Once Upon a Time . . .

In 1956, Peter Stang left his hometown in Hungary to travel to the United States. Why? Because the U.S. represented opportunity—opportunity to achieve anything Stang could imagine. Now, at 69, Peter Stang is receiving the National Medal of Science, the highest honor given to a scientist or engineer by the United States.

Over 50 years ago, and even before that, immigrants came to the U.S. searching for a better life, knowing the freedom to study, learn, and progress was finally possible. Some might argue that the country has lost that reputation or that it has significantly diminished. Although we may not currently be at the top compared to competing nations of the world in math and science, the United States still has an abundance of potential. Peter Stang became a world-renowned chemist (ranked 69th on a list of the world’s top 100 chemists) because he had opportunities. He credits his success to the freedoms and opportunities he has enjoyed in the U.S. “This is the only country in the world that I know of that takes the best of anyone in the world and gives them the opportunity to succeed.”

Can the United States still be the catalyst for great learning and innovation? How?

Learn more about Peter Stang by clicking 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.

How Do We Determine Teacher Effectiveness?

National leaders, teachers’ unions, state officials—all have tried to come up with the most effective method for evaluating teachers. What will ensure quality educators for the students in our schools? Although there is no simple, ready-made solution, Nancy Folbre argues in an article in the New York Times that rating teachers according to their students’ performance on standardized tests and firing those who don’t make the grade will likely backfire.

Too much pressure to improve students’ test scores can reduce attention to other aspects of the curriculum and discourage cultivation of broader problem-solving skills, also known as “teaching to the test.” The economists Bengt Holmstrom and Paul Milgrom describe the general problem of misaligned incentives in more formal terms – workers who are rewarded only for accomplishment of easily measurable tasks reduce the effort devoted to other tasks.

Advocates of intensified teacher assessment assert that current practices leave too many incompetent or ineffective teachers in place. But many schools suffer from the opposite problem: high teacher turnover that reduces gains from experience and increases the costs of personnel management. As Sara Mosle pointed out in a recent review of Mr. Brill’s “Class Warfare,” about 40 percent of teachers in New York City quit after three years.

Is there a solution?

To read the full article, click here.

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.

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.

Declining Economy Hinders Student Learning in the Classroom

Unemployment and foreclosure are affecting the ability for students to learn in the classroom. Recently, an annual Kids Count Report estimated that 56,000 Utah children who lived in mortgaged households have been disrupted by foreclosure since 2007. Utah is just one of many places where the poor economy is becoming one more hindrance to children’s learning.

Midvale Elementary school teacher Leandra Stromberg says, "I've had students who tell me they can't come to school because they don't have gas for their cars or it is broken or there's too much snow." She said children from the nearby homeless shelter often join her third-grade class halfway through the year or whenever they move to the community.

"The economy has gotten worse since I started teaching," Stromberg said. "I've seen many of my students, who used to come to school in cleaner clothes, brand new outfits and backpacks, come back the next year with the same stuff. They're lacking supplies because the economy has gotten worse."

Have you seen the effects of a declining economy in the lives of your students?

To read the full article click here.

Cincinnati Closing Achievement Gap and Increasing Graduation Rates

For years, leaders in education have worked hard to close the achievement gap between white students and African American students. While many schools and districts are still pushing forward in this effort, Cincinnati, Ohio Public Schools (CPS) has managed to close the gap with their high school graduation rates.

For over a decade, CPS has involved coordinated, research-based strategies towards closing the gap, but without the creative and courageous work by those actually in the schools, such an ambitious goal could not have been realized. So how did they do it? Is there a way other districts can repeat such success?

Cincinnati, Ohio Public Schools used several strategies including:

• Focusing on just a few goals (increasing overall graduation rates and reducing the high school graduation gap).

• Taking educators, parents, community leaders and students to visit some of the nation’s most effective urban district and charter public schools.

• Focusing staff development on a few key areas: literacy, numeracy and learning to work more effectively with today’s urban youth.

• Increasing youth/community service so students learned they are capable of more than they thought.

• Positive ongoing leadership from the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers

• Holding principals accountable and replacing some in schools where there was not much progress.

To read the full article and see the full list of strategies, click here.

Dear Student: Advice for the New School Year

If you could give any advice to students returning to school this fall, what would it be? Phrases such as “pay more attention in class, study harder, or try to make new friends” might come to mind, but Jeff Thredgold went far beyond that when he published a letter to his children seventeen years ago. Recently, he republished the letter as a reminder to his children and grandchildren of what to keep in mind as the new school year begins, and perhaps a reminder for us all:

· Recognize that the only limits you face are those you set for yourself.

· Be the BEST that you can be.

· Recognize that YOU are responsible for your successes and failures.

· You must earn your way.

· Strive for excellence—not perfection.

· See the glass as half full, rather than seeing it as half empty.

· Focus on positives, rather than on negatives.

· Look to praise, rather than to criticize.

To read the entire letter, click here.

Educators Speak about the School Improvement Innovation Summit

The School Improvement Innovation Summit was a great success! July 11, 12, and 13 were filled with dynamic speakers and presentations focused on improving today's world of education and sharing ideas and skills that can be used firsthand in the classroom and the overall school. We want to thank everyone who participated as a presenter and especially for those committed individuals who came to learn how to create real transformation in their local districts. We could go on, but we thought we'd let you hear for yourself from those who attended the Summit.   

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

Montgomery Offers a Different Approach to Teacher Evaluation

Measuring the success of teachers has been an ongoing dispute in the education community. Deciding which teachers should stay and which teachers should go isn’t an easy task for any district, but for Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland there is a unique system in place to help make those decisions.

The program, Peer Assistance and Review — known as PAR — uses several hundred senior teachers to mentor both newcomers and struggling veterans. If the mentoring does not work, the PAR panel — made up of eight teachers and eight principals — can vote to fire the teacher.

Nancy S. Grasmick, Maryland’s state superintendent of schools, called PAR “an excellent system for professional development.” Senior staff members from the United States Department of Education have visited here to study the program, and Montgomery County officials have gone to Washington to explain how it works. In February, the district was one of 12 featured in Denver at a Department of Education conference on labor-management collaboration.

Learn more about PAR and read the full article 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? 

From One Teacher to Another

Yesterday, Ryan Bretag, an administrator in Northbrook, Illinois and former teacher, wrote a letter to new teachers. Bursting with words of wisdom, Bretag’s letter is filled with advice ranging from keeping your door open, letting the world into your classroom, to growing as a leader in your school, district, and beyond. Although his letter may have been addressed to new teachers, it could be said that Bretag’s advice applies to all educators.

Read the letter

Philadelphia School Fighting Against the Foods Affecting Student Achievement

20 percent of children in the United States are obese. With everyone from Michelle Obama to the parents in urban, suburban, and rural neighborhoods working to lower the percentage, how are they doing it?

In Philadelphia, William D. Kelley School is fighting against obesity by expelling soda and sweet snacks from their school, while gym teacher, Beverly Griffin, teaches healthy eating using a toy model of the federal food pyramid and rewritten children’s songs.

Amelia Brown, the principal of the kindergarten through eighth grade school, said that deplorable diets caused headaches and stomachaches that undermine academic achievement, and that older students showed a steady progression of flab.

Beyond the efforts at the school itself, Ms. Brown called on parents to help the cause by standing outside corner stores near the school and discouraging students from purchasing their typical sugary snacks.

Read the full article at The New York Times

100% of Urban Prep Academy Students College Bound

Few students can say that every single senior at their high school was accepted to college, but for the students at Chicago’s Urban Prep Academy for Young Men this is the second year the seniors there can make such a claim. The 104 members of the graduating class of 2011 have been accepted to 103 colleges, with more letters on the way. With a 60 percent high school dropout rate for African-American males in Chicago Public Schools, this all-male, all-African-American high school is doing something right.

To learn more about the success at Urban Prep Academy for Men Click Here

Bully: The Popular Kid or the Social Outcast?

Bullies—most of us remember them in elementary, middle, or high school. They were the kids who had physical and verbal torment down to a science. Traditionally, bullies have been portrayed as “the pretty girl” or the best athlete in school, but a study by Robert W. Faris, an assistant sociology professor at the University of California, Davis, has spent several years surveying middle and high school students in North Carolina and discovered these stereotypes of bullies are false.
In fact, he found that students in the middle of the social hierarchies at their schools, rather than the most popular or the most socially outcast, are more likely to be bullies.

Read the full article at Education Week

President Obama Prepares to Speak At Another High School Commencement

Last year high schools across the country competed in a contest to have President Obama speak at their commencement ceremonies. In 2010, it was Kalamazoo Central High School in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Again, for the second year in a row, the White House is challenging students to demonstrate how their school is preparing them for their futures in college or a career.

Learn more at The Washington Post  

President Obama's Speech to Kalamazoo Central June 7, 2010

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.

Longer Days for 15 Chicago Schools

Chicago Public schools has plans to add 90 minutes to the schedules of 15 elementary schools using online resources and nonteachers. While some believe this initiative will help increase test scores, others are worried children will not be as engaged or excited about learning as they need to be to truly excel in class subjects.

Full Article at Chicago Tribune

Could your school benefit from online courses and longer school days?