Archive for November 25, 2007 - December 01, 2007

American teenagers scored lower in science than students in a majority of other industrialized countries participating in a prominent international exam, in results that testing officials said they released early after the scores unexpectedly slipped out abroad. Fifteen-year-old U.S. students ranked lower, on average, than their peers in 16 other countries, including those in Finland, Canada, Japan, the Czech Republic, and Ireland, out of 30 total industrialized nations, on the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA.

At a time when many public officials are decrying American students’ middling performance on the international stage, the latest results seem likely to draw a glum reaction in political and education circles. The United States’ average score of 489 on the PISA science section also fell below the average score among industrialized nations of 500. In 2003, the last time PISA measured science, U.S. students scored an average of 491, also below the international average for industrialized nations of 500. Read the article in Education Week.

More than 400 educators gathered Thursday, November 29, 2007, in Waterbury, Connecticut, for the state’s first reading summit. They got a bleak introduction to the topic. When it comes to reading levels, the gaps between black or Hispanic and white students in Connecticut are the widest in the nation. So is the gap between poor and non-poor students, state Department of Education officials said. Statewide, there are 12,834 third-graders at or below basic levels on the reading portion of the Connecticut Mastery Test—enough to fill 178 school buses. “It’s an emergency. Education is an emergency and we have an emergency going on in Connecticut,” state Rep. Beth Bye, D-West Hartford, said of the test scores and achievement gaps. Bye directs early childhood education for the Capitol Region Education Council. Read more in The Hartford Courant.

Education for All by 2015: Will we make it? asks the title of the 2008 edition of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report, launched November 29, 2007, at the United Nations in New York. Published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization and Oxford University Press, the sixth edition of the annual Report is a mid-term review of progress towards the six EFA goals established in 2000. Consult the full report, summary report, regional overviews, statistical search tool, background papers, and video interviews at the UNESCO website.

Screening tests widely used to identify children with reading problems are being misapplied, landing students in the wrong instructional level and delaying treatment for their true difficulties, says new research from National-Louis University and the University of Maryland. The study recommends more use of silent reading tests and limited use of oral tests, according to a summary appearing on Science Daily.

The full article, "Oral Reading Skills of Children with Oral Language (Word-Finding) Difficulties," authored by Diane J. German of National-Louis University and Rochelle S. Newman of the University of Maryland, is published in Volume 28, No. 5, Reading Psychology.

 Reading Research Quarterly (RRQ) is an international research journal published by the International Reading Association. It publishes the highest quality research on reading and literacy for and by scholars throughout the world. As such, its primary mission is to foster connections among researchers to build a coherent knowledge base in reading and literacy across geographic and intellectual borders.

RRQ welcomes submission of research-oriented manuscripts that make significant contributions to advancing knowledge and understanding of reading and literacy, broadly defined. Articles published in RRQ are primarily reports of original, rigorously conducted research employing diverse epistemologies, methodologies, methods, and disciplinary perspectives. These may be reports of field-based (classroom and non-classroom) studies, historical studies, laboratory studies, or text analysis studies. Other appropriate research-oriented articles include comprehensive syntheses of research and theoretical analyses. Regardless of genre, articles need to be oriented toward developing new understandings and furthering research and theory-building in the field.

Submissions are invited from scholars working both within and outside the traditional arenas of reading and literacy research. These include: Anthropology, Cognitive Science, Communication Sciences, Critical Social Theory, Education, History, Learning Sciences, Legal Studies, Linguistics, Literacy Studies, Literary Theory, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Policy Studies, Psychology, Rhetoric and Composition, Sociolinguistics, and Sociology.

For further information about submitting materials to RRQ, visit the Publications section of the IRA website.

U.S. fourth-graders have lost ground in reading ability compared with kids around the world, according to results of a global reading test. Test results released Wednesday, November 28, 2007, showed U.S. students, who took the test last year, scored about the same as they did in 2001, the last time the test was given—despite an increased emphasis on reading under the No Child Left Behind law. Still, the U.S. average score on the Progress in International Reading Literacy test remained above the international average. Ten countries or jurisdictions, including Hong Kong and three Canadian provinces, were ahead of the United States this time. In 2001, only three countries were ahead of the United States. Read The Associated Press article.

Thousands of Iraqi asylum-seekers who were denied education as a result of the turmoil in their own country will now have a chance to finish their studies: Jordan’s government has decided to launch new education projects for asylum seekers, according to officials and activists. Mohammad Ekour, director of students’ affairs at the Ministry of Education, said any student, including Iraqis, can study at home until they sit for the high school examination. The project will be implemented in early 2008. After completing the program, students are given a diploma that allows them further home schooling and a chance to enroll in vocational education programs. Target children are aged 10-18 for boys and up to 22 for girls. Read more at IRIN News.

Researchers in New Zealand have developed a virtual teacher that is able to respond to children's moods. The near-human animated teacher, called Eve, is designed to teach math one-on-one to 8-year-olds, according to an article in the New Zealand Herald.

Linked to a child via computer, Eve can tell if the child is frustrated, angry, or confused by the on-screen teaching session. Eve can then adapt the tutoring accordingly. Eve can ask questions and provide feedback to the young learners. For further information, read the full article.

Girls outpace boys in reading literacy across all countries. Children's enjoyment of and appreciation for reading is on the decline. Countries can implement changes to improve their students' performance. These are three of the key findings from the 2006 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), released earlier today.

Approximately 215,000 fourth-grade level students across 40 countries participated in the study, making PIRLS one of the largest international assessments of reading literacy. In addition, PIRLS collected extensive information about home, school, and national influences on how well students learn to read, and queried parents and caregivers about their children's early literacy activities.

The findings offer valuable information to educators and policy makers worldwide. For further information, see the PIRLS report page.

Given that results for black and Latino students are improving, is the achievement gap something we should be trying to solve at all? Isn’t there a danger of doing more harm than good? All this week, Russlynn Ali and Richard Rothstein debate the achievement gap. On Monday, they discussed whether we’re paying too much attention to the achievement gap. They also will debate the No Child Left Behind law, reasons for lagging minority achievement, reforms to boost students’ performance and more.

Ali is the executive director of The Education Trust-West, an Oakland-based think tank focused on closing the achievement gaps separating low-income students and students of color from other young Californians. Rothstein is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, DC, and author of Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap (Teachers College Press, 2004). He was formerly the national education columnist for The New York Times. Follow the debate in The Los Angeles Times.

The Universal Digital Library, a book-scanning project backed by several major libraries around the world, has completed the digitization of 1.5 million books and on Tuesday (November 27, 2007) made them free and publically available. The online library offers full text downloads of works that are in the public domain, or for which the copyright holder has been given permission to make available. Having the backing of prominent institutions such as the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt, however, the collection goes far beyond the widely available classics. “You’re not going to find over 900,000 works in Chinese on Google,” said Michael Shamos, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University and director of intellectual property for the Universal Digital Library (UDL). Read more about it at CNET News.com.

The new website MeetMeAtTheCorner.org provides virtual field trips for home-schooled children ages 8-12. Directed at more than 1.9 million American children, MeetMeAtTheCorner.org provides virtual educational and informational "tours" of various landmarks from a child's point of view via video podcast technology. Each episode offers suggested readings and follow-up activities, including the opportunity for kids to submit their own complementary videos, as well as lesson plans for the home-school parent.

MeetMeAtTheCorner.org currently offers 26 three- to four- minute episodes, including New York City historic and cultural landmarks such as visits to Broadway and the Forbes Museum, and a bird watching expedition in Central Park. The site also features interviews with the likes of children's illustrator Jeff Hopkins and author Dan Gutman. While directed toward home-schooled children, the site could be a resources for others as well. For further information, visit the MeetMeAtTheCorner.org website.

Congress hoped that if it required the states to give annual tests in return for federal education aid, state politicians would be encouraged—or at least embarrassed—into improving dismal schools and closing the achievement gap between rich and poor children. That’s not how things have worked out. Many states have gamed the system—and misled voters—devising weak tests, setting low passing scores or changing tests from year to year to prevent accurate comparisons over time. The charade will continue, and children will continue to be shortchanged, until the country develops a rigorous national test keyed to national standards. Read the editorial in The New York Times.

As of September 2007, 42 states have significant supplemental or full-time online learning programs (or both), according to Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning, a new report from the North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL). The increase in online learning has made new courses available to students and has provided rural districts with access to resources not formerly available. For further information, read the full report.

The first-day chaos starts to fade long before the last bus pulls up to Orange Ridge Elementary in Bradenton, Florida. Teacher Lynne Eash stands outside cooling herself with a makeshift fan, watching students disappear from the breezeways. Most of her fellow teachers follow the children inside, but Eash stays behind, waiting for her students. They are always the last to arrive. Her new students all come to her because the school system deems they cannot learn like other children. They are in third, fourth and fifth grades but function like kindergartners because of mental retardation, brain damage or autism. Eash’s job for the school year: Find some way to teach them.

The Herald-Tribune spent the 2006-07 school year tracking a group of children with mental disabilities—students excluded from the high-stakes testing that has transformed public education. During more than 100 hours of unrestricted classroom visits, a reporter documented their year of learning. Read part one of the four-part series that began Monday in The Herald-Tribune.

On Wednesday, November 28, 2007, the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) will release the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), 2006: Highlights of Ontario Results. PIRLS is a worldwide reading literacy assessment of fourth-grade students undertaken every five years and sponsored by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. It was administered in Ontario by EQAO on behalf of the provincial government. A total of 45 countries and provinces participated in the 2006 administration of PIRLS. Ontario took part in the study along with four other Canadian provinces: Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Quebec. Highlights of the provincial results and a complete PIRLS 2006 Ontario Report in English, including a breakdown of English- and French-language student results, will be available on EQAO’s website, www.eqao.com, as of 10:00 a.m.

A proposal to require all Alaska teachers to take a special course in how to teach reading has triggered an outpouring of protests from teachers, principals and others. The proposal is aimed at addressing a chronic problem: Too many children have poor reading skills that hamper them in all their classwork, from language arts to science, math and social studies. But teachers and others call the plan an unfunded mandate that is a waste of most teachers’ time. “That every teacher take this one reading course is unrealistic,” Anchorage teacher union president Ron Fuhrer said. “It doesn’t address specific school goals ... it does not address the needs of each individual teacher.” Read more about the controversy in The Anchorage Daily News.

In 1978, researcher Dolores Durkin published a study describing how teachers taught students to understand what they read (“What Classroom Observations Reveal About Reading Comprehension Instruction”). Her finding: They didn’t. Durkin concluded that the teachers she studied offered almost no comprehension instruction. Instead of showing students how to understand what they read, teachers assigned and tested. Often, education research doesn’t have a direct and immediate effect on what actually goes on in classrooms, but this study did. Educators began to consider more carefully how to teach students what skilled readers, writers and thinkers do when they read, write and think. Read more of this commentary by Eileen Landay in The Providence Journal.

Doing What Works (DWW) is a new website sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. DWW is dedicated to helping educators identify and make use of effective teaching practices. Much of the DWW content is based on the Institute of Education Sciences' What Works Clearinghouse (WWC). The WWC evaluates research on practices and interventions to let the education community know what is likely to work. For each practice, it issues a guide and/or an intervention report that describes what the practice involves and what the research says. In addition, some DWW content is based on other information and materials from IES.

DWW also provides examples of possible ways educators might apply those research findings, but these are not necessarily the only ways to carry out these teaching practices. Please note that the examples provided on DWW, including any products named in school materials or found on websites referenced on DWW, should not be construed as an endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education of any products, programs, or curricula.

For further information, visit the Doing What Works website.

An overwhelming 96% of adults in the United States believe that students today need to improve upon skills needed to succeed in the 21st century, according to a recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of the American Society for Quality (ASQ).

The survey found that adults do not think K-12 U.S. schools are effectively teaching the following 21st century skills: organizational skills (51%), communications skills (49%), problem-solving and reasoning (48%), creativity (48%), teamwork and collaboration (39%), and science and technology (36%). For further information, read the full news release on the ASQ website.

In West Yorkshire in the United Kingdom, a giant warehouse "is being meticulously constructed to house things that no one wants," reports Stuart Jeffries in the Guardian. "It will house books, journals, and magazines that many of us have forgotten about or have never heard of in the first place."

By statute, the British Library must receive a copy of everything published in the UK each year. This includes an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 books each year, as well as 150,000 monographs. The storage logistics are monumental, and digital copies won't replace print copies anytime soon. Is the notion of the copyright library, which retains copies of everything published, really sustainable in the 21st century? To learn more, read the full article.