Is Collaboration Essential for Students to Learn?

“If school isn’t about doing things together, just about everyone has better places to spend their day.” Ira David Socol declared this statement in his blog post about the necessity of collaboration in creating and sustaining real learning. The dilemma of students becoming prepared for careers in the 21st century and centuries to come in what Socol calls a 19th century school (a classroom with a bunch of kids doing the same thing in the same way on the same device) is not a new one, but while many discuss the problem, Socol outlines what he believes is a solution.

He explains that classrooms where, “educators think the information of the world still moves via paper and pencil, that there are ‘correct answers’ to everything, and that there is a structured cultural norm of learning behavior, best exemplified by the silent child bent over a wooden desk with a thick physical book, which must be duplicated if a student is to succeed in their learning spaces” is an environment that impedes the desire for students to come to school at all.

Instead, Socol gives four ways to provide an environment that promotes self-motivated learning:
1. A learning environment in which students make most decisions
2. A time environment in which students learn and work along a schedule which makes sense to them
3. A technological environment which supports collaboration across every barrier
4. A social environment where adults do not rank students according to their oppressive standards

To learn more about Ira David Socol’s solution and improving collaboration in schools, click here.

Will Wyoming's Students Achieve with the Common Core State Standards

In June 2010, Wyoming’s Board of Education decided to adopt the Common Core State Standards. Although the opportunity to raise the English and math scores of students seems like a good idea, nearly one-third of the members of the Legislature’s Joint Interim Education Committee have decided that the Common Core math standards are too difficult for Wyoming students.

One would think if students are struggling with achieving the standards that almost every state in America has adopted, what will change if the standards don’t change? What will be done to ensure those students stop struggling and experience high-level learning? If the legislative committee reverses the decision by the Board of Education, Wyoming’s students likely will always be behind the other states in terms of math achievement.

Kay Persichette, dean of the University of Wyoming’s College of Education, said the Common Core Standards do raise the bar in math. That’s exactly what should happen if our students are falling behind their counterparts in other states.

“It only makes sense that we have some platform of expectations in terms of rigorous common standards in core subjects across the nation if we’re going to be able to reasonably compare achievement, progress and learning,” Persichette said.

Read more.

The Current Condition of Our Education

“The passing references to children and students feel largely like rhetorical flourishes in the partisan and ideological fights among adults.” Yesterday, Gene R. Carter, CEO and executive director of ASCD, made this bold statement on the current condition of our education system in the United States. Evident in the title, “We Need a Different National Conversation,” Carter exposed disappointing facts about the decline in the education system that will likely remain if the conversation about education does not change. He said, “Our poorest children routinely don’t get the help they need inside or outside the classroom. Their teachers are the least well prepared; their schools are the least funded; and the community services they need are largely lacking.”

“We talk about the importance of teachers, but we are in the midst of firing tens of thousands of them. We want teachers to be more effective, but we rarely provide the professional development they need or encourage their desire to be the best they can be.”

Carter fearlessly called on Congress to support a whole-child approach to education, to support quality schools and effective teachers, to broaden the definition of academic excellence, and to embrace college- and career readiness standards that include all core academic subjects, not only reading and math.

Read the full article and learn more here.

CA Superintendent Takes $800,000 Pay Cut to Save School Programs

“Where will the money come from?” That’s the question every superintendent and other school officials are asking as they try to find a way to keep the programs and jobs that are near extinction. While many school leaders might be looking within their already shrinking budgets, Fresno County School Superintendent Larry Powell is taking matters into his own hands . . . and out of his own pocket.

Until his term expires in 2015, Powell will run 325 schools and 35 school districts with 195,000 students, all for less than a starting California teacher earns. He asked his board to allow him to return $288,241 in salary and benefits for the next three and a half years of his term, equaling a total of $800,000. He technically retired, then agreed to be hired back to work for $31,000 a year — $10,000 less than a first-year teacher — and with no benefits.

To read the full article, click here.

How Is Your District Saving Money?

For years, states and school districts have spent hundreds of hours struggling to redistribute and make calculated cuts to school budgets in an attempt to provide a quality education in spite of the lack of funding. While the decrease in funding has caused the cutting of teacher positions and even classes like music and physical education, many schools have resorted to even bigger cuts—cuts like eliminating an entire day of instruction.

The Irene-Wakonda School District in South Dakota is among the latest to adopt a four-day school week as the best option for reducing costs. The four-school week is an increasingly visible example of the impact of state budget problems on rural education. This fall, fully one-fourth of South Dakota's districts will have moved to some form of the abbreviated schedule. Only Colorado and Wyoming have a larger proportion of schools using a shortened week. According to one study, more than 120 school districts in 20 states, most in the west, now use four-day weeks.

Larry Johnke, the superintendent of the district, said the district will add 30 minutes to each day and shorten the lunch break to provide more class time Monday through Thursday. In elementary school, recess and physical education classes will be shortened.

What is your district doing to save money this school year?

To read the full article, click here.

Standardized Tests: Are They Helping or Hindering?

This week in EducationNews, Julie Steiny compared punitive testing models to educational bullying. While she isn't directly blaming the tests, she says, “We’ve crossed a none-too-fine line between accountability—which we all want, without question—to bullying, plain and simple.”

She affirms, “Tests are not the problem. Achievement results are just information. Reliable data is great. It shows us where successful innovation might be underway. It raises red flags, confirms good work, and anchors hunches that our latest strategies are working, or not. We’ll never improve education without hard information, and plenty of it.”

“No, the problem is the bullying. Bullying has become a unique characteristic of America’s education culture. Comply or be punished. Get your students to meet federal and state proficiency standards — or else. Failure can bring public humiliation, wholesale staff dismissals, or schools being closed down entirely. States lean on districts; districts on their administrators. The public and pundits snarl at teachers. Teachers try hard not to take it out on their students.”

Tests are more than measurements for teacher effectiveness. Tests provide large amounts of valuable data, but it’s what we do with the data that makes a difference, how we better help the students understand the curriculum. As Steiny puts it, “The tests are a red flag, not a diagnosis. Test scores are just measurements until digested and interpreted by human judgment.

To read the full article from Julie Steiny, click here.

States Present Their Own Solutions to No Child Left Behind

It’s no secret that No Child Left Behind has caused frustration and discontent among educators and state officials for years. However, now select state representatives are taking matters into their own hands. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker reported, “We are not trying to get around accountability. But instead of using the blanket approach that defines a lot of schools as failures, we will use a more strategic approach so we can replicate success and address failure."

While some states are still waiting for Congress to make the big changes, other states have lost patience. South Dakota, Montana and Idaho recently told officials they would disregard key aspects of the law. Justin Hamilton, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Education, said states must either follow the law or apply for a waiver. "There is no Plan C," he said, adding that the department can withdraw federal funding from states that don't comply.
  

To read the full article click here.

Budget Cuts Equal Less Class Time

The recent effect of budget cuts is not painting the prettiest picture of the future of our nation’s education. Not only has the lack of funding caused an increase in class sizes, but also the cramming of classes into four-day weeks and cutting summer programs and days off the school year.

While virtually everyone in education agrees that American students need to spend more time in the classroom, states can’t ignore the fact that it’s just not in the budget. “Instead of increasing school time, in a lot of cases we’ve been pushing back against efforts to shorten not just the school day but the week and year,” said Justin Hamilton, a spokesman for the federal Department of Education. “We’re trying to prevent what exists now from shrinking even further.”

Read the full article and learn more here

The Power of Professional Learning Communities

Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) are changing the impact of teachers in schools across the United States. Recently, Jackson Junior High School in Jackson, Missouri has noticed dramatic improvements since the implementation of PLCs.

There are four critical questions at the core of Professional Learning Communities: What do they want students to know? How will educators know when a student has learned it? How will educators respond when a student doesn’t get it? How will educators respond when a student already knows it?

Teachers and administrators at Jackson Junior High School say students and faculty are working collaboratively to answer those questions. And that partnership, they say, is paying big dividends.

The Jackson School Board heard and approved an evaluation of the instructional effectiveness of the junior high's PLC, which just wrapped up its third year. The collaborative culture has seen some real measurable results, according to principal Cory Crosnoe and junior high teachers. Discipline referrals have been cut by a third, and grades were up considerably in the first semester of the recently completed school year. F's made up just 3 percent of the grades, according to district statistics.

Read the full article here.

Learn more about creating and improving PLCs here.

Building a Better Education System in the United States

According to the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, the United States ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science, and 25th in mathematics. Ranking the knowledge of 15-year-olds in 70 countries, the report demonstrates the need for the U.S. to make improvements in how it's educating its students.

The new report from The National Center on Education and Economy (NCEE), an organization that researches education systems around the world, says that America can solve this educational crisis by looking at it like it looked at manufacturing at the turn of the 20th century.

"We took the best ideas in steelmaking, industrial chemicals and many other fields from England and Germany and others and put them to work here on a scale that Europe could only imagine," the report says. By using the educational strategies of successful nations, NCEE says, the U.S. can catch up.

"The most effective way to greatly improve student performance in the United States is to figure out how the countries with top student performance are doing it, build on their achievements and then, by building on our unique strengths, figure out how to do it even better," Marc Tucker, NCEE's CEO, said in a statement.

Read the full article here.

How do you think we can build a better education system in the United States? 

America's Students Struggle to Be Proficient in Science

President Obama, in his State of the Union, addressed the need for America to improve in the area of science in order to compete with other nations of the world. The most recent nationwide science test gives statistical validation to the President’s comments. According to the government, “only one or two students out of every 100 displayed the level of mastery that the federal panel governing the tests defines as advanced.” Deficiencies occurred at every grade level from fourth graders to 12th graders.

Why the lack of proficiency in science?

To learn more, read the full article at The New York Times

Highlights on Education from President Obama’s State of the Union

Last night, the President addressed topics such as technology, energy, taxes, immigration and more, but here are a few highlights on what he said about the education of Americans:

“If we want innovation to produce jobs in America and not overseas – then we also have to win the race to educate our kids.”

“Think about it. Over the next 10 years, nearly half of all new jobs will require education that goes beyond a high school education. And yet, as many as a quarter of our students aren’t even finishing high school. The quality of our math and science education lags behind many other nations. America has fallen to ninth in the proportion of young people with a college degree. And so the question is whether all of us – as citizens, and as parents – are willing to do what’s necessary to give every child a chance to succeed.”

“When a child walks into a classroom, it should be a place of high expectations and high performance. But too many schools don’t meet this test.”

“Race to the Top is the most meaningful reform of our public schools in a generation. For less than 1 percent of what we spend on education each year, it has led over 40 states to raise their standards for teaching and learning.”

“Let’s also remember that after parents, the biggest impact on a child’s success comes from the man or woman at the front of the classroom. In South Korea, teachers are known as “nation builders.” Here in America, it’s time we treated the people who educate our children with the same level of respect. We want to reward good teachers and stop making excuses for bad ones. And over the next 10 years, with so many baby boomers retiring from our classrooms, we want to prepare 100,000 new teachers in the fields of science and technology and engineering and math."


What do you think of what President Obama said about education? Let us know.