency in reporting high school graduation data, and it meets the requirements of October 2008 federal regulations.

A key goal of these regulations was to develop a graduation rate that provides parents, educators and community members with better information on their school's progress while allowing for meaningful comparisons of graduation rates across states and school districts. The new graduation rate measurement also accurately accounts for students who drop out or who do not earn a regular high school diploma.

In 2011, states began individually reporting 2010-11 high school graduation rates, but this is the first time the Department has compiled these rates in one public document. These 2010-11 graduation rates are preliminary, state-reported data, and the Department plans to release final rates in the coming months.

Beginning with data for the 2011-12 school year, graduation rates calculated using this new method will become a key element of state accountability systems, including for states that have been approved for ESEA flexibility.

The rates will also be posted in the coming days on ED Data Express: http://www.eddataexpress.ed.gov/.

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Washington DC/ Retooled Textbooks Aim to Capture Common Core

Retooled basals rely more on documentation and analysis and less on personal experience

By Stephen Sawchuk

Education Week, Vol. 32, Issue 12  [Edweek.org]

November 14, 2012 [posted online 11/27/12]

The two 5th grade volumes of McGraw-Hill's Treasures reading series at first glance look remarkably similar.

Both include, for instance, a nonfiction selection about a scientific mission to Antarctica, coupled with snippets from a researcher's journal. But there are subtle differences in what they ask students to think about as they read. The older edition, from 2008, merely asks them to explain the value of keeping a journal. The newer one, from 2011, asks the students to explain how "sensory details and other language" differ between a primary source, such as the journal, and a secondary source, such as the narrative.

• In the 2013 version of its Reading Street series, Pearson officials have excised "reader response" questions and replaced them with prompts asking students to "use examples from the text to justify your answer."
• From analyzing text features, to citing evidence, to de-emphasizing personal responses to readings, such changes nod in the direction of the Common Core State Standards' English/language arts expectations.

All three of the major K-12 educational publishers have unveiled new basal-reading programs that purport to embody the standards, and supplemented older series, in order to claim that their products are "aligned," "compliant," or "coherent" with the common standards.

Yet a crucial question remains: Are the changes sufficient?

It is quite literally a multimillion-dollar question, one whose answer could shape the education publishing industry for years. Publishing officials estimate that upwards of 75 percent of the elementary curriculum market in reading remains dependent on basal textbooks.

Alignment Puzzle

The idea of alignment between curricular materials and content standards in reading has always been a bit fuzzy, according to experts who have studied reading programs.

• "Publishers are very adept at correlating the standards to the instruction in their programs," said Peter Dewitz, a professor of education at Mary Baldwin College, in Staunton, Va., and a former basal-reading-program author. "They can issue a page of correlations that illustrate what they're doing, but if you look really closely, you'll find that it's a shallower interpretation of that standard than what the [standards] writers intended."

Where the common core is concerned, curricular alignment matters because many of its English/language arts expectations-close reading, writing to source texts, using a rich vocabulary to build students' background knowledge-are as new to educators as to students.

Alignment, in that sense, is more than materials. It's also about making sure they are structured in ways that help instructors make use of the materials.

• "It is really, really hard work," said Kate Gerson, a senior fellow for educator engagement and the common core for the Regents Research Fund, a nonprofit organization that works hand in hand with the New York state education department.
• "We are really struggling and celebrating as we toil to make sure the materials we are producing will support teachers in their implementation of the standards, while leaving room for them to adapt and improve, and to inhabit texts in a very different way with students."

Using federal Race to the Top funds, the state has started a collaboration with two smaller publishers, Expeditionary Learning and the Core Knowledge Foundation, to craft a comprehensive K-2 curriculum and modules for grades 3-5, which it will share with other states.

Great Expectations

As one of the few highly visible vetting processes for curricula, textbook adoption offers a window into the thorny topic of curricular alignment.

• Fewer than half the states have a formal textbook-adoption or -review process, but among them are states with a large K-12 population, such as Florida.
• And there are already signs that the common standards are beginning to change how reading curricula are vetted, with many states drawing on the "publishers' criteria," a document crafted by two of the lead writers of the standards.

For its current English/language arts adoption, Florida built its evaluation framework on more than 100 pages of specifications drawn from the common standards and the publishers' criteria. Among the state's demands: Publishers must provide both a quantitative and a qualitative analysis of the complexity of each text selection in their basal series.

Using Lexiles and other quantitative ways of measuring text complexity is already common, but analyzing them subjectively is another matter. That requirement demands attention to such features as whether a story is told in flashbacks rather than chronologically, or contains several levels of meaning, as in satire or parody.

• The criteria "reflect what we wanted to be able to work with teachers on," said Stuart Greenberg, a former Florida department of education employee who helped design the evaluation tool. "Teachers had a lot of good pd on strategy work-main idea, compare and contrast-but one of the things they haven't had as much training on is how to use the nuances of text structure to support understanding."
• Such demands seem to have been taken seriously by publishers: Of the "big three" bidding on the lucrative Florida contract, all include text-complexity gauges in the series they submitted for review.

A similar desire to help teachers truly embody the standards in their instruction-rather than engage in "the great binder-replacement phenomenon"-caused Tennessee officials to break their English/language arts adoption cycle into two distinct phases, according to Emily Barton, the state's assistant commissioner of curriculum and instruction.

First, every basal series had to meet seven non-negotiable requirements, all related to the common core, including whether 80 percent of questions are "text dependent" and that at least 50 percent of selections are nonfiction. Only after meeting those requirements were the materials advanced to a second review, which digs into other criteria.

The state's two-tiered model has already forced some changes. For example, one publisher submitted a series that reviewers determined didn't provide students with enough writing activities requiring them to delve into source texts, Ms. Barton said. Faced with being disqualified from the rest of the review process, the publisher created an addendum.

"We saw publishers respond, when given information about places where their products were not meeting expectations," she said.

Publishers' Response

The major education publishing houses have, in general, distinguished between their bridge products, such as older series or editions they've supplemented, and brand-new editions that they crafted from scratch to embody the standards.

• Districts using Treasures, for example, were offered free supplements, including teacher guides and new reading selections where needed, according to Daniela Perelli, the vice president of editorial for elementary reading at McGraw-Hill School Education, based in New York City. They were also provided with an analysis showing units in their old manuals they could use to provide aligned instruction.

"We did have that variety of text types already incorporated, and we spent a lot of time teaching about the genres in the piece, the organization of the piece, the particular aspects of writers' craft that we're asking kids to look at," she said. "We felt the base was there, and good instruction was already in Treasures, and that we were now identifying it with the right labels."

• Houghton Mifflin Harcourt offers for purchase common-core "enhancement" packages for districts using its backlisted series, such as StoryTown and Reading.

"A lot of the emphasis in the product is on writing and performance tasks," said Melissa J. Counihan, the vice president of product management and strategy for K-12 literacy and social studies for the Boston-based company. "Argumentative writing didn't really exist in the early-elementary grades; that's one of the things we really had to change for the enhancements."

• Such efforts to retrofit older curricula, as it were, appear partly influenced by the overall decrease in revenue caused by cash-strapped districts' delays in purchasing new materials. McGraw-Hill officials, for instance, reported a 20 percent decline in its school division earnings in a second-quarter July conference call with investors. They attributed a "low-water mark" in K-12 publishing partly to the common core, and anticipated improvements in 2013.

Even in the publishers' new "from-the-ground-up" curricula-typically identified by the words "common core" appearing on the cover-as well as in the older curricula, there is a degree of repetition in the series.

• About half the reading selections are repeated between Reading Street's 2008 and 2013 5th grade anthology,
• as are about two-thirds of readings in Treasures between 2009 and 2011.
• Houghton Mifflin Harcourt officials said about half the selections in Journeys' 5th grade anthology are identical between the 2011 and 2014 editions, too.

But as evidenced earlier, there are differences, if sometimes subtle ones, in how exercises for students are framed. In a selection about a 19th century woman, the 2011 edition of Treasures, for instance, asks students to detail how an author's "choice of words" relates to the purpose of her biographical narrative, a question not in the former version's exercises for the same selection.

The 2013 version of Reading Street has some arguably more difficult "writing across texts" prompts. A narrative about ghost towns is now accompanied by a short piece of historical fiction. Rather than making a poster, as in the previous edition, students must now write a journal entry in a character's voice, drawing on details from the nonfiction text.

Some of the most important changes, the publishers said, appear in the new teachers' editions to help them implement the new techniques. For example, the brand new Reading Street teacher editions guide teachers through the reading of each featured text three times, said Nancy L. Winship, the vice president of product development for Pearson PreK-12 literacy. The tool responds to the common core's demands that complex texts should be read multiple times as students master its new vocabulary, meaning, and craft.

McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt officials say their newest basals, which weren't available for review, offer similar features.

New Tests

The ultimate test of alignment, though, lies in the hands of state reviewers.

Complicating those decisions is the fact that state adoption tends to be an all-or-nothing decision, leaving less room for shades of gray. Materials in Florida, for instance, are being evaluated on each criterion on a 1-to-4 scale, but they don't have to clear a particular point threshold in order to win adoption, state officials said.

In New Mexico's adoption earlier this year, reviewers detailed perceived weaknesses in several of the K-3 basal volumes.

• Documents on the state's website show that reviewers judged that Journeys 2011, even with supplements, "does not sufficiently provide opportunities for in-depth writing instruction" vis-à-vis the common core.
• And while the 2013 Reading Street's reading comprehension instruction was praised, its research and inquiry prompts were deemed "limited in scope." But both series were ultimately approved by the state.

Tennessee, for the first time, will issue letter grades to English/language arts materials, a move officials hope will give a better sense of reviewers' perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses in each basal series' alignment to the standards.

Louisiana's 2012-13 adoption process could serve as a test case of how far states are willing to press on the issue of alignment.

Publishers' bids, including one by each of the three major houses, were reviewed by committees against three newly developed evaluation tools drawn from the common core. But based on those reviews-which have not yet been made public-and his own perusal, state Superintendent John White said he is skeptical of the textbooks, and is considering whether to recommend any to the state board of education for adoption, in December.

"I'm very concerned that the questions, the assessments, the text complexity, and other dimensions of the textbooks are not remotely ready to be called 'aligned' with the common core," Mr. White said. "My strong belief is that if we make a mistake and allow textbooks to go forward with our endorsement, it will indicate they are rigorous in a way many, if not all of them, probably are not."

Beyond Adoption

The rush to update the basal readers has some observers asking deeper questions about the architecture of reading curricula. Mr. Dewitz of Mary Baldwin College, for instance, contends that past the earliest grades, basal textbooks may no longer be an ideal way to teach to the depth envisioned in the standards.

"If you read deeply into the common core, it's the ability to trace and track the development of an idea or a character over time," he said. "Essentially from 3rd grade up, they are talking about books."

Ms. Barton says more Tennessee districts have expressed interest in using complete texts in elementary English/language arts classes, rather than shorter, prepackaged curriculum units.

"I do hear districts say, 'We're going to use these three short texts and these two long ones,' and that they want to get the copyright licenses and go from there," she said. "We don't yet have the 'iTunes' version of curriculum, ... but common standards do change the economies of scale."

In one development, educators across the country are increasingly making use of free or open-source materials to craft lessons. And while the quality of those materials is widely variable, New York officials view their project as a way of signaling what a baseline standard of alignment quality should look like in the state. Unlike the proprietary basal series, the curriculum will be open-source-free for teachers, districts, and even states to use as they see fit, Ms. Gerson said.

Though it's difficult to say how the market will evolve as implementation continues, some see opportunities amid the chaos.

"I have a sense from teachers that they are going to want greater control over decisions that heretofore have been oftentimes left to publishers or central offices," Mr. White said. "That's going to take hundreds of thousands of different forms; but I do think it implies a shift away from teachers who are willing to say, 'OK, I will take this book of content, its order, its skills, its sequence, and its assessments on face value as simply what I need to teach.' "

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Washington DC/ Resisting 'Downward Pressure' of Common Core in Early Education

By Lesli A. Maxwell

Education Week [Edweek.org]

November 26, 2012

How will preschool look three years from now, when the Common Core State Standards will be the academic benchmarks by which K-12 students and the public schools they attend are measured? Will time for cooperative art projects, for example, have given way to math instruction? Will play time outside be cut back to make way for more time to teach letters and numbers to children enrolled in public prekindergarten programs?

As states swiftly moved to adopt the common standards in English/language arts and math, a number of voices in the early-education field raised these types of concerns and questions about what the common core might do to classrooms that serve 3- and 4-year-olds.

Would the wave of new academic expectations across K-12 inevitably force early-childhood educators to "align" their standards and teaching practices for young learners in ways that could be harmful?

A new paper from the National Association for the Education of Young Children was released today to help early-childhood educators walk the tightrope between the common standards' emphasis on raising academic rigor with research results that show that play, the arts, social skills, and integrated instruction are crucial to young children's healthy development.

The NAEYC paper, among other things, calls on the early-childhood field to assert its collective knowledge on the needs of young learners (the years spanning birth to age 8), and to resist downward pressure from K-12, especially at the state level, to modify "well-developed, early-learning standards to align with those for programs serving older children.

• " Early educators, the NAEYC paper contends, "should not allow for alignment to flow only downward but should advocate for the 'push-up' of early-childhood standards to inform ongoing development of K-12 standards, including those in areas not part of the Common Core."

The NAEYC paper notes the chief benefit of the common core, which is its potential to provide consistent learning expectations for all children across states. It also argues that early-childhood educators have an opportunity to exert their influence in the early years of K-12, especially around decisions about how children are taught and how their skills and knowledge are measured.

But much of the paper has a cautionary tone.

• For one, it contends that early educators must resist pressure to focus more time on English/language arts and mathematics skills in preschool.
• Secondly, it says schools must ensure that the youngest learners in kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades still have time for activities that are not included in the common standards.

And while noting the research base behind the content of the common core, the NAEYC paper points out the standards' focus on more nonfiction text in the earlier grades, for example, has "yet to be fully explored."

It urges early educators to maintain successful instructional methods such as using play, as well as small- and large-group instruction that are "developmentally appropriate" and to not veer from developmentally appropriate and fair methods of assessing young children for school readiness.

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Washington DC/ Native-Student Group Pushes Federal Policy Recommendations

By Diette Courrege 

Education Week [Edweek.org]

November 26, 2012

The Native Indian Education Association, which represents a significantly rural population, released last week a series of new recommendations aimed at strengthening the federal government's commitment to Native American children.

Those included:

• Support the Native CLASS Act, which the association says would grant tribes and their education departments status as state education agencies, encourage partnerships between states and tribes, and invest in Native language programs.
• Re-establish the Executive Order on Tribal Colleges and Universities, which the association says would help tribal colleges and universities and their students improve access to and equity in higher education.
• Reaffirm and acknowledge the department's federal trust responsibility, which the association says would lead to "meaningful inclusion" of tribes as key stakeholders in the education of their citizens.

"Native education is in a state of emergency, and the federal government needs to take immediate action to ensure that Native students grow into engaged, productive citizens of both their tribes and the nation as a whole," according to the recommendations.

The recommendations follow the Obama administration's recent announcement of its Fourth Annual White House Tribal Nations Conference on Dec. 5.

The conference will give leaders from the 566 federally recognized tribes the opportunity to interact directly with the president and administration officials.

The recommendations also come as the president is shaping his education agenda for the next four years.

For more information, check out the new website launched by the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education

that details its efforts to improve Native education.

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Los Angeles CA/ LAUSD English Learners to Move Faster into Mainstream Classes

By Barbara Jones 

Huffington Post  [Los Angeles Daily News]

November 25, 2012

Triggered by a federal civil rights investigation, Los Angeles Unified has launched a network of programs designed to more quickly move English learners into mainstream academic classes and help close the achievement gap.

The strategies are detailed in the 150-page English-Learner Master Plan, which the district overhauled last year after a U.S. Department of Education probe determined that English learners and African-American students were being denied access to educational opportunities.

Through more rigorous instruction and increased support, officials say that English learners and students who struggle with standard English can acquire the language skills needed to tackle math, social studies, science and other courses required for graduation.

• "Let me paint a picture," said Hilda Maldonado, director of LAUSD's Multilingual and Multicultural Education Department, which oversees its language-development programs.

"There's a kid with a backpack that holds the math and social studies and all of the other lessons they need to learn. There's also an English learner who has two backpacks - one with all of the academics, the other that contains the skills of learning a new language.

• "This is the duality of the challenges these kids face," Maldonado said. "The content and language compete at the same level."

The nation's second-largest school system, Los Angeles Unified has more English learners than any other district - about one-third of its 600,000 students. Spanish is spoken by 94 percent of English learners, with dozens of other languages spoken by small percentages of youngsters.

The district's programs for English learners mandate daily language-development instruction - 45 minutes to an hour for elementary students and one to three periods for secondary students.

Within those parameters, there are programs to accommodate the range of student experiences and the levels of proficiency.

• There is remedial instruction for newcomers for instance, and support programs for students with more advanced skills.
• Dual-immersion programs teach language fluency and academic proficiency in both English and the target language for students who want a cross-cultural education.
• Under the district's previous bilingual education programs, 38 percent of English learners tested early advanced or better in their English skills in 2011-12. At the same time, about 15 percent of English learners were reclassified as proficient, opening the door to more academic options.
• However, nearly 40 percent of English learners failed to achieve proficiency after five years of instruction. Getting these kids reclassified as proficient is a key goal of the master plan.

And even after students are deemed proficient, the district will be tracking their academic progress to ensure they remain on track.

• "Reclassification isn't the end of your career - go forth and speak English," Maldonado said. "We're going to be monitoring them and stepping in if we see there are problems."

The new programs come at a critical time for English learners in Los Angeles Unified, which has ratcheted up its graduation requirements so that all high school students must pass a slate of college-prep courses in order to get a diploma.

Additionally, a more rigorous curriculum known as the Common Core will take effect in 2014, impacting lessons at every grade level.

• "I think the rigor of the master plan is the most important element," said school board member Nury Martinez, who recalled struggling as an English learner during her childhood in Pacoima.

"We want to make these kids feel capable of learning English and not segregating them," she said. "It has nothing to do with their intelligence or their ability to retain the information. It just takes a little longer with us."

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Washington DC/ Colleges Agree to Recruit KIPP Alumni

By Nick Anderson

Washington Post

November 26, 2012

Twenty colleges and universities, including some of the nation's most prestigious, have pledged in the past year to recruit more students from a prominent charter school network that focuses on educating the rural and urban poor.

The latest are Georgetown and Trinity Washington universities in the District. On Tuesday, they plan to announce partnerships with the charter network called the Knowledge Is Power Program, or KIPP, in an effort to help more disadvantaged students get college degrees.

• The signed pledges, unusual in the competitive world of college admissions, set recruiting targets and establish a detailed framework for cooperation, seeking to create a pipeline to college for KIPP's mostly black and Latino students.
• There are no admissions guarantees or enrollment quotas for KIPP alumni, but the pacts suggest one path colleges could use to diversify at a time when racial affirmative action has come under question in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The agreements lay out an explicit quid pro quo: KIPP will promote the 20 colleges among its 39,000 students nationwide, and in exchange, the colleges will identify and recruit top KIPP students, help those who have financial need and ensure those who enroll stay on track to graduate.

• Georgetown, in its agreement, pledged to "actively recruit 8 to 12 KIPP students per year.
• "Trinity Washington said it would "recruit, admit and enroll a cohort of KIPP alumni, targeting at least 10 students per year."
• The universities now each have three students from KIPP.
• Schools with similar KIPP agreements include Colby, Davidson, Spelman and Franklin & Marshall colleges; the universities of Pennsylvania and Texas at Austin; and Brown, Duke, Tulane and Syracuse universities.

"KIPP is a program we've long admired," said Georgetown President John J. DeGioia. He said many Georgetown graduates work in KIPP schools. In recent years, the university has hosted summer academic programs for high school students from KIPP and the Cristo Rey urban Catholic education network.

Georgetown, the nation's oldest Catholic university, also has a partnership with Cristo Rey schools. Formalizing one with KIPP, DeGioia said, was "a natural."

But DeGioia said KIPP alumni would have no "leg up" in admissions at a university that accepts 18 percent of applicants. "If we are not certain they can be successful and competitive with the very best students we are admitting," he said, "it would be dishonorable to bring them in."

Daniel Porterfield, president of Franklin & Marshall, said his college hoped through such pacts to "identify extraordinary talent from the full American mosaic."

KIPP officials say the pacts were inspired in part by initiatives such as the Posse Foundation, which seeks to place disadvantaged students in selective colleges.

KIPP, with 125 schools in 20 states and the District of Columbia, has forged a national brand by offering longer school days and years and a credo advocates sum up as "work hard, be nice." The network says it takes "no shortcuts" in pursuing academic goals and makes "no excuses" for failure.