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.
On March 4th, the Dana Foundation published major new research on the link between the arts and learning. (OK, so I've fallen a bit behind in my reading.) For the first time, the Dana report offers at least a partial answer to a question that has bedeviled researchers for a long time: Does arts education make people smarter, or do smart people gravitate to the arts?
Oft-cited evidence that students involved in the arts tend to do better academically has provided little satisfaction on this point. What makes the Dana study different is its ability to draw connections between participation in the arts and cognitive development. As the study's authors conclude, "Children motivated in the arts develop attention skills and strategies for memory retrieval that also apply to other subject areas."
This is important news for arts education advocates and will, one hopes, bolster efforts to keep arts in the curriculum. ...
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Michael de Vito and Carmen Macchia of Port Chester Middle School, one of the many successful schools we feature on this site.
De Vito and Macchia told me the remarkable story of how they and their colleagues created a safe and positive school climate, a richer, broader curriculum focused on literacy and aligned to state assessments, a commitment to literacy across the curriculum, intensive collaboration among school staff, and strong support for teachers' work.
A central piece of their strategy: a focus on reading across the curriculum. DeVito and Macchia describe how their school-wide commitment to literacy has actually enriched their curriculum, rather than narrowing it.
One of Principal Macchia's insights bears repeating: It takes time to effect real transformation in schools. Though the political environment may favor instant turnaround, Macchia urges educators to settle in for a much longer haul. He advocates for multi-year plans to effect true systemic change.
Do you have a story about your school's transformation? Leave us a comment below, or share it through our story tool. ...
Since we put out a call ten days ago for stories about what's working in public schools and school districts around the country, we've posted four new stories on publicschoolinsights.org.
Check out these new accounts of what's working in public schools and districts: ...
In my title, I paraphrase Sylvia Allegretto, an author of a grim new Economic Policy Institute report on the steady deterioration of teacher pay over recent decades.
Teachers, it seems, are among the only professionals who get shafted at both the best of times and the worst of times. Over the past decade, Allegretto and her co-authors find, the compensation gap separating teachers and similarly-educated professionals in other fields has grown by almost 11 percent. What's worse, the gap is especially large for experienced teachers: "The brunt... has fallen on senior teachers (45-54), whose pay deficit within their age group has grown by 18.0 percentage points among women (who comprise the vast majority of teachers) since 1996." ...
Even with a name that's murder to spell and downright painful to type, Jon Scieszka has become one of the nation's most celebrated and beloved children's book authors--and he has recently added a new honor to his store: In January, the Library of Congress named him the nation's first Ambassador for Children's Literature. But with honor comes great responsibility. Scieszka, who has sold more than 11 million books worldwide, will spend his term reaching out to children, parents and teachers as a missionary for reading.
As part of my celebration of NEA's Read Across America, I was lucky enough to speak with Jon about his ambassadorial duties, his long-term efforts to encourage more children to read, and some of his forthcoming projects. ...
The Seattle Times is reporting that federal testing demands have driven the cost of Washington State's standardized tests much higher than expected--and higher than state lawmakers are willing to spend. Lawmakers' answer to the problem: Seek savings by "chopping the number of open-ended, thought-provoking questions and delaying some extra features...."
The situation in Washington State offers an object lesson in the perils of mounting ambitious testing regimes on a shoestring. As Tom Toch argued in 2006, policymakers' tendency to nickel and dime assessment programs is strengthening incentives "for states and their testing contractors to build tests that measure primarily low-level skills." Not only do such tests encourage schools to put higher-order skills on the back burner, they offer meager evidence of actual student learning.
As budget crises loom in states across the country, advocates for sound assessment will have their work cut out for them. ...
When it comes to public schools, beauty has too often been in the report card of the beholder.
Recent years have witnessed a surge in efforts to grade the nation's public schools. Groups such as Editorial Projects in Education (publishers of Education Week), the Fordham Foundation, and the U.S. Chamber of Congress issue separate and at times conflicting report cards grading states on the quality of their K-12 education systems. States maintain their own systems for grading individual districts and schools--and their grades often contradict federal designations of schools' Adequate Yearly Progress under No Child Left Behind. ...
Yesterday, I posted publicschoolinsights.org's exclusive interview with leading Native American children's book author Joseph Bruchac.
After the interview, another renowned children's book author, Cynthia Leitich Smith, emailed me an overview of themes in Native American Themes in Children's literature as well as a list of books and other resources specially for teachers and librarians. Check them out. ...
In honor of NEA's Read Across America, I'm posting an exclusive interview with celebrated children's book author Joseph Bruchac, who for over 30 years has captivated millions of young readers with his more than 70 books. His writing often draws inspiration from his Abenaki Indian heritage and offers a strong corrective to what Bruchac sees as widespread and damaging stereotypes about American Indians.
Bruchac spoke with me about strategies for motivating children to read. He offered ideas for helping struggling readers, resources parents and teachers can use to combat stereotypes in children's literature, thoughts on the promise and perils of the internet, observations the shortcomings of standardized assessments, and a preview of his forthcoming books.
Read through a transcript of interview highlights below. Click here for the full 23-minute version.
Or choose specific segments of the interview from the following list: ...
Read with a child on March 3rd to celebrate the joy of reading and promote children's literacy!
The National Education Association's Read Across America is a nationwide "annual reading motivation and awareness program that call for every child in every community to celebrate reading on or around Dr. Seuss's birthday."
Over the next two weeks, PublicSchoolInsights.org will celebrate Read Across America with special on-line events, including: ...
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A VISION FOR GREAT SCHOOLS
On this website, educators, parents and policymakers from coast to coast are sharing what's already working in public schools--and sparking a national conversation about how to make it work for children in every school. Join the conversation!
