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High School Seniors' Geography Scores Don't Improve
Tweet Share on Facebook July 20, 2011 Comment (1)High school seniors' scores on a national geography assessment showed no improvement between 2001 and 2010, and scores have declined from 1994 levels, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests students from both public and private schools in a variety of subjects in order to gauge national trends in achievement levels. Subject tests are given to students in 4th, 8th, and 12th grades; the last time the geography test was given was in 2001.
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Maryland to Require Environmental Literacy for Graduation
Tweet Share on Facebook July 18, 2011 Comment (2)On June 21, Maryland became the first state to require high school students to learn about the environment in order to graduate. Now, U.S. senators are trying to get a similar measure passed nationally.
The bill has the support of more than 1,900 organizations, including businesses, nonprofits, and environmental groups. The No Child Left Inside Coalition says environmental education "promotes higher order thinking skills" and is correlated with higher test scores.
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Close Achievement Gap by Discussing Race, Expert Says
Tweet Share on Facebook July 15, 2011 Comment (17)In a country where white students vastly outperform black and Hispanic students on national standardized tests, one education innovator says the performance gap can be eliminated on a school-by-school basis by having honest discussions with teachers about race.
"We like to create proxies for conversations around race," says Glenn Singleton, president and CEO of Pacific Educational Group, a consulting firm based in San Francisco that's dedicated to addressing racial education disparities. "We talk about poverty, not recognizing that poor white kids outperform poor black and brown kids."
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Interim Chief Begins Cleaning up Atlanta Public Schools
Tweet Share on Facebook July 13, 2011 Comment (3)Three year-round elementary schools in the Atlanta Public School system opened this morning, including two implicated in one of the largest cheating scandals in K-12 public education.
Boyd Elementary and Hutchinson Elementary both hired new principals earlier this week after their former principals were removed. Interim schools chief Erroll Davis Jr. has started cleaning up a district in which 178 teachers and principals were found to be cheating on standardized tests according to an investigative report by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal. Last week, the Atlanta school board gave Davis a yearlong term to help the district navigate through the scandal.
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Ex-Gang Members Help Students Escape Violent Groups
Tweet Share on Facebook July 13, 2011 Comment (3)After record-low gang activity during the early 2000s, gang prevalence and activity have spiked nationally over the past several years, according to a report released in May by the National Gang Center, a government organization.
Gangs were active in 34.5 percent of police jurisdictions polled, and the center estimates that there are 731,000 gang members in 28,100 gangs. In 2001, only 23.9 percent of jurisdictions reported gang activity.
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Carnegie Launches Open-Source STEM Network
Tweet Share on Facebook July 11, 2011 Comment (1)When President Obama promised 100,000 new science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) teachers over the next 10 years during his State of the Union address in January, it may have seemed like an unrealistic goal. However, officials at several nonprofits, businesses, and universities saw it as a call to action.
Dozens of organizations, led by the nonprofit Carnegie Corporation of New York, have banded together to form 100kin10, a coalition that hopes to increase the number of qualified teachers, retain top performing teachers, and build a movement to improve STEM education in the U.S., which has fallen to the middle of the pack globally.
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Atlanta Gives Interim Chief a Year to Clean up Cheating Scandal
Tweet Share on Facebook July 8, 2011 Comment (2)The Atlanta school board has suspended a search for its next superintendent as the city tries to figure out what to do amidst one of the largest cheating scandals in U.S. history.
School board officials decided Thursday to give interim chief Erroll Davis Jr. a one-year term to clean up a school system that suffered from widespread cheating on state standardized tests, according to a report released Tuesday by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal. More than 75 percent of the 56 schools investigated cheated on a 2009 state standardized test. More than 80 teachers confessed to changing students' answers and other misconduct.
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Educators Implicated in Atlanta Cheating Scandal
Tweet Share on Facebook July 7, 2011 Comment (27)For 10 years, hundreds of Atlanta public school teachers and principals changed answers on state tests in one of the largest cheating scandals in U.S. history, according to a scathing 413-page investigative report released Tuesday by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal.
More than three quarters of the 56 schools investigated cheated on a 2009 standardized state test, with 178 educators implicated, including 38 principals. Eighty-two teachers confessed to erasing students' answers and correcting tests. The report says widespread cheating has occurred since at least 2001 and that orders to cheat came from the top.
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NEA Says Testing May Play Role in Teacher Evaluations
Tweet Share on Facebook July 6, 2011 CommentThe National Education Association (NEA), the nation's largest teachers union, made a key change to its stance regarding teacher evaluations Monday.
In the past, the union strongly rejected including student assessment results as any part of teacher evaluations. With more districts incorporating state and national test results into teacher evaluations, the union voted at its national conference in Chicago to change its policy. The 3.2 million-member organization, which represents many public school teachers and support staff, agreed that evidence of student learning should be considered in teacher evaluations.
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International Baccalaureate Creates 4,000th Program Worldwide
Tweet Share on Facebook July 5, 2011 Comment (5)In late May, the International Baccalaureate (IB), a nonprofit educational foundation, introduced its 4,000th program worldwide at an international school in Wuxi, China. The rapidly growing program has doubled in size over the past five years, even as U.S. high schools face budget cuts.
Founded in 1968 in Geneva, Switzerland, the IB Diploma Program was formed to prepare students for college, with a focus on creating "world citizens" who would be able to live and work internationally. Today, the program is being used by 3,288 schools in 141 countries (some schools that teach students of all ages operate more than one type of IB program, as there are programs for elementary and middle school students as well). High school students completing the diploma program can receive college credit if they pass IB exams, much like students who pass Advanced Placement (AP) exams.
