IRP Poverty Dispatch » Education

High School Graduation Rate - Indiana

townsend — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:31:01 +0000

Indiana’s graduation rate is up; so is waiver use, By Scott Elliott, February 7, 2012, Indianapolis Star: “The graduation rate at Indianapolis Public Schools gained for the fifth straight year, to 64 percent, but at some schools, many of those graduates earned diplomas without passing state exams. Those IPS graduates were not alone last school year. The statewide use of waivers - exempting students from the requirement to pass state tests in English and algebra - has been creeping up, reaching 8 percent last year. Five percent of Indiana graduates used waivers in 2005. Factors playing into that trend include pressure on schools to achieve good state ratings, the difficulty of new high school end-of-course exams students are required to pass, and the use of alternative programs that aim to keep kids in school by letting them make up credits on the side…”
Indiana’s rate of graduation at record 85%, By Devon Haynie, February 7, 2012, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: “Indiana’s graduation rate improved to 85.7 percent in the 2010-11 school year, breaking state records and increasing by 1.6 percentage points over last year. The graduation rate is the highest Indiana has achieved since the state began measuring the four-year cohort graduation rate in 2005, according to the Indiana Department of Education, which publicly released the data today. A record-high 171 public schools reached 90 percent or more of their students graduating in four years. In 2009, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett listed a 90 percent gradation rate as one of his primary goals for most Indiana schools…”

No Child Left Behind Waiver Requests

townsend — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:45:26 +0000

Education Dept.: States seeking waivers should do more to make sure no student is left behind, Associated Press, January 31, 2012, Washington Post: “In its initial review of No Child Left Behind waiver requests, the U.S. Education Department highlighted a similar weakness in nearly every application: States did not do enough to ensure schools would be held accountable for the performance of all students. The Obama administration praised the states for their high academic standards. But nearly every application was criticized for being loose about setting high goals and, when necessary, interventions for all student groups - including minorities, the disabled and low-income - or for failing to create sufficient incentives to close the achievement gap…”
Eyebrows raised over initial NCLB waiver bids, By Alyson Klein, January 31, 2012, Education Week: “A pair of Democratic education leaders in Congress have raised red flags about the first batch of state applications for waivers that would give states flexibility from some requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The lawmakers-U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, of Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and U.S. Rep. George Miller, of California, the House education panel’s ranking member-worry that accountability under the law’s current version, the No Child Left Behind Act, will be significantly watered down if many of the applications are approved as submitted. They’re urging U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to adhere to the very high bar he says he’s set for approval, and to work with states to improve their plans…”

High School Dropout Ages and Graduation Rates

townsend — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:29:20 +0000

Obama wades into issue of raising dropout age, By Tamar Lewin, January 25, 2012, New York Times: “President Obama’s State of the Union call for every state to require students to stay in school until they turn 18 is Washington’s first direct involvement in an issue that many governors and state legislators have found tough to address. While state legislative efforts to raise the dropout age to 18 have spread in recent years, many have had trouble winning passage. Last year, for example, such legislation was considered in Alaska, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland and Rhode Island - but only Rhode Island actually changed its law…”
Missouri, Illinois educators debate raising high school dropout age, By Jessica Bock, January 26, 2012, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “The legal age at which students in Missouri and Illinois can drop out of high school has inched up to 17 in recent years. Now, President Barack Obama wants states to do more. In his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, he called on every state to require students to stay in high school until they either graduate or turn 18. But some educators and researchers question the cost and effectiveness of such a measure. And they say that truly addressing the dropout problem requires far more than changing a number…”
In Ohio, dropout law hard to enforce, By Charlie Boss, January 26, 2012, Columbus Dispatch: “During Tuesday’s State of the Union address, President Barack Obama urged states to require students to stay in school until they graduate or turn 18 - a law already in effect in Ohio and 19 other states. Still, at least 23,000 Ohio teens dropped out in the 2010-11 school year. And only a small number of those kids took advantage of an Ohio provision that lets them ‘officially’ leave school if they’re at least 16, have a full-time job and have permission from a parent and the district. Most of those 23,000 were out of school illegally and could face penalties - if they could be tracked down…”
City students at small public high schools are more likely to graduate, study says, By Winnie Hu, January 25, 2012, New York Times: “New York City teenagers attending small public high schools with about 100 students per grade were more likely to graduate than their counterparts at larger schools, according to new findings from a continuing study released on Wednesday night. The findings are part of a study that tracked the academic performance of more than 21,000 students who applied for ninth grade admission at 105 small high schools, mainly in Brooklyn and in the Bronx, from 2005 to 2008. The study appeared to validate the Bloomberg administration’s decade-long push to create small schools to replace larger, failing high schools…”

High School Dropout Age - Kentucky

townsend — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:18:27 +0000

House committee approves dropout bill, By Mike Wynn, January 18, 2012, Louisville Courier-Journal: “A long-debated push to raise Kentucky’s high school dropout age received a green light from the House Education Committee Tuesday and now heads to the House floor, where lawmakers expect it to win approval. House Bill 216 - approved 21-1, with one member passing - would increase the dropout age from 16 to 17 by July 2016 and raise the age to 18 one year later, changing a provision that has been in place since the 1920s. The bill’s lead sponsor, Rep. Jeff Greer, D-Brandenburg, has pushed for the change during the past two legislative sessions. He said Tuesday that raising the dropout age will keep students on the path to long-term success and promote a more competent workforce to grow the state’s economy…”

No Child Left Behind Waiver - Oregon

townsend — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:13:28 +0000

Oregon seeks OK to judge schools on overall performance, not success with small groups that typically struggle, By Betsy Hammond, January 8, 2012, The Oregonian: “Oregon schools that serve a concentration of low-income students will face a distinctly different accountability system this fall if the U.S. Department of Education approves the state’s plan. Under the federal No Child Left Behind law, Oregon schools that receive federal funds to help disadvantaged students have been judged since 2003 mainly by whether they got enough low-income, special education, minority or limited-English students to pass state reading and math tests. Schools that didn’t — more than 80 in 2011 — faced a series of escalating consequences, such as having to offer students a transfer to another school or free private tutoring. Now Oregon, like many other states, proposes to scrap that system for one that measures success in a whole new way — and offers more flexible consequences to schools whose results are deemed inadequate…”

Public Prekindergarten Programs

townsend — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:22:57 +0000

Growth in prekindergarten slowed in recession, By Kimberly Hefling (AP), January 17, 2012, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “The expansion in public prekindergarten programs has slowed and even been reversed in some states as school districts cope with shrinking budgets. As a result, many 3- and 4-year-olds aren’t going to preschool. Kids from low-income families who start kindergarten without first attending a quality education program enter school an estimated 18 months behind their peers. Many never catch up, and research shows they are more likely to need special education services and to drop out. Kids in families with higher incomes also can benefit from early education, research shows. Yet, roughly a quarter of the nation’s 4-year-olds and more than half of 3-year-olds attend no preschool, either public or private. Families who earn about $40,000 to $50,000 annually face the greatest difficulties because they make too much to quality for many publicly funded programs, but can’t afford private ones, said Steven Barnett, director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University…”

Free and Reduced-Price Lunch Program

townsend — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:18:22 +0000

School free-lunch program dogged by abuses at CPS, By Monica Eng and Joel Hood, January 13, 2012, Chicago Tribune: “When a teachers assistant at Chicago’s North-Grand High School handed in her child’s lunch form last school year, it showed that her household made too much money for the child to receive free lunches. So the school’s assistant clerk told the woman to fill out a new one, explaining, ‘She shouldn’t have to pay for lunch,’ and besides, ‘Nobody checks the applications anyway,’ according to an inspector general’s report released last week. Apparently, word had gotten around. At the West Side school, more than a dozen CPS and city employees had submitted false applications for free or reduced-price lunches, according to James Sullivan, Chicago Public Schools’ inspector general. The alleged offenders included teachers, teachers assistants, district employees, a security officer and two people in law enforcement, some of them earning six-figure salaries. The findings led Sullivan to conclude in his report that the National School Lunch Program, meant to provide basic nutrition to needy students, was ‘ripe for fraud and abuse’ because of layers of bureaucracy, incentives for high enrollment, and minimal checks and balances…”

High-Poverty Schools and School Funding - Florida

townsend — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:50:56 +0000

Many high-poverty schools ’shortchanged’ in Central Florida, By Lauren Roth, January 12, 2012, Orlando Sentinel: “At Hiawassee Elementary in Orange County, where nine out of every 10 students lives in poverty, the school district spent about $2,065 per student on teachers and other staff during the 2008-09 school year. By contrast, the county’s Lake Whitney Elementary, where only about 10 percent of the students are poor, spent about $2,710 on staffing per student that year - nearly a third more. Across Central Florida, school districts spend less per pupil to staff many of their highest-poverty schools despite federal rules intended to make sure every poor school gets its fair share, according to an Orlando Sentinel analysis of federal data…”

Achievement Gap - Seattle, WA

townsend — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:00:27 +0000

‘Alarming’ new test-score gap discovered in Seattle schools, By Brian M. Rosenthal, December 18, 2011, Seattle Times: “African-American students whose primary language is English perform significantly worse in math and reading than black students who speak another language at home - typically immigrants or refugees - according to new numbers released by Seattle Public Schools. District officials, who presented the finding at a recent community meeting at Rainier Beach High School, noted the results come with caveats, but called the potential trend troubling and pledged to study what might be causing it. Michael Tolley, an executive director overseeing Southeast Seattle schools, said at the meeting that the data exposed a new achievement gap that is ‘extremely, extremely alarming.’ The administration has for years analyzed test scores by race. It has never before broken down student-achievement data by specific home language or country of origin - it is rare for school districts to examine test scores at that level - but it is unlikely that the phenomenon the data suggest is actually new…”

Charter Schools

townsend — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:06:38 +0000

How some states rein in charter school abuses, By Kathleen McGrory and Scott Hiaasen, December 10, 2011, Miami Herald: “Florida’s charter school law, which makes it easy to open charter schools and difficult to monitor them, has spurred a multimillion dollar industry and a school boom - all while leading to chronic governance problems and a higher-than-average rate of school failure. Nationally, about 12 percent of all charter schools that have opened in the past two decades have shut down, according to the National Resource Center on Charter School Finance & Governance. In Florida, the failure rate is double, state records show…”
Florida charter schools: big money, little oversight, By Scott Hiaasen and Kathleen McGrory, December 10, 2011, Miami Herald: “Preparing for her daughter’s graduation in the spring, Tuli Chediak received a blunt message from her daughter’s charter high school: Pay us $600 or your daughter won’t graduate. She also received a harsh lesson about charter schools: Sometimes they play by their own rules. During the past 15 years, Florida has embarked on a dramatic shift in public education, steering billions in taxpayer dollars from traditional school districts to independently run charter schools. What started as an educational movement has turned into one of the region’s fastest-growing industries, backed by real-estate developers and promoted by politicians. But while charter schools have grown into a $400-million-a-year business in South Florida, receiving about $6,000 in taxpayer dollars for every student enrolled, they continue to operate with little public oversight. Even when charter schools have been caught violating state laws, school districts have few tools to demand compliance…”
Profits and questions at online charter schools, By Stephanie Saul, December 12, 2011, New York Times: “By almost every educational measure, the Agora Cyber Charter School is failing. Nearly 60 percent of its students are behind grade level in math. Nearly 50 percent trail in reading. A third do not graduate on time. And hundreds of children, from kindergartners to seniors, withdraw within months after they enroll. By Wall Street standards, though, Agora is a remarkable success that has helped enrich K12 Inc., the publicly traded company that manages the school. And the entire enterprise is paid for by taxpayers. Agora is one of the largest in a portfolio of similar public schools across the country run by K12. Eight other for-profit companies also run online public elementary and high schools, enrolling a large chunk of the more than 200,000 full-time cyberpupils in the United States…”
New Mexico legislators look to curb charter school costs, By Ben Wieder, December 12, 2011, Stateline.org: “One of Albuquerque’s charter schools, Academia de Lengua Y Cultura, offers a dual-language middle-school curriculum, with teachers in some classes giving lessons in English and Spanish on alternating days. Across town, the Cottonwood Classical Preparatory School, which takes students from sixth grade through high school, emphasizes seminar discussions and offers advanced international diplomas. The Southwest Secondary Learning Center, meanwhile, reinforces math, science and engineering lessons by allowing students to maintain and fly real airplanes. They represent three of New Mexico’s more than 80 charter schools. While some of those schools look and act like private institutions - their leaders have freedom to run them as they see fit as long as students meet state standards - they are part of the public school system, charge no tuition and receive nearly all of their funding from state monies. But unlike other states, where average per-student funding for charters is typically lower than it is for other public schools, a legislative report released last month found that charters in New Mexico receive an average of 26 percent more funding per student than traditional public schools. The report suggested that lawmakers change how schools are funded to address that…”
Number of charter school students soars to 2 million as states pass laws encouraging expansion, Associated Press, December 7, 2011, Washington Post: “The number of students attending charter schools has soared to more than 2 million as states pass laws lifting caps and encouraging their expansion, according to figures released Wednesday. The growth represents the largest increase in enrollment over a single year since charter schools were founded nearly two decades ago. In all, more than 500 new charter schools were opened in the 2011-12 school year. And about 200,000 more students are enrolled now than a year before, an increase of 13 percent nationwide…”
More whites drawn to charter schools, By Jennifer Smith Richards, December 12, 2011, Columbus Dispatch: “Charter schools statewide and in Franklin County have become much more racially diverse over the past decade, state enrollment data show. In the 2000-01 school year, when charters still were new in Ohio, 87 percent of the 748 Franklin County charter students were members of minorities. In the 2010-11 school year, roughly 33,000 students attended local charters, and 63 percent were nonwhite. The local shift mirrors one statewide, where the total percentage of black, Latino, Asian, American Indian and multiracial students has dropped from 86 percent to about 60 percent in the past 10 years. The reason for the shift, experts say, is twofold: Parents now have more charter schools from which to choose, which makes the option attractive to a wider range of parents. And many schools now are marketing to suburban families instead of focusing on students from urban districts such as Columbus…”

National Assessment of Educational Progress

townsend — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 23:17:45 +0000

Students in big-city schools show gains in latest NAEP ‘report card’, By Amanda Paulson, December 7, 2011, Christian Science Monitor: “Students in America’s largest cities are making gains in math, in many cases faster than students in the nation as a whole. Reading scores in those large cities - just as in the nation - have largely remained flat for the past two years. And in some cities - including Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, and Houston - students have made particularly striking gains over the past eight years, while in other cities progress has lagged…”
D.C. schools have largest black-white achievement gap in federal study, By Lyndsey Layton, December 7, 2011, Washington Post: “D.C. public schools have the largest achievement gap between black and white students among the nation’s major urban school systems, a distinction laid bare in a federal study released Wednesday. The District also has the widest achievement gap between white and Hispanic students, the study found, compared with results from other large systems and the national average. The study is based on the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress, federal reading and math exams taken this year by fourth- and eighth-graders across the country…”
DPS ratings on national report card rise, but still among worst big cities in reading, math, By Chastity Pratt Dawsey, December 7, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “The Detroit Public Schools scores on the Nation’s Report Card have inched up, but the district continues to rank worst among large cities in reading and math, results released today show. DPS fourth- and eighth-grade students were among those in 21 cities that took the rigorous National Assessment of Educational Progress tests this year as part of the Trial Urban District Assessment…”
Some New York City scores drop in U.S. student tests, By Winnie Hu, December 7, 2011, New York Times: “New York City students scored slightly lower on federal math tests this year compared with 2009, according to scores released Wednesday morning, even as scores of their counterparts in other big cities inched upward. The results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the nation’s report card, showed that the city’s fourth-grade math average dropped 3 points to 234 (on a scale of 500) from 2009, the last time the exams were taken. While federal education officials cautioned that the changes were too small to be significant, that dip diverged from the trend nationally and for other large cities. In 2011, the average fourth-grade math score rose by one point nationally, and two points for cities with populations of 250,000 or more…”
Baltimore students remain in bottom third on test vs. other cities, By Liz Bowie, December 7, 2011, Baltimore Sun: “Baltimore’s scores on a rigorous national math and reading test were in the bottom third of other large urban school districts across the country, though students showed some progress in math. The scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress were released Wednesday morning at a press conference at City Springs Elementary and Middle School in Baltimore…”

Free and Reduced Price Lunch Program

townsend — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 21:24:32 +0000

Lines grow long for free school meals, thanks to economy, By Sam Dillon, November 29, 2011, New York Times: “Millions of American schoolchildren are receiving free or low-cost meals for the first time as their parents, many once solidly middle class, have lost jobs or homes during the economic crisis, qualifying their families for the decades-old safety-net program. The number of students receiving subsidized lunches rose to 21 million last school year from 18 million in 2006-7, a 17 percent increase, according to an analysis by The New York Times of data from the Department of Agriculture, which administers the meals program. Eleven states, including Florida, Nevada, New Jersey and Tennessee, had four-year increases of 25 percent or more, huge shifts in a vast program long characterized by incremental growth. The Agriculture Department has not yet released data for September and October…”

High School Graduation Rate - Missouri

townsend — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 18:55:05 +0000

Missouri, Illinois adjust to changing graduation formula, By Jessica Bock, November 21, 2011, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “For years, comparing high school graduation rates between Missouri and Illinois - or any other state for that matter - was difficult to impossible. The numbers simply didn’t match. Education officials in each state had their own way of calculating the percentage of students graduating each year. Some, like Missouri, accounted for certain students who needed more than four years to earn a diploma. A few included in the equation those who had obtained equivalency diplomas. Others were thought to have inflated graduation rates because of poor tracking of dropouts. In data released today, Missouri for the first time is publishing a graduation rate under a new formula - mandated by the federal government - that makes it easier to make comparisons across the country…”

National Assessment of Educational Progress

townsend — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 21:41:57 +0000

Since 1990s, U.S. students’ math has sharpened, but reading lags, By Sam Dillon, November 1, 2011, New York Times: “Elementary and middle school students have improved greatly in math, but their reading skills have stagnated over the last two decades, federal officials said on Tuesday. The officials, who oversee the largest federal standardized testing program, used the release of scores from nationwide math and reading exams to highlight the contrasting long-term trends…”
Nation’s report card: Kids showing a bit of improvement in math, but many still not proficient, Associated Press, November 1, 2011, Washington Post: “Some progress. Still needs improvement. The nation’s report card on math and reading shows fourth- and eighth-graders scoring their best ever in math and eighth graders making some progress in reading. But the results released Tuesday are a stark reminder of just how far the nation’s school kids are from achieving the No Child Left Behind law’s goal that every child in America be proficient in math and reading by 2014. Just a little more than one-third of the students were proficient or higher in reading. In math, 40 percent of the fourth-graders and 35 percent of the eighth-graders had reached that level…”
Education report card: Flat reading scores are ‘deeply disappointing’, By Amanda Paulson, November 1, 2011, Christian Science Monitor: “America’s fourth- and eighth-graders are inching ahead in their performance in math, but their reading scores are largely stagnant. That’s the verdict from the latest round of data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), otherwise known as the ‘nation’s report card,’ which regularly measures students’ performance on a variety of subjects. The best news from the 2011 test was in math, where scores have risen steadily since 1990. The scores posted a small increase from 2009, the last time the test was given. For fourth-graders, the average math score was 241 on a 500-point scale - 28 points higher than in 1990 and 1 point higher than in 2009. Students at all percentiles except the lowest one increased…”

Achievement Gap - Illinois

townsend — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:39:18 +0000

Ill. elementary school achievement gap narrowing, Associated Press, October 31, 2011, Chicago Tribune: “Illinois’ latest standardized test results show that the achievement gap among elementary school students is narrowing, largely because of gains among black, special education and low-income students, the Illinois State Board of Education announced Monday. The board also said that nine schools flagged for improvement under the decade-old federal No Child Left Behind Act were taken off that status because they made adequate yearly progress for two years in a row. The improvement came even as the state’s proficiency benchmarks rose 7.5 percent over the past two years…”

States and No Child Left Behind Waivers

townsend — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 22:27:41 +0000

After-school tutoring likely to end as dozens of states pursue No Child Left Behind waivers, Associated Press, October 30, 2011, Washington Post: “Dozens of states intend to apply for waivers that would free their schools from a federal requirement that they set aside hundreds of millions of dollars a year for after-school tutoring, a program many researchers say has been ineffective. The 2002 No Child Left Behind law requires school districts that repeatedly fail to meet its benchmarks to set aside federal money to pay for outside tutors. But studies released in the past five years have found mixed results, at best, from the program. They say it has suffered from participation rates as low as 20 percent, uneven quality among tutors, a lack of coordination between tutors and teachers, poor oversight by the states and a prohibition against giving the lowest achieving students priority. Also, they say, there has been no connection between students’ success and tutors’ paychecks…”

Schools and Budget Cuts

townsend — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:31:10 +0000

Already financially hurting school districts brace for more cuts ahead, Associated Press, October 24, 2011, Washington Post: “Educators are bracing for a tough reality: As difficult as budget cuts have been on schools, more tough times are likely ahead. Even in a best-case scenario that assumes strong economic growth next year, it won’t be until 2013 or later when districts see budget levels return to pre-recession levels, said Daniel Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators in Arlington, Va. That means more cuts and layoffs are likely ahead. ‘The worst part is that it’s not over,’ Domenech said. Already, an estimated 294,000 jobs in the education sector have been lost since 2008, including those in higher education…”

Community College Dropout Rates

townsend — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 22:15:55 +0000

Study: Community college dropout rate costly, By Paul Takahashi, October 20, 2011, Las Vegas Sun: “Dropping out of school carries a high cost - and it’s not just to the student. A new report analyzing spending on community college dropouts nationally found that failing to graduate cost taxpayers nearly $4 billion at the federal, state and local levels over a five-year period. In Nevada, the cost of funding community college students who dropped out after one year was estimated at $8.8 million between 2004 and 2009, according to the report released Thursday by the American Institutes for Research - a Washington, D.C. - based nonprofit, nonpartisan research group…”
High cost of first-year community college dropouts, By Nanette Asimov, October 20, 2011, San Francisco Chronicle: “Like making a bad bet in Vegas, taxpayers gamble hundreds of millions of dollars a year on community college students who quit as freshmen - many in California. A new study shows that from 2004 to 2009, Americans spent nearly $4 billion on full-time students who dropped out after one year and didn’t transfer. California’s first-year dropouts benefited from $480 million in tax-funded grants and allocations in that time - more than any other state - says the study, ‘The Hidden Costs of Community Colleges,’ from the nonpartisan American Institutes for Research in Washington, D.C…”

Schools and Poverty - Sioux Falls, SD

townsend — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 21:40:54 +0000

Poverty touches more Sioux Falls students, By Josh Verges, October 12, 2011, Sioux Falls Argus Leader: “The state’s largest school district has added 515 students since this time last year, but the number of students from low-income families is growing even faster. When the Sioux Falls School District’s year ended in May, 46.8 percent of its elementary students were eligible for free or reduced-price meals, up from 43.7 percent the year before. Districtwide, the number of students in the program increased by about 900 in one year…”

Schools and Homeless Students - Massachusetts

townsend — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 22:06:25 +0000

Schools hit by expense of transporting homeless, By Kathy McCabe, October 6, 2011, Boston Globe: “The white van with a yellow school bus sign on top stopped at the front door of a hotel on Route 1. A young girl with a heavy backpack stepped off, waving to her mother, who came to meet the bus. Two other children exited the bus and pushed the glass door to enter the lobby. Hotels are a regular stop on public school bus routes north of Boston, where hundreds of homeless families are temporarily living because the state’s 2,000 family shelter units are full. As of Monday, there were 1,437 families living in motels and hotels across Massachusetts, according to the state Department of Housing and Community Development. More than 300 families are living at hotels in Burlington, Chelmsford, Danvers, Haverhill, Malden, Saugus, Tewksbury, and Woburn, according to state data. But since August, when a new program started to place homeless families in permanent housing, the number of families living in hotels has dropped by about 20 percent, or by 341 families, including 30 that moved from Danvers hotels…”

School Breakfast Program - New Jersey

townsend — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 21:48:57 +0000

N.J. ranks 46th nationally for participation in the National School Breakfast Program, By Nic Corbett, September 30, 2011, Star-Ledger: “A bowl of cereal, a cup of milk and some graham crackers can help a student start the school day off right, but New Jersey ranks 46th in the nation for participation in the National School Breakfast Program. Only 28 percent of New Jersey children eligible for free- or reduced-price meals were served breakfast at school last year through the federally funded program, according to a report by the nonprofit Advocates for Children of New Jersey using data from the New Jersey Departments of Education and Agriculture. Executive Director Cecilia Zalkind said it’s difficult for students to concentrate on a reading assignment or solve a math problem without eating in the morning…”

Community College Enrollment - Michigan

townsend — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 21:36:05 +0000

Community colleges taking hits in Michigan, By David Jesse, September 30, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “Fewer students are enrolling and others are taking lighter class loads at Michigan’s community colleges, the result of federal worker retraining money drying up and health care reform that expanded a student exception to insurance rules. Federal health care law now allows part-time students to stay on their parents’ health insurance policies, which could account for a decline in credit hours as students look to save money by paring class loads. Enrollment at Michigan’s 28 community colleges is down 4% compared to last fall, and the number of credit hours taken is down 6%. Falling credit hours is a bigger deal to school officials than enrollment, because tuition revenue is based on classes taken and not enrollment…”

SAT Scores and Academic Achievement

townsend — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 21:31:32 +0000

SAT scores for class of 2011 decline in every aspect, By Carla Rivera, September 15, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “The high school graduating class of 2011 lost ground on every measure of the SAT exam, with reading scores nationally the lowest on record, prompting concern about whether students are being adequately prepared for college, officials said Wednesday. Average SAT scores for high school seniors dropped three points in reading, one point in math and two points in writing, according to a report by the College Board, a New York-based nonprofit that administers the SAT and Advanced Placement program…”
SAT reading scores drop to lowest point in decades, By Michael Alison Chandler, September 14, 2011, Washington Post: “SAT reading scores for graduating high school seniors this year reached the lowest point in nearly four decades, reflecting a steady decline in performance in that subject on the college admissions test, the College Board reported Wednesday. In the Washington area, one of the nation’s leading producers of college-bound students, educators were scrambling to understand double-digit drops in test scores in Montgomery and Prince William counties and elsewhere…”
Average Scores Slip on SAT, By Tamar Lewin, September 15, 2011, New York Times: “Average scores on the SAT fell across the nation this year, with the reading score for the high school class of 2011 falling three points to 497, the lowest on record, according to a report Wednesday by the College Board, which administers the exams. The average writing score dropped two points, to 489, and the math score was down one point, to 514. The College Board attributed the decline to the increasing diversity of the students taking the test. For example, about 27 percent of the nearly 1.65 million test-takers last year came from a home where English was not the only language, up from 19 percent a decade ago…”

Academic Achievement and Income - Michigan

townsend — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 21:19:59 +0000

State educators: Michigan accreditation system ‘no longer has relevance’, By Dave Murray, August 15, 2011, Grand Rapids Press: “Michigan’s school accreditation system ‘no longer has relevance’ state educators say, as every school in the state has met state criteria despite sliding backward on federal testing goals. The state Education Department released announced Monday that 79 percent of Michigan’s public school buildings and 93 percent of the school districts made federal testing goals - called ‘adequate yearly progress’ - for the 2010-11 school year. That’s down from 86 percent of schools and 95 percent of districts making AYP the previous school year…”
Income gap can be bridged, starting with expectations, educators say, By Dave Murray, August 15, 2011, Grand Rapids Press: “It’s not that children from poor families can’t do well in school, Northview Superintendent Mike Paskewicz says. But they might not be as prepared when they arrive in kindergarten, so schools need to find ways to help them. ‘Parents might not be able to spend time reading with their kids at night when their priorities are trying to get food on the table or a roof over their heads,’ he said. A Press study of U.S. Census figures shows school districts with the lowest reading and math test scores often have the highest poverty rates. The most affluent West Michigan districts - including East Grand Rapids and Forest Hills - have six-figure family incomes and test scores well above the state average. Those with the highest rates of poverty, Godfrey-Lee and Grand Rapids Public Schools, also have the lowest average achievement on the 2011 Michigan Merit Exams given to high school juniors. A family’s income can explain academic struggles, but should not be an excuse, Paskewicz and other educators say. All students have needs, and districts both rich and poor are working to meet them…”

Poverty and Academic Achievement

townsend — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 21:35:03 +0000

Poverty, academic achievement intertwined, census figures show, By Lynn Moore, August 12, 2011, Muskegon Chronicle: “Many of those who don’t live there - who don’t walk in parents’ and students’ shoes - don’t have a problem beating up on Muskegon Heights schools, especially its high school. Just read the online comments left on stories about the high school’s struggles with academic achievement. Plenty of blame is heaped on parents, students, teachers and administrators. But would they have the same opinion if the topic was the poverty plaguing those families and schools? We’re not talking poor people, but desperately poor. Nearly half of children in the Muskegon Heights school district live in poverty. That would include, for example, a child living with a parent and sibling in a home with an income of no more than $17,285 a year. The question is raised because new data shows academic achievement and poverty are intertwined - not just for Muskegon Heights, but in communities throughout the state. The trend is undeniable when the poverty rates of school districts recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau are placed next to student test scores…”

School Dropout Rates - California

townsend — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 21:28:23 +0000

California reports eighth-grade dropout rate for first time, By Howard Blume, August 12, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “An overlooked corner of the dropout problem became more visible Thursday when state officials for the first time released the dropout rate for eighth-graders. Statewide, about 3.5% of eighth-graders - 17,257 in all - left school and didn’t return for ninth grade, according to the state count now available with a system for tracking students individually. The California Department of Education released the new dropout and graduation rates, the first such report based on unique identification numbers for every public school student. It looked at eighth-graders in the 2008-09 academic year and students who started high school in 2006 and should have graduated four years later…”

State Waivers for No Child Left Behind

townsend — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 21:38:41 +0000

States can apply for waivers on school testing required by No Child law, By Michael Alison Chandler, August 8, 2011, Washington Post: “School leaders in Virginia and Maryland said they are likely to seek exemptions for the most stringent requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind law after an announcement Monday that the Obama administration will offer flexibility to states willing to modernize their accountability systems. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is exercising rarely used executive authority by inviting states to apply for legal waivers. The move comes after efforts to update the federal law stalled in Congress this year, frustrating educators across the country…”
Overriding a key education law, By Sam Dillon, August 8, 2011, New York Times: “Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has announced that he will unilaterally override the centerpiece requirement of the No Child Left Behind school accountability law, that 100 percent of students be proficient in math and reading by 2014. Mr. Duncan told reporters that he was acting because Congress had failed to rewrite the Bush-era law, which he called a ’slow-motion train wreck.’ He is waiving the law’s proficiency requirements for states that have adopted their own testing and accountability programs and are making other strides toward better schools, he said. The administration’s plan amounts to the most sweeping use of executive authority to rewrite federal education law since Washington expanded its involvement in education in the 1960s…”

Cuts to Education

townsend — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 21:32:26 +0000

Education takes a beating nationwide, By Stephen Ceasar and Teresa Watanabe, July 31, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “After a particularly brutal budgeting season this summer, states and school districts across the country have fired thousands of teachers, raised college tuition, relaxed standards, slashed days off the academic calendar and gutted pre-kindergarten and summer school programs. Slashed budgets are nothing new for educators, but experts say this year stands out. Last year, K-12 budgets were cut $1.8 billion nationwide. According to estimates by the National Assn. of State Budget Officers, cuts to K-12 for the new fiscal year may reach $2.5 billion. A year ago, higher-education budgets across the nation were trimmed $1.2 billion. The expected cuts this year: $5 billion…”
Poor schools hit hardest by budget cuts in Pennsylvania, Associated Press, August 7, 2011, Patriot-News: “Cutbacks in state aid for public schools hit Pennsylvania’s poorer school districts the hardest, slashing nearly three times as many dollars in aid per student compared with wealthier districts, according to an analysis of state data. All told, the poorest 150 school districts, or 30 percent of the state’s total, lost $537.5 million in five key program lines. That works out to $581 per student, the analysis found. The wealthiest 150 school districts, as measured by the number of children who qualify for subsidized school lunches, lost $123 million, or $214 per student. Of the remaining money in the programs, almost $3 per student went to the 150 poorest districts for every $1 per student that went to the 150 wealthiest…”

Achievement Gaps - New Orleans, Washington DC

townsend — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 21:27:23 +0000

New Orleans public school achievement gap is narrowing, By Andrew Vanacore, August 7, 2011, New Orleans Times-Picayune: “For as long as records have been kept, black students in New Orleans’ public schools have lagged far behind the city’s white students on the annual exams that Louisiana uses to track student achievement, reflecting wide income disparities and other factors. What’s more, black students in the city have traditionally fallen behind their black peers in the rest of the state, where the so-called achievement gap has historically been less pronounced. That second metric changed this year for the first time. State data show that 53 percent of African-American youngsters in New Orleans scored at grade level or better on state tests this spring, compared with 51 percent of black students across Louisiana. Just four years ago, only 32 percent of black students in New Orleans had achieved grade level, compared with 43 percent statewide…”
Huge achievement gaps persist in D.C. schools, By Bill Turque, August 6, 2011, Washington Post: “The gulf in academic achievement separating public schools in the District’s poorest neighborhoods from those in its most affluent has narrowed slightly in some instances but remains vast, an analysis of 2011 test score data show. Children in Ward 7 and 8 schools trailed their Ward 3 peers in reading and math pass rates by huge margins - from 41 to 56 percentage points - on this year’s D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System exams. The tests are given annually to students in grades 3 through 8 and 10…”

Graduation Rates and Dropout Data

irpstaff — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 18:17:56 +0000

National graduation rates likely to dip as states switch to more accurate calculation formula, By Associated Press, July 27, 2011, Washington Post: “KANSAS CITY, Mo. - States are bracing for plummeting high school graduation rates as districts nationwide dump flawed measurement formulas that often undercounted dropouts and produced inflated results.Education wonks long have suspected the statistics used by some people to determine how their neighborhood high school is faring - or even where to buy a house - can be figured using various formulas that produce wildly different results. Now, many states are facing a sobering reset: Some could see numbers fall by as many as 20 percentage points…”
Why Dropout Data Can Be So Unreliable, By Claudio Sanchez, July 28, 2011, National Public Radio: “Accurate dropout figures are very hard to find because most states don’t adequately collect or analyze the data. Part of the problem is that every state has had a different definition for dropout. In some states, for example, students who leave school aren’t counted as having dropped out if they enroll in adult education classes like night school. Many schools don’t count kids as dropouts if they enroll in a GED program. The U.S. Department of Education says GED recipients should be counted as dropouts but that rule isn’t uniformly applied…”

No Child Left Behind - Arizona, Georgia

irpstaff — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 14:38:07 +0000

Arizona schools fail to hit test targets in record numbers, By Pat Kossan and Ryan Konig, July 27, 2011, Arizona Republic: “A record number of Arizona schools failed to meet benchmarks for academic progress this year, which likely means the state will fall short of the nation’s goal of having all students proficient at their grade level in three years. A record 814 Arizona schools, or 42 percent, failed to get students to make “adequate yearly progress” in the 2010-11 school year, compared with 563 schools, or 29 percent, the previous year. Schools will have to notify parents of the deficiency, and more schools could experience intervention by the state…”
More Georgia schools, districts fall short of goals as expectations rise, By D. Aileen Dodd, July 22, 2011, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Facing tougher requirements, the number of Georgia public schools placed on a Needs Improvement list set under the No Child Left Behind Act rose by 24 percent in 2011. Sixty-three percent of Georgia school districts achieved student performance goals, down from 71 percent the previous year. The list of schools designated as Needs Improvement — campuses that have failed to meet the federal Adequate Yearly Progress goals for two consecutive years — must offer free tutoring to students and offer the option of transfer to higher-performing schools. This year, the list grew by 74 schools, to a total of 379…”

Innovation Schools - Massachusetts

townsend — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 21:04:53 +0000

Innovation schools catch on, By James Vaznis, July 11, 2011, Boston Globe: “A growing number of school districts from Boston to Western Massachusetts are embracing a new kind of school to pursue educational innovations and compete more aggressively with charter schools. About a dozen ‘innovation schools’ are expected to open this fall, while another dozen should arrive a year later. The movement follows the launch of the state’s first three innovation schools this past school year. ‘It’s really catching fire,’ said Paul Reville, the state’s education secretary. ‘I would predict innovation schools in a relatively short period of time could surpass the number of charter schools in the state if the growth continues at the rate we’ve seen recently.’ Innovation schools - a cornerstone of Governor Deval Patrick’s overhaul of public education - are part of the state’s efforts to create schools that operate with more autonomy than traditional public schools…”

Charter School for Children in Foster Care - New York

townsend — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 21:01:57 +0000

NY charter school throws foster kids a safety net, By Larry Neumeister (AP), July 10, 2011, Seattle Times: “A Harvard-trained administrator thought she had heard it all as a gatekeeper in a city office responsible for supporting charter schools when Bill Baccaglini walked enthusiastically through the door with one more idea. ‘I thought, ‘Here we go, another big idea,” recalled Jessica Nauiokas. But she found herself liking his plans so much that she offered to be the Bronx school’s principal. ‘I walked out of the meeting and said, ‘Wow. That actually is a compelling idea.” Thus explains how Nauiokas became principal at the Haven Academy Charter School, where a third of students are in foster care. Another third are in families receiving preventive services to diminish the need for foster care. The rest are from the Mott Haven community, which is in a Congressional district where a soaring poverty rate keeps a third of residents on public assistance…”

Education Cuts and Instruction Time

townsend — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 20:50:19 +0000

As budgets are trimmed, time in class is shortened, By Sam Dillon, July 5, 2011, New York Times: “After several years of state and local budget cuts, thousands of school districts across the nation are gutting summer-school programs, cramming classes into four-day weeks or lopping days off the school year, even though virtually everyone involved in education agrees that American students need more instruction time. Los Angeles slashed its budget for summer classes to $3 million from $18 million last year, while Philadelphia, Milwaukee and half the school districts in North Carolina have deeply cut their programs or zeroed them out. A scattering of rural districts in New Mexico, Idaho and other states will be closed on Fridays or Mondays come September. And in California, where some 600 of the 1,100 local districts have shortened the calendar by up to five days over the past two years, lawmakers last week authorized them to cut seven days more if budgets get tighter…”

Academic Achievement of Low-Income Students

townsend — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 21:43:06 +0000

Some states still leave low-income students behind; Others make surprising gains, By Sharona Coutts and Jennifer LaFleur, June 30, 2011, ProPublica.org: “Florida is a state of stark contrasts. Travel a few miles from the opulent mansions of Miami Beach and you reach desperately poor neighborhoods. There’s the grinding poverty of sugar cane country and the growing middle class of Jacksonville. All told, half the public-school students in Florida qualify for subsidized lunches. Many are the first in their families to speak English or contemplate attending college. In many states, those economic differences are reflected in the classroom, with students in wealthy schools taking many more advanced courses. But not in Florida. A ProPublica analysis of previously unreleased federal data shows that Florida leads the nation in the percentage of high-school students enrolled in high-level classes-Advanced Placement and advanced math. That holds true across rich and poor districts. Studies repeatedly have shown that students who take advanced classes have greater chances of attending and succeeding in college. Our analysis identifies several states that, like Florida, have leveled the field and now offer rich and poor students roughly equal access to high-level courses…”

Education Cuts and Class Sizes

townsend — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 21:29:28 +0000

For San Diego schools, a fear that larger classes will hinder learning, By Michael Winerip, June 26, 2011, New York Times: “Many in the forefront of what is called the education reform movement - like Bill Gates, the philanthropist, and Arne Duncan, the nation’s education secretary - have attended private schools with small class sizes. Others, like New York’s mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, and its former schools chancellor Joel I. Klein have sent their children to private schools with small class sizes. Imagine if the poorest public school children had the same opportunity. That is what has been happening for several years in this urban district of 130,000 students. Using state money and federal stimulus dollars, San Diego has held class size to 17 in kindergarten through second grade at its 30 poorest schools. ‘Small class size is the most important priority for us,’ said Richard Barrera, the school board president. ‘These children are behind when they enter kindergarten. If they’re on grade level by third grade, most will be fine.’ Mr. Barrera believes that the rise in the district’s state test scores - to 56 percent proficient in English from 45 percent three years ago - is due, in part, to smaller classes. However, in San Diego, 17 could soon become 30. Federal stimulus money has been spent. California’s governor and Legislature, after several years of budget cuts, are deadlocked over whether to cut again. All around the state, districts have developed worst-case budget plans…”

Racial Achievement Gap

townsend — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 21:19:35 +0000

Achievement gap for Hispanic students hasn’t narrowed in 20 years, By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo, June 23, 2011, Christian Science Monitor: “In 20 years, the national achievement gap between Hispanic students and their non-Hispanic white peers hasn’t budged. But hints of progress can be found with a closer look at low-income Hispanics or those who already know the English language. And some states stand out for gaps considerably lower than the national average. This first-of-its kind report on the Hispanic-white gap comes as Congress is considering how to rewrite No Child Left Behind, the federal law that has attempted to narrow gaps based on race, income, and other factors. Questions loom about how much of that accountability system will stay in place, and what specific role the federal government will play in pushing for the progress of Hispanic students…”
National report: State begins narrowing achievement gap between Hispanic and white students in math, By Grace E. Merritt, June 23, 2011, Hartford Courant: “Connecticut has started to close the achievement gap between Hispanic and white students in math, but remains stagnant in reading, according to a national report released Thursday. Connecticut has started to close the achievement gap between Hispanic and white students in math, but remains stagnant in reading, according to a national report released Thursday. But despite the gains, Connecticut still has a larger achievement gap in both math and reading compared to the national gap, partly because scores for Connecticut’s white students are higher than white students elsewhere in the nation, the report said…”

Universal Meal Service Pilot Program

townsend — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 21:44:56 +0000

Some schools will serve free meals to all, thanks to new federal program, By Monica Eng and Tara Malone, June 20, 2011, Chicago Tribune: “Any school in Illinois where at least 40 percent of students are needy will be able to serve free meals to all children, regardless of family income, starting this fall as part of a pilot program offered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Across Illinois, 125 districts have at least one school that is eligible, and the program could affect up to 1,235 schools in all, according to preliminary numbers from the Illinois State Board of Education. Districts can decide whether to participate on a school-by-school basis. In Chicago, home to the state’s largest district, the vast majority of schools would qualify for the universal free meals. But officials said Monday that they haven’t determined if they will participate, saying they don’t yet know how the program would affect the bottom line in a district with a $712 million deficit…”

Summer Meal Programs - California

townsend — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 17:08:53 +0000

Many needy California schoolchildren not taking part in subsidized summer meal programs, By Alexandra Zavis, June 16, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “Fewer than 1 in 5 of the children who relied on free or reduced-price lunches during the 2009-2010 school year in California received subsidized meals last July, according to a new report. That represents a 15% drop in participation in summer meals programs from the year before at a time when enrollment in other federal nutrition programs is increasing because of the lingering effects of the recession. The report by California Food Policy Advocates blamed cuts to the state’s education budget, which caused many school districts to eliminate summer learning and enrichment programs. That reduced the places where needy students received breakfasts, lunches and snacks during the summer months…”

Education Funding - North Carolina

townsend — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 16:57:31 +0000

Rich schools, poor schools: N.C.’s gap may be growing, By Jane Stancill, June 20, 2011, Charlotte Observer: “North Carolina’s 1.5 million public school children depend on the state to pay the majority of their educational costs, but that long-held tradition may be changing. What started as the state’s promise during the Great Depression has eroded during the Great Recession. Lawmakers, facing gaping state budget shortfalls in the past two years, began to force cuts onto local school districts. That so-called discretionary reduction was $225 million two years ago and $305 million last year, both actions taken by a Democratic-led legislature. Now the state’s budget reduction has grown to $429 million for public schools and charter schools - with the Republican-led legislature cutting another $124 million. The cuts were contained in the budget that passed last week after a lengthy political fight over education spending with Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue. The GOP-controlled legislature overrode the governor’s veto, and the $19.7 billion budget plan became law…”

Achievement Gap - Utah

townsend — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 21:58:30 +0000

Utah: ‘Not even close’ to closing the poverty gap, By Sara Lenz, June 17, 2011, Deseret News: “April Hadley remembers the day she took her oldest daughter Amelia, now 8, to kindergarten at Club Heights Elementary. Her daughter’s teacher commented that it was nice to have a student who came from a two-parent home in her class. ‘It broke my heart,’ Hadley recalled. Over the last few years, the parent of four has questioned her decision to send her children to a school with that dynamic. Eighty percent of the students there qualify for free or reduced lunch, a measure of poverty, and about one in four students at Club Heights is considered a limited English speaker. Many of Hadley’s neighbors have chosen to send their kids to a charter school or another public school. The reason - high poverty schools with a high minority population often don’t perform as well as low poverty schools, and Utah schools are no exception…”

No Child Left Behind and Proficiency

townsend — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 21:31:50 +0000

Education Secretary may agree to waivers on ‘No Child’ law requirements, By Sam Dillon, June 12, 2011, New York Times: “Unless Congress acts by this fall to overhaul No Child Left Behind, the main federal law on public education, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan signaled that he would use his executive authority to free states from the law’s centerpiece requirement that all students be proficient in reading and math by 2014. The Obama administration has been facing a mounting clamor from state school officials to waive substantial parts of the law, which President Bush signed in 2002, especially its requirement that states bring 100 percent of students to proficiency in reading and math by 2014 or else face sanctions. In March, Mr. Duncan predicted that the law would classify 80,000 of the nation’s 100,000 public schools as failing this fall unless it was amended. But his efforts to address the problem have gained little traction on Capitol Hill, where several attempts since 2007 to rewrite the sprawling school accountability law have failed…”

High School Graduation Rates

townsend — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 18:33:17 +0000

Uptick in Kentucky high school dropout rate helps fuel debate on raising age, By Mike Wynn, June 12, 2011, Louisville Courier-Journal: “Kentucky’s high school dropout rate edged up last year as lawmakers continue to spar over ways to make sure more students graduate. The Kentucky Department of Education reported recently that the statewide dropout rate increased from 2.89 percent in 2009 to 3.19 percent in 2010, marking the eighth consecutive year that the rate has hovered around 3 percent. While enrollment dipped 0.6 percent from 2009 - to slightly more than 195,000 - the number of students who quit school between the ninth and 12th grade rose from 5,673 to 6,225, an increase of nearly 10 percent. Legislators have debated raising the minimum dropout age for years. Doing so, proponents say, would help bring those numbers down and should be coupled with alternative education programs…”
State leads U.S. with 90.7% graduation rate, By Cindy Hodgson, June 11, 2011, Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter: “Wisconsin has one of the highest graduation rates in the country - the highest, according to one method of calculation - and many of the school districts in Manitowoc County have even higher rates than the state. A report from the National Center for Education Statistics shows Wisconsin leading the nation with a graduation rate of 90.7 percent, according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Wisconsin has been first or second in each of the last five years in that report, which uses the Public High School Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate from the Common Core of Data at the U.S. Department of Education, according to a news release from the DPI. Two other methods of calculation, which also provide results for individual districts, put the state’s graduation rate a bit lower…”

Benefits of Preschool Education

townsend — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 21:31:25 +0000

Study: Preschool boosts low-income students, By Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, June 9, 2011, Chicago Tribune: “A new study revealing the lasting impact of a solid preschool education - especially in disadvantaged communities - was released Thursday, just as Illinois’ governor considers a state budget plan that slashes funding to early childhood programs. While many findings over the years have touted the benefits of starting kids early on the path to education, a study conducted inside Chicago Public Schools and published online by the journal Science shows attending preschool can yield payoffs into adulthood. The report shows that children who attended an established preschool program in Chicago completed high school at higher rates, stayed out of jail, were less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol, and improved their living standards as adults. For 25 years, researchers from the University of Minnesota tracked 1,400 Chicago Public Schools students who attended early childhood programs. They compared those who started preschool at age 3 in Child-Parent Centers, located in or near elementary schools serving low-income students, with those who didn’t attend preschool at all or went to the typical Head Start program…”
Preschool’s many benefits last into adulthood, according to study of low-income children, By Lindsey Tanner (AP), June 9, 2011, Washington Post: “Preschool has surprisingly enduring benefits lasting well into adulthood, according to one of the biggest, longest follow-up studies of its kind. Better jobs, less drug abuse and fewer arrests are among advantages found in the study that tracked more than 1,000 low-income, mostly black Chicago kids for up to 25 years. Michael Washington was one of them. Now a 31-year-old heating and air conditioning contractor, Washington attended a year of preschool at Chicago’s intensive Child-Parent Center Education Program when he was 4. The ongoing publicly funded program focuses on language development, scholastic skills and building self-confidence. It involves one or two years of half-day preschool, and up to four additional years of educational and family services in grade school. Preschool teachers have college degrees and are certified in early childhood education, and parents are encouraged to be involved in the classes…”

Summer Youth Programs

townsend — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 21:22:42 +0000

‘Perfect storm’ ahead for summer youth programs, By Mary Ann Zehr, May 30, 2011, San Antonio Express-News: “With widespread cutbacks around the country in public funding for both summer school and summer-jobs programs, youths in some cities, such as Los Angeles and Washington, may have plenty of time on their hands in the coming months. Many jobs programs for young people are facing a funding cliff now that federal stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has run out. School districts face their own funding cliff with the phasing out of stimulus funds channeled to them through Title I of the No Child Left Behind Act. In addition, the slashing of state budgets has affected both jobs programs and districts’ summer school offerings…”

School Funding - New Jersey

townsend — Fri, 27 May 2011 02:26:09 +0000

N.J. high court’s Abbott ruling means other school districts will still be short funding, By Jeanette Rundquist and Jessica Calefati, May 25, 2011, Star-Ledger: “Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling means the state’s 31 poorest districts get to share $500 million in additional state aid. But it also means some 550 districts will go without. ’Once again, districts like Woodbridge and Piscataway have been left out in the cold,’ said John Crowe, the superintendent in Woodbridge. He said it is ‘disheartening to think a student who is born into poverty in Woodbridge somehow requires less assistance than a student born into poverty in another district.’ Crowe, along with other suburban superintendents, said Tuesday’s ruling short-changed their district despite the fact they, too, may educate at-risk children…”
Tracing the history of rulings on school funding in poor N.J. cities, By Jeanette Rundquist, May 25, 2011, Star-Ledger: “In 1875, in an effort to get control of a patchwork public school system, the New Jersey state Legislature amended New Jersey’s constitution and made it the state’s responsibility to provide a ‘thorough and efficient system of free public schools.’ For more than 100 years since, the state’s courts and elected officials have wrestled with those eight words. The participants and dollar amounts have changed over the years, but the issue has largely been the same: how to give children in New Jersey’s poorest cities the same level of education as those in its wealthiest communities. The state Supreme Court took another stab at the issue Tuesday, ordering the state to increase school funding to poor districts by $500 million. Here is a look back at decisions leading up to Tuesday…”
N.J. high court orders more school funding, By Rita Giordano, May 25, 2011, Philadelphia Inquirer: “New Jersey’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the state to come up with $500 million more to aid certain poor and largely urban school districts next year, finding that the state did not enforce its own law or live up to promises made to the court. However, the justices, in their highly anticipated decision, declined to restore the full amount of the state’s aid shortfall - about $1.6 billion - that could have benefited many districts, including others with low-income children. The strongly worded, 3-2 ruling requires the additional funds for only the 31 former Abbott districts, which through more than two decades of corrective court orders had come to receive a large share of state aid. They still do, but the state funding formula, enacted under Gov. Jon S. Corzine, sought to spread money more evenly to other districts with poor children…”

Half-Day Kindergarten - Philadelphia, PA

townsend — Thu, 05 May 2011 21:16:01 +0000

Experts: Half-day kindergarten a ‘disaster’, By Alfred Lubrano, May 1, 2011, Philadelphia Inquirer: “The Philadelphia School District’s plan to cut full-day kindergarten to help balance its budget is being decried by national education experts as a ‘disaster’ and a ‘very bad decision’ that could harm the development of thousands of children - especially the poor. At the same time, many Philadelphia parents are angered and worried that half-day kindergarten would force them to choose between quitting work to be home for their children or placing them in questionable or costly day care. And local child advocates warn that community child-care centers could not handle the tidal wave of 12,700 kindergartners likely to need placement in some kind of program…”

School Vouchers - Indiana

townsend — Tue, 03 May 2011 21:42:58 +0000

Indiana lawmakers OK broadest voucher plan in U.S., By Deanna Martin (AP), Indianapolis Star: “Indiana will create the nation’s broadest private school voucher system and enact other sweeping education changes, making the state a showcase of conservative ideas just as Gov. Mitch Daniels nears an announcement on a 2012 presidential run. The Republican-controlled state legislature handed Daniels a huge victory today when the GOP-led House voted 55-43 to give final approval to a bill creating the controversial voucher program. It would allow even middle-class families to use taxpayer money to send their children to private schools. Unlike other systems that are limited to lower-income households, children with special needs or those in failing schools, Indiana’s voucher program will be open to a much larger pool of students, including those already in excellent schools. Families would have to meet certain income limits to qualify, with families of four making up to about $60,000 a year getting some type of scholarship…”

Schools and Homeless Children

townsend — Mon, 02 May 2011 21:37:48 +0000

Homeless, but finding sanctuary at school, By Micael Winerip, May 1, 2011, New York Times: “The bus ride from the homeless shelter to Fern Creek Elementary School was, as usual, raucous. A hundred times, Doretha Brown, the bus driver, had to yell for everyone to sit down. ‘This noise is what holds us up every morning and evening!’ Ms. Brown shouted, although the Collins girls - Brianna, 8; Tamara, 7; and Sydney, 6 - could barely hear her above the din. A first grader and a second grader got into a fight on the 15-minute ride, and someone else threw up. Brianna, Tamara and Sydney paid no mind. As their father, James Collins, says, ‘To get by at a shelter, you have to focus yourself.’ This is the sisters’ second stay at a shelter, so they are becoming accustomed to being homeless. Roxanne Schreffler, a kindergarten teacher, was struck by Sydney’s arrival at Fern Creek in February. ‘She walked into kindergarten in the middle of the day and sat right down,’ Ms. Schreffler said. ‘She’d immediately adapted to her new situation. There was no time integrating her into the class; she was ready to go…’”

Poverty and Education - Louisville, KY

townsend — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:09:11 +0000

JCPS schools search for success against poverty’s stacked deck, By Chris Kenning, April 23, 2011, Louisville Courier-Journal: “It was just before 7:30 a.m., and youth-resource coordinator Lekiesha Davis was standing by Shawnee High School’s front entrance, exchanging hellos and handing out hugs to the students streaming into the hallway. But her task extended beyond the friendly morning welcome. Davis eyed each child closely for signs of exhaustion, dirty clothes or sullen, depressed glances that might signal a night of sleeplessness, domestic turmoil, or lack of food, electricity or supervision - problems that kids cart around every day in one of Louisville’s poorest neighborhoods, piling on to a lifetime of disadvantages that have already left them years behind their middle-income peers academically…”
Solutions to high-poverty schools may lie outside the classroom, By Chris Kenning, April 23, 2011, Louisville Courier-Journal: “The solution to achieving success in America’s high-poverty schools must reach beyond the classroom, most educators say. That’s why several urban districts have turned their focus to finding their students social support -such as counseling, nutrition and after-school care -to help turn around their failing high-poverty schools. So far, however, many of those efforts have resulted in mix results - with no clear formula for lasting success, experts say…”
Cincinnati’s Oyler Elementary finds winning formula to fight poverty, By Chris Kenning, April 23, 2011, Louisville Courier-Journal: “In the late 1990s, many of Cincinnati’s urban public schools were sliding into decline: Enrollments had shrunk, poverty had risen, achievement had fallen and voters were rejecting higher tax levies. Perhaps nowhere was that decline felt more than Oyler Elementary, tucked into Lower Price Hill, a poverty-stricken industrial neighborhood along the Ohio River built in the 1800s as factory housing by German immigrants. More than 80 percent of Oyler’s students never made it to tenth grade. It’s parents weren’t involved, and resources were scarce…”