ABQ/ New Del Norte High School Building Worthy of Recognition
By Richard Metcalf
ABQ Journal Staff Writer
December 10, 2012
A pillar of higher education in Albuquerque and a unique energy plant in Lea County were recognized Friday for their economic contributions at the annual Awards of Excellence luncheon by NAIOP, the commercial real estate development association.
The luncheon at the Albuquerque Marriott also showcased an additional 10 construction projects, all but two of which are in the Albuquerque metro area. In what could be a sign of the times, four of the award winners involved the renovation of existing buildings.
Education excerpt . . .
The $23.4 million construction of the new three-story, 156,283-square-foot Del Norte High School building overcame such challenges as a hemmed-in site and maintaining the operation of the existing school.
- Owner: Albuquerque Public Schools.
- Contractor: Shumate Constructors. Architect: Dekker Perich Sabatini.
- Engineers: Dekker Perich Sabatini, Bridgers & Paxton.
The new Del Norte High School building, which was the biggest project among the Eagle Award winners, was NAIOP's top education project for 2012.
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ABQ/ Historic Building Renovated for Native American Community Academy
By Hailey Heinz
ABQ Journal Staff Writer
December 11, 2012
A building that once housed the historic Albuquerque Indian School is being renovated as a new home for the Native American Community Academy, a charter school designed to serve Native American students.
The building, at Indian School and 12th Street NW, is on federal land that is held in trust for New Mexico's 19 pueblos. Renovations began Monday, and the school is expected to be ready for students in the fall of 2013.
The 81-year-old building is the last remaining from the Albuquerque Indian School.
- It has previously been used as office space and as the headquarters for the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Southern Pueblos Agency.
- Michael Canfield, president of Indian Pueblos Marketing Inc., said bringing education back to the building is a perfect fit.
- Indian Pueblos Marketing Inc. is leading the project and is a corporation operated by the 19 pueblos.
"We are also delighted that we were able to save the last remaining building from the Albuquerque Indian School. This is truly a historical asset that will continue to play an important role in educating our children for many years to come," Canfield said in a written statement.
The $2.6 million renovation will be paid for through state capital outlay, federal grants and private funding.
The school is chartered by Albuquerque Public Schools, and is now housed in portable buildings next to Wilson Middle School. That space is not big enough for all the students, so juniors and seniors use space at the University of New Mexico.
The school has 340 students in grades six through 12, who come from 37 different tribes.
- Its charter has been renewed to allow it to expand to the elementary grades.
- Ultimately, elementary students will be educated at the renovated Albuquerque Indian School site, while the secondary students will be housed in a new building to be built with APS capital funds.
NACA Principal Kara Bobroff said she is excited about opportunities to integrate the building's history into lessons for students. She said some students have relatives who attended the old school, and she plans to have the students do oral histories. The site is also across the street from the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, so students will be able to access archived information, and the center's resources can be integrated into the curriculum.
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Taos/ Questa School Board Suspension Hearing Concludes
By Matthew van Buren
Taos News
December 10, 2012
A public hearing regarding the suspension of the Questa Independent School Board has adjourned, with a written decision on the matter expected by Dec. 17.
The hearing, held Monday (Dec. 10) in Taos, focused on allegations that board members exceeded their authority, impeded the proper performance of the board and violated the Open Meetings Act.
The board, which has been mired in a 3-3 split since Urban "Bob" Jaramillo's resignation earlier this year, was not represented by an attorney at the hearing. John Kennedy, with the Cuddy and McCarthy law firm, withdrew from representing the board; he explained in a letter to the board members that he found it impossible to effectively represent the conflicting factions.
Assistant general counsel Albert Gonzales presented the Public Education Department's (PED) case for suspension, describing "chaotic" board meetings, harassment and bullying of staff and a "high level of disorder and dysfunction" at the board level.
The allegation center on board members Matt Ortega, Daryl Ortega and Tammy Jaramillo. Daryl Ortega took the lead in cross-examining the PED's witnesses, which included board president Bernie Torres and interim superintendent Lester Beason, and arguing against the suspension on behalf of the trio. Beason and Torres both recommended that the suspension continue until after the Feb. 5 school board election, during which voters could elect a new board majority: Seats held by Torres, Matt Ortega and Daryl Ortega, as well as Jaramillo's vacant seat, will be on the ballot.
During the course of the hearing, Daryl Ortega complained that the hearing was a "railroading" and a "political move" by the PED.
Hearing officer G.T.S. Khalsa said he will provide his recommendation to Education Secretary-Designate Hanna Skandera by 5 p.m. Wednesday (Dec. 12), while Skandera's written decision regarding whether to make permanent, modify or withdraw the suspension is due Dec. 17.
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Taos/ PED Hearing Held on Questa School Board Suspension
By T.S. Last
ABQ Journal Staff Writer
December 11, 2012
Members of a fractured school board for the Questa Independent School District defended themselves from allegations that resulted in the board's suspension in September, while one member called the hearing here Monday a "dog and pony show."
Charges cited against the board in the Public Education Department's notice of suspension included bullying and intimidating school employees, physical altercations with fellow board members and violating the Open Meetings Act by discussing alleged immoral behavior by a former superintendent during an executive session.
The allegations were raised during a PED hearing Monday to help determine whether the Questa school board should be reinstated.
State Education Secretary-designate Hanna Skandera suspended the entire board on Sept. 18 after the PED conducted an investigation into the allegations. She also cited a persistent 3-3 voting split on the board, preventing the district from conducting business.
The hearing was originally scheduled for last month but was postponed when attorneys representing the school board backed out just days before the hearing. Attorney John Kennedy of Santa Fe declined to say why he no longer represented the school board, citing attorney-client privilege.
That left board members without legal counsel.
The split on the board was evident, with the board members who were subjects of the complaints - Tammy Jaramillo, Daryl Ortega and Matt Ortega - sitting together at one end of the table. The other three members - Jack Gallegos, Kenneth Gallegos and Bernie Torres - were at the other end, and did not participate in the questioning or cross examination of witnesses.
Torres, however, was called upon to testify by Albert Gonzales, deputy general counsel with PED.
During cross-examination, Daryl Ortega asked Torres why he didn't allow the board to hire another attorney to take Kennedy's place.
"We can't even say hello at board meetings - how could we agree on an attorney?" Torres replied.
Moments earlier, Ortega implied the lack of counsel put the board at a disadvantage, likening it to a match between a professional boxer, meaning PED attorneys, and an amateur.
Later, while Ortega was questioning another witness, hearing officer G.T.S. Khalsa stopped him, saying his questioning was beyond the scope of the witness' testimony. Ortega said the denial was another example of "railroading."
Ortega then asked whether Beason thought it would have been better for Skandera to simply appoint a seventh member to the board after one member resigned, "instead of holding this dog-and-pony show."
Several people added input during a public comment period. A few spoke in favor of the board members, but most said it would be best to keep the board under suspension at least until upcoming school board elections. On Feb. 5, four board positions will be up for grabs, including those of Daryl Ortega, Matt Ortega, Torres and the vacant seat.
One person who felt that way was Ariana Gallegos, a sophomore at Questa High School. She said she's attended school board meetings and witnessed unprofessional behavior.
"Our parents taught us to be respectful. To see that kind of behavior coming from adults is pretty disappointing," she said.
She noted that the school motto was "Where children come first."
"For us to not feel that way is pretty sad," she said.
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Santa Fe/ EDITORIAL: Teacher-Absences Study Raises Questions
The New Mexican
December 10, 2012
More information can sometimes mean more confusion - at least that is our conclusion after the Santa Fe Public Schools released its study the topic of teacher absences.
Last month, preliminary absentee numbers released by the district caused quite a ruckus. It appeared that Santa Fe's schools were populated by deadbeats taking off at the drop of the hat. The numbers showed that teachers and staff were missing twice the number of school days as the national average - a whopping 17 days, almost one day every two weeks. New Superintendent Joel Boyd rightly called the figures "startling." Of course, as with so many statistics, the flat rate didn't tell the whole story. Were these figures for teachers, or for all staff, and were they actual "sick" days or other kinds of leave? And were the numbers figured simply by counting the number of substitute teachers hired (which would include long-term subs hired, for example, for pregnancy leaves or even to fill a vacant teaching spot)? The district, it appeared, had some explaining to do.
Cut to last week: Richard Bowman, the district's chief accountability and strategy officer, brought a more detailed report to share with the Board of Education. This one can't be faulted for lack of specificity, but frankly, we are more confused than ever. The bottom line number is that about a third of teachers missed more than 10 days of work during the 2011-12 school year - for illness, bereavement or other personal reasons. It follows, of course, that the more teachers miss class, the worse students will do. However, some highly regarded schools - Atalaya and Acequia Madre elementaries - had a high percentage of teachers missing work, according to the study. Another top school, Wood Gormley, had a high percentage of teachers missing school for professional development reasons. We're not sure whether students know the difference between an absence because of illness or one because of a teacher is taking a class. Students just know there's a substitute in front of the class. Yet, in these schools, performance does not seem to be suffering.
Obviously, the numbers don't add up - yet. While Superintendent Boyd is correct in saying the district can't be in a continual inquiry mode, obviously more study needs to be done. One place we would recommend a focus is this: When a teacher is sick or at professional development, find out how each principal goes about hiring a substitute. At many schools, substitutes aren't necessarily hired at random, chosen from a call list at 5 a.m. Other schools find themselves in more of a scramble. Generally speaking, this study is a good step forward to understanding more about the state of the district. Perhaps, even as some schools are left to make more decisions at the campus level, other policies should be established at the district level. How many days should one teacher miss for professional development, for example? Should this number be standard across the district? Can the district develop policies to reward perfect attendance for teachers - and schools - using a carrot, rather than a stick to improve behavior?
Going forward, we think it's safe to say that there is broad agreement that adult absentee rate for Santa Fe Public Schools is higher than it should be. Now we need to find out why and change accepted practices so that every day possible, each child has a certified, qualified teacher in the classroom.
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ABQ/ COLUMN: International Baccalaureate Diploma Program May Be Here in 2013
By Winston Brooks [APS Superintendent]
ABQ Journal
December 11, 2012
When Christmas shopping, I like to have choices for those on my list with different wants and needs. One-size-fits-all doesn't work well under the tree, and it doesn't work in public education, either.
Like retailers during the holiday season, Albuquerque Public Schools provides lots of options for our diverse clientele.
- We have schools that focus on technology, careers and dual languages.
- We have programs for athletes, artists, budding scientists and performers.
- We have traditional coursework, online learning and classes that blend the two.
- We have large, comprehensive schools and smaller alternative ones.
And now we're working toward adding one more outstanding program to our repertoire. In fall 2013, we hope to have our first class of students in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program at Sandia High School. This world-renowned, academically challenging program isn't for everyone, but for the 100 or so juniors we expect to enroll the first year, it's yet another stepping stone toward success at the university level and beyond.
Just one more choice for our kids, in this case students who are highly motivated, successful in school, intellectually curious and ready to be pushed to their academic limits.
Though housed at Sandia, the IB Diploma Program will be open to qualified students from across Albuquerque starting with the Class of 2015.
- The demanding program is a two-year course of study for juniors and seniors emphasizing inquiry and critical thinking.
- In addition to six core subjects, the curriculum includes service learning and an extended, research-based essay.
- Students take written exams at the end of their courses that can earn them college credit.
The goal of the IB Diploma Program is to make students more responsible and accountable for their education, preparing them to excel at the college level. Successfully completing the reputable program will help open doors to the world's leading universities.
IB got its start in Switzerland more than four decades ago for the children of globetrotting diplomats and business executives. It's now in more than 3,000 schools in 139 countries. An IB team will be visiting Sandia High in the coming months, and if all goes well, we'll be opening New Mexico's first IB Diploma Program in a comprehensive public high school in August.
The city of Albuquerque and Mayor Richard Berry recognize the value of offering this type of program for our students, which ultimately benefits the future of this community. We appreciate the city's generous donation of $115,000, which is being used for training, materials and other start-up costs. The money also will help students cover testing fees to assure the program is inclusive and available to all interested and eligible students.
Mayor Berry and I agree that programs like IB create a stronger foundation for our city by not only providing students with a world-class education, but also by instilling a strong sense of global responsibility.
I want to emphasize that the IB Diploma Program at Sandia is open to eligible students from across the city. We encourage interested sophomores at any of our high schools to apply, as well as those in private and charter schools or who are home-schooled.
- An online application will be posted to the APS website after the first of the year at www.aps.edu/ib<http://www.aps.edu/ib>.
- The admissions process will include a personal interview, teacher recommendations and a review of grades, classes and test scores.
- More information will be forthcoming and will be shared with guidance counselors at all APS high schools.
IB isn't for everyone. In fact, only a handful of our students will be interested in enrolling. It's nice to be able to meet the needs of these students, just as we continue searching for programs to meet the diverse needs of all of our kids.
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Santa Fe/ OBITUARY: Santa Fe Teacher Dorothy "Dottie" Mullins
By Nico Roesler
The New Mexican
December 10, 2012
Dorothy "Dottie" Mullins left last Thursday on the six-hour drive to Juárez, Mexico, carrying Christmas presents for underprivileged children.
Donations of toys, school supplies and other items for Operation Christmas Child were collected last month at Mullins' church, City of Faith Christian Fellowship.
"She really lived what she believed," said Gail Aycock, a friend of more than 20 years.
Mullins told her sister that she'd be back Sunday. But New Mexico State Police Lt. Robert McDonald confirmed Monday that Mullins, 54, died in an accident on Interstate 25 at about 6:45 p.m. Sunday. She lost control of her car just north of the La Cienega exit, slid off the road and struck a barrier wall. Her car then rolled back onto the highway, settling in the middle of the two northbound lanes.
McDonald said while Mullins' car was disabled, a 2003 Chevy truck struck it. McDonald said the truck's driver was unable to stop in time after realizing what was ahead of him. Mullins died at the scene. Alcohol was not a factor in the crash.
"Just terrible conditions out there," McDonald said.
Shelli Petty of Los Alamos said her sister was a teacher in Santa Fe Public Schools for 23 years.
"She was the youngest sister. Right now, it's just hard to believe," Petty said.
The accident was one of many crashes Sunday evening as snow from a winter storm built up on the highway.
On Monday, Santa Fe Public Schools grief counselors addressed students at Kearny Elementary School, where Mullins had taught third grade for 16 years. Counseling will be available to students all week, and the school and student council are planning a memorial service for Mullins early next week, Principal Jennifer Baca said.
Baca said Mullins was known for her compassion and that many of her students excelled in reading. "She poured her heart out into her work," Baca said.
Mullins sister, Petty, the owner of Children's Montessori Preschool in Los Alamos, and Betty Anne Pacheco, a teacher at Atrisco Heritage High School in Albuquerque, praised their sister in phone conversations Monday.
Mullins earned a degree in education from New Mexico State University and then taught in schools in Deming, Carlsbad, Albuquerque and Santa Fe. She was the first of the sisters to begin teaching, and then both Petty and Pacheco followed suit.
"She was amazingly able to do things fairly," Pacheco said.
Mullins also was an active member of her church, where she taught Sunday school classes and even choreographed a play. Mullins never married or had children of her own, but her sisters say her students were her children. "She treated them like her own," Pacheco said.
In her spare time, Mullins operated a Jazzercise studio in Santa Fe. "Exercising and teaching was her whole life," Pacheco said.
Petty and Pacheco are planning a memorial service for Mullins at the City of Faith Christian Fellowship. A date has not been set.
"It's going to hit our entire community," Baca said of her soft-spoken, yet passionate colleague. "She was a hero in our community of educators."
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Washington DC/ TIMSS Results: US Math, Science Achievement Exceeds World Average
By Erik W. Robelen
Education Week, Vol. 32, Issue 15 [Edweek.org]
December 11, 2012
The math and science achievement of U.S. students continues to surpass the global average for nations taking part in a prominent assessment, results issued Tuesday show, but several East Asian countries and jurisdictions far outpace the United States, especially in mathematics.
- The most striking contrast comes in the 8th grade, where nearly half of all students tested in South Korea, Singapore, and Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) reached the "advanced" level in math, compared with
- only 7 percent of American test-takers, according to the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, or TIMSS, for 2011 http://timss.bc.edu/
"One obvious stark takeaway of some concern in a global environment is the huge gap that the Asian countries have achieved in mathematics," said Ina V.S. Mullis, the co-executive director of the TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center at Boston College. "This is a gap that has its roots in 1995 [when TIMSS was first administered], and the gap has not narrowed over the years. And in some cases, such as [South] Korea, it's even widening."
- The Russian Federation, Quebec, Hong Kong, and Japan also outscored the United States by statistically significant margins in grade 8 math.
In fact, Russia surpassed the United States in that category for the first time, thanks to an improvement in its score compared with four years earlier, while the U.S. average stayed about the same as in 2007.
In one notable twist that's likely to spark debate, Finland, which drew international attention and acclaim two years ago based on its strong results on a different global assessment, did not produce the same standout results in math on TIMSS. Its 4th and 8th grade math scores were about the same as those of the United States, and several U.S. states participating in the exam-including Massachusetts and Minnesota-posted higher scores.
In all, 63 countries and 14 regional jurisdictions (including some individual U.S. states) participated in TIMSS 2011, which takes place every four years.
Also today, new data from a high-profile global assessment of literacy was released. This report, Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, or PIRLS, is focused on 4th graders.
With results available for 4th and 8th grade math and science, U.S. students have improved by a statistically significant margin in just one category, 4th grade math, since 2007.
- The average score in the category rose by 12 points, to 541, on the TIMSS scale. (Scores are reported on a scale from 0 to 1,000.
- A score of 500 was the average for participating nations and education jurisdictions, excluding a small number of "benchmarking systems" whose scores were not factored into the average, such as the individual U.S. states that took part.)
The United States trailed seven nations and jurisdictions in 4th grade math: Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Northern Ireland, and Flemish Belgium.
- Among the more than 40 entities that the United States outpaced in the subject were Germany, Ireland, Hungary, and Australia.
- As for science, some of the same countries topped the United States at both grade levels, including South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, and Russia.
- In both grades 4 and 8, Finland outscored the United States; Slovenia also eclipsed the United States in grade 8.
TIMSS vs. PISA
The TIMSS data contrast to some extent with the high-profile results issued two years ago from PISA, the Program for International Student Assessment. On PISA, which tests 15-year-olds, U.S. students trailed the global average of participating students in math, though the nation for the first time reached the international average in science.
Experts note that several factors may help explain differences in the U.S. performance on PISA, including the pool of countries taking part. Although the participants overlap significantly, they are not identical.
- The international averages for PISA are based on a set of industrialized nations from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (though some other countries participate);
- the TIMSS average includes a number of less developed nations on the lower end of the achievement scale, such as Morocco, Yemen, and Indonesia, that help push the average downward.
"The OECD countries are for the most part our chief economic partners and our competitors," Jack Buckley, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, said during a conference call Monday with reporters. "They tend to be wealthier nations." The TIMSS average includes "fewer of our wealthiest competitors, ... and is a more diverse group of countries," he said.
Another difference is that PISA is a test explicitly for 15-year-olds, while TIMSS tests 4th and 8th graders, Mr. Buckley noted.
Finally, the assessments themselves are very different.
- "TIMSS and PIRLS are curriculum-based assessments," said Michael O. Martin, the co-executive director of the International Study Center at Boston College. "They try to assess what is being taught in schools. ...
- PISA has a more skills-based approach, [focused on] transitions to the work world."
The 'Finnish Miracle'?
Nine U.S. states opted to provide large enough samples of students so that they could be directly compared with participating nations on TIMSS, though only Florida and North Carolina did so in grade 4. The biggest standout was Massachusetts, which was especially strong in science, with an average score of 567. The only nation to score higher was Singapore, while South Korea and Taiwan were not measurably different. A full one-quarter of Massachusetts students reached the advanced level. (In Singapore, the figure was 33 percent.)
In addition, Minnesota, with an 8th grade science score of 553, was outperformed only by Singapore and Taiwan.
Mr. Buckley of the education statistics center, a branch of the U.S. Department of Education, praised the strong performance of such states. He suggested that U.S. policymakers looking around the world for lessons on creating a strong education system may want to take a look closer to home first.
"It's not necessary to travel halfway around the world to see this," he said.
At the same time, he cautioned that even Massachusetts falls short of a few global peers when looking particularly at getting more math students to the advanced level.
"There clearly is some room for improvement, even among our higher-performing systems," Mr. Buckley said.
Tom Loveless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, said in an email that the new results call for some rethinking of what he calls the "Finnish miracle story."
"If Finland were a state taking the 8th grade NAEP, it would probably score in the middle of the pack," he said, in a reference to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. He said that four of the U.S. states that participated in the 8th grade TIMSS-Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Indiana-posted scores that were higher than Finland's by statistically significant margins in math, while three more had results that were about the same.
"Finland's exaggerated reputation is based on its performance on PISA, an assessment that matches up well with its way of teaching math (applying math to solve 'real world' problems)," he wrote. "In contrast, TIMSS tries to assess how well students have learned the curriculum taught in schools."
At the same time, Finland made a stronger showing than the United States in 4th and 8th grade science on TIMSS. In the 8th grade, for instance, Finland scored 552, compared with 525 for the United States. Measured another way, 53 percent of Finnish 8th graders reached either the "high" or the "advanced" level, the top two categories, compared with 40 percent of their peers in the United States.
Even so, Finland's performance fell short of the results for the top-performing East Asian countries. It also was lower than Massachusetts' score of 567.
For his part, Mr. Buckley said, "I've always been a little puzzled" by the high level of attention trained on Finland.
"Finland captured the world's attention for a variety of reasons," he said, "but as these results show, there are other places to look for case studies."
Measuring Student Engagement
With the 2011 report, TIMSS includes a number of new indicators to better help put student achievement in context. They include:
- children's learning experiences prior to school attendance,
- the extent of students' engagement in math and science lessons, and
- their experiences with bullying.
"One thing we've worked on is [getting] better indicators of what goes on in classrooms," Mr. Martin of the International Study Center said. "We've sharpened our focus on student engagement. [One] measure is based on asking students how engaged they feel in their classroom. That makes a very nice scale that relates to achievement."
Another new scale, he said, is based on asking teachers what they do to engage students.
In a finding that may come as little surprise, students across nations seem to lose some enthusiasm for math as they get older.
- Nearly half (48 percent) of 4th graders said they "like learning mathematics," but that slipped to one-quarter (26 percent) by the time they hit 8th grade.
- And at both levels, that attitude has a correlation with test scores. That is, the less students like math, the lower their achievement, on average.
- Another troubling indicator is that, across the globe, students report a drop in engagement with math lessons as they move from 4th to 8th grade.
- And once again, that level of engagement is correlated with a slip in average scores. The Engaged in Mathematics Lessons scale was based on responses to five questions, including "I know what my teacher expects me to do," and "I am interested in what my teacher says."
Meanwhile, many 4th graders around the world (69 percent) had math teachers who reported making efforts to use instructional practices intended to interest students and reinforce learning, such as posing questions to elicit reasons and explanations, and bringing interesting items to class.
At the 8th grade, however, only 39 percent of students internationally reported that their teachers frequently related lessons to their daily lives, and just 18 percent said they had teachers who routinely brought interesting materials to class.
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Washington DC/ PIRLS Results: American 4th Graders Among Top Readers in Global Study
By Catherine Gewertz
Education Week, Vol. 32, Issue 15 [Edweek.org]
December 11, 2012
The United States has gained ground against countries that are top performers in 4th grade reading, outscoring all but four in a widely watched international assessment, according to results released Tuesday. http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/data-release-2011/.
Scores on the 2011 PIRLS, or Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, show that since 2006, the last time the exam was given,
- American 4th graders increased their average score by 16 points, from 540 to 556 on a 0-to-1,000-point scale, far above the PIRLS average of 500.
- Of the 57 participating countries and education systems, only students in Finland-taking part in PIRLS for the first time-and in Hong Kong, Russia, and Singapore scored higher than those in the United States.
- For the first time, a U.S. state, Florida, took part in PIRLS, and it outperformed every country and all but one other jurisdiction that took the exam, by producing an average reading score that was 13 points higher than that of its own country: 569.
Florida joins other participants in the exam that are referred to in PIRLS documents as "education systems," since they are parts of countries, such as the Canadian province of Ontario, and Hong Kong, an administrative region of China.
Hong Kong was the only participant to outscore Florida. The state also outdid the United States as a whole in other aspects of PIRLS performance, such as the showing by its minority students.
American students' improvement represents a different picture from the one painted by the last set of results.
- Between 2001, when PIRLS was first administered, and 2006, Russia, Hong Kong, and Singapore, which had been investing heavily in improving reading achievement, each delivered score gains of more than 30 points, while American students' average score fell 2 points.
- But in the second five-year interval, U.S. students' average score rose 16 points, compared with 9 in Singapore, 7 in Hong Kong, and 3 in Russia.
The latest PIRLS scores were released along with the results of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, or TIMSS, which track mathematics and science achievement.
In a conference call with reporters to discuss the results of both tests, Jack Buckley, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which analyzes the U.S. results, said he saw positive signs about how the United States is progressing compared with countries.
- "I tend to be quite optimistic on where the U.S. performs internationally," he said. "We have a large and diverse set of kids to educate, and I think the results show we are doing quite well."
In addition to the five systems that outperformed the U.S., counting Florida, seven countries had average reading scores that weren't statistically different from those of the U.S., and 40 had scores that were lower.
Given by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, a group of research organizations, in partnership with the TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center at Boston College, PIRLS was administered to 325,000 students around the world last spring, including 12,726 in 370 schools in the United States.
It produces an overall score in reading for each education system, as well as scores in two sub-areas:
- reading for literary experience, and
- reading to acquire and use information.
Students are given passages to read, and a series of multiple-choice and short constructed-response questions to answer.
American students did better on the literary (563) than the informational (553) parts of the test, although PIRLS officials caution against comparing one to the other. The U.S. outshone more of its PIRLS competitors on the literary aspect of reading than on the informational as well. Only Florida and Finland had higher literary reading scores than the United States, but Russia, Singapore, Finland, Hong Kong, and Florida all outscored the United States on informational reading.
Analyzing the results according to achievement level, only Singapore, with 24 percent of its students reaching the "advanced" level, significantly outperformed the United States, which had 17 percent of students at that level. Students must score a 625 or higher to reach "advanced."
At that level, students can interpret figurative language, distinguish and interpret complex information from different parts of a text, and integrate ideas across texts to interpret characters' feelings and behaviors. Five other countries-Russia, Northern Ireland, Finland, England and Hong Kong-produced results in the "advanced" category similar to those of the United States.
Fifty-six percent of U.S. students reached the "high" category by scoring 550 or better, and 86 percent reached the "intermediate" level, which requires a score of 475. Students at that level can identify central events, plot sequences and relevant story details in a text, make straightforward inferences, and begin to make connections across parts of a text. All but two percent of U.S. students scored the 400 necessary to make it into the "low" level of achievement.
Significant achievement gaps showed across gender, wealth, and racial lines.
- Girls outperformed boys in the United States by 10 points, although that was a smaller gap than the average 16-point gap among participating PIRLS systems.
- U.S. schools where fewer than 10 percent of students qualified for free or reduced-price lunches averaged 605 points, while those where more than three-quarters qualified for such assistance averaged 520.
- White, Asian, and multiracial students in the United States scored above the U.S. average, and outperformed their black and Hispanic peers, who scored below that mark.
All racial subgroups scored higher in Florida than in the United States overall.
- Asian students' reading scores, for instance, averaged 604 in Florida and 588 in the United States overall.
- Hispanic students' scores averaged 32 points higher, and
- black students 15 points higher, in Florida than in the nation overall.
- White and multiracial students also scored higher in Florida than did their peers nationwide.
The PIRLS scores represented a rosier picture of 4th grade reading than did the National Assessment of Educational Progress results one year ago, which showed little progress. The analysis by the NCES, the statistical branch of the U.S. Department of Education, offers some insight into why.
- While both exams include about the same proportions of literary and informational text passages, NAEP includes poetry and requires students to compare two different texts, the report says.
- Reading passages on PIRLS are shorter than on NAEP, and are set at about one grade level lower than those on NAEP, it says.
- PIRLS focuses more on assessing readers' skills in analyzing information within the text and drawing text-based inferences, while NAEP puts more emphasis on how readers develop inferences and personal interpretations by utilizing personal knowledge or perspectives to examine and evaluate the text, the report says.
"Overall, these differences suggest that the NAEP 2011 reading assessment may be more cognitively challenging than PIRLS 2011 for U.S. 4th grade students," the NCES report says.
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New York NY/ US Students Still Lag Globally in Math and Science
By Motoko Rich
New York Times
December 11, 2012
Fourth- and eighth-grade students in the United States continue to lag behind students in several East Asian countries and some European nations in math and science, although American fourth graders are closer to the top performers in reading, according to test results released on Tuesday.
Fretting about how American schools compare with those in other countries has become a regular pastime in education circles. Results from two new reports, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, are likely to fuel further debate.
South Korea and Singapore led the international rankings in math and fourth-grade science, while Singapore and Taiwan had the top-performing students in eighth-grade science. The United States ranked 11th in fourth-grade math, 9th in eighth-grade math, 7th in fourth-grade science and 10th in eighth-grade science.
Although the average scores among American students were not significantly lower than the top performers, several nations far outstripped the United States in the proportion of students who scored at the highest levels on the math and science tests.
In the United States, only 7 percent of students reached the advanced level in eighth-grade math, while 48 percent of eighth graders in Singapore and 47 percent of eighth graders in South Korea reached the advanced level. As those with superior math and science skills increasingly thrive in a global economy, the lag among American students could be a cause for concern.
- "Clearly, we have some room to improve, particularly at the number of advanced students we have compared to the world," said Jack Buckley, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics at the Education Department, which administers and analyzes the results of the tests in the United States.
The tests, which are designed by the International Study Center at Boston College in collaboration with government education officials and academic researchers in participating countries, are administered to a random selection of demographically representative students across the world.
- Fourth graders in 57 countries or education systems took the math and science tests, while
- 56 countries or education systems administered the tests to eighth graders. (Education systems include American states or regions like Hong Kong in China or Northern Ireland in Britain.)
- In reading, 53 countries and education systems participated.
Hong Kong and Russia had the highest average test scores in fourth-grade reading, with American students ranking sixth.
Students in Florida, one of the states to break out results separately, achieved a higher average score than students in the nation over all.
Students in Finland, which is often held up as a model education system for its teacher preparation and its relative absence of high-stakes testing, outperformed American students on all the exams. But students in countries with intense testing cultures also exceeded American students. "Some of the high-performing math and science countries have extremely rigorous testing regimes," Mr. Buckley said.
The test designers included questionnaires for parents about preparation before formal schooling. Ina V. S. Mullis, an executive director of the International Study Center, said that students whose parents reported singing or playing number games as well as reading aloud with their children early in life scored higher on their fourth-grade tests than those whose parents who did not report such activities. Similarly, students who had attended preschool performed better.
"What's remarkable is that in all the countries, this concept of an early start is there over and over again," said Michael O. Martin, the other executive director of the center. "You can get the early childhood experience in a variety of ways, but it's important you get it."
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New York NY/ International Competitors Still Beat US Students in Tests
By Stephanie Banchero
Wall Street Journal
December 11, 2012
American schoolchildren continue to lag behind those of major competitors in math and science exams given globally, despite progress on some of those tests, according to results from international achievement exams to be released Tuesday.
Students in Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Finland, among others nations, bested U.S. fourth- and eighth-grade students on the 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, known as TIMSS.
The nation's fourth-graders made some progress on the math exam since it last was given in 2007, but U.S. scores on the other exams were statistically unchanged.
Despite that, U.S. students still outperformed the international averages and were among the top performers compared with the 60 countries and educational systems that administered the fourth-grade math and science tests and the 59 systems that gave the eighth-grade exams. U.S. students either placed in, or tied for, the top 13 spots on all those exams.
Some states volunteered to administer the tests to more students so their results could be statistically valid to be broken out separately and did very well, especially Massachusetts, Minnesota and Colorado. Massachusetts, for example, posted the second-highest scores globally on the eighth-grade science test.
U.S. students have made steady progress since the exams first were given in 1995, but other jurisdictions are outpacing that progress, said Ina V.S. Mullis, executive director of the TIMMS & PIRLS International Study center at Boston College, which develops the math and science exams and analyzes the results.
"We are trying to catch a moving target," she said. "This is of concern in a global economy when we are trying to compete for the health of our nation."
- The U.S. results were "pretty respectable," said Jack Buckley, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which administers the exams in the U.S. and studies the scores. He praised the test results posted by some of the states that were broken out individually.
Still, the new data could add to the hand-wringing over the performance of U.S. students overall, which a blue-ribbon panel of the Council on Foreign Relations in March called a national security issue.
- Results released in 2010 from the Program for International Student Assessment math exam, given to 15-year-olds across the world every three years, showed American kids in the middle of the pack compared with 33 industrialized peers.
- Also on Tuesday, results from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), given to fourth-graders, were released and showed the American students made some progress since it was last given in 2006.
- The exam was given to students in 53 education systems globally, and five turned in higher scores than the U.S., compared with eight jurisdictions that scored higher in 2006. Florida scored among the top five education systems assessed by the PIRLS test in 2011.
Asian students have long dominated the math and science exams, dating as far back as 1995, and the new results show they not only posted higher scores but a bigger number of them performed at the highest levels.
In fourth-grade math, for example, 43% of students in Singapore scored "advanced," compared with 13% of their U.S. counterparts. In eighth-grade math, 47% of Korean students scored at the top level, versus 7% of U.S. students.
In science, 33% of Singapore's fourth-graders and 40% of its eighth-graders scored in the top level, compared with 15% and 10% of the comparable U.S. group.
Mitchell Chester, commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education in Massachusetts, credited the state's results on an education overhaul launched in 1993 that included setting high standards for curriculum and administering rigorous exams.
"We have refused to let ourselves be comfortable with successes we've had," Mr. Chester said.
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Washington DC/ How Does Your Child's School Rank Against the Rest of the World?
By Jennie Rothenberg Gritz [an Atlantic Senior Editor]
Theatlantic.com
December 6, 2012
Interactive map: http://www.theatlantic.com/misc/global-report-card
It's not just urban kids who are struggling. Even wealthy suburbs are lagging behind countries like Singapore and Finland.
If your kids are in a good American public school, chances are you know it. (In fact, it's probably the reason you traded in that urban loft for the property taxes of the suburbs.) But what if you woke up one morning and found that a Wizard of Oz-style tornado had dropped your entire district down in the middle of Singapore or Finland? How would your children's test scores measure up then?
That's more or less what the Bush Institute wants to you to imagine as you click through its Global Report Card, an interactive graphic that lets you rank your district against 25 other countries. "When you tell people there are problems in education, elites will usually think, 'Ah, that refers to those poor kids in big cities. It doesn't have anything to do with me,'" says Jay P. Greene, head of the department of education reform at the University of Arkansas and one of the lead researchers behind the Global Report Card. "The power of denial is so great that people don't think a finding really has anything to do with them unless you actually name their town."
- Say you live in Santa Cruz, California. It's a relatively affluent district, and by state standards, Santa Cruz City High scores in the 62nd percentile for reading and 59th for math. But when you rank the school against the rest of the developed world, it drops into the 50th percentile for reading and the 39th for math.
- Up the coast a bit, Palo Alto Unified ranks nearly 30 points higher in each area. But even those numbers are discouraging - if one of the wealthiest and most reputable districts in America, right in the cradle of Silicon Valley, can't break the 70th percentile in math, what does that say about the rest of the country?
Those lagging scores have real-world consequences, says Eric Hanushek, a Stanford economist who was one of the first to rank American students against their foreign counterparts. "If you look across nations over the last 50 years, the growth rates are really very highly correlated with math performance on these basic tests," Hanushek says.
And you don't have to look overseas to realize what a difference education makes.
- Every year, more and more coveted slots at U.S. companies and universities are being filled by foreigners.
- In an article last year ominously titled "Danger: America Is Losing Its Edge in Innovation," Forbes reported that 70 percent of the engineers who graduate from U.S. universities are now foreign-born.
- According to a 2007 study at Duke University, more than a quarter of all U.S. tech start-ups between 1995 and 2005 had at least one immigrant founder.
"Just visit Silicon Valley and you'll see a fairly thick stock of international grocery stores," says Hanushek. "We like to talk about American innovation, but many of the people doing the innovating here were in fact born elsewhere." He estimates that if America's high schools could match the math scores of our top competitors, our GDP could increase five- to sevenfold. "That's the value of what we're leaving on the table," he says.
The question, as always, is how to bring those scores up. The Bush Institute has its own ideas - its programs include initiatives to replace subpar principals and improve middle schools. There's no shortage of other proposals out there - everything from having students grade their teachers to handing out more vouchers, bringing in the private sector, or following Finland's lead and focusing on equality instead of excellence.
For now, Greene, who is a Bush Institute fellow, says he wants to avoid tying the Global Report Card too closely to any specific recommendations.
- "Once you propose a solution, people who don't like the solution are less likely to listen to your description of the problem," he says.
- "Frankly, our goal here is to show that the problem is broader than many people realize - it also includes wealthier and whiter folks. We certainly can't make progress if we don't change the conversation."
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Washington DC/ Common Core Nonfiction Reading Standards
Huffington Post Report
December 11, 2012
Concern is growing among teachers and parents that literary classics will go the way of the dinosaurs under a set of new national curricular standards.
The Common Core State Standards, academic benchmarks that have been adopted by 46 states, call for 12th grade reading to be 70 percent nonfiction, or "informational texts" - gradually stepping up from the 50 percent nonfiction reading required of elementary school students.
The Common Core standards focus on teaching fewer subjects in greater depth, replacing a mélange of educational expectations that vary wildly across districts and states. Proponents of the standards, like the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, say too many students are not college or career-ready because they have suffered from years of easy reading and poor training in synthesizing more complex reading materials.
But the new guidelines are increasingly worrying English-lovers and English teachers, who feel they must replace literary greats like The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye with Common Core-suggested "exemplars," like the Environmental Protection Agency's Recommended Levels of Insulation and the California Invasive Plant Council's Invasive Plant Inventory.
Jamie Highfill, an eighth-grade English teacher at Woodland Junior High School in Fayetteville, Ark., and 2011 Arkansas Teacher of the Year, told the Washington Post she's already had to drop short stories and a favorite literary unit to make time for essays by Malcolm Gladwell from his social behavior book The Tipping Point.
"I'm struggling with this, and my students are struggling," Highfill told the Post. "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."
David Coleman, who headed the process of writing the standards, told the Post that principals and teachers are misreading the guidelines.
The boost in informational texts, he says, is intended across disciplines: When social studies, science and math teachers increase nonfiction and informational reading assignments, English teachers won't have to alter their literature lessons.
But that intent is often unrealized in practice.
- In a paper by the Pioneer Institute, a Boston-based public policy think tank that is critical of the Common Core, language arts experts Sandra Stotsky and Mark Bauerlein claim that literature will inevitably have a lesser presence in curricula, as English teachers remain the ones held accountable for meeting reading standards in fiction and nonfiction alike.
"It's hard to imagine that low reading scores in a school district will force grade 11 government/history and science teachers to devote more time to reading instruction," Stotsky and Bauerlein wrote.
- They also argue that the rush to switch from literature to informational texts is short-sighted, as the skills students develop in understanding complex literature are crucial to college learning and careers. Bauerlein told Education Week the problem worsens when teachers make "weak" nonfiction text choices.
"If we could ensure that the kinds of stuff they're choosing are essays by [Ralph Waldo] Emerson or Booker T. Washington's Up From Slavery, then that would be wonderful," he said. "Those are complex texts, with the literary features that make students better readers in college."
Results from the National Center for Education Statistics' analysis of fourth- and eighth-grade vocabulary scores from 2009 and 2011 reading comprehension exams found that even the highest-scoring students on average couldn't perform above 67 percent. National Assessment Governing Board Executive Director Cornelia Orr called the vocabulary results a "crisis" in education.
Compounding that data is a March report by Renaissance Learning, Inc. revealing that American high school students are reading books intended for children at levels far below those appropriate for teens.
A compilation of the top 40 books read by students in grades 9 through 12 showed that the average text's reading level was 5.3 - barely above the fifth grade.
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