Go Engineering!

Environmental Education Catching On

Interest in environmental education appears to be soaring, buoyed in part by alarms over global warming and concerns over energy prices, USA Today reports.

In June, a key House committee blessed a bill that would provide money to help states develop environmental lessons and train teachers to deliver them. In addition, the National Environmental Education Foundation, which teams up with schools and other institutions to promote green curricula, has seen the number of partners jump from 330 in 2006 to 1,855 this year.

“We’ve seen a real surge in interest,” said Karen Heys, senior director of the foundation’s educational programs. “A lot of people are thinking and talking about environmental topics lately and teachers want to respond to what’s happening today.”

Heys said schools are increasingly using field trips to promote earth science, such as the Las Vegas high school science teacher who takes her students outdoors to discuss desert ecology.

But Heys and other supporters say efforts to expand green lessons have been stymied by the federal No Child Left Behind Law, which judges schools based on their math and reading test scores.

“One of the unintended consequences of No Child Left Behind has been to push environmental education out of the classroom because teachers are under so much pressure to push the test scores up in reading and math,” said Brian Day, executive director of the North American Association for Environmental Education.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings has said nothing stops schools from being innovative by weaving other subjects into math and reading lessons.

Day said his Washington-based association helps states develop scientifically legitimate green curricula, recognizing that climate change and its causes remain a politically touchy subject. He said they’re careful not to endorse teaching methods or lesson plans that promote environmental activism or endorse a particular solution to ecological dilemmas.

“When environmental education becomes advocacy, it no longer is environmental education,” he said. “The role of an educator is not to teach kids what to think but how to think.”

John Nesbitt, the 6th-grade science teacher at Sidwell Friends who coordinated the solar car race, said he hopes to get his students thinking about the future, “that they come to understand the many different applications of green technologies and the role, hopefully, that sustainability will play in their lives.”

Schools Seek Separate – and Shielded – 9th Grades

Ninth grade, often the first year of high school, is a critical time for students, when many sink or swim in their budding high school careers. Given this grade’s importance  — and the difficulties many adolescents face — some educators are turning to ninth-grade-only schools to separate 14- and 15-year-olds from older kids and make the transition easier, the Associated Press reports.

“People just really value having our ninth-graders have a chance to develop intellectually, emotionally and socially outside of the context of a large comprehensive high school setting,” said Kenneth Graham, superintendent of Rush-Henrietta Central School District near Rochester, N.Y. “They don’t have upperclassmen in the halls picking on them and teasing them.”

In the 1999-2000 school year, there were 127 ninth-grade-only public schools. In the 2005-06 school year, that number had jumped to 185, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.

In San Antonio, Tex., the Southside Independent School District is opening a ninth-grade school this month. Another district plans to open one next year.

“I think that most of us in the state have always been looking for ways of addressing the dropout issue and … keeping our students engaged,” said Juan Antonio Jasso, superintendent of Southside. “It didn’t take a great deal of convincing that this was a most positive approach to take with the student population.”

The ninth-grade year is crucial to success in high school. If students don’t get the credits needed to move on to 10th grade, they can fall insurmountably behind. In Texas in the 2005-06 school year, 16.5 percent of ninth-graders — the highest rate of any grade — didn’t complete requirements to advance to 10th grade, according to a Texas Education Agency report.

Ninth grade is also when most problems start to appear, said James Kemple of MDRC, a New York-based social policy research organization.

“It’s the point where you can very clearly predict who’s eventually going to drop out,” said Kemple, director of the group’s K-12 education policy area.

There are more ninth-graders in U.S. high schools than any other class. That’s because many students either aren’t promoted to 10th grade or drop out before they get there.

In 2003-04, there were nearly 4.2 million ninth-graders nationwide. But by the next year, just 3.75 million were in the 10th grade, according to the Washington, D.C.-based National High School Center.

Ninth-grade-only schools make some sense, said Joseph Harris, director of the center. But simply moving students to another campus, building or wing isn’t enough.

“It isn’t replicating the practices of a large comprehensive high school in a stand-alone ninth grade,” Harris said. “The key there is making sure that you’re facilitating the communication between teachers and administrators in ninth grade who are preparing students for eventual promotion.”

Still, educators acknowledge there are some drawbacks.

For many students, it means attending three schools in as many years as they progress from the eighth grade to high school. West Fargo superintendent Dana Diesel Wallace wonders if exposure to older students is a part of the maturation process that ninth-graders don’t get.

Testing Firm Offers Assurances

Texas Education Agency officials are reviewing their new $3 million student data contract with the Princeton Review after the education testing company accidentally disclosed personal data and test scores of tens of thousands of students in Florida and Virginia, the Dallas Morning News reports.

“We’re reviewing everything to make sure we have the tightest security possible in place,” TEA spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe said.

“We also have been in contact with Princeton Review, and they have given us assurances that there will be no similar problems with our project.”

The contract calls for the company to oversee the state’s math and science diagnostic assessment system for students in grades 3 to 12. Part of the Texas math and science initiatives, the Web-based system gives teachers the ability to monitor student progress in both subject areas and provide remediation where there are gaps in performance.

Princeton Review has not yet received test data from any school districts, which are to provide the information used in the diagnostic system.

“The agency is double-checking everything to make sure we don’t have similar issues here, but we already have extremely high security when it comes to student-level data,” Ms. Ratcliffe said.

The New York Times reported that Princeton Review inadvertently provided access to personal information and standardized test scores of about 34,000 students in Florida and personal information – such as birth dates – on 74,000 students in the Fairfax County, Va., school system.

The company said it was working to make sure the problem didn’t happen again.

Poll: Obama Holds Edge on Improving Schools

According to a recently released survey, a greater proportion of Americans think that Sen. Barack Obama would be more likely than Sen. John McCain to improve public schools as president, Education Week reported. The survey, conducted by Phi Delta Kappa International and the Gallup Organization , reports that 46 percent of respondents viewed Sen. Obama as the candidate for the White House better able to strengthen public education, compared with 29 percent for Sen. McCain. Twenty-five percent of respondents said they didn’t know which candidate would be better able to handle school policy.

The poll, released annually by PDK, a professional society for educators based in Bloomington, Ind., and Princeton, N.J.-based Gallup, was conducted from June 14 to July 3, using a national sample of 1,002 adults aged 18 and older.

The survey also showed that only a small proportion of Americans—16 percent—want to see the No Child Left Behind Act, the main federal K-12 education law whose reauthorization is pending in Congress, renewed without major changes. Thirty-one percent of respondents identifying themselves as Republicans and 50 percent of Democrats said would like to see the law extended, but changed significantly.

And 25 percent of Democratic respondents said they would like to see the law scrapped entirely, compared with 27 percent of Republicans.

The results on which party’s nominee would be better for public schools represent a significant shift from 2004, when that election’s Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, was viewed as equally supportive of public education as President Bush, with each receiving the confidence of 41 percent of respondents on the issue. In 2000, respondents gave then-Texas Gov. Bush a slight edge over Vice President Al Gore on public education, with 38 percent of those surveyed saying they thought Mr. Bush would better handle K-12 policy, compared with 37 percent for Mr. Gore.

Those surveyed gave Sen. Obama, the Illinois Democrat set to officially gain his party’s presidential nomination next week in Denver, an edge on handling a range of education issues, including in promoting parental choice, typically a policy position more closely identified with Republicans.

Forty-three percent said they trusted Sen. Obama to do a better job on the issue of school choice, compared with 32 percent for Sen. McCain, the Arizona Republican slated to accept his party’s nomination early next month in St. Paul, Minn. Respondents also gave Sen. Obama an advantage on closing the achievement gap between white and minority students, supporting research efforts for developing new curriculum courses and new educational assessments, and funding education.

“Education has traditionally been a Democratic issue,” said Thomas Toch, a co-director of Education Sector, a Washington think tank. He said that both President Reagan and the current president were able to use the issue effectively, but that “the needle has moved back to where it traditionally is on education, in part because of the backlash against the No Child Left Behind Act.”

Jeanne Allen, the president of the Center for Education Reform in Washington, said Democrats may have an edge on the issue simply because Americans have little to go on in trying to determine how each candidate would proceed on education policy, because the campaign has featured so little discussion of it.

Sarah Palin Backed Increased School Funding, Choice

In tapping Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, presumed Republican presidential nominee John McCain has selected an elected official who has supported increased funding for education across her rural, frontier state and voiced support for school-choice programs that appeal to many conservatives, according to Education Week.

A mother of five children, Palin, 44, vaults onto the national stage as the vice presidential nominee from relative obscurity, at least within the political and education circles of the nation’s capital.

The Republican governor was elected to that post less than two years ago. Before that, she was the mayor of Wasilla, a suburb of Anchorage.

Pre-K for All Not Yet a Reality in New York

More than 10 years after New York’s political and education leaders promised to work toward providing access to pre-kindergarten classes to every 4-year-old across the state, more than a third of the 677 local school districts have no such programs, according to the New York Times. Last year, fewer than 91,000 children attended state-financed pre-kindergarten classes — 38 percent of the state’s 4-year-olds.

The early promise of universal pre-kindergarten programs was undermined by state budget problems, especially after 9/11, and local districts were never required to offer them. But even as funding dedicated to pre-kindergarten has more than doubled over the last three years, hundreds of mainly suburban and rural districts have rejected the state money, with many saying they would have to cut other things or raise taxes to establish the programs.

Last year, local districts passed up $67.5 million of the $438 million the state set aside for pre-K.

“Universal pre-K is an idea that looks good on paper, but it doesn’t work for a district of this size,” said Superintendent Edward Ehmann of the Smithtown school district on Long Island, which turned down $459,000 in state aid because, he said, it would cover only a quarter of the cost of providing pre-kindergarten to 750 children.

The not-so-universal state of pre-kindergarten has frustrated many parents and children’s advocates, who cite studies showing that access to early education classes can be critical in smoothing out socioeconomic differences in vocabulary and development and in preparing children for the demands of schoolwork.

Steven Barnett, a professor of education, economics and policy at the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University, said pre-kindergarten has become “the new kindergarten.” The classes improve children’s cognitive abilities and promote social and emotional development, Dr. Barnett said, leading to higher test scores and graduation rates in later years.

Few school administrators dispute the benefits of pre-kindergarten, but many say it is impractical to provide it to every child.

In Smithtown, for example, Mr. Ehmann said that even if his district could find the money, it would have to contract with community groups to provide pre-K classes because there is no room in the schools, which would mean hiring administrators to oversee those locations, adding costs.

Instead, the district has, for the past two years, distributed its kindergarten curriculum to private preschools as a way to encourage more consistency. In nearby Uniondale, district officials also said they have no place in their overcrowded buildings to put pre-kindergarten.

In Westchester County, the affluent Bronxville district decided not to pursue a pre-kindergarten program for about 100 students because, as Superintendent David Quattrone put it, “the vast majority of parents prefer to use the private programs in our community.” He also cited financial and space constraints.

Overall, state officials said, 230 districts will start the school year with no state-financed pre-kindergarten.

“I’m disappointed by the slow progress, especially since over the last 10 years, there’s been even more evidence of how useful universal pre-K is in closing the achievement gap,” said Maria DeWald, president of the New York State Congress of Parents and Teachers, which has long advocated for universal pre-kindergarten.

Pre-kindergarten, like kindergarten before it, was long considered a private matter and very much optional — it was known as nursery school and basically amounted to structured play. Kindergarten, of course, is now a required offering for public schools in 43 states, although attendance is optional in many of those places, according to the Education Commission of the States, which advises governors and state legislators. In New York, every district offers kindergarten, though the state does not require it, with a majority, 603 districts, providing full-day programs.

While many places across the country have long offered scattershot preschool programs for children with special needs or those from disadvantaged backgrounds, the push for universal pre-K began along with the broader educational accountability movement in the mid-1990s.

Preschool Found to Boost Math Perfornance

Children who went to preschool perform better in math at age 10 than classmates who didn’t get the early education, according to a study in the United Kingdom reported by Bloomberg News. The Bloomberg report appeared in the Boston Globe.

An average child of that age who attended preschool scores 27 percent higher on a standard math test than a comparable pupil without the preparation, said researcher Edward Melhuish, a professor of human development at the University of London.

The finding may buttress the case made by advocates of universal preschool education in the United States, where the federal government provides such programs only for children from low-income families. By contrast, the UK has paid for preschool for all 3-and 4-year-olds since 2004, regardless of their parents’ earnings.

“Universal preschool would mean higher test scores, less school failure, and probably also increased high school graduation and college attendance,” W. Steven Barnett, director of the National Institute for Early Education Research, a program at Rutgers University.

Barnett wasn’t involved in the research by Melhuish and others.

Melhuish was the lead author of a study, reported in yesterday’s edition of Science, of preschool influences on math achievement.

The article doesn’t specify the gain for children from preschool.

The UK scientists said they analyzed data on more than 2,500 children. The subjects had attended preschool for 18 months on average, and also had five years of elementary education by age 10.

“Preschool boosts the child’s cognitive language and social development,” Melhuish said. “Therefore when the child starts school, the child benefits more from the school experience and many aspects of development are better, including math scores.”

A study by Georgetown University released in June found that students who had completed Tulsa, Okla.’s state-funded preschool program exceeded peers who did not attend in reading, writing, and math skills. Oklahoma is one of only three states that fund public preschool education.

Groups Offer Nano Science to K-12s

A new program to introduce K-12 students to nano science has been launched by artists and scientists from NanoArt21.org and The Nanotechnology Group, T.H.E. Journal reports. Seeing a lack of coverage of nano science in K-12 curriculum, NanoArt K12 was introduced to stimulate education activities about nanoscale art, science, and technology. Nano means “dwarf,” and a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.

NanoArt is a new discipline that combines art with science to create paintings and sculptures at molecular and atomic levels.

Scientists use chemical or physical processes to explore the surfaces, composition, and interaction of elements at the nanoscale, which can now be viewed and manipulated with research tools such as scanning electron (SEM) scanning tunneling (STM) and atomic force microscopes (AFM). These scientific images are then captured and further processed, using different digital techniques. Since these tools are too expensive for primary grade classrooms the program will provide weblinks to sites that the children, parents, and teachers can explore.

“This unique introduction to the K-12 students showcasing the beauty of nature at this tiny scale of science is designed to stimulate their imagination and curiosity strengthening the desire to learn more science, technology and engineering (STEM) courses as they move through the primary grades and enter high school,” the two organizations said in a statement.

The program offers a NanoArt K12 online exhibition in which compositions are grouped online by age/grade level for the viewers.

More Took SATs; Scores Unchanged from 2007

A record number of students in the high school graduating class of 2008 took the SAT college admissions exam nationwide, scoring on average exactly the same as their counterparts the year before, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing statements by the College Board.

Average scores for the 1,518,859 students who took all three sections of the test, including the essay, did not budge even a point, said officials with the College Board, the nonprofit that owns and administers the key college admissions test.

About 40% of those who sat for the exam were minorities, up from 33% a decade ago, but the gap between average scores for black and Mexican American students and for white and Asian American students persisted. (The College Board reports average scores by ethnicity as described by the test-taker.) Overall, white students outscored Mexican American test-takers on the reading section, 510 to 446; black students recorded an average of 438.

Asian American students topped the math scores, with an average of 564, compared with 549 for white students, 453 for Mexican American students and 429 for black students.

In California, 195,406 students took the test, up 5% from last year’s figure. State Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said this represented 48.4% of all California high school graduates. California reading and writing scores did not shift, but average math scores declined by a single point.

Students Scored Low on New Algebra 2 Test

Students across the country struggled with advanced algebra on a first-of-its-kind test in that subject, according to a report by Achieve, the nonprofit Washington organization that helped coordinate the exam, Education Week reports.

A dozen states had students take part in the test, the product of an unusual collaboration among states seeking to establish a common standard for judging teenagers’ ability in challenging math, as well as their preparation for college.

Achieve is part of the American Diploma Project Network, an effort among two-thirds of the nation’s states to align standards, tests, and graduation requirements. Achieve officials in 2005 began working with states to devise a test in advanced algebra, or Algebra 2.

Nearly 90,000 students took part in the first test, which was given as an end-of-course exam this spring.

The Algebra 2 test is designed to be a demanding exam, the authors of the report say. Most state high school math exams, by contrast, gauge students on 9th or 10th grade math, not the skills they need to prosper in college classes, the report states.

Not surprisingly, given the test’s relative difficulty, scores from the 12 participating states were low. North Carolina’s students earned the highest average of percentage points correct, 35 percent. Kentucky’s students had the lowest, at 21 percent.

Achieve officials, however, cautioned against reading too much into individual states’ results, which they said could be affected by several factors. They noted that the number of students taking the test varied enormously by state, from nearly 34,000 in Ohio to only a few hundred in Minnesota. They also pointed out that students in various grades took the Algebra 2 exam, depending on the math requirements of their states.

“We were not surprised” by the low scores, said Michael Cohen, the president of Achieve, which seeks to raise academic standards and prepare students for college and the workforce. “We knew that a rigorous algebra test, pegged at a college-readiness level, was not something a lot of students would do well on.” Even so, he added “it’s a big reminder of how much further we have to go.”

NYC Seeks to Increase Knowledge, Reading Skills Simultaneously

In a bid to correct what he called a “knowledge deficit” among New York City public school students, Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein has announced a pilot program that would overhaul the way children in 10 city schools are taught to read, according to the New York Times.

The program, devised by E. D. Hirsch Jr.’s Core Knowledge Foundation, is being paid for with $2.4 million in private donations raised by the Fund for Public Schools. Called the New York City Core Knowledge Early Literacy Project, it will run for three years, following kindergartners at the 10 schools through the first and second grades.

The pilot program, which will involve about 1,000 children, represents a shift from the Bloomberg administration’s longstanding approach to teaching children to read, known as “balanced literacy.” Under that approach, children are encouraged to select books that interest them, at their own reading levels, from classroom libraries. The theory behind the approach is that it is more important to ensure that young children are truly engaged by books than to dictate that everyone read the same thing.

The Core Knowledge curriculum, by contrast, is heavily focused on content, vocabulary skills and nonfiction books, based on the belief that when students struggle in middle school and beyond, it is largely because they lack basic knowledge in subjects like history, science and literature.

Hirsch is perhaps best known for popularizing the phrase “cultural literacy,” and calling on schools to impart basic knowledge rather than simply teach students the skills they need to become better learners.

New York, which already has about 100 elementary and middle schools using other Core Knowledge curricular materials, is one of eight school districts around the country testing out the new early literacy materials on the youngest pupils. The term “knowledge deficit” comes from the title of one of Hirsch’s books, which Klein said he had found compelling.

At a news conference announcing the project at the Tweed Courthouse, Klein said the new program was “not at all” an acknowledgment that balanced literacy had failed, pointing to the city’s rising scores on both state and national fourth-grade reading tests as signs of the Bloomberg administration’s success. But the chancellor said he hoped the early Core Knowledge approach could help raise eighth-grade reading scores, which have not shown the same gains.

“I view it as building on but not in any way repudiating — our results speak for themselves,” Klein said. “There is so much further to go, and one of the things that you’ve heard the mayor and myself speak about is, even as you make progress, you want to look to make greater progress and to move this to a higher and different level.”

In 2008, 43 percent of the city’s eighth-graders read at or above grade level, according to state tests; while that is an improvement over the scores in 2002, when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took control of the schools, the city’s eighth-grade reading scores on national exams known as the nation’s report card have not shown significant improvement over the same time period.

Some critics of the balanced literacy approach said they welcomed the pilot program — but that it should have been adopted much earlier and for a larger number of schools.

“I can finally say something nice about one of Klein’s curriculum choices,” said Sol Stern, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative policy group. “Unfortunately, it’s just a few schools in the sixth year of his administration. But at least it looks like he’s educable.”

Lucy Calkins, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College and an architect of the city’s balanced literacy program, said that the 10 schools participating in the Core Knowledge pilot should try to also include other approaches in their curriculum. For example, she said, she hoped there would still be time “to teach revision strategies in a writing workshop or the skills of inference in a reading workshop — that you’re not only talking about the subject.”

Still, she said, “This could be calling us to a new and better balance.”

Education officials said the 10 schools, all of which have large numbers of poor children, were chosen based on their principals’ desire to participate. Some are members of what is called the city’s Knowledge Network — schools that have chosen to affiliate with Kathleen M. Cashin, a veteran superintendent who has long embraced Dr. Hirsch’s approach to teaching basic subjects.

A Stern Warning to Truants

The Board of Education in Maryland’s Prince George’s County is unleashing a barrage of television, radio and print advertising as part of a crackdown on one of the school system’s most serious problems: the 6,000 students who are regularly skipping class.

The Washington Post reports that the public relations campaign, which asks adults to call police if they see students out of class during school hours, takes aim at what school board member Rosalind Johnson called “a crisis in America.” A sample video announcement, played at a news conference yesterday, begins with a clip from the class-cutting comedy movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day

Off” and later shows the grim consequences: a young man put in handcuffs and led to the county jail. The announcement is expected to run on a school system cable TV channel.

In most cases, a truant apprehended by police would be taken to school, not to jail. From there, the student’s parents would be contacted, Johnson (District 1) said. But she did not rule out harsher measures for repeat offenders.

The 130,000-student school system “is going to enforce the law, which is compulsory attendance,” Johnson said in an interview, during which she placed responsibility for regular attendance with parents. “If we have to jail them, I want them jailed.” School board member Pat Fletcher (District 3) agreed: “If it gets to that point, it has to get to that point.”

The aggressive rhetoric was meant to address an intractable problem in Prince George’s. Maryland’s second-largest school system has the second-highest truancy rate, after Baltimore, according to state data. In the 2006-07 school year, 4.17 percent of county students were habitually truant, a state report said. In some high schools, the figure exceeded 20 percent. The same report said 0.97 percent of Montgomery County students were habitually truant, and the highest rate at a Montgomery high school was 5 percent.

About 80 percent of Prince George’s truants are in high school, according to a county report. But Johnson said about 300 truant students are in elementary school, a figure she found distressing.

“I was stunned,” she said. “If you have an out-of-control child, that is not a legally accepted reason. You cannot turn your back on your parental responsibility.”

Fletcher said she hoped to cut the number of truants in half this year, to about 3,000.

‘Paperless’ Approach Catching On

School districts across the country are making a variety of efforts to cut back on their use of paper, Education Week reports. Schools are forgoing textbooks for online versions, school board members have laptop computers on the dais instead of thick paper agenda books, and classrooms such as Serrano’s are opting for laptops over three-ring binders.

The paperless movement has “saved a lot of trees, freed up staff time, and in most cases has produced a financial cost savings in the long run,” says Ann Flynn, the director of educational technology for the National School Boards Association.

School boards were some of the first and most eager school-related entities to go paperless, or paper-independent, Flynn says. “It’s definitely been a trend over the last several years,” she says.

Before giving up paper, Flynn says, school board staff employees typically prepared big notebooks of all agenda items and related materials for board members. In a paperless board meeting, all that information is loaded onto a Web site that members can access online. Often the product allows school boards to have public sections in which anyone can look at the meeting agenda and some supporting material, as well as a private, members-only section for information on personnel or other sensitive topics.

Money Woes Impact Schools, Students, Parents

WASHINGTON — Harder times and higher fuel prices are following kids back to school this fall, the Associated Press reports.

Children will walk farther to the bus stop, pay more for lunch, study from old textbooks, even wear last year’s clothes. Field trips? Forget about it.

This year, it could cost nearly twice as much to fuel the yellow buses that rumble to school each morning. If you think it’s expensive to fill up a sport-utility vehicle, try topping off a tank that is two or even three times as big.

At the same time, bills are mounting for air conditioning and heating, for cafeteria food and for classroom supplies, all because of the shaky economy. And parents have their own tanks to fill.

The extra costs present a tricky math problem: Where can schools subtract to keep costs under control?

In rural Minnesota, one district is skipping classes every Monday to save a day’s worth of fuel. On the other days, classes will be about 10 minutes longer.

The other option for the district — Maccray, an acronym for Maynard, Clara City and Raymond — was to start cutting electives. A shorter week will save at least $65,000 in fuel, superintendent Greg Schmidt said.

There is still a cost. Kids will have to stay awake and alert later in the day, and some parents will need to find day care on Mondays. But it’s a small district, with 700 kids, and many parents are self-employed at farming or construction.

Nationwide, at least 14 other districts are switching to four-day weeks, and dozens more are considering it, according to a recent survey by the American Association of School Administrators.

About 100 districts made the switch years ago, in many cases because of the 1970s oil crisis.

Parents are being asked to do more even as they try to cut back.

In Paw Paw, Mich., schools started asking last spring for parents to drive or carpool to athletic trips on the weekend.

In Waterford, Conn., parents might have to pay this year for annual trips to New York or Boston. The school’s bus contract includes field trips, but not two hours away, school superintendent Randall Collins said.

Now, instead of visiting the American Revolutionary freedom trails in each city, students probably will visit nearby Hartford to see the Connecticut Capitol or the Mark Twain house.

Nearly half of the schools in the school administrators’ survey said they are curtailing field trips.

Montgomery County, Md., is cutting funds for its award-winning math team. The district will still pay the coach’s stipend, but parents will have to step in.

In Jacksonville, school lunch prices will rise from $1.30 to $2. As fuel prices have rocketed higher, the cost of food has zoomed, especially for lunch-tray staples such as milk. As a result, most schools will charge more for lunch, the School Nutrition Association said.

Schools still will not break even. More than half of all school children in this country get free and reduced-price lunches, and the government reimbursement often is not enough.

As the cost goes up, nutritional quality goes down. It is not cheap to follow federal guidelines for healthy eating; fresh fruits and veggies and whole grains can cost several pennies more for every meal.

Districts are trying hard to squeeze every drop of savings from buses and energy conservation to avoid more drastic cuts in sports, activities or even classes. Schools are also cutting teachers and other employees, in most cases eliminating positions that are vacant. In Montgomery County and elsewhere, they are holding off on ordering new textbooks.

In places where the district charges for bus service, such as San Jose, Calif., parents will have to pay more. Hundreds of districts are cutting or consolidating bus routes, expanding the distance kids have to walk.

In Oxford, Ala., the bus always has made stops at every house. But this year, kids in fifth grade through 12th grade will have to walk to neighborhood bus stops.

South Carolina expects to spend nearly $11 million meant for new buses on fuel instead — in a state where the average school bus is 12 years old and some are 22.

In California’s Folsom Cordova district, there will be no high school buses this year.

Smaller, more rural districts require smaller measures: Paw Paw, Mich., is moving to all-day kindergarten, eliminating eight bus runs in the middle of the day.

Schools are also getting creative with computerized bus routes and heating and cooling systems; Montgomery County, the sprawling district in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., has a master control room straight out of NASA that lets one person regulate the temperature in every single classroom.

All these cutbacks may seem tough, but to economist Brian Bethune at the private forecasting Global Insight, it’s about time.

Only about half of all school kids ride the bus to school. Some walk or pedal bikes, but plenty ride to school in a car with their parents. In an era of high gas prices with no end in sight, Bethune says people need to change.

Back-to-School Shopping is a Hunt for Bargains

From the Los Angeles Daily News

Seeking bargains on backpacks, glue sticks and other classroom supplies for her two daughters, Esther Wieder spread the back-to-school shopping around to a few stores this year and barely spent $60.

It was a whopping $90 savings from last year when she snapped up all the school items at one store.

The Tarzana, Calif. mother is among a growing number of parents changing their shopping habits this year and doing extra homework to find deals on notebooks, crayons and other supplies in today’s sluggish economy.

“I was shopping for bargains,” said Wieder, grinning over her savings. “I spent barely $60 for everything, including backpacks.”

In a recent back-to-school survey involving more than 5,000 moms and dads, 90percent said they are changing the way they shop for classroom necessities, with surging gas and food prices contributing to those decisions, according to the report from financial-advising firm Deloitte.

At least 71 percent plan to spend less than last year for these classroom items and 79 percent will buy more supplies on sale.

“Consumers will likely stick to the basics this fall,” said Stacy Janiak, head of Deloitte’s U.S. retail division. “Parents may be saying `no’ more often as they head to the register.”

Maria Lopez and daughter Adrianna Alarcon, 13, recalled last year’s school-supply shopping spree at an office supply store.
But this year they’ll shop and scan for sales at major discount chains such as Wal-Mart and Big Lots.

“They are cheaper,” Lopez said.

Discount stores are enjoying a surge in profits from this growing shift in consumer shopping habits as more people look to stretch their dollars.

Stocking all stores nationwide with regional school-supply lists and 1,300 with school uniforms, Wal-Mart has prepared for the back-to-school season.

“We’re feeling really good about back to school,” said company spokeswoman Shannon Frederick.

More middle-class bargain hunters are also discovering 99 Cent Only stores and are stocking up on the Care Bear pencil cases, Little Mermaid journals and Spider-Man pens lining the school-supply aisles.

This flurry of shoppers represents a shift in consumers for the discount chain that once had a large customer base of lower-income families. But these challenging economic times are driving more people through the doors, said Jeff Gold, president of the single-price retail chain.

“We’ve definitely seen a lot of customers who would typically do their shopping elsewhere do their shopping at our stores,” Gold said.

Still, parents want to get their children everything they need for school and are shopping differently to make that happen, said Ellen Davis, spokeswoman for the National Retail Federation.

“Shoppers are focused on price and they want to make sure they are getting a good deal,” Davis said.

Though Becky Garcia and her seventh-grade daughter, Nicole, have not started serious back-to-school shopping yet, they have already snapped up some items they found on sale.

Coupons from J.C. Penney, for example, helped buy shirts for Nicole to wear to school.

“When we’re out and see something on sale, we buy it,” said the Reseda mother.

Kaileh Pistol of Woodland Hills usually hits the stores in August armed with the ever-growing list of school supplies for her children in kindergarten and sixth grade.

Her list is not yet done this year, but that’s not stopping her from grabbing bargains when she spots them - a change in her shopping habits from the past.

“I keep an eye out,” said Pistol. “If I’m out and know something is probably on the list and is on sale, I buy it.”

High-School Exit Tests Become More Course-Specific

The focus of state high-school exit examinations is shifting from measuring basic skills to determining whether students have mastered the content of specific courses, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, which cites a newly released report by the Center on Education Policy.

When the center, a Washington-based policy and advocacy organization, began tracking such tests in 2002, 10 states required students to pass “minimum competency” examinations to receive public high-school diplomas. The examinations measure how well students have acquired basic skills, typically at the eighth-grade level or below.

Now just two states—Minnesota and New Mexico—continue to tie high school diplomas to minimum-competency tests, and both plan to drop those exams in the coming years, the report says.

John F. (Jack) Jennings, the center’s president, said such tests were adopted in the 1980s and 1990s to prod high schools to ensure their graduates could handle basic tasks, but they have fallen out of favor because “standards have gone beyond that now.”

“I think states would justifiably be embarrassed giving a high-school diploma based on eighth-grade competency,” Jennings said.

Meanwhile, the number of states tying high-school graduation to passage of “end of course” examinations in specific subjects has climbed from two in 2002 to four: Mississippi, New York, Tennessee, and Virginia. An additional 10 states plan to have such tests in place by 2015.

Seventeen other states now use a third type of mandatory high-school exit test—”comprehensive” examinations, which assess how students have mastered several subject areas, usually at the ninth- or 10th-grade level, the report says. It says that number will decline to 15 by 2015, and three of the states that will continue to use comprehensive tests—Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Washington State—will require students to pass end-of-course tests as well.

The center’s report says states are switching to end-of-course exit examinations out of a belief that such tests increase academic rigor, improve school accountability, and help align high schools’ curricula with state standards.

Although the newer end-of-course and comprehensive examinations hold the bar higher, few go so far as to ensure that students graduate from high school ready for college or work, the report says.

Moreover, it says, administering end-of-course examinations poses several logistical challenges. Among them, states need to figure out how to grade tests and get the results back to districts in a timely manner. They must also work out ways to ensure that students who fail tests get effective remediation in those courses.

Over all, the growth in the number of states using exit tests has slowed—partly because exit tests can be controversial, with parents often rebelling against their use after large numbers of students fail. In one form or another, exit tests are used by 23 states, and just three states without tests have plans to put them in place by 2015.

Among its other key findings, the report says:
• The states that have adopted mandatory exit examinations tend to be those with substantial minority populations. The 23 states that now have such tests serve 68 percent of all of the nation’s public high-school students but 74 percent of the public high-school students from minority groups.
• Although every state with an exit examination offers an alternative path to graduation for students with disabilities, just three such states offer an alternative test for students who speak a language other than English at home.
• Five states—Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, and Wyoming—require students to take the ACT test to graduate from high school, while Maine requires students to take the SAT (see a related article on the release of the latest ACT test scores). Students do not have to earn a minimum score on the tests to graduate. Instead, the tests are used to assess whether students are prepared for college and to encourage them to apply. In some cases, the tests are also used to measure students’ mastery of high-school material.

Average Scores Drop as Number Taking ACT Grows

The average score of 2008 high-school graduates who took the ACT examination dropped slightly as the number of test takers grew, ending a trend of scores gradually increasing over the last few years, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. The newspaper cites a report by the nonprofit ACT Inc., which owns the test.

The average score dipped to 21.1, down from last year’s record high of 21.2, but equal to the 2006 average. The test is scored on a scale from 1 to 36. An optional writing section is scored separately.

ACT officials also track the number of students who meet a benchmark score on each of its four sections: mathematics, reading, science, and English. The benchmarks are meant to indicate if a student is likely to earn a C or better grade in certain first-year college courses. ACT officials argue that the percentage of students meeting those benchmarks is a better indicator of college readiness than the average score.

This year the percentage of students meeting those benchmarks held steady from last year, except on English, which saw a drop of one percentage point in the number of students who met the benchmark. So the proportion of students who met or exceeded the ACT’s benchmark score on all four sections this year—22 percent—is down one percentage point from last year.

ACT officials attribute the dip in the average scores to a large increase in the pool of test takers. This year, 1.42-million high-school seniors took the test—a 9-percent increase over last year. Average test scores generally drop when the number of test takers increases, said David A. Hawkins, director of public policy for the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

The increase in test takers occurred in both traditionally strong ACT states and on the coasts. Because its writing portion is optional, the ACT test is both cheaper and shorter than the SAT.

Principal Who Reported ‘Pregnancy Pact’ Quits

Gloucester, Mass. High School principal Joseph Sullivan, who drew worldwide media attention to his community when he told a reporter in June that a number of teenagers in his school had a pact to get pregnant, abruptly resigned on August 12, according to the Boston Globe.

In his resignation letter, which was obtained by the Globe, Sullivan wrote that he had been forced to “recognize that I have neither the trust, confidence, or respect of the mayor nor the superintendent.”

“My instinctive reaction to this realization has been to soldier on, but I have too much respect for myself, my family, the school, the students, the faculty, and the staff to continue,” he said.

Without the support of the mayor and superintendent, Sullivan said, “the already difficult and challenging job of being the high school principal becomes next to impossible.”

Greg Verga, chairman of the School Committee, said: “It’s a loss for the community. I think Joe was an excellent principal. My only concern is that people will remember only this most recent episode.”

Seventeen girls at the high school, about four times the average annual figure, became pregnant during the past school year. In an article published in Time magazine in June, it was reported that Sullivan described a pact between girls who planned to get pregnant and raise their babies together.

Confidence in U.S. Public Schools Drops

Americans express less confidence in the nation’s public schools and less support for the renewal of the No Child Left Behind Act than they did a year ago, according to the results of an opinion poll reported by Education Week.

The poll, a project of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University, shows that 26 percent of respondents give public schools a grade of D or F, compared with just 20 percent who give the schools an A or a B. When a similar poll by the same research group asked the same question last year, 27 percent gave the nation’s schools an A or a B.

Those results should be heeded by the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees for president, argue the authors of an article analyizing the findings that is slated to run in the fall issue of Education Next, a journal of research and opinion published by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

“If Barack Obama and John McCain want to walk in step with the American public, they should acknowledge the flagging performance of schools, for while Americans retain an abiding commitment to public education, the grades that they assign the nation’s schools are increasingly mediocre,” says the article, written by William G. Howell, an associate professor of public policy at the University of Chicago; Martin West, an assistant professor of education at Brown University, in Providence, R.I.; and Paul E. Peterson, a professor of government at Harvard. Mr. West is an executive editor of Education Next, and Mr. Peterson is the editor-in-chief.

The poll shows that 62 percent of Americans believe Democrats are more likely than Republicans to improve the schools. That finding marks a shift in attitudes since 2000, when surveys showed that Americans’ opinions were much more closely divided on which party was more likely to improve schools.

Sen. McCain, R-Ariz., has said he would direct federal money to alternative teacher-certification programs, give parents greater access to supplemental educational services, and expand private school choice, partly through online education. Sen. Obama, D-Ill., has called for increasing spending on education, and expanding teacher-residency programs, which help give preservice teachers more experience in the field as they earn their certification. He has been opposed to allowing public money to go to private school vouchers.

As other surveys have shown, however, the new poll found that Americans are more supportive of their local schools than they are of public schools in general. A slight majority of respondents also indicated that they think schools are making improvements overall.

“Fifty-six percent of the public say that the local public schools are heading in the right direction, compared to 44 percent who believe they are on the wrong track,” the authors write.

Still, Americans are more likely to give favorable grades to the local police force and the post office than they are their local schools, the poll shows. The nationally representative survey of 3,200 people, which was conducted by the polling firm Knowledge Networks last winter, has a margin of error of 1 percentage point.

“The minute that you scratch beneath the surface, you get a lot of more skepticism at the local level,” said Jean Johnson, an executive vice president at Public Agenda, a nonpartisan public-opinion-research organization based in New York City. “They feel, ‘This institution is not doing really want we need it to do.’ ”

The public is divided on the future of the No Child Left Behind Act, with half saying the federal law should be renewed as it is or with a few adjustments, and the other half saying it needs major changes or should be abandoned altogether, according to the poll findings.

Not surprisingly, public school teachers—who constituted 700 of the people surveyed—are far less supportive of the law, which requires schools to meet annual targets on standardized tests. Only 26 percent would like to see the act renewed with minimal changes, 33 percent are in favor of a complete overhaul, and 42 percent of the teachers surveyed think Congress shouldn’t renew the NCLB law.

“Teachers feel caught between a rock and a hard place,” Ms. Johnson said, adding that she has seen similar results among teachers in Public Agenda’s polls. “They’re being held to higher standards, but a lot of teachers feel like they don’t get the parent and student cooperation they need.”

Still, Americans are supportive of academic standards and of holding schools accountable through tests. In the new poll, 69 percent of the respondents said they are in favor of national standards and tests in math, science, and reading.

The survey covered a variety of current education topics, including online education, school integration by race or income, and mainstreaming of students with behavior and emotional problems.

“I think they are going into some areas that people haven’t been asked about a lot,” Ms. Johnson said of the survey from the Program on Education Policy and Governance.

The results also reveal some differences among respondents based on race. For example, 16 percent of the entire sample, compared with 30 percent of African-Americans, said that school districts should definitely or probably be allowed to consider students’ race when assigning students to schools. The poll found less support for integrating schools on the basis of family income, an approach that has been promoted as an alternative to using race in student assignments. Only 13 percent support the idea of income-based integration, and 72 percent are opposed.

African-Americans and Hispanics are also somewhat more supportive of using public funds to give low-income families vouchers for private schools—a distinction that has been found in previous polls. Still, given that 40 percent of all respondents said they completely or somewhat favor vouchers for low-income families, the authors argue that the poll suggests that many American’s are “open to ideas.”

Respondents were also asked for their opinions of educating students with emotional or behavior problems in regular classrooms, a practice known as mainstreaming. Only 28 percent of respondents—and 25 percent of teachers—were in favor of the idea.

Another topic to receive attention in the survey is online education—an area that revealed differences in opinion depending on which students would be taking the online courses. For example, 64 percent of respondents said they favor using online education to help high school students in rural areas gain access to more courses, and 68 percent said they favor students’ using online education to earn college credit.

But support dropped significantly—by more than 20 percentage points—for giving high school dropouts and home-schooled students access to Web-based courses.

Smarter Kids? Or Easier Tests?

Maryland educators in July celebrated a major jump in test scores, with achievement gaps narrowing and pass rates rising six percentage points in reading and four points in math. Then skeptics crashed the party, according to the Washington Post.

The revelation that this year’s Maryland School Assessments were a half-hour shorter than last year’s raised suspicions among researchers who thought the scores were too good to be true. Here, some thought, was the smoking pencil.

The episode illustrates a basic disagreement within the education community over why scores are rising across the nation since the 2002 enactment of No Child Left Behind, which sets a goal of 100 percent proficiency by 2014: Are kids getting smarter, or are tests getting easier?

“The Congress has told governments and state school officials that all children must be magically proficient by 2014,” said Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. “They’re finding ways to make sure everybody creeps toward universal proficiency.”

Maryland officials removed a section of multiple-choice questions from state reading and math tests this year, shortening each from roughly three hours to two and a half. They did not publicly announce the change, although the 24 school-system superintendents were apprised in a June 2007 memo.

State Superintendent of Schools Nancy S. Grasmick said she did not even recall the change when she made the results public July 15. State officials contend that the revision had no bearing on results because only a few deleted questions counted toward student scores, and those were replaced.

“The 2008 results are absolutely comparable to every previous year back through 2003,” said Ronald A. Peiffer, deputy state superintendent.

In the No Child Left Behind era, it is unusual for questions to be raised about state test results, based on changes to an exam that had not been publicly announced.

Researchers say there are many ways, intentionally or inadvertently, to skew a test: Replace difficult questions with simple ones. Assign more weight to easier questions to exaggerate small gains by weak students. Lower the passing score, so a student who gets half the questions right is judged a success.

Illinois, Missouri and Arizona all have publicly lowered passing scores on their tests, yielding higher pass rates. California officials shuffled the order of questions on the third-grade reading test two years ago, out of concern that the first question students saw was overly complex.

Virginia’s Board of Education eased passing scores on several history and social studies tests in 2001. A subsequent Washington Post analysis found that the changes were responsible for about half of the increase in schools meeting state accreditation standards in 2002. State education spokesman Charles Pyle said there has been no easing of the tests since then. One significant change in 2006 actually made some tests harder, he said.

District of Columbia education officials say their testing system, introduced in 2006, has never been altered in a way that could make it easier. Scores in the District rose notably this year.

NYC Cash-for-Tests: More Participants, 32% pass

A program to pay students in some New York City high schools up to $1,000 for passing Advanced Placement tests has shown mixed results, the Associated Press reports.

Students at the 31 participating schools took 345 more tests this year than last year. But the passing rate dropped slightly, from 35 percent in 2007 to 32 percent this year.

The cash reward program is funded by the Pershing Square Foundation and is intended to increase the number of low-income and minority students who are prepared for college.

Fewer than 1 percent of black students in New York City schools currently pass an A.P. test.

Silicon Valley Group Launches $3M STEM Campaign

The Silicon Valley Education Foundation announced a $3 million campaign to fund programs aimed at improving student performance in science, technology, engineering and math, the San Jose Business Journal reports.

The Milpitas, Calif.-based group’s CEO, Muhammed Chaudhry, said students across Silicon Valley are falling behind in those subjects and “may not be able to provide the future skilled workforce that area companies demand. If Silicon Valley hopes to continue to lead the world in innovation, and lead the knowledge economy, we must produce home-grown talent.”

The foundation, which provides resources to the county’s 34 school districts, has already launched an accelerated algebra I program in four school districts, hosting 450 6th and 7th graders.

Homework Hotline Gets $2.7 million Grant

A statewide homework hotline in Indiana that helps public school students perplexed by their math and science assignments has won a $2.7 million grant to remain in operation for the next three years, according to the Associated Press.

The Lilly Endowment grant announced Wednesday for the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology also will boost efforts to urge the state’s principals and teachers to encourage students to use the toll-free “Homework Hotline.”

“Without this grant we would have had to curtail service, or bring it back to a local service. It’s helping a lot of kids,” college spokesman Dale Long said.

Over the next three years, Long said the hotline staff will increase its outreach efforts with teachers and staff at Indianapolis Public Schools — the state’s largest school district — as well other parts of the state, including rural school districts.

Middle and high school students stumped by a particular math or science concept can call the hotline during the school year. The hotline is staffed by students at Rose-Hulman’s Terre Haute campus.

A record 44,151 callers got help through the hotline last school year, while another 2,652 e-mail senders used its Web site. Since the hotline debuted in 1991 as a project in the Terre Haute area before expanding statewide, it has helped more than 250,000 students.

The hotline isn’t an answer line, but an educational resource that reinforces classroom concepts by offering students help on areas they find confusing.

Homework Hotline Director Susan Smith said the biggest challenge is getting students to call the hotline — 1-877-275-7673 — or to use its Web site — www.AskRose.org — for the first time.

Teacher Shortage in Connecticut

As school districts scramble to fill vacant teaching positions before kids start heading back to school, a shortage of science, math and foreign language teachers remains a statewide roadblock in Connecticut, the New Haven Register reports.

In New Haven, officials have traveled all the way to Puerto Rico to recruit much-sought-after (and hard to find) bilingual teachers. This year, the trip netted eight recruits.

Across the state, districts are seeing an influx of English-language learners; more than 9,000 entered Connecticut schools from 2000 to 2005 alone, according to the state Department of Education.

The problem, according to Education Department spokesman Thomas Murphy, is that there are more vacancies than teachers in some subjects.

“There is an overage of elementary certified teachers and we have shortages in math, science and world language,” he said.

In fact, the state establishes specific shortage areas each year where districts might encounter difficulties in hiring teachers.

This year’s shortages are in foreign languages, math, science, special education, bilingual education, librarians, technology education and administrators, such as principals. The state allows special exceptions to hiring rules for teachers in these areas.

For example, districts can rehire retired teachers for one year at a reduced rate if they cannot find qualified new teachers. The district can then petition to bring the retiree on for a second year if needed.

There are additional benefits as well. Murphy described a mortgage-assistance program for shortage-area teachers in priority or transitional school districts.

West Haven is one of the school districts taking advantage of the special exceptions to fill vacant positions in time for the new school year. Superintendent of Schools Neil Cavallaro said hiring Spanish-language teachers has been the most difficult task so far this year.

The district had spots for three Spanish teachers — two at the high school and one in the middle school — and resorted to hiring back a retired Spanish teacher to fill one of the positions.

“It is never our preference to bring back a retired person,” Cavallaro said. “We have only done it a couple times. We want new teachers who are going to be here a long time.”

Cavallaro said bilingual teachers for English-language learners have been hard to find, too. Part of the problem is that on top of increasing numbers of English-language learners entering schools, qualified bilingual teachers have so many options for employment.

“If you are bilingual, you are a very marketable person. You can go out and look not only in the education field but also in the business field,” Cavallaro said.

The shortage of bilingual teachers across the state is partly what prompted New Haven to look to the Caribbean for Spanish speakers. Jose Ortiz, supervisor of bilingual and English as a Second Language programs for the New Haven Public Schools, said eight recruits from Puerto Rico will be arriving in a couple of weeks.

“By going to Puerto Rico, it has allowed the school system to recruit from a pool of bilingual and bi-literate candidates with expertise in different content areas,” he said, and specifically mentioned math, science and special education as subject areas benefiting from the trip.

Ortiz noted that the shortage of bilingual teachers across the state is especially true in large urban centers like New Haven.

In Milford, Human Resources Director Wendy Kopazna said the district has been fortunate to fill vacancies in math, science and English this year. She said they were lucky to hire a Spanish teacher because that can be one of the most difficult to fill.

“You have to look early and hope that you get somebody quickly. They get snatched up sometimes by June,” she said.

Milford still has a couple of special education positions to fill and a couple of positions that could open up this month. But she’s hoping they won’t be in the shortage areas.

“It’s kind of the nature of the game in July and August for shortage areas,” she said. “In the month of August, it’s like this vicious cycle.”

For the long term, Murphy offers advice to college students looking to go into the education field: diversify.

“We have a buyer’s market and seller’s market in our education system,” he said. “Whenever elementary positions are advertised, they get a long line out the door of elementary-certified teachers. Whenever we advertise for math, science and world language, we are often looking and scurrying to find qualified teachers right up until the first day of school.”

He encouraged aspiring teachers to look at the labor market as they make decisions about what certifications to seek.

Teachers Packing Heat

A tiny North Texas school system may be the first in the nation to let its employees carry handguns, the Houston Chronicle reports.

Harrold Superintendent David Thweatt said his school board unanimously passed the policy last October to protect employees and students in the case of an armed intruder or hostage situation.

He wouldn’t say how many teachers went through the authorization process, which includes receiving a Texas concealed-handgun license and undergoing crisis management training.

Thweatt said that despite the outrage from his public school peers, Harrold stands by its decision. The first few months of the new policy have gone smoothly, he said.

“We think we have acted cautiously and wisely,” said Thweatt. “Others should be free to govern their school districts as they see fit.”

Thweatt said the small community, with just one 110-student K-12 campus, is a 30-minute drive from the sheriff’s office, leaving students and teachers without protection. He said the campus is situated just 500 feet from heavily trafficked U.S. 287, which could make it a target.

Texas’ penal code prohibits firearms at schools “unless pursuant to the written regulations or written authorization of the institution.”

Charter Schools, Vouchers Trigger Competition

New Orleans’ schools are increasingly competing for students, according to the Times-Picayune. Traditional public schools as well as charter schools now realize their survival depends on student numbers. Simply sitting back and waiting for children to walk through the door on the first day does not cut it anymore.

“I’ve told all of our schools . . . that they need their own promotional campaign,” Recovery District Superintendent Paul Vallas said. “They need to be out there selling themselves.”

Seven new charter schools are opening; several others added new grades. And a new private-school voucher program drew a few hundred students away from the city’s public elementary schools, though the state has not released final figures.

And even as the number of school options increases, the pace of students returning to the city from Katrina-induced exile slows. So more schools will compete this year for roughly the same pool of students.

Vallas said he does not expect the number of students enrolled in the district’s noncharter schools to go up significantly, if at all, when school starts today.

“I’d like to see 13,500, but I think we are projecting 12,500,” he said, or about the same number the system served at the end of the past school year.

The overall number of public school students in the city will increase from the spring, Vallas said, but the new and expanding charter schools will absorb most of that growth. District schools that have particularly low enrollments will face closure or consolidation, Vallas said.

Principals note that last year the district was so bogged down in simply getting schools open and teachers hired, few paid any attention to recruiting students.

This year, Novelt Estrella, the principal of Clark High School, said staff tried in late spring to reach out to Recovery District eighth-graders, pitching the school’s new technology academy.

“I think we are going to have to get more and more aggressive, because there is definitely competition out there,” Estrella said.

As of Aug. 8, he had signed up 71 students, and by the weekend had reached his goal of 100 pupils.

Before this school year, the charters had a leg up in that they started much earlier with the neutral ground signs and other marketing efforts. Their signs sprouted throughout the city’s neutral grounds late last winter. The district’s signs went up only last week.

The charters also, in some cases, do not have to contend with past failures or decades-old reputations.

New charter high schools, such as Sojourner Truth Academy or Miller-McCoy Academy for Mathematics and Business, have the challenge of introducing themselves to the community. But they carry no baggage when it comes to public perception. Name recognition for established schools such as Cohen and Clark may be higher, but families have deeply rooted biases and opinions about the schools.

School Outsourced Work to India

A charter school in Arizona outsourced the reading of homework essays to India, according to the NBC affiliate 12 News.

For the last two years, Arizona Virtual Academy (AZVA) has used workers in India to evaluate students’ essays. The work was done under a contract with AZVA’s parent, K12 Inc., a for-profit company with $140 million in revenue.

Mary Gifford, the online school’s founder and a regional vice president for K12, says the Indian workers did not put a final grade on the essays, but read them, made comments and returned them to the teachers.

“It was an option for teachers,” Gifford said. “They could make decisions assignment by assignment whether or not this was a time they would like this kind of support.”

The school’s use of contractors in India was first reported by retired schoolteacher David Safien on Blog for Arizona.

Arizona’s charter schools have been on the cutting edge of changing the way our children are educated. Gifford herself was present at the birth of Arizona’s charter school law almost 15 years ago.

The state’s online charter schools — no school buildings, no classrooms, little or no face-to-face contact with teachers — have become a popular option for student athletes, students in rural areas, and those with special needs.

Virtual teaching is itself outsourced to teachers who could be anywhere there’s an Internet connection. But can a school outsource work to India — to people who may not be teachers, whose identities it may not know? The head of the state’s charter board says, Yes it can.

“There isn’t a restriction in the charter contract, or in state or federal law that would prohibit them from doing so,” said DeAnna Rowe, executive director of the Arizona Board for Charter Schools.

But should a school outsource that work? John Wright, president of the Arizona Education Association, says no.

“You’re becoming part of that child’s life,” he said. “You’re engaging in their learning, and to be doing that as a third-party contractor whether you’re in Yonkers or India, adds a new element of risk that does not support good teaching.”

Officials at two other leading virtual schools in Arizona — Primavera Online High School and IQ Academy Arizona — say they do not outsource grading.

AZVA’s outsourcing has also raised questions of student security. After all, even parents chaperoning students on school buses must be fingerprinted in Arizona. There is no requirement like that for AZVA’s contractors. But Gifford stresses that AZVA students could not be identified through their essays.

Nevertheless, this coming school year, AZVA will be following another outsourcing trend: bringing work back to the U.S. Gifford says the school will be outsourcing essay reading to graduate students here in Arizona.
Academic Strength Said to Count More Than Experience

Teacher quality in disadvantaged Chicago schools has improved over this decade, largely because the district has focused on hiring inexperienced teachers with stronger academic backgrounds, according to a report cited by Education Week.

The authors of the study from the Illinois Education Research Council say their findings challenge some conventional wisdom on how best to bolster teacher quality. For instance, they conclude that inexperienced teachers are not inherently bad for schools.

“Recent inexperienced teachers are bringing with them stronger academic capital—a factor whose positive effect on student performance tends to counter the negative impact of teacher inexperience,” the report says, according to Education Week.

The report looks at changes in the academic backgrounds of teachers around the state, and their experience levels, from 2001 to 2006. Researchers found that while the entire state made progress in hiring teachers with stronger academic backgrounds, some of the largest gains were in Chicago, where the district is hiring inexperienced teachers with higher ACT scores and from somewhat more competitive teacher-preparation programs.

“What we are seeing generally in the state is a leveling up of the teacher academic capital, with gains being made in Chicago to a greater extent and to a smaller extent in other districts,” said Jennifer B. Presley, one of the report’s authors and the founding director of the research council, based at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville.

Ms. Presley and her co-authors add, however, that despite the improvements, Chicago still has a long way to go: Schools serving minority and low-income students in the city rated lower in teacher quality than their counterparts in the rest of the state.

A previous study of the nation’s largest district, New York City, found an improvement in teacher quality at high-poverty schools there, and a reduction in the teacher-qualification gap between high- and low-poverty schools. Although the authors of the New York City study saw a significant role played by the alternative teacher-preparation routes Teaching Fellows and Teach For America because they hire teachers with stronger academic credentials, the Illinois researchers did not see such a link.

“TFA did not begin recruiting new teachers to Chicago until 2000, and TFA teachers currently constitute only 4 to 5 percent of the district’s inexperienced teachers each year,” the Illinois report says. The New Teacher Project, which runs the Teaching Fellows program, only began operating in Chicago in 2007—after the period covered by the study.

The authors do cite other changes over the six-year period that could have influenced the improvements, including the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which required all core-subject teachers to become highly qualified by June 2007, and the adoption by Illinois lawmakers of an improved version of its basic-skills test for entering teachers. Chicago, specifically, also launched an initiative to attract, develop, and retain teachers.

Instead of looking at individual teacher characteristics, as the New York study did, the Illinois researchers examined a school-level measure of teacher quality based on five teacher attributes: the mean ACT composite scores of teachers at the school, the mean ACT English score, the percentage of teachers at the school who failed the basic-skills entrance test at the first attempt, the percentage of teachers who were provisionally or emergency certified, and the competitiveness ranking of the teacher-preparation programs attended by the school’s teachers. The researchers looked separately at teacher experience, they said, to “better analyze these two distinct components of teacher quality … and their independent effects on student achievement.”

The improvement in Chicago’s teacher quality occurred simultaneously with a surge in applications for teaching jobs in the district, from about 2.5 candidates for each opening in 2002 to 10 candidates per opening in 2006.

The report calls on districts to provide strong supports to keep new, academically talented teachers in the classroom. Researchers say they found, for example, that teachers with the highest ACT scores and degrees from the most competitive institutions are less likely to remain teaching in the lowest-performing schools. To stem this loss, the authors recommend effective mentoring and induction support for new teachers and improving the school climate.

Charter School Offers ‘Revolutionary’ Salary

A New York City charter school has created some buzz over the past few months by offering teachers an eye-catching starting salary of $125,000, according to an article in Teacher magazine. The Equity Project (TEP) Charter School, a middle school scheduled to open in September 2009, is founded upon the idea that offering such “revolutionary compensation” will help it attract and retain high-quality, go-the-extra-mile teachers who aren’t afraid to put in a little overtime, the magazine reports.

The school, founded by Zeke Vanderhoek, who is the school’s first principal, will serve students from low-income families. Emphasizing the importance of teacher quality to the school’s success, Vanderhoek and his team will spend over a year recruiting master teachers who fulfill its extensive qualifications.

According the school’s Web site, TEP requires teacher applicants to meet eight “rigorous” qualifications in four major areas. Applicants must score 90 percent or higher on a standardized test in a relevant subject area and in the verbal section of the GRE, GMAT, or LSAT, and provide significant examples of personal and student academic achievement. Vanderhoek and a recruitment advisory team will select applicants who strongly meet these qualifications in both a preliminary and a complete application for live classroom auditions.

The most important step in the preliminary application, Vanderhoek said in a phone interview, is providing three tangible pieces of evidence of student achievement. This portion of the application is purposefully vague so that he and the recruitment team can identify who is truly reflecting on what “student achievement” means. He admits there is no clear-cut answer.

High expectations will continue beyond the application stage. TEP Teachers will work business-professional hours (9 a.m. to 6 p.m.), teach only one subject for one grade level, and be required to spend time each week leading an extra-curricular activity. They also will engage in and be subject to daily peer observation.

Significantly, teachers will also be expected to take on non-instructional roles, such as attendance and home visits director and school events coordinator. This staffing-model will enable the school to operate with mainly teachers, allowing for TEP to pay teachers the higher salaries with funds that would have gone to non-teaching positions.

Although the school year follows that set by the New York City’s Department of Education, TEP teachers will be expected to attend a six-week summer development institute to pursue professional development opportunities. To start with, TEP is accepting applications to fill seven classroom positions for a body of 120. Ultimately, the school plans to fill 28 teaching positions to lead a total capacity of 480 students by 2012, adding one cohort of students each year. Teachers interested in applying, even for positions in future years, should visit www.tepcharter.org/apply.php.