Food for Thought
These articles caught my eye and made me
think. Hope you find them interesting too.
Education in Knox County and Tennessee
Education in Knox County and Tennessee
Lindsey's
Theme,
Joe
Sullivan, MetroPulse, January 2nd, 2007. This column
describes Superintendent Lindsey's plan to make the new high
school primarily a choice school.
To stay in game, educational system must raise standards,
Oliver
"Buzz" Thomas,
News Sentinel, December 31, 2006.
Students deserve expanded, improved magnet schools,
Indya Kincannon
News Sentinel, December 17, 2006
Fewer
Children Left Behind, Joe Sullivan, Metro Pulse, August
23rd, 2006. An analysis
of how Knox County and Tennessee have been handling the demands of
No Child Left Behind laws.
Education on the Farm: Those students have to be out for the summer to haul hay",
by Frank Cagle, MetroPulse, November
24, 2005.
Rx For Knox County Schools, Joe Sullivan,
Metro Pulse, Vol 15, Issue 43
Thursday, October 27, 2005. Sullivan explains how Knox
County would benefit if the state legislature reforms the BEP (Basic Education
Program) formula. Proposed reforms could bring Knox County an
additional $5m per year!
Small
Class Sizes = Higher Graduation Rates! An empirical
study done in Tennessee, Forbes Magazine, May 2005.
Are Better Schools Really A Priority?, by David Keim, News Sentinel, 8-31-04
Socioeconomic Integration, Richard D. Kahlenberg, Keynote Speaker, 20th Annual Magnet Schools of Conference. This is a great article! It discusses the benefits of economically integrated schools and says this can be done through public school choice. I agree with many of the author's points and think Knox County should offer more public school choice and specialized curriculae.
How Not to Pick a School, Brigid Schulte, Washington Post, February 4th, 2007. One common research finding is that "... poor kids attending schools in low-income neighborhoods scored far lower than poor kids going to school in middle-class neighborhoods, while middle-class kids scored about the same regardless of the type of school they attended." This article encourages parents to move beyond negative perceptions of urban schools and make decisions based on the facts.
Extra pay urged at poorest schools,
Teachers' unions propose incentives, Maria Sacchetti, Boston
Globe,
November 30, 2006. I
agree wholeheartedly that teachers in high poverty schools have
harder jobs and therefore deserve more pay. This approach
has proven effective in Hamilton County (Chattonooga), which is
referenced in this article. You can read more about Hamilton
County's teacher incentive program here.
What It Takes to Make a Student,
By PAUL TOUGH, New
York Times Magazine, November 26, 2006.
Choosing
Shamrock Part One and Part
Two. Two articles about middle class
parents in Charlotte, NC, who decide to send their kids to the
neighborhood school, even though it has low test scores and high
poverty rates. Charlotte Observer, August 2006.
Is
It Ethical for Teachers to Refuse to Teach in High-Poverty
Schools?
For School Equality, Try Mobility,
by ROD PAIGE, June 27, 2006, New York Times.
Certain children require more resources to educate than others.
A weighted student funding formula means the funding goes with the
student wherever he/she attends school.
It
Takes More Than Schools to Close Achievement Gap, Diana
Jean Schemo, New York Times, August 9th, 2006.
Gap in teacher quality falls on income lines
- Schools report more core academic classes are being taught by
certified teachers who have mastered those subjects. But high-poverty schools continue to lag behind.
By Ledyard King, Gannett News Service, April 2006.
Mediocrity: Deplorable, Yes. Until We Consider the Alternative
By Rona Wilensky, Education Week, March, 2006. This
commentary discusses the relationship between academic achievement
and privilege. The author says making schools more rigorous
could actually harm disadvantaged kids, unless we simultaneously
add sufficient resources to enable ALL students to meet the new
higher standards.
Great Expectations:
If school leaders don't believe in students, they won't believe in themselves,
by Robin L. Flanigan, American School Board Journal,
December 2005.
"Integrating Schools by Income Is Cited as a Success in Raleigh",
By ALAN FINDER, New York Times, September 25, 2005.
Staffing
All High-Poverty, Low-Performing Schools with Effective Teachers
and Administrators Learning First Alliance, 2005. Great strategies for
making sure our neediest students get their fair share of the most
effective teachers.
It'll take more than caring to lift hard-to-educate kids
4-26-05, William Raspberry.
Why Do High-Poverty Schools Have Difficulty Staffing Their Classrooms with Qualified Teachers? by Richard M. Ingersoll November 19, 2004.
How Not to Pick a School, Brigid Schulte, Washington Post, February 4th, 2007. One common research finding is that "... poor kids attending schools in low-income neighborhoods scored far lower than poor kids going to school in middle-class neighborhoods, while middle-class kids scored about the same regardless of the type of school they attended." This article encourages parents to move beyond negative perceptions of urban schools and make decisions based on the facts.
Biggest Indicator for Student Achievement (Parental Involvement)
, by Martha Brockenbrough.
Race and
Class issues in How Educators Treat Parents, by
Hollyce C. Giles, associate professor in the Graduate
Program in School Counseling at Brooklyn College, City University
of New York, 8:3 FEBRUARY 2005 | ASCA.
"Get Parents to Choose Your
Schools", American School Board Journal, 2005.
10 Ways for Parents to Help
Teachers", by Mimi Doe.
Parental
Involvement in Parenting by Maurice J. Elias & Yoni Schwab,
October, 2004.
Classroom
Distinctions,
by Tom Moore, New York
Times, January 19th, 2007. An examination of how heroic
teachers in movies misrepresent reality.
Teacher merit pay boosts student standardized test scores,
U of Florida Study,by Cathy Keen,
ckeen@ufl.edu, January, 2007.
Climb
Every Mountain,
by LAURA LOGERFO, Education Next, 2006. This article examines
why some teachers take more direct responsibility for their
students' academic outcomes than others. When teachers take
more responsibility, it has a very positive effect on student
achievement. The article also suggests ways to identify
teachers who have that greater sense of responsibility.
It's
the Teachers, Stupid. DAVID WESSEL, Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2006. An article about
merit pay for teachers. It describes a new approach called
the Hamilton Project.
Merit
Pay the Right Way, Jan. 24, 2005,
By Merrill Vargo
Making
Schools Productive - 4/20/05. This article makes some
excellent points.
"One True Thing"
by Anemona Hartocollis, November, 2004.
The Principal Connection / Picking Our Battles by Joanne Rooney, April 2006. As principal of an elementary school, I was determined to enforce the long-standing rule of “no gum chewing.” ...As we remembered what was truly central to our work, the rationale for the chewing-gum rule faded. We began to pick our battles more wisely, judging their importance by their effect on learning.
Get Congress Out of the Classroom,
By DIANE RAVITCH,
Published: October 3, 2007, New York Times. This
commentator says No Child Left Behind is not working and and
creates an unhealthy focus on standardized tests.
School Basics: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Real Estate,
By C. J. HUGHES, New
York Times, , June 17, 2007. It's no surprise that
people choose their homes based on their perceptions of school
quality. I
didn't realize that the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968 makes it illegal
for realtors to use school data to steer would-be home buyers.
Of course parents can access the data on-line themselves. In
my view, a child's access to quality schools should not be limited
by the neighborhood in which her family can afford to live.
Taking Middle Schoolers Out of the Middle, by
Elissa Gootman, New York Times, January 22nd, 2007. Should
schools extend the nurturing cocoon of elementary school, or push
11- to 13-year-olds into a high school setting earlier? If
middle schools aren't working, should we eliminate them and
convert to either k-8 or 6-12 schools?
Seven Ways Politicians Are Dumb About Schools,
By Jay Mathews, Washington Post Staff Writer, Tuesday, November 7, 2006.
This guy un-spins the slogans many politicians use about schools.
The
School Lunch Test, Lisa
Belkin, New York Times, August
20th, 2006. This is a
fairly long, but compelling article about efforts to make school
food healthier. The take-home messages I got out of it: we
don't need organic Twinkies, the key is fewer processed foods,
more local in-season fresh foods. Healthier food may cost
more upfront, but the health and educational benefits are worth
it, we just haven't been able to measure those benefits
effectively yet.
Investing
in Human Futures, David Brooks, New York Times,
Sunday September 10th, 2006.
Why American College Students Hate Science,
by Brent Staples, New York Times, May 25,
2006. This column has some important ideas about science
education that should be adopted in Knox County schools too.
A
Second Look At Compulsory Education, by
Dennis L. Evans, Education Week, April 12th, 2006. He argues
that we should not require students to stay in school after their
freshman year of high school. "We should tell these
[in-school drop-outs] that not only do they no longer have to attend school, but that they can’t: They will not be allowed to continue to waste teachers’ time and effort and interfere with the right of other students to learn."
Tennessee law requires all students to attend until they are
18. The alternative approaches discussed in this article are
intriguing, but would require changes to state law before we could
consider them for Knox County.
Of Reading, Writing -- and Raising Kids,
By Noel Epstein, Washington Post, Sunday, November 27, 2005; Page
B0. Public
schools have become hybrid institutions that are raising our
children and suggests that the 'community school' model would let
others provide social services and let teachers focus on
teaching. Knox County has several Community Schools which
try to offer comprehensive services to the students and their
families.
It's
Not Just Poor Kids Who Need Attention, opinion piece in
the Washington Post, November 13, 2005, by Patrick Welsh, a
high school English teacher for the last 30 years. Welsh
brings up some interesting points about the potential downside to
"smaller learning communities" or academies, which is
something under discussion in Knox County. He also suggests
that our high stakes tests have placed too much emphasis on the
lowest common denominators, giving short shrift to average
students.
Researchers Tally Costs of Education Failings,
By Alan Richard, Education Week, November 2, 2005.
This article shows even more reasons why investing in education is
vital to the health and prosperity of our nation. One of the
researchers mentioned, Cecilia Rouse, taught me Education
Economics in graduate school at Princeton.
Big cost benefits of preschool -
4/18/05
Learning a lesson of consistency; test scores are up in Boston, but some find district's approach to school reform a tight fit,
BY SARAH CARR, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, January 18th, 2005.
