Archive for March 23, 2008 - March 29, 2008

Louie Singleton stood in shock as a crowd of more than 350 people gave him a standing ovation. Singleton, who wore a work shirt bearing his first name, isn’t a politician. And he’s not a celebrity or a religious leader. Singleton, of Odenville, Alabama, was being applauded at the West Alabama Literacy Summit Thursday, March 27, 2008, for an achievement that, while seemingly humble, changed his life. At 54, Singleton had learned to read.

Twenty-five percent of Alabamians are considered functionally illiterate, meaning they lack even the ability to read a street sign or instructions on a medicine bottle. In West Alabama, the percentage ranges from 23% in Tuscaloosa County to a shocking 51% in Greene County. To help fight the daunting percentages, local organizations met with government and business leaders as part of the Literacy Summit, sponsored by organizations including the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama and the Tuscaloosa Rotary Club. The overall goal is to create a coordinating council to bring together various groups with literacy efforts. Read more in The Tuscaloosa News online.

ePals, Inc., an Internet-based global learning community, and National Geographic Ventures (NGV), which creates and distributes digital content for the National Geographic Society, are partnering to enhance the ePals site with National Geographic content. The partnership is intended to appeal to the rapidly growing ePals’ Global Community™, which reaches more than 13 million students and teachers in 200 countries and territories.

Initial topic areas of focus include maps and geography, habitats, global warming, natural disasters, people and culture, great leaders, water, and weather. In each area, classrooms and teachers will be able to choose among projects that emphasize collaboration, 21st-century skill building, and the use of school-safe communication tools to work with learners around the world or down the block. For more information, visit the ePals website.

 The frustration over No Child Left Behind, the federal law that dictates student achievement in public schools, is on record in the Virginia General Assembly. But state lawmakers should think twice before bailing out of the program, U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said Wednesday, March 26, 2008. No. 1, the problems are fixable, and No. 2, the state stands to lose millions of dollars if it pulls the plug, she said.

This year, state lawmakers passed a bill that signals their growing discomfort. If Congress renews No Child Left Behind—but doesn’t allow Virginia’s own accountability standards to “substantially meet the requirements of the federal law”—the Board of Education must recommend whether to withdraw from the federal program. Read more in the Newport News, Virginia, Daily Press.

In tough economic times, the resources of the local public library can be more important than ever, according to an article by Kate Hessling in the Huron Daily Tribune. The Bad Axe District Library, which serves several small townships in Michigan, is one of the busiest libraries per capita in the state.

Library Executive Director Mimi Herrington noted that the way people access books has changed, and the library now offers interlibrary loans and online databases, as well as a home-bound delivery program for those who can't physically get to the library. In addition, many patrons use the library's computer work stations. But, in the end, "the biggest thing we still do in the library is lend books," Herrington concluded.

For further information, read the full article.

 The Arizona House of Representatives is on the verge of opting out of the controversial No Child Left Behind Act, President Bush’s premier educational accomplishment. On a voice vote Wednesday, March 26, 2008, the House approved a bill sponsored by state Representative David Schapira, D-Tempe, that would make Arizona the first state in the nation to leave behind the act and its education mandates. It would take effect on July 1, 2010.

But it would leave the state with a $600 million hole in its schools budget, as it would lose federal education dollars by opting out of the program. That’s a cost that some lawmakers, as well as state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, say isn’t worth it, no matter how big the principle at stake. Read more in The Arizona Republic and The East Valley Tribune.

Amid mounting national frustration over high school graduation rates, the School District of Palm Beach County in Florida has been thrust onto center stage. In a class-action lawsuit, the American Civil Liberties Union is demanding that the district boost its graduation rates and reduce the gaps in those rates between racial and socioeconomic groups. The lawsuit is the first in the United States to make such demands of a school district, the ACLU and other sources say.

Lawyers from the national ACLU and its Florida chapter filed the suit in state court on March 18. Specifically, the ACLU is asking the court to require the district to improve its graduation rates by a certain percentage each year—overall and for subgroups. It also wants the court to determine a more accurate way of calculating graduation rates—a complex issue nationwide.

For educators and education experts, the case raises some controversial questions: What is an acceptable rate of graduation? And who should be held responsible when schools miss the mark—schools, students, society? Read more in The Christian Science Monitor online.

Ninety-two percent of Texas’ eighth-graders passed the reading portion of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge of Skills (TAKS) on their first attempt earlier this month—the best showing yet in this class’s academic career of high-stakes testing. The 25,644 students statewide who failed the exam can retake it on April 30 and then again on July 2, if needed. Students who don’t pass on their third attempt face being forced to repeat the eighth grade for the first time in state history.

While high-stakes testing is new for middle schoolers, it’s old hat for this bunch of students. The class of 2012 was the first to face high-stakes testing as both third- and fifth-graders. Read more about the testing in The Houston Chronicle and The Dallas Morning News.

J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books are being embraced as literary and academic texts in college classes on a number of campuses, reports Patrick Lee on CNN.com. Yale University, Georgetown University, Liberty University, Pepperdine University, Stanford University, Lawrence University, Swathmore, and Kansas State University all have integrated the series into their curricula. The books are often analyzed in the context of other books such as contemporary British fantasy or potential influences such as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

For further information, read the full article.

The earlier children are exposed to reading, the better. That is the idea behind the Early Bird Reader Program, in which students are shown how to read to their preschool-age siblings with help from school librarians in the Corpus Christi Independent School District in Corpus Christi, Texas.

The goal is to have about 500 books for each school, which then is responsible for implementing a plan to distribute them to the students. Each child should receive five books to take home and read to their younger siblings.

“We’re trying to engage children who are not yet in the school system,” said Gayle Gottlich, co-chair of the program’s task force. “It’s not just a matter of knowledge. It’s about cognitive development.” Read more in The Caller-Times online.

It looms in the distance, a goal meant to challenge the nation’s schools to reach ever higher. It is 2014, the year the nation’s schoolchildren must all reach proficiency in reading, writing and mathematics under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. But many school officials in Connecticut and around the region are wondering how many more strides they can make in six years toward what some see as an unattainable goal.

Their options to make improvements, they predict, will narrow as 2014 draws closer, particularly since the target of 100% proficiency must also be reached by students who have proven particularly challenging—students from impoverished homes, students with learning disabilities and new immigrants.

Last week, the Bush administration acknowledged that too many schools were failing under the law’s provisions and that some changes would need to be made in some states to help distinguish those schools with major problems from those schools with just a few. Read more in The New York Times online.

A variety of methods for measuring student achievement is the best way to assess and improve high school teaching, according to a new brief from the Alliance for Excellent Education. Measuring and Improving the Effectiveness of High School Teachers, made possible with the support of MetLife Foundation, looks at effectiveness—demonstrating contributions to growth in student learning—as a critical attribute of a high-quality teacher.

The brief argues that the best way to measure teacher effectiveness is to measure the amount of growth a student makes over time. Other methodologies are weighed as well, including benchmark exams and measuring teacher knowledge and skill. The brief is available on the Alliance website.

A crop of social-networking websites aimed at bibliophiles are allowing readers to connect with the page--and with each other--in a brand-new "virtual" environment, according to an article and audio story by Martha Woodroof on the National Public Radio (NPR) website.

Woodruff notes that book-centered sites such as LibraryThing, Goodreads, Shelfari, aNobii, and BookJetty, among others, allow readers to keep track of the books they have read or want to read, and readers can also see what others are recommending.

To read the article or hear the audio, visit the following link on the NPR website.

Describing himself as “a great fan of America’s public education,” singer Tom Chapin says he really appreciates the tough job that faces every teacher. “I believe they need all the help they can get: Anything that excites a student, opens their eyes, and hearts and minds is a positive that makes a child invest in school,” he says on a website called Not On The Test, where a song he wrote with John Forster appears.

“Music, art, drama and sports—these are what kept me involved when I was in school. And these very things, that make a teacher’s (and student’s) job easier and more rewarding, are what’s been cut from curriculums across the country. Now we are teaching by rote again—where the test, and only the test, becomes the reason to teach and study.” Check out the song Not On The Test.

For years, Andrew Bassett struggled in classrooms that he believed were geared to girls. English class was all about flowery essays, there was too much rote seat time, and his teachers just didn’t like his swagger. “All we read were romance novels and I suggested science fiction,” said the senior at Elsie Allen High School in Santa Rosa, California. “I was just saying, ‘Broaden the range here.’ ”

Bassett eventually conquered his academic ennui, finding his place in an advanced English class and gaining admission to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a 4.38 GPA. But not all boys are faring so well. In Sonoma County and statewide, boys consistently score lower than girls in language arts in every grade tested—second through 11th grade. In seven of the grades, the divide last year between boys and girls in Sonoma County was greater than the gap statewide. And the divide widens as boys get older. Read more in The Press Democrat online.

 Accountability is not free, according to educators in California’s Napa Valley Unified School District. It costs about $2 million a year. Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, schools and districts can be required to comply with state- and federal-mandated programs that cost up to millions of dollars. But with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed $14.8 billion cut to public education, educators say they’re in a lose-lose situation: accountability on one hand, reality on the other. Read about their plight in The Napa Valley Register online.

The Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE) has received a $2 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to support the development and publication of a new quarterly journal, the International Journal of Learning and Media (IJLM) to be published by MIT Press. The IJLM will provide a forum for research and debate about the social and cultural implications of the intersection between learning and new and emerging media.

Coedited by David Buckingham of the University of London Institute of Education, Tara McPherson of the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, and Katie Salen of Parsons The New School For Design and the Institute of Play, the IJLM will retain the peer review process of a traditional academic journal while also providing a forum for topical online dialogues.

To see the IJLM call for papers, visit the journal's webpage.

They’re in Grade 1 and 2, but they sound like literacy professors. “Hey. You dropped your rubric!” calls one 6-year-old, pointing to one of the small yellow checklists the teacher gives to each child that outline the points they should cover in their answers. Another boasts he’s made an important “connection” in his reading. A third brags: "I’m almost writing at level 4!"

“Rubric” charts and connections and levels are part of a push to bolster reading and writing at Toronto’s Claireville Junior Public School, with the help of the Ontario Focused Intervention Partnership (OFIP), a program funded by Queen’s Park. With $25 million, moral support and the latest teaching tips, Ontario’s four-year-old Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat, a wing of the Ministry of Education, is using OFIP to help 1,181 struggling schools rethink how they teach the 3 Rs and get kids thinking more deeply and personally. Read more about the program in The Toronto Star online.

Parents at a private school in Montgomery County, Maryland, recently complained when a teacher read to a group of third graders from a book containing gruesome descriptions of conditions on slave ships that brought enslaved Africans to the United States. The parents thought their children were too young for the difficult theme and graphic language, according to an article by Valerie Strauss in The Washington Post.

Meanwhile, parents at a junior high school in the District of Columbia were concerned that their children were reading books they considered too easy for advanced seventh graders. All in all, these examples and others demonstrate that picking books that are appropriate in theme and reading level is an art rather than a science.

For further information, read the full article.