The NEGP WEEKLY for December 14, 2001
From: NEGPweek (NEGPWEEK@WESTAT.com)
Date: Wed Dec 19 2001 - 07:51:43 PST
*****************THE NEGP WEEKLY*****************
A weekly news update on America's Education Goals
and school improvement efforts across America from the
NATIONAL EDUCATION GOALS PANEL
Friday - December 14, 2001 -- Vol. 2 -- No. 129
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CONTENTS
**STATE POLICY
1.) Change In Plan: California Okays Accommodations (Goal 3)
2.) Missouri's Classroom Teachers: Fewer Men, Fewer Minorities (Goal 4)
**COMMUNITY AND LOCAL NEWS
3.) A Pioneer School: Students and Teachers Are Learning (Goals 3 & 4)
4.) Colorado's School Districts: Plans To Prevent Bullying (Goal 7)
**FEDERAL POLICY NEWS
5.) Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award: Education That Works (All
Goals)
**RESEARCH AND EDUCATION PRACTICE
6.) Warning Signs: Evident In Students Who Engage In School Violence (Goal
7)
7.) Reading = Math: More Reading In Math Texts (Goal 8)
**FEATURE STORY
8.) U.S. Students Average Among International Peers: An OECD Report
(Goals 3 & 5)
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STATE POLICY NEWS
********************
1.)******** Change In Plan: California Okays Accommodations
(Goal Three: Student Achievement and Citizenship)
The California Board of Education "modified" it's initial ban on the use of
calculators and reading aides made available to students taking the state's
new high school graduation exam (AP/SAN FRANCISCO GATE, 12/6). The change
allows the accommodations for students with dyslexia or other learning
differences.
Students labeled learning disabled who use calculators or aides to read
material in their regular classes will have that same help available during
the test. School districts will be responsible for certifying that learning
disabled students who used calculators or readers earned a passing score on
the exam and were doing high-school level work, explained Phil Garcia, a
spokesman for the board.
For more information, visit the California Board of Education at
http://www.cde.ca.gov. Click on CAHSEE Waiver Policy (December 5, 2001)
2.)******** Missouri's Classroom Teachers: Fewer Men, Fewer Minorities
(Goal Four: Teacher Education and Professional Development)
Missouri classroom teachers are more likely to be female, less likely to be
black and more likely to leave teaching after a few years, according to a
new study that examined the state's classroom teachers today and ten years
ago (Pierce, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 12/1). The report was released by the
Missouri School Board.
Findings include:
* male teachers dropped to 21.7 percent this year from 24 percent in 1991;
* black teachers dropped to 7 percent this year from 8.3 percent in 1991,
while the black student population increased from 15.6 percent to 17.4
percent over the same time period;
* teachers who leave within five years increased to 33.8 percent of those
hired in 1996 from 27.6 percent of those hired in 1991.
For more information on education in Missouri, visit the Missouri State
Board of Education at http://www.dese.state.mo.us/errors/404.html.
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COMMUNITY AND LOCAL NEWS
*************************
3.)******** A Pioneer School: Students and Teachers Are Learning
(Goal Three: Student Achievement and Citizenship and Goal Four: Teacher
Education and Professional Development)
Pioneer School in West Chicago has made dramatic improvements in student
achievement, which teachers and administrators attribute to better teacher
training and resources (Spencer, CHICAGO TRIBUEN, 12/7). The various
professional development initiatives are made possible through federal
grants for schools with low-income students, notes the paper.
Besides professional development improvements, Pioneer has initiated a new
focus on reading and language arts. Teachers use more non-fiction material
in reading classes and the school has purchased hundreds of new non-fiction
books for its library. "The goal is to provide kids with information they
might be exposed to on state achievement tests," writes the paper.
Principal Angel Rivera said that often this information is "general
knowledge for other kids."
This is the West Chicago Elementary school district. Then, search for
Pioneer School.
4.)******** Colorado's School Districts: Plans To Prevent Bullying
(Goal Seven: Safe and Drug-Free Schools)
School districts throughout Colorado are charged with developing a program
to reduce bullying as part of the state's "broad initiative" to prevent
school violence (Coeyman, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, 12/4). According to
the paper, the Cherry Creek, Colorado, school district is considered to have
"developed one of the best anti-bullying programs" years ago. Cherry Creek
School leaders have received an increase in requests for information since
the Columbine tragedy.
The MONITOR also reports that the most touted anti-bullying programs involve
all children and adults connected with the school system, including school
bus drivers and cafeteria aides. In these programs, adults are taught that
it is not acceptable to ignore bullying and children are asked to
contemplate what it means to be kind and fair and "how these relate to the
kind of world they would like to live in."
For more information, visit the CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR at
http://www.csmonitor.com. Search the archives for 12/4 issue.
*********************
FEDERAL POLICY NEWS
*********************
5.)******** Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award: Education That Works
(All Goals)
U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Page praised the three education recipients
of the 2001 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The winners are:
Chugach School District, Anchorage, Alaska; pearl River School District,
Pearl River, New York; and the University of Wisconsin-Stout, Menomonie,
Wisconsin.
Paige: "These three winners have made quality, accountability and results
hallmarks of their operations, and have set the bar of excellence high for
others."
Applicants for the education portion of the award must show achievements and
improvements in seven areas: leadership; strategic planning; student,
stakeholder and market focus; information and analysis; faculty and staff
focus; process management; and organizational performance results.
For more information, visit the National Institute of Standards and
Technology, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce at
http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/g01-110.
*********************************
RESEARCH AND EDUCATION PRACTICES
*********************************
6.)******** Warning Signs: Evident In Students Who Engage In School Violence
(Goal Seven: Safe And Drug-Free Schools)
Students preparing to engage in school violence send signals of their
intent, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical
Association. More than half of young people involved in school violence
"threatened others, wrote notes, got into fights or took other actions to
signal their deadly intentions," according to the study (Wetzstein,
WASHINGTON TIMES, 12/5).
Dr. Mark Anderson, of the division of violence prevention at the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), advises parents and school leaders to
actively look for warning signs of violence to stop it before it takes
place. CDC conducted the five-year study.
For more information, visit the Journal of the American Medical Association
at http://www.jama.com/html. See volume:286 (page: 2695), School-Associated
Violent Deaths in the United States, 1994-1999. Additional resources are
available from the U.S. Department of Education at
www.ed.gov/offices/OESE/SDFS/html or from the CDC at
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc.
7.)******** Reading = Math: More Reading In Math Texts
(Goal Five: Math and Science)
"There are more words on the page of math textbooks than there were in the
1980s and the late 1970s," notes Andrew Issacs, author of Everyday Math, an
elementary school textbook series. Issacs claims that students "retain
things better when they're part of a larger structure."
However, EDUCATION WEEK also reports that critics of the more-
reading-in-math approach argue that students who struggle with reading are
then barred from developing math skills (Hoff, 12/5). "A lot of my kids
might have been very talented in mathematics, but they didn't read well,"
said Matthew Clavel, a Teach for America teacher. "If you asked them to
read a word problem, it interfered with their ability to learn the math."
EDUCATION WEEK describes the reading-based math curriculum used at Public
School 176, located at the northern tip of Manhattan.
For more information, visit EDUCATION WEEK at http://www.edweek.com. Search
the archives for the December 5, 2001 issue.
*****************
FEATURE STORY
*****************
8.)******** U.S. Students Average Among International Peers: An OECD Report
(Goal Three: Student Achievement and Citizenship and Goal Five: Math and
Science)
America's 15-year-olds perform at the international average of their peers
in other highly industrialized countries in reading, mathematics and
science, according to the latest report issued by the Paris-based
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The study
examines the abilities of students from 32 of the most industrialized
countries.
The test called the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), was
developed by member nations to "devise a periodic, dependable measurement
that could help steer education policy," reports the L.A. TIMES (Groves,
12/4). The U.S. was one of 20 nations that achieved "average" scores in
reading. Finland, Canada and New Zealand scored significantly higher than
the U.S. average, while Greece, Portugal, Luxembourg and Mexico scored
significantly lower than the U.S.
Eight countries scored significantly higher in math than the U.S., including
Japan and South Korea, while five countries scored significantly lower. In
science, seven countries scored significantly higher than the U.S. average
and four nations scored lower. Japan and South Korea are the top performers
in math and science. Finland, Canada and New Zealand were the only
countries that achieved above-average performance in all three subjects.
"The reason the U.S. is average, on average, is that many people do badly,"
said Barry McGaw, OECD's deputy director for education. "What the U.S.
needs to do is to pull up the bottom. You don't have to sacrifice quality
to get equality."
U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige expressed disappointment with the
results. "Too many American students lack the ability to apply their
reading skills to real-life situations," he said.
Other findings include:
* female 15-year-olds out-perform male 15-year-olds in reading in every
participating country. However, there was no difference in performance
between males and females in math or science in the U.S.
* In the U.S., parents' education is strongly linked to differences in
student performance in reading, math and science, as it is in most other
OECD countries.
* PISA confirms results from other national and international studies that
show there are gaps in performance between racial and ethnic groups in the
U.S.
For more information on "Outcomes of Learning: Results from the 2000
Program for International Student Assessment of 15-Year-Olds in Reading,
Mathematics and Science Literacy, visit the National Center for Education
Statistics' PISA web site at http://www.nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/html.
************************************
The NEGP WEEKLY is a publication of:
The National Education Goals Panel
1255 22nd Street NW, Suite 502
Washington, DC 20037;
202-724-0015
NEGP Acting Executive Director: John Barth
Publisher: Barbara A. Pape
http://www.negp.gov
************************************
The NEGP/ Daily Report Card (DRC) hereby authorizes further reproduction and
distribution with proper acknowledgment.
To subscribe to (or unsubscribe from) the NEGP Weekly, respond to this email
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WHAT IS THE NATIONAL EDUCATION GOALS PANEL?
The National Education Goals Panel is a unique bipartisan body of state and
federal officials created in 1990 by President Bush and the nation's
Governors to report state and national progress and urge education
improvement efforts to reach the National Education Goals.
WHAT DOES THE GOALS PANEL DO?
The Goals Panel has been charged to:
* Report state and national progress toward the National Education Goals.
* Work to establish a system of high academic standards and assessments.
* Identify promising and effective reform strategies.
* Recommend actions for state, federal, and local governments to take.
* Build a nationwide, bipartisan consensus to achieve the Goals.
WHAT ARE THE NATIONAL EDUCATION GOALS?
There are eight National Education Goals set for the year 2000. They are:
1) All children will start school ready to learn.
2) The high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90%.
3) All students will become competent in challenging subject matter.
4) Teachers will have the knowledge and skills they need.
5) U.S. students will be first in the world in math and science achievement.
6) Every adult American will be literate.
7) Schools will be safe, disciplined, and free of drugs, guns and alcohol.
8) Schools will promote parental involvement and participation.
WHO SERVES ON THE GOALS PANEL AND HOW ARE THEY CHOSEN?
Eight governors, four state legislators, four members of the U.S. Congress,
and two members appointed by the President serve on the Goals Panel. Members
are appointed by the leadership of the National Governors' Association, the
National Conference of State Legislatures, the U.S. Senate and House, and
the President. The number of Republicans and Democrats are made even by
appointing five governors from the party that does not control the White
House.
The current Panel Members are Governors Frank O'Bannon, IN (Chair,
2001); Jim Geringer, WY (Chair-elect); John Engler, MI; Jim Hodges, SC;
Frank Keating, OK; Paul E. Patton, KY; Jeanne Shaheen, NH; Tom Vilsack,
IA;
U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman, NM; U.S. Senator Jim Jeffords, VT; U.S.
Representative George Miller, CA; Representative G. Spencer Coggs,
WI; Representative Mary Lou Cowlishaw, IL; Representative Douglas R.
Jones, ID; Senator Stephen Stoll, MO.
The annual Goals Report and other publications of the Panel are available
without charge upon request from the Goals Panel or at its web site
http://www.negp.gov. Requests can be made by mail, fax, e-mail, or Internet.
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