Santa Fe/ Nearly $500 Million Available for Capital Projects in NM
The Associated Press
Alamogordo Daily Times
December 4, 2012
State economists estimate nearly $500 million is available to finance capital improvement projects across New Mexico.
The Legislative Finance Committee was told Monday the state can issue bonds backed by severance taxes to provide about $222 million for new capital projects, which will be determined by the Legislature and Gov. Susana Martinez next year when lawmakers meet in a 60-day legislative session.
State law earmarks about $175 million in bond financing for public school improvements and $33 million must go for water projects.
Nearly $34 million of available financing must be used for tribal infrastructure and capital improvements in colonias, which are poor communities usually near the border with Mexico.
The governor vetoed some capital projects earlier this year, complaining that lawmakers don't focus enough on statewide priorities.
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Santa Fe/ Slowing Down Urged for New Reviews of Teachers
By Hailey Heinz
ABQ Journal Staff Writer
December 4, 2012
Several members of a state advisory panel on teacher evaluations are concerned the new system won't be ready for full adoption by next fall.
- The issue was raised Friday at a meeting of NMTEACH, a panel whose members were chosen by the state Public Education Department to provide insight as the department overhauls teacher evaluations.
- The new system requires teacher evaluations be based on test score improvement, classroom observations and other measures to be determined by districts.
- The classroom observation portion of the system is being tested this year in schools around the state. Details such as how student test score growth will be calculated and what other measures of student learning may look like have not yet been determined.
Kirk Carpenter, superintendent of Aztec Municipal Schools, said he is concerned most districts won't have enough training and time introduce the system well. All schools in Aztec are participating in the test, so Carpenter said his district has had time.
- "The dialogue we have had has been very beneficial," Carpenter said. "For us, are we going to be ready? Possibly. We're spending a lot of time, and we're in the pilot. I worry about the rest of the state."
Carpenter also raised concern that the PED has not solicited feedback from teachers about the process. Other members of the panel shared his concerns about the schedule.
Sonya Romero-Smith, who teaches in Albuquerque, said the timeline is too fast.
- "It feels very heavy looking at these dates, because I want to know what is expected of me," she said. "I want to know what my training is going to be, and I'd like to have some time to practice it, the same way I would give my students time."
State education chief Hanna Skandera said she respects the group's concerns but is reluctant to delay the process if it will improve student learning.
- "Our kids are in high stakes every day," she said, adding that she wants students to be taught by teachers who are getting constructive feedback.
- As written, the new rule does not change teacher pay, but it does say low-performing teachers who don't improve after receiving help may not have their contracts renewed.
Carpenter predicted major problems if principals in other districts don't get enough quality training, especially in classroom observation skills.
- "If we don't get that face-to-face training in every single school district prior to this going into place, I think we're in for a train wreck, I really do," Carpenter said.
He emphasized he supports the system as a whole. "I'm just very concerned, because I want this to work," he said.
Carpenter also said the test has spurred conversations in Aztec about how to improve teaching. Skandera said that's a good reason to push forward.
"If teaching is getting better, Kirk, in your district right now, or you're having 'aha' moments, wow, that's awesome," she said. "And if you're seeing things like, 'Wow, we can make this better, shore this up,' that is what we want."
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ABQ/ Discovery Education: Parents Introduced to Web-Based Resources
By Patrick Lohmann
ABQ Journal Staff Writer
December 4, 2012
Parents got their first chance recently to take a look at Discovery Education, a classroom service that provides web-based resources like videos, interactive lessons, games and other digital learning tools.
About 30 parents from schools across the district gathered during a digital open house at Zuni Elementary School last month to peruse the variety of learning devices that Discovery Education offers kids there. The idea is for those parents to share their experiences with Discovery Education with their local PTAs and others.
Parents watched as students experimented with water, pretended to be Benjamin Franklin, made commercials, took grammar lessons on computers and otherwise sampled the Discovery Education curriculum.
Earlier this year, the APS board approved an $11.3 million, seven-year contract with Discovery Education to provide digital resources and lessons across APS. District officials say that step is cheaper than buying new textbooks and will better prepare students for a changing world.
Stephanie Estes, a teacher at Zuni and mother of an APS student, said Discovery Education is helpful in feeding her 11-year-old daughter's imagination and helping to solve problems with which her mother isn't able to assist.
"As a parent, it really helps for her to get the info I'm not always able to help her with," Estes said during the open house. "She has a wild imagination. She wants to learn so much."
Estes also said that Discovery Education allows her daughter, Addison, to use the Internet for research while not exposing her to potentially harmful online content.
"She's the first one on the computer to go and say, 'Can I go on Discovery Ed?'" Estes said. "It's right up her alley, and it's fun and easy and safe."
Jannita Damian, director of the Discovery Education Network, stressed that the digital curriculum focuses on more than just science. The service provides a "multimedia library for the 21st century," she said.
Damian said Discovery Education has so far been artful in its integration of state standards into the services it offers, and she looks forward to expanding it to other schools.
She said it's important to keep moving forward in education and focus on students' futures rather than adults' past when thinking about education. She noted that kids today spend as much as 7 1/2 hours a day with media.
"Our goal is to recognize that kids today learn differently," she said. "...Media has been a passive learning experience. It's not enough anymore to just play a video."
Tips for parents
Even though students' assignments are online, parents can still help. Ask your child's teacher for a username and password to log into Discovery from home. You can:
- Review completed assessments and assignments with your child.
- Review science vocabulary using the interactive glossary with animations.
- Connect to current events. You could search for an educational video on a newsworthy topic like extreme weather.
- Read educational passages as part of nightly reading with your child.
- Be a role model for lifelong learning by searching for information on a topic that interests you.
- Ask your child to show you what he or she has learned in class with a virtual lab or exploration.
- Bust myths with your child using the Mythbusters video segments and student review sheets.
Source: Discovery Education
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Santa Fe/ EDITORIAL: Reforming Secondary Schools
The New Mexican
December 3, 2012
Santa Fe Public Schools Superintendent Joel Boyd has been going full tilt since taking over the district's top spot last summer. At last week's State of the Schools address, Boyd caught us up on what he had been doing - meeting with students, parents, teachers, hiring an innovative and experienced central office staff and assessing the district's schools and systems, all with a goal of improving student achievement.
Santa Fe schools, he has said, must and will do better.
To be a part of whatever improvements lie ahead, we encourage parents and community members alike to become involved in the next stage of reform: making changes.
First up are changes at Santa Fe's secondary schools, with the goal of reducing dropout rates and preparing students better for both college and career. Boyd has made preliminary suggestions:
- emphasizing additional choices for families,
- stressing the importance of career pathways and
- recognizing the need for a comprehensive high school.
The report's title says it all: "Expanding Options for Families at the Secondary Level - Creating Rigor, Relevance and Relationships for Every Student."
Whatever mix emerges once the community becomes engaged promises to build on successes already in place.
- Santa Fe High, for example, offers tough advanced placement courses and a wide variety of extracurricular activities.
- At Capital High School, career pathway programs already in place offer motivated students a chance to graduate ready to go work at high-paying jobs or to move on to college with two years of credits under their belt.
- The Academy at Larragoite is reaching students who didn't like traditional schools, and if expanded, could help even more teens.
Despite the district's discouraging dropout rate, we do have programs that work and people - teachers and students alike - who shine.
Boyd's challenge is to take what is working and spread it around, but also to find new methods of engaging students.
He has been transparent in saying that the status quo must change. However, in Santa Fe, we often see reform sail through in its early stages (no one is paying attention) only to hit rocky shores later once people wake up.
Secondary reform proposals are not a secret - Superintendent Boyd has made it clear he wants to make changes in how students are taught and learn in Santa Fe. Parents, community members, students, speak up and share your thoughts on what you believe needs to happen. Boyd's report to the Board of Education happens tonight, with the meeting beginning at 5:30 p.m., 610 Alta Vista St. These discussions are important, and the only way to have a voice is to show up and be heard.
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ABQ/ EDITORIAL: NM Small School Districts Show How It's Done
ABQ Journal
December 4, 2012
Like "The Little Engine That Could," a coalition of small school districts pulled together to make it into the last leg of the federal Race to the Top.
The consortium of small, rural school districts from New Mexico, Washington and Arkansas put together an entry in the competition that has them in the final running for federal grant money from the U.S. Department of Education.
- From a pool of 61 finalists representing more than 200 school districts (there were 372 applicants), federal officials plan to give out about $400 million in grants to 15 to 25 winners who will be announced by the end of the year.
- Of the 41 districts in the consortium, more than half are from New Mexico - Clayton, Des Moines, Estancia, Fort Sumner, House, Jemez Valley, Las Vegas City, Logan, Magdalena, Mora, Mosquero, Mountainair, Pecos, Quemado, Raton, Roy, San Jon, Santa Rosa, Springer, Vaughn and West Las Vegas.
Previously Race to the Top funds were awarded to states. This year the program challenged individual districts to come up with plans to target specific student groups. Three large New Mexico school districts - Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Bloomfield - applied individually, but were knocked out of the running.
The primary goal of the coalition's plan is to use technology to create a web-based network for teachers in rural areas to share ideas and best practices.
Race to the Top is an initiative of the Obama administration and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
- "These finalists are setting the curve for the rest of the country with innovative plans to drive education reform in the classroom," Duncan said.
Congratulations to the N.M. districts that took the time and initiative to work together toward more teacher effectiveness and better student achievement.
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New York NY/ School Districts in 5 States Will Lengthen Their Calendars
By Motoko Rich
New York Times
December 3, 2012
The school day and year are about to get longer in 10 school districts in five states, where schools will add up to 300 hours to their calendars starting next fall.
In an effort to help underperforming students catch up on standardized tests and give them more opportunities for enrichment activities,
- 35 schools that enroll about 17,500 students will expand the school day and year in the 2013-14 academic year.
- 40 more schools that enroll about 20,000 students will also extend classroom and after-school time in the next three years.
The effort is being coordinated by state education officials; the National Center on Time and Learning, a nonprofit research and advocacy group; and the Ford Foundation, which is committing $3 million a year in grants over the next three years.
The districts will use state and federal financing to pay for all of the operating costs, including extra teaching time and coordination with nonprofit groups.
Already, more than 1,000 public schools across the country, including numerous charter schools, have added more time to the school day and year.
- A growing group of education advocates is pushing for schools to keep students on campus longer, arguing that low-income children in particular need more time to catch up as schools face increasing pressure to improve student test scores.
- Advocates also say that poor students tend to have less structured time outside school, without the privilege of classes and extracurricular activities that middle-class and affluent children frequently enjoy.
Research on the benefits of adding time to the school day has so far been mixed.
- Detractors in teachers' unions, who say they need fair compensation for working more, have said that more hours and days in the classroom is not enough.
In a statement, Luis Ubiñas, the president of the Ford Foundation, said the initiative was not "about adding time and doing more of the same. It's about creating a learning day that suits the needs of our children, the realities of working parents and the commitment of our teachers. It's a total school makeover."
Participating in the extended learning initiative are districts in Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Tennessee, including Denver, East Hartford, Fall River, Rochester and a special school district including the poorest-performing schools in Memphis. The time will be used for core academic instruction, extra tutoring for struggling students and cultural activities like art and music.
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Washington DC/ Longer School Day? How 5 States Are Trying to Change Education
Five states are participating in a pilot project designed to recast and improve education in low-income communities by leveraging a longer school day or year in innovative ways.
By Amanda Paulson, Staff Writer
CSMonitor.com
December 3, 2012
Starting next year, students in 40 public schools in five states will be spending significantly more time in school.
Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Colorado, and Tennessee are all taking part in a pilot project in which select schools - particularly those that serve low-income communities - add at least 300 hours to the school year, whether through a lengthened school day or a longer school year.
It's a comprehensive effort involving state and federal governments, community organizations, teachers unions, and private groups.
But what, exactly, will students learn?
Most research, say education experts, shows that simply having students spend more time in school means little.
Part of what's key about this new project, however, is not just lengthening the school day or year, but doing it in innovative ways that could reshape the structure of the school day, and how teachers and students think about learning.
- "If you're looking just at an extended school day, it's hard to figure out what if any impact it has," says Robert Stonehill, managing director at the American Institutes for Research in Washington, which has done significant work on expanded-learning programs. "But if you look at the real quality programs, that's a different story."
So far, Mr. Stonehill says, the backers of the new five-state initiative - called the TIME Collaborative - are emphasizing the sort of innovative solutions that do make a difference. "They're pushing all the right buttons," he says.
- The 11 districts taking part in the initiative will have a year to plan.
- Their plans will all be different, but backers of the program expect them to adhere to some basic principles and hope that the new schedules will involve a rethinking of what's possible.
- For example, teachers might start staggered schedules.
- Schools might explore both traditional and computer-mediated learning.
- Students might get more time for internships or project-based opportunities.
- Teachers should gain time for collaboration and planning.
The models for this program "are quite different from what you've seen historically," says Jennifer Davis, president and cofounder of the National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL), which is a part of the effort.
Traditional "after-school" community programs will no longer necessarily be after school, she notes.
Some of the additional time may be more personalized academic time, but some will also be enrichment opportunities like music, art, robotics, or sports, adds Jeannie Oakes, director of educational opportunity and scholarship programs at the Ford Foundation.
She and others also emphasize a safety component: for many students, the most dangerous hours of the day are between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m., when kids are out of school, don't have good programming, and parents are busy at work.
NCTL and the Ford Foundation are providing money and technical expertise to the districts, and both the federal and state governments are also providing funds. But those involved say they hope the plans can be cost-efficient, providing a model for how students in traditional public schools and from low-income neighborhoods can get access to the sort of enrichment opportunities that many middle-class and affluent students routinely get.
"You can have an eight-hour student day that doesn't mean you need an eight-hour teacher day," says Davis. "We know it can be done very cost-effectively, but you have to be creative."
Even some advocates have concerns, though.
- "This initiative is about scaling [these ideas] - starting small but going big pretty quickly," says Elena Silva, a senior associate at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. "We have a secretary of education who's committed to this and to doing it quickly.... But in an effort to do things quickly and scale things quickly, we can oftentimes lose big opportunities to learn and do it right."
Moreover, says Ms. Silva, she's concerned that all the packaging and PR around the initiative is just focusing on the increased time aspect of it.
- "This is about redesigning and rethinking the way we educate kids," says Silva. "So time has to be a part of that, but it's an issue that has a lot of different factors.... I get that we need a hook, and we found one, it's time. But my biggest concern is that 'time' is the hook, and 'time' is the lead. Is it also the way we measure success?"
That's not the intention, says Ms. Oakes of the Ford Foundation.
At its heart, this initiative is about helping states to make fundamental changes that they might be hesitant to make on their own - and seeing how programs that have been successful in charter and alternative schools might be brought into regular public schools, says Oakes.
To evaluate the program's success, Oakes says, "we'll have to think beyond measures of standardized test scores."
Right now, she says, Ford and NCTL are working to develop indicators.
"We're really hoping that this will help people see that yes, you really can do this," Oakes says.
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Denver CO/ Expanded Learning Offers More Hours, but Not More of the Same
By Kevin Simpson
The Denver Post
November 4, 2012
In the Jefferson County Public Schools, expanded learning hours began in a few buildings last summer and this fall with the help of small grants - and the concept will grow thanks to a new cash infusion that expands the effort in four Colorado districts.
And while it's too soon to point to much data, early anecdotal evidence suggests some positive effects, said Ami Prichard, president of the Jeffco teachers union, which collaborated on the projects.
A reduced failure rate at a middle school and reversal of the usual summer learning loss at an elementary school are among the encouraging signs of a concept that isn't just about longer days but different ways of using that extra time.
- "If we can provide kids with a longer day that allows them to have electives, explore arts, become critical thinkers, as well as learn basics, we're all better off," Prichard said. "This is not more of the same but something additional."
- Teacher buy-in and getting parents and administrators on board stand as key elements as schools aim to add 300 hours of instructional time to the current schedule.
- As long as teachers are in the process, given a say in implementation, I don't see the contract holding us back on that," Prichard said.
Research on extended learning time points to a potential for better outcomes - "but it hardly guarantees it," said Kevin Welner, professor of education and director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
- "The opportunity would be wasted if we merely intensify what we already do," he said. "These districts would be making a huge mistake if we look at the gift of extra learning time and treat it as a chance for more testing and more test prep."
The old model of extended learning simply paid teachers to spend more hours in the classroom, said Michael Griffith, a school-finance consultant for the Denver-based Education Commission of the States.
But this venture provides seed money for what will become a cost-neutral effort by revamping teachers' schedules and providing more professional development, he added.
"We rarely find a program that has this level of success and is not something that will break your budget," Griffith said.
The payoff could show up in test scores, but experts also look to other measures, such as lower dropout rates, advancing to college and overall engagement.
"We all know there are things in education that are hard to measure," said Prichard. "Love of learning is hard to quantify. But results of that are seen in many ways. When you're happy at school, when you want to be there, you tend to do better."
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Rochester NY/ 4,000 Students Taking Part in Class Time Expansion
Associated Press
Wall Street Journal
December 3, 2012
About 4,000 students in Rochester will be spending a lot more time in the classroom beginning next school year as part of a five-state pilot program intended to improve student achievement.
- Eight schools in the low-income western New York district will add at least 300 hours of class time and enrichment under the program announced Monday by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
Proponents described a need to re-imagine and redesign the school year, especially in areas of high poverty, to better prepare students for college or jobs.
The extra time will allow for improved collaboration and planning among teachers and opportunities to learn the arts and technology. It also will make it easier for schools to meet increasingly rigorous curriculum demands, they said.
- "This is common sense," said Rochester Superintendent Bolgen Vargas, who attended Monday's launch of the TIME (Time of Innovation Matters in Education) Collaborative in Washington. He said 90 percent of the children in his 32,000-student district qualify for free or reduced lunches.
- "If you come to school behind, it only makes sense that if you're going to close the achievement gap, you're going to have to give them more time," he said. "I believe learning is a function of time and effort, and of course quality teachers and good schools as well."
The district won the support of the union by allowing the faculty at participating schools to negotiate certain contractual provisions, said Adam Urbanski, president of the Rochester Teachers Association and vice president of the American Federation of Teachers.
- "We involve teachers directly so that they own it," Urbanski said. "They have a stake in it. We think that increases the likelihood of success."
Along with the Rochester students, about 15,500 students at schools in 10 districts in Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Tennessee are in line for the extended learning program, which Duncan hopes to quickly expand.
- About 1,000 districts nationwide already have adopted longer school days and years, according to the National Center on Time & Learning, which is offering technical support for participating schools.
- All of the test districts must spend the next year on planning.
"This is not just about adding time and doing more of the same. It's about creating a learning day that suits the needs of our children, the realities of working parents and the commitment of our teachers," said Luis Ubinas, president of the Ford Foundation, which is giving $3 million in annual funding for three years. "It's a total school makeover."
Students in high-needs districts stand to benefit most from additional instructional time, but it may be cost-prohibitive and unnecessary to lengthen the school day and school year across the state, particularly in high-achieving districts, a spokesman for the New York State United Teachers union said.
- "Additional time for instruction is just one piece of the puzzle," spokesman Carl Korn said. "If we're going to end the achievement gap, it's going to mean providing social services in the school settings for those students who otherwise do without."
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Washington DC/ US Court Upholds $1 Million for Latino Student Harassed in NY High School
A jury awarded $1 million to a Latino man for the years of racial threats and harassment he endured at a rural high school in New York. The appeals court called the amount appropriate.
By Warren Richey, Staff Writer
CSMonitor.com
December 3, 2012
A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a $1 million jury award to a Latino man who endured 3 1/2 years of racial threats and harassment at a rural high school in New York.
The three-judge panel of the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City upheld the award against the Pine Plains Central School District after rejecting the district's appeal.
The judges said the $1 million in compensatory damages to the former student, Anthony Zeno, was an appropriate amount given that school officials were aware of the ongoing harassment but did not take effective action to stop it.
- "We conclude there was sufficient evidence in the record to support the jury's finding that the District's responses to student harassment of Anthony amounted to deliberate indifference to discrimination," Judge Denny Chin wrote for the unanimous panel.
In his freshman year of high school, Mr. Zeno transferred from Long Island to Stissing Mountain High School in Pine Plains, New York. The school had minority attendance of less than five percent, and many students used Zeno's ethnic heritage as a basis to taunt, harass, menace, and physically assault him.
"His peers made frequent pejorative references to his skin tone, calling him a 'nigger' nearly every day," Judge Chin said.
"They also referred to him as 'homey' and 'gangster,' while making reference to his 'hood' and 'fake rapper bling bling.' "
Chin continued: "He received explicit threats as well as implied threats, such as references to lynching."
In his sophomore year, the threats intensified. According to the opinion, halfway through the year he told school officials: "I'm tired of this - I can't take any more of it, I have to stop this - This has been going on forever."
Finally, in his senior year, rather than continue to face the harassment, Zeno left the school and earned an equivalency degree. He also filed a lawsuit against the school district for violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bars recipients of federal funding from engaging in racial discrimination.
To prevail, Zeno's lawyer had to prove that district officials were "deliberately indifferent" to the ongoing racial harassment of students over whom they exerted control.
School officials said they took appropriate action, disciplining those responsible and initiating programs to foster a more accepting environment at the high school. But a jury found that they hadn't done enough.
Zeno was deprived of a supportive, scholastic environment free of racism and harassment, the appeals court said.
Lawyers for the district argued that Zeno had proved no more than a "garden variety" type of damage case. They said the $1 million award was excessive.
The appeals court disagreed. "Anthony was not an adult losing sleep due to workplace stress," Chin said. "Rather, he was a teenager being subjected - at a vulnerable point in his life - to 3 1/2 years of racist, demeaning, threatening, and violent conduct."
The judge added: "Given the severity, duration, and egregiousness of Anthony's unchecked harassment, his [$1 million] award was not outside the range of permissible decisions."
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Washington DC/ Common Core Sparks War over Words
By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post
December 2, 2012
As states across the country implement broad changes in curriculum from kindergarten through high school, English teachers worry that they will have to replace the dog-eared novels they love with historical documents and nonfiction texts.
The Common Core State Standards in English, which have been adopted in 46 states and the District, call for public schools to ramp up nonfiction so that by 12th grade students will be reading mostly "informational text" instead of fictional literature. But as teachers excise poetry and classic works of fiction from their classrooms, those who designed the guidelines say it appears that educators have misunderstood them.
Proponents of the new standards, including the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, say U.S. students have suffered from a diet of easy reading and lack the ability to digest complex nonfiction, including studies, reports and primary documents. That has left too many students unprepared for the rigors of college and demands of the workplace, experts say.
The new standards, which are slowly rolling out now and will be in place by 2014, require that nonfiction texts represent 50 percent of reading assignments in elementary schools, and the requirement grows to 70 percent by grade 12.
Among the suggested nonfiction pieces for high school juniors and seniors are Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America," "FedViews," by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (2009) and "Executive Order 13423: Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management," published by the General Services Administration.
English teachers across the country are trying to figure out which poetry, short stories and novels might have to be sacrificed to make room for nonfiction.
Off the reading list
Jamie Highfill is mourning the six weeks' worth of poetry she removed from her eighth-grade English class at Woodland Junior High School in Fayetteville, Ark. She also dropped some short stories and a favorite unit on the legends of King Arthur to make room for essays by Malcolm Gladwell and a chapter from "The Tipping Point," Gladwell's book about social behavior.
- "I'm struggling with this, and my students are struggling," said Highfill, who was named 2011 middle school teacher of the year in her state. "With informational text, there isn't that human connection that you get with literature. And the kids are shutting down. They're getting bored. I'm seeing more behavior problems in my classroom than I've ever seen."
But the chief architect of the Common Core Standards said educators are overreacting as the standards move from concept to classroom.
- "There's a disproportionate amount of anxiety," said David Coleman, who led the effort to write the standards with a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Coleman said educators are misinterpreting the directives.
Yes, the standards do require increasing amounts of nonfiction from kindergarten through grade 12, Coleman said. But that refers to reading across all subjects, not just in English class, he said. Teachers in social studies, science and math should require more reading, which would allow English teachers to continue to assign literature, he said.
Social studies teachers, for example, could have students read the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter From a Birmingham Jail," while math students could read Euclid's "Elements" from 300 B.C.
The standards explicitly say that Shakespeare and classic American literature should be taught, said Coleman, who became president of the College Board in November. "It does really concern me that these facts are not as clear as they should be," he said.
The specifics are spelled out in a footnote on page 5 of the 66-page standards.
In practice, the burden of teaching the nonfiction texts is falling to English teachers, said Mark Bauerlein, an English professor at Emory University: "You have chemistry teachers, history teachers saying, 'We're not going to teach reading and writing, we have to teach our subject matter. That's what you English teachers do.'"
Sheridan Blau, a professor at Teachers College at Columbia University, said teachers across the country have told him their principals are insisting that English teachers make 70 percent of their readings nonfiction. "The effect of the new standards is to drive literature out of the English classroom," he said.
Timothy Shanahan, who chairs the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said school administrators apparently have flunked reading comprehension when it comes to the standards.
"Schools are doing some goofy things - principals or superintendents are not reading," Shanahan, who was among the experts who advised Coleman on the standards, said.
Sandra Stotsky, who wrote the outgoing Massachusetts' pre-K-to-12 standards, which are regarded as among the best in the nation, said the Common Core's emphasis on nonfiction is misguided.
Tackling rich literature is the best way to prepare students for careers and college, said Stotsky, who blames mediocre national reading scores on weak young adult literature popular since the 1960s.
"There is no research base for the claim that informational reading will lead to college preparedness better than complex literary study," said Stotsky, a professor at the University of Arkansas.
At a convention of English teachers in November, Stotsky got an earful. "They hate the Common Core, they hate the idea they have to teach nonfiction," she said.
Stotsky and others have accused Coleman, who studied English literature at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, of trying to elevate fact-based reading and writing at the expense of literature and creative writing.
In a speech last year at the New York State Education Building, Coleman derided the personal essays that characterize most writing in primary and secondary schools.
"Forgive me for saying this so bluntly, the only problem with ... [that] writing is as you grow up in this world you realize people really don't give a [expletive] about what you feel or what you think," Coleman said, according to a recording. "What they instead care about is, can you make an argument with evidence, is there something verifiable behind what you're saying or what you think or feel that you can demonstrate to me? It is rare in a working environment that someone says, 'Johnson, I need a market analysis by Friday, but before that I need a compelling account of your childhood.'"
'We've hit a wall'
In an interview, Coleman said U.S. students must learn to read complicated text of all sorts.
- "One of the striking things in American education is that reading scores at the fourth-grade level have been frozen for 40 years," he said. "We've hit a wall in reader literacy that these standards respond to."
Nonfiction reading can excite some students, said Nell Duke, who teaches language, literacy and culture at the University of Michigan. "Some students really prefer factual kinds of texts," she said, noting that some studies have suggested boys especially prefer nonfiction. "Historically, elementary schools haven't given kids much opportunity to read that kind of text. For those kids, reading storybook after storybook about talking animals could be a bit of a turnoff."
Curriculum and academic standards have traditionally been determined by states and local communities. That has resulted in uneven results, with some states using lax standards while others are more rigorous. Sporadic efforts to create consistent, national standards have come and gone.
Several years ago, the National Governors Association began pushing the idea of common standards in English and math. The Gates Foundation invested tens of millions of dollars in the effort to write them. The Obama administration kicked the notion into high gear when it required states to adopt the common standards - or an equivalent - in order to compete for Race to the Top grant funds.
By this year, 45 states and D.C. had signed onto the math and English standards. Minnesota has adopted only the English standards; Alaska, Nebraska, Texas and Virginia have not adopted either.
The standards are designed to ensure that, for the first time, third-graders in Maine will acquire the same knowledge and skills as their peers in Hawaii. States will begin testing students against the new standards in 2014, making it possible for the first time to compare test scores across communities and states.
English teacher J.D. Wilson agrees with much of what the standards aim to accomplish. But he is disturbed by the subtle shift the new standards are already causing in his classroom at Wareham High School in Wareham, Mass.
"Reading for information makes you knowledgeable - you learn stuff," Wilson said. "But reading literature makes you wise."
Wilson has wrestled with which poems to cut from his lesson plans and which nonfiction to teach instead. And then he hit upon an idea.
This fall, he has taught "Literature Is Not Data: Against Digital Humanities," "Shakespeare, a Poet Who Is Still Making Our History" and "Who Killed the Liberal Arts?" They are all essays that emphasize the value of literature.
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Washington DC/ OPINION: Common Core vs. Common Sense
By Ronald A. Wolk [Founder and former editor of Education Week and the chair emeritus of the board of its nonprofit publisher, Editorial Projects in Education. He is also the chairman of Big Picture Learning, a nonprofit organization in Providence, R.I., that creates innovative schools, and the author of Wasting Minds: Why Our Education System Is Failing and What We Can Do About It]
Education Week [Edweek.org]
December 3, 2012
The headline in a recent edition of Education Week read, "Hopes Pinned on Standards to Boost College Readiness: SAT results show no improvement in any tested subject."
We've been pinning our hopes on standards for more than two decades with little to show for it. About half of our high school graduates are no better prepared for college or work than they were 20 years ago, when standards and testing became the nation's school improvement strategy.
Now, all but a few states are on the verge of implementing the ultimate phase of that strategy: the new common-core standards in mathematics and English/language arts for grades K-12, soon to be followed by new assessments supported by $500 million in federal grant money.
The Common Core State Standards are much better than the state standards they replace because they focus on analysis, understanding, concepts, and skills more than specific content. A great deal of thought has gone into formulating them. They are championed by business leaders, politicians, foundations, and educators.
If a majority of American youngsters were to graduate from school with the knowledge and skills embodied in these standards, they and the larger society would benefit enormously.
But that would require a miracle.
Here's why:
We still do not have the opportunity-to-learn standards called for by the founders of the standards movement in the late 1980s.
- We still have not eradicated the glaring and persistent discrimination that condemns millions of low-income, minority, and immigrant students to a poor or mediocre education that does not prepare them to meet the new common standards.
- Last year, nearly half of the nation's schools failed to make "adequately yearly progress" under the No Child Left Behind Act.
- The evidence shows that efforts to "turn around" failing schools seldom work and often are counterproductive.
Our present teacher workforce has not been trained to teach the way the new standards require, and prospective teachers are not being adequately prepared for the challenge.
- Moreover, we need at least 200,000 additional math and science teachers to replace those retiring or leaving for other jobs or who did not major in math or science.
- According to a 2007 report from the National Academies Press, more than two-thirds (69 percent) of 5th to 8th graders are being taught math by teachers without a mathematics degree or certificate, and 93 percent of those same students are being taught physical sciences by teachers with no physical science degree or certificate.
The organization and scheduling of the traditional school are incompatible with the kind of teaching and learning required by the new standards.
- Time is still the constant, and learning is the variable.
- Traditional schools largely ignore the diversity of today's students-their socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, the way they learn, their strengths and weaknesses, their interests and aspirations-and deliver the same education to all students in the same way at the same time
Society would have to commit substantially more financial resources-not just to provide more teachers, up-to-date science labs, renovated school buildings, and adequate learning materials, but to address more effectively the rampant poverty in society that undermines our educational efforts.
To have even a hope of overcoming those problems, we would need a couple of decades, a herculean effort, and incredible luck.
So, at this critical point, the nation's governors and legislators should pause to consider the unintended consequences of fully implementing these new standards in the near future.
By compelling schools, teachers, and students to meet standards they are not equipped to meet, we are likely to do serious harm to millions of young people and the larger society.
Some 27 percent of our high school students now drop out of school-many because they fall behind early, never catch up, and come to accept failure as inevitable. Half of those who earn a diploma are not adequately prepared for college or the modern workplace. And half of those who enter college drop out by the end of senior year without a degree.
Even though student scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in math have steadily improved since 1992 and are at their highest point in 20 years, about 60 percent of our students are still not proficient. Reading scores have remained virtually flat during that period, and the percentage of students not proficient in reading is also about 60 percent.
Is it reasonable to expect that just because the new common-core standards are better and more demanding, these lagging students will suddenly rise to meet them?
We know from experience that standards do not educate people. Without the organization, resources, and trained workforce necessary to meet them, standards are worth little, and people cannot be compelled to meet them. Keep in mind that the U.S. Congress mandated that every student would be proficient in reading and math by 2014. How's that working out?
The common standards would be more likely to succeed ultimately if they were initially limited to grades K-6, where the necessary foundation must be laid for meeting the middle and high school standards.
- Many students now in grades 7-12 cannot read for comprehension and have not learned basic math.
- They have not been prepared to meet the demands of the common core, and it is unfair to raise the bar for them at this point.
- If we do, we will either lose more of them or, as has been the case in the past, we will lower test cutoff scores and pass them through the system without the skills and knowledge that standards-makers deem to be indispensable.
During the next seven years that it takes a whole generation of elementary students to meet the K-6 standards, educators and policymakers should concentrate on redesigning the last six years of school to align with reality and the needs of students and society and to be compatible with the kind of teaching and learning embodied in the new standards.
A dedicated minority of educators and policymakers have been working over the past few decades to do just that. They have worked to create schools where the student is at the center; where education is personalized for each student and is anchored in the real world; where teachers are "advisers" and students are busy educating themselves under their guidance; where new technology is integral to education.
The best hope for the success of the common-core standards is to first redesign schools so they provide the kind of learning environment where the spirit of the new standards can flourish, and their objectives are most likely to be met.
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Washington DC/ OPINION: Why Be Afraid of Ethnic Studies Programs?
By Walt Gardner [Gardner taught for 28 years in the Los Angeles Unified School District and was a lecturer in the UCLA Graduate School of Education]
Education Week [Edweek.org]
November 30, 2012 [posted online 12/4/12]
When the Tucson Unified School District shut down its Mexican American Studies program early in 2012 after it was accused of violating state law, the matter seemed settled once and for all. But a closer look at the details reveal that the issue is still very much alive.
What led to the shuttering of the program was Arizona Supt. of Public Instruction John Huppenthal's threat to withhold millions of dollars in state aid because in his opinion the program promoted "racial resentment" and encouraged "ethnic solidarity" ("Arizona's ethnic studies gap," Los Angeles Times, Nov. 28). Both are violations of Arizona law. Yet, in fact, the Mexican American Studies program was created as part of a three-decades-old federal desegregation court order.
But the larger question in my view is whether public schools, whether in ethnic studies programs or in other courses, should be prevented from teaching controversial issues. American history is not cut and dried. There are many events that have the potential to arouse anger in students. The treatment of Native Americans is one such example. If students are prevented from learning about all sides of an issue, they are being shortchanged. I realize that it takes skilled teachers to do so without exploiting their position. However, I think it's worth the risk.
In the case of the Mexican American Studies program, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. Not only did students report greater pride in their heritage but they also posted higher test scores and graduation rates than those who were not enrolled. Huppenthal's office confirmed that conclusion in an independent audit in 2011. Nevertheless, the benefits of the program are being downplayed. That does a terrible disservice to students.
During the Vietnam War-era, the principal at my high school tried to suppress dissent among students by preventing the school newspaper from editorializing about the matter. His action infuriated students and their parents who rightly believed that censorship was not the way to teach students about their rights and responsibilities as citizens. His intransigence was the beginning of his professional downfall. I've long believed that education requires the freedom to explore unpopular issues. Ethnic studies programs are one way of doing so.
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