Afghanistan: School tries to bring music back

Jerry Harmer, Associated Press, 18 May 2010

From the outside, it looks like any other school in Kabul. A red two-story building is sealed off from the street by a high wall. A few trees stand in the front yard. Children constantly go in and out.

But listen carefully. When the noise of the traffic dies down, you can hear the gentle sounds of violins being played and the patter of drums. In this city where music was illegal less than a decade ago, a new generation of children is being raised to understand its joys.

"This school is unique in Afghanistan," said Muhammad Aziz, a 19-year-old student who dreams of becoming one of the world's greatest players of the tabla, a South Asian drum. "It's the only professional music school and there are so many good teachers here."

The new National Institute of Music has been offering some courses for the past several months, but the formal opening will be later in May.

The school's aims: to revive long-neglected musical traditions, to stock schools with qualified teachers and, perhaps one day, to form the country's first symphony orchestra. Of the school's students — there are 150 now, though there will soon be 300 — half are either orphans or among the tens of thousands of children who spend their days working on Afghanistan's streets.

Read entire article: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iEl3G5m_md1hwtva2mgVCvJdd1IAD9FNMRIO0

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China: Premier pledges to address root causes of attacks on children

Xin Dingding, Wang Hongyi and Li Wenfang, China Daily, 2010-05-14

Security has been stepped up around schools across the country amid calls by sociologists that solutions be found to deep-seated social problems that have led to a spate of attacks around campuses.

Premier Wen Jiabao, expressing condolences to the families of the victims, pledged to address the root causes behind the tragedies.

Apart from beefing up security, "we need to handle social problems, resolve disputes and strengthen mediation at the grassroots level", he told Phoenix TV on Thursday.

Minister of Public Security Meng Jianzhu ordered police forces to ensure criminals "dare not and cannot" get their hands on children.

He stressed that security measures in privately-run schools and kindergartens as well as those in remote areas and rural regions should be reassessed to stem risks.

Read entire article: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-05/14/content_9847269.htm

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India: In reform mode, CBSE tells teachers to slash talk time

M Ramya, Times of India, Apr 20, 2010

Taking another step towards reforming the education system by making it more student-centric, the Central Board of Secondary Education has "advised" teachers in affiliated schools to act more as facilitators than instructors by cutting down on teacher-talking time and instead enabling more peer-group learning.

In a recent set of guidelines spelling out, in no uncertain terms, the curriculum to be followed in Classes IX and X in CBSE schools, the board has asked teachers "to reduce teacher-talking time to the minimum; encourage classroom interaction among peers, students and teachers; take up questions for discussion to encourage pupils to participate, and to marshal their ideas and express and defend their views."

Academics say it is important that teachers speak less in class in order to adopt a constructive approach towards a student's learning and development. "The child must discover things for itself. Unfortunately, in our country teacher training schools still advocate the teacher talk method. Such guidelines will allow the teacher to look at other teaching methodologies, some of which have been prescribed," says Neera Chopra, an educational consultant based in Delhi who has worked with several schools in Delhi and abroad, and is an expert on the continuous and comprehensive evaluation suggested by the CBSE in all affiliated schools.

Read entire article: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/In-reform-mode-CBSE-tells-teachers-to-slash-talk-time/articleshow/5833688.cms

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New Zealand: Transient students struggle to catch up

Elizabeth Binning, New Zealand Herald, 18 May 2010

Some schools are dealing with such high rates of transience that by the end of the year, at least half the school comprises a completely different set of children.

Turnover rates at some schools, especially in low-decile areas such as parts of South Auckland, are sitting at around 56 per cent - more than half of the children who start the year don't finish there.

Teachers say many parents don't realise the harm in moving their offspring so frequently but the evidence is clear - children's learning is being affected, and in some cases to such an extent that they will never catch up.

"It's absolutely imperative they attend every day and that they have continuous learning, especially when they are 5, 6 and 7 ... That's the greatest growth time for learning," said Shirley Maihi, principal of Finlayson Park School in Manurewa.

Some children are moving several times a year - often in and out of the same primary schools - and some teachers cite examples of pupils who have been at up to nine schools in just a few years.

Read entire article: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10645716

New Zealand: Up to $400m hidden costs for parents in budget

Audrey Young, NZ Herald, May 20, 2010

Bill English has delivered a Budget in which he can have a bob each way. The personal tax cuts are big enough ($3.40 a week at $10,000 to $69.81 a week at $100,000) but just in case anyone thinks they are not quite big enough, English says the size of them was not the most important factor.  It was all about removing incentives to borrow, speculate and shelter income as opposed to work harder to keep more of the income you earn.

….And almost certainly what has not been factored in to the net impacts are the unknown impacts on the costs of parents with kids in childcare.

The Government will save about $400 million over four years in abolishing the top two funding rates for early childhood centres - the funding rates depend on qualified staff.  Officials tell me that that will affect about 2000 centres or about 50 per cent of them.

Read entire article: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/audrey-young/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501219&objectid=10646081

New Zealand: Schools can't do it all on their own: Education Minister Tolley

Elizabeth Binning, NZ Herald,  May 20, 2010

Over the past few days the Herald has looked at alternative education, truancy, transience/absenteeism and exclusions/expulsion rates.

We put a series of questions to Education Minister Anne Tolley about these topics and asked how she thought mainstream schooling was coping in general and what the Government was doing to help those who don't fit into the system.

The minister said schools dealt with a diverse range of students and, from what she could see, principals and schools were doing "an amazing job".

"Things could always be done better, and in some places we find it's quite variable, but by and large I'm absolutely impressed by the extent to which schools do 101 per cent to try to manage kids who come to them with some extremely complex problems."

Read entire article: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10646123

New Zealand: Trust moves in well before students get out of control

Elizabeth Binning & Simon Collins, NZ Herald, 20 May 2010

Tucked away in a place called The Depot in Lloyd Elsmore Park, Pakuranga, a community initiative may point the way to meeting the needs of "our forgotten children".

The Howpak Wrap-Around Charitable Trust takes youngsters from four colleges in Howick, Pakuranga and Botany Downs as soon as they start skipping classes or getting into trouble - well before the two terms out of school usually required to get them into alternative education.

Trust principal Michele Zackey, with 25 years' experience as a high school teacher, co-ordinated the area's alternative education consortium until she realised that she was picking up young people who had already been so damaged that it was a huge struggle to bring them on to a good path.

"The ethos for us is about early intervention," she says. "We don't want to see them suspended or expelled, so we challenged the schools to identify the students early."

Read entire article: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10646118

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Samoa: US Samoa ban on school sporting events considered harsh

Radio Australia Pacific Beat, May 3, 2010

Teachers and coaches involved with high school sporting teams in American Samoa say it will take more than cancelling games to solve the problem of violence off the pitch.

A particularly agitated clash at the end of a soccer playoff between Tafuna and Leone High Schools recently has led to the Department of Education calling off sporting fixtures for the rest of the school year.

It says there has been an increase in the number of incidents taking place around school sporting events. The row between supporters of Tafuna and Leone High Schools has been described as particularly bad.

The Education Department says the cancellations are a temporary measure and it will be meeting over the school holidays to discuss ways of tackling the issue.

Read entire article: http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/pacbeat/stories/201005/s2888429.htm

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Scotland: Rules on healthy school meals 'draconian'

BBC News, 17 May 2010

Strict healthy eating rules are leading to pupils shunning school lunches in favour of fast food, catering operators have claimed.   Fergus Chambers, of Cordia, which runs Glasgow's school canteens, said the regulations were "draconian".  Many pupils were now rejecting school dinners in favour of making a "100m dash" to chip shops, he claimed.

But nutrition experts argued caterers had to do more to make healthy food more attractive to pupils.

Figures show the number of secondary pupils in Scotland eating in school canteens fell to 39.2% last year, the lowest level for a decade.

Uptake of school meals in Glasgow fell to 38%, compared with 61% in 2006.

However, the number of primary pupils eating school meals has increased since the regulations were introduced.

Read entire article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/8686575.stm

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Solomon Islands: Australia backs free education in Solomons

Radio Australia Pacific Beat, April 12, 2010

Australia is backing attempts to make primary and junior secondary education free to all children in the Solomon Islands.

Australia's Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance, Bob McMullen, is about to travel to Solomon Islands, to discuss a plan. He's told Peta Donald from Australia Network, that he believes it’s a worthwhile project.

Read entire article and discussion: http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/pacbeat/stories/201004/s2870640.htm

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South Korea: Art education key to sustainable development

Yoo So-jung, Korea Herald, 17 May 2010

Art education promotes creativity and can be a key to sustaining a nation’s overall competitiveness, a high-ranking official of the Korea National Commission for UNESCO said yesterday.

"If in the 20th century, scientists and great artists affected our ideas, now in the 21st century, everyone can be creative because even small amounts of creativity can affect our daily lives,” Chun Taeck-soo, secretary-general of the Korea National Commission for UNESCO, told reporters in Seoul.

"Art education, therefore, brings high-quality productivity, which means that creative labor can bring in higher income,” he stressed.

The idea will be explored during the 2nd World Conference on Arts Education scheduled to take place from May 25 to 28 at COEX in Seoul. It is considered the "world’s largest arts education conference, with approximately 2,000 participants from 193 countries,” according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the hosts of the event.

Read entire article: http://www.koreaherald.com/lifestyle/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20100517000733

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UK: We must take action on bullying

Leading Article, the Independent, 29 April 2010

An extraordinary report from the Department for Children, Schools and Families paints a bleak picture of the life of children from poor homes who are taught in schools serving affluent areas.

They are in such a minority that they are easily bullied by their richer classmates. As they roam the high streets of well-heeled towns their deprivation is starkly apparent to them because they walk by things they can't afford in shop windows. What can be done?

The report, "Pockets of Poverty", which includes a foreword by Sue Hackman, the chief adviser on school standards at the DCSF, says that one priority is to train teachers in these schools in how to help less affluent pupils. It is easier in schools in disadvantaged areas – where most of the pupils come into this category and thus teachers are more aware of what needs to be done.

Obviously this is a start - but there ought to be a vigorous anti-bullying policies as well, so no pupil can get away with, as Ms. Hackman says, "inventing a range of abusive terms for poor pupils". This kind of treatment is akin to homophobic and racist bullying.

Read entire article: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/leading-article-we-must-take-action-on-bullying-1956868.html

UK: School homework is 'polluting family life'

Graeme Patton, UK Telegraph, 7 May 2010

Eleanor Updale, author of the award-winning Montmorency series of books, said a typical 30-minute classroom task often took three times as long after being "subcontracted” to parents. She also claimed that homework was turning children into "couch potatoes” as they spent an increasing amount of time in their bedrooms instead of playing outside.

The comments will fuel the debate over the amount of school work completed at home.  According to government guidelines, homework is not compulsory but it is encouraged. Advice for schools in England says five-year-olds should do one hour a week, rising to 90 to 150 minutes a day at 16. Ten and 11-year-olds should complete half an hour of homework every day.  However, research has cast doubt on its effectiveness….

Dr Updale said the educational establishment had to "break away from the automatic assumption that homework is a good thing”.

Read entire article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7692256/School-homework-is-polluting-family-life.html

UK: Despite test boycott school league tables 'will still be published'

Graeme Patton, UK Telegraph, 11 May 2010

The government is preparing to release school-by-school rankings using a less formal system of teacher assessment.

Under the new-style tables, pupil performance is measured by teachers in the classroom throughout the year, giving 10 and 11-year-olds an overall score in the basic subjects.

It means the rankings will proceed as normal, even for those schools refusing to stage official tests.  The disclosure comes despite claims by teaching unions that league tables promote unhealthy competition between schools and skew the curriculum.

Up to half of England’s 17,000 primary schools are boycotting Sats in reading, writing, spelling and maths this week. Unions are pushing for formal exams to be replaced with a system of teacher assessment. It could also be complemented by a small-scale random test sample to gauge national standards, unions claim.

They are opposed data being used to produce school-by-school league tables.

Read entire article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7711964/Sats-boycott-school-league-tables-will-still-be-published.html 

UK: £55bn school building program could be cut

Nick Collins, UK Telegraph, 15 May 2010
 
Plans for hundreds of new secondary schools in England have been frozen as the Government reviews the education spending program put in place by Labour.

The Department for Education said no decision had been taken, but it is thought the intention was to make cuts to the annual £8.5bn new schools budget.

It is understood that some of the possible savings will be put towards the free schools programme pledged by the Conservatives, which is modelled on the Swedish system.

Funding could now be withdrawn for schools which have been given the chance to participate in the Building Schools for the Future project but have not yet announced any arrangements with contractors.

Head teachers and local authorities were last night seeking assurances as to their future funding.

Read entire article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7726809/55bn-school-building-programme-could-be-cut.html

UK: Welcome to Britain in 2010 where money + class = power

Nick Cohen, Education Guardian, 16 May 2010

As exhausted Labour ministers embraced opposition with an emotion close to relief, the party's equally exhausted staff assumed they could relax. Instead of being allowed to recuperate, however, they were overwhelmed by thousands of angry men and women clamouring to join. The sight of Nick Clegg and David Cameron joshing in the grounds of Downing Street had rammed home a truth about Britain that all the talk of "inclusion" and "diversity" obscures. We live in the most class-ridden society in western Europe, and it is becoming more sclerotic and more hierarchical by the year.

Despite the admirable attempts to combat sexism, racism and homophobia, the life-defining issue for children is not their skin colour, gender or sexuality, still less their intrinsic talent - but how much their parents are prepared to spend on their education, and what friendships they can exploit and contacts they can manipulate on their little darlings' behalf thereafter.

…In an analysis of the new political class it will release tomorrow, the Sutton Trust, a charity that is trying to loosen the bonds of British society, will point out that it is not enough to say that the elite is increasingly drawn from the 7% of the population educated at private schools. At the pinnacle of politics and many other professions the best jobs are going to old boys not of private schools but of the top 1% of private schools – Eton, Westminster, St Paul's, Radley and Rugby, whose annual fees of £25,000 or more are beyond the means of all but the richest.

Read entire article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/16/nick-cohen-coalition-privilege

UK: New schools minister Nick Gibb upsets teachers – already

Rachel Williams, Education Guardian, 17 May 2010

Disciplinarian Gibb says he'd rather see an Oxbridge graduate with no [Post Graduate Certificate of Education] teaching physics than a qualified teacher with a degree from a 'rubbish university'

With his penchant for old-fashioned discipline in schools – complete with strict uniform policies and rules that pupils should stand when teachers enter the classroom – it was never likely to be long before Nick Gibb provoked the ire of the profession.  But even the new schools minister's harshest critics didn't expect him to manage it within just three days in the job.

Gibb is reported to have told officials in the Department for Education on Friday, the day after his appointment: "I would rather have a physics graduate from Oxbridge without a PGCE teaching in a school than a physics graduate from one of the rubbish universities with a PGCE."

The remark, which has already attracted a flurry of posts on Twitter, accusing the Tory MP of elitism and a failing to understand what makes a good teacher, will doubtless have rubbed a few people in higher education up the wrong way too.

Read entire article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/mortarboard/2010/may/17/nick-gibb-upsets-teachers

UK: companies 'pick up the pieces' of school failure

Graeme Patton, UK Telegraph, 17 May 2010
 
Research from the Confederation of British Industry found that low-levels of basic literacy and numeracy hindered workers’ ability to gather information from standard texts, compose coherent memos, work out price discounts in their heads or even calculate customers’ change.

Despite the recession, almost half of companies also said they still struggled to recruit well-qualified staff with skills in vital subjects such as science and mathematics.  In total, firms are being forced to spend around £39 billion a year to provide their own staff training, it was disclosed.

The study said there was "understandable frustration” among businesses that they had to "pick up the pieces to support those who left full-time education with weaknesses in the basics they will need in their working lives”.

Richard Lambert, CBI director general, said: "Employers do not expect everyone to arrive at their door ‘job ready’, but at the very least they want young people who are literate and numerate and who have good employability skills."

Read entire article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7725778/CBI-companies-pick-up-the-pieces-of-school-failure.html 

UK: Science & technology skills shortage is getting worse, bosses warn

Anna Bawden, Guardian, 18 May 2010

Employers fear they will be unable recruit students with the skills they need as the economic recovery kicks in, a new survey reveals.  Nearly half of organisations told researchers they were already struggling to find staff with skills in science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem), while even more companies expect to experience shortages of employees with Stem skills in the next three years.

The Confederation of British Industry and the vocational qualifications body EDI surveyed 694 organisations across the public and private sectors, which together employ 2.4 million people.

Half are concerned they will not be able to fill graduate posts in the coming years, while a third said they would not be able to recruit enough employees with the right A-level skills.

"As we move further into recovery and businesses plan for growth, the demand for people with high-quality skills and qualifications will intensify," said Richard Lambert, director general, CBI.

"In the future, people with qualifications in science and maths will be particularly sought after, and firms say it is already hard to find people with the right technical or engineering skills. The new government must make encouraging more young people to study science-related subjects a top priority."

Read entire article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/may/18/skills-shortage-worsens

UK: Music the key to children's souls

Stephen Hough, UK Telegraph, 18 May 2010

In the days leading up to the election I came across an interview with Jeremy Hunt, who is now Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport. He said that a Conservative government would ensure that "every child will have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument; that every child has the chance to learn to sing; that every child is able to receive a solid cultural education". 

But what I found so refreshing about this Tory proposal was its emphasis on the active: not so much "music appreciation classes", but rosin on a bow, reed in a mouth, fingers on keys. It recognises that learning a musical instrument is something positive in itself – a discipline that helps a person to acquire skills of co-ordination, concentration and perseverance. It shares these with sport, of course, but there is more.

What makes playing a musical instrument worthy of special attention is that its physical and mental complexities are a springboard to something beyond the tangible or measurable. Unlike sport, music is not about winning, or keeping fit, or promoting your town or school; it's about celebrating, to a level approaching ecstasy, the deepest human longings.

Read entire article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/7735302/Music-unlocks-the-key-to-childrens-souls.html

UK: Focus on league tables harms poorer pupils' university chances

Richard Garner, the Independent, 19 May 2010

Britain's most selective universities have made no progress in the past 15 years in increasing the number of places given to students from disadvantaged backgrounds, a major study out today reveals.

But the real problem, according to the report from the Office for Fair Access (Offa), the Government's university admissions watchdog, is that many schools are entering pupils for exams in subjects that are unlikely to get them a place at a top institution.

The report says the emphasis on exam league tables can lead to schools "putting the perceived needs of the institution as a whole before those of the individual pupils".

The report says that students from the most affluent 20 per cent of the country are now seven times more likely to obtain a place in the top third of selective universities – compared with six times in the mid-1990s.

Read entire article: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/focus-on-league-tables-harms-poorer-pupils-university-chances-1976439.html

UK: Kebabs and burgers at the school gates: how takeaways near schools undermine healthy meals

Simon Rogers, Guardian, 16 May 2010

Takeaway meals sold near schools could contain over one and a half times more salt and three times more saturated fat than an adult's maximum recommendation for a day. The research, carried out by London environmental health food teams on behalf of Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) quantifies for the first time the food danger for teenagers hidden just outside the school gates.

It's a pretty comprehensive set of research - albeit just focused on the London boroughs. Environmental health food teams in London took a snapshot of popular snacks bought by secondary school children from takeaway shops near 45 schools in 16 London Boroughs. The list is somewhat predictable: burgers, kebabs, pies, fried chicken. They were all analysed for their salt, total fat, saturated fat, trans fat and calorie content...

It's an issue even for those schools which do not allow their pupils off site during the day - many of the takeaways open up as the school gates close. Does it undermine the whole Jamie Oliver campaign for healthy eating at schools?

Read entire article and summary of research findings: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/may/16/school-takeaway-fat-food

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USA: No More Valentines:

What will it take to make teacher evaluation a useful tool for improving teaching and learning?

Morgaen L. Donaldson, Educational Leadership, May 2010

In 2001, when Patricia Hopkins became superintendent of the Five Town CSD and Maine School Administrative District #28 in Camden and Rockport, one of her first tasks was to review summative evaluations of all the teachers in the two districts. What she discovered troubled but did not surprise her. As she read through the evaluations, she found that many were full of "valentines"—her word for vague, meaningless praise— and largely devoid of constructive criticism or concrete feedback. Hopkins believed that teacher evaluation held great potential to improve instruction, so she set out to "eliminate the valentines" by strengthening the culture and structures supporting teacher evaluation in district schools.

In recent years, the spotlight on teacher evaluation has intensified. Given teachers' effect on student learning and achievement, practitioners, policymakers, and researchers have all called for boosting the rigor and quality of teacher evaluation. The track record for evaluation, however, flies in the face of the increasing consensus that teacher evaluation could play an important part in improving teaching and learning. My 2009 review of research on teacher evaluation showed that, on the whole, teacher evaluation has not substantially improved instruction.

During the last wave of efforts to strengthen teacher evaluation, in the 1980s, most initiatives died on the vine. This time around, however, there may be cause for more optimism.

Read entire article: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/may10/vol67/num08/No_More_Valentines.aspx

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USA: Citing Individualism, Arizona Tries to Rein in Ethnic Studies in School

Tamar Lewin, New York Times 13 May 2010

Less than a month after signing the nation’s toughest law on illegal immigration, Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona has again upset the state’s large Hispanic population, signing a bill aimed at ending ethnic studies in Tucson schools.  

Under the law signed on Tuesday, any school district that offers classes designed primarily for students of particular ethnic groups, advocate ethnic solidarity or promote resentment of a race or a class of people would risk losing 10 percent of its state financing.

"Governor Brewer signed the bill because she believes, and the legislation states, that public school students should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not be taught to resent or hate other races or classes of people,” Paul Senseman, a spokesman for the governor, said in a statement on Thursday.

Judy Burns, president of the governing board of the Tucson schools, said the district’s ethnic studies courses did not violate any of the provisions of the new law and would be continued because they were valuable to the students.

"From everything I’ve seen, they empower kids to take charge of their own destiny, gain a sense of the value of their own existence and become more determined to be well-educated contributing members of society,” Ms. Burns said.

Read entire article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/education/14arizona.html?adxnnl=1&ref=education&adxnnlx=1274256340-0cjzBlN0iwCPFgFSDjE3HQ&pagewanted=print

USA: Pushing back on bullying

Christine Legere, Boston Globe,  May 13, 2010

For the longest time, bullying has fallen into the "kids will be kids" category, a negative yet somewhat unavoidable part of growing up. But following the suicides of Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, a Springfield 11-year-old who took his own life last year after being bullied, and Phoebe Prince, the 15-year-old Irish immigrant in South Hadley who hanged herself in January after weeks of harassment by fellow students, educators, parents, and lawmakers are finally saying "No more."

Last week, Governor Deval Patrick signed one of the strongest legislative measures in the country against bullying behavior in schools, mandating training for faculty and students, and requiring that parents be informed of incidents. School employees must report suspected bullying to principals for investigation, whether it occurs on school grounds, bus rides, or at school-sponsored events. And school officials must also take action against student bullying via e-mail or through social networking sites like Facebook, since conflicts on the Internet can create a hostile environment at school.

Although bullying is still not categorized as a criminal act, aggressive bullying can now be dealt with legally under laws against stalking and harassment.

Read entire article: http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2010/05/13/schools_move_to_educate_staff_students_on_response_to_bullying?mode=PF

USA: We need it, but who’ll pay for a longer school day?

Scot Lehigh, Boston Globe, May 14, 2010

LAST YEAR, rigorous research by Harvard and MIT demonstrated that Boston’s best charter schools have an impressive educational impact.  This week, we found out one likely reason why: Charter school students spend more time in school. A lot more time.

Anecdotally, educational observers have long known that. But we now have solid data.

A charter school student’s day averages 8.2 hours, compared with 6.1 hours at Boston’s traditional public schools, according to a new study done by the American Institutes for Research for the Boston Foundation, which also funded the Harvard-MIT work. That means charter students benefit from the equivalent of at least 62 additional school days each year.

The new report notes that a longer school day allows time for many of the things teachers and parents value. For faculty, there’s time for more teacher collaboration and participation in school leadership. For kids, there’s time for art, enrichment, and remedial help.

Given those findings, the study helps frame one of the next big questions in education reform: In tough budgetary times, how do you get a longer school day for kids who need it?

Read entire article: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/05/14/we_need_it_but_wholl_pay_for_a_longer_school_day?mode=PF

USA: Educational attainment rises among all Americans

Demographic Shift Could Pose Challenges for Schools

Erik W. Robelein, Education Week, 14 May 2010

Americans across major racial and ethnic groups became better educated over the past decade, though significant gaps remain in the rates at which blacks and Hispanics earn a high school diploma or college degree, a new analysis of U.S. census data finds.

The report from the Brookings Institution also highlights the continued "demographic transformation” of the United States, with nonwhites accounting for 83 percent of population growth between 2000 and 2008, a trend observers say heightens challenges for schools across the country.

The percentages of both Hispanic and black adults, age 25 and older, who hold at least a high school diploma climbed by about 8 percentage points between 2000 and 2008, the Brookings analysis finds. For Hispanics, it reached 61 percent, and for African-Americans, 81 percent.

But those numbers were still well below the 90 percent of white adults with at least that credential.

Read entire article: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/05/19/32census.h29.html?tkn=MWMC1GBgdjSD5DPR7Tn4Uy3TDMwITozWtryN&cmp=clp-sb-ascd

Access the Brookings Institution Report: http://www.brookings.edu/metro/MetroAmericaChapters/education.aspx

USA: Teachers embrace new training to help students with limited English

Editorial, Boston Globe, May 14, 2010

BOSTON IS finally taking steps to improve instruction for students with limited English skills, and the city’s teachers union has been playing a highly constructive role. For years, students with special language needs were neglected. Dropout rates spiked as parents were kept in the dark about which, if any, special classes were available for their children. The situation had become so dire that the US Justice Department launched a formal review earlier this year.

New administrators in the School Department and willing teachers are responding aggressively. Each Saturday for the past few months, scores of teachers have been receiving day-long training — unpaid — as part of a 70-hour course designed to give regular classroom teachers the skills they need to help the city’s 11,000 so-called English language learners.

The law requires teachers to teach academic content in English at a level that students can comprehend. But unions still have a right to bargain over the training regimen. To its credit, the Boston Teachers Union has been especially flexible. Instead of portraying the training as an undue burden, the union provides free space at its headquarters for the training sessions. And so far, about 40 percent of the city’s 5,000 teachers have chosen to participate.

Source: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2010/05/14/teachers_embrace_new_training?mode=PF

USA: Texas schools board rewrites US history with lessons promoting God and guns

Chris McGreal, Guardian, 16 May 2010

Cynthia Dunbar does not have a high regard for her local schools. She has called them unconstitutional, tyrannical and tools of perversion. The conservative Texas lawyer has even likened sending children to her state's schools to "throwing them in to the enemy's flames". Her hostility runs so deep that she educated her own offspring at home and at private Christian establishments.

Now Dunbar is on the brink of fulfilling a promise to change all that, or at least to point Texas schools toward salvation. She is one of a clutch of Christian evangelists and social conservatives who have grasped control of the state's education board. This week they are expected to force through a new curriculum that is likely to shift what millions of American schoolchildren far beyond Texas learn about their history.

The board is to vote on a sweeping purge of alleged liberal bias in Texas school textbooks in favour of what Dunbar says really matters: a belief in America as a nation chosen by God as a beacon to the world, and free enterprise as the cornerstone of liberty and democracy.

Read entire article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history

USA: Liberal grit in the fight for school choice

Unexpected voices join the battle to improve the quality of education

Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe,  May 16, 2010

THE STORIED Anti-Defamation League, one of the nation’s oldest civil rights organizations, is fervent about the separation of church and state. It devotes an elaborate page to the subject on its website. It files friend-of-the-court briefs when church/state issues come before the federal or state judiciary. Whether the controversy is over school prayer, religious displays in public, or the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, ADL argues with much passion for keeping the "wall of separation" between government and religion as high and impenetrable as possible. "The more government and religion become entangled," it has often warned, "the more threatening the environment becomes for each."

No surprise, then, that ADL takes a hard line against school-choice voucher programs, which give parents the wherewithal to rescue their children from failing public schools and enroll them in private schools instead. Since those private schools are often church-affiliated, ADL contended in an amicus brief the last time the Supreme Court took up the issue, vouchers have the unconstitutional effect of directing "government funding to religious schools for religious purposes."

Read entire article: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/05/16/liberal_grit_in_the_fight_for_school_choice?mode=PF

USA: Brooklyn Park students build rain garden:

School project sparks teens' interest in bay and environment

Andrea F. Siegel, the Baltimore Sun, 17 May 2010 

Over here, reddish-bronze flowers of a little columbine nod in the breeze. And over there, a scrawny azalea is sprouting new leaves.  They are among plants in a new student-built rain garden at Brooklyn Park Middle School, an eighth-grade project that entwined everything from English and science classroom studies to service learning hours and getting dirty outside.

Some of the more than 130 students were new to putting a shovel in the ground. Now some teens are inspired to try this at home — though, they acknowledged, it was dirty, hard work, especially in the heat.

Classroom cultivation for the project included studying the Chesapeake Bay, reading a novel whose storyline focuses on an Eastern Shore family and pollution, and learning about bay-related political issues, said Josette Jurczak, their English teacher, who spearheaded the rain garden development.

The garden was funded by a grant of about $850 from Unity Gardens, a Crownsville nonprofit organization that supports environmental education in the county. Much of what's in the garden was bought at a discount or donated, Jurczak said.

Read entire article: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-ar-brooklyn-park-garden-20100516,0,6896327.story

USA: Protesters call International Baccalaureate program un-American. Is it?

Valerie Strauss, Washington Post, 18 May 2010

Not for the first time we have protesters -- this time in Idaho -- trying to get the International Baccalaureate program tossed out of schools because, they say, it is, anti-American.

Usually the most serious threat to the IB is its sort-of rival, the Advanced Placement program.

But allegations that the international education program is not only anti-American but also Marxist and anti-Christian have led to controversies in recent years in several states, including Utah, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

The program isn’t any of the things the protesters say it is. IB is a rigorous program for students aged 3 to 19, now in about 3,000 schools, in 139 countries, that teaches students to understand issues from an international perspective.

That focus and multicultural themes in the program have led to the anti-American charges by some opponents, while others say it is socialist because the International Baccalaureate Organization signed the Earth Charter, a collection of global principles created in France in 2000.

Read entire article: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/apibhonors/protesters-call-ib-program-un-.html

USA: Caught in the act: Juveniles sentenced to Shakespeare

Louise Kennedy, Boston Globe, May 18, 2010

Tonight, 13 actors will take the stage at Shakespeare & Company in "Henry V." Nothing so unusual in that — except that these are teenagers, none older than 17, and they have been sentenced to perform this play.

The show is the culmination of a five-week intensive program called Shakespeare in the Courts, a nationally recognized initiative now celebrating its 10th year. Berkshire Juvenile Court Judge Judith Locke has sent these adjudicated offenders — found guilty of such adolescent crimes as fighting, drinking, stealing, and destroying property — not to lockup or conventional community service, but to four afternoons a week of acting exercises, rehearsal, and Shakespearean study.

More than 100 youths have participated since Kevin Coleman, the Shakespeare troupe’s education director, and Paul Perachi, Locke’s predecessor on the bench, started the program. But Coleman is realistic about what Shakespeare can and cannot do.

"I am going to say this right now, really clearly, on a billboard: This does not fix them," Coleman said Friday, before the group’s four-hour rehearsal began. "Do they get back in trouble? Yes, they do. But maybe less often and maybe not as deep. This extreme experience that they’re having starts to change them."

Read entire article: http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2010/05/18/caught_in_the_act_juveniles_sentenced_to_shakespeare?mode=PF

USA: How Schools Can Achieve Obama's Lofty Education Goals

Three positive trends offer big lessons on making America more educationally competitive by 2020

Richard Whitmore & Andrew J Rotherham, US News & World Report, 18 May 2010

Finding depressing education news is easy. The recession, combined with the waning of federal stimulus money, is about to trigger hundreds of thousands of teacher layoffs—an "education catastrophe," warns Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

The layoffs will play out against a background of flat national reading scores and mediocre showings on international education rankings. Looming behind everything: the country's much-debated school reform law, No Child Left Behind, has fallen into disrepute.

None of this can be sugarcoated; yet dwelling on the negatives masks some significant education breakthroughs that promise to pay dividends for years to come. Together they represent the country's best shot at achieving President Obama's ambitious goal of pushing the country back to the top of international education rankings—measured by college graduations by 2020.

Read entire article: http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2010/05/18/how-schools-can-achieve-obamas-lofty-education-goals.html

USA:  Algebra helps - Montgomery schools track graduates' rate of college degrees

Michael Birnbaum, Washington Post, 18 May 2010

Montgomery public schools, one of the few systems in the country that tracks its students all the way through college graduation, released a report Monday that details how many of its students went on to receive bachelor's degrees -- and how they got there.

According to school system data, students who passed advanced math courses in middle school and high school and took at least one Advanced Placement test were much more likely to graduate from college.

"If you have students who are taking algebra in the eighth grade," said Montgomery schools spokesman Dana Tofig, "they're getting college degrees."

The data show that Montgomery students who passed Algebra I in the eighth grade were more than twice as likely to receive a bachelor's degree than those who didn't have the early algebra exposure -- 75 percent for the eighth-grade math students, compared with 34 percent who didn't take the course.

Read entire article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/17/AR2010051703621.html

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