Education Research Report

A new study in the journal Learning Disabilities Research & Practice reveals that differences found between pre-kindergarten reading-disabled children and their typically reading peers diminish in various measures by pre-first grade, with the exception of phonological awareness abilities.

Susan Lambrecht Smith, Kathleen A. Scott, Jenny Roberts, and John L. Locke assessed children’s alphabetic knowledge, phonological awareness (known as the conscious sensitivity to the sound structure of language), and rapid naming skills at the beginning of kindergarten and again prior to first grade as a function of later reading outcomes.

Results show that prior to kindergarten, children with reading disabilities were distinguished from their typically developing reading counterparts by their performance on tasks of letter knowledge, phonological awareness, and rapid naming skills. However, between these groups, only differences in skills related to phonological awareness persisted beyond the kindergarten year.

Measures of phonological awareness distinguished the reading disabled group from the control group at Pre-K and Pre-1. These results are consistent with observations that phonological awareness is a strong predictor of reading disability in both children at general risk and genetic risk of reading difficulty.

“Our findings have implications not only for initial assessment and identification, but also for how progress in early literacy skills is viewed,” the authors conclude.

Enhanced Reading Opportunities: Findings from the Second Year of Implementation"

This is the second report on the impact of two supplemental literacy programs, "Reading Apprenticeship Academic Literacy” (RAAL) and "Xtreme Reading" (XR) that aim to improve the reading comprehension skills and school performance of struggling ninth-grade readers. The report describes the effects of the programs on the second group of students entering high schools with Smaller Learning Communities who are two to five years behind grade level in reading. Taken together, the programs produced a statistically significant impact on reading comprehension among the students who were randomly assigned to participate in the supplemental literacy programs equivalent to 1 to 2 months of instruction compared to those who did not participate in the programs.

Analyzed separately, RAAL had a statistically significant impact on reading comprehension while XR did not have a statistically significant impact on reading comprehension. No statistically significant impacts were found on student's vocabulary test scores or their use of reading behaviors promoted by the programs.

Report:

http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20094036.asp

Reading First Impact Study Final Report

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 created the Reading First program to help ensure that all students can read at or above grade level by the end of third grade. The law required an independent, rigorous evaluation of the program. The Reading First Impact Study Final Report provides an update of previously released impact findings on student reading comprehension and classroom reading instruction using an additional year of data (2006-07). In addition, the report includes information on the impact of the program on first grade students’ decoding skill in 2006-07 as well as an examination of the relationship between classroom instruction and student reading comprehension.

The results indicate that Reading First produced statistically significant positive impacts on multiple reading practices promoted by the program, such as the amount of instructional time spent on the five essential components of reading instruction and professional development in scientifically based reading instruction. Reading First did not produce a statistically significant impact on student reading comprehension test scores in grades one, two or three. However, there was a positive and statistically significant impact on first grade students’ decoding skills in spring 2007.

Full report:

http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pdf/20094038.pdf

States with Genuinely Alternative Teacher Certification Programs Have Greater Representation of Minority Teachers in Schools and Higher Achievement Gains among Students, New Study Finds

States with teacher certification programs that provide a genuine alternative pathway for teacher candidates -- those that require substantially fewer credits than the usual 30 demanded by most certification programs -- have a greater representation of minority teachers and higher classroom learning gains than states that have no alternative certification or a purely symbolic one, according to a new study by Paul E. Peterson, director of the Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG), and PEPG research associate Daniel Nadler published in Education Next .

Using data from the Office for Civil Rights, the U.S. Department of Education, and the U.S. Census Bureau, Peterson and Nadler were able to determine the ratio of minority representation in states’ teaching forces. They found that nationwide, little more than half as many minorities are teachers as would be expected given the minority composition of the adult population. In states with genuine alternative certification programs, however, minorities are represented at a ratio three times greater than in states with a merely symbolic or no alternative certification option.

Peterson and Nadler also found that students attending schools in states with genuine alternative certification programs gained more on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) than did students in the other states. In states that had genuine alternative certification, test-score gains on the NAEP exceeded those in the other states by 4.8 points in 4th grade math and 7.6 points in 8th-grade math. In reading, the additional gains in the states with genuine alternative certification were 10.6 points and 3.9 points for the two grade levels, respectively. Test-score gains were also larger among African Americans in the states with genuine alternative certification. The analysis controlled for demographic factors and for changes in class size and school expenditures.

In 14 of the 16 states that report the ethnic background of alternatively certified teachers, Peterson and Nadler found that the percentage of minority teachers that are alternatively certified exceeds the percentage of minorities in the state’s teaching force as a whole by a wide margin. In Mississippi, for example, the disparities are massive: 60 percent of the more than 800 teachers who were alternatively certified in 2004–05 were of minority background, while the overall Mississippi teaching force is just 26 percent minority. Other states where percentage differences between the two groups exceed at least 10 percentage points include California, Delaware, and Texas.

“There is every reason to believe that alternative certification is key to recruiting more minorities into the teaching profession,” Peterson points out.

Only 21 of the 47 states that provide an alternative pathway for teacher certification have truly alternative programs, according to Peterson and Nadler. In seven of the 21 states candidates are only required to pass a test, while 14 of the 21 require substantially reduced coursework than the average alternative program, which often encumber candidates with a course load nearly as heavy as their traditional certification program.

In states that offer genuine alternative certification, 28 percent of newly certified teachers chose the alternative route compared to only 5 percent in states that do not offer a genuine alternative pathway. Altogether, 92 percent of those with an alternative teaching certificate received it in one of the states that have such certification in reality as well as in name.

“Hardly anyone bothers with an alternative certificate if the requirements are essentially the same as for the traditional one,” Peterson notes.

To find out whether your state has a genuine alternative teacher certification program, read “What Happens When States Have Genuine Alternative Certification?”:

http://media.hoover.org/documents/ednext_20091_70.pdf

CORE PROBLEMS: Out-of-Field Teaching Persists in Key Academic Courses, Especially in America's High-Poverty and High-Minority Schools

In America’s secondary schools, low-income students and students of color are about twice as likely as other students to be enrolled in core academic classes taught by out-of-field teachers, according to a report released by The Education Trust.

Out-of-field teachers are those who possess neither certification in the subject they have been assigned to teach nor an academic major in that subject.

In middle and high school mathematics, for example:

· Four in ten classes in high-poverty schools are taught by an out-of-field teacher, compared with 16.9 percent in schools serving the fewest low-income students.

· In schools with high percentages of African-American and Latino students, nearly one-third of mathematics classes are taught by out-of-field teachers, compared with 15.5 percent in schools with relatively few minority students.

While out-of-field teaching is particularly acute in mathematics and in high-poverty and high-minority schools, the problem is pervasive. Nationwide, more than 17 percent of all core academic courses (English, math, social studies, and science) in grades 7-12 are taught by an out-of-field teacher. In the middle grades alone, the rate jumps to 40 percent.

These data, from an analysis by Richard M. Ingersoll of the University of Pennsylvania, underscore one of the most pressing challenges facing our schools, our policymakers, and our nation: ensuring that all students have access to the strong teachers they need to succeed in school and beyond.

“Conversations about the achievement gap often turn too easily to what’s not happening in students’ homes. These data make clear that we need to put much more emphasis on what’s not happening in classrooms,” said Ross Wiener, vice president of The Education Trust. “Unless we boost the overall strength of our teaching force and ensure that all young people have equal access to well-prepared teachers, other strategies to improve student achievement are unlikely to succeed.”

Seven years ago, Congress attempted to remedy this problem by requiring that all core academic classes be taught by “highly qualified” teachers and by asking districts and states to assure that poor and minority children were not taught disproportionately by inexperienced, unqualified, or out-of-field teachers. However, the federal law gave states wide latitude to define “highly qualified,” and most states used that discretion to deem nearly every teacher as “highly qualified.” The U.S. Department of Education essentially looked the other way, refusing to use its authority to press states either to set high standards for teachers or to solve the equity problems.

As a result of this inattention, secondary teachers certified in one subject continue to be assigned frequently to teach classes in additional subjects for which they are often unqualified and unprepared. And states may be sweeping this problem under the rug.

In 2003-04, for example, Arizona reported that 94.4 percent of the core academic classes in the state’s secondary schools were taught by teachers who met state “highly qualified” requirements. However, when Arizona teachers responded to a federal survey that same year, they indicated that only 58.4 percent of core classes were taught by someone who was actually certified in the subject they were teaching. By no means is Arizona alone: In 17 states, there was gap of at least 20 percentage points between what the state reported to the federal government and what teachers themselves said they were teaching with in-field certification.

Rather than ignoring the problem, a handful of leaders in K-12 and higher education have stepped up to the plate to improve the ways in which teachers are prepared and recruited:

· The University of Texas at Austin, the University of North Carolina System, and the University System of Georgia are working to develop strong teachers to fill local needs, both for the projected number of new teachers overall as well as in subject-specific areas.

· Louisiana committed to overhauling all teacher-preparation programs in the state, both traditional and alternative routes. As part of this overhaul, the state examines student achievement data and holds teacher-preparation programs accountable for their graduates’ ability to improve student learning.

· Teacher residency programs in such places as Boston and Chicago are modeled after the medical school formula. These place teacher candidates for one year in the school in which they will work, so they can learn alongside accomplished mentor teachers before being assigned to their own classrooms.

· Teach for America and The New Teacher Project are recruiting individuals with strong content knowledge, particularly in math and science, to teach in high-poverty and high-minority schools throughout the United States.

· Denver Public Schools and Guilford County (N.C.) Public Schools provide financial incentives to attract the best teachers to work in hard-to-staff subjects and schools.

“These are bright spots in an otherwise bleak landscape. As a nation, we must commit ourselves to ensuring that all students – no matter where they live – are taught by strong teachers,” said Kati Haycock, president of The Education Trust. “It’s astonishing that in America, a country dedicated to opportunity for all, we are still assigning our most vulnerable children to the teachers with the weakest capacity to teach them what they need to know.”  

Complete report:

http://www2.edtrust.org/NR/rdonlyres/0D6EB5F1-2A49-4A4D-A01B-881CD2134357/0/SASSreportCoreProblems.pdf

Survey: Educators Want Solutions to Avoid Traditional Cookie Cutter Instruction

New Research Commissioned by Thinkronize Shows More Than 85% of Principals and Teachers Want Web Resources to Help with Differentiated Instruction

More Than 60% Agree That Districts Should Invest More in Digital Resources

Although educators agree that individual children learn best in different ways, today’s classroom is not well equipped for customized learning. In a new national survey of principals and teachers, more than 80% of educators expressed a need for resources that enable differentiated instruction to reach all students—based on the different reading levels, prior knowledge, interests, and learning styles students bring to the classroom. More than 85% of those surveyed wanted access to Web resources that can help accomplish this.

This third annual survey, Schools and Generation ‘Net, was conducted in October 2008 by Interactive Educational Systems Design (IESD), an independent research firm, and was commissioned by Thinkronize, Inc.

Today’s teachers are challenged to find resources that are both aligned to state standards and designed to engage every child in the learning process. The survey found that more than 70% of principals and nearly 70% of teachers expressed a need for assistance in finding resources that meet state curriculum standards. And four out of five educators (80%) agreed that they need multimedia Web resources, such as digital images, video, animation, and voice, to both stimulate and motivate their students.

“It is evident from this survey that principals and teachers need and value resources that foster differentiated instruction and that much of this material comes from the Web,” said Thinkronize CEO Randy Wilhelm. “We need to re-look at the $4 billion spent on instructional print materials and invest those dollars in digital resources that provide every child with a customized learning experience, every day.”

The survey results indicate that many educators agree with Wilhelm. More than 60% of principals and teachers responded that their districts should be spending more of their instructional materials budgets on Web-based resources and other digital resources.

“At a time when the need for powerful educational resources has never been higher, this study of educator's needs and wants shows a strong desire to transition from print to online resources delivered through the Web,” said David Thornburg, Ph.D., futurist, lecturer, author and director of global operations, Thornburg Center. “Anyone who has any questions about the design and implementation of these resources needs only to look at the survey details for solid affirmation of this shift in content access, and the charge to meet these needs in ways that are flexible and of value to teachers and students alike. This study shows, clearly, the benefits that await those who make the transition.”

Survey results also confirmed that the Internet represents a widely used and valuable resource for K-8 students, with more than 75% of teachers reporting that they were using the Internet for instructional purposes on a regular basis. And when planning and implementing instruction, about 75% of teachers and more than 85% of principals strongly agreed or somewhat agreed that student searching on the Internet has been integrated into the curriculum.

However, principals and teachers have significant concerns about students’ abilities to find resources on the Internet that are a good match for their instructional needs. More than 80% were either very concerned or somewhat concerned about students finding resources with content that is neither age nor grade appropriate. And approximately two-thirds of principals and teachers were either very concerned or somewhat concerned about students getting useless or irrelevant results when using search engines like Google® or Yahoo™.

This survey of 497 principals and 796 teachers in K-8 was conducted online in October 2008. It has a margin of sampling error of 2.7% across both types of educators. The margin of error is 3.5% for teacher findings and 4.4% for principal findings.

Survey Highlights Discord Between Executives and Educators on Role Business Can Play to Improve the U.S. Education System

While an overwhelming majority (81 percent) of academics and business executives believe the quality of the U.S. education system would improve if businesses took a more active role, the two audiences have opposing views on exactly how businesses can aid in the improvement process, according to the findings of the “Deloitte 2008 Business in Education” survey.

A mere 12 percent of educators think that businesses involvement in curricula development would definitely provide improvement, compared to 41 percent of business executives. Similarly only 14 percent of educators say businesses should definitely help set national standards, versus 42 percent of executives who say so.

While academics and business leaders disagree on businesses’ role in education, the two groups do see eye to eye when it comes to education’s impact on the economy. Over 66 percent of all respondents believe that the competitiveness of the U.S. economy will continue to be seriously jeopardized if businesses do not take a more active role in improving the U.S. education system.

Details:

· Seventy-one percent of all respondents believe that businesses should increase involvement in the education system.

· Eighty-eight percent of business executives say that the quality of the education system would improve if businesses were more involved, 74 percent of educators agree with the same statement—however, the same exact amount (74 percent) of educators also says that businesses would use their involvement in education for self-serving purposes.

· Interestingly, more business executives (52 percent) than educators (45 percent) say that the independence of our education system would be compromised if business were involved in education.

· Similarly, 61 percent of business executives think there would be less focus on liberal arts and other non-business oriented disciplines if businesses were involved in education, compared to 51 percent of educators.

· That said, educators think the best way for businesses to get involved is through financial contributions: Ninety-seven percent of educators say funding and monetary donations; 96 percent say establishing scholarships and 96 percent say donating equipment are the best ways for businesses to help improve the education system.

· Offering pro-bono services, volunteerism by business executives and volunteerism by other employees, however, are not as highly ranked by educators: 86, 83 and 81 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, these are all fairly highly ranked by business executives, 90, 89 and 86 percent, respectively.

· But, an overwhelming majority of educators (94 percent) are very enthusiastic about getting businesses to encourage their employees to get involved in education, and 76 percent of educators say that the best way to encourage employees to get involved is by offering better flexible time-off policies to volunteer.

As Popularity of Home Schooling Grows, Greater Numbers and More Diversity among Families Choosing Option

Home schooling is now popular among a broader and more representative group of the American public than ever before. According to recent findings from the Education Next/Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) 2008 national education survey, 45 percent of Americans report that they know a family that home schools a child--up from 40 percent in 2007--and 64 percent of public school teachers report knowing a home schooling family.

Interestingly, household income levels of home schooling families closely mirror those of public school families, reports education professor Milton Gaither in the new issue of Education Next. Among both homeschooling families and public school families, about 26 percent have an income of $25,000 or less; less than 10 percent of private school families come from the same income bracket. On the other end of the spectrum, less than 22 percent of homeschooling families and slightly more than 25 percent of public school families have an income of more than $75,000, compared to 50 percent of private school families.

U.S. Department of Education data shows the overall number of homeschooled children increased by 29 percent to 1.1 million students between 1999 and 2003. Among minorities, h ome schooling increased by 20 percent to over a quarter of a million students over the same period. Movement leaders suggest even higher overall estimates of around 2 to 2.5 million homeschoolers nationwide.

As the popularity of homeschooling has grown, the College Board has seen the number of home schoolers who take Advanced Placement tests more than triple. Colleges and universities are also reporting an increase in applications by students without a traditional high-school background, spurring the creation of new admissions policies to explicitly address home-schooling. In 1986, no more than 10 percent of the nation’s colleges and universities had such admissions policies; by 2004, over 75 percent did.

The advent of online education and the rise of cyber charter schools may account for some of the extraordinary growth in home schooling in recent years. Led by states like Florida, which enrolled more than 52,000 students in its statewide virtual school for 2006-07, there are now 22 states and several local districts with online learning programs which enable students to do some or all of their schooling at home. Cyber charters have seen a similar rising trend of interest: as of 2006, 18 states had a combined total of 147 virtual charter schools educating over 65,000 students.

At the same time, public school districts with high rates of home schooling have seen significant drops in funding as district enrollments have declined. Many school districts, having lost early fights to criminalize home schooling, now openly court home schoolers. With millions of per pupil funding dollars at stake, some districts are being motivated to innovate in exciting ways that are more responsive to the needs of their families. Some school districts are experimenting with programs that allow students to home school for part of the day but take certain classes at the local public school; others are offering à la carte classes and services through satellite campuses at strip malls and other locations.

“It’s likely we’ll see more accommodation, adaptation, and hybridization taking place as U.S. education policy strives to catch up to the sweeping demographic, economic and technological changes that are affecting our schools,” says Gaither .

To learn more about the new trend in home schooling, read “Home Schooling Goes Mainstream” :

http://media.hoover.org/documents/ednext_20091_10.pdf

Measures that Matter - Making College and Career Readiness the Mission For America's High Schools

America’s young people are being woefully underprepared for life after high school. While the importance of postsecondary education and training has never been greater, four of every 10 college students need to take remedial courses. Among African-American and Latino students, that number rises to six out of 10. And sadly, students who take remedial courses in college are much more likely to drop out. This preparation gap is taking a real toll on our high school graduates, and on our economy and society as a whole.

Obviously our schools need to change. To spur progress, state policy makers need a new approach to the system of standards, tests, and accountability in high school – one that makes college and career readiness the central driver and acknowledges where greater state leadership and resources are essential to success.

Measures that Matter is a joint, ongoing effort by Achieve and The Education Trust to address that challenge, providing strategic and technical guidance to states in creating a coherent set of policies designed to get all students college- and career-ready. Informed by a distinguished advisory group of state and national experts representing diverse perspectives, the two organizations conducted research and commissioned white papers on critical topics, emerging with guidance that state leaders can use to advance their efforts.

The Measures that Matter materials were used for the first time earlier this week by eight states attending the College & Career Ready Policy Institute. These participating states have committed to creating college- and career-ready assessment and accountability systems and are using the Measures that Matter tools to guide their planning and work.

“The time has come to rethink not only what we expect of students and but also what we ask of our high schools and the leaders who are responsible for them,” said Matt Gandal, Executive Vice President of Achieve. “College and career readiness must be the goal for all students and in order for this goal to become a reality, states will need to make changes in what they measure, how they measure it, and how they structure their accountability systems to encourage all schools to aim higher. If we tell students they are proficient that must mean they are prepared for the opportunities that await them in the real world.”

While states are at very different points in this work, most will not be starting from scratch. There has been rapid progress in some areas, especially raising high school standards and graduation requirements to align with the expectations of employers and higher education. Yet even the states that are the farthest along with this work are, at best, only halfway to the goal of a truly aligned system. Measures that Matter is designed to help all states, wherever they may be in this process, take the necessary steps to put the full set of policies in place.

“There is a lot of work for states to align standards, assessments and accountability with the demands of life after high school," said Ross Wiener, Vice President of The Education Trust. “But these changes alone won't be enough to get everyone pulling in the same direction. The next generation of state policy needs to give teachers and students meaningful goals to aim for, and needs to provide more useful information and stronger curriculum and instructional support to help them succeed.”

The Measures that Matter materials are organized around what the two groups think of as “a new set of basics” for what states have to get right at the high school level: standards, course requirements, curriculum and teacher support materials, aligned assessments, and an information/accountability system that supports real-time action from critical players.

Complete report:

http://www2.edtrust.org/NR/rdonlyres/C95222E3-A526-4E70-9FC6-52B93C10FD01/0/MakingCollegeandCareerReadinesstheMission111908.pdf

The smart way to study

Combine the aphorisms that "practice makes perfect" and "timing is everything" into one and you might get something resembling findings published in this month's issue of Psychological Science. Proper spacing of lessons, the researchers report, can dramatically enhance learning. And larger gaps between study sessions result in better recall of facts.

Conversely: Cramming – whether it's math for a midterm or a foreign language in anticipation of a trip abroad – is not effective in the long haul.

Led by Hal Pashler and John Wixted, professors of psychology at UC San Diego, the study has implications for education.

In light of the study, the coauthors write, "it appears no longer premature for psychologists to offer some rough practical guidelines to those who wish to use study time in the most efficient way possible to promote long-term retention."

More than 1,000 subjects participated in three sessions. In the first session, they were taught a set of such obscure but true facts as Norway is the European nation that consumes the most spicy Mexican food and Rudyard Kipling invented snow golf. The second session was a review of the same facts. The time between the sessions ranged from several minutes to several months. Study time was held constant in all the conditions. After some further delay, up to about one year, subjects were then tested.

Not surprisingly, when the interval between the second session and the test was increased, memory got worse – reflecting the familiar curve of forgetting. The interesting finding, however, was that increasing the time between the study sessions reduced the rate of forgetting. This reduction in forgetting was very large – sometimes increasing the likelihood that information would be recalled in the final session by 50 percent.

"The finding that greater spacing between study sessions can enhance later memory was expected, given prior research going back over a century. The results of our study revealed a number of new facts that were not known, however," said Pashler, who heads the Attention and Perception Lab at UCSD. "First, the study used much longer time intervals than in prior research, and it turned out that effects were larger than those seen in earlier studies using much shorter time periods. Second, the results showed that there is an optimal value for the delay between the initial study and the final test, and that this optimal delay varies with the final retention interval: the longer the final retention interval, the longer the optimum delay between study and review."

The results suggest, Pashler said, the optimal amount of time over which learning should take place depends upon how long the information needs to be retained: "If you want to remember information for just a week, it is probably best if study sessions are spaced out over a day or two. On the other hand, if you want to remember information for a year, it is best for learning to be spaced out over about a month."

Extrapolating from the results, he added, "it seems plausible that whenever the goal is for someone to remember information over a lifetime, it is probably best for them to be re-exposed to it over a number of years."

"The results imply," said Pashler, "that instruction that packs a lot of learning into a short period is likely to be extremely inefficient, at least for remembering factual information."

In a general way, Pashler said, the results also support the use of software designed to provide spaced review, such as the open-source Mnemosyne Project.

Sleep Helps People Learn Complicated Tasks

Sleep helps the mind learn complicated tasks and helps people recover learning they otherwise thought they had forgotten over the course of a day, research at the University of Chicago shows.

Using a test that involved learning to play video games, researchers showed for the first time that people who had “forgotten” how to perform a complex task 12 hours after training found that those abilities were restored after a night’s sleep.

“Sleep consolidated learning by restoring what was lost over the course of a day following training and by protecting what was learned against subsequent loss,” said Howard Nusbaum, Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago, and a researcher in the study. “These findings suggest that sleep has an important role in learning generalized skills in stabilizing and protecting memory.”

The results demonstrate that this consolidation may help in learning language processes such as reading and writing as well as eye-hand skills such as tennis, he said.

For the study, researchers tested about 200 college students, most of whom were women, who had little previous experience playing video games. The team reported the findings in the paper, “Consolidation of Sensorimotor Learning During Sleep,” in the current issue of Learning and Memory. Joining Nusbaum in the research were lead author Timothy Brawn, a graduate student in Psychology at the University; Kimberly Fenn, now an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Michigan State University; and Daniel Margoliash, Professor in the Departments of Organismal Biology & Anatomy and Psychology at the University.

The team had students learn video games containing a rich, multisensory virtual environment in which players must use both hands to deal with continually changing visual and auditory signals. The first-person navigation games require learning maps of different environments.

For the study, researchers used first-person shooter games, with the goal of killing enemy bots (software avatars that play against the participant) while avoiding being killed.

The subjects were given a pre-test to determine their initial performance level on the games. Then they were trained to play the games and later tested on their performance. One group was trained in the morning and then tested 12 hours later after being awake for that time. A second group was trained in the morning and then tested the next day, 24 hours after being trained. Another group was trained in the evening, then tested 12 hours after a night’s sleep and a fourth group was trained in the evening and then also tested 24 hours after training.

When trained in the morning subjects showed an 8 percentage point improvement in accuracy immediately after training. However after 12 waking hours following training, subjects lost half of that improvement when tested in the evening. When subjects were tested the next morning 24 hours after training, they showed a 10 percentage point improvement over their pre-test performance.

“The students probably tested more poorly in the afternoon because following training, some of their waking experiences interfered with training. Those distractions went away when they slept and the brain was able to do its work,” Nusbaum said.

Among the students who received evening training, scores improved by about 7 percentage points, and went to 10 percentage points the next morning and remained at that level throughout the day.

The study follows Fenn, Nusbaum and Margoliash’s earlier work, published in Nature, which showed for the first time that sleep consolidates perceptual learning of synthetic speech.

“In that study we showed that if after learning, by the end of the day, people ‘forgot’ some of what was learned, a night’s sleep restored this memory loss,” Nusbaum said. “Furthermore a night’s sleep protected memory against loss over the course of the next day.”

The latest study expanded that work to show that sleep benefits people learning complicated tasks as well, Nusbaum said.

New Report: Measuring the Status and Change of NAEP State Inclusion Rates for Students with Disabilities

Since the late 1990s, participation rates of students with disabilities (SDs) in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) from different states have fluctuated. To address concerns that these changes may affect the validity of reports on achievement trends, NAEP has

· instituted policies for providing test accommodations for students with disabilities;

· developed a methodology to correct for the bias resulting from changing inclusion rates, and

· implemented procedures to increase the number of students with disabilities who are included as test-takers, such as better training of field staff, better procedures to assign proper accommodations for students, and improved communications with schools.

States’ procedures for including and accommodating students with disabilities are also evolving.

To measure whether these strategies and changes are associated with higher state-by-state inclusion rates, the researhers have developed two distinct approaches for comparing state inclusion rates with one another and gauging progress in their improvement over time. Both approaches rely on regression analysis to estimate the relationship between a student’s characteristics and the probability that the student is included on the NAEP assessment. One approach, the nation-based one, estimates one regression using data pooled from all states. The other, the state-specific approach, estimates the regression separately for each state. The relationships are estimated using individual-level data and are then used to establish expectations (or predicted probabilities) for the inclusion of students with disabilities with different characteristics. Individual-level predicted probabilities are aggregated to the state level to form state-level expected inclusion rates. The two approaches examined changes in inclusion rates from 2003 to 2005 and from 2005 to 2007 for grades 4 and 8 mathematics and reading assessments.

Characteristics examined included the type of disability, the severity level of the disability, and whether the student requires accommodations not permitted by NAEP. For various reasons, inclusion of SDs varies from state to state, and sometimes within states from year to year. Some students, for example, cannot participate meaningfully in the assessments due to the nature of their disabilities or because their Individualized Educational Programs (IEPs) specify an accommodation that is not permitted in NAEP assessments. To address the concern that such fluctuations may affect the validity of reports on achievement trends, NAEP has:

For the comparison between 2005 and 2007 described in this report, the two approaches produced similar results when comparing the indices of baseline status of inclusion and change over time:

· The majority of states did not make a statistically significant change in the rate of inclusion.

· Among states that did show a significant change, most were less inclusive in 2007 than in 2005.

o For the nation-based approach: 8 out of 15 states for mathematics grade 4 were less inclusive in 2007 than in 2005; 17 out of 19 states for mathematics grade 8; 18 out of 26 states for reading grade 4; 21 out of 25 states for reading grade 8.

o For the state-specific approach: 17 out of 19 states for mathematics grade 8 were less inclusive in 2007 than in 2005; 12 out of 22 states for reading grade 4; 14 out of 18 states for reading grade 8.

o The exception was for the state-specific approach for mathematics grade 4, where more of the states with significant changes had increases: 8 out of 15.

· Most of the states whose inclusion rate significantly increased in 2007 had a relatively low inclusion rate in 2005.

o All states with significant increases in inclusion rates in 2007 had relative inclusion rates in the bottom 50 percent in 2005 with the exception of one state for the nation-based method for grade 8 mathematics.

States whose inclusion rate significantly decreased in 2007 had varied relative in

The results of this Research and Development study indicate that although the majority of the states did not experience statistically significant changes in their rates of inclusion, most states that did change significantly were found less inclusive in 2007 compared to 2005. The states whose inclusion rates significantly increased in 2007 had relatively low inclusion rates in 2005.

To download the report, visit

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/studies/2009453.pdf

Measuring Skills for the 21st Century

Leaders in government, business, and higher education are calling for today's students to show a mastery of broader and more sophisticated skills like evaluating and analyzing information and thinking creatively about how to solve real-world problems. But standing in the way of incorporating such skills into teaching and learning are widespread concerns about whether or not they can be measured.

In a new Education Sector report, Measuring Skills for the 21st Century, Senior Policy Analyst Elena Silva argues that they can indeed be measured accurately and can serve as common metrics of student achievement. Silva examines a number of new assessment models that do this and that demonstrate the potential to measure complex thinking skills at the same time that we measure a student's mastery of basic skills and knowledge. These emergent models, she concludes, are critical to meeting our educational goals—to ensure that teachers and students can monitor and improve the learning process—and our accountability goals—to ensure that schools are giving all students what they need to succeed.

One such model is the College Work and Readiness Assessment (CWRA). It offers the sort of problems that often stump city officials and administrators, but rarely show up on standardized tests, such as how to manage traffic congestion caused by population growth. "I proposed a new transportation system for the city," said one student describing his answer. "It's expensive, but it will cut pollution."

Students are given research reports, budgets, and other documents to help draft their answers, and they are expected to demonstrate proficiency in subjects like reading and math as well as mastery of broader and more sophisticated skills like evaluating and analyzing information and thinking creatively about how to apply information to real-world problems.

Not many public school students take assessments like the CWRA. Instead, most students take tests that are primarily multiple-choice measures of lower-level skills in reading and math, such as the ability to recall or restate facts from reading passages and to handle arithmetic-based questions in math. These types of tests are useful for meeting the proficiency goals of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and state accountability systems.

But leaders in business, government, and higher education are increasingly emphatic in saying that such tests don’t do enough. The intellectual demands of 21st century work, today's leaders say, require assessments that measure more advanced skills, 21st century skills. Today, they say, college students, workers, and citizens must be able to solve multifaceted problems by thinking creatively and generating original ideas from multiple sources of information—and tests must measure students' capacity to do such work.

While many policymakers, including Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, have emphasized the need for schools to, first and foremost, teach the basics, learning science—an interdisciplinary field that includes cognitive science, educational psychology, information science, and neuroscience—suggests that the best learning occurs when basic skills are taught in combination with complex thinking skills. Decades of research reveals that there is, in fact, no reason to separate the acquisition of learning core content and basic skills like reading and computation from more advanced analytical and thinking skills, even in the earliest grades.

But standing in the way of incorporating 21st century skills into teaching and learning are widespread concerns about measurement. The cost, time demands, and difficulty in scoring tests of these less easily quantified skills have slowed the adoption of such tests, as have concerns among civil rights advocates that these tests would erode progress toward ensuring common standards of learning for all students. Collectively, these concerns derailed efforts in the late 1990s to move toward the use of performance-based assessments such as portfolios, exhibitions, and projects.

New assessments like the CWRA, however, illustrate that the skills that really matter for the 21st century—the ability to think creatively and to evaluate and analyze information—can be measured accurately and in a common and comparable way. These emergent models also demonstrate the potential to measure these complex thinking skills at the same time that we measure a student's mastery of core content or basic skills and knowledge. There is, then, no need for more tests to measure advanced skills. Rather, there is a need for better tests that measure more of the skills students' need to succeed today

Read the full report: Measuring Skills for the 21st Century:

http://www.educationsector.org/usr_doc/MeasuringSkills.pdf

America's High School Graduates: Results from the 2005 NAEP High School Transcript Study (HSTS)

The High School Transcript Study is based on a sample of students who graduated as part of the "Class of 2005," and most participated in the 2005 NAEP mathematics and science assessments. The sample is composed of approximately 26,000 students, representing approximately 2.7 million 2005 high school graduates. This report presents information about the types of high school courses in which students in the sample enrolled, how many credits the students earned, the grades they received, and the relationships between high school course taking and performance on NAEP mathematics and science assessments. Specific findings include the following:

* 2005 graduates earned about three credits more than their 1990 counterparts, or about 360 additional hours of instruction during their high school careers;

* the overall grade point average (GPA) was approximately a third of a letter grade higher than in 1990;

* graduates whose highest mathematics course was geometry or below had average NAEP mathematics scores below the Basic achievement level; those who took calculus had average NAEP scores at the Proficient level;

* female graduates' GPAs overall and in mathematics and science were higher than the GPAs of male graduates during each year the HSTS was conducted;

* among graduates who took higher level mathematics and science courses, male graduates had higher NAEP scores than female graduates; and

* the percentages of White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian/Pacific Islander graduates that completed at least a midlevel curriculum in 2005 increased compared the percentages recorded in 1990; the GPAs of all four racial/ethnic groups also increased during this time.

See the executive summary for the report at

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/studies/2007467.asp

Read the web report at

http://nationsreportcard.gov/hsts_2005, and see more details about the study at

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/hsts

Title 2.0: Revamping the Federal Role in Education Human Capital

Today, largely through Title II of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the federal government spends approximately $3 billion directly on efforts to promote teacher and principal quality. But there is little evidence that these funds are driving the sort of changes needed to help schools recruit, train, place, induct, and compensate quality teachers or changes that are aligned with broader human capital reform efforts in education.

In a new Education Sector Idea at Work, Title 2.0: Revamping the Federal Role in Education Human Capital Co-director Andrew J. Rotherham argues Congress and the Obama administration have a chance to address this problem, by pursuing a new approach to allocating Title II funding. By creating a steady flow of funds for reform activities as well as a separate pool of grant money for more ambitious reform plans, federal Title II dollars would support a broader array of structural reforms than they do today.

Rotherham lists a number of investments that should be prioritized under a new Title II, including:

Investments in recruitment and retention incentives in hard-to-staff schools and investments for ongoing rewards for teachers who work in challenging schools or teach in shortage subjects;
Investments to create school- or teacher-based reward systems for outstanding performance;
Investments in alternative teacher-preparation and credentialing programs and charter colleges of education run by school districts and nonprofit organizations;
Investments in teacher induction, mentoring, and peer-support initiatives;
Investments in rigorous and data-informed peer-review or value-added evaluation systems that identify effective teachers and remediate or remove low performers;
Investments in alternative training and credentialing schemes for school leaders; and
Investments in high-quality professional development in core subjects with an emphasis on math, science, language arts, and the analysis and use of data.

While not an exhaustive list of meritorious teacher-quality activities, Rotherham concludes, this strategy would target Title II funding toward the highest-leverage reforms around the country today.

Read Title 2.0: Revamping the Federal Role in Education Human Capital:

http://www.educationsector.org/analysis/analysis_show.htm?doc_id=727538

Revising NCLB's School Choice Provision

In April 2004, 175,000 Chicago public school students were eligible to transfer to a higher-performing school within the district as part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act's "public school choice" provision. The provision is designed to provide an escape valve for students in chronically under-performing schools, but less than 1 percent of these students were able to take advantage of the transfer option, partly because they couldn't find a seat in a better quality school in their district. Nationwide, only a tiny fraction of eligible students have utilized NCLB's choice provision.

In a new Education Sector Idea at Work, In Need of Improvement: Revising NCLB’s School Choice Provision, Policy Analyst Erin Dillon offers Congress and the Obama administration a number of steps they can take to improve the effectiveness of NCLB's choice provision. Using NCLB school performance information from Chicago and California as examples, Dillon shows that revising NCLB's choice provision to target the lowest-performing schools and students will substantially increase the percent of eligible students with a viable option to transfer schools. Dillon also urges lawmakers to offer incentives to higher-performing schools to accept transfer students and to ensure these students receive the academic support they need when they enter a new school.

Read In Need of Improvement: Revising NCLB’s School Choice Provision:

http://www.educationsector.org/analysis/analysis_show.htm?doc_id=727885

Characteristics of California School Districts in Program Improvement: 2008 Update

This descriptive analysis updates an earlier study of California's Title I school districts in program improvement. California's accountability system continues to identify problems at the district level overlooked at the school level.

To view, download and print the report as a PDF file, please visit:

http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?projectID=152&productID=123

Results of Largest National Student Survey

400,000-Student Survey Points the Way to Improving Student Academic Success- Based on an in-depth assessment of students' opinions about their education, the My Voice Aspiration Survey offers unique insight into what motivates and inspires students to achieve and how well students think America's school systems meet their educational needs. Conducted by the Educational Assessment group of Pearson and the Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations, the survey represents the largest study to date of student perceptions from grades 6 to 12 of the current academic environment.

Conducted between Fall 2006 and Spring 2008, the comprehensive, 69-question survey assesses students' engagement and perceptions of the educational system based on the responses of more than 414,000 students within 569 schools in 32 states from various socioeconomic backgrounds.

Key survey findings include:

· Eighty-four percent of students agree that getting good grades is important, and 69 percent feel testing is an important part of their education.

· But, nearly one in five students (18 percent) gives up when they encounter difficult schoolwork.

· Twenty-four percent of students reported they are afraid to try something if they might fail.

· More than half of students (56 percent) agree that teachers help them learn from their mistakes.

"Students want to succeed," said Dr. Russell J. Quaglia, founder of the My Voice survey. "This survey is a powerful tool for helping school teachers and administrators gauge how students perceive their current school learning environment, and determine what conditions need to be created to foster greater academic success and accomplishment."

More specifically, the survey looked at a wide variety of student opinions ranging from peer acceptance to teacher performance and academic motivation.

Seventy-seven percent of students feel accepted for who they are at school, and 62 percent view school as a welcoming and friendly place. Twenty-nine percent, however, don't feel comfortable going to their own cafeteria for lunch and a third of survey respondents (33 percent) believe bullying is a problem in their school.

"It is good news that such a large percentage of students feel accepted for who they are at school, however, it is troubling that less than half (44 percent) believe their teachers care about their problems and feelings," said Quaglia. "While I expect most teachers care deeply about their students, it is critical they express such care in ways that are meaningful."

ROLE MODELS AND RESPECT The My Voice survey also found that 65 percent of students say they have a teacher who is a positive role model, yet just 48 percent felt teachers care about them as an individual and even less - 45 percent - felt teachers cared if they were absent from school. A mere thirty percent of students respect their fellow students.

"What these results illustrate is that while teachers have the potential to inspire students, they are not doing so in ways that students recognize," said Quaglia. "Most troubling is the fact that over half the students in this country don't think teachers care if they even show up."

When questioned about academic accomplishment, 84 percent of students agreed that getting good grades is important, and 69 percent feel testing is an important part of their education. Yet close to one-fifth (18 percent) give up when they encounter difficult schoolwork, and just over half (57 percent) feel teachers recognize them when they do their best.

Forty-nine percent of students taking the My Voice survey also enjoy being at school, 54 percent enjoy their classes and 64 percent believe learning can be fun. Yet, in contrast 47 percent felt school is boring and only 31 percent feel teachers make school an exciting place to learn. Just 38 percent felt teachers have fun at school.

"It is encouraging that a good number of students believe learning can be fun," said Quaglia. "However, all educators should be concerned that students don't perceive teachers as enjoying their work in the classroom. If students don't think their own teachers are engaged in the learning process, how can we expect them to be?"

MAKING LEARNING RELEVANT Survey findings revealed that 75 percent of students enjoy learning new things, and that same percentage felt that what they learn will benefit them in the future. Yet just 38 percent felt their classes help them understand what is happening in their everyday lives.

"Students don't see school as relevant to their current lives but believe it is meaningful for their future," said Quaglia. "We must narrow this gap to ensure learning is relevant to students now - today - to ensure they remain engaged in their education."

These findings also revealed students' desire to try new things and positively step out of comfort zones into challenge zones. Students face two obstacles when this happens: the fear of success and the fear of failure. In the My Voice Survey, 24 percent of students reported they are afraid to try something if they might fail, yet, should they succeed, nearly half (43 percent) would not be excited to tell their friends when they get good grades, and 10 percent felt their friends would not like them if they did well in school. Just over half of students (56 percent) agree that teachers help them learn from their mistakes.

"We must help students understand that learning from failure is as essential as succeeding in the learning process," said Quaglia. "I encourage all students and educators to pose My Voice Survey questions to themselves. 'Are you proud of your school? How about your accomplishments as a student? Do you have fun teaching your students and make school an exciting place to learn?'"

"It's not until we pose such questions, take a closer look at ourselves, those around us, and the learning environment and find answers that we can truly understand and appreciate the opportunities that are possible to succeed in both our personal and professional aspirations."

For more information on My Voice and comprehensive survey results please go to www.MyVoiceSurvey.com.

Can You Recognize an Effective Teacher When You Recruit One?

Research on the relationship between teachers' characteristics and teacher effectiveness has been underway for over a century, yet little progress has been made in linking teacher quality with factors observable at the time of hire. However, most research has examined a relatively small set of characteristics that are collected by school administrators in order to satisfy legal requirements and set salaries. To extend this literature, the authors administered an in-depth survey to new math teachers in New York City and collected information on a number of non-traditional predictors of effectiveness including teaching specific content knowledge, cognitive ability, personality traits, feelings of self-efficacy, and scores on a commercially available teacher selection instrument. Individually, the authors find that only a few of these predictors have statistically significant relationships with student and teacher outcomes. However, when all of these variables are combined into two primary factors summarizing cognitive and non-cognitive teacher skills, the authors find that both factors have a modest and statistically significant relationship with student and teacher outcomes, particularly with student test scores. These results suggest that, while there may be no single factor that can predict success in teaching, using a broad set of measures can help schools improve the q quality of their teachers.

Privacy and Consumer Information at Risk in Schools

A new study suggests that the personal information and privacy of students, parents, faculty, staff, alumni and other consumers are at heightened risk in all of our schools--elementary, secondary, and postsecondary. Schools have logged a third of all information breach incidents reported. The relatively small Education Sector accounts for as much as 25% of all the consumer profiles that have been compromised in average data breach incidents.

A new study by J. Campana & Associates reveals that U.S. school-related data breaches account for nearly one-third of all the data breaches reported. The Education Sector, which comprises as little as 0.6% of the total number of U.S. entities, reported a disproportionate number of breaches. Over 1,000 data breach incidents that were logged by the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse during the period January 2005 through October 2008 were considered in the study.

Dr. Joseph Campana discussed the findings at a workshop on privacy and information security last weekend at the annual meeting of the Association of School Board Officials International in Denver, Colorado.

The data breach incidents reported by the Education Sector account for more than 12.4 million student and other consumer profiles that were either lost or stolen, or inappropriately accessed, exposed or disposed. Consumers whose profiles have been compromised can be at increased risk of having their right to privacy abused or of becoming a victim of identity theft. The profiles compromised by the Education Sector amount to as much as 25% of all consumer profiles that have been compromised by all enterprises in "average" information security breaches according to the study (http://www.jcampana.com/htdocs/publications-and-press/white-papers).

Postsecondary schools--colleges and universities, account for 79% of the breach incidents reported by the Education Sector. These correspond to 78% of the consumer profiles compromised by the Education Sector. In contrast, K-12 schools account for 15% of the Education Sector breach incidents, however, they only correspond to 2% of the consumer profiles compromised by the sector. Census data indicate that K-12 schools outnumber postsecondary schools by more than 20:1, suggesting that K-12 schools should have logged more data breach incidents relative to postsecondary schools. K-12 schools also reported the largest percentage of breaches (30%) where the number of profiles compromised in the breach was characterized as "unknown" because they could not be quantified.

Dr. Campana says, "The analysis suggests that K-12 schools could improve how their information assets are inventoried, managed and maintained. The disparities in the statistics suggest K-12 schools may not be recognizing or reporting data breaches when they occur. State-operated postsecondary institutions may be more attentive in reporting breaches because they are more keenly aware of state breach notification laws through their direct state affiliation as well as other state and federal laws concerning identity theft, privacy, and information security, compared to locally-operated K-12 schools."

Of the breaches reported by the Education Sector, at least 24% were attributed to hacking into information systems. Many others attributed the breach to "unauthorized access," which may include an intrusion by a hacker as well as unauthorized access by an insider or student. Over a third (35%) of the breach incidents were attributed to lost, stolen or missing computers, electronic storage devices, magnetic tapes, microfiche and paper files. Incidences involving computer-related systems and devices accounted for 32% while breaches involving stolen or missing laptop computers accounted for 15% of the total.

For additional information about the Education Sector Data Breach Study, contact Dr. Joe Campana or visit http://www.AskDrPrivacy.com.

School Food Unwrapped: What's Available and What Our Kids Actually Are Eating

Higher-income fifth grade students in suburban school districts are no more likely to have access to healthy or unhealthy foods than are their lower-income, urban peers, according to a new Child Trends study. However, schools attended by higher-income students offer their students a greater selection of both healthy and unhealthy food choices. "School Food Unwrapped: What's Available and What Our Kids Actually Are Eating" examines the prevalence of vending machines, school stores, and other outlets in elementary schools that often provide non-nutritious foods, the types of food and beverages sold within these outlets, and student consumption of food at school among a nationally representative sample of fifth-grade students.

Among the study's findings:

- More than half (57.2 percent) of elementary schools report that students can purchase food or beverages through a "competitive outlet" -- vending machines, a la carte items in cafeterias, or school snack bars that offer food that does not have to meet federal nutrition standards.

The availability of these competitive outlets does not differ by urbanicity, public or private school status, participation in school breakfast or lunch programs, or receipt of Title I funds.

- Several school characteristics are significantly associated with the number of healthy and unhealthy food choices available through competitive food outlets.

Suburban elementary schools offer more healthy and more unhealthy food than urban schools; the same is true for schools with lower minority populations compared with higher minority populations, and schools that do not receive Title I funding compared with those that do receive this funding.

- Competitive foods (not part of the National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs) are available in most schools, and as many of one in four children reports buying unhealthy competitive foods.

Among fifth grade students, 26 percent reported purchasing sweets in school in the past week, 17 percent reported purchasing salty snacks in school, and 13 percent reported purchasing sodas or sports drinks in school.

- Contrary to popular belief, most of these purchases are made in school cafeterias rather than from vending machines.

Among students who purchased unhealthy foods, a majority of sweets (77 percent) and salty snacks (73 percent) purchased in school came from school cafeterias.

"Previous studies on school food policies concentrated on schools that serve low-income students, but our analyses suggest that changes in these policies should be directed at all schools," says Elizabeth Hair, Ph.D., lead author of the report. "Our findings also suggest that efforts to change school food policies should examine all cafeteria offerings in addition to vending machines."

Data for this study were drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), a nationally representative sample of children from kindergarten entry in 1998 through fifth grade in 2004.

Child Trends is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center that studies children at all stages of development. Its mission is to improve outcomes for children by providing research, data, and analysis to the people and institutions whose decisions and actions affect children.

Public Elementary and Secondary School Student Enrollment and Staff From the Common Core of Data: School Year 2006-07

This report presents 2006-07 school year information at the national and state level on student enrollment by grade and by race/ethnicity within grade, the numbers of teachers and other education staff, and several student/staff ratios.

Full report:

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/2009305.pdf

NEW STUDY FINDS AMERICANS, INCLUDING ELECTED OFFICIALS, EARN A FAILING GRADE WHEN TESTED ON AMERICAN HISTORY AND ECONOMICS

Are most people, including college graduates, civically illiterate? Do elected officials know even less than most citizens about civic topics such as history, government, and economics? The answer is yes on both counts according to a new study by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI). More than 2,500 randomly selected Americans took ISI’s basic 33 question test on civic literacy and more than 1,700 people failed, with the average score 49 percent, or an “F.” Elected officials scored even lower than the general public with an average score of 44 percent and only 0.8 percent (or 21) of all surveyed earned an “A.

” Even more startling is the fact that over twice as many people know Paula Abdul was a judge on American Idol than know that the phrase “government of the people, by the people, for the people” comes from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Complete results from ISI’s third study on American civic literacy are in a report entitled Our Fading Heritage: Americans Fail a Basic Test on Their History and Institutions. The new study follows up two previous reports from ISI’s National Civic Literacy Board that revealed a major void in civic knowledge among the nation’s college students. This report goes beyond the college crowd however, examining the civic literacy of everyday citizens, including selfidentified elected officials. But according to ISI, the blame and solution again lie at the doorstep of the nation’s colleges.

A large majority of respondents agree colleges should prepare citizen leaders by teaching America’s history, key texts and institutions. Seventytwo percent of respondents with a high school diploma believe colleges should teach our heritage as do 74 percent with graduate degrees. However, the impact of college in advancing civic knowledge, as evidenced in ISI’s first two studies, is minimal. In the new study, this trend is confirmed. The average score among those who ended their formal education with a bachelor’s degree is 57 percent or an “F”, which is only 13 percentage points higher than the average score of 44 percent earned by those who hold high school diplomas. And when you hold other noncollege influences constant, the gain from a college degree drops to about 6 percent, quite consistent with past ISI findings.

Further demonstrating the minimal influence of college in advancing civic literacy, ISI discovered that the civic knowledge gained from the combination of engaging in frequent conversations about public affairs, reading about current events and history and participating in advanced civic activities is greater than the gain from an expensive bachelor’s degree alone. Conversely, talking on the phone, watching owned or rented movies and monitoring TV news broadcasts and documentaries diminish a respondent’s civic literacy.

“People may be listening to television experts talk about economic bailouts and the platforms of political candidates, but they apparently have little idea what our basic economic and political institutions are,” observes Dr. Richard Brake, ISI’s Director of University Stewardship. “Our study raises significant questions about whether citizens who voted in this year’s landmark presidential election really understand how our system of representative democracy works.”

For example, Brake points out that less than half of all Americans can name all three branches of government. And only 21 percent know the phrase “government of the people, by the people, for the people” comes from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, which Presidentelect Barack Obama cited in his acceptance speech on Election night.

Following is a sampling of other results from several basic survey questions:

§ 30 percent of elected officials do not know that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are the inalienable rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence and 20 percent falsely believe that the Electoral College “was established to supervise the first presidential debates”

§ Almost 40 percent of all respondents falsely believe the president has the power to declare war

§ 40 percent of those with a bachelor’s degree do not know business profit equals revenue minus expenses

§ Only 54 percent with a bachelor’s degree correctly define free enterprise as a system in which individuals create, exchange and control goods and resources more

§ 20.7 percent of Americans falsely believe that the Federal Reserve can increase or

decrease government spending

Complete report:

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/

Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2009

Overcoming inequality- why governance matters

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

Gaping inequalities confront education today. Simply put, not all children have access to a good quality education and large numbers of youth and adults are excluded from participation in their societies. Deeply entrenched disparities based on wealth, gender, ethnic or cultural belonging, disability and geographical residence represent tall obstacles to achieving Education for All, a set of six goals to which over 160 governments committed themselves in 2000.

Overcoming inequality--why governance matters is the seventh edition of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report . It maps the complex and multiple facets of inequality and examines some of the key questions that national governments and donors must address in attempting to ensure that the benefits of education are shared by the poor, disadvantaged groups and regions that are being left behind. It shows that public policy and governance reform, together with sustained financial commitment, can break the cycle of disadvantage, improve access, raise quality and enhance participation and accountability.

Prepared by an independent team of researchers based at UNESCO, this report is based on case studies, commissioned research and extensive data analysis relating to early childhood care and education programmes, primary and secondary education, gender, life skills, adult literacy and quality. It includes an analysis of aid to basic education, crucial to supporting educational development, especially in fragile states, where conflict and weak governance have severely undermined the provision of education.

Ordering Info:

http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Economics/Demography/?view=usa&ci=9780199544196

Major teaching and learning research program draws conclusions

The Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP), the largest research initiative into education related topics ever undertaken in the United Kingdom, presents its major conclusions on 24th and 25th November after nine years of investigations across all sectors of education, from the importance of preschool education to lifelong learning. The programme was funded and managed by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Findings cover all sectors of education including preschool, each phase of school, further and higher education, workforce development, apprenticeships and lifelong learning.

Directed by Professor Andrew Pollard of the Institute of Education, the programme was designed to increase the volume, quality and use of UK education research.

Professor Pollard said: "The TLRP's uniquely broad range of evidence on improving teaching and learning means that future policy can be based on real knowledge about how people make sense of the world around them, and can move beyond the current policies. We now have an opportunity to build an education system which is based on genuine evidence about how people learn."

The TLRP's major phase of empirical work has now ended but, in addition there will be further work to increase the use and impact work during 2009. Following the success of this programme, the ESRC and Engineering Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) are funding further projects concentrating on the use of technology to enhance learning.

Professor Ian Diamond, chief executive of ESRC, said: "The TLRP has been the largest ESRC programme and shows social science at its best. It was supported by partners around the UK because it promised to produce high-quality research that would have impact and help enhance British education. It has succeeded in these aims. Employers, parents, students and many other groups will gain from the success of TLRP, as will the nation as a whole."

The TLRP received funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce), Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), the Welsh Assembly Government, Northern Ireland Executive and the Scottish Government.

Outcomes of various strands of the research have been widely influential across the UK.

Some top findings:

· Development of better ways to teach reading to address the difficulty of spelling words when the spelling cannot be predicted from the way the word sounds.

· Genuine engagement with students helps them to feel valued and part of the learning process, as well as respected as individuals.

· Learning how to learn is crucial to improved standards. This area focused on developing the skills to allow pupils to become autonomous learners.

· The first study of group work in the UK to show positive attainment gains in comparison to other forms of classroom pedagogy.

· How to smooth children's transition between schools, and between home and school.

· Among the major implications of the research regarding the transition from University to employment are the challenges to current policies regarding the employability and skills agenda.

· Early career learning followed a group of graduates in their first jobs to investigate informal and short semi formal learning episodes.

· Research to provide a quantitative description of who goes into higher educations, the experiences of different students and their subsequent success in the labour market.

Ground-breaking research in collaboration with multinational corporations around the world suggests that policy makers have yet to appreciate the fundament shifts in the way companies use skilled people.

San Francisco Bay Area KIPP Schools: A Study of Early Implementation and Achievement. Final report

This study examined whether attending a Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) middle school improved students’ academic achievement.

The KIPP schools in the study included fifth through eighth grades and served primarily low-income, minority students.

The most rigorous analysis focused on 263 fifth-graders in three KIPP schools and over 2,000 fifth-graders in traditional public schools in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2003–04 and 2004–05.

The authors analyzed data on student standardized test scores drawn from school district databases.

The study authors used statistical matching to select students for the analysis. KIPP students were matched to students attending traditional public schools on demographics, where they lived, and fourth-grade test scores.

The study found that fifth-grade students in KIPP middle schools generally performed better on math and language arts tests than comparable students in traditional public middle schools. Effect sizes for math ranged from 0.19 to 0.86, while effect sizes for language arts ranged from –0.05 to 0.54.

The WWC has reservations about these results because students who attend KIPP schools may differ from comparison students in ways not controlled for in the analysis.

Public Policy Out of Step With Children's Needs, Study Suggests

"Time poor" single mothers come surprisingly close in the number of hours they spend caring for their children compared to married mothers, and the difference is explained almost entirely by socio-economic factors and the kind of jobs they hold, say University of Maryland sociologists in a new study. The researchers conclude public policy focuses too heavily on the mother's marital status.

The study, published in the December issue of the "Journal of Marriage and Family," is the first to provide a detailed look at the amount and quality of time single mothers are able to give their children.

Based on data from time use diaries, the study finds that single mothers who may lack a large support network still manage to provide 83 to 90 percent of child-rearing time as their married counterparts. While the difference is statistically significant, the researchers expected a greater gap.

"We were surprised that these women managed to pull it off so well, often working long hours with little help, yet devoting up to 90 percent of the time to their children that married women do," says Sarah Kendig, a doctoral student at the University of Maryland and the principal researcher. The research served as Kendig's master's thesis. Suzanne Bianchi, University of Maryland chair of sociology and Kendig's advisor, co-authored the article. (See: http://www.bsos.umd.edu/socy/grad/grad_students.htm and http://www.bsos.umd.edu/socy/People/Faculty/sbianchi.htm .)

"Of course, something has to give, and these time-poor women have to cut corners not only on the amount of time they spend with children but also on what we'd normally think of as 'quality time' with their kids," Bianchi says, adding that these compromises don't come easily.

"The current policy focus on marriage and disadvantages of children in single-parent families seems to miss the important fact that all mothers try to privilege investments in their children over other things, to the extent they are able," says the report. "It is conceivable that spending time with their children may become especially precious to single mothers and the focus of their energies."

TIME USE DATA

The researchers analyzed American Time Use Survey data collected between 2003 and 2004 - an annual federal survey that asks participants to fill in a detailed diary of how they spent the preceding 24 hours. The study is based on responses from 1,821 single mothers and 4,309 married mothers with children less than 13 years of age.

SOME SPECIFIC FINDINGS

- Single mothers, on average, spend between three and five hours less time per week on child care than married mothers. These differences were statistically significant.

- Unmarried mothers who live with the father spend about the same time on child care as married mothers.

- The reduced amount of time single mothers spend on child care are accounted for by differences in available resources - type and hours of employment, education, maternal age, age of children. When these factors are statistically controlled, the differences disappear.

- The researchers divided child-rearing time into two categories: basic care and "interactive" time - what is often called "quality time." All groups of parents managed to provide basic care. Mainly, differences lay in the "interactive time."

- Some mothers are more "single" than others - they differ in the support network available to them, such as help from the father or relatives.

- Poorer single mothers tend to work longer hours or work full-time, whereas most married women tend to work part-time and therefore can spend more time with their kids.

- Women working full-time tend to spend much less time with their children than those who are not employed - about an hour less a day or seven hours less a week, other things equal.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

The researchers chose to focus on the differences in child-rearing time between single and married women because "this distinction receives so much policy attention," the report says.

"Mothers' motivation to be good parents and their love for their children are likely high among mothers of all marital statuses and living arrangements and hence, we can count on mothers to invest in children," the report continues. "What we have to work on are the binding constraints that limit their ability to act on those motivations and that curtail the efficacy of the investments they make in mothering."

The researchers describe the study as a first step. The deeper unanswered question is the impact on the children and the health and well being of mothers created by the lesser "quality time" available.

"To me, the findings suggest that our public policy needs to pay greater attention to the resources and educational opportunities for mothers, regardless of their marital status," says Bianchi. "What better time to take a second look than in the midst of a harsh financial climate? Some of these women are often at the bottom of the economic heap.

Need-Blind College Admission Still Prevalent, But Enrollment Strategies Increasingly Utilize Merit Aid Targeting Amid Tightening Economy, Rising Costs

With an economy in turmoil and college costs at historic highs, students and families will doubtlessly make critical college decisions with their financial well-being in mind. While almost all colleges and universities continue to admit students regardless of their socio-economic status, less than one-third of all colleges are able to offer financial aid packages that meet the full financial need of all of the students they admit, according to a report released by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC). NACAC commissioned the research to reassess ways in which financial need and financial aid are considered and utilized in the admission process.

"While the concept of need-blind admission was developed to ensure that students were not rejected due to financial need, admission practices that utilize differential financial aid targeting have emerged recently as colleges grapple with difficult aid allocation decisions," noted William McClintick, NACAC President. "While such practices are, in many cases, well-intentioned, they provoke questions from stakeholders concerned about access for low-income students, fairness in college pricing, rising college costs, and the use of institutional aid."

Other research findings include:

- Nearly four in five colleges use standardized admission test scores as eligibility criteria for institutional merit aid. The NACAC Commission on the Use of Standardized Tests in Undergraduate Admission recently reiterated the requirement, included in NACAC's Statement of Principles of Good Practice, that colleges not use admission test cut scores as the sole criterion for financial aid eligibility.

- Colleges continue to increase the amount of merit aid offered to students at the expense of need-based aid. In 1994, colleges and universities overall reported that 27 percent of their institutional aid funds were merit-based and 66 percent need-based; in 2007, 43 percent reported that their institutional aid funds were merit-based, compared to 49 percent need-based.

- Control over financial aid and admission policy has increasingly shifted to enrollment management and/or financial aid managers, and shifted slightly away from faculty, presidents, and boards of trustees.

- Differential packaging of financial aid awards is heavily utilized by private colleges, though not by public universities. Colleges that practice differential packaging offered preferential aid packages most frequently based on academic merit (93 percent), particular talents (50 percent), and income level (39 percent).