NPR’s All Things Considered (7/24) aired a segment on the state of the Common Core Standards across the country, focusing on eroding support among the leading teachers unions, based on concerns about teacher evaluations using Common Core-aligned tests. The piece also describes efforts to repeal the standards in various states, three of which have been successful. The segment then focuses on the debate over the standards in Louisiana, and the issues that have surrounded implementation. A transcript of this segment can be seen here.
California Governor Opposes School Construction Bill In Private
The Los Angeles Times (7/24, Skelton) reports that the “debt-dumping governor” of California Jerry Brown is opposing a school construction bill privately, although he hasn’t taken a public stance on the measure. Insiders say that the trouble with the school bill is that the need is “spotty” and not universal. Urban districts are losing enrollment, while some outlier, less expensive, areas are seeing their numbers of children multiply. The bill would let the state issue bonds to cover the costs of school construction, but the governor is opposed to issuing new bonds.
Research Suggests Teachers Include More Physical Activity To Drive Comprehension
The Scientific American (7/23) reports on a the success of teaching programs that encourage students to “act out” as a way to boost learning. For example, one reading program has students manipulate pictures on a computer screen that coincides with the meaning of a sentence. The trend reflects “a growing body of research” that show that acting out grounds the abstract material into bodily experiences. The research suggests that classrooms “should include more physical activity in their instruction” so that students comprehend what a sentence says rather than simply decode the words.
Report: Higher Education Community Failing To Align With Common Core
The Huffington Post (7/23) reports that according to a new report from the New America Foundation, while elementary and secondary schools in most of the country are working to implement the Common Core Standards, colleges and universities are not “even close to ready.” The report indicates that though the Common Core was designed largely to promote college readiness, the higher education community wasn’t involved in its creation. The report found that one reason for this disconnect is that “it’s hard to come up with a single definition of what makes a student ready for college.”
School Ends Experiment With Longer School Day
The Hechinger Report (7/22, Bailey) reports, on “a cautionary tale of what can happen when a low-performing school rushes to add time” to the school day in order to close the achievement gap. The article tells the story of New Haven Connecticut’s Brenna-Rogers school, which decided to extend the school day by an hour and 25 minutes one year and revert back to the original school time the following year. The school noticed no difference in student test scores despite the extended time, putting to bed any debate in the community about the extended school day.
Villaraigosa: Teachers Unions Need To Stop Being Obstacles To Reform
Former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal (7/21, Subscription Publication) titled, “Why Are Teachers Unions So Opposed To Change?” makes the case that public schools in the US are failing American children and that teachers unions are partially to blame due to their continued resistance to the reforms that Villaraigosa deems necessary. Villaraigosa says the unions ought not be as critical of the Obama Administration as they are. Villaraigosa also contends that the implementation of Common Core had a positive impact on Los Angeles’ schools.
Incoming NEA Chief Faces “Direct Conflict” With Duncan On Standardized Tests
MSNBC (7/19, Resnikoff) reports that Lily Eskelsen Garcia, who will become president of the National Education Association on Sept. 1, has spent the two weeks since her election “preparing for a major battle over U.S. education policy” with both “forces on the right” and the Obama Administration on the key issue of standardized tests. Garcia said, “We must measure what matters and put students’ needs at the center of the system once again. ... We can no longer allow politicians who have never stepped into a classroom define what it means to teach and learn.” MSNBC says this puts Garcia in “direct conflict with Arne Duncan, Obama’s secretary of education” and “perhaps the nation’s foremost proponent of using test scores to judge teacher performance.”
Study Of 6th Graders Found Extra Math Time Had Only Short-Term Benefit
A report on the website Phys (7/21, Tonn) examines findings from a study done by Stanford University PhD student Eric Taylor, who found that students who increased the amount of time in math classes earned higher scores as a result, “but the gains did not last for long.” Taylor, who is studying at the Center for Education Policy Analysis, built the study around extra math classes added for some sixth graders in Florida’s Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Although students benefited from the extra classes, they had lost those benefits by high school. Moreover, to take the extra math, they missed out on “physical education, arts or foreign language class,” leading Taylor to question whether that was a good outcome
South Carolina Paper Praises Duncan For Bucking Unions On Teacher Protections
An editorial in the Charleston (SC) Post and Courier (7/18) praises Education Secretary Arne Duncan for “daring to take on” teachers unions, which are seen as traditionally being powerful supporters of the Democratic party. The piece notes that the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have recently directed “bitter criticism” at Duncan over his “efforts to advance meaningful changes in America’s public school system.” The piece notes that both unions have criticized Duncan over his support for the Vergara ruling stripping California teachers of job protections, but argues that Duncan is correct in hailing the ruling “as an overdue step toward holding teachers responsible for the quality of their work.”
Survey Shows Families Will Spend More On School Items This Year
The Chicago Tribune (7/17, Elejalde-Ruiz) reports the National Retail Federation’s annual back-to-school survey shows that “families expect to spend more on school items than they did last year, even though more than 80 percent say the tough economy still affects their spending decisions.” Stragglers – the latest shoppers – also are expected to increase, up “to 7.7 percent from 5.4 percent last year.” Overall, the shoppers expect to spend $26.5 billion, “down slightly from last year because there are fewer students in households.” Spending for back-to-college students, however, “is expected to grow to $48.4 billion, up from $45.8 billion last year.”
Poll: Expansion Of Early Education Supported By Most Voters
The Washington Post (7/17, Chandler) reports in its “Local” blog that a national poll sponsored by the First Five Years Fund shows that 70 percent of voters, including 60 percent of Republicans support “a plan for the federal government to expand quality early childhood programs for low- and middle-income families.” Two “prominent political strategists” emphasized the bipartisan support at an event at the National Pres Club on Thursday. The strategists emphasized that this bipartisan issue is likely to be a part of candidates’ platform in 2014 and 2016, and that it reflected the concern voters still have over the economy and the future of the country.
US News & World Report (7/17, Bidwell) reports the poll showed that voters would support a plan in Congress providing $10 billion of Federal grants annually for 10 years to states that would support universal preschool for low- and middle-income children. 68 percent of independents, 84 percent of Democrats, and 60 percent of Republicans surveyed said they would support the proposal.
Blog Compares Common Core To New Math
Writing for the “Monkey Cage” blog of the Washington Post (6/17), Mark Palko discusses at length the “heated national debate” going on over the implementation of Common Core math standards, which he compares to “New Math” from the mid-20th century. Palko examines the changing geopolitical stage which led to the implementation of both programs, taking a generally critical tone and implying that the worries which caused the new educational programs may be somewhat overblown.
California School Funding Formula Increases Demand For Teachers
The San Jose (CA) Mercury News (7/17) reports that California’s new school funding formula has directed new money into a number of districts, creating “an unusual amount of openings this late in the hiring season” for teachers in some parts of the state. The piece contrasts this with most years, in which districts have done most of their hiring for the following year by spring. The new funding formula “is proving a boon for districts that serve large numbers of English learners and children from low-income families.”
Automatic Retention For Failing Reading Loses Support With Common Core Rollout
The Politico (7/17, Emma) reports “political pressure to dilute” policies requiring third graders to repeat the year if they flunk a reading test is growing across the country as states prepare to roll out “more-challenging Common Core exams” next spring. States that have already implemented the exams have seen as many as 70 percent of students fail the exams, “raising fear of mass retentions” among stakeholders. Oklahoma has already moved to weaken the laws, saying that students can be promoted despite failing grades if a panel of parents and educators approve. Other states have also made moves to soften the retention laws’ impacts and in Ohio, it has become a campaign issue.
School Improvement Network: Most Parents Support Common Core Amid Widespread Misinformation
THE Journal (7/17) reports that according to a survey from the School Improvement Network, 62% of parents “support the Common Core,” 22% oppose the standards and 17% “have no opinion.” The survey reports that many supporters say they back the Common Core because the standards “ensure all children learn from a uniform curriculum,” and the article notes that many respondents on both sides of the issue “are misinformed.”
Analysis Finds Risk Factors Cause Kindergarten Students To Fall Behind
The Huffington Post (7/16, Klein) reports that an analysis from the nonprofit Sesame Workshop found four identifiable risk factors, including poverty, affected how well kindergarten students did, with “perhaps unsurprisingly, the more risk factors a child had, the worse he or she did in math and reading school readiness assessments.” Moreover, children with all four risk factors “were almost a year behind” and “would need to make almost twice as much progress” to catch up. The analysis used data from the Department of Education-funded Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 that followed 18,000 US students from kindergarten through fifth grade.
Teenagers Naturally Sleep Differently According To Research, Schools Debate Adjusting Schedules
NPR (7/15, O'Connor) reports schools across the state of Florida are debating the appropriate time to start high school courses in the morning. New research from University of Minnesota researcher Kyla Wahlstrom says that high-schoolers go through a sleep phase shift that causes them to naturally go to sleep later in the night and stay asleep longer into the morning. Central Florida school districts are considering changing their schedules based on the new information. St. Johns County Schools decided to start at 9:15 beginning in 2006 and has seen an improvement in student performance since that time.
AFT Calls For More Teacher Input In Common Core Implementation
Stephen Sawchuk writes at the Education Week (7/15) “TeacherBeat” blog that the American Federation of Teachers’ governing body has “passed a resolution calling for more teacher input into the implementation of the Common Core State Standards.” Sawchuk writes that “the debate on the item underscored the extremely divergent opinions within the 1.6 million-member union about the K-12 student expectations.”
Teachers Hear Emotional Keynote, Thanks For Support At Presentation
Bloomberg BusinessWeek (7/15) reports that in “an emotionally charged keynote address” the American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten call on “American teachers to fight forward and fight back,” while alluding to “controversial court rulings threatening freedom of association and union rights” in front of 3,500 delegates. “Let there be no mistake about what we aspire to do: to reclaim the promise of America for our students, our families, our communities,” said Weingarten. At the same event General Secretary of Education International Fred van Leeuwen “brought a message of solidarity from the teachers of the world to delegates” as he thanked teachers for showing solidarity with teachers in conflict regions of the Middle East and Africa.
Private Summer Schools Stir Controversy In California
The Los Angeles Times (7/12, Ceasar) reports the popularity of high school summer courses run by nonprofit associations in “affluent areas” has prompted a debate on education inequality. Nonprofits lease facilities from high schools and charge hundreds of dollars per course for students to take classes that will make them more attractive on college applications. The organizations who run the classes “sidestep state law” by remaining independent of the school districts in which they teach. Critics argue that the courses “private public school, undercut California’s guarantee of a free public education for all and contribute to an already wide inequity in educational opportunity.”
