Archive for October 21, 2007 - October 27, 2007

Teachers and educators working in Pakistan’s Swat valley have expressed concern over growing insecurity in the area, after a fresh round of violence hit the once idyllic valley in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). In a massive bomb attack against a security forces convoy near Mingora on October 25, 2007, as many as 30 people were killed, mostly members of the security forces. Scores of people were injured, many civilians.

Much of the violence is directed at eradicating women’s already very restricted public space. Educational institutions were instructed to remain closed October 24-25 due to expected unrest. Ongoing reports of parents pulling their children out of schools, particularly girls, highlight residents’ concerns. The Swat Youth Front (SYF), a local NGO running 39 community primary schools for girls is already reeling from the crises because its focus is on girls’ education in the area. Read more at IRIN News.

Surrounded by stacks of picture books with such titles as When Dad’s at Sea, Tell Me One Thing, Dad and Daddy is a Doodlebug, participants earlier this week in the Dads and Early Literacy Workshop in Slayton, Minnesota, were left with no doubt as to the day’s focus. “If parents—especially fathers—read to their preschool children, it really shows and makes a positive difference when those kids arrive at school,” said Tom Fitzpatrick, the workshop’s leader and a program director of the Minnesota Humanities Center, based in St. Paul.

Fitzpatrick offered a few startling statistics to the group of Early Childhood Family Education directors, probation officers and Head Start workers. “One study shows that fully 40% of dads never read to their kids,” Fitzpatrick said. “Only 25% of fathers living in the same home with their children ages 0 to 4 read to them daily.” However, the payoff when fathers do make the time to read with their kids is enormous. Read the article in The Daily Globe.

Disapproving of the magic and witchraft in the Harry Potter books, a Catholic pastor at a Massachusetts parochial school in Wakefield, Massachusetts, has done some magic of his own--he made the books disappear from the library of the K-8 school, according to an article by Catherine Donaldson-Evans appearing on Fox News.com. The Reverend Ron Barker of St. Joseph's School said the books are spiritually dangerous for children and could encourage them to engage in witchcraft.

Barker maintains that parents and children have every right to read the Potter series, but he suggested that they check the books out of the public library, saying they have no place in a Catholic school. For further information, read the full article.

Many children from low-income families in the United States now have access to a variety of technology to help aid in learning, according to new research funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Innovation and Improvement and conducted by the Michael Cohen Group LLC, under the auspices of a grant to the Ready to Learn Partnership. Specifically, nearly 75% of caregivers at the federal poverty level (annual household income of less than $25,000) report they subscribe to cable television, two-thirds have DVD players, more than half have mobile telephones, more than one-third have computers, and more than one-quarter have home access to the Internet.

While television took decades to become universal, gains in the new technology have taken just a few years. For further information, access the full report on the Ready to Learn Partnership website.

To the heated debate over reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind law comes a new proposal by Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana. He has co-sponsored legislation that would provide incentives to schools that implement research–backed reading programs. The Proven Programs for the Future of Education Act defines research–backed programs as those evaluated by at least two studies meeting certain criteria, including the use of a control group. The test of the program cannot be created by the same people who created the program. The current No Child Left Behind legislation refers to “scientifically based research” in more than 100 places, so a clear definition of the concept is important. Read about his proposal at journalgazette.net.

Dave Eggers’ debut novel, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, hit bestseller lists in early 2000, creating a dedicated fan base. Since then, Eggers has put his celebrity (and his money) behind a chain of nonprofit literacy centers, the first of which, 826 Valencia, opened in San Francisco's Mission District in 2002. There are six cities with 826 centers, including Los Angeles. Earlier this week in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Eggers was honored for this combination of creative work and community involvement with a 2007 Heinz Award in Arts and Humanities. At 37, Eggers is the youngest winner of a Heinz Award, which comes with a $250,000 prize. He is giving the money directly to the 826 centers. Read about him and the centers in The Los Angeles Times.

In support of its efforts to achieve global literacy, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has launched its new Literacy Portal. The portal consolidates UNESCO’s literacy program and serves as a gateway to sharing information on projects and activities around the world. The Portal aims to enhance UNESCO’s coordination of Education for All (EFA), the United Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD) and the Literacy Initiative for Empowerment (LIFE), a 10-year global strategic framework for achieving UNLD goals. Visit the portal.

Investments in high-quality support programs for new educators yield a significant return on investment for teachers, schools, and students, according to a new study released by the New Teacher Center (NTC) at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The NTC's cost-benefit analysis demonstrates that high-quality induction programs are beneficial both because beginning teachers stay in greater numbers and because those who stay provide more effective instruction.

The NTC's analysis found that every $1.00 spent on high-quality teacher induction programs provides a return on investment of $1.66 after five years. The return on investment is primarily a result of enhanced student learning and reduced teacher turnover costs. The study underscores how teacher induction programs are critical to helping schools retain their best and brightest educators and develop a highly skilled teaching force. Further, the study adds to the research evidence that only comprehensive, high-quality teacher induction programs produce such desired impacts.

For further information, visit the New Teacher Center website.

 Educators and experts across the country who work with English–language learners are moving toward a consensus that the federal Reading First program needs to be refined to become more effective for children acquiring English. Administrators in several big–city districts with large numbers of such students are stepping up their training of teachers on how best to teach second–language learners to read under the No Child Left Behind Act’s flagship reading program, which serves grades K–3. The U.S. Department of Education’s 11–member Reading First Advisory Committee has enough concerns about whether ELLs are getting what they need under the $1 billion–a–year program that it set up a subcommittee to look into the issue last week. Read the article in Education Week online.

Surging oil and gasoline prices in Africa usually weigh most heavily on the emerging urban middle class, making it a struggle to put fuel in cars and to pay home electricity bills. In Senegal, the energy shock is starting to filter down to isolated rural areas, where illiterate parents hoping their children will have a better life through education are worrying about how to put fuel in oil lamps so their children can do their homework. “It is very difficult, because at night, we need to make light but there has not been any petrol in the area since last year,” said Abba Diallo, president of the Parent–Teacher Association in Thiancone Boguel, a town in northeastern Senegal, some 690 kilometers from the capital, Dakar. Read the article at IRIN News.

Arcade and video games...dinner and a movie...digital audio books--these are just a few of the offerings that libraries across Massachusetts are using to draw patrons, according to an article by Anna Badkhen in The Boston Globe. The modern-day library, says Kimberly Lynn, president of the Massachusetts Library Association, is a community living room-cum-reference clearinghouse, with some digital gaming sprinkled in.

For further information, read the full article.

A new paper titled "Key Issues and Questions in English-Language Learners Literacy Research," released on October 22, highlights a number of important points relating to the education of English-language learners in the United States. The paper is the result of a collaboration between the International Reading Association and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to look at key issues in reading and make recommendations to the field for further investigation.

The full text of the ELL paper can be accessed in the Focus on Topics in Reading: English-Language Learners section of the IRA website.

 Sharon Davis Williams was in a meeting earlier this month when she received a note that Venetian Hills Elementary School had just been named a national Blue Ribbon School. Of course, Williams did what any overjoyed school administrator might do: She started screaming. Out loud. During the meeting. “I couldn’t help it,” Williams, an executive director for school reform at Atlanta Public Schools, recalled recently. Williams had good reason to shout: Five years ago, Venetian Hills was under federal sanctions to offer children private tutoring and transfers to better–performing schools because the campus had repeatedly failed to meet academic standards. Now, after making dramatic gains on state reading, English and math exams, the southwest Atlanta campus has won one of the country’s highest education honors. Read about the changes the school made at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution website.

Many Americans are concerned that the United States is not preparing young people with the skills they need to compete in the global economy, according to results of a new nationwide poll released by Partnership for 21st Century Skills. An overwhelming 80 percent of respondents say that the skills students need to learn to be prepared for the jobs of the 21st century are different from those needed 20 years ago. Furthermore, a majority of Americans say schools need to do a better job of keeping up with changing educational needs.

For further information, visit the Partnership for 21st Century Skills website.

A number of major libraries, including the Boston Public Libary and the Smithsonian Institution, are resisting offers from Google and Microsoft to scan their books into computer databases, according to an article by Katie Hafner in The New York Times. Some libraries are concerned about restrictions the companies want to place on the digital collections.

Instead, many libraries are signing on with the Open Content Alliance, a nonprofit effort. However, a number of prominent libraries, including the New York Public Library and libraries at the University of Michigan, Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford, have accepted Google's offer.

For further information, read the full article.

Thirty-five years in the making, electronic paper is closer than ever to changing the way we read, write, and study, according to an article on The Future of Things website. Some see its development as being nearly as revolutionary as the invention of the printing press. To learn more about the history and possible future of electronic paper, read the full article.

Stuck in traffic? Listen to a good book. That's the premise behind Random House's $200,000 ad campaign to get commuters in Atlanta listening to audio books. Atlanta was chosen for the trial campaign because it has some of the longest commuting times in the nation, according to an article by Ken Foskett in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Four weeks into the campaign, Random House says it has boosted sales. Amanda D'Acierno, director for marketing and publicity at Random House Audio, says the publisher is considering similar ad campaigns in other cities, noting that "there's no shortage of traffic."

For further information, read the full article.

Albus Dumbledore, beloved headmaster of Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series, is gay, revealed series author J.K. Rowling on Friday. Speaking at Carnegie Hall in New York City as part of her brief "Open Book Tour" of the United States, Rowling made the revelation in response to a question from a young fan, according to an AP report appearing on CNN.com. Rowling noted that she regarded the Potter books as a "prolonged argument for tolerance." For further information, read the full article.