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 NEA has just released a major new paper on the federal role in education entitled Great Public Schools for Every Student by 2020.
In doing so, they join a number of other groups that have deemed it high time to clarify the federal role after seven years of NCLB--and before a new administration arrives in January. (See, for example, the recent report by the Forum for Education and Democracy and the even more recent statement released by a distiguished task force calling for a "Broader, Bolder Approach to Education.")
NEA's report begins with the premise that NCLB has thrown the federal role out of whack, creating "top-down, command-and-control, federally prescriptive testing and accountability mandates" that have narrowed curricula, robbed assessment of its power as an instructional tool and failed to close achievement gaps.
With the aim of ensuring universal access to great public schools by 2020, the NEA document outlines six priorities for federal involvement in education: ...
The Public Education Network has just released its "Civic Index for Quality Education," a tool to assess and improve community support for excellent public education. According to the good people at PEN, the Civic Index "identifies and measures the level of involvement across 10 sectors of the community...:
- Education leadership of local elected officials
- Commitment to the values of tolerance and inclusiveness
- Active parents
- Strong civic organizations (parent, philanthropic, civic/religious organizations)
- Utilization of school performance data to improve school quality
- Youth involvement
- Partnerships with higher education
- Knowledge o, and voting for, the school board
- An active business community
- Media coverage
"These [indices] reflect 10 key conditions that must exist outside of schools--and complement those conditions we know from Standards Based Reform must be present inside schools--to ensure student success." ...
Currently a professor of practice at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, Tom Payzant has been around the educational block. He has served as an Assistant Secretary of Education under President Clinton, and as superintendent of schools in Boston, San Diego, Oklahoma City, Eugene (Oregon), and Springfield (Pennsylvania). In Boston, he was credited with narrowing achievement gaps and presiding over the largest improvement in mathematics scores of any major urban district participating in the National Assessment of Education Progress Trial Urban District Assessment. He has received many leadership awards, including Massachusetts Superintendent of the Year, and published extensively, promoting academic reforms to both professional educators and policymakers. Recently, he also served as co-chair of the task force that released a statement promoting "A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education." ...
A diverse coalition of more than 60 experts in education, health, civil rights, economics and other fields just released a joint statement calling for "a broader, bolder approach to education" that includes policies to reduce the economic and social disadvantages that exacerbate academic achievement gaps. While continuing to urge school improvement efforts, their approach promotes early childhood education, after-school and summer opportunities, physical health, character, social development, creativity, and effective citizenship.
According to the coalition's ads in the New York Times and Washington Post, "Some schools have demonstrated unusual effectiveness. But even they cannot, by themselves, close the entire gap between students from different backgrounds in a substantial, consistent and sustainable manner on the full range of academic and non-academic measures by which we judge student success." ...
Our friends at the Public Education Network have just announced the creation of a new "Civic Index for Quality Public Education," which, they argue, will "measure community support for public education in 10 scientifically-based categories; improve support in categories receiving 'low scores'; and tailor community engagement for maximum impact." This is exciting news--but you'll have to wait until June 25th to get the whole story.
June 25th is the date when The Public Education Network plans to release the Civic Index.
We'll give you an update when we learn more. In the meantime, you'll just have to content yourselves with PEN's tantalizing press release:
Learn How Well the Nation Supports its Public Schools, and How to Measure Your Community's Support for Education
The Civic Index for Quality Public Education, developed by Public Education Network, is a first-of-its-kind tool specifically designed to measure community support for public schools across 10 scientifically-based categories; improve support in categories receiving 'low scores'; and tailor community engagement for maximum impact. ...
Our friends at ASCD's Whole Child Initiative just fired off an email newsletter describing the
astonishing success of Thomas Edison Elementary School in Port Chester, New York. (School success seems to be contagious in Port Chester, whose middle school has won national acclaim for similar strides in the past 10 years.)
Edison owes its achievements to an education approach that addresses the social, physical and academic needs of its largely poor student body. To quote ASCD's newsletter: ...
Rounding out Public School Insights' three-week celebration of Earth Day is our interview with Milken Award-winning educator Tamala Newsome, principal of the revolutionary Rosa Parks Elementary School in Portland, Oregon. The Rosa Parks School has garnered national attention for its eco-friendly building, its thoughtful incorporation of environmental science into the curriculum, and its integral place in the low-income Portland community it serves. ...
The National School Boards Association's Council of Urban Schools of Education (CUBE) has teamed up with
the National PTA on a new survey examining parents' perceptions of urban school climate: What We Think. The survey's results are generally encouraging: Parents believe their children's schools are safe; They report that they are actively involved in their children's schools; They trust and feel respected by teachers and administrators; and they believe their children capable of high academic achievement. ...
In a few days, a new and expanded edition of Richard Louv’s best-selling book, Last Child in the Woods, will hit bookstores around the country. Louv’s book has fueled an international movement to combat what he calls “nature deficit disorder,” children’s growing alienation from the natural world. (Louv’s term for the disorder is quickly catching on, turning up in major newspapers, on television, and even in a February cartoon by Bloom County creator Berke Breathed.)
A quotation from our recent telephone interview with Louv elegantly captures the thrust of his argument: “[T]he message we’re sending kids is that nature is in the past and probably doesn’t count anymore, the future’s in electronics, the boogeyman lives in the woods, and playing outdoors is probably illicit and possibly illegal.” ...
New success stories keep coming in from districts across the country--Many thanks to Public School Insights readers who have taken time to submit news about what's working in their schools.
Many of the stories we have posted over the past two weeks focus on community connections.
Here's a sample: ...
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