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Elementary Teachers Unprepared in Math, Study Says
Tweet Share on Facebook June 27, 2008 CommentMost education schools don't prepare elementary teachers well enough in math, researchers from the National Council on Teacher Quality say. A new study analyzed programs at 77 education schools across the country, which is about 5 percent of the institutions that offer elementary teacher certifications. The study found that 87 percent of the schools fail to provide the rigorous coursework elementary teachers need. Prospective teachers are expected to know little math before enrolling in teacher preparation programs, the study said; one out of six schools admit teachers without testing arithmetic knowledge. Schools that did test for math tested only content taught up to middle-school level, which is practically the same content required in state licensing exams.
The report says these findings might provide an explanation for American students' mediocre performance in mathematics compared with their counterparts abroad. According to a 2004 Trends in International Mathematics and Science study, U.S. fourth-graders ranked 12th out of 25 countries in math skills. Eighth-graders ranked 15th out of 44 countries.
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Education Takes Back Seat to Rising Gas Prices
Tweet Share on Facebook June 27, 2008 Comment (3)A new national poll shows that education has taken a back seat to rising gas prices and other pocketbook concerns. That's not all that surprising, given how little the presidential candidates have talked about education so far. But, interestingly, poll respondents ranked education as the third-most important issue, slightly ahead of healthcare.
The poll, which was released this week by the Washington, D.C.-based Public Education Network, an association of education advocates, is one of the first to measure the nation's attitudes toward education in this election year. The findings were not very encouraging. Among the respondents, 22 percent expressed concern about rising gas prices, while only 12 percent were concerned about education. Respondents did, however, voice worries that schools are moving in the wrong direction and that key players in education—like businesses and the media—have become too disengaged. Specifically, 4 in 10 Americans said that the quality of public schools nationwide has declined, compared with 15 percent who said that schools were improving. Respondents were evenly split about No Child Left Behind and whether it has made schools better or worse. (This week, a separate report by an independent research group showed that most states have been making academic progress since the law took effect in 2002.)
The poll found some frustration with the presidential candidates. Six in 10 respondents said the candidates are focusing too little on education. Still, 48 percent of them noted that education is "very important" or "one of the most important" issues in helping voters decide whom to choose as president. The findings represent the views of 1,220 adults who responded to a national telephone survey. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
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Tips for Avoiding Student Loan Scams
Tweet Share on Facebook June 26, 2008 Comment (7)Just in time for the college loan shopping season, which starts July 1, the Federal Trade Commission has posted a guide to avoid rip-offs.
One of the most important tips is to be very skeptical of any solicitation that looks like it is coming from the federal government. The U.S. Department of Education "does not send advertisements or mailers, or otherwise solicit consumers to borrow money. If you receive a student loan solicitation, it is not from ED," the FTC warns. U.S. News documented some misleading loan ads here and, in partnership with Simple Tuition, offers a tool to help you compare student loan prices.
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Study Says Student Reading and Math Scores Are Improving
Tweet Share on Facebook June 24, 2008 Comment (9)Since No Child Left Behind took effect about six years ago, most states have found some success narrowing the achievement gap between white and minority children. Student achievement in mathematics and reading has also improved in a majority of states. But it's impossible to say how much credit the federal education reform law deserves. These are the major findings of a new report (.pdf) by the Center on Education Policy, an independent group in Washington, D.C., that analyzes education reforms.
"We cannot draw a causal connection between these results and NCLB," Jack Jennings, president and chief executive officer of the group that conducted the study, said this week. He stressed that the report's findings are good news at a time when confidence in U.S. public schools is shaky. "We are moving in the direction of improving schools," he added.
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Plenty of Praise for Teach for America
Tweet Share on Facebook June 20, 2008 Comment (89)Teach for America has generated a lot of headlines this year. The nonprofit program, which recruits graduates of elite colleges to teach in some of the country's most disadvantaged schools, is on a winning streak: Applications jumped from 18,000 to nearly 25,000 this year, and a recent study by the Urban Institute finds that TFA teachers are more effective than those with traditional training, especially in math and science. Critics note that TFA recruits, who make a two-year commitment to the program, often leave when their second year is up, just as they are becoming most effective. But proponents say that those who leave often continue to be lifelong advocates. Here's a roundup of what's being said about TFA. What do you think?
The New York Times editorial board credits TFA teachers with helping children achieve at the highest levels in math and science and says that the United States must foster such programs if it is to continue to be a world power. The Times stresses the importance of recruiting teachers from selective colleges, as TFA does, and dubs most traditional teacher training programs "little more than diploma mills." Ouch!
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High School Grades and SAT: Still Best Predictor of College Success, Study Says
Tweet Share on Facebook June 18, 2008 Comment (12)Changes made to the SAT—mainly a writing section added in 2005—"did not substantially change how well the test predicts first-year college performance." That was one of the key findings contained in a study released this week by the College Board, which owns the SAT. The study says high school grades continue to be a slightly more accurate predictor of college success than SAT scores. If there was reason to be disappointed by those findings, College Board officials did not give any hint while announcing them to reporters. Laurence Bunin, who serves as the general manager of the SAT program, said the SAT is still the most reliable test "in an era when grade inflation at the high school level is a major problem." He strongly urges colleges to continue to use both high school grades and SAT scores to evaluate applicants. According to the research, grades and SAT scores—used together—are the best predictor of college success.
The College Board added the writing portion and made other changes to the math and reading sections of the SAT three years ago. At the time, critics complained that the verbal and math SAT was biased against certain groups and not a reliable measure of academic performance. The revamped SAT appeased some critics, like the University of California system, which had threatened to stop requiring the test. Others remained skeptical, choosing not to put too much emphasis on the SAT writing score. It's still too early to say how the new research from the College Board will alter the admissions landscape. Before the findings were officially released, the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, a nonprofit group in Cambridge, Mass., critical of standardized testing, issued a statement saying the changes to the SAT were "not a serious attempt to improve the test" and would not stop colleges from making the test an optional requirement for admission.
College Board officials said they are pleased with the changes they made and have no immediate plans to make any more changes to the SAT as a result of their research.
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Interpreting Obama's Views on Education
Tweet Share on Facebook June 17, 2008 Comment (185)Last week David Brooks wrote a column questioning whether Barack Obama is a force for change or just another empty political promise clothed in pretty words. To investigate—you know print media is between a rock and a poor place when op-ed writers are the ones doing the hard-hitting reporting—he reviewed the literature, casting a critical eye on Obama's education policies, of all things.
Brooks says education is a good area to probe because Obama is knowledgeable on the subject and because it clearly illustrates an ideological split within the Democratic Party where we see two camps: the status quo camp and the reform camp. The status quo camp argues that broad social factors—parenting, diet, neighborhood, etc.—drive low levels of achievement and high dropout rates. They focus on pursuing factors American schools have been trying to implement for a while, such as smaller class sizes and better teacher training. The reformist camp, which includes school chiefs like Joel Klein in New York and Michelle Rhee in Washington, stresses accountability and insists that teachers and schools can have a tremendous impact, external factors notwithstanding.
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Princeton's Admissions Policies Investigated
Tweet Share on Facebook June 16, 2008 Comment (28)Do elite universities hold Asian-Americans to higher standards than other applicants? Do Ivy League schools set caps on the number of high-achieving minority students admitted, comparing Asian-American applicants against one another instead of the rest of the applicant pool? These questions were recently recharged by word that the Education Department will broaden its investigation of Princeton University's admissions process, a probe that began after an applicant filed a federal civil rights complaint saying the school spurned him because of his race.
Jian Li, 19, was rejected from Princeton and four other elite institutions in 2006 even though he had perfect SAT scores and graduated in the top 1 percent of his high school class. Li, who was enrolled at Yale and now studies at Harvard, cited a white classmate from his high school who was admitted to Princeton with lower test scores and grades as alleged proof of racial discrimination.
Princeton says it did not discriminate against Li, stating that for the year he applied, 14 percent of enrolled students were of Asian descent and that the school admitted only half of the applicants with perfect SAT scores. The Education Department initially rejected Li's claim because of lack of evidence, but has just announced it will launch a broader "compliance review" to see if Princeton complies with federal civil rights regulations in its policies. A spokesman for the Education Department told the Wall Street Journal the inquiry "in no way implies" the agency has made up its mind on the complaint's legitimacy. Similar investigations were conducted in the early 1990s at University of California-Berkeley, which dropped a policy that limited enrollment of students with Asian ethnicities, and Harvard University, which wasn't charged with any violations.
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NYC High School Student Researches Hugging
Tweet Share on Facebook June 13, 2008 Comment (9)I was walking through Union Square recently, on a weekend trip to New York, when something caught my eye. A half dozen or so high school students were standing on the corner alongside the subway hoisting signs that read "free hugs!" I had read about this kind of thing a few years back, I thought, and was pretty sure I'd seen something about it on YouTube. My friend was running late, so I spent a few minutes watching these students cuddle with strangers, before I noticed one of them was taking notes then asked her what she was working on.
Subconscious racism, she explained matter-of-factly. "I'm trying to get at the psychological side of it," she said. The student was a freshman at Talent Unlimited High School in Manhattan conducting research for an "I-Search" paper, the culminating project of her school year. The concept was simple: Who hugs whom? She recruited students of various races and genders to take turns standing on the street corner soliciting hugs for half hour intervals. Meanwhile, she kept a running tally on the gender and race of the huggers and huggees. When it was ambiguous? "We asked," she said, though sometimes "it was awkward."
The student noted in her paper that the black female from their group, who also was a freshman at Talent Unlimited High School, got more hugs than anyone. "No matter whose turn it was to stand on the corner, people would see [the black girl] and say, 'Oh can I get a hug from her?'", the researcher said. Though the project clearly doesn't say anything definitive about racism, one could do worse than to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon probing the finer points of hugs.
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Special Certification Signals Good Teachers
Tweet Share on Facebook June 13, 2008 Comment (6)What is the mark of a good teacher? While top teachers can be hard to identify, those certified through the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards are a good bet, according to a new report. Students taught by NBPTS-certified teachers make greater gains on achievement tests than students taught by teachers who are not board certified, according to the report "Assessing Accomplished Teaching: Advanced-Level Certification Programs."
The analysis, done by a committee of the National Research Council, looked at student performance on standardized tests in reading and math (as an aside, the critics grumble that such tests are not an adequate measurement of achievement). While the report clearly signals that students taught by board certified teachers outperform their peers in these subjects, it remains unclear whether the certification process itself results in better teaching, or if better teachers are drawn to the certification process initially. The findings were based on academic studies of students in Florida, North Carolina, and California from the years 1994 though 2005 and were part of a larger report from the National Research Council.
