A new report by LFA and Grunwald Associates, with support from AT&T, examines how parents perceive the value of mobile devices, how they see their children using mobiles, and what they think of the possibilities for mobile learning.
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The Washington Post recently featured an article by Donna St. George that discusses the trend to reevaluate zero tolerance approaches in school discipline. Zero-tolerance policies enacting severe punishments for offenses related to weapons, drugs, and behavioral issues caught on among schools in the early 1990s—aided by federal legislation through the Gun-Free Schools Act that requires students who bring guns to school be expelled, and intensified after the school shooting at Columbine High School. The article summarizes that “over the years, ‘zero-tolerance’ has described discipline policies that impose automatic consequences for offenses, regardless of context. The term also has come to refer to severe punishments for relatively minor infractions.”
Though this approach is still commonly implemented, there is evidence that it can be ineffectual, misapplied, and even counter-productive, leading a growing number of educators and elected officials to scale back on implementation. A University of Virginia education professor (Dewey Cornell) interviewed for the article claims that suspension and expulsion—common punishments in zero-tolerance policies—do not improve student behavior or ...
Recently, NPR did a special series on violence among youth in Chicago. Schools and students all over the country—especially in urban areas—deal with the everyday-threat of violence. Clearly, this omnipresent factor can take a huge toll on public schools.
Mayor-elect of Rahm Emanuel says the violence in the city is unacceptable, and he has promised to hire a thousand new police officers as part of his crime policy. One article quotes him stating, "My goal for the four years, and the measurement of my progress, will be whether that child can be thinking of their studies, and not their safety."
Already the city—relying on schools and police—is implementing intensive efforts to try to combat what some consider an epidemic of youth violence in Chicago—efforts that may provide good models for other cities and school districts facing these problems. ...
Today, President Obama, the Department of Education, and the Department of Health and Human Services are hosting a Conference on Bullying Prevention. The conference will have student, parent, and teacher attendees, and it will discuss bullying in communities across the country.
Bullying is clearly a major problem in many schools and districts, and LFA members have a sizable collection of helpful materials explaining various issues pertinent to bullying, providing instruction on identifying and dealing with bullying, and considering other issues like bully legislation and bullying implications on school violence.
Below is a sample of some of these materials:
For an overview on bullying:
- National Education Association’s (NEA) Bully Free: It Starts With Me Campaign (with links to articles and tips)
- National Parent Teacher Association's (PTA) Connect for Respect initiative (with links to articles and tips)
- American Association of School Administrators' (AASA) Special Edition on Bullying at School and Online initiative (with
...
As National School Counseling Week draws to a close, it seems fitting to reflect on the state of the profession in our nation.
School counselors are highly trained individuals who help students improve their academic achievement, their personal and social development and their career planning. Their services help students resolve emotional and behavioral issues, often improving the climate of a school. And they help students develop a clearer focus or sense of direction, which can improve student achievement. Research over the past several decades shows the positive impact of school counselors.
But for all the evidence, the work of school counselors can be underappreciated and is rarely acknowledged in discussions of school improvement. And in times of tough budgets, it is often the school counselor (or other support staff) whose role is cut.
As Valerie Strauss pointed out back in January, school counselors in America are expected to help an extremely large number of students. It is recommended that there be one school counselor for every 250 students. In 2008, nationwide there was one counselor for every 457 students – and that was before school budgets were slashed. In California there were 814 students per counselor. In Arizona, Minnesota and Utah there were more than 700 students per ...
Editor’s note: Our guest blogger today is Kwok-Sze Wong. He is the executive director of the American School Counselor Association (ASCA), which represents more than 28,000 school counselors across the nation. ASCA expands the image and influence of professional school counselors through advocacy, leadership, collaboration and systemic change. It also empowers professional school counselors with the knowledge, skills, linkages and resources to promote student success in the school, the home, the community and the world. ASCA is a member of the Learning First Alliance.
Sandy Austin, a school counselor at Green Mountain High School in Lakewood, Colo., has seen her share of crises. As a member of the crisis team that worked with students and parents in Columbine in the wake of the shootings, Sandy knew students couldn’t focus on school until they could deal with their grief from this devastating tragedy. She also saw the strength and compassion students have and how important that compassion can be in helping others heal. To give students a way to help those in need, Sandy formed the BIONIC Team – Believe It Or Not I Care. Students in the group reach out to others to provide support when they experience a death, illness or other hardship in their lives. During the past six years, the BIONIC Team has reached more than 38,000 people, and more than 400 schools worldwide have shown interest in starting similar programs.
Terry Malterre, a school counselor at Roosevelt High School in Honolulu, and TeShaunda L. Hannor-Walker, Ph.D., the school counselor at Northside Elementary School in Albany, Ga., may be separated by a continent and an ocean, but they are connected by many similarities. They both work at schools with a high percentage of low-income and underserved students. They both noticed that many of their students were failing because of high absenteeism, so they instituted home visit programs to involve families in learning. And they both found that ...
Editor's note: This interview comes from our archives. It was originally posted July 15, 2010.
Students can come to school with a lot of baggage. They may be feeling the stress of financial pressure at home. They may be dealing with a death or illness in their family. But as school counselor Barbara Micucci puts it, “Ultimately it does not matter the issues that kids bring to school. Schools are charged with educating the kids.”
This is where she and other counselors come in. We recently spoke with Micucci about the counseling profession—why it is important, how it has changed over the years and the challenges it faces. She also told us about her own work and some of the strategies that led her to be named the 2010 School Counselor of the Year by Naviance and the American School Counselor Association. Key to her success: visibility, and a desire to engage parents as partners in the educational process.
Micucci has been a counselor for over 20 years and is currently working at Caley Elementary School in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. She was selected from a field of extraordinary school counselors across the country and plans to use her new role to call for strategies to ensure that every elementary school across the United States has a school counselor.
Why Have School Counselors?
Public School Insights: Let’s start with a very general question. Why is it important for schools to have counselors?
Micucci: It is so important for a number of reasons. I think kids today are under a lot more stress and family pressure than they have been in the past. There are many reasons. Families themselves are very stressed. A lot of it comes from economic conditions. And aside from that, when I think of my school—and I am in a middle-class school in a suburban district—there are a lot of families where parents are divorced. There are single parent families. There are parents who have adopted children. I have a couple families where there's terminal illness. More families are coming with limited English proficiency. There are families living with other families because of ...
Editor's note: This interview was originally posted October 13, 2009, by former LFA Executive Director Claus von Zastrow. Given the recent light shed on the pressures of gay teenagers, it seems fitting to repost it now as a resource that schools and districts can use to help protect all of their students.
For another resource, referenced in the interview, see Public Schools and Sexual Orientation: A First Amendment framework for finding common ground.
Charles Haynes is one of the nation's leading experts on religious liberty in the public schools. He has worked with groups from across the political spectrum to help schools create ground rules for respectful dialogue on hot-button social issues.
Haynes recently spoke with us about one of the fiercest battles in the culture wars: the battle over sexual orientation and public schools. This battle has grown all the fiercer since Education Department official Kevin Jennings started drawing fire for his past work at GLSEN, the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network.
Schools need to create a safe environment for civil dialogue, Haynes told us. They need to protect the rights of everyone, from conservative Christians to gay rights advocates. They cannot guarantee that everyone will agree, but they can promote trust and respect.
Haynes gives Jennings a full-throated endorsement for supporting these essential principles.
Public School Insights: What do you think is happening when people discuss sexual orientation in public schools?
Haynes: I think in many places people are speaking—or should I say shouting?—past one another about this issue.
Schools, as usual, are caught in the crossfire of the larger culture wars in the United States. We have administrators, teachers and school board members struggling to figure out how to handle this very difficult issue at a time when the larger culture is not handling it well.
Public School Insights: Is it possible for teachers, administrators and other school stakeholders to create common ground on issues of sexual orientation?
Haynes: Yes. I think it’s not only possible, I think it’s imperative that we try harder.
Unfortunately, in many school districts people put their heads in the sand and hope this issue will just disappear and that they won’t have a fight. But then they are unprepared when something emerges, and ...
I am a DC resident, and I am very interested in the politics that have been going on in the District over the past couple of days, especially as they relate to school reform. But I am not going to write about that, at least not directly. Rather, I want to highlight the results of EducationWorld.com's informal teacher survey on school climate.
Nearly 99% of teachers believe that school climate has a significant impact on student performance. And in general many of them are satisfied with key aspects of the climate in their school--for example, nearly 75% say their principals always or often involve staff in decision making, nearly 70% say they have the instructional materials needed to do their jobs and about 75% work schools that are in good repair. Overall, about 66% think that their school is a pleasant place for students and teachers to learn and work.
The problem is that then the reverse of each of those numbers is then true as well. So over 30% of teachers have needs for instructional materials that are not being met. And nearly a ...
Lieutenant General Benjamin C. Freakley is the commanding general of the United States Army Accessions Command (USAAC) and oversees recruiting for the U.S. Army's officer, warrant officer and enlisted forces. USAAC has joined forces with the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) to support young people and boost graduation rates. (We wrote about this partnership in a blog posting several months ago. NASBE is a member of LFA.)
LTG Freakley recently spoke with us about the promise of greater collaboration between the military and schools.
Education: A National Security Issue
Public School Insights: Why do you think the military is getting involved in K-12 education?
LTG Freakley: I believe that the preparedness of our youth through education, health and conduct is a national security issue. Right now our young people, regardless of the tact they take for postsecondary, are limiting themselves. They are limiting themselves because they are not getting a good foundational education in K-12. They are not as healthy as they should be, with childhood obesity becoming an epidemic. And they get off track in their conduct, limiting what might be brilliant careers because they chose to get involved with gang violence, drugs, teenage pregnancy, etc.
It is disheartening to see all of this potential being limited. We believe that we have got to help our youth to achieve success through supporting our educators who, I believe, are undervalued in America—not recognized like they should be or supported like they should be. We ought to be as close to education as we can so we can sustain our all volunteer force and also so we can have an economically ...
I’ve been loosely following the hype over the recent Brookings’ report on the Harlem Children’s Zone, which calls into question the wisdom of taking a neighborhood approach to education reform. I have read the report, what some have said about it, and HCZ President and CEO Geoffrey Canada’s response to it.
Having drunk the Kool-Aid on the importance wraparound services for students, I must say I sympathize with Canada’s position on a number of counts. Why didn’t the Brookings’ investigators consider growth over time in their analysis? And really, calling into question the whole neighborhood approach to education reform based on the performance of one aspect of the HCZ—one charter school—that 1) does not serve the majority of individuals receiving the Zone’s services and 2) was evaluated in a somewhat suspect way (again, what about growth over time?) seems a bit hasty.
But the main concern I have with this report is its call for a schools-only approach to education reform. That approach is so REACTIVE for a vision of reform. It seems to say that kids come to school “broken” so ...
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