Archive for March 09, 2008 - March 15, 2008

Sitting on a plastic mat in an outdoor classroom at a site for people displaced by violence outside the town of Goz Beida in southeastern Chad, Ibrahim Abdoulaye Moussa has reason to pay attention in class. “I’m in school to save my country,” said the boy, one of 180,000 displaced Chadians scattered around the vast semi-desert east of the country. “I dream of being president.” At 14 years old he is now in Grade 2 of primary school.

Over the last year and a half, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have begun building an education system for Chadian children displaced by inter-communal fighting and cross-border attacks by Sudanese militias. The challenge is enormous. There is little infrastructure, few teachers, and limited interest in education from the government or the international community. Read about the situation at IRIN News online.

To Mary Miller, high school isn’t just a time for study for her daughter, Shakeena Jones. It’s also about learning life lessons, including the complexities of boy-girl relationships. But for too many of the kids in Greensboro, Georgia, says resident David Neal, strutting, preening, and dating have superseded geometry and literature lessons as the real reason to get up for school every morning.

With those viewpoints as bookends, a bold plan to segregate Greene County schools by gender has divided a district long known for abysmal test scores and high dropout rates. The question now confronting school leaders here on the shores of Lake Oconee is one that could face other small, poor, and minority schools both in and beyond the South: Is it advisable, or even legal, to mandate single-sex education, even when research shows that students’ academic performance could improve when taught in such a setting? Read about the situation in The Christian Science Monitor online.

Bookshare.org and Don Johnston have announced a partnership to provide qualified print-disabled students with a free text reader to access electronic books from the Bookshare.org library. This technology access partnership will serve an estimated 1-3% of the total K-12 student population, specifically those who receive special education services and qualify under the 1996 Chafee Amendment.

Beginning at the start of the 2008-09 school year, qualified students will have the opportunity to use Don Johnston's Read:OutLoud Bookshare.org Edition text reader (Windows Version) to access more than 36,000 books, magazines, and newspapers in the Bookshare.org library. The Read:OutLoud Bookshare.org Edition text reader offers embedded reading comprehension strategies and instructional supports that align with state educational standards. The text reader software includes audio feedback, electronic highlighting, and note-taking features that allow students to effectively capture ideas. A Macintosh version will follow in 2009.

The goal of this partnership is to help eliminate barriers for print-disabled students and provide the tools needed to ensure access to educational texts. Bookshare.org offers digital books produced from the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS) and delivers them to students in the BRF Braille file format and the Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) standard for Digital Talking Books. Don Johnston's Read:OutLoud Bookshare Edition text reader gives students better access to books and effective reading instruction through a direct connection to Bookshare.org's digital texts.

For further information, visit either the Bookshare.org website or the Don Johnston website.

As libraries throughout the United States continue to expand their collections for diverse communities, thousands will celebrate El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children's Day/Book Day) on April 30, 2008. Thousands of libraries will host celebrations with family programs, including bilingual story hours, book giveaways, and other literacy events.

Also known as Día, this national celebration brings together children, books, languages, and cultures. It is an annual celebration of the joys and wonders of childhood and the importance of literacy in the lives of families. Día spreads "bookjoy" by linking children from all languages and cultures with books; honors children, their languages and culture; encourages reading and literacy; and promotes library collections and programs that reflect the country's changing populations.

Día is sponsored by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association, and is an enhancement of Children's Day, which began in 1925. Children's Day was designated as a day to bring attention to the importance and well-being of children. Call your local library or visit the El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children's Day/Book Day) webpage for book lists and more information.

He could rail against the unfairness of it all, but Robinsson Franco is resigned. The 18-year-old Honduran immigrant is among the hundreds of Seattle, Washington, public high school students taking the reading and writing WASL tests this week, even though he puts his chances of passing the 10th-grade tests this year at slim to none. “I feel a little bit scared,” he admits. “But we have to try, you know?”

The Washington Assessment of Student Learning tests have become a frustrating annual exercise for both students and educators at Franco’s school, the Secondary Bilingual Orientation Center in Queen Anne. The 263 teenage students there are all recent immigrants and refugees who don’t yet speak or read well enough in English to transfer to one of Seattle Public Schools’ traditional middle or high schools—meaning that even if they understand the material covered on a section of the WASL, there’s still virtually no way they’ll pass. Read about their plight in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer online.

Twenty-eight full-time positions in the Columbia Public School District in Missouri are being looked at under a list of budget reduction considerations. The positions are being considered for termination in what are called the “Priority 1 cuts,” or $5.2 million in budget reductions that must be made in the school district no matter the fate of a 54-cent property tax levy on April 8.

Among the positions cut are eight literacy coaches and 12 positions in special education in middle schools that would be restructured to save the district $200,000. “Literacy coaches were included in the top-priority cuts because they were not intended to be permanent,” said school board President Karla DeSpain, “and it is hoped the program they established should be in place.”

While more Canadians than ever before are furthering their education, literacy rates among adults are falling. A recent report from Statistics Canada used data from University of British Columbia economics professors between 1993 and 2003. While education levels were rising throughout those years, they found literacy rates were falling. In fact, the average literacy of a 35-year-old in 2003 was the equivalent to the literacy of a 25-year-old in that same year.

According to W. Craig Riddell, a co-author of the paper, the biggest changes in literacy skills are defined by those who are at the very top of the spectrum and at the very bottom. At the bottom of the spectrum, the changes are positive—more people who had lower literacy skills in 1993, had higher literacy skills in 2003. However, those at the top spectrum of literacy skills went down substantially in the 10-year span. Read more about the report in The Brock Press online.

Trying to get your elementary students excited about writing? Children's recording artist Mike Mennard seeks poems about pirates for his Captain Rapscallion's Pirate Poetry Contest. Students can submit their original poems for a chance to have Mennard create a song using their poem for his upcoming pirate album. The deadline is March 31. For further information, visit Mike Mennard's website.

Last week and this coming week, the Learning First Alliance will feature a series of exclusive reading-related interviews on its new blog/website at www.publicschoolinsights.org.

The interviews deal in large part with the challenges of motivating reluctant young readers:

* An interview with best-selling children’s book author Joseph Bruchac
* An interview with the nation’s first Ambassador for Children’s Literature, Jon Scieszka
* An interview with adolescent literacy expert Don Deshler.

The Learning First Alliance is a permanent partnership of major national education associations that collectively represent over 10 million educators, parents and policymakers.

There’s a running boom in San Diego County, California, among the 5-to 12-year-old set. On most elementary school campuses, children run just before the morning bell while you’re on your morning commute—perhaps, in part, because of your morning commute. Parents facing long drives to work drop their children at school early, and teachers and volunteers are using the extra 15 or 20 minutes to fight childhood obesity with before-school running clubs. In addition, a growing body of research indicates that exercise doesn’t just build bodies. It builds brains. For one thing, a healthy child learns more than an out-of-shape one. A California Department of Education study shows a correlation between the number of state physical fitness standards children meet and how well they score on reading and math tests. Read more in The San Diego Tribune online.

A court ruling that California parents “do not have a constitutional right” to home-school their children has touched off anger and bewilderment throughout America’s home-schooling community and prompted a denunciation from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. A state appellate court decision last month could force some 166,000 home-schooled students in California to enroll in conventional schools. Governor Schwarzenegger said Friday he would go to the legislature if the ruling is not overturned.

The number of students nationwide who are home-schooled is not known because 10 states are so hands-off they require no reporting at all, nor do parents always comply with reporting requirements. Estimates range from 1.1 million to 2.5 million home-schooled students, and the numbers are rising. Read more in The Christian Science Monitor online.

Rolling Readers, a San Diego-based non-profit literacy organization, is welcoming Allison Bechill as a new executive director in 2008. As executive director, Bechill oversees the non-profit organization on a day-to-day basis, including leading funding, volunteer recruitment, book giveaway management, accounting and marketing efforts, as well as spearheading strategic planning. Before joining Rolling Readers, Bechill managed corporate social responsibility activities for the San Diego office of Reed Elsevier, a world-leading publishing company.

The Rolling Readers’ website has also been revamped to provide a more user-friendly interface with explanations about what the organization has to offer and its program needs. A final change in the organization is that Rolling Readers has relocated its headquarters from Mission Valley to Normal Heights, a location central to many of the schools Rolling Readers serves. For more information, visit the Rolling Readers website.

New Leaders for New Schools, a national non-profit organization in Washington, D.C., that recruits and trains outstanding urban school principals, today released an analysis on the patterns exhibited by at-risk schools making dramatic academic gains. The findings of this analysis hold important implications for urban principalship and for closing the achievement gap for low-income students in America’s urban schools.

The analysis, “Defining an Urban Principalship to Drive Dramatic Achievement Gains,” identifies practical leadership and management steps that urban school principals take to improve low-achieving schools. Research has shown that a crucial factor in a successful turnaround is principals who are capable of leading significant improvements. New Leaders for New Schools is one major national initiative designed to help transform urban public education at scale by defining a new urban principalship and providing high-quality principals who have the mindsets, knowledge, skills, and support needed to help every student achieve at high levels. Read more about the report’s findings at the New Leaders for New Schools website.

This item is not about reading, but in the interest of promoting musical culture we thought we'd pass along this tidbit from National Public Radio (NPR) that a reader alerted us to. Britain's top concert violinist, Tasmin Little, has released her latest album, The Naked Violin, free on the Internet in an effort to draw more people to classical music. In an attempt to promote such composers as Bach and Mozart, Little also will launch a concert tour later this year, performing at venues such as factories, airports, and shopping malls.

To learn more or to download Tasmin Little's album, visit this page on the NPR website.

London's public libraries must take innovative steps such as rewarding regular borrowers with vouchers for travel or the cinema if they are to stay relevant to an increasingly discerning and Web-savvy population, Culture Secretary Margaret Hodge recently said. Hodge told the Association of London Chief Librarians that in order to attract the "Google generation," libraries should consider extending their hours, introducing Web-based lending service with home delivery, and striking deals with coffee chains, according to an article by Hannah Strange of the London Times.

Hodge said that libraries need to reposition themselves to remain vital in the 21st century as they face competition from the Internet, online booksellers, and other sources. Although spending on libraries has risen 17% in the past decade, the number of books borrowed has slumped by 34%, she said.

For further information, read the full article.

At a time of national debate over ways to improve the performance of America's schools, a new report from the Economic Policy Institute reveals a trend that undermines chances of reaching that goal: a large and growing pay penalty for those who choose to become public school teachers. Over the last decade that teacher pay gap increased from 4.3% to 15.1%.

The Teaching Penalty: Teacher Pay Losing Ground by Sylvia Allegretto, Sean Corcoran, and Lawrence Mishel compares teachers' weekly pay to that of a core group of occupations with similar educational and skills requirements: accountants, reporters, registered nurses, computer programmers, clergy, and personnel officers. For further information, visit the Economic Policy Institute website.