NCLB: Know Your History

If Eduwonk hadn't posted this, we all might have missed it:

Looking Backward
Yesterday ES hosted an event on the history of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (the current version is called No Child Left Behind) and some ideas about what is next. Sam Halperin, Chris Cross, Kati Haycock, and Jack Jennings discussed the issues. The audio can be found here and if you want to learn some of the history and context, as well as what some sharp people think about the issues today, you can’t beat it.

This is not what Oklahoma alternative schools are supposed to be

The Tulsa World has an article today on the district's "boot camp" program. This isn't a state-funded alternative school; it can't be, as it doesn't meet the 17 criteria in state law. We wish that TPS would quit referring to it as an alternative school, as that only confuses the public.

Here's the lead paragraph:

The new alternative school that just lost its principal in a resignation agreement with Tulsa Public Schools has been plagued by overcrowding and physical violence, a current employee and two former students say. They say police are routinely called to the school -- including last week when the school district's director of alternative programs was assaulted by a student.

Tulsans don't have to look very far to find examples of really good, true alternative schools: Street School, Union, Jenks, Owasso....just to name a few right there in Tulsa County.

This isn't the first time we've heard horror stories about Tulsa's boot camp. We hope something is done -- the first priority for this school should be safety.

The 2008 link to active legislation is up

It's over on the left side of the page -- you'll see that we replaced the link to the 2007 session bills with a 2008 link.

As always, if you want to check the status of a bill or get a copy of the latest version of a bill, head to http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/WebBillStatus/main.html and use the Basic Search Form link.

If you're not sure which version of a bill is the current one, email us or post here (which sends us an email) and we'll be glad to help you.

Ravitch on Performance Pay

Check her blog post at Bridging Differences. Her last paragraph is certainly worth repeating. Heck, it would make a great tag line.

My view is that education has become permeated with the language of management and business and corporate-speak. This is a verbal poison in the bloodstream of our schools.

Performance Pay Studies: Little or No Difference

From EdWeek Online:

A handful of new studies that scrutinize performance-pay initiatives nationwide have found mixed results on how they affect student achievement. That conclusion reinforces views that more work is needed on such plans, despite a recent surge in their popularity, before they can replace the traditional single salary schedule.

At a conference organized by the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University here last week, some researchers concluded that positive effects of performance-based pay were small or none, while others found varying levels of increases in student achievement.

Click here for the rest of the EdWeek story.

Just a note about the blog...

We've been both busy and out with the flu....so we haven't been posting much for the last couple of weeks.

If no one's noticed, it occurs to us that we might be spinning our wheels here. Drop us a note, either here or at OTAC, if you want us to keep on keepin' on with this newsblog.

Girls: Creativity on the Web

The NY Times has an article today that teachers should note: Don't think of the Internet as a guy thing. Here's just a bit of it...click the title link for the complete article (may require registration, but it's free now).

Research shows that among the youngest Internet users, the primary creators of Web content (blogs, graphics, photographs, Web sites) are not misfits resembling the Lone Gunmen of “The X Files.” On the contrary, the cyberpioneers of the moment are digitally effusive teenage girls.

Data Driven Teaching and Learning vs. Data Driven Score Improvement

What to do while you're procrastinating on a Friday: Check out Eduwonkette's blog posts for the week. The focus was data-driven education and she presents her point of view as well as the views of guest bloggers.

HB 3064: Limits on the hours older students may work

Rep. Rebecca Hamilton (D-OKC) has authored a bill that would limit the hours students under the age of 18 may work. Currently, the law only limits the hours that children under the age of 16 may work. They would not be able to work more than 18 hours per week (unless they maintained a 3.5 GPA). They would not be able to work later than 10pm on school nights (even if they attended a night school?)

According to our annual student survey, approximately 40% of the high-school students in Oklahoma's alternative education programs need to work to help support their families.

Should we be concerned that this bill would increase the number of dropouts? Let us know!

Bridging Differences on international test score comparisons

Bridging Differences, a blog in which Diane Ravitch and Deborah Meier write back and forth, is almost always interesting. The two most recent posts are on the topic of international test comparisons, ranking countries, and all that. Check 'em out here.

Here's a teaser, from Meier's most recent post:

One thing we can learn from international studies is that it may help if decisions are made closer to those who are affected by them. Not only are all the high-scoring countries much, much smaller than most of our 50 states, much less the US as a whole, but many do NOT have a national curriculum or national exams.

That’s what Linda Darling-Hammond reported to us last weekend at a meeting of the Forum for Education and Democracy! We were all startled, having bought the oft-repeated claim that international studies prove that national exams equal high scores. In some of the “high-scoring” nations, standards are set by districts, and in others by even smaller sub-units. And, none come close to doing as much mandating as we do.

New Bush Education Budget

The Washington Post reports that the President's budget has no overall cuts or increases for education, but it moves the money around quite a bit. A number of programs are cut or eliminated. Where does the money go? Two places: (1) Bush's new voucher program ($300 million), and (2) Reading First ($1 billion, with a b.)

Congress had recommended the elimination of Reading First, mostly because of allegations of graft and corruption. Bush's plan would more than double the amount of funding going to the program.

We're still looking for all of the programs that would be cut in order to support these two programs. We'll post again once we find a list.

UPDATE: We've found the list of eliminated programs. Other programs have been drastically cut or radically changed (for example, the 21st Century after-school program is changed into a voucher program). You can find the program changes on this page.

NCLB Renewal: Not Dead Yet?

Today's Education Week Online has an article entitled, Key Democrats Join President in Seeking to Revive NCLB Renewal. Here's the key paragraph:

Rep. Miller said he and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, are working to send a reauthorization bill to the president this spring. The Senate education panel is planning to mark up, or amend and vote on, a bill in March, said Melissa Wagoner, the spokeswoman for committee Democrats.

The "What Works" Clearinghouse

Still catching up on things we missed in December (we had an ice storm which seemed to have strangely delayed some of the mail, plus we took some time off over the holidays).

Robert Slavin had an interesting Commentary in Education Week on the US Dept. of Ed's "What Works" Clearinghouse. (I always put that in quotes, because I don't believe it really finds out what works. Kind of like the federal government's view of what constitutes a "Highly Qualified Teacher.")

Anyhow, you can read Slavin's Commentary here, and you can read what others have written about his Commentary here.

The costs of state assessments

Stateline.org has an interesting story about cost of state assessments -- and some of the problems that have reared their ugly heads since the dramatic increase in testing (and concomitant increase in corporate profits) following the passage of NCLB in 2001. Here's an excerpt:

On the whole, however, state spending on testing has shot up since George W. Bush’s education plan became the law of the land. In early 2001, a year before No Child Left Behind was enacted, states collectively spent almost $423 million on standardized tests, according to a Stateline.org report. During the 2007- 08 school year, states will spend almost $1.1 billion on these tests, according to Eduventures Inc., an education industry research firm.

The costs have been driven up by the sheer volume of testing required by the law. In 2005-06, when states had to have math and reading tests in place for all the required grades for the first time, about 45 million tests were administered throughout the country, 11.4 million more than the previous year. This year, states are required to add a science test, which is expected to add another 11 million tests to the total.

...

Probably the biggest impact of the No Child Left Behind law has been on the kind of tests states are giving, which has changed dramatically. The law, which imposed so much federal intrusion into local classrooms, passed only with a compromise: States would be allowed to create the tests.

The result was states switched from standardized tests that compare how their students stack up against students across the country — the Stanford Achievement Test is a prominent example — to those based on each state’s specific standards. But this system allows the difficulty of the tests to vary widely from state to state, resulting in some states producing easier tests that measure lower-level skills.

We recommend the entire article, which is part of Stateline's annual State of the States report. The entire report can be accessed here.

RTI

Education Week has added another new blog, On Special Education. The initial post is about RTI (Response to Intervention). This is the "next new thing" in the federal government's continual quest to redefine the ways in which learning disabilities are diagnosed.

Like most things in special education, RTI isn't old and it isn't new. The way that the federal and state governments are putting this in place is the thing to watch.

Just yesterday, we were discussing professional development needs in the state and we decided that RTI was a topic that deserved attention. So, we are gathering a group of knowledgeable individuals and we'll be putting together a webcast series on this topic. Feel free to contact us with recommendations.