Archive for April 06, 2008 - April 12, 2008

 Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is looking at the bright side where she can find it in the last year of the Bush administration. A Bush loyalist to the end, she’s planning to stay on until January, she said in an interview with Newsweek. But she worries about the future of No Child Left Behind, the administration’s signature education initiative.

“The loopholes will get larger,” Spellings predicts. “States will game the system as best they can in order to get out of doing what they should do to close the achievement gap. No Child Left Behind turned up the heat. And not everyone is comfortable with that.” Read more in Newseek online.

The Boston Digital Bridge Foundation’s Technology Goes Home @ School Program at the Lilla G. Frederick Middle School in Boston, Massachusetts, has been selected as the national winner of the Second Annual Verizon Tech Savvy Awards. The program will receive a $25,000 award to continue and expand.

Through the Technology Goes Home program, Boston public school teachers provide computer and technology training to students and their parents after school or on weekends. Since it began in 1999, more than 3,500 families in Boston have completed the 25 hours of training. The Frederick Middle School, in collaboration with the Digital Bridge Foundation will have trained over 200 families this year. In addition to the national winner, four other programs were recognized as regional winners and each will receive a $5,000 grant.

Two studies relating to Philadelphia released in the same week this month highlight the link between high school dropout rates and rates of incarceration. A study by a Washington criminal-justice think tank revealed that Philadelphia has the highest rate of incarceration in the country, while another study, by a Maryland-based nonprofit, reported that only half of Philadelphia’s students graduate from high school.

Educators know that children who attend high-quality preschool education programs are more likely to graduate from high school. We also know that children educated in small classes are more likely to master reading and math skills on schedule and graduate from high school on time. Nonetheless, the city spends about $24,000 per inmate per year, dwarfing the $9,951 a year Philadelphia spends to educate each of its 207,000 public and charter school students. Read more in this commentary by Jerry T. Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers in The Philadelphia Inquirer online.

Gone are the days of prim librarians glaring at rambunctious teens and pursing their lips to caution, “Shhh!”

These days, youth librarians in Cape Cod, Massachusetts—and across the country—are encouraging teens to rock on with their friends with Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Dance Dance Revolution, and other video games. When Brewster Ladies Library held a game night last month, close to 50 kids showed up.

“Gaming in libraries has been a movement for a couple of years now,” says Kathleen Mahoney, youth services librarian at the library. Before coming to Brewster in 2006, Mahoney worked at the Urban Libraries Council in Chicago. She says big city libraries have been gaming for years. Read about the trend in The Cape Cod Times online.

Facing the prospect of a not-to-distant shortage of teachers, the Blaine County School District in central Idaho and the county’s nonprofit education foundation are taking innovative measures to lure educators to the Wood River Valley. The Blaine County Education Foundation announced earlier this month that it has awarded its first “forgivable loans” to help two Wood River High School teachers meet the stiff local price for down payments on homes, a solution that underscores the stumbling block in drawing educators to the valley—exorbitant real estate prices.

Solutions are not something the school district can ignore, as the county’s Hispanic student population continues to mushroom and half the district’s teachers reach retirement age within the next 10 years. Read more in The Idaho Mountain Express and Guide online.

At least 10 schools have been attacked by unidentified gunmen in different parts of Afghanistan in the past three weeks, Ministry of Education (MoE) officials told IRIN. The armed assailants are believed to be associated with Taliban insurgents. MoE statistics show there were 2,450 “terrorist” attacks on schools from March 2006 to February 2008. In the same period 235 schoolchildren, students, teachers, and other education workers were killed, and 222 wounded.

About 500 schools have remained closed, particularly in the volatile south where Taliban insurgency has also hindered humanitarian and development access. Up to 300,000 students cannot go to school because of insecurity and threats, an MoE spokesman said. Taliban insurgents oppose female education and say the school curriculum is “un-Islamic,” a charge rejected by the Afghan government and moderate Islamic scholars. Read the article in IRIN News online.

Learning Beyond the Classroom, the ReadWriteThink.org site designed to help children and teens build their literacy learning outside of school, is growing!
The site now offers even more activities for children ages 4 to 18 and includes booklists, reading logs, book review podcasts, and best practice videos to help caregivers and tutors make the most of summer reading and writing opportunities.

To see all of these features and more, please visit www.readwritethink.org/beyondtheclassroom/summer. Spread the word about this great resource!!!

ReadWriteThink.org is a nonprofit website maintained by the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English, with support from the Verizon Foundation and in association with the Thinkfinity.org program.

The Library of Congress will honor seven new “Living Legends” as part of its public celebration on Saturday, April 12, 2008, to mark the opening of the “Library of Congress Experience,” which offers visitors the opportunity to explore rare historical and cultural treasures through interactive technology and a companion website. Detailed information can be found at www.loc.gov/experience.

Established during the Library’s Bicentennial celebration in 2000, the “Living Legend” award honors artists, writers, activists, filmmakers, physicians, entertainers, sports figures and public servants who have made significant contributions to America’s diverse cultural, scientific and social heritage. Saturday’s honorees will include Mario Andretti, Julian Bond, Herbie Hancock, David McCullough, Cokie Roberts, Frank Robinson, and Bob Schieffer.

Fatima Saleh, 45, learned to read and write only a year ago: “We were like cows. Whenever I saw anything written, I wanted to read it but I couldn’t. I could not even write my own name. Now I feel as though I am born again.”

Fatima lives in the Sanhan District of Sanaa, Yemen, where there are 50 UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF)-supported literacy centers, with 2,068 female students. The centers are part of a UNICEF project to accelerate girls’ education. There are also 39 literacy centers in the governorates of Abyan, al-Hudeidah and Lahj, teaching 945 illiterate women. All the centers were opened in September 2006 and are scheduled to run until September 2008. Read how the low-cost centers are helping women learn how to read and write in IRIN News online.

 The International Reading Association is pleased to be a Founding Partner of the RTI Action Network. Offering new hope and promise to students, families, and educators in school districts nationwide, the RTI Action Network unites the public and private sectors with representatives from general education, special education, and family groups to support the implementation of Response to Intervention (RTI).

“This unique collaborative offers a rare opportunity for all stakeholders to work together to ensure that each child has access to quality instruction and that struggling students are identified early and given the necessary supports to succeed in school,” says Kathleen A. Whitmire, director of the RTI Action Network. “This initiative represents a powerful convergence to guide educators and families at the local level where implementation occurs.”

Notes incoming IRA President Barbara Walker, “Adapting instruction to support learning for all learners within every classroom is a demanding task. Classroom teachers along with reading specialists, special educators, and others can develop and implement classroom adaptations that advance student achievement. Reading specialists and literacy coaches, along with all members of the school team, must be continually collaborating to create instructional opportunities that advance learning. IRA, as a founding partner of this important network, is pleased to expand its ability to work with other professionals to promote our shared goal of providing effective reading instruction for all.”

The cornerstone of the initiative is the RTINetwork.org website, the premier source of research-based information and expert guidance on Response to Intervention. This new website offers informational resources and professional development as well as the opportunity to interact with top researchers and experienced practitioners. Educators and families now have an online meeting place to exchange information through discussion boards, shared stories, and other networking opportunities.

RTI is a multi-tiered approach to help struggling learners. Student progress is closely monitored during instructional interventions to determine the need for further research-based instruction and/or intervention in general education, special education, or both. RTI approaches are being implemented from preschool through high school, prompting the need for reliable information.

The RTI Action Network is dedicated to the effective implementation of Response to Intervention (RTI) in school districts nationwide. Its goal is to guide educators and families in the large-scale implementation of RTI so that each child has access to quality instruction and that struggling students--including those with learning disabilities--are identified early and receive the necessary supports to be successful. The RTI Action Network is a program of the National Center for Learning Disabilities, funded by the Cisco Foundation and in partnership with the nation’s leading education associations and top RTI experts.

RTI Action Network Founding Partners are as follows: America Federation of Teachers, International Reading Association, National Association of Elementary School Principals, National Association of School Psychologists, National Association of Secondary School Principals, National Association of State Directors of Special Education, and National Education Association.

Throughout April, UNESCO is holding an online discussion forum on “Quality Education to End Exclusion” within the framework of UNESCO’s support to 2008 Global Action Week (21-27 April 2008). Topics being discussed include the following: Quality Education for All, Enhancing Learning, Faces of the Excluded, Inclusive Education in Action, and Voices of Youth. The latter is a special space for young people to exchange their views. The forum is moderated in English, but people are welcome to post comments in French or Spanish.

To join the forum, visit the following page on the UNESCO website.

State sources accounted for the largest percentage of more than $520 billion in revenue distributed to public elementary and secondary school systems in the United States in 2005-2006, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau. State sources accounted for 46.6% of funding, local sources accounted for 44.4%, and federal sources accounted for 9.0%.

For further information, read the full Public Education Finances 2006 report.

Dyslexia affects different parts of children’s brains depending on whether they are raised reading English or Chinese. That finding, reported in the online edition Monday, April 7, 2008, of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, means that therapists may need to seek different methods of assisting dyslexic children from different cultures.

“This finding was very surprising to us. We had not ever thought that dyslexics’ brains are different for children who read in English and Chinese,” said lead author Li-Hai Tan, a professor of linguistics and brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Hong Kong. “Our finding yields neurobiological clues to the cause of dyslexia.”

Millions of children worldwide are affected by dyslexia, a language-based learning disability that can include problems in reading, spelling, writing and pronouncing words. The International Dyslexia Association says there is no consensus on the exact number because not all children are screened, but estimates range from 8% to 15% of students. Read more in this article in The Washington Post online.

How do you pronounce “Jon Scieszka,” author of The Stinky Cheese Man and the new U.S. Ambassador of Young People’s Literature? Or how about the British fantasy author of the bestselling Redwall series: Brian Jacques?

Imagine introducing one of these authors’ books to students in a classroom or library, and mangling the author’s name. A new online database will help you avoid these blunders. The Author Name Pronunciation Guide is a website created by TeachingBooks.net. The site features hundreds of prominent authors, including many winners of the Newbery, Caldecott, and Coretta Scott King awards.

To create the collection, TeachingBooks asks authors and illustrators of children’s books to call a designated phone line and say, “Hello, my name is…” They are encouraged to add a short bit about the heritage or personal story of the name, or just give a tip on how to remember to pronounce it (“Scieszka,” it turns out, rhymes with Fresca). The website now has more than 400 names, with new names added each week. To hear the pronunciation of your favorite author’s name, visit the TeachingBooks site.

Today, it’s less important how students in Iowa or Oregon compare to those in Alabama or Virginia on a national test, according to Raymond C. Scheppach, executive director of the National Governors Association. What matters most is how students in North Carolina or Texas compare to those in Denmark or Russia. In short, educational protectionism, he says, is outdated and ignores the realities of the 21st century global economy.

The countries that will benefit in this new global, entrepreneurial and knowledge-based economy are those with the most highly skilled and educated labor force. So how do we ensure that our students are prepared to compete in the global economy now and in the future? We must start by adopting the correct conceptual standard—not by enacting or adopting federal standards or tests. Rather, the solution is for the states to work together to adopt internationally benchmarked standards—TIMMS and the PISA. Read more of his commentary at Stateline.org.

 Hundreds of schools in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia were judged to have made adequate progress last year under the No Child Left Behind Act even though they failed to meet performance targets for all groups of historically underperforming students, the requirement at the heart of the law.

The schools—153 in Maryland, 100 in Virginia, and 11 in the District—satisfied the law under a “safe harbor” provision. It forgives a school for low test scores from one or more subgroups if those students show yearly improvement and if the school scores well on the whole. The safe harbor provision is a loophole, essentially, in the education law, which sets a national goal of 100% proficiency by 2014 for all students, including seven demographic subgroups defined by race, language, poverty level and disability.

The extent to which schools rely on the provision illustrates the challenge posed by the No Child Left Behind law, which requires that poor and minority students meet the same performance goals as the overall school population, with the target rising by a few points each year. In Maryland, students are being tested this week and testing begins April 22, 2008, in the District and in May for most Northern Virginia schools. Read more in The Washington Post online.

While most of her class was working on assignments related to the letter Z, Stacy Niebel sat cross-legged on a brightly colored carpet, reading a story about the weather with five of her kindergartners. She was less than an hour into a required 90-minute block of time teachers at William Ford Elementary School in Dearborn are required to devote daily to reading and writing. It is part of Reading First, a federal initiative aimed at getting kids to read by the end of third grade.

The program serves about 38,600 students in 158 Michigan schools. And while it has been credited with improving literacy at this school and thousands of others across the United States, Reading First is facing a precarious future because Congress has slashed 61% of the program’s funding for the 2008-09 school year. The loss threatens to shatter the gains made by the neediest students, which helped prepare them for high-stakes testing important to them and the schools. Read more in The Detroit Free Press online.

If you are looking for information and resources on Response to Intervention (RTI), be sure to check out the new RTI Action Network website, which launches today. The site features content on implementing RTI from the preschool to secondary levels, with information for administrators, teachers, specialists, and families. The RTI Action Network is a program of the National Center for Learning Disabilities, and the International Reading Association is a founding partner for the program.

The RTI Action Network website also will offer opportunities to interact with top researchers, experienced RTI implementers, and colleagues. Today, visitors to the site will have a chance to read and respond to commentary by Judy Elliott, chair of the RTI Action Network advisory council. On April 23, visitors can join in a live chat with renowned expert Stanley Deno.

For further information, visit the RTI Action Network.