Archive for November 04, 2007 - November 10, 2007

On November 2, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced the national distribution of 520,000 free, new books as part of the 2007 Adolescent Readers Initiative. The initiative, a joint venture between the Department of Education and the nonprofit entity First Book, is designed to improve the literacy skills of struggling young adults in low-income schools and communities. For additional information see the Department’s press release.

The number of reported attacks against students, teachers and educational facilities for political or military reasons has increased dramatically in the past three years, according to a recent United Nations study. The countries that are most affected are Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Nepal, the Palestinian territories, Thailand and Zimbabwe, the study showed. Brendan O’Malley, who prepared the report for the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, told a news conference Novemeber 8, 2007, that the violent incidents range from multiple deaths in bombings and by gunfire to targeted assassinations, destruction of buildings, the recruitment of school-age children as soldiers, and the occupation of schools by armed groups. Read The Associated Press article.

Violence and verbal abuse against teachers at a new high; English schools outperforming Scottish ones; tens of thousands of pupils in Scotland failing to master basic literacy and numeracy skills by the age of 14: just a few of the headlines in the Scottish press this year. Whatever has happened to our reputation in education, and the respect we had for teaching and for learning?

For as long as I can remember, a Scottish education was held to be one of the finest in the world. We seemed to recognize earlier than most that learning was not simply a refining grace, but a vital ladder to a better life. And through that recognition, our teachers enjoyed a standing and regard that seemed timeless and unassailable. How did we let slip this prize and end up with a system beset with decline? It now battles with a relentless change and convulsion that has turned much of a teacher’s life into mesmerizing form-filling over targets, budgets and quotas. Read Bill Jamieson’s opinion piece in The Scotsman.

Illinois students who have limited English-language skills will have to take the regular state achievement exams beginning next year, under a recent decision by federal officials. In past years, students who were new to the country and spoke little English were allowed to take the Illinois Measure of Annual Growth in English (IMAGE) in math and reading. That exam is written in English, but it has fewer and simpler questions. But the U.S. Department of Education ruled earlier this month that IMAGE was not an appropriate way to determine if non-English speaking students were mastering basic math and reading skills. Read the article in The Chicago Tribune online.

Library patrons in some areas of the United Kingdom will soon receive a little something extra when they check out a book--an advertising insert. According to a report on BBC News, the advertising promotion is offering advertisers 500,000 inserts through a number of county libraries. The program aims to cover the United Kingdom by the middle of 2008 with approximately 3 million inserts per month. For further information, read the full article.

Publishers Weekly has released its list of best books of the year (both children's and adult titles). Want to see if your favorite books made the list? Visit the Publishers Weekly website.

In a new report, Maximizing the Impact: The Pivotal Role of Technology in a 21st Century Education System, the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA), the International Society for Technology in Education, and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills urged renewed emphasis on technology in education.

The report urges federal, state, and local policymakers and other stakeholders to take action on three fronts: (1) Use technology comprehensively to develop proficiency in 21st century skills. (2) Use technology comprehensively to support innovative teaching and learning. (3) Use technology comprehensively to create robust education support systems.

For further information, visit the SETDA website.

 Prospects for renewing the No Child Left Behind education law this year are essentially dead, as Capitol Hill lawmakers appear content to leave the legislation to the politically charged environment of next year’s presidential election. Senate leaders made a bipartisan decision recently to delay consideration of NCLB renewal legislation until next year. House negotiations over a similar bill continue to sputter along and, complicating matters further, Democratic education leaders railed against President Bush yesterday after he threatened to veto a labor, health and education spending bill.

That Democrat-crafted bill exceeds Bush’s funding request for the Education Department by some $4.5 billion, including $600 million more than he requested for NCLB programs, according to House Democrats. House education panel Chairman George Miller, California Democrat, said the veto threat “sharply reduced the prospects” for bipartisan negotiations over NCLB renewal. “He thinks he can have his education legacy on the cheap. He is profoundly mistaken,” Miller said of Bush. Read more in The Washington Times.

The nonprofit ACT, best known for its college admissions exam, seeks four outstanding teachers from middle school, junior high, or high school in the areas of science, mathematics, social studies, and language arts to participate in its Visiting Teacher Program for 2008. The program brings teachers from across the United States to ACT's national headquarters in Iowa City, Iowa, where they can use their classroom expertise to review, evaluate, and develop English, math, science, and social studies teacher resources and instructional support materials.

The six-week program runs June 16-July 25. Selected teachers will receive a stipend of $5,500 and the cost of round-trip transportation. ACT will secure and partially subsidize housing for the visiting teachers. The deadline for application is December 28, 2007. For details, visit the ACT website.

Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, was among eight people to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 5. The Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award that a U.S. president can bestow.

President Bush said that Lee's book "has influenced the character of our country for the better," according to an article by Ken Herman of Cox News Service appearing in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. For further information about the ceremony and all of the winners, read the full article.

Since March, Dixon Deutsch and his students have been quietly experimenting with a little website that could one day rock the foundation of how schools do business. A K-2 teacher at Achievement First Bushwick Elementary Charter School in Brooklyn, New York, Deutsch, 28, has been using Free-Reading.net, a reading instruction program that allows him to download, copy and share lessons with colleagues. Colleges for years have tapped open-source materials, with instructors designing and giving away material such as lecture notes and exams. But the idea has been slow to make a mark in the less technologically savvy K-12 world. That may soon change. Websites such as hippocampus.org offer free materials tied to high school textbooks, and several college-level open-source projects are trickling down to K-12 schools. Read more at USA Today.com.

Everyone wants to be an American Idol or have a few minutes of fame on America’s Got Talent. Now there’s a way schools can become “Stars,” too.

In their latest joint venture, the International Reading Association (IRA) and Rotary International (RI) have developed “Every School a Star,” a Web-based resource designed to help Rotary clubs and IRA reading councils cooperate on literacy projects.

 There is growing doubt whether Congress will reauthorize the No Child Left Behind law in the waning days of the current session. Even Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is tempered in her confidence. “I have worked hard to get a reauthorization,” she told a Monitor-sponsored breakfast with reporters last week. “The bad news is that we are attempting to do it ... on the eve of a presidential election.” Congress is supposed to make revisions in the law and reauthorize it every five years. Whether or not Congress changes the legislation through reauthorization, it will remain on the books and “is strong as mustard gas,” Secretary Spellings said. Read her colorful take on education policy in The Christian Science Monitor online.

 Requests from parents to transfer their children to another school within the Manchester, New Hampshire, school district have skyrocketed. Last year, 18 children changed schools. This year, 94 families representing 100 children have asked administrators to approve moving out of a school designated “in need of improvement” under No Child Left Behind. The law requires districts give parents that option, but it only applies to schools accepting federal Title I funds for free and reduced lunch. Manchester only uses Title I money in elementary schools. Just three schools had to offer parents a transfer option last year. Now there are eight Title I schools in need of improvement. Read how the district is trying to cope in The Union Leader.

Oprah started it, television personalities Richard and Judy took up the mantle, now everyone is getting into book clubs. Book clubs have been around for years but they’ve never been as popular as they are now. Like knitting and crossword puzzles, they’ve been gradually making the social transition from cringeworthy to cool since Oprah started hers back in 1996. These days, just getting a mention on Oprah—or Richard and Judy’s book club in the United Kingdom—can make a book into a best seller overnight. And now book clubs have made it onto the big screen, with the release of The Jane Austen Book Club in cinemas later this month—and when something hits Hollywood it’s a sure sign that before long we’ll all be doing it, if we aren’t already. Read the article.

Local celebrities in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, will flex their mental muscles at Read to Succeed’s 2007 Rebecca Jones Celebrity Spelling Bee Saturday, November 27, in the Patterson Park Community Center Theater. “All of this is about encouraging our young people to read and enjoy reading …” Rutherford County Mayor and celebrity speller Ernest Burgess said. “If these folks are willing to publicly spell, (then) literacy must be important,” Ronni Shaw, Read to Succeed executive director, said. Spellers, like Burgess, are relieved to know words start out at an easy third-grade level and advance up to an eighth-grade level. Also, celebrities will be asked to spell words related to their chosen field, as in, Burgess may be asked to spell, “Rutherford.” Read about the bee in The Murfreesboro Post.

 As they sat in the Oval Office one day in January this year, President Bush and Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) put their differences over the Iraq war behind them and focused again on ways to reshape the nation’s education system. “We“re going to get moving on this, right Ted?” Bush asked. Yes, Mr. President, Kennedy said. He could pass it by March. Ten months later, the optimism has vanished and the campaign to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind law has bogged down. Not only has it not passed, but no legislation has been introduced. In an interview last week, Kennedy said it will not happen this year after all. “It’s going to tip over to next year,” he said, right into the teeth of a presidential campaign with candidates on both sides denouncing the program. Read the article in The Boston Globe.

Shaheb Mia, 17, collects rubbish on the crowded streets of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Although he can write his name in Bengali and English and count, he has never learned to read or write. “I went to our village school for three years. Then my father abandoned us. My mother and I left our home for Dhaka. In Dhaka there is no time for me to go to school. If I go to school, I starve,” he explained. Primary school dropout rates in Bangladesh, with a population of 150 million, have always been high, but new research suggests numbers are increasing. According to a study conducted by 10 NGOs, with the Commonwealth Education Fund, the dropout rate has increased from 33% in 2002 to 47% in 2006. Moreover, the net enrollment of 6 to 10-year-olds declined to 93 percent in 2005 from 97 percent in 2002. Read about the problem at IRIN News.