Showing posts with label JSJ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label JSJ. Show all posts
Saturday, May 9, 2015
Saturday, April 25, 2015
School Size and Spending per Pupil in the Nation's Capitol
D.C. Schools budget includes wide range in per-student spending
Washington Post, April 23,2015
Key Points:
- D.C. schools vary in per pupil spending from $16,467 to $8,312
- A parent group has made a website to track spending data by school in order to hold administration officials accountable
- The trends largely reflect the economy of scale that makes larger schools less expensive/student
- This data also allows correlation between funding and program offerings
Intended Audience:
- Practitioner Educators, Parents, twitter followers, readership
Relevance:
- The role that funding plays in education, and specifically in which types of schools we choose to teach in is a relevant consideration. I am grateful for the parent’s gathering of data to root-out inappropriate funding allocation,
- I am curious to do more research on the policy implications of larger schools. Could larger, more efficient schools free up money spent on maintenance or overlapping responsibilities be better spent to provide smaller classes, broader enrichment opportunities?
Teach for America (or Britain, Haiti, Lithuania...)
Teacher Recruitment, High-fliers in the Classroom.
The Economist. February 14th, 2015.
Key Points:
- The article asserts that problems in education are, at least in part, a result of the low-caliber of teacher recruits
- Teach for America is lauded as a solution, with discussion given to similar international organizations.
- Statistics provided in support: %50-%70 of TFA (and similar) participants stay in education after their two-year commitment.
Intended Audience:
- The regular readership of this broad spectrum magazine devoted to free trade, laissez faire government, and the dismal science.
Relevance:
- With high likelihood of encountering teachers, administrators, and policy makers who began in TFA it is beneficial to understand a perspective in support of the program.
- I am curious about teacher education abroad, and certainly open to “copy-cat” models in countries with severe education needs.
- This particular perspective is problematic to the degree that it portrays these “high-fliers” as heroes who are the only hope for otherwise hopeless masses. Ivy-league success does not a culturally-competent public servant make.
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Time Spent on Testing Info graphic
ASCD: Policy Points: Testing Time.
ASCD, March 2015
Key Points:
- A 2-sheet quick reference to current state of time spent testing in American Public Schools.
- Avg. # of mandated tests PreK-12: 113
- 11th graders get the worst of it: 27 days/year on average of standardized testing
- Urban and East Coast Schools require the most testing on average
- Common Core aligned tests seem to represent a cost savings/student
Intended Audience:
- Practitioner Educators, Parents, Policy makers
Relevance:
- As educators, which grade do you want to teach and where? I hope to stay away from 11th & 12th for now because of the testing burden. I’d prefer the content, but not if I can’t teach it. How to fulfil requirements and achieve meaningful instruction. As political participants, make voice heard.
Exciting ESEA re-write Developments
Senate Committee Reaches Agreement on New ESEA, April 7, 2015
Diane Ravitch Blog
Key Points:
- Senate Commitee works on re-authorization of ESEA (Elementary & Secondary Education Act-- currently “No Child Left Behind.”)
- Removes
- Significant amount of Federal oversight/ tools for manipulation.
- “low-performing schools” sanctions
- Leaves
- Yearly testing in place
- Does not create vouchers
- Does not create Score Card for low-performing schools to provide funding differential transparency
Intended Audience:
Policy Wonks, School administrators, practicioners
Relevance:
New legislation in this direction could be a boon for teacher professionalism and what I see as more authentic learning. It is important that this is only a Senate committee draft, subject to floor debate (if allowed) and the hugely partisan House before heading to Obama (who, by the way might now like how many of Arne Duncan’s tools/ initiatives are repudiated with this legislation). If lame-duck congress can pass this before we start teaching, it will be a better footing at the beggining of our careers.
Racial Disproportionality in Special Education Assignment
Restrictiveness and Race in Special Education: The Failure to Prevent or to Return
Cartledge, G. (2005). Restrictiveness and Race in Special Education: The Failure to Prevent or to Return. Learning Disabilities: A Contemporary Journal, 3(1), 27-32.
Key Points
1)Gen-ed Teacher Referrals are the overwhelming source of “socially-determined” Special-Ed. placements. With this in mind, it is also important to note that African American students are 1.5 times more likely to be labeled with emotional and behavioral disorders than White classmates.
2)The greatest correlative factors are in schools where the total African American student population is relatively low. That is to say that while low-income schools do have some predictive value, where those schools are primarily African American there is less disproportionality in Special Ed referral and placement.
Intended Audience
Special Education Researchers, Practitioners, Administrators, Policy Makers, Academics
Relevance
The need for Gen-ed/Spec.-ed collaboration.
Need for Statistical analysis to monitor inadvertent bias.
Need for great teacher support in Gen-ed & Spec-ed.
Interest-based Education for Students with Autism.
They Deserve Good Teaching, Too. Social justice in a classroom for students with autism.
Leanna Carollo, Rethinking Schools Spring 2015 Vol. 29 No.3
Key Points:
Leanna Carollo is a public school Special Edu. teaching in California and writing a reflection on her time working as an IA. She takes issue with Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) methods of instruction, and the inappropriate use of extrinsic motivation in particular. Carollo experiments with methods from “Relationship Development Intervention,” that focus on using the child's strengths and interests to make progress in objectives. Key to her approach is cultivating methods for student emotional expression.
Intended Audience:
Practicing Educators
Relevance:
Yet another article in favor of student voice as crucial to valuable instruction. I am eager to continue learning from my Spec. Ed. compatriots about the challenges they face from d
ata collection / other pressures that prevent this style of instruction and ways to make progress.
Pearson's Bizarre take on "Efficacy in Education"
Efficacy: The True Measure of Success in Education
EdSurge, Sabrina Manville (Director of Efficacy in the Office of the Chief Education Advisor at Pearson Education) March 24,2015
Key Points:
- What is most striking is the surprising definitions for “efficacy,” “measure,” “success,” and “Education”
- Given the title, I anticipated:
- An article that would discuss a “soft focus” on how Pearson believes it is important to focus on student’s retention, application and implementation of what they learn in school. [which just so happens to be made possible by Pearson Products ;) ]
- BUT the article instead defines efficacy as a measure of Pearson's market penetration. Success as revenue growth, Measure as profitability, and Education as a market. The author initially refutes these foci, but ironically focuses on them for the duration of the article. The strategy rang particularly loud in my ears having spent the last few years as a sales rep for an auto parts company with a “solution” for every aspect of auto repair.
- A telling quotation “Tests and textbooks are just a small slice of the money spent on education globally; money spent on teaching, learning, and related services are a much larger and growing share.”
Intended Audience:
- The Author is addressing people working in the “Business of Education,” this should be differentiated from people who educate. The source, Edsurge, portrays itself as an independent source for Ed-Tech news and is intended for educators.
Relevance:
- To be blunt, I have read similar trade articles announcing new automobile brake pads, ---“eco-friendly composition,” ---“protect your family,”---- this is a piece on value-added sales. It is not evidence that all corporate interests are evil, just that their interest in schooling is much different than committed educators.
- Given the bizarrely mismatched definitions of “Efficacy, Success, and Education,” it should be a red flag on the appropriateness of Corporate expansion into their target market of “teaching, learning, and related services…”
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Politics that Impact the Classroom
Education Week
Partisan Hurdles Ahead on K-12 for some GOP Governors
Andrew Ujifusa, 3/4/2015
Audience: Educators, Education Politics readers
Key Points:
1) That three traditionally Democrat-leaning states (Massachusetts, Maryland, and Illinois) have recently elected Republican Governors, and that this has implications for the education policy of the state.
2) The issues in Maryland and Massachusetts focus on the role that charter schools play in serving the needs of the student population as well as their political implications.
3) In Illinois, the foremost issue is that the new Governor plans to erode or eliminate the power of the public-sector unions. He is also looking at options to close and consolidate school district administrative functions.
Relevance:
Working in public schools is an inherently political position. Teachers are not meant to be overt partisan actors in the course of their typical day, but our professional lives and educational positions are most certainly political footballs. It is important not only to develop ourselves pedagogically, but also to stay aware of, and to act on policies that will have implications for issues we care about.
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