Saturday, September 29, 2007

GARFIELD IS A SPECIAL PLACE FOR LOS LOBOS. SO THEY'RE HELPING REBUILD THE AUDITORIUM.




Al Seib / Los Angeles Times
David Hidalgo, Louie Perez, Cesar Rosas and Conrad Lozano of Los Lobos, in the burned-out auditorium of Garfield High, their alma mater.


By Agustin Gurza, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 29, 2007 - The arson fire that destroyed the historic auditorium at Garfield High School earlier this year all but obliterated the framed portraits of illustrious alumni that had hung on a now-charred wall of fame. It was as if the blaze had tried to snuff out their identity and achievements, leaving only blackened and blistered images like specters of the success that means so much to this East L.A. campus and its blue-collar community.

Somehow, one of the images survived almost unscathed. It was a portrait of Cesar Rosas of Los Lobos, the famed East L.A. band, wearing his characteristic dark glasses and impassive expression, like a silent witness to the destruction. He's not calling it a miracle, but the musician took the sparing of his portrait as an omen for the band.

"It's a calling," said Rosas. "It means we're on a mission from God to try to help."

Los Lobos will do just that next month at a benefit concert to raise funds for the reconstruction of the classic school auditorium that was gutted in the May 20 fire, sustaining an estimated $30 million in damage.

The band, whose original four members are all Garfield graduates from the early 1970s, will headline a bill with other Chicano artists -- Tierra, Little Willie G of Thee Midniters and El Chicano -- representing the classic "Eastside sound" that marked a musical era. The Oct. 14 event at Gibson Amphitheatre also features the legendary Tex-Mex band Little Joe y La Familia as well as Upground, Garfield's hot new upstarts playing a fusion of salsa, ska, R&B and rock.

The campaign to rally around the school reflects the loyalty and pride that Garfield graduates carry with them for the rest of their lives, passed on from one generation to the next. They're not nicknamed Bulldogs for nothing. They're tough and protective of their turf. Just ask the rival Roughriders at Roosevelt High in Boyle Heights, representing a school rivalry as traditional in Southern California as the one pitting USC and UCLA.

But rivalry could have turned to warfare if the arsonist had turned out to be from another neighborhood. So school officials breathed a sigh of relief when police arrested a suspect in the case this month: a 16-year-old Garfield freshman who lived within walking distance of the school. The student was reportedly angry at a teacher, said Principal Omar Del Cueto, grateful that nobody was hurt in the early morning blaze.

Instead, the victim was the school's creative soul. This now-hollow auditorium once resonated with the artistic spirit of students spanning more than three-quarters of a century.

Garfield did not just lose a building. East L.A. lost a piece of its heart.

"This little mixed-up kid, God forgive him," said Rosas. "He's just too immature to realize the damage he's caused."

By chance, the school's loss dovetails with themes reflected in the latest album by Los Lobos, "The Town and the City," in which songwriter Louie Perez reflects on the fading memories of his childhood in East L.A. Time and gentrification have taken their toll; the old movie palaces have closed and that corner barbershop has been replaced by a Starbucks. Now, this grand auditorium is gone too, with its handcrafted wooden chairs, ornate molding, wrought-iron chandeliers and domed ceiling.

"I feel like, 'Wow, another part of me that can never be re-created,' "said Perez, who lives in Yorba Linda. "When something like this is tragically taken away from you, you feel robbed."

On Friday, the band members and former schoolmates, including David Hidalgo and Conrad Lozano, ventured into the damaged structure for the first time since the fire. The eerie scene resembles a bombed-out building from World War II, with charred bricks exposed on the high walls, deep crevices where the floor used to be and a tangled lattice of twisted metal beams suspended overheard and silhouetted against the open sky where the ceiling collapsed.

Hidalgo, lead singer and songwriter, entered through a hallway, stage left. He surveyed the empty shell of the auditorium and shook his head in dismay. "Hijo, it's terrible," he muttered. "Man, this is awful."

A protective asbestos curtain, once considered a potential health hazard, salvaged some items behind the stage. Now, a smudged and crinkled charro hat, once the proud prop of some mariachi, sits discarded on the stage near the charred hulk of a sound board. A few rows of salvaged wooden seats are piled on top of one another. Velvet curtains still hang in place, sooty but intact.

Crews have reinforced the walls with steel beams and state officials have tested bricks to see if the heat had changed their composition. No date or cost has been set for reconstruction, which will be covered primarily by insurance minus a $500,000 deductible paid by the district. The fundraiser, with backing from the Garfield Alumni Foundation, will allow the school to upgrade equipment beyond what insurance will buy to meet modern entertainment industry standards, said Del Cueto.

The gutted building sits in the very center of campus, which appears entirely back to normal. To an outsider, the damage isn't noticeable. But students have been forced to hold assemblies in the gymnasium and stage dinner theater in the cafeteria.

Los Lobos are acutely aware what the school has lost.

"Everything went on in the auditorium," said Perez, who recalls watching noon-time movies there for 25 cents. "This was the nucleus of the school. It was like our mutual meeting ground."

It's fair to say that without Garfield there would be no Los Lobos, the most acclaimed band East L.A. has produced. The guys lived on opposite sides of the neighborhood, divided by the 5 freeway, and might otherwise have remained strangers. The school was their meeting ground.

Perez transferred from nearby Salesian High School as a sophomore. He met Hidalgo, his frequent co-writer, in Mr. Colson's art class, where the desktops could be raised to serve as easels. Or as cover for a couple of kids more interested in Jimi Hendrix than Picasso.

"We sat at the back of the room and we'd lift up that easel so the teacher couldn't see us and we would just talk about records and stuff," recalled Perez. "That was the start of a musical conversation that's lasted, like, 40 years now."

Almost every school has its legacy and allegiances. But Garfield -- best known for math teacher Jaime Escalante and his overachieving class portrayed in the film "Stand and Deliver" -- has a special significance for the hard-working, Mexican American community it serves. Many see the school as a secure haven in an unpredictable environment. For many more, the school has been the path to social mobility.

In the old days, East L.A. seemed like an insulated, self-contained community, says Perez. Even the Eastside bus lines took you only so far before turning back. When Los Lobos started playing punk clubs on the Westside, he recalls, crossing the L.A. River was like riding the Mayflower into uncharted territory.

To a large extent, Garfield was a launching pad to that outside world.

"This is an L.A. story, man," said Perez, his voice rising with emotion. "The impact and importance of the school goes far beyond the neighborhood. So that's why we're saying, 'Let's just get rid of the idea that there's any kind of bridge or river there. We're all in this together. These are our children. This is our future, no matter what.' "


Garfield High School benefit concert, Oct. 14, 6 p.m. Gibson Amphitheatre, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City. Tickets, $39.75 to $69.75, available at Ticketmaster, (213) 480-3232 or www.ticketmaster.com.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

CALIFORNIA NAEP SCORES

Sample Questions Analyze Data State Profiles Publications

State Profiles

The Nation's Report Card (home page)


California


California Contact Information
Testing Director: Deborah Sigman
NAEP Coordinator: Marsha Devine
CA State Dept. of Education

Student, School/District Characteristics for Public Schools
Student Characteristics
Number enrolled: 6,437,202
Percent in Title I schools: 58.0%
With Individualized Education Programs (IEP): 10.7%
Percent in limited-English proficiency programs: 24.9%
Percent eligible for free/reduced lunch: 48.5%

Racial/Ethnic Background
White: 31.0%1
Black: 8.0%1
Hispanic: 48.5%1
Asian/Pacific Islander: 11.7%
American Indian/Alaskan Native: 0.8%1
School/District Characteristics
Number of school districts: 987*
Number of schools: 9,863
Number of charter schools: 543
Per-pupil expenditures: $7,9381
Pupil/teacher ratio: 20.8
Number of FTE teachers: 309,128

'--' : data unavailable
* Local school districts only (type 1, 2)
Source: Common Core of Data, 2005-2006 school year (non-adjudicated)
1 Common Core of Data, 2004-2005 school year


History of NAEP Participation and Performance



Scale Score
Achievement Level




State [Nat. Percent at or Above
Subject Grade Year Avg. Avg.]* Basic Proficient Advanced Graphics

Mathematics
(scale: 0-500)
4 1992n 208 [219] 46 12 1
1996n 209 [222] 46 11 1
2000 213 [224] 50 13 1
2003 227 [234] 67 25 3
2005 230 [237] 71 28 4
2007 230 [239] 70 30 4

8 1990n 256 [262] 45 12 2
1992n 261 [267] 50 16 2
1996n 263 [271] 51 17 3
2000 260 [272] 50 17 2
2003 267 [276] 56 22 4
2005 269 [278] 57 22 5
2007 270 [280] 59 24 5

Reading
(scale: 0-500)
4 1992n 202 [215] 48 19 4
1994n 197 [212] 44 18 3
1998 202 [213] 48 20 4
2002 206 [217] 50 21 4
2003 206 [216] 50 21 5
2005 207 [217] 50 21 5
2007 209 [220] 53 23 5

8 1998 252 [261] 63 21 1
2002 250 [263] 61 20 1
2003 251 [261] 61 22 2
2005 250 [260] 60 21 2
2007 251 [261] 62 21 2

Science
(scale: 0-300)
4 2000 129 [145] 45 13 1
2005 137 [149] 50 17 1

8 1996n 138 [148] 47 20 1
2000 129 [148] 38 14 1
2005 136 [147] 44 18 2

Writing
(scale: 0-300)
4 2002 146 [153] 80 23 2

8 1998 141 [148] 76 20 1
2002 144 [152] 78 23 1
* Includes public schools only
n Accommodations were not permitted for this assessment

Related Material



View State-Specific NAEP Data

To view more data specific to your state, you may wish to explore the NAEP Data Explorer.
Select a subject and grade to explore NAEP Data.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

TNTDF: The week of Sept 23

A LOST ART: INSTILLING RESPECT

By Patricia Dalton Special to The Washington Post

Tuesday, September 11, 2007 - There's been a fundamental change in family life, and it has played out over the years in my office. Teachers, pediatricians and therapists like me are seeing children of all ages who are not afraid of their parents. Not one bit. Not of their power, not of their position, not of their ability to apply standards and enforce consequences.

UNACCEPTABLE - MANY TEENS AREN'T EMOTIONALLY READY FOR COLLEGE: It's time to redefine "college prep."
by Jill Flury

from the September 2007 Edutopia - the Magazine of the George Lucas Educational Foundation
August 28, 2007 - In dorm rooms and shared apartments across the country, anxious college freshmen are unpacking their bags and moving into the next phase of their academic journeys. Having successfully navigated the educational system thus far, these budding intellects are ready to take on the demands of higher education.

Or are they?

REPORT: SCHOOLS AREN'T PREPARING KIDS FOR COLLEGE: Better alignment is needed between high school and college standards, panelists say

By Meris Stansbury, Assistant Editor, eSchool News

The Alliance for Excellent Education convened a panel On September 12th to discuss a new issue brief highlighting the disconnect that exists between the way high school teachers prepare their students for the future and how students actually achieve success. An emphasis on college readiness, panelists said, is needed to inform, assess, and improve high school teaching for the 21st-century.

September 13, 2007—Students are taught to believe that earning a high school diploma means they are prepared to enter college, and many policy makers and school leaders still believe that multiple-choice assessments are adequate measures of students' skills. But at a panel discussion convened by the Alliance for Excellent Education (AEE) on Sept. 12, researchers and education professionals said this is too often not the case.

SCHOOLS CAN'T BE COLORBLIND: Narrowing the achievement gap in schools requires acknowledging race, not ignoring it.

Opinion from the Los Angeles Times

September 16, 2007 - The achievement gap between African American and Latino students and their white peers is stark and persistent. It has existed for decades, and it's growing more pronounced. The data refute what would be reassuring explanations. The gaps in reading and math test scores are not due to income disparities, nor are they attributable to parents' educational levels. The simple fact is that most black and brown children do not do as well in school as most whites.

A LOST ART: INSTILLING RESPECT

This article will bother some who will read it as a wistful paean to the good old days when children knew their place. I think it's more of a similar call to a time when adults knew their place - but what do I know?
- smf


By Patricia Dalton Special to The Washington Post

Tuesday, September 11, 2007 - There's been a fundamental change in family life, and it has played out over the years in my office. Teachers, pediatricians and therapists like me are seeing children of all ages who are not afraid of their parents. Not one bit. Not of their power, not of their position, not of their ability to apply standards and enforce consequences.

I am not advocating authoritarian or abusive parental behavior, which can do untold damage. No, I am talking about a feeling that was common to us baby boomers when we were kids. One of my friends described it this way: "All my mother had to do was shoot me a look." I knew exactly what she was talking about. It was a look that stopped us in our tracks -- or got us moving. And not when we felt like it.

Now.

These days, that look seems to have been replaced by a feeble nod of parental acquiescence -- and an earnest acknowledgment of "how hard it is to be a kid these days."

In my office, I have seen small children call their parents names and tell them how stupid they are; I have heard adolescents use strings of expletives toward them; and I remember one 6-year-old whose parents told me he refused to obey, debated them ad nauseam and sometimes even lashed out. As if on cue, the boy kicked his father right there in the office. When I asked the father how he reacts at home, he told me that he runs to another room!

It came to me like a lightning bolt: Not only are the kids unafraid of their parents, parents are afraid of their kids!

What ever happened to the colorful phrases our parents relied on to put us in our place? "Keep your shirt on." "On the double." "What do you think we are, made of money?" "Because I said so." "If you want sympathy, look it up in the dictionary." Or one of my personal favorites: "Don't bother me unless you're bleeding," which a friend's mother said to her six kids when she sat down to read before dinner.

THE HONOR IS YOURS

Today's generation of children is the most closely observed, monitored, cherished and scheduled in our history. They are also the most praised. Families are smaller, and there are fewer children upon whom parents can beam their attention.

Today there are moms and dads who aren't just parents -- they believe in "parenting." They read volumes and volumes about how to be good parents and view parenting as both an art and a science that must be studied and updated and practiced self-consciously. Letting children run around the neighborhood and be bored some of the time is anathema to them.

Many parents these days don't expect their children to contribute much around the house, although they do expect them to achieve outside the house. They have strong beliefs about what makes children successful and happy-ever-after, and underpinning those beliefs is the concept that they -- the parents -- are all-important in this quest. Such parents believe that self-esteem is the key to lifetime success, and to this end they compliment their children a lot.

They are egalitarian, and they believe families should be democracies. Needless to say, they don't give orders. They believe that children will do things when they are ready to. They ask their child politely if he or she will do something and are surprised and dismayed when the response is "no."

It's as if parents have rewritten the Fourth Commandment to read, "Honor thy children."

And, boy, are they paying for it.

When a teacher, pediatrician or therapist suggests that perhaps these "parenting" behaviors are not helping but in fact causing harm, such earnest parents can be hard to convince. They don't want to have to hear that their New Age concepts for raising kids not only do not work, but actually are prescriptions for disaster.

'Scrumptious'? Please.

Let's take the constant parental praise. I first noticed it when my three children were small, and I would hear mothers lauding their kids' incredible artwork or rich vocabulary. I can recall one mother who brought her 6-year-old to my office after the school observed some social difficulties. "Isn't she scrumptious?" she said, in front of her beaming daughter. (I made a mental note to myself: This may be part of the problem.)

After all, there is a difference between appreciation, which is from the heart, and flattery, which is from the mouth.

Starting in the mid-1990s, a team led by psychologist Carol Dweck did a series of experiments on fifth-graders over a 10-year period. One study compared two randomized groups of children in a classroom setting. In one group, researchers attributed children's achievement to their effort and in the other to their intelligence. Those praised for their hard work, it turned out, were more likely to attempt difficult tasks and performed better than those praised for intelligence. Children who were told that innate intelligence is the key were less likely to expend effort and take risks, perhaps because they were trying to maintain an image that they felt was not under their control.

A later study that Dweck conducted among seventh- and eighth-graders confirmed these findings and found that an effort mind-set also led to higher achievement, as measured by math grades.

More-serious concerns were raised by a 1996 review of 200 studies on self-esteem by Roy Baumeister, a psychologist at Florida State University. Rather than promoting success, he found that an "unrealistically positive self-appraisal" was linked to aggression, crime and violence.

It all makes a therapist long for the days of the good old inferiority complex. And for parents who could put children in their place. Some interesting research on interpersonal attraction has shown that self-confidence in combination with some degree of vulnerability makes a person more appealing to others. Unshakable self-regard is a liability. And dominance is the kiss of death.

Over-parented and under-disciplined children can also have trouble later as young adults with the process of separating from home and creating an independent life. Kids who were constantly praised often become thin-skinned adults who have trouble taking negative feedback on their job or in their personal lives. And I have had more than one client over the years who was positively indignant when a boss expected him or her to be at work on time and to call in sick only when necessary.

Kids who were told, "You can do anything," may have extremely high expectations that can be hard to attain in our multifaceted modern lives. In her 2006 book, "Generation Me," Jean Twenge, a psychologist at San Diego State University, documented an enormous rise in young people's expectations from the late '60s to the late '90s. Twenge refers to a quote from the character Tyler Durden in the movie "Fight Club": "We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very [ticked] off."

Maybe it wouldn't be so painful if parents would sign on to the following manifesto: Let's expect more help from our kids around the house and withdraw some of our frenetic investment in their academic, sporting and social achievements. Let's shore up boundaries and let them be kids in the kid zone. And let's allow them to experience some of life's disappointments. Let's talk on the phone and go out on weekends with our friends. Let's start worrying less whether our kids are happy all the time and more about whether we are enjoying them and ourselves. Let's get a life in the parent zone. And last but not least, let's resurrect an old concept: Father and Mother Know Best. ?

• Patricia Dalton is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Washington. Comments:health@washpost.com.

UNACCEPTABLE - MANY TEENS AREN'T EMOTIONALLY READY FOR COLLEGE: It's time to redefine "college prep."

by Jill Flury

from the September 2007 Edutopia - the Magazine of the George Lucas Educational Foundation

August 28, 2007 - In dorm rooms and shared apartments across the country, anxious college freshmen are unpacking their bags and moving into the next phase of their academic journeys. Having successfully navigated the educational system thus far, these budding intellects are ready to take on the demands of higher education.

Or are they?

College enrollment is up, due in part to the increasing focus on helping kids get accepted. They are thrown on the college track as early as elementary school, and in many places they get institutional help in meeting college-admission requirements long before high school. More and more, private tutoring and counseling add to the acceptance chances of those who can afford it. Why, then, with all of this college prep, are the attrition rates of first-year university students so high? According to the 2007 "Condition of Education" report, by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, nearly half of all college freshmen never earn a degree.

This dropout rate, in many cases, is not due to any lack of academic skill. Instead, the reasons are related to a lack of emotional, social, and self-care abilities needed for a major life transition. Numerous studies cite self-esteem, stress, anxiety, depression, and minor health issues as the most accurate predictors of grade-point averages and enrollment-retention figures for college freshmen. The honors courses, standardized tests, and practice application essays that are the heart of the present college-prep formula do little to prepare students for these challenges. We have figured out how to help kids get accepted to college, but we fall short in helping them cultivate the skills needed to prosper there.

It is time to redefine "college prep." Getting into a college is just part of the goal. We need to look beyond acceptance to the crucial adjustment kids have to make to life once they are there. College living demands a skillful shuffling of academic expectations with the excitement, pressures, and demands of living independently -- often for the first time. Personal wellness, maintained through solid coping skills and knowledge of holistic health, needs to be as important as academic excellence for students who want to thrive in college once they clear the admissions hurdle.

I am not talking about adding some New Age peripheral fluff to the social-psychology class. I refer to the kind of realistic and practical self-care training that is effectively transforming the corporate world, the medical system, and other major institutions concerned with production and success. This preparation is a matter of recognizing potentially self-destructive stressors in a new situation and, given this particular audience, finding a fun and engaging way to teach proactive, preventative actions to cope with them.

An ideal college-prep curriculum would be based in experiential practice and would emphasize self-reflection. High school students would explore various ways to prevent, manage, and respond to stress, and they would have the opportunity to discover what works for them before they succumb to the chaos of college life. Coursework and assignments would look at vital, practical issues such as the role of exercise and diet in emotional well-being and the value of time management, financial health, and social skills. Activities would be designed to give students a strong sense of self and self-efficacy, as well as the resources they need to cope with change. The idea is for students to get some practice in being independent in self-care before they are actually out there on their own.

College is a time of self-discovery. It is a period when students try on different roles and characters, test their limits, and take risks with their new freedom. Without a strong sense of self and the tools necessary to weather the inevitable turbulence of this life change, it is all too easy to drown in doubt, confusion, and, in worst cases, self-destructive behavior. We need to make wellness wisdom an integral part of college prep, not just to make sure that our kids graduate but also to improve the quality of their college experience.

Jill Flury earned a master's degree in holistic health education from John F. Kennedy University. She lives in Oakland, California, where she is working on a book that focuses on wellness education in college preparation.

Source URL:http://www.edutopia.org/dispatches-redefine-college-prep

REPORT: SCHOOLS AREN'T PREPARING KIDS FOR COLLEGE

REPORT: SCHOOLS AREN'T PREPARING KIDS FOR COLLEGE

Better alignment is needed between high school and college standards, panelists say By Meris Stansbury, Assistant Editor, eSchool News

The Alliance for Excellent Education convened a panel On September 12th to discuss a new issue brief highlighting the disconnect that exists between the way high school teachers prepare their students for the future and how students actually achieve success. An emphasis on college readiness, panelists said, is needed to inform, assess, and improve high school teaching for the 21st-century.

September 13, 2007—Students are taught to believe that earning a high school diploma means they are prepared to enter college, and many policy makers and school leaders still believe that multiple-choice assessments are adequate measures of students' skills. But at a panel discussion convened by the Alliance for Excellent Education (AEE) on Sept. 12, researchers and education professionals said this is too often not the case.

AEE held the event to discuss an issue brief it published on the same day. Sponsored by the MetLife Foundation, the report claims that a fundamental disconnect exists between the way high school teachers prepare their students for the future and how students truly achieve success and meet the demands of college.

"We consider this a timely report, as well as a relevant one, since the House Committee for Education and Labor is currently looking at No Child Left Behind," said Bob Wise, AEE president and former governor of West Virginia. Among other issues, House legislators are considering measures that would call for revised assessments for college readiness and different teaching methods for encouraging 21st-century learning in their reauthorization of NCLB. (See "Lawmakers step up NCLB renewal process".)

The issue brief is also important because "recent studies have shown that the skills needed to succeed in college are similar to the skills needed for good-paying jobs," said Cyndie Schmeiser, president of the education division at ACT Inc., which administers the ACT college entrance exam.

Jane West, moderator of the panel discussion and vice president of government and external relations for the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, agreed with Schmeiser. "Just look at the Ford Motor Company, which considered moving states because they said they wanted more qualified, college-educated workers," West said.

The issue brief, a collection of data from various news sources and studies conducted by organizations such as ACT, states that only 34 percent of students graduate from high school ready for college--and that number is smaller for minorities. Overall, it says, only 18 percent of high school freshmen graduate in four years, go on to college, and earn an associate's or bachelor's degree.

Also, one-third of those who make it to college must take remedial courses, costing the nation more than $1.4 billion every year at community colleges alone, according to the report.

The problem, panelists said, is that high school standards, assessments, and course requirements are not aligned with those of colleges. In a recent ACT poll, 65 percent of college professors said they do not believe high school standards prepare students for college. Many professors believe teachers are covering too many subjects too broadly, when only a few core subjects should be taught and basic skills should be well developed in all students.

In terms of assessments, multiple-choice tests rarely ask students to explain their reasoning or apply knowledge to new situations. "High schools are increasingly boxed in by assessments," said Linda Darling-Hammond, professor of education at Stanford University's School of Education. "There's just a huge mess of expectations."

To help solve these problems, AEE and ACT have outlined definitions for college readiness. AEE defines it as "the knowledge and skills students need to succeed in entry-level college coursework without remediation." ACT's definition consists of four parts: habits of mind, key content knowledge, academic behaviors, and contextual skills.

"Habits of mind" refers to the skills that professors consistently identify as critical-thinking skills, such as analysis, interpretation, problem solving, and reasoning skills. Key content knowledge is the essential knowledge of each discipline that prepares students for advanced study, or study of the "big ideas" in each content area.

Academic behaviors include skills such as reading comprehension, time management, note-taking, and self-awareness of how one is thinking and learning. Contextual skills are skills needed to get into college, such as understanding the admissions process, placement testing, financial aid, and the expectations of college life.

To prepare students for success in college, panelists said, teachers must believe that all--and not just a few--students can succeed; make honors courses available as electives for all students; create rigorous work assignments using collaboration and problem-solving; teach reading comprehension and writing skills; and, most of all, motivate students to achieve.

"Currently, there's no universal standard for all students. All students should be able to accomplish and succeed," said Doug Wood, executive director of the National Academy for Excellent Teaching at the Teachers College of Columbia University.

Kim McClung, an English teacher at Kent-Meridian High School in Washington state, said most teachers teach to the "lowest common denominator, but they need to expect the best from every single student."

"Don't use a common-language version of a Shakespeare play because you think your students can't learn it. Take the time; teach them how to read it," McClung said.

But the panelists acknowledged that teachers must receive support to make this happen.

For example, teachers must be given more time to collaborate with colleagues and talk with individual students. They need time to "give feedback and ask for work revisions," Darling-Hammond explained.

Teachers also must receive ongoing professional development to know their subject at a college level and to update their knowledge regularly, in order to incorporate critical-thinking skills into the classroom. For instance, a chemistry teacher not only must know the principles of chemistry, but also should encourage reading and writing skills for comprehending text, as well as preparing a lab report and analyzing results.

"If you're more efficacious, you're more likely to stay in your profession," said Darling-Hammond.

Incentives and induction are also important. Schools need incentives to attract and retain good teachers, and new teachers should have a mentor, a first-year residency, or should partner with another teacher as they adapt to the classroom environment and learn their craft.

"Induction is so important," McClung said. "In California, there are lots of first-year residencies, and this has really helped put theory into practice."

Finally, teachers need helpful, longitudinal data and the skills to interpret this information as a tool to drive individual student instruction.

Panelists ended the discussion by listing two or three policies they'd like to see changed or enacted.

• Darling-Hammond: Incentives for creating new, more productive assessments; a redesign of high schools so they are better able to support teachers; and programs that prepare teachers for college alignment.

• Wood: More college-ready assessments, a comprehensive growth model that measures student growth over time, and more robust state data systems.

• Schmeiser: Alignment among high schools, postsecondary education, and the workforce; and for states to have a uniform policy for what defines and constitutes a high school diploma.

• McClung: Support programs for at-risk students and those with no home support, and open communication between universities and high schools.

"We know this information is nothing new," said Jeremy Ayers, policy and advocacy associate for AEE, "but we're trying to raise awareness on a policy level."

Woods agreed with Ayers, saying: "The most effective schools, boards, and councils need the support of their governor and other policy makers."

"With a sustained focus on college readiness, we hope to inform, assess, and improve high school teaching for the 21st-century," said Ayers. "We're trying to fundamentally change the culture and beliefs of high schools across the country."

Links:

AEE's Issue Brief: "High School Teaching for the Twenty-First Century: Preparing Students for College"

ACT College Readiness Report

SCHOOLS CAN'T BE COLORBLIND: Narrowing the achievement gap in schools requires acknowledging race, not ignoring it.

Opinion from the Los Angeles Times

September 16, 2007 - The achievement gap between African American and Latino students and their white peers is stark and persistent. It has existed for decades, and it's growing more pronounced. The data refute what would be reassuring explanations. The gaps in reading and math test scores are not due to income disparities, nor are they attributable to parents' educational levels. The simple fact is that most black and brown children do not do as well in school as most whites.

The data also show, however, that African American and Latino children are excelling in schools scattered throughout California and the nation, suggesting that the achievement gap is not intractable. Rather, there is a profound disconnect between what we say are high expectations for children of color and the quality of education delivered to them in the classroom.

All of which leads to an uncomfortable but important conclusion: If a less-stratified society is desirable, we must be prepared to design educational programs that explicitly take race into account, that address African American and Latino students specifically and that openly recognize that we are not a single society when it comes to the needs of our children.

That is not easy, and it runs against America's desire to move beyond a preoccupation with racial differences. In its last term, the Supreme Court struck down school integration programs in Seattle and Louisville, Ky., engaging in legal and moral sophistry to suggest that race no longer matters. And California Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell set off a tremor last month when he called on the state's schools to help Latino and African American students close the gap.

The court is wrong and O'Connell is right: Race does matter, and schools are better off realizing it. Ironically, one of those who implicitly recognizes that fact is President Bush, whose No Child Left Behind Act requires states to set the same performance targets for all students and to report those results by race, among other categories, revealing the truth of racial disparities in learning.

There was a time when the gap seemed on its way to obsolescence -- a relic that Brown vs. Board of Education and school integration would remedy. From 1970 through the late '80s, the gap between blacks and Latinos and white students narrowed exponentially. Then, in the '90s, improvement leveled and the gap began to grow.

Assigning causes is difficult, but there are striking examples of success amid a sea of failure. Why does Ralph J. Bunche Elementary School in gang-plagued Compton have an Academic Performance Index score of 866, almost equal to those of elementary schools in Beverly Hills and higher than many in Santa Monica or Torrance? After all, the school is 100% minority, and 40% of the students are non-native English speakers. Why do 81% of the students at Edison Elementary in Long Beach, where 90% of the students are Latino, 72% of whom are learning English, score as proficient or above in mathematics?

There are a few answers. In schools that help all children excel, the focus is squarely on instruction. The "teacher quality gap" runs almost parallel to the achievement gap. In math and science, for example, only about half the teachers in schools with 90% or greater minority enrollments meet minimum requirements to teach those subjects -- far fewer than in predominantly white schools. Early intervention in reading is key, as is truly ending "social promotion" -- the practice of promoting students to the next grade even when their skills lag behind significantly. And at great schools, teachers and students talk. They talk about expectations for themselves and for each other.

Do we honestly believe all children can achieve? Yes, we do. It therefore follows that strategies tailored to African American and Latino students must be integrated into the schools they attend. That requires developing programs based on race and devoting special resources to minority children, an approach that may offend the Supreme Court and those who wish for a society in which this is not needed. To them, we say: It is fair to wish for the day when we may cease to talk about race; in the meantime, it is inexcusable to ignore it.

RE: FILING IS NOT LEARNING on so called "Teacher's Assistants" [LA Times Sept 12 | 4LAKids Sept 17)

A CSU admissions officer writes 4LAKids:

"Thanks for taking on the "teacher's aide" issue. It has been a problem for admissions officers for years. In addition to not preparing students for college, such "courses" tend to inflate GPAs and cause some to see students as having achieved more than what they may really have achieved in HS. We, of course, refigure the GPAs (often at considerable expense), and the resulting disparities can be substantial."

Thursday, September 13, 2007

This just in: RICH KIDS DO BETTER IN PUBLIC EDUCATION!

…if Forbes is The Capitalist Tool™ maybe all the socioeconomically
deprived children (tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free; the wretched refuse of your teeming shore" – ie: "The Usual Suspects") are getting tooled?


Following in Taxes: BEST AND WORST SCHOOL DISTRICTS FOR THE BUCK Forbes measures education outcome on the "bang for buck" scale, while Dan Walters in California by the Numbers: MARIN CHILDREN, NOT SURPRISINGLY, FARE THE BEST takes the argument to the next step: It is the parent's buck, not the taxpayers', that makes the difference.

To those who would argue that communities like Marin or Beverly Hills or San Marino - where the tax base is higher and an inordinate number of children attend private school an increased support to educate those fewer children who attend public schools is created: This is a fallacy!

In California he state collects the taxes and parcels out the Ed money based on the number of students in public school seats on Norm Day (In LAUSD Oct. 3 this year), the same for for "rich kids" as "poor kids". (The Federal government steps in and increases the allotment for "poor kids" under EISA Title I)

The money that rich folk pay in taxes that doesn't go for education their privately educated children goes into the state's general fund coffers - not for education! From a pure bean-counter standpoint state programs other than education benefit from private school students, drop outs and habitual truants. - smf

Taxes: BEST AND WORST SCHOOL DISTRICTS FOR THE BUCK

by Christina Settimi Forbes July 5, 2007

More spending doesn’t necessarily buy you better schools. With property taxes rising across the country, we took a look at per-pupil spending in public schools and weighed it against student performance--college entrance exam scores (SAT or ACT, depending on which is more common in the state), exam participation rates and graduation rates.

Winners in this rating system are counties whose schools deliver high performance at low cost. The losers spend a lot of money and have little to show for it.

Marin County, Calif., provides the best bang for the buck. In 2004 Marin spent an average of $9,356 ($6,579 adjusted for the cost of living relative to other metro areas in the U.S.) per pupil, among the lowest education expenditures in the country. But in return Marin delivered results above the national average: 96.8% of its seniors graduated, and 60.4% of them took the SAT college entrance exam and scored a mean 1133 (out of 1600). The others in the top five are Collin, Texas; Hamilton, Ind.; Norfolk, Mass.; and Montgomery, Md.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Alexandria City, Va., which sits just six miles outside of our nation’s capital, spent $13,730 ($11,404 adjusted) per pupil, but its high schools registered only a 73% graduation rate, with 65.0% of the seniors participating in the SAT for a mean score of 963. According to John Porter, assistant superintendent, Administrative Services and Public Relations for the Alexandria City Public Schools, their graduation rate is reflective of a large number of foreign-born students who may take longer than the traditional four years to graduate. He also noted that their performance measures are rising, along with their expenditures. Per-pupil spending in Alexandria City is now over $18,000. Others on the bottom of the list include Glynn, Ga.; Washington, D.C.; Ulster, N.Y.; and Beaufort, S.C.

Using research provided by the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax research group based in Washington, D.C., Forbes began with a list of the 775 counties in the country with populations greater than 65,000 that had the highest average property taxes. From this list we isolated the 97 counties where more than 50% of per-pupil spending contributions comes from property taxes. (Click Here For Full Rankings)

Since it costs more to educate a student in New York than Alabama, we adjusted expenditures for each metropolitan area based on Economy.com’s national cost of living average. We then chose to compare spending to the only performance measures that can be used to compare students equally across the country. With a nod toward recognizing the importance of education, performance was weighted twice against cost. Performance and cost numbers are county averages; individual school districts within a county can vary greatly.

Just getting the raw data is no small task; in many counties you have to call dozens of high schools one at a time to find out how many kids drop out, how many take the SATs and how they do on the exams. Since no standard method to calculate a graduation rate is enforced nationally, and the college entrance exam boards will only release data below a state level directly to the schools, not the public, we were left to trust county, district and school officials to honestly and accurately report their results.

During this process it was interesting to hear about the amount of effort and the number of creative ways that schools take to report the best possible results. For instance, high school guidance counselors can encourage poor-performing students to take the ACT exam over the SAT exam, so that their SAT score remains high. Graduation rates can be calculated based on the number of seniors still enrolled in school on the date of graduation, compared with looking at a cohort that began freshman year four years earlier or even looking at the number of seniors enrolled at the beginning of the year. If only as much effort went into improving performance as it did into fixing performance measures.

The caveats to our methodology notwithstanding, our study shows that there are big differences in the quality of education relative to spending among counties and is further proof that money is not the only--or perhaps even the most important--factor when it comes to the quality of education.

In Pictures: Best And Worst School Districts For The Buck

Charts and Graphs for Visual Learners: Click Here For Full Rankings

California by the Numbers: MARIN CHILDREN, NOT SURPRISINGLY, FARE THE BEST.

by Dan Walters – Sacramento Bee/Capitol Alert

Friday, June 22, 2007 — Here's a big surprise: children in Marin County, the state's wealthiest with a median family income well above $100,000, fare the best in terms of poverty, education, health care and other measures of kids' well-being.

Equally predictable: Children in rural counties where median family incomes are around $30,000 fare the worst.

The county-by-county rankings are contained in a new report from Oakland-based Children Now, the latest in a series of studies and reports from the organization which campaigns for improving education, health care and other services to children.

Marin has the state's lowest level of children in low-income families, just 16 percent, while the statewide average is 43 percent and remote Siskiyou County, on the state's northern border, has the highest rate of 65 percent. Siskiyou, not surprisingly, is tied for the state's lowest level of median income at $30,356, according to Children Now calculations.

On every other measure, Marin ranks at or near the top, such as in the percentage of young children enrolled in preschool or nursery school; it's 74 percent while Tulare brings up the rear at 23 percent.

Marin, at 98 percent, plays second fiddle to San Francisco (100 percent) in the proportion of its children with health insurance, but the statewide average is 93 percent, thanks to "Healthy Families" and other government programs that provide health care to children, and even the lowest-ranked county, Shasta, has 83 percent of its children with health insurance of some kind.

Children Now's latest study on children's well-being is available here.

Saturday, September 08, 2007

CONGRESS PASSES STUDENT AID OVERHAUL + HOW TO BEAT THE HIGH COST OF LEARNING








Susan Walsh / AP
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), left, confers with Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who heads the Senate Education Committee. Kennedy co-sponsored the measure.

CONGRESS PASSES STUDENT AID OVERHAUL: The plan would boost financial aid to students, reduce interest payments on their loans and slash subsidies to lenders.

By Nicole Gaouette, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 8, 2007 - WASHINGTON -- -- Congress on Friday approved the largest overhaul of education funding in more than 60 years, a $20.9-billion program that would boost financial aid to students and reduce interest payments on their loans.

Students who enter certain public sector jobs would have their debts erased under the plan, the total cost of which would be offset by slashing government subsidies to lenders. It also calls for a $510-million investment in minority colleges.

The program would have particular impact in California, which has more recipients of low-income student grants than any other state. The bill's increases to those Pell Grants are expected to benefit about 5.5 million needy students nationwide.

Democrats hailed the legislation, describing it as the largest college aid package since the 1944 GI Bill and a boon to families at a time of skyrocketing college costs. But lenders warned that the bill would drive smaller financiers out of business, leaving students with fewer and less attractive loan options. Republicans argued that it would burden taxpayers with costly new entitlement programs.

Despite GOP opposition, President Bush indicated Thursday that he would rescind an earlier threat to veto the bill and would sign it into law.

Passage of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act comes at a time when college costs have soared nearly 40% in the last five years. It also coincides with increased scrutiny of the $85-billion student-loan industry, which has been shaken by recent scandals involving conflicts of interest among lenders and school officials, as well as kickback schemes.

Democrats campaigning to retake control of Congress in last year's midterm election focused on the issue, with now-House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) declaring that cutting student loan interest rates in half would be one of her party's top priorities.

On Friday, one of the bill's sponsors, Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), described the bill's passage as a victory for middle-class families. "This bill takes extraordinary steps to bring urgently needed financial relief to students and families who are working very hard to pay for college," he said.

The leading Republican on the House Budget Committee, Rep. Paul D. Ryan of
Wisconsin, said Democrats were not being upfront about the bill's cost to taxpayers.

"This is a cynical attempt to make good on a campaign promise," Ryan said, predicting the interest rate cuts, now temporary, would be extended. If that happens, Ryan said, over 10 years "we'll see another $20 [billion] to $30 billion blow out the door."

Gabriel Pendas, president of the United States Student Assn., which represents 1.3 million students, called the bill a "good first effort." Pendas, who graduated last year from
Florida State University with a degree in physics and $45,000 in debt that he expected to "be paying my whole life," said Congress needed to tackle the underlying problem: rising tuition. "A lot of folks are being priced out of college," he said.

The bill would halve interest rates for students starting July 1, from a current 6.8% to 3.4% phased in over four years. Those rates would reverse an increase enacted by the previous Republican-led Congress to fund tax cuts. The lower rates would expire after five years unless Congress renewed them.

At the beginning of the 2008-09 academic year, the bill would begin increasing the maximum Pell Grant from $4,310 to $5,400 by 2012. In the 2005-06 school year, 584,580
California students received those grants.

Students with direct loans from the government would receive debt forgiveness after 10 years of working in certain public sectors, including emergency first-responders, nurses, firefighters, prosecutors, early-childhood educators and librarians. That provision would take effect July 1.

Undergraduates who committed to teaching in high-need public schools would receive upfront tuition assistance of $4,000 a year, up to $16,000, starting from the 2008-09 academic year.

From
July 1, 2009, onward, the bill would also cap students' monthly federal loan repayments to 15% of what the government considers their discretionary income.

It also would funnel $285 million toward Upward Bound, a program that prepares students who are in financial need or whose parents did not receive higher education to go to college.

Patrick Callan, president of the
National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education in San Jose, described the bill as a "response to the large, building public anxiety about the cost of college."

He said that since the early 1980s, family income increased 170%, inflation rose 95%, the cost of healthcare climbed 225%, and the price of a college education soared 375%.

"This bill restores the principle of educational opportunity without having it depend on your financial resources," Callan said. He noted that the bill particularly helps states like
California, with a rising generation of elementary-school children who are "heavily low-income, first-generation students."

Jamie Merisotis, president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy in
Washington, praised the investment in institutions serving black, Latino and Native American students. "That will be a big help, given the demographic trajectory of the country," he said.

Miller and his co-sponsor, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who lead their chambers' education committees, stressed that the bill's programs would be fully covered by the $20.9 billion in cuts to lender subsidies over five years.

Those cuts target the subsidies loan companies receive from the government for lending to students. The subsidies are meant to offer some security for extending loans to students who have no income, sometimes no co-signer and usually no collateral.

A few lenders, including SLM Corp., known as Sallie Mae; Student Loan Corp.; and Nelnet Inc. dominate the industry, but more than 3,500 lenders provide, service and finance federally guaranteed student loans.

Kevin Bruns, executive director of
America's Student Loan Providers, argues that by shaving the subsidy for for-profit firms by 0.55%, the bill narrows lender profits to the point that they would have no return. He predicted that smaller lenders would shut their doors, while larger lenders would take over, leading to fewer choices.

"Six million borrowers will feel that," Bruns said. "The taxpayers are going to hurt."


ADDITIONAL STORIES: How to Beat the High Cost of Learning

A hard test in college finances by Kathy M. Kristof | September 9, 2007 | She wrote the book on saving for school, but touring campuses with her daughter was an eye-opener.

A playbook for athletes seeking scholarships by Kathy M. Kristof | September 9, 2007 | Paying for college can feel like a high-wire act as a family tries to keep its budget balanced.


A host of factors determine how much aid you can get by Kathy M. Kristof |
September 9, 2007 | Will your child qualify for financial aid at college? Most parents haven't a clue.

Coming Sunday In LA Times Business: One parent's financial dilemma - Stick to the budget, or shell out for a private college?