NSBA Equity Symposium

The National School Boards Association recently held a very informative Equity Symposium in Washington, DC .

Here is a link to one of the presentations by Nancy S. Fishman, Deputy Director of ReadyNation (www.readynation.org) and Tom Gentzel, Executive Director & CEO of NSBA:  

Pre-K: An Effective Strategy to Prepare All Kidsfor Success and Strengthen our Economy

Additional presentations can be found HERE.

What Do We Know About School Discipline Reform?

Assessing the alternatives to suspensions and expulsions

By Matthew P. Steinberg and Johanna Lacoe 
Education Next

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced this spring that the number of suspensions and expulsions in the nation’s public schools had dropped 20 percent between 2012 and 2014.

The news was welcomed by those who oppose the frequent use of suspensions and expulsions, known as exclusionary discipline. In recent years, many policymakers and educators have called for the adoption of alternative disciplinary strategies that allow students to stay in school and not miss valuable learning time. Advocates for discipline reform contend that suspensions are meted out in a biased way, because minority students and those with disabilities receive a disproportionate share of them. Some also assert that reducing suspensions would improve school climate for all students.

Government leaders have taken steps to encourage school discipline reform. The Obama administration has embarked on several initiatives to encourage schools to move away from suspensions and toward alternative strategies. In 2011, the Department of Education (DOE) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) launched the Supportive School Discipline Initiative to coordinate federal efforts in this area. In January 2014, the DOE released a resource package with a variety of informational materials designed to support state and local efforts to improve school climate and discipline. The package included a “Dear Colleague” letter, issued jointly by DOE and DOJ, warning against intentional racial discrimination but also stating that schools unlawfully discriminate even “if a policy is neutral on its face—meaning that the policy itself does not mention race—and is administered in an evenhanded manner but has a disparate impact, i.e., a disproportionate and unjustified effect on students of a particular race.”

Discipline reform efforts are also underway at the state and school-district levels. As of May 2015, 22 states and the District of Columbia had revised their laws in order to require or encourage schools to: limit the use of exclusionary discipline practices; implement supportive (that is, nonpunitive) discipline strategies that rely on behavioral interventions; and provide support services such as counseling, dropout prevention, and guidance services for at-risk students. And as of the 2015–16 school year, 23 of the 100 largest school districts nationwide had implemented policy reforms requiring nonpunitive discipline strategies and/or limits to the use of suspensions. In an April 2014 survey of 500 district superintendents conducted by the School Superintendents Association (AASA), 84 percent of respondents reported that their districts had updated their code of conduct within the previous three years.

What evidence supports the call for discipline reform? How might alternative strategies affect students and schools? In this article, we describe the critiques of exclusionary discipline and then examine the research base on which discipline policy reform rests. We also describe the alternative approaches that are gaining traction in America’s schools and present the evidence on their efficacy. Throughout, we consider what we know (and don’t yet know) about the effect of reducing suspensions on a variety of important outcomes, such as school safety, school climate, and student achievement.

In general, we find that the evidence for critiques of exclusionary discipline and in support of alternative strategies is relatively thin. In part, this is because many discipline reforms at the state and local levels have only been implemented in the last few years. While disparities in school discipline by race and disability status have been well documented, the evidence is inconclusive as to whether or not these disparate practices involve racial bias and discrimination. Further, the evidence on alternative strategies is mainly correlational, suggesting that more research is necessary to uncover how alternative approaches to suspensions affect school safety and student outcomes.

Addressing such questions is vitally important, because a safe school climate is essential for student success. A recent National Center for Education Statistics report documented downward trends in suspensions, student victimization, and reports of bullying. Since 2006, out-of-school suspensions have declined, with more recent declines in expulsions (see Figure 1). Still, more than one-third of teachers in 2012 reported that student behavior problems and tardiness interfered with their teaching. Regardless of the kind of discipline districts choose to employ, policymakers and school leaders must recognize that school disorder and violence have adverse effects on all students. For example, students who were exposed to Hurricane Katrina evacuees with significant behavior problems experienced short-term increases in school absences and discipline problems themselves. Recent evidence also shows that exposure to disruptive peers during elementary school worsens student achievement and later life outcomes, including high school achievement, college enrollment, and earnings (see “Domino Effect,” research, Summer 2009). These findings highlight the importance of closely monitoring the effects of discipline reform on all students.

Read more HERE 

Educating Independent Children in a Technologically Dependent World:

An excerpt from Be the Parent, Please: Stop Banning Seesaws and Start Banning SnapChat
By Naomi Schaefer Riley 01/08/2018

Education Next

Technology has changed the way kids are raised and educated. In her new book Be the Parent, Please: Stop Banning Seesaws and Start Banning SnapChat, Naomi Schaefer Riley offers parents strategies for helping children grow up with sensible boundaries as well as a sense of independence. In the following excerpt, she visits a nature club for homeschooled students, where children are developing social and emotional skills the old-fashioned way.

---

A couple of months after my son started second grade, I remember him poring over an atlas on our family room floor. He asked me about finding Massachusetts on a map—that’s where his grandparents live. When I told him to look further north, he seemed puzzled. “Simon, which direction is north?” I asked. Without hesitation, he answered, “Up.” It was a perfectly logical answer for someone who liked maps but was used to seeing them pinned to the front of a classroom rather than actually using them to get places.

A few weeks after this conversation, I found myself at a state park in the suburbs of Philadelphia with a group of about thirty kids ranging from toddlers to teenagers. A young man in his twenties took out a map of the park and handed a few other copies to the kids. Then he took out his compass—a couple of the kids pulled out their own as well—and asked them which way we should go to get to the trail. The kids laid their maps on the ground and quickly found the answer. “That way is north,” yelled one boy who looked to be about ten. “We need to head to the left up ahead.”

Like many of the kids at the park that day, this boy seemed confident, knowledgeable about his surroundings, and happy to talk to other kids of different ages, not to mention their parents. He was curious and excited but also surefooted and eager to warn others about pitfalls on the trail ahead.

Read more HERE

New Student Assessments Are Accompanied by Bigger Questions

As reported in the Baltimore Sun, just as public school systems in Maryland and other states prepare to give longer and more challenging standardized tests this spring, a national debate has erupted over just how many hours students should be tested in a year.  As reported in the article,

“I think what you are seeing across the country is this backlash against state testing,” said Baltimore County Schools Superintendent Dallas Dance, who believes there may be moves in coming years to reduce federally mandated testing.
This year, an eighth-grader in the Baltimore area will spend from 14 to 46 hours taking tests, depending on which school district he or she is in. And that doesn’t include the tests teachers write and grade themselves — that pop quiz on “The Scarlet Letter” in English or fractions in an elementary school math class.

A recent study by The Center for American Progress, Testing Overload in America’s Schools, found the following:

• Despite the perception that federally mandated state testing is the root of the issue, districts require more tests than states.
• Students are tested as frequently as twice per month and an average of once per month.
• Actual test administration takes up a small fraction of learning time.
• There is a culture of testing and test preparation in schools that does not put students first.
• District-level testing occurs more frequently and takes up more learning time in urban districts than in suburban districts.
• Districts are not transparent about testing practices or purposes.

For more information, see the full story from the Sun and The Center for American Progress.

Satanic worship group seeks to hand out coloring books to high school students prompting Florida school board to consider banning distribution of all religious materials

• The Satanic Temple, a worship group, has asked to distribute a coloring book to Florida high schoolers
• Florida allows religious groups to distribute bibles and other materials in schools
• The board is thinking of changing the policy so that no one may hand out any religious material   

By Alexandra Klausner for MailOnline

Published: 17:50 EST, 15 November 2014 | Updated: 17:50 EST, 15 November 2014

 A Florida school board may change a policy allowing groups to distribute religious materials in high schools after a satanic worship group has asked to distribute coloring books about their faith.

The board discussed changing their current policy during a workshop on Thursday but the earliest it could vote to change would be late January or early February, said officials.

A spokesperson for The Satanic Temple says that they should be able to hand out coloring books that feature children performing satanic rituals and drawing pentagrams just like any other religious group.

'It strongly implies they never intended to have a plurality of voices,' said Doug Mesner, co-founder and spokesman for The Satanic Temple, who also goes by the name Lucien Greaves.

The content in the coloring books are puzzles that ask children to search for words like, empathy, love, care, and friendship.

Another typical page of the coloring book shows a young girl named Annabel who is 'spreading knowledge and helping to dispel fear and ignorance by demonstrating her satanic ritual for her class.'

The satanic group is not the only one that hands out materials, either. 

An evangelical group called World Changers of Florida has given out Bibles in Orange schools three times, reports WPTV.

District counsel Woody Rodriguez said that the satanic group is the only one that submitted a request but that the evangelical group said they will hand out their material as well.

'They seem to be moving against the interests of a large part of the community,' said World Changers of Florida Greg Harper of the Static Temple's Desire to hand out material.

'The Bible will open somebody's heart, somebody's mind, and cause them to pursue answers.'

Board Member Christine Moore said that people are having trouble with a policy change on Christian groups.

'Everyone's upset about the Satanists and the atheists coming,' she said.

An atheist groups saw the upside of the potential policy change and has given out atheist materials in the past in opposition to Bible distributions.

'It's a bit of a relief,' said David Williamson of the Central Florida Freethought Community.

'Given that there's a potential change in the policy, we won't be allowing distribution,' Rodriguez said. 

'We're going to wait.'

Read the original article HERE.

Why Performance Incentives and Public Schools Don't Mix

Huffington Post
By:  Peter Greene
10/17/14


We have always paid public servants a flat fee, untethered to any sort of "performance measures." That's because we want public service to be completely disconnected from any private interests.

Fighting Fire With Money
Imagine if, for instance, we paid fire fighters on sliding scale, based on how many of which type fires they put out at a certain speed. This would be disastrous for many reasons.

Fire fighters would refuse to work in cities where there were few fires to fight, because they couldn't make a living. In cities where there were commonly multiple fires and their livelihood on the line, fire fighters would be encouraged to look at each fire call through a lens of "What's in it for me?"

For instance, in a system where fire fighters were paid based on the value of the flame-besieged property, fire fighters might view some small building fires as Not Worth the Trouble. Why bother traveling to the other side of the tracks? It's only a hundred-dollar blaze, anyway. Let's wait till something breaks out up in the million-dollar neighborhood.

In the worst-case scenario, one of our fire fighters depending on performance-based pay to feed his family may be tempted to grab some matches and go fire up some business.

Perverse Incentivization
Occasionally we've seen these kinds of perverse incentives in action, and we don't much like it. The areas of the country where you take extra speed limit care at the end of the month because the local police have a quota to meet. The neighborhood where cops have to roust a certain number of suspects a week to keep their job ratings. Nobody thinks these are examples of excellence in public service.

In fact, we have tried private police forces and private fire companies in the past. We don't much care for how that works out, because it creates a system that provides excellent service -- but only for the customers who are paying for it.

The idea of public service is to create a class of people who are above self-interest and who do not respond to a single boss. We are outraged when abuse of police power happens precisely because we expect the police to act as if they work for everyone, and to put their dedication to that service above any single interests, including their own.

That's the definition of public service -- service roles that are stripped of any possibility of incentives other than the mandate to serve the public good. That's what we mean by "professional" -- a person who puts all personal self-interest aside and focuses on Getting the Job Done. Trying to motivate a public servant with self-interest inevitably tends to pollute the professional setting with the very self-interest that we're trying to get out of there.

Read more HERE

Now this is interesting! Opting Out Of State Testing - Could we do it?

Florida School District Sets Precedent

By Opting Out Of State Testing

Huffington Post
August 28, 2014
By Letitia Stein

TAMPA, Fla., Aug 28 (Reuters) - A Florida school district is opting out of all state-required testing, a move that experts said on Thursday sets a national precedent amid a growing controversy over the use of high-stakes standardized assessments in public education.

The Lee County School Board voted 3-2 on Wednesday to reject state-mandated testing in a district of some 90,000 students, saying it was acting on behalf "of administrators, teachers and most importantly students, whose educational growth has not been enhanced as a result of such testing."

Lee ranks as the 33rd largest school district in the nation, according to school officials based in Fort Myers in the southwestern part of Florida.

"We can sit here and roar like little kitty cats in the future and nothing is going to happen," said school board chairman Thomas Scott, who voted to reject the testing. "We have to make an impact on what is going on."

District Superintendent Nancy Graham raised concerns about the move. "This will hurt children. There is no way around it," she told school board members.

 

Read more HERE

The Common Core: A Good Journey

(This is a blog post published by a teacher, interesting.)

Huffington Post
October 8, 2014
By Nicole J. Di Donato

Little heads bent over white-lined paper, pencils scratching out a story barely keeping up with the imaginative ideas swirling. I survey my third graders while they write -- their passion for what they have to say, and the diligence with which they tackle saying it is heart-warming. A few years ago, I wouldn't have asked my students to write a fictional story, narrative writing being difficult for young learners to handle with all of its many attributes. But along came the Common Core, and when it did, I was forced to rethink my stance, and find ways to begin teaching this style of writing. That was just the beginning of my journey with the new standards.

I am a teacher, and I support the Common Core State Standards. These days it feels like I need to keep this to myself. The Common Core seems like everyone's favorite initiative to hate, but exactly who are the critics? Politicians running in mid-term elections? Celebrities like Louis C.K.?

In the last few years, my colleagues and I have been stepping up the rigor and content of our instruction in response to the standards' implementation. Dare I say we have actually enjoyed this work? I must admit that Massachusetts' educators were lucky. Our former learning standards were comprehensive to begin with. For us, adopting the Common Core has been more of a shift than a radical change, but a shift I am more than happy to make if it leads to equal educational opportunities for students in all parts of the United States.

The Common Core is a list of vertically-aligned learning standards from grades K through 12. The skills build year to year, allowing students the opportunity to go deeper in their understanding of each standard as they mature as learners. This type of intentional, developmentally-appropriate plan for instruction is not easy to create, but yet, here it is, arguably one of the most sweeping education reforms in our country's history.

Where there are learning standards, there needs to be an assessment for measuring how schools are doing in their teaching. Of course an assessment tool needed to be developed to go with the Common Core. Massachusetts has chosen PARCC. It is computerized, although a paper/pencil version exists, and has been designed to match the rigor of the Common Core. Having seen samples of PARCC questions, it is definitely not a typical fill-in-the-bubble test, but one that will ask students to think critically about the information they are given.

Read more HERE.

Student Government Afraid To Fund 'Sex Week,' Says It Could Be 'Dangerous'

(Not sure of my opinion on this one, I can see both sides.  Maybe a less "in your face" approach, or different name.  I would love to hear your feedback.)

ETSU Student Government Votes Against Funding 'Sex Week' Fearing Conservative Backlash

Huffington Post
Tyler Kingkade
October 8, 2014

The student government at East Tennessee State University voted Tuesday against providing funding for a student group that wanted to organize a "Sex Week" event on campus, with student leaders going so far as to call the proposed events "dangerous" because of potential backlash from conservative lawmakers.

With 23 students in favor and one opposing, the ETSU student government overwhelmingly voted against providing the nearly $10,000 in student fee funding requested by the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, a pro-abortion rights student group, to cover costs for a Sex Week on campus in February. Student senators told The Huffington Post that they were worried the sex education events for adult students would prove too risqué.

"When they started organizing this at ETSU, we were very concerned about it," Brandon Johnson, a junior and student senator at the university, said. "We are all for sexual education -- we made a very proud stance on that, everyone should be informed about it. Unfortunately, the 'Sex Week' banner has such a negative name associated with that."


Read more HERE

School meals face rules on fat, meat, veggies -- but no limits on sugar

[Note: This article was published a year ago.]

Eleanor Yang Su
October 3, 2013
CIROnline

Almost everything about a school cafeteria meal has a regulation. The federal government caps the amount of fat and salt in breakfasts and lunches. It sets minimum standards for servings of fruit, vegetables, grains, milk and meat.

But one widely used and often-overused product has no official limits: sugar.

As Congress faces increased scrutiny over subsidies to the sugar industry, nutritionists and anti-obesity crusaders are focusing on the amount of sugar in school meals – and asking whether regulations governing school lunches deliberately exclude limits on sugar to favor a powerful industry.

“Certainly, the food industry has pushed back against having a sugar standard,” said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which has been pushing for a limit on added sugars for years. “If the USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) is going to address other key parts of the dietary guidelines – fats, salts and calories – why choose to leave one dietary guideline out?”

Recent research shows that sugar levels in school meals are more than double what is recommended for the general public. Elementary school lunch menus contain 115 percent of the recommended daily calories from added sugars and fats, according to a November study by the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service. Middle school and high school lunch menus also are sugar- and fat-heavy, averaging between 59 and 74 percent of the recommended amounts.

About 1 in 5 school lunch menus includes dessert, the federal study said. The most common are cookies, cakes and brownies, some of which are counted as grain requirements. Other popular options are fruit with gelatin, ice cream and pudding.

The data from the School Nutrition Dietary Assessment is based on a 2010 survey of about 900 schools across the country and is considered the most comprehensive federal research on school meals.

For years, schools added sweets, such as graham crackers or cookies, to bump up calorie counts and meet minimum thresholds. Researchers say that practice is less common now that the USDA has implemented calorie limits. But some say sugary treats still are appealing to school administrators.
“Sugar-related products are the least expensive source of calories in the school meal program,” said Matthew Sharp, senior advocate for California Food Policy Advocates. He said many school officials oppose reducing sugar in meals because it would force them to buy more expensive products.

The report did not break out sugars specifically. It also didn’t count sugars that occur naturally in fruit and milk, but rather sweeteners added to processed or prepared foods...

...“Sugar is the only nutrient with no dietary reference intake, and it’s because the food industry doesn’t want it,” said Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at UC San Francisco. “They know when they add sugar to food, you buy more. So they don’t want any limits. And they have very effectively lobbied the USDA to not have any limits.”

Read the complete article HERE.

Schools scramble to help teens who crossed border

WTOP News
9/29/14
KIMBERLY HEFLING
AP Education Writer

In this photo taken Sept. 11, 2014, a student in the Accelerating Preliterate English Language Learners (A.P.E.L.L) class, taught by Lori Ott, of Millsboro, Del., at the G.W. Career Educational Center in Frankford, Del., looks over a worksheet aimed at teaching basic introductions in English. U.S. schools are now dealing with the fallout from the dramatic spike in the number of children and teenagers who crossed into the United States unaccompanied by family; the Supreme Court has ruled that they have an obligation to educate all students regardless of their immigration status. (AP Photo/Emily Varisco)

FRANKFORD, Del. (AP) -- American schools are scrambling to provide services to the large number of children and teenagers who crossed the border alone in recent months.

Unaccompanied minors who made up the summer spike at the border have moved to communities of all sizes, in nearly every state, Federal data indicates, to live with a relative and await immigration decisions. The Supreme Court has ruled that schools have an obligation to educate all students regardless of their immigration status, so schools have become a safe haven for many of the tens of thousands of these young people mostly from central America living in limbo.

Delaware's rural Sussex County has long attracted immigrants, partly because of work in chicken factories, and soybean and corn fields. The district's population is more than one-quarter Hispanic, and for years has offered an early learning program for non-English speakers.

Still, officials were caught off guard by about 70 new students mostly from Guatemala -- part of the wave crossing the border -- enrolling last year, mostly at Sussex Central High School. The Indian River School District over the summer break quickly put together special classes for those needing extra English help.

On a recent school day, a group of these mostly Spanish-speaking teenage boys with styled spiky hair and high-top sneakers enthusiastically pecked away on hand-held tablets at the G.W. Carver Education Center, pausing to alert the teacher when stumped.

"If you don't know what you're supposed to write on the line, look at my examples, OK?" Lori Ott, their English language teacher, told one.

The students are eager but face barriers. Some can barely read or write in their native language.
The district's goal is to get them assimilated -- and eventually into a regular high school. There, they can earn a diploma, even if that means participating in adult education programs and going to school until they are 21.

'It's Not Worth It To Become A Teacher At This Point,' Veteran Educator Says

Huffington Post        

09/30/2014

Sam Levine 

When single mom Callie Hammond wants to buy something for her daughters, she says she has to choose between spending money on them or on the high school English students she teaches each day.

Hammond, a teacher in North Carolina for 22 years, says she buys supplies for her students with her own money. She hasn’t gotten new textbooks since 2009. If she wants new ones, she says she has to go to other high schools and beg.

“I’m at a school trying to make better lives for those kids, but I’m not able to go out and make a better life for my own kids. And that's not fair,” Hammond says in a video released by the progressive advocacy group Progress North Carolina.

According to an analysis by the National Education Association, North Carolina ranked near the bottom of U.S. states in expenditures per student for 2012-2013. A separate study found that North Carolina teachers' pay was among the lowest for public school educators. 

“I would say if you’re in North Carolina, it’s not worth it to become a teacher at this point. It’s really not,” Hammond says in the video.

June Atkinson, North Carolina’s superintendent of public instruction, said the state has not supported its teachers.

Continue reading and view the video HERE.

The Remarkable Idiocy of 'Economically-Driven Education'

Huffington Post      

10/01/2014

Mercedes Schneider                                                                                                                

 

 

 

On October 2, 2014, I will be speaking in Indiana to an audience chiefly comprised of university students who have a passing understanding of the intentions of monied interests to usurp control of public education.

With a mind toward preparing for my upcoming engagement, I happened to read three pertinent (and powerful) articles: This one on September 26, 2014, in Chalkbeat on Indiana Governor Mike Pence's plan to use workforce data to determine what schools teach in order to subjugate education to the requirements of the job market, excerpted below:

...Indiana is quietly taking steps to position itself for a future where data drives much of what is learned in school. Gov. Mike Pence has made connecting education and workforce development a centerpiece of his administration's agenda...
This year, a bill he wrote created a new state office, under Pence's direction, with a director who has been nicknamed the state's "data czar." That office will manage an expanded network of K-12, higher education and workforce data, working with an outside company to identify trends and opportunities to connect what is learned now to what students will some day need to know.
Just last month, Pence named [state representative Steve] Braun as the state's new director of the Department of Workforce Development. [Emphasis added.

Pence wants to tailor education to serve the workforce, not the individual being educated -- an important point.

Next is another article, a Living in Dialogue post by Professor Emeritus Denny Taylor, one that deals quite skillfully with the sinister push to make public education little more than the servant of the US economy. The second article refers to very-well-compensated "non-profiteer" Marc Tucker's 1992 "Dear Hillary" letter, excerpted below. Tucker's vision is

... to remold the entire American system" into "a seamless web that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system for everyone," coordinated by "a system of labor market boards at the local, state and federal levels" where curriculum and "job matching" will be handled by counselors "accessing the integrated computer-based program. [Emphasis added.]

Continue reading HERE.

Students Protesting Conservative Rewrite Of History Get Their Most Important Endorsement Yet

Huffington Post
Posted: 09/26/2014 
Matt Ferner

The organization that oversees the Advanced Placement curriculum, whose history course is being defended by massive, ongoing student protests in a Denver suburb, has now said that it backs those protests.

"The College Board’s Advanced Placement Program supports the actions taken by students in Jefferson County, Colorado to protest a school board member’s request to censor aspects of the AP U.S. History course," said a statement from the College Board released on Friday.

"These students recognize that the social order can -- and sometimes must -- be disrupted in the pursuit of liberty and justice. Civil disorder and social strife are at the patriotic heart of American history -- from the Boston Tea Party to the American Revolution to the Civil Rights Movement. And these events and ideas are essential within the study of a college-level, AP U.S. History course," the statement continued.

Protests in Jefferson County, the state's second-largest school district, began a week ago Friday. By this Thursday, there were nearly 1,000 students marching in protest of the county school board's call for an Advanced Placement curriculum on U.S. history that promotes "respect for authority" and discourages "civil disorder, social strife or disregard for the law."

Read more HERE.

Study: Youth exercise leads to cognitive development

Monday - 9/29/2014, 4:52am  ET
Paula Wolfson
WTOP

WASHINGTON -- New research shows that when children exercise their bodies, they are exercising their brains as well.

Scientists at the University of Illinois followed 221 7-, 8- and 9-year-olds for nine months. Half were in an after-school fitness program; the others, on a wait list.  The scientists found that those in the exercise group not only became more physically fit, but also their cognitive skills improved -- most notably, their ability to stay focused and shift easily and accurately from one cognitive task to another.  Specialists in children's health see the findings as more evidence that exercise has an important role to play in boosting the overall health of children.  "I think exercise has a lot of different effects, and it is not just about getting your heart rate up or burning "X" number of calories," says Dr. Nadia Hashimi, a pediatrician who works in the emergency room at Children's National Medical Center.

Read more HERE.

Communications staff earns top school public relations awards

The Charles County Public Schools communications department recently received five top awards in the 2014 National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA) National School Communications Awards program.

Department staff received two Golden Achievement Awards, which recognize exemplary work in all aspects of school public relations, communication, marketing and engagement. The awards highlight communications plans used for teacher retention efforts and developing an international language center.

Recognized with awards were the communications plans used to implement the New Teacher Bus Tour held in conjunction with new teacher orientation activities, and outreach tools used with the launch of the Secondary Academy for International Languages (SAIL) at Maurice J. McDonough High School. The two awards are among more than 90 Golden Achievement Awards distributed to school systems nationwide.

Three videos produced by communications staff also received awards in the Publications and Electronic Media portion of the awards program. This area of the contest recognizes outstanding work in all types and forms of education communication, including print, electronic, video, audio, websites and social media.

A video titled “The Portfolio of James Richmond” received an Award of Merit, which is the second highest electronic media award given by NSPRA. The video features the longtime educational career of former CCPS Superintendent, James Richmond.

Two videos – “The Evolution of Telepresence in CCPS,” which highlights the use of Telepresence technology used in CCPS, and the “Port Tobacco One Room Schoolhouse,” which highlights how the school system uses the schoolhouse to teach students about history, each received Honorable Mention awards.

Communications department staff includes Katie O’Malley-Simpson, director of communications; Kyle Graves, video production specialist; Kara Gross, communications multimedia assistant; Shelley Mackey, communications specialist; and Gary Nagel, web developer.

This is the second consecutive year that the department has received awards through the NSPRA Communications Contest. Each year, NSPRA sponsors a national communications contest to recognize school districts for their efforts in school public relations. NSPRA was chartered in 1935 and provides school communication training and services to school system leaders throughout the United States, Canada, and the U.S. Dept. of Defense Dependents Schools worldwide. For more information on NSPRA, visit www.nspra.org.

How Did Maryland Fare?

These Are The States With The Best And Worst School Systems, According To New Rankings

The Huffington Post
By:  Rebecca Klein
08/04/2014

            

A new education ranking released this week found that students in New Jersey are receiving a much better education than students in Mississippi.

The ranking, from the personal finance site Wallethub, outlines the best and worst states for K-12 education, given the connection between one's education and future earning potential. The ranking was based on 12 factors, including student dropout rate, pupil/teacher ratio, test scores, rates of bullying and school safety measures.

The top scorers were New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and then Kansas. The site dubbed the areas with the worst school systems as Nevada, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and, lastly, the District of Columbia.

 

 The report also looked at which states are spending the most on education, and in turn, have the highest-quality school systems.

Read more HERE and find out how other states ranked. 

With Friends Like These...

Bobby Jindal Sued By His Allies Over Common Core

Huffington Post
By:  Joy Resmovits                                        
July 22, 2014

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) speaks during a news conference about his efforts to remove Louisiana from tests associated with the Common Core education standards on Wednesday, June 18, 2014, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
(AP Photo/Melinda Deslatte) | ASSOCIATED PRESS

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) spent Tuesday fending off a legal attack from his allies.

Two years ago, Jindal visited a charter school operated by the Choice Foundation, a nonprofit organization that manages a chain of charter schools in Louisiana. Jindal was there to announce his support for the Common Core State Standards. As Jim Swanson, chair of the Choice Foundation schools, remembers it, Jindal praised the package of learning benchmarks as state-of-the-art.

Since then, Jindal has changed his mind, demanding that Louisiana drop the Common Core and suspending the state's contracts with testing vendors who create Common Core tests.

Now, Swanson is joining a group of parents and teachers to sue Jindal for trying to reverse his state's adoption of the standards. "This action by him has had an incredible practical effect on the education at our schools," Swanson said Tuesday during a conference call with reporters. "This action of throwing the system into disarray was a very irresponsible action."

The Common Core, a set of learning benchmarks in math and English language arts adopted by over 40 states, has recently become controversial, with tea party networks railing against what they see as intrusive federal overreach, and teachers' unions decrying what they call hobbled and rushed implementation.

On Tuesday, the Choice Foundation, together with a number of teachers and parents, filed suit against Jindal, claiming his executive actions on the Common Core -- specifically, his suspension of the testing contracts -- exceed his authority.

Read more HERE.

These Are The Best (And Worst) Places In America To Raise Kids

The Huffington Post
By Rebecca Klein
Posted: 07/22/2014       

Despite the fact that more and more children are living in poverty, the nation’s kids are generally getting better educations and leading healthier lives.

The 25th edition of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT Data Book, which details the overall well-being of children in America, showed unsurprisingly mixed results in its report, released Tuesday. The report outlined trends that have taken place since 1990 and detailed how they have impacted the quality of life for young, vulnerable citizens.

The report looked at four indicators -- economic well-being, education, health and family and community -- in order to glean a ranking of the best overall states for children. Massachusetts, Vermont and Iowa ranked the highest, while Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico were once again among the lowest. A map from the report (see below) shows that states in the southern portion of the country fared worse than states farther north.
Last year, New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts snagged the top three spots. New Mexico and Mississippi held the lowest spots in both 2013 and 2014.

According to the report, 3 million more children lived in poor families in 2012 than in 2005. Additionally, the number of children who had families where no parent was employed full-time, year-round also climbed nearly 3 million since 2008. The report found that about 8 percent of youth in America are neither in school nor working, although this statistic has not changed dramatically over time.

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Education Segregation to Nationwide Gentrification

A ‘nationwide gentrification effect’ is segregating us by education
By Emily Badger
Washington Post
July 11


San Francisco. Flickr user Jason Jenkins

Census data suggests that in 1980 a college graduate could expect to earn about 38 percent more than a worker with only a high-school diploma. Since then, the difference in their wages has only widened as our economy has shifted to bestow greater and greater rewards on the well-educated. By 2000, that number was about 57 percent. By 2011: 73 percent.

These figures, though, reflect only part of the inequality that has pushed the lives of college and high school graduates in America farther apart. As the returns to education have increased, according to Stanford economist Rebecca Diamond, the geographic segregation of the most educated workers has, too — and not by neighborhood, but by entire city.

This effectively means that college graduates in America aren't simply gaining access to higher wages. They're gaining access to high-cost cities like New York or San Francisco that offer so much more than good jobs: more restaurants, better schools, less crime, even cleaner air.

"With wage inequality, you could just observe the average wage of a college graduate, and the average wage of a high school graduate," says Diamond, whose research has gone a step further to calculate what she calls "economic well-being inequality." "But then on top of that, college graduates also live in the nicest cities in the country. They’re getting more benefits, even net of fact that they’re paying higher housing costs."

It's easy to recognize this phenomenon in San Francisco, or even Washington. College graduates have flooded in, drawn by both jobs and amenities. Yet more amenities have followed to cater to them (luring yet more college graduates). Housing costs have increased as a result, pushing low-wage and low-skilled workers out. At the neighborhood level, this cycle sounds a lot like how we describe gentrification. At the scale of entire cities — picture low-skilled workers increasingly excluded from Washington and San Francisco and segregated into cities like Toledo or Baton Rouge — Diamond describes this as a kind of nationwide gentrification effect.
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