On March 13, 2008, the National Mathematics Advisory Panel presented its Final Report to the President of the United States and the Secretary of Education. The essence of the Panel’s message is to put first things first. There are six elements, expressed compactly here, but in greater detail later.

· The mathematics curriculum in Grades PreK–8 should be streamlined and should emphasize a well-defined set of the most critical topics in the early grades.

· Use should be made of what is clearly known from rigorous research about how children learn, especially by recognizing a) the advantages for children in having a strong start; b) the mutually reinforcing benefits of conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and automatic (i.e., quick and effortless) recall of facts; and c) that effort, not just inherent talent, counts in mathematical achievement.

· Our citizens and their educational leadership should recognize mathematically knowledgeable classroom teachers as having a central role in mathematics education and should encourage rigorously evaluated initiatives for attracting and appropriately preparing prospective teachers, and for evaluating and retaining effective teachers.

· Instructional practice should be informed by high-quality research, when available, and by the best professional judgment and experience of accomplished classroom teachers. High-quality research does not support the contention that instruction should be either entirely “student centered” or “teacher directed.” Research indicates that some forms of particular instructional practices can have a positive impact under specified conditions.

· NAEP and state assessments should be improved in quality and should carry increased emphasis on the most critical knowledge and skills leading to Algebra.

· The nation must continue to build capacity for more rigorous research in education so that it can inform policy and practice more effectively..

Main Findings and Recommendations

Curricular Content

· A focused, coherent progression of mathematics learning, with an emphasis on proficiency with key topics, should become the norm in elementary and middle school mathematics curricula. Any approach that continually revisits topics year after year without closure is to be avoided.

By the term focused, the Panel means that curriculum must include (and engage with adequate depth) the most important topics underlying success in school algebra. By the term coherent, the Panel means that the curriculum is marked by effective, logical progressions from earlier, less sophisticated topics into later, more sophisticated ones. Improvements like those suggested in this report promise immediate positive results with minimal additional cost.

By the term proficiency, the Panel means that students should understand key concepts, achieve automaticity as appropriate (e.g., with addition and related subtraction facts), develop flexible, accurate, and automatic execution of the standard algorithms, and use these competencies to solve problems. [1]

A major goal for K–8 mathematics education should be proficiency with fractions (including decimals, percents, and negative fractions), for such proficiency is foundational for algebra and, at the present time, seems to be severely underdeveloped. Proficiency with whole numbers is a necessary precursor for the study of fractions, as are aspects of measurement and geometry. These three areas—whole numbers, fractions, and particular aspects of geometry and measurement—are the Critical Foundations of Algebra.

· To encourage the development of students in Grades PreK–8 at an effective pace, the Panel recommends a set of Benchmarks for the Critical Foundations (Table 2, page 20). They should be used to guide classroom curricula, mathematics instruction, textbook development, and state assessments.

· All school districts should ensure that all prepared students have access to an authentic algebra course—and should prepare more students than at present to enroll in such a course by Grade 8. The word authentic is used here as a descriptor of a course that addresses algebra consistently with the Major Topics of School Algebra. Students must be prepared with the mathematical prerequisites for this course according to the Critical Foundations of Algebra

· Teacher education programs and licensure tests for early childhood teachers, including all special education teachers at this level, should fully address the topics on whole numbers, fractions, and the appropriate geometry and measurement topics in the Critical Foundations of Algebra, as well as the concepts and skills leading to them; for elementary teachers, including elementary level special education teachers, all topics in the Critical Foundations of Algebra and those topics typically covered in an introductory Algebra course; and for middle school teachers, including middle school special education teachers, the Critical Foundations of Algebra and all of the Major Topics of School Algebra.

Learning Processes

· Most children acquire considerable knowledge of numbers and other aspects of mathematics before they enter kindergarten. This is important, because the mathematical knowledge that kindergartners bring to school is related to their mathematics learning for years thereafter—in elementary school, middle school, and even high school. Unfortunately, most children from low-income backgrounds enter school with far less knowledge than peers from middle-income backgrounds, and the achievement gap in mathematical knowledge progressively widens throughout their PreK–12 years.

· Fortunately, encouraging results have been obtained for a variety of instructional programs developed to improve the mathematical knowledge of preschoolers and kindergartners, especially those from low-income backgrounds. There are effective techniques—derived from scientific research on learning—that could be put to work in the classroom today to improve children’s mathematical knowledge. However, tests of both short-term and long-term effects of these interventions with larger populations of children from low-income families are urgently needed.

· To prepare students for Algebra, the curriculum must simultaneously develop conceptual understanding, computational fluency, and problem-solving skills. Debates regarding the relative importance of these aspects of mathematical knowledge are misguided. These capabilities are mutually supportive, each facilitating learning of the others. Teachers should emphasize these interrelations; taken together, conceptual understanding of mathematical operations, fluent execution of procedures, and fast access to number combinations jointly support effective and efficient problem solving.

· Computational proficiency with whole number operations is dependent on sufficient and appropriate practice to develop automatic recall of addition and related subtraction facts, and of multiplication and related division facts. It also requires fluency with the standard algorithms for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Additionally it requires a solid understanding of core concepts, such as the commutative, distributive, and associative properties. Although the learning of concepts and algorithms reinforce one another, each is also dependent on different types of experiences, including practice.

· Difficulty with fractions (including decimals and percents) is pervasive and is a major obstacle to further progress in mathematics, including algebra. A nationally representative sample of teachers of Algebra I who were surveyed for the Panel rated students as having very poor preparation in “rational numbers and operations involving fractions and decimals.”

As with learning whole numbers, a conceptual understanding of fractions and decimals and the operational procedures for using them are mutually reinforcing. One key mechanism linking conceptual and procedural knowledge is the ability to represent fractions on a number line. The curriculum should afford sufficient time on task to ensure acquisition of conceptual and procedural knowledge of fractions and of proportional reasoning. Instruction focusing on conceptual knowledge of fractions is likely to have the broadest and largest impact on problem-solving performance when it is directed toward the accurate solution of specific problems.

· Mathematics performance and learning of groups that have traditionally been underrepresented in mathematics fields can be improved by interventions that address social, affective, and motivational factors. Recent research documents that social and intellectual support from peers and teachers is associated with higher mathematics performance for all students, and that such support is especially important for many African-American and Hispanic students. There is an urgent need to conduct experimental evaluations of the effectiveness of support-focused interventions both small- and large-scale, because they are promising means for reducing the mathematics achievement gaps that are prevalent in U.S. society.

· Children’s goals and beliefs about learning are related to their mathematics performance. Experimental studies have demonstrated that changing children’s beliefs from a focus on ability to a focus on effort increases their engagement in mathematics learning, which in turn improves mathematics outcomes: When children believe that their efforts to learn make them “smarter,” they show greater persistence in mathematics learning. Related research demonstrates that the engagement and sense of efficacy of African-American and Hispanic students in mathematical learning contexts not only tends to be lower than that of white and Asian students but also that it can be significantly increased.

Teachers and other educational leaders should consistently help students and parents to understand that an increased emphasis on the importance of effort is related to improved mathematics performance. This is a critical point because much of the public’s self-evident resignation about mathematics education (together with the common tendencies to dismiss weak achievement and to give up early) seems rooted in the erroneous idea that success is largely a matter of inherent talent or ability, not effort.

· Teachers and developers of instructional materials sometimes assume that students need to be a certain age to learn certain mathematical ideas. However, a major research finding is that what is developmentally appropriate is largely contingent on prior opportunities to learn. Claims based on theories that children of particular ages cannot learn certain content because they are “too young,” “not in the appropriate stage,” or “not ready” have consistently been shown to be wrong. Nor are claims justified that children cannot learn particular ideas because their brains are insufficiently developed, even if they possess the prerequisite knowledge for learning the ideas.

Teachers and Teacher Education

Teachers who consistently produce significant gains in students’ mathematics achievement can be identified using value-added analyses (analyses that examine individual students’ achievement gains as a function of the teacher). The impact on students’ mathematics learning is compounded if students have a series of these more effective teachers. Unfortunately, little is known from existing high-quality research about what effective teachers do to generate greater gains in student learning. Further research is needed to identify and more carefully define the skills and practices underlying these differences in teachers’ effectiveness, and how to develop them in teacher preparation programs.

· Research on the relationship between teachers’ mathematical knowledge and students’ achievement confirms the importance of teachers’ content knowledge. It is self-evident that teachers cannot teach what they do not know. However, because most studies have relied on proxies for teachers’ mathematical knowledge (such as teacher certification or courses taken), existing research does not reveal the specific mathematical knowledge and instructional skill needed for effective teaching, especially at the elementary and middle school level. Direct assessments of teachers’ actual mathematical knowledge provide the strongest indication of a relation between teachers’ content knowledge and their students’ achievement. More precise measures are needed to specify in greater detail the relationship among elementary and middle school teachers’ mathematical knowledge, their instructional skill, and students’ learning.

· Teaching well requires substantial knowledge and skill. However, existing research on aspects of teacher education, including standard teacher preparation programs, alternative pathways into teaching, support programs for new teachers (e.g., mentoring), and professional development, is not of sufficient rigor or quality to permit the Panel to draw conclusions about the features of professional training that have effects on teachers’ knowledge, their instructional practice, or their students’ achievement.

Currently there are multiple pathways into teaching. Research indicates that differences in teachers’ knowledge and effectiveness between these pathways are small or nonsignificant compared to very large differences among the performance of teachers within each pathway.

The mathematics preparation of elementary and middle school teachers must be strengthened as one means for improving teachers’ effectiveness in the classroom. This includes preservice teacher education, early career support, and professional development programs. A critical component of this recommendation is that teachers be given ample opportunities to learn mathematics for teaching. That is, teachers must know in detail and from a more advanced perspective the mathematical content they are responsible for teaching and the connections of that content to other important mathematics, both prior to and beyond the level they are assigned to teach.. High-quality research must be undertaken to create a sound basis for the mathematics preparation of elementary and middle school teachers within preservice teacher education, early-career support, and ongoing professional development programs. Outcomes of different approaches should be evaluated by using reliable and valid measures of their effects on prospective and current teachers’ instructional techniques and, most importantly, their effects on student achievement.

· In an attempt to improve mathematics learning at the elementary level, a number of school districts around the country are using “math specialist teachers” of three different types—math coaches (lead teachers), full-time elementary mathematics teachers, and pull-out teachers. However, the Panel found no high-quality research showing that the use of any of these types of math specialist teachers improves students’ learning.

The Panel recommends that research be conducted on the use of full-time mathematics teachers in elementary schools. These would be teachers with strong knowledge of mathematics who would teach mathematics full-time to several classrooms of students, rather than teaching many subjects to one class, as is typical in most elementary classrooms. This recommendation for research is based on the Panel’s findings about the importance of teachers’ mathematical knowledge. The use of teachers who have specialized in elementary mathematics teaching could be a practical alternative to increasing all elementary teachers’ content knowledge (a problem of huge scale) by focusing the need for expertise on fewer teachers.

· Schools and teacher education programs should develop or draw on a variety of carefully evaluated methods to attract and prepare teacher candidates who are mathematically knowledgeable and to equip them with the skills to help students learn mathematics.

· Research on teacher incentives generally supports their effectiveness, although the quality of the studies is mixed. Given the substantial number of unknowns, policy initiatives involving teacher incentives should be carefully evaluated.

Instructional Practices

· All-encompassing recommendations that instruction should be entirely “student centered” or “teacher directed” are not supported by research. If such recommendations exist, they should be rescinded. If they are being considered, they should be avoided. High-quality research does not support the exclusive use of either approach.

· Research has been conducted on a variety of cooperative learning approaches. One such approach, Team Assisted Individualization (TAI), has been shown to improve students’ computation skills. This highly structured pedagogical strategy involves heterogeneous groups of students helping each other, individualized problems based on student performance on a diagnostic test, specific teacher guidance, and rewards based on both group and individual performance. Effects of TAI on conceptual understanding and problem solving were not significant.

· Teachers’ regular use of formative assessment improves their students’ learning, especially if teachers have additional guidance on using the assessment to design and to individualize instruction. Although research to date has only involved one type of formative assessment (that based on items sampled from the major curriculum objectives for the year, based on state standards), the results are sufficiently promising that the Panel recommends regular use of formative assessment for students in the elementary grades.

· The use of “real-world” contexts to introduce mathematical ideas has been advocated, with the term “real world” being used in varied ways. A synthesis of findings from a small number of high-quality studies indicates that if mathematical ideas are taught using “real-world” contexts, then students’ performance on assessments involving similar “real-world” problems is improved. However, performance on assessments more focused on other aspects of mathematics learning, such as computation, simple word problems, and equation solving, is not improved.

· Explicit instruction with students who have mathematical difficulties has shown consistently positive effects on performance with word problems and computation. Results are consistent for students with learning disabilities, as well as other students who perform in the lowest third of a typical class. By the term explicit instruction, the Panel means that teachers provide clear models for solving a problem type using an array of examples, that students receive extensive practice in use of newly learned strategies and skills, that students are provided with opportunities to think aloud (i.e., talk through the decisions they make and the steps they take), and that students are provided with extensive feedback.

This finding does not mean that all of a student’s mathematics instruction should be delivered in an explicit fashion. However, the Panel recommends that struggling students receive some explicit mathematics instruction regularly. Some of this time should be dedicated to ensuring that these students possess the foundational skills and conceptual knowledge necessary for understanding the mathematics they are learning at their grade level.

· Research on instructional software has generally shown positive effects on students’ achievement in mathematics as compared with instruction that does not incorporate such technologies. These studies show that technology-based drill and practice and tutorials can improve student performance in specific areas of mathematics. Other studies show that teaching computer programming to students can support the development of particular mathematical concepts, applications, and problem solving.

However, the nature and strength of the results vary widely across these studies. In particular, one recent large, multisite national study found no significant effects of instructional tutorial (or tutorial and practice) software when implemented under typical conditions of use. Taken together, the available research is insufficient for identifying the factors that influence the effectiveness of instructional software under conventional circumstances.

· A review of 11 studies that met the Panel’s rigorous criteria (only one study less than 20 years old) found limited or no impact of calculators on calculation skills, problem solving, or conceptual development over periods of up to one year. This finding is limited to the effect of calculators as used in the 11 studies. However, the Panel’s survey of the nation’s algebra teachers indicated that the use of calculators in prior grades was one of their concerns. The Panel cautions that to the degree that calculators impede the development of automaticity, fluency in computation will be adversely affected.

The Panel recommends that high-quality research on particular uses of calculators be pursued, including both their short- and long-term effects on computation, problem solving, and conceptual understanding.

· Mathematically gifted students with sufficient motivation appear to be able to learn mathematics much faster than students proceeding through the curriculum at a normal pace, with no harm to their learning, and should be allowed to do so.

Instructional Materials

· U.S. mathematics textbooks are extremely long—often 700–1,000 pages. Excessive length makes books more expensive and can contribute to a lack of coherence. Mathematics textbooks are much smaller in many nations with higher mathematics achievement than the U.S., thus demonstrating that the great length of our textbooks is not necessary for high achievement. Representatives of several publishing companies who testified before the Panel indicated that one substantial contributor to the length of the books was the demand of meeting varying state standards for what should be taught in each grade. Other major causes of the extreme length of U.S. mathematics textbooks include the many photographs, motivational stories, and other nonmathematical content that the books include. Publishers should make every effort to produce much shorter and more focused mathematics textbooks.

· States and districts should strive for greater agreement regarding which topics will be emphasized and covered at particular grades. Textbook publishers should publish editions that include a clear emphasis on the material that these states and districts agree to teach in specific grades.

· Publishers must ensure the mathematical accuracy of their materials. Those involved with developing mathematics textbooks and related instructional materials need to engage mathematicians, as well as mathematics educators, at all stages of writing, editing, and reviewing these materials.

Assessment

· NAEP and state tests for students through Grade 8 should focus on and adequately represent the Panel’s Critical Foundations of Algebra. Student achievement on this critical mathematics content should be reported and tracked over time.

· The Panel suggests that the NAEP strand on “Number Properties and Operations” be expanded and divided into two parts. The former should include a focus on whole numbers, including whole number operations (i.e., addition, subtraction, multiplication, division), at Grade 4, and on all integers (negative and positive) at Grade 8. The second content area involving number should focus on fractions. At Grade 4, it should involve beginning work with fractions and decimals, including recognition, representation, and comparing and ordering. The coverage should be expanded to include operations with fractions, decimals, and percents at Grade 8. Similarly, the content of work with whole numbers and fractions on state tests should expand and cover these concepts and operations as they develop from year to year, particularly at Grades 5, 6, and 7, which are grade levels when the NAEP test is not offered.

· The Panel recommends a more appropriate balance in how algebra is defined and assessed at both the Grade 4 and Grade 8 levels of the NAEP. The Panel strongly recommends that “algebra” problems involving patterns should be greatly reduced in these tests. The same consideration applies to state tests.

· State tests and NAEP must be of the highest mathematical and technical quality. To this end, states and NAEP should develop procedures for item development, quality control, and oversight to ensure that test items reflect the best item-design features, are of the highest mathematical and psychometric quality, and measure what is intended, with non-construct-relevant sources of variance in performance minimized (i.e., with nonmathematical sources of influence on student performance minimized).

Complete Report:

http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/mathpanel/report/final-report.pdf

Gender differences in language appear biological

Language processing more abstract in girls, more sensory in boys

Although researchers have long agreed that girls have superior language abilities than boys, until now no one has clearly provided a biological basis that may account for their differences.

For the first time -- and in unambiguous findings -- researchers from Northwestern University and the University of Haifa show both that areas of the brain associated with language work harder in girls than in boys during language tasks, and that boys and girls rely on different parts of the brain when performing these tasks.

“Our findings – which suggest that language processing is more sensory in boys and more abstract in girls -- could have major implications for teaching children and even provide support for advocates of single sex classrooms,” said Douglas D. Burman, research associate in Northwestern’s Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders.

Burman is primary author of “Sex Differences in Neural Processing of Language Among Children.” Co-authored by James R. Booth (Northwestern University) and Tali Bitan (University of Haifa), the article will be published in the March issue of the journal Neuropsychologia and now is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.12.021

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the researchers measured brain activity in 31 boys and in 31 girls aged 9 to 15 as they performed spelling and writing language tasks.

The tasks were delivered in two sensory modalities -- visual and auditory. When visually presented, the children read certain words without hearing them. Presented in an auditory mode, they heard words aloud but did not see them.

Using a complex statistical model, the researchers accounted for differences associated with age, gender, type of linguistic judgment, performance accuracy and the method -- written or spoken -- in which words were presented.

The researchers found that girls still showed significantly greater activation in language areas of the brain than boys. The information in the tasks got through to girls’ language areas of the brain -- areas associated with abstract thinking through language. And their performance accuracy correlated with the degree of activation in some of these language areas.

To their astonishment, however, this was not at all the case for boys. In boys, accurate performance depended -- when reading words -- on how hard visual areas of the brain worked. In hearing words, boys’ performance depended on how hard auditory areas of the brain worked.

If that pattern extends to language processing that occurs in the classroom, it could inform teaching and testing methods.

Given boys’ sensory approach, boys might be more effectively evaluated on knowledge gained from lectures via oral tests and on knowledge gained by reading via written tests. For girls, whose language processing appears more abstract in approach, these different testing methods would appear unnecessary.

“One possibility is that boys have some kind of bottleneck in their sensory processes that can hold up visual or auditory information and keep it from being fed into the language areas of the brain,” Burman said. This could result simply from girls developing faster than boys, in which case the differences between the sexes might disappear by adulthood.

Or, an alternative explanation is that boys create visual and auditory associations such that meanings associated with a word are brought to mind simply from seeing or hearing the word.

While the second explanation puts males at a disadvantage in more abstract language function, those kinds of sensory associations may have provided an evolutionary advantage for primitive men whose survival required them to quickly recognize danger-associated sights and sounds.

If the pattern of females relying on an abstract language network and of males relying on sensory areas of the brain extends into adulthood -- a still unresolved question -- it could explain why women often provide more context and abstract representation than men.

Ask a woman for directions and you may hear something like: “Turn left on Main Street, go one block past the drug store, and then turn right, where there’s a flower shop on one corner and a cafe across the street.”

Such information-laden directions may be helpful for women because all information is relevant to the abstract concept of where to turn; however, men may require only one cue and be distracted by additional information.

Too Good to Last: The True Story of Reading First

Too Good to Last: The True Story of Reading First is an in-depth study of Reading First's betrayal.

President Bush vowed he would "leave no child behind." The centerpiece of his education agenda was Reading First, a new federal program aimed at helping poor children acquire basic reading skills. Under the leadership of White House domestic policy chief Margaret Spellings (then LaMontagne) and with support from Congress, Reading First was to provide funding to primary-reading programs that were based on scientific research. Christopher Doherty became Reading First's new director. His job was to ensure that Reading First schools used only programs that work and shunned those that don't.

Backlash and brouhaha followed. Aggrieved whole-language program proprietors complained bitterly that their wares couldn't be purchased with Reading First funds. They found a receptive ear in the Education Department's Office of the Inspector General (OIG), a bastion of green eyeshade and Dragnet types who weren't the least bit interested in children learning to read. The OIG launched a witch hunt against Doherty, falsely claiming that he was improperly favoring particular publishers. Despite the lack of evidence and the fact that Doherty was acting with the full knowledge and support of Margaret Spellings, this conscientious and hard-working public servant was forced to resign. Then the administration turned its back on Reading First, allowing the program to be gutted and starved of funding.

This report cites the real scandals of Reading First:

· An influential "progressive" lawmaker, Rep. David Obey, chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, slashed by over $600 million the budget of one of the most effective programs for poor children in the federal government--the only No Child Left Behind program that has received plaudits from both the Government Accountability Office and the Office of Management and Budget.

· President Bush and Secretary Spellings hung Chris Doherty out to dry, even though he was following their orders and acting aggressively (and heroically) to ensure that only effective programs got money under Reading First.

· Another influential "progressive" lawmaker, Rep. George Miller, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, hauled Doherty before his panel and browbeat him for carrying out the very policies that Miller had helped to craft.

· The Education Department's Inspector General pursued a reckless, one-sided investigation and was not held accountable for his actions. Who inspects the inspectors in today's Washington?

Most of all, millions of poor children are suffering from the political games of adults-toying with the Reading First program, its implementation, and its budget.

Full report:

http://edexcellence.net/doc/reading_first_030508.pdf

THREE-YEAR STUDY AT SEVEN MAJOR UNIVERSITIES FINDS STRONG LINKS BETWEEN ARTS EDUCATION AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Learning, Arts, and the Brain, a study three years in the making, is the result of research by cognitive neuroscientists from seven leading universities across the United States. In the Dana Consortium study researchers grappled with a fundamental question: Are smart people drawn to the arts or does arts training make people smarter?

For the first time, coordinated, multi-university scientific research brings us closer to answering that question. Learning, Arts, and the Brain advances our understanding of the effects of music, dance, and drama education on other types of learning. Children motivated in the arts develop attention skills and strategies for memory retrieval that also apply to other subject areas.

Participating researchers, using brain imaging studies and behavioral assessment, identified eight key points relevant to the interests of parents, students, educators, neuroscientists, and policy makers.

1. An interest in a performing art leads to a high state of motivation that produces the sustained attention necessary to improve performance and the training of attention that leads to improvement in other domains of cognition.

2. Genetic studies have begun to yield candidate genes that may help explain individual differences in interest in the arts.

3. Specific links exist between high levels of music training and the ability to manipulate information in both working and long-term memory; these links extend beyond the domain of music training.

4. In children, there appear to be specific links between the practice of music and skills in geometrical representation, though not in other forms of numerical representation.

5. Correlations exist between music training and both reading acquisition and sequence learning. One of the central predictors of early literacy, phonological awareness, is correlated with both music training and the development of a specific brain pathway.

6. Training in acting appears to lead to memory improvement through the learning of general skills for manipulating semantic information.

7. Adult self-reported interest in aesthetics is related to a temperamental factor of openness, which in turn is influenced by dopamine-related genes.

8. Learning to dance by effective observation is closely related to learning by physical practice, both in the level of achievement and also the neural substrates that support the organization of complex actions. Effective observational learning may transfer to other cognitive skills.

Full report:

http://www.dana.org/uploadedFiles/News_and_Publications/Special_Publications/Learning,%20Arts%20and%20the%20Brain_ArtsAndCognition_Compl.pdf

Schooling does have an impact in closing the achievement gap for substantial numbers of children, especially in reading

In the first known study to analyze reading and math achievement within racial groups during elementary school, researchers found high achievers within all groups.

The study, presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness, analyzes data on a national sample of 8,060 students, collected at four points in time, starting in kindergarten and ending in the spring of fifth grade.

In reading, the researchers found that there were high-performing groups in all races.

In every group except Hispanics, the researchers also found that there were significant numbers who started kindergarten lower in reading achievement but moved into the high-achieving group by the end of fifth grade.

About 30 percent of European Americans, 26 percent of African Americans and 45 percent of Asian Americans were in high-achieving groups by the spring of fifth grade.

These high-achieving groups included approximately 23 percent of African American children and 36 percent of Asian children who caught up with the initial group of high achievers over time. A much smaller percentage of European American students were in catch-up groups—more than four percent. This is because a higher percentage of European Americans started kindergarten as high achievers in reading.

Among Hispanic students, the researchers found a different pattern. By the end of fifth grade, just over five percent of Hispanic children were high achievers in reading, while about the remainder—95 percent—tested in the middle range. There were no low achievers and no catch-up groups among Hispanic students.

In math, the researchers found a different pattern from reading. Far fewer students from all groups were high-achievers, and fewer also caught up. Only 17 percent of European American students were high-achievers in math by the end of fifth grade, including 13 percent who started kindergarten at a lower achievement level and caught up over time.

About 18 percent of Asian Americans were high-achievers at the end of fifth grade, including about 11 percent who caught up over time. For African Americans, just 0.3 percent were high achievers at the end of fifth grade, while about 26 percent were medium-high achievers; no catch-up group emerged. About 16 percent of Hispanics were high achievers in math, and again, no catch-up group emerged.

The differences between patterns in reading and math achievement are noteworthy. That makes sense because in the first years of school, reading gets the bulk of time and attention. But in math, the situation is very different. There are fewer high achievers in all the groups than there are in reading, and there are many more students who seem stuck in lower achievement trajectories. This suggests that schooling doesn't have as strong an impact on math achievement as it does in reading.

Intensive interventions boost at-risk first-graders' reading development

Review of extra-help approaches in Oregon and Texas schools shows early support makes a difference

First-graders in Oregon and Texas, identified as at-risk because of a lack of early literacy skills, showed dramatic improvements across a range of reading measures after receiving extra instructional time systematically designed to enhance reading development, according to researchers at two institutions.

In the study, published in the March/April issue of the Journal of Learning Disabilities, 21 at-risk students in Oregon, in groups of four or fewer kids, received an intensive 60-minute daily intervention. In Texas, 33 similarly at-risk students, in groups no larger than five, received an intensive daily 30-minute intervention. The sessions were carried out during the school year, focused on similar skill development and were delivered in a similar explicit and systematic manner. The main difference was length of time devoted to the students.

"This study looked at the role of time with students most at risk for reading difficulties to determine whether doubling intervention time at the beginning of first grade is an efficient use of instructional time," said Beth A. Harn, professor of special education at the University of Oregon.

The Oregon students in the longer sessions scored higher on end-of-the-year testing, but all students receiving the extra instruction improved with many of their scores ending in the average range against national norms.

"The significantly greater growth in fluency for all of these students who received more intense intervention is indeed noteworthy," said Harn, who led the study. "A lot of early interventions in the past have done an exceptional job of filling gaps in phonemic awareness, phonics and comprehension, but closing the gap in fluency has represented a struggle."

The Oregon approach was more intensive, increasing instructional support significantly for the most at-risk students, beginning in first grade. In Texas, intensifying to the same level was not available until students were in second grade.

In Oregon, during the first half of the school year, most time was spent on word analysis, such as phonics and word recognition, followed by passage reading and comprehension and reading fluency. In the second half of the school year the intervention focus shifted, with more time spent in passage reading with comprehension and fluency development and less time in word analysis.

The results suggested that students in the longer intervention outperformed students in the less intense intervention on all outcomes except passage comprehension. The greatest differences were found in improvements on oral reading fluency for students in the longer intervention.

Researchers theorize that longer, 60-minute sessions may provide students with the additional practice they need to master early literacy skills. Whether the improvements will continue to be demonstrated across later years is not known, Harn said. "This was a post-hoc study," the authors wrote, "limiting direct comparisons and generalization."

Harn and colleagues also noted that the interventions analyzed in their research involved schools experienced in using research-based instructional and assessment practices with multi-layered support systems. Because of that pre-condition, Harn said, an exact replication of the study in schools that do not use such approaches may be difficult.

"The study certainly has implications in how schools approach their instruction and interventions," said Harn, who led the analysis of data from the Oregon schools. Schools may want to allocate more instructional resources earlier for struggling students, rather than waiting until later grades when it becomes more difficult to catch up struggling readers, she said

'Acting Black' Hinders Gifted Black Student Achievement

Gifted black students often underachieve in school because of efforts to "act black," new research has found, offering insights into the achievement gap between black and white students in the United States and why black students are under-represented in gifted programs.

"Part of the achievement gap, particularly for gifted black students, is due to the poor image these students have of themselves as learners," study author Donna Ford, professor of special education and Betts Chair of Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College, said. "Our research shows that prevention and intervention programs that focus on improving students' achievement ethic and self-image are essential to closing the achievement gap."

The research, one of the first to examine the concept of "acting black," was published in the March issue of Urban Education.

Ford and co-authors Gilman Whiting and Tarek Grantham set out to determine how gifted black students achieve compared to their white counterparts, what can be learned about the achievement gap by studying these students, and how gifted students view "acting black" and "acting white." They surveyed 166 black 5th- through 12th-graders identified as gifted in two Ohio school districts.

"Many studies have been conducted about students, with little information collected from them," the authors wrote. "It is with students themselves that many of the answers and solutions to underachievement, low achievement, and the achievement gap may be found."

Most of the students were familiar with the terms "acting white" and "acting black." They described "acting white" as speaking properly, being smart or too smart, doing well in school, taking advanced courses, being stuck up, and not acting your race. Terms they used to describe "acting black" were having a "don't care" attitude, being laid back, being dumb or uneducated and pretending not to be smart.

"Tragically, only one student (surveyed) indicated acting black was positive. Instead, the gifted black students? believe that acting black means lacking in intelligence, placing a low priority on academics, speaking poorly, behaving poorly, and dressing in ill-fitting clothes," they wrote. "The gifted black students clearly hold negative stereotypes about blacks, namely their attitudes, behaviors and intelligence."

Sixty-six percent of the students surveyed reported knowing someone who had been teased or ridiculed for doing well in school, while 42 percent reported being teased for this reason themselves.

The authors found discrepancies between students' attitudes and their behaviors-students expressed belief that school is important and a key to success, but may not behave that way in the classroom.

"This is because they don't want to be associated with the stigma attached with achieving and doing well; plus they try to keep up with friends and don't want to be singled out or 'played,'" one of the students wrote.

The authors also found that while black students agree that hard work in school leads to success, they do not necessarily believe that this holds true for black people.

"This doubt and second-guessing may result in the child believing that an education benefits or pays off for some groups but not others, namely, blacks," the authors wrote. "Some of these students, specifically if discouraged, believe that hard work is a waste of time and energy given the reality of social injustices."

To address these issues, the authors argue for counseling to help battle peer pressure, stereotypes and poor self-esteem, and suggest promoting an achievement ethic in schools through posters, speakers, symposiums and mentoring programs.

"Because these students are black, these posters, speakers and mentors should include black people," they wrote. "A multicultural curriculum must hold promise for improving students' image of themselves and people of color as scholars."

This work cannot end at the school doors, the authors argued, but also must extend into the home.

"Families are urged to connect their children with mentors and role models who are academically oriented and who have a positive racial identity," they wrote. "Adults of the family must also see themselves as role models and personify a strong work ethic-an image of school being important and an image of resilience."

"The achievement gap is real, the achievement gap is complex, the achievement gap is stubborn; we - educators and families - must be just as stubborn and diligent in our efforts to eliminate the gap."

Mean Girls, Bullies, Study Sheds Light on School Cliques

Girls who gossip and exclude others from their cliques are often labeled as popular by their classmates, and nearly all high school cliques are divided along racial lines, according to University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) sociologist Casey Borch, Ph.D.

Borch co-authored a study with Antonius Cillessen, Ph.D., at the Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen and the University of Connecticut, to determine how aggression, popularity and academic achievement influenced membership in cliques. The study will be published as a chapter in the forthcoming book “Modeling Dyadic and Interdependent Data in Developmental Research” later this year.

The researchers surveyed nearly 600 boys and girls, starting in the 4th grade through the 12th grade, in a public school system in a working class community in the Northeast from 1995-2004.

The study found that physical aggression helped popularity in the earlier grades but not as the children grew older. Membership in physically aggressive cliques tended to decline over time whereas membership in cliques where students gossiped, spread rumors and excluded others, which is called relational aggression, remained constant over time.

In fact, the study found that behaviors such as gossiping and spreading rumors increased the perceived popularity, or social visibility, of the students over time, Borch said. “So how well known you are is enhanced by one’s ability to be relationally aggressive. So a lot of popular kids may not be well liked, but they are relationally aggressive and their peers think that they are popular. So it makes some sense that relational aggression is a chosen tactic used by adolescents interested in popularity.

“The ‘mean girls’ effect suggests that girls engage more in this type of behavior more than boys,” says Borch, “and as a rule, they do, but the people who gain more from this behavior are minority boys. Minority boys who are relationally aggressive gained a lot more popularity over time than any other group, although, they were less likely to use the behavior.

“One surprising finding was that in the fourth grade about 50 percent of the cliques were of mixed race and ethnicity, but by the 12th grade, nearly 90 percent of cliques were of the one race or ethnicity,” says Borch, “so only 10 percent were mixed. This was even more surprising given the increasing ethnic diversity of the school system we studied over time. We did not expect to see the racial composition of the cliques to go from 50 percent mixed to just 10 percent.”

For their study, the researchers had students write down the names their best friends. To identify the cliques, the researchers compared the lists to determine whether students’ feelings were reciprocated.

The study subjects also were asked to identify the overtly aggressive classmates - those who regularly started fights, said mean things or bullied others – and those who gossiped, told rumors or excluded others from a group. Then students were asked to rate the school’s cliques on popularity, social preference and overt and relational aggression.

“Cliques aren’t necessarily bad,” says Borch. “It just depends on the kind of clique a child is in. The common misconception is that they [cliques] are inherently bad and that kids in cliques exclude other people or that they are separatists or that they’re somehow disconnected from the larger network as a whole and that is fundamentally not true.

“Kids are good social observers,” says Borch. “They know who the aggressive kids are and who’s popular. So listen to your kids. If they say someone is trouble, they may very well be.”

Actually, Girls Like Science

A Miami University survey of nearly 2,000 girls in grades 4-8 found they liked science and math less in 8th grade than they did in 4th grade. That’s not all: They started out liking social sciences and language arts even less, and similarly lost interest in those subjects as they approached 8th grade.

What does it mean?

Contrary to other studies that seem to show girls are turned off by math and science, “It doesn’t seem like girls are losing interest in science and mathematics any more than they lose interest in other subjects,” said study co-author Jennifer Blue, assistant professor of physics at Miami.

Blue and Debra Gann, a teacher in Hamilton City Schools, surveyed girls in public and parochial schools in southwest Ohio to find their overall enjoyment of basic elementary and middle-school subjects. The girls were to rank how much they liked a subject on a scale from one (strongly dislike) to five (really like).

Average enjoyment levels in 4th grade were: 4.11 for science 3.85 for mathematics 3.5 for language arts 3.49 for social studies

Gann and Blue were surprised that science and math weren’t singled out, but that girls “like science and mathematics as much as other subjects all the way through 8th grade.”

They then lose a little interest across all subjects, with science falling to an average likeability score of 3.29 and social studies falling to 2.91, the lowest of the four subject scores in 8th grade.

Why? The researchers aren’t sure.

But the good news is that as they become college students, some females regain their interest in sciences: At Miami’s Oxford campus, there are more female majors than male in botany, microbiology and zoology.

Redesigning the Ninth-Grade Experience: Reduce Failure, Improve Achievement and Increase High School Graduation Rates

The ninth grade is a crucial year that defines for many students whether they will continue toward high school graduation, further study and employment, or will become disengaged and drop out. This report outlines the key conditions of an effective ninth-grade experience, designed to engage more students in challenging high school academic and career/technical studies.

Full report:

http://www.sreb.org/publications/2008/08V06NinthGradeRedesign.asp

Getting Students Ready for College and Careers: Transitional Senior English (January 2008)

This report describes and defines the reading and writing readiness standards that are needed to prepare students for postsecondary studies and careers. It provides samples of related school assessments to help teachers provide the support and class structure needed to get students to the readiness level expected by colleges. Also included are samples of learning activities to provide a structure for students to improve their literacy preparation.

Full report:

http://www.sreb.org/publications/2008/08V01LostInTransition.asp

SREB States Need to Smooth Transitions for Students from High School to College and Careers

The nation’s work force will be in jeopardy unless all high school students are better prepared for college study and today’s highly skilled workplace, says a new report from the Southern Regional Education Board.

Too many high schools focus their academics and guidance on students who plan to enroll in four-year colleges, overlooking the many students who will enter community colleges, technical schools or the workplace. As a result, a significant percentage of students are dropping out of high school and are on a lifetime path to low-wage jobs or unemployment, notes Lost in Transition: Building a Better Path from School to College and Careers.

About one-fourth of the nation’s public high school students do not graduate from high school on time. And nearly two-thirds of high school graduates do not earn a college degree, certificate or other credential — a problem that threatens to undermine economic progress in SREB states and the nation if unaddressed, the report says.

Lost in Transition recommends specific actions states can take to encourage all students to pursue a course of study that will prepare them for the challenges ahead. The actions are based on discussions by nearly 500 state education and policy leaders at forums in 15 states over two years sponsored by SREB and the Phoenix-based League for Innovation in the Community College.

Job one is for states and school districts to help more high school students complete a rigorous academic core to prepare them better for college and careers, the report notes. For many students, this can best be done by creating programs of study options that combine challenging academic studies with a sequence of career/technical courses in high-demand, high-wage fields aligned to college and career readiness standards, the report suggests.

Among the specific recommendations in the report: High schools, community colleges and four-year colleges together need to create job shadowing and more authentic career/technical programs and internships that excite students about learning and introduce them to the skills they will need for high-demand fields.

Dual-credit courses — in which students can take college courses for credit while still in high school — need to represent college-level work. Some dual-credit courses in community colleges are not academically rigorous, and students may benefit from taking Advanced Placement courses instead, the report notes.

Community colleges also need to be clearer about "open admissions" and what students must know and be able to do in order to earn credit toward a degree and avoid remedial studies. Improving students’ readiness is not a performance factor in most state accountability systems for high schools or two-year colleges and needs to become a priority for both, the report says.

SREB is working with states to improve students’ readiness for college or career preparation. SREB is helping states develop specific college/career readiness standards — defining the levels of reading, writing and math skills that all students need in order to pursue college study or career training. The standards will be the basis for revised high school exams in each state and intensive extra-help programs for students who need them. Such a system will help states address the nearly 70 percent of students who are not well-prepared for college work upon high school graduation, according to the ACT.

Full report:

http://www.sreb.org/publications/2008/08V01LostInTransition.asp

New research shows that most children still enjoy a good read!

New research from Britain’s National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) shows that at least two-thirds of primary school children enjoy reading and about the same proportion read at home most days. Encouragingly, this figure has held steady since the last survey in 2003, by contrast to a worrying decline over the preceding five years.

Attitudes to reading at ages 9 and 11 was completed last summer by 4500 children in 61 schools and repeated a survey that was conducted in 2003, providing unique evidence in changes in attitudes.

The survey shows that overall girls enjoy reading more than boys and reading enjoyment declines as children get older. Comics are the most popular read, just edging ahead of story books for the first time with the younger age-group. Poetry has become less popular, but the proportion of children who prefer watching TV to reading has actually dropped slightly.

Changes since 2003

Overall, children’s enjoyment of reading and their confidence and independence as readers have remained much the same between 2003 and 2007. Nearly 70% of 9 year olds and over 60% of 11 year olds still enjoy reading stories.

Since 2003, boys’ and girls’ enjoyment of reading poetry at school has greatly declined in both year groups. In 2003 60% of pupils in Year 4 and 45% of pupils in Year 6 liked reading poems, compared to 47% of Year 4 pupils and 36% of Year 6 pupils in the 2007 survey.

Comics are the most popular reading material. Whilst they were popular in 2003, they are now the favourite with both age groups, since the nine-year-olds’ enjoyment of reading stories and information books has fallen slightly by comparison. Whilst 62% of 11-year-olds preferred to watch television rather than reading in 2003, only 55% do so now.

Full report:

http://www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/pdfs/downloadable/RAQ.pdf

Boys achievement, progress, motivation and participation: issues raised by recent literature

Boys’ educational achievements - or the lack of them - is a topical concern to government policy-makers and teachers alike. Every local education authority in England which responded to a request for information on the topic reported that boys’ standards of achievement fell below those of girls.

This report reviews the recent literature on the topic.

Full report:

http://www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/pdfs/downloadable/boysachievement.pdf

New Brief Takes Close Look at Who’s Leaving Teaching and Why

Who leaves teaching, why they leave, and the costs associated with their departures from the profession and from their schools are explored in a new brief from the Alliance for Excellent Education.

What Keeps Good Teachers in the Classroom? Understanding and Reducing Teacher Turnover, made possible with the generous support of MetLife Foundation, contends that attracting and keeping high-quality teachers significantly elevates student achievement, especially in poorer, low-performing schools. However, an estimated 157,000 teachers leave the profession every year. An additional 232,000 change schools. The costs associated with both are high, both financially and in terms of teacher quality, as experienced teachers are replaced with novices.

The brief examines why teachers leave, as well as which teachers are leaving. For example, those who are graduates of a highly selective college or those with high college grade point averages are most likely to leave teaching before retirement. Strong education credentials, such as certification, more often lead to long-term retention. But are the ones staying necessarily the “best” teachers? The brief also considers ways to help teachers succeed, which leads to a higher likelihood they will remain in the profession.

What Keeps Good Teachers in the Classroom? Understanding and Reducing Teacher Turnover can be found at http://www.all4ed.org/files/TeachTurn.pdf

TEACHERS’ PAY CONTINUES TO SLIDE

Latest data show pay gap widening between public school teachers & other professionals

At a time of national debate over ways to improve the performance of America’s schools, a new report reveals a trend that undermines chances of reaching that goal: a large and growing pay penalty for those who choose to become public school teachers. Over the last decade, the teacher pay gap increased 10.8 percentage points—from a 4.3 percent shortfall for teachers in 1996 to 15.1 percent in 2006.

The Teaching Penalty: Teacher Pay Losing Ground, published today by the Economic Policy Institute, provides a detailed analysis of trends in teacher pay. In 1960 women teachers had an annual wage advantage, of 14.7 percent compared to other similarly educated women. This annual pay difference was reversed to a 13.2 percent annual wage deficit by 2000.

The study also compares teachers’ weekly pay to that of a core group of occupations with similar educational and skills requirements: accountants, reporters, registered nurses, computer programmers, clergy, and personnel officers. The teacher pay penalty translates to weekly earnings that are, on average, about $154, or 14.3%, lower than those of people in the comparable occupations. (Because teachers’ annual work schedule is so different from that of other professional occupations, the report compares wages earned for a week of work as a more appropriate comparison.)

The teacher pay penalty cuts across all 50 states, although its size varies. The gap exceeds 25 percent in 15 states (AL, AR, AZ, CO, DC, KS, LA, MO, MS, NC, NH, OK, TN, TX and VA), and is less than 10 percent in only five (MT, ND, RI, VT and WY). There is no state where teachers’ weekly wages are equal to or greater than those of similar occupations.

Particularly ominous for attempts to retain good teachers is the study’s finding that the penalty is severest among the most experienced teachers. For early-career teachers (age 25-34), today’s pay penalty is only slightly larger than in 1996 (a change of 0.5 percentage points). The brunt of the widening pay gap has fallen on senior teachers (45-54), whose pay deficit within their age group has grown by 18.0 percentage points among women (who comprise the vast majority of teachers) since 1996.

The teacher pay disadvantage grew markedly during the latter half of the 1990s. While earnings of college graduates, on average, increased by 12.7 percent, teachers’ earnings did not grow at all.

Some critics, while acknowledging the existence of the pay gap, argue that this gap isn’t so much of a problem since teachers’ lower pay is outweighed by more generous health insurance and pensions. The authors examined that claim and found that taking total compensation into account would have narrowed the pay gap by just three percentage points in 2006 (from 15 percent to 12 percent), and would not have altered the general trend.

The teacher pay gap is, to a great extent, a problem schools should have seen coming, as the study’s breakouts of trends by gender show. From 1996 to 2006, the pay gap for male and female teachers grew pretty much in tandem – from a 0.7 percent to a 10.5 percent deficit for women and from a 15.1 to 25.5 percent shortfall for male teachers.

Even earning an advanced degree yields only a small improvement in the gap. Among those with a bachelor’s degree only, teachers earned approximately 12.2 percent less than their peers in other occupations in 2006, while the gap between teachers and non-teachers with a master’s degree was almost as large, 11.3 percent.

The study offers the most thorough examination to date of the trend in relative teacher pay. In addition to breaking out data by gender, seniority, and education, the authors examined and compared their results, which are based on decennial Census data, to results from other researchers. They found broad consensus on the fact of a teacher pay disadvantage that has grown over time. The only exceptions, they report, are the work of two researchers who based their findings on certain Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data, which the BLS itself advises on its own web site is not appropriate to this task.

Full report:

http://www.epi.org/books/teaching_penalty/teaching-penalty-full-text.pdf

Preparing Effective Teachers for the Milwaukee Public Schools

The Milwaukee Teacher Education Center (MTEC).alternative teacher preparation program has two clear advantages over traditional programs.

First, it is more efficient. Elementary school teachers trained at traditional schools and departments of education take, on average, about 66 credits of education courses—about half of all their university coursework. These are the courses that teachers surveyed for this study ranked as the least valuable parts of their training programs, by far. In contrast, the MTEC program requires about a month of classroom training and a great deal of on-the-job teaching.

Moreover, many MTEC teachers rate the quality of their program more highly than teachers from other programs rate theirs. Yet, MTEC teachers are not more effective. They produce the same achievement gains as teachers trained in traditional programs.

Second, MTEC year-to-year has a high retention rate—over 80 percent in recent years. Milwaukee has a high turnover rate among its teachers—much higher than the rate in other Wisconsin school districts. The fact that MTEC teachers tend to stay with MPS is no small accomplishment.

Full report:

http://www.wpri.org/Reports/Volume21/Vol21No2/Vol21no2p1.html

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=724214

Texas Educator Excellence Grant (TEEG) Program: Year One Evaluation Report

This report presents findings stemming from the first-year evaluation of the Texas Educator Excellence Grant (TEEG) program, one of several statewide performance incentive programs in Texas. TEEG Cycle 1 provided approximately $100 million in noncompetitive, 12-month grants to over 1,100 public schools. Schools eligible to participate had records of academic success and high percentages of economically disadvantaged students.

This report provides an overview of TEEG school selection criteria, program design features of schools' locally-designed performance incentive plans, teachers' attitudes and behaviors in TEEG schools, and interviews with schools that decided not to participate in TEEG.

Preliminary findings during the first year of TEEG implementation indicate that many of the traditional arguments against performance incentive policies, namely the negative impact on teacher collaboration and instructional quality, were not reported by teachers in Cycle 1 schools. While these findings do offer insight into the early experiences of educators, authors caution that it is too soon to attribute those findings to the TEEG program itself.

Full report:

http://www.performanceincentives.org/data/files/news/BooksNews/FINAL_TEEG_Y1_Report___2808_correction.pdf

Interactive Computer Technology (ICT) now embedded in schools- but teachers want more resources, better training and leadership

Findings from Britain’s National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) new Teacher Voice survey suggest that new technologies are changing the way teachers teach and helping to raise attainment. However, a sizeable minority of teachers indicated that they needed more support and information to integrate ICT in lessons and about a third of respondents highlighted lack of resources and poor reliability as barriers to the use of ICT in schools.  

The findings are from NFER’s first Teacher Voice Omnibus Survey, which was completed by a panel of about 1,000 teachers, from headteachers to newly qualified classroom teachers.

Key findings  Teachers reported that:

· using ICT in lessons makes a difference to the way they teach (80%)

· they have the ICT skills to exploit the technology available to them (67%)

· ICT helps to raise pupil attainment (62%)

Resources and infrastructure

About a third of respondents highlighted lack of resources and poor reliability as barriers to the development of ICT in schools. Thirty five per cent said that poor reliability discourages them from using ICT in lessons and 33% blamed a lack of resources for limiting their use of it.

Training and support

When compared to research conducted in 2004, the findings suggest that teacher competence in using ICT has improved. However, they identify a continuing demand for training, with about a third of teachers responding that they don’t have the necessary skills to exploit the technology available to them.

ICT leadership in schools

Responses concerning the quality of ICT leadership in schools teams suggest that it could be improved. Just 27% of respondents felt that the leadership of ICT pedagogy in their school is inspirational, however only 44% said that their school is innovative in its use of ICT.

The Teacher Voice Omnibus Survey is at: /what-we-offer/teacher-voice/teacher-voice_home.cfm

Preschoolers benefit from daycare program to prevent obesity

A preschool-based intervention program helped prevent early trends toward obesity and instilled healthy eating habits in multi-ethnic 2- to 5-year-olds, according to a report presented at the American Heart Association’s Conference on Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism.

“Nobody would dispute that we are experiencing an epidemic of obesity in this country,” said Ruby Natale, Ph.D., Psy.D., author of the study and assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine in Miami, Fla. “Children as young as 7 years old are experiencing health consequences of being overweight, suggesting that intervention must occur as early as possible and involve the entire family.

“Inner-city minority children spend many hours of the day in preschool, making it a significant influence in many aspects of their lives. Children depend on their parents for nutrition and physical activity choices at this age, so the home environment must be accounted for as well.”

Natale and colleagues studied 2- to 5-year-old children from ethnically diverse, low-income families in eight subsidized childcare centers in Miami Dade County, Fla. The intervention group received a six-month home- and school-based obesity prevention program with two tiers.

The classroom-based (tier one) program included menu modifications and education:

· The menu promoted water as the primary beverage for staff and children; offered only skim or 1 percent milk; limited juices and other sweetened beverages; and incorporated fruits and vegetables in snacks as much as possible.

· Classroom teachers were educated weekly about how to incorporate nutrition and physical activity curriculums and how to better understand and overcome children’s cognitive, cultural and environmental barriers to implementing a healthy low-fat, high-fiber diet.

The family-based (tier two) program reinforced what the children learned at childcare, including:

· Monthly parent dinners to educate parents about food labels, the food guide pyramid and portion sizes.

· Newsletters focusing on topics such as picky eaters, healthy cooking tips, healthy fast food options and recipes for healthy snacks.

· At-home activities such as sampling different vegetables and various types of lower-fat milks.

Comparing data from the intervention group to a control group of children, researchers found that intervention is an effective obesity prevention strategy.

“While 68.4 percent of children were at normal weight at the start of the study, this increased to 73 percent at follow-up,” said Sarah E. Messiah, Ph.D., M.P.H., lead author of the study and research assistant professor in the Division of Pediatric Clinical Research, University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine. “Also, the percentage of children who were at risk for overweight decreased from 16 percent to 12 percent.”

From the beginning to the end of the intervention, children changed the amounts and types of foods they ate. Those at two intervention sites ate less junk food, more fresh fruits and vegetables, and drank less juice and more 1 percent milk compared to those at control sites.

Specifically, on average in the intervention groups:

· Chip consumption decreased from daily to no consumption.

· Cookie consumption decreased 50 percent.

· Fresh fruit and vegetable consumption increased 25 percent.

· Juice consumption decreased 50 percent and was replaced with a 20 percent increase in water consumption.

· One percent milk consumption increased 20 percent.

“In the control sites, cake and cookie consumption actually increased 35 percent and 75 percent, respectively, while average fresh fruit and water consumption decreased,” Messiah said. “We are hoping that our study will impact policy around the country leading to healthier standards for meals served at childcare centers. If we are successful in improving attitudes toward nutrition and physical activity in early childhood, we can potentially influence adult behavior and begin to hope that the public health epidemic of obesity can be ended.”

After-school programs can increase physical activity of adolescent girls

Afterschool programs can modestly increase the amount of physical activity among girls in middle school, according to new results from the Trial of Activity for Adolescent Girls (TAAG), a multiple site, community based study supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health.

Results are published in the article, "Promoting Physical Activity in Middle School Girls," in the March issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

The study found that programs which linked schools in 6 geographic regions of the U.S. with community partners (such as the YMCA or YWCA, local health clubs, and community recreation centers) increased time spent in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity among the middle-school female students by about 2 minutes per day, or 80 calories a week. This finding occurred after three years of the intervention but not after two years. Physical activity was measured using accelerometers (a device for measuring the acceleration of motion), rather than self-reported. The authors write that results suggest this improved level of activity could prevent excess weight gain of about 2 pounds per year (or 0.82 kg per year), which, if sustained, could prevent a girl from becoming overweight as a teenager or adult.

In addition, TAAG showed a reduction of 8.2 minutes of sedentary behavior in girls in the intervention schools. Furthermore, the best results were seen in programs offered between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays, which suggest that afterschool programs are more effective than programs offered at other times, such as morning weekdays and weekends. The study results support the need for schools and community programs to work together to provide opportunities for physical activity programs in afterschool settings.

Researchers have found that as youth, especially girls, become adolescents, their level of physical activity decreases, putting them at risk for becoming overweight.

Researchers Link Higher Test Scores with Certified Librarians in Schools

New York State schools with certified librarians have higher scores on average on the fourth grade English Language Arts (ELA) test than those who don’t, according to the findings of researchers at Syracuse University School of Information Studies (iSchool).

Preliminary findings of research conducted by Professor Ruth Small and graduate students in the Center for Digital Literacy (CDL) show a statistically significant increase—with an almost 10 point difference—in the ELA test scores among fourth-grade students whose schools had certified librarians over students in schools without certified librarians.

“We believe these findings are important to consider, not only because of the higher ELA test scores,” says Small, who directs the school library media program at the iSchool. “These certified librarians are having a larger impact on students’ overall learning as well. Although we’re still analyzing the data, our preliminary results show that certified librarians are also more likely to provide students with materials that present more diverse points of view and that better support the curriculum than non-certified librarians.”

Certified school library media specialists are currently not mandated at the elementary level in New York State, but they are at the secondary level (grades 7-12). There are currently 568,924 students in K-12 schools who do not have access to a certified school library media specialist.

“This preliminary report reaffirms what nineteen other state studies have shown, that school libraries staffed by certified librarians and equipped with current books and technology can have a positive impact on student academic achievement”, said Michael J. Borges, Executive Director of the New York Library Association.

The research, which is being funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Studies, included survey responses from 1,612 schools, proportionately representing New York City; large Upstate cities such as Syracuse, Buffalo, and Rochester; other high-needs schools from urban and rural districts; average need schools; and low-need schools. Even when the need levels of schools were taken into consideration, there was still a 2.2 point difference in average test scores.

“These initial findings supports our efforts to require school library media specialists in grades K-6, especially in those school districts that are not meeting state and federal standards,” said Alan Lubin, Executive Vice President, New York State United Teachers.

The researchers are now currently analyzing more in-depth information gathered from surveys and focus groups involving school library media specialists, students, principals, and teachers from 48 elementary, middle, and high schools across New York State. They will analyze these various groups’ perceptions of school library specialists and their effect on education.

“The NYS Assembly values libraries and believes they are an important part of our educational system. This preliminary report reinforces the need to continue to invest in our schools, especially those lacking a quality school library program,” stated Assemblymember Amy Paulin, Chair of the Assembly Libraries and Educational Technology Committee.

Small hopes to better understand the impact these trained library media specialists have on motivating students to learn, influencing the adoption and use of technology, and servicing students with disabilities and special needs.

“Our preliminary results support what school librarians already knew,” Small says. “Best intentions only go so far. We need people educated in school librararianship and dedicated to motivating students to read and learn in our schools.”

The New York Library Association is supporting an increase in Library Materials Aid from $6.25 per pupil to $10 per pupil as recommended by the NYS Board of Regents. Library Materials Aid is used by schools to purchase books and other reading materials for their libraries. NYLA is also asking the Governor and the Legislature to amend the Contracts for Excellence initiative to allow the extra funds that high need school districts receive to be spent on hiring school library media specialists and equipping libraries with up to date books and technology.

“This study confirms the direct impact of certified school librarians on the educational success of our children. That is why I am sponsoring legislation (S.1686) to ensure that every school in the state has a library and a school librarian. In recent years, the Senate has successfully proposed record increases in state aid to public libraries, and I will continue to promote support for school libraries," said State Senator HughT. Farley, Chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Libraries.

The Governor in his proposed 2008-09 Executive Budget removed $5 million in funding for libraries and held School Library Materials Aid at $6.25 per pupil despite proposing a $1.4 billion increase in school aid.

A copy of the preliminary report can be found here:

http://www.nyla.org/content/user_1/Preliminary_Report_Small.pdf

Low Performance by U.S. Students on International Tests Highlights Threat to Nation’s Economic Future

New research published in the spring 2008 issue of Education Next shows that the cognitive skills of a nation’s students have a large impact on its economic growth. Using data from international tests administered over several decades, economists Eric A. Hanushek of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, Ludger Woessmann of the University of Munich, and their research colleagues found that increased years of schooling by the labor force boost the economy only when such schooling boosts cognitive skills, as measured by performance on math and science assessments.

In the latest international math and science test conducted by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), U.S. students again trailed the average international scores achieved by students in the 57 test-taking nations. Students from a diverse array of countries, including Canada, Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, scored significantly higher than those from the United States, with Finnish students beating those of all other countries. The United States now lags behind Poland, which raised its scores more than any other nation.

Hanushek and Woessmann’s findings demonstrate how critical the quality of the education students receive is to a nation’s economic performance: Had the United States joined the world leaders in math and science by 2000, as the nation's governors called for in 1989, the nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would, as measured by past results, be 2 percent greater than it is today. Although this may sound small, it would amount to more than $300 billion additional income this year. If one projects those effects into the future, the GDP could be 4.5 percentage points higher by 2015--enough to cover the full cost of the nation’s K-12 education system in that year. A reform in educational outcomes begun today that moved the United States to top world standards in 20 years would yield a real GDP 25 percent higher after 75 years than were there no change in the level of cognitive skills, the researchers note.

“The importance of good schools can be documented quite precisely,” Hanushek and Woessmann state. “A highly skilled workforce can raise economic growth by about two-thirds of a percentage point every year.”

The researchers also discovered that the results would apply to developing countries but that the size of the impact of cognitive skills depends on whether a nation’s economy is open to outside trade and other external influences. For greatest positive economic impact, the more open the economy, the more important it is that a country’s students are acquiring high levels of cognitive skills.

Hanushek and Woessmann used performance on 12 standardized tests to measure the average level of cognitive skill in a given country. With this data, they were able to assess how human capital relates to differences in economic growth for 50 countries from 1960 to 2000--more countries over a longer period of time than any previous study.

Although the United States continues to do poorly on international assessments of student achievement, its GDP growth rate was higher than average during the past century. Hanushek and Woessmann note, however, that the United States has benefited from advantages apart from the quality of its schooling--freer labor and product markets, less government regulation, lower tax rates, and less powerful trade unions--that encourage investment, permit the rapid development of new products, and allow workers to adjust to new market opportunities. In addition, the United States’ higher education system is a powerful engine of technological progress and economic growth.

Those benefits, however, may not stave off the rising competition from other countries much longer, the researchers warn. Half of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries now exceed the United States in the average number of years of education their citizens receive while also scoring better on the international math and science tests. And many countries are doing more to improve their higher education systems, secure property rights, and open their economies, which will enable them to make better use of their human capital.

“Education and Economic Growth” is available here:

http://media.hoover.org/documents/ednext_20082_62.pdf

SURVEY OF 17-YEAR-OLDS FINDS A NATION STILL AT RISK

Students Earn “D” When Tested on History and Literature

A new report from Common Core finds that many of America’s high school students do not possess the basic knowledge they need to succeed in the world or to achieve their full potential as democratic citizens. The report, entitled Still at Risk: What Students Don’t Know, Even Now, shows that, twenty-five years after the publication of the landmark study, A Nation at Risk, America’s children continue to demonstrate a stunning ignorance about basic facts of U.S. history and literature. Overall, the 1,200 17-year-olds surveyed earned a “D.”

· Nearly a quarter cannot identify Adolf Hitler, with ten percent thinking Hitler was a munitions manufacturer.

· More than a quarter think Christopher Columbus sailed after 1750.

· Fewer than half can place the Civil War in the correct half-century.

· A third do not know that the Bill of Rights guarantees the freedom of speech and religion.

· Half have no idea what the Renaissance was.

· Nearly half think that The Scarlet Letter was either about a witch trial or a piece of correspondence.

“It is easy to make light of such ignorance. In reality, however, a deep lack of knowledge is neither humorous nor trivial,” said Lynne Munson, Common Core’s executive director. “What we know helps to determine how successful we are likely to be in life, and how many career paths we can choose from. It also affects our contribution as democratic citizens.”

The survey also identifies a consistent gap—the size of a letter grade—between respondents who have at least one college-educated parent and those who do not. “This is particularly bad news for students who come from homes where the discussion of history and literature is rare,” said Munson, “because if the school doesn’t impart this knowledge, these students are not likely ever to learn it.”

Full report:

http://www.commoncore.org/ourreports.php

REPORT ON Minnesota’s School choice program

Minnesota’s The Choice is Yours program has exceeded participation goals originally set in 2001, according to a report released today by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE). The Choice is Yours offers low-income Minneapolis students support, including transportation, if they choose to enroll in western suburban schools or Minneapolis magnet programs.

The Choice is Yours provides increased access to suburban schools and selected Minneapolis magnet schools for low-income Minneapolis families. Students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches receive priority placement and free transportation through the program. Nine suburban school districts participate in The Choice is Yours.

In 2001, the Choice is Yours program set the goal of eventually serving 2,000 students. This year, the program surpassed that goal with 2,080 participants. This year’s evaluation also found that 96% percent of suburban choice parents would recommend the program to others, a trend that has been consistent over the years.

Achievement levels

During the 2006-07 school year, third through seventh-grade students participating in the program were tested twice using the Northwest Achievement Level Tests in reading and mathematics. In an evaluation compiled by ASPEN Associates, the data was matched on a student-to-student basis with eligible, non-participating students based on demographic characteristics and baseline achievement.

In 2004-2005, suburban choice students performed better than non-participants, while in 2005-2006, suburban choice students were outperformed by non-participants. This year, with one exception, both groups of students tested in grades three through seven performed as well as matched samples of students who were eligible for the program but chose not to participate. In reading, suburban choice students, as a whole, were slightly outperformed by non-participants.

Analysis by Aspen Associates found that the most probable explanation for this change is that the suburban choice students tested each year are not the same students. As a result, the annual findings regarding student achievement should be viewed independently as they represent different groups of suburban choice students.

The full report is available as a download here:

http://education.state.mn.us/mdeprod/idcplg?IdcService=GET_FILE&dDocName=033819&RevisionSelectionMethod=latestReleased&Rendition=primary

Many teens spend 30 hours a week on 'screen time' during high school

While most teenagers (60 percent) spend on average 20 hours per week in front of television and computer screens, a third spend closer to 40 hours per week, and about 7 percent are exposed to more than 50 hours of ‘screen-time’ per week, according to a study presented at the American Heart Association’s 48th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention.

Researchers looked at patterns of screen-time through high school, including total time viewing television, video, computer and the Internet. Then they examined the influence of neighborhood social factors on distinct patterns of screen-time.

“Boys and those whose parents had lower educational attainment were much more likely to be in the ‘high-screen time’ group,” said Tracie A. Barnett, Ph.D., lead author of the study. “Teens with high levels of screen time may be at increased risk of obesity.”

They analyzed 1,293 seventh grade students from 10 Montreal high schools. The students in the study had completed in-class questionnaires four times a year for five years, and reported their usual number of hours watching television or videos, and using the computer or surfing the Internet. The researchers defined neighborhoods by census district, looking at average education and income levels within districts.

Barnett and colleagues identified distinct levels of screen-time for each of television/video and computer/Internet use. Overall, their study showed that:

. 52 percent of boys and 26 percent of girls reported average total screen-time levels above 42 hours per week;

. 52 percent of boys and 39 percent of girls reported average levels of TV/video use above 23 hours per week;

. 24 percent of boys and 7 percent of girls reported average levels of computer/Internet use of almost 30 hours per week.

“Most patterns were characterized by sustained levels throughout high school,” said Barnett, a researcher at Sainte-Justine Children’s

Hospital Research Center and assistant professor in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Montreal in Canada.

Approximately 73 percent of girls and 48 percent of boys were in the ‘low’ total screen-time group, corresponding nevertheless to between 18 and 22 hours of screen-time per week.

However, television still accounts for most of the screen-time, with 85 percent of adolescents reporting less than 10 hours per week of computer/Internet use.

For girls, living in neighborhoods ranked as the lowest third by socio-economic factors increased the likelihood of belonging to the high screen-time group up to five-fold compared to girls in the highest ranked socio-economic neighborhoods.

For boys, living in neighborhoods that had the lowest level of education increased the odds of being in the high screen-time group two- to three-fold, versus their counterparts where education levels were highest.

A more detailed analysis revealed that these associations were more pronounced for television/video watching and weaker for computer/Internet use.

“Researchers need to explore why adolescents’ (notably girls’) levels of especially television and video screen-time viewing through high school are higher if they live in neighborhoods that are socio-economically disadvantaged,” Barnett said. “In the meantime, we should make sure that teens living in these neighborhoods have access to safe and appealing active alternatives to sitting in front of screens.”

GOVERNING, FUNDING AND REFORMING PRIMARY EDUCATION:

FOUR RESEARCH REPORTS FROM THE PRIMARY REVIEW

What should be the balance of national and local in the running of England’s system of primary education? How adequately is the system funded? How effective are the mechanisms of quality assurance? What has been the impact on schools, teaching and learning of two decades of reform?

These four reports assess over 200 published sources of evidence on these matters, both official and independent.

Report 10/1 sets out the financial framework and funding trends for English primary schooling, comparing primary with secondary and England with other OECD countries. Report 10/2 charts the evolution and impact of the current mix of increased school autonomy and closer central direction. Report 4/3 takes a long historical look at school inspection from HMI to Ofsted. Report 3/2 outlines major reforms since 1988 bearing on curriculum, assessment and teaching, and uses both official and independent evidence to assess their impact. Between them, these reports raise important questions about accountability, culpability and justice in the apportioning of responsibility for what goes on in the nation’s primary schools.

SOME KEY FINDINGS AND ISSUES FROM THE FOUR REPORTS

• Funding primary education: should there be parity between primary and secondary? Report 10/1 records a marked increase in expenditure on primary education from 1998 onwards, yet ’when expenditure is expressed relative to per capita GDP the UK comes 18th out of 29 OECD countries on expenditure on primary education’ and the per pupil primary/secondary funding differential is greater than in some other OECD countries. This differential was first criticised in the 1931 Hadow Report and has been the subject of several enquiries since then. Yet it persists, and Report 10/1 argues that because children’s ‘later progress and achievement are highly dependent on earlier attainment ... it is by no means self-evident ... that primary schools should be less generously funded than secondary.’ The differential reflects in part the continuing Victorian legacy of large classes taught by generalists at the primary stage (as opposed to smaller secondary classes taught by subject specialists) and makes it difficult for primary schools to deploy staff in other ways.

• Is there now a ‘state theory of learning’? Report 10/2 shows how since 1997 ‘central control in key areas of educational action has been strengthened within a framework of administrative and fiscal devolution ... Government has strengthened its hand through what may be called a “state theory of learning” ... based on the idea that the repeated high stakes testing of pupils, a national curriculum, and in primary schools mandated pedagogy in numeracy and literacy, will raise standards ... There is little doubt that the machinery of surveillance and accountability makes it difficult for schools to deviate from focusing on test performance’ Report 3/2 makes a similar point and both surveys raise obvious questions not just about whether the ‘state theory of learning’ is educationally sound, but whether it is right or sensible for governments to intervene to this extent in the fine detail of professional practice.

• The impact of two decades of ‘reform’. Reports 10/2 and 3/2 track change and reform in the primary sector under both Conservative and New Labour administrations. Report 10/2 warns that ‘tracing causation between particular reforms and children’s learning is extremely difficult’, though that has been no bar to confident claims both for and against the various reform initiatives. Report 3/2 notes differences on this issue between official and independent sources, and some disagreement among the latter too. Yet ‘all studies shows clearly that change has occurred, and that in 2007 primary classrooms are very different places from the way they were in 1988, or even 1997.’ It records greater system coherence and improvements in the standards achieved by many pupils, ‘but a decrease in the overall quality of primary education ... because of the narrowing of the curriculum and the intensity of test preparation.’ Moreover, while one major study reported significant changes in teachers’ practice, a much larger number showed that ‘the quality of teacher-pupil interaction on which much learning depends has shown little sign of improvement and there is some evidence of decline ... At the same time, the range of teaching methods employed is probably narrower now than hitherto.’

THREE MORE RESEARCH REPORTS FROM THE PRIMARY REVIEW

• When should children start primary school? Children in England start their formal schooling one year and in some cases two years earlier than in many other countries, including some countries whose pupils later outperform their English peers in international surveys of educational achievement (see also Primary Review Research Survey 4/2). Report 9/1 shows that while the value of high-quality pre-school education is beyond dispute, the assumption that an early primary school starting age is beneficial for children’s later attainment is not well supported by the research evidence. Meanwhile, there are concerns about the nature of what is provided for four-year olds - the youngest pupils - in primary school reception classes.

• Standardisation, flexibility and quality. Reports 3/3 and 9/1 chart major changes in primary education since the 1960s, showing how the pace of change increased markedly after 1988 (the Education Reform Act) and even more so after New Labour’s arrival in 1997. However, much of the change has been in the direction of increased standardisation and uniformity, especially in curriculum, teaching methods, assessment, inspection and teacher training, and the desirability of this trend is open to question. This is particularly the case if, as earlier reports in this series show, the educational efficacy of some of the recent initiatives may also be disputed.

• Back to basics? The international evidence cited by Report 3/1 shows that the ‘basics’ of language and mathematics are a consistently prominent feature of national primary education curricula. However, this does not mean that they are conceived, let alone taught, identically. Some countries give language and literacy absolute pre-eminence rather than, as in England, parity with numeracy. Others apply a more comprehensive concept of literacy than is generally advocated in England.

• The rest of the curriculum: what should be taught? Internationally, there is considerable variation in the emphasis given at the primary stage to science, information technology, foreign languages, the humanities and the arts. Informing these variations are differences in educational values, with countries like England pursuing an increasingly instrumental and skills-based primary curriculum while others show a greater interest in the child’s all-round development and understanding.

• Citizenship and social education: diversity, identity and cohesion. England’s official curriculum documentation emphasises pluralism, diversity and multi-culturalism. In many other countries these are given relatively less emphasis than common values and shared national identity.

• Testing and monitoring. In England (Report 3/1) there is more external, standard testing than in many comparable countries; it happens more frequently; it starts at a younger age; it occurs in more subjects; its outcomes are published in league tables; it is used for both pupil assessment and school accountability. International evidence confirms the prominence of the testing culture in England’s primary schools - a culture which has been critically examined in earlier reports in this series - e.g. Community Soundings, reports 4/1, 4/2, 3/4 and 5/3.

• Educational alternatives. Report 3/3 looks at alternative ways of thinking about the curriculum that have emerged in recent years from outside as well as inside the state-maintained primary education system. It cites evidence to show that such alternatives can be at least as effective as mainstream approaches, and that while there is no ‘best buy’ they share certain tendencies: more time spent on reading with and to children, less time with computers and television; greater emphasis on the life of the imagination; continuing emphasis on literacy, though more broadly interpreted than at present; genuine partnership between teacher and taught; a more intimate institutional - as opposed to class - environment.

All the report referred to above may be found here:

http://www.primaryreview.org.uk/Publications/Interimreports.html

Research Suggests Mid-Level Computer Screen Displays Can Minimize Musculoskeletal Strain in Schoolchildren

A new study by human factors researchers in Australia suggests that students’ posture is affected by the height at which they view classroom learning materials. The researchers cited computer screen displays positioned at mid-level as causing less musculoskeletal strain than high- and book-level displays. Their findings were published in the February 2008 issue of Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

The rapid increase in computer use by children over the past few years, say the authors, "has outpaced the development of knowledge about the ramifications for the health of children." For example, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics indicate that in 2006, 80% of children aged 5 to 14 years used a computer at home.

Children are physically and behaviorally different from adults; for example, children’s heads are proportionately larger than those of adults. This makes research conducted on adults inadequate to address computer-related discomfort in children.

Because research on what constitutes the optimal display height for children is limited, Leon Straker and colleagues conducted a study in which they presented an interactive task to 24 children of normal height age 10–12. The children's movements were recorded with an optical capture system while they read from a book and wrote on paper or read from a computer display and used a mouse and keyboard to enter data. The researchers measured 3-D posture and muscle activity in the neck and upper limb for the high-, mid-, and book-level displays. The authors state that the study is unique in that it captures 3-D posture and muscle activity under conditions that are commonly observed in schools.

The high display resulted in mainly upward bending of the upper neck. As the visual target was lowered, head and neck downward bending increased. The mid-level display was found to promote a more upright and symmetrical posture and lower average muscle activity than either the high- or the book-level position. Of the three positions, the low (book-level) display was found to cause the most strain on muscles and joints.

Straker and colleagues note, "The data collected in this study provide the first detailed description of 3-D head, neck, and arm posture and the associated muscle activity of children reading and entering data with computers and reading and writing with paper." Despite some limitations of their study, they believe the findings can aid in the development of guidelines for computer use by children.

Download a copy of the article, "Children’s Posture and Muscle Activity at Different Computer Display Heights and During Paper Information Technology Use,": http://www.hfes.org/web/Newsroom/HumanFactors_Straker_etal.pdf

SAT-Optional Pilot Study Yielding Positive Results

Salisbury University has the first results from its five-year pilot study making the SAT optional for freshmen with outstanding high school records, and administrators are smiling.

"We feel we are off to a great start," said Dr. Ellen Neufeldt, vice president of student affairs.

In fall 2007 SU admitted 220 students of the freshman class of 1150 students under a new test-optional pilot program, the first in the University System of Maryland. Only students with high school grade point averages of 3.5 or higher in a rigorous college preparatory curriculum were allowed to apply without SAT or ACT scores.

The students in this program not only achieved at the same rate as their peers submitting SAT scores; in several areas they outperformed their test peers as a group:

--The GPA and credits earned after one semester are slightly higher for the test-optional group than the test-submitted group.

--Their first semester, a greater percentage of test-optional students earned GPAs at or above minimum standards compared to test-submitted freshmen.

Because of test-optional students, the overall class profile seems stronger.  For example, high school academic rigor increased, the test-optional students had 3 percentage points higher “rigorous” or “highly rigorous” high school academic curricula compared to their test-submitted peers.

Among test-optional students the high school GPA was 3.71 while for test-submitted students it was 3.44. Involvement in high school extra-curricular activities also grew. Ratings of “very involved” or “extremely involved” were 3 percentage points higher for the test-optional compared to the test-submitted freshmen.

Geographic and economic diversity also were enhanced. The 2007 freshman class had more out-of-state representation over the previous year and a slightly higher percentage of out-of-state applicants in the test-optional group than the test-submitted. Economically, 39 percent of the test-optional students demonstrated financial need compared to 29 percent of test-submitted.

As a group, "these (test-optional) students met our goals of access showing a greater percentage of students from lower socioeconomic groups while outperforming the rest of the class," Neufeldt said.

http://www.irvine.org/assets/pdf/pubs/youth/WhatMatters_Insight.pdf

What Matters, What Works: Advancing Achievement After School

This brief underscores the potential of after-school programs to advance children’s academic achievement. It shines a light on what matters most for programs that strive to promote academic success — namely, program quality and youth engagement — and it suggests what works by linking these program attributes to academic benefits. Based on the full outcomes report "Advancing Achievement," by Public/Private Ventures, the brief draws lessons from the Foundation’s Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning (CORAL) initiative. CORAL was an eight-year, $58 million after-school initiative aimed at improving education achievement in low-performing schools in five California cities.

Full report:

http://www.irvine.org/assets/pdf/pubs/evaluation/WhatMatters_Insight.pdf

Advancing Achievement: Findings from an Independent Evaluation of a Major After-School Initiative

This report presents full outcomes research on CORAL, an eight-year, $58 million after-school initiative aimed at improving education achievement in low-performing schools in five California cities. Findings in this report demonstrate the relationship between high-quality literacy programming and academic gains, and they highlight the potential role that quality programs may play in the ongoing drive to improve academic achievement. Commissioned by Irvine, this report was written by Public/Private Ventures.

Download Report

http://www.irvine.org/assets/pdf/pubs/evaluation/advancing.pdf

Supporting Success: Why and How to Improve Quality in After-School Programs

This report, commissioned by Irvine and written by Public/Private Ventures, examines the program improvement strategies, step-by-step, that allowed the Foundation’s CORAL initiative to achieve the levels of quality needed to boost the academic success of young students. The report also makes specific policy and funding suggestions for improving program performance. Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning (CORAL) was an eight-year, $58 million after-school initiative aimed at improving education achievement in low-performing schools in five California cities.

Download Report

http://www.irvine.org/assets/pdf/pubs/evaluation/supportingSuccess.pdf

After-School Toolkit: Tips, Techniques and Templates for Improving Program Quality

This toolkit, commissioned by Irvine and developed by Public/Private Ventures, offers program managers a practical, hands-on guide for implementing quality programming in the after-school hours. The kit includes the tools and techniques that increased the quality of literacy-focused programming and helped improve student reading gains in the Foundation’s Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning (CORAL) initiative — an eight-year, $58 million after-school endeavor to improve education achievement in low-performing schools in five California cities.

Download Report

http://www.irvine.org/assets/pdf/pubs/evaluation/afterSchoolToolkit.pdf

Gaining Ground: Supporting English Learners Through After-School Literacy Programming

New research has found English learners achieving reading gains comparable to those of their English-proficient classmates. This brief, commissioned by Irvine and written by Public/Private Ventures, presents findings that demonstrate a relationship between key approaches in CORAL — the Foundation’s eight-year, $58 million after-school initiative — and the academic progress of English learners. In addition to presenting findings, the brief suggests important considerations for any policymaker and funder interested in the success of English learners as a growing student population.

Download Report

http://www.irvine.org/assets/pdf/pubs/evaluation/gainingGround.pdf

Is there a way to ease racial tension between adolescents?

The participatory action research project titled, “Enabling Adolescents in Culturally Diverse Environments to Peacefully Resolve Ethnic Group Conflicts,” was conducted by special issue guest editors, Charles Garvin of the University of Michigan and David Bargal of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Preliminary studies were held in two separate locations in the US, as well as in South Africa and Israel. Results of the subsequent research are thoroughly examined in the special issue of the journal in articles focusing on themes, such as:

· the processes used in the research

· the nature of intergroup conflict

· the principles of conflict resolution in groups

· conflict resolution training

· trust-building exercises

· future directions for intergroup conflict research

· The research provided hope for future positive intergroup relations. “During this stage, young people are relatively open to educational influences and to a reformulation of their personal attitudes and perceptions of the world,” write the guest editors in the introduction. “Stereotypes about intergroup relations, including prejudices and the notion of social justice, are likely to be changing, and an ability to participate in dialogues as a means of managing conflict may be acquired.”

The special issue of Small Group Research is available from SAGE at no charge for a limited time at http://sgr.sagepub.com/content/vol39/issue1/.

Emotional Intelligence Developed for Computerized Tutors

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst are developing interactive computerized tutors that sense a student’s emotional and motivational state of mind at the same time it presents information designed to appeal to a person’s intellectual curiosity. Special sensors are used to help make the computer tutor respond when students become angry, frustrated or bored, based on body language, attention and other indicators.

Beverly Woolf, a research professor of computer science, says the introduction of the emotion sensors helps the scientists respond to how people actually learn. “Emotion and cognitive functions are strongly correlated,” Woolf says. “So if you improve the social intelligence of the computer, students respond the way they would to another person. Sensors allow the computer to identify students who pay attention and those too tired or bored to learn. Using these cues, the computer provides individualized instruction. ”

Woolf is part of a team of scientists that includes Ivon M. Arroyo, research scientist, and Andrew Barto, professor of computer science at UMass Amherst, and Winslow Burleson from Arizona State University. The tutors they have designed teach geometry and algebra to high school students, but can be adapted to any subject, she says. The work is funded by grants from the National Science Foundation.

Woolf says the non-invasive sensors replicate what top-notch human teachers do in the classroom to engage their students. “Master teachers devote as much time working on a student’s motivation as they do on straight teaching,” she says. “They understand that students who feel anxious or depressed don’t assimilate information properly.”

The sensors they are developing include a camera that views facial expressions. Woolf says certain looks on a student’s face or how they tilt or hold their head are strong indicators of their level of interest in what they are doing. There is also a posture-sensing device in the seat of a chair to measure movement. This measures the amount of fidgeting, or stillness, other indicators of interest and concentration on the task.

There is also a pressure-sensitive computer mouse that can tell how hard the user is pushing down. Previous research has shown that users who find an online task frustrating often apply significantly more pressure to the mouse than those who do not find the same task frustrating, Woolf says.

In addition, a wireless skin conductance wristband worn by the student shows how activated the person is. A certain amount of arousal is a motivator toward learning and tends to accompany significant, new, or attention-getting events, she says.

The combination of the emotion sensors and mathematical subject matter are presented to the students during a period of up to two hours, Woolf says. During each session, the computer analyzes the information it gets from the sensors and adjusts how it presents the information. Sometimes, that means halting the program and offering the student an alternative activity to reignite interest. Or it could involve having the computer go back and revisit material that the student has failed to master.

Sensors also pick up when students try to “game the program” by randomly choosing answers or hurrying through the problems. When that behavior is detected, the computer tutor responds, in a friendly manner, and asks them to slow down or read more carefully.

Emergency on-field treatment for neck injuries in young sports athletes no different than adults

New guidelines for on-field treatment and emergency transport of young athletes with suspected neck injuries should recommend keeping both helmet and shoulder pads on for initial stabilization and transport, followed by removal of both, once the patient is in a controlled setting, according to new research released today at the 2008 American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine Specialty Day at The Moscone Center.

“There was a clear hole in on-the-field guidelines in the treatment of young (8-14 year olds) contact and collision sports athletes with possible neck injuries,” says first author and study presenter Gehron Treme, MD, former sports medicine fellow at the University of Virginia, now with the Center for Orthopaedics in Lake Charles, LA. “Skeletal proportions are different in children than adults. Kids have larger heads than torsos. With this study, we looked to see if this disproportion would result in a different recommendation, such as removing the helmet only. Our study found, however, just as is the case with adults, that both the helmet and shoulder pads should be left on for initial treatment and removed as a unit once the patient is stabilized.”

Only car accidents and falls had a higher frequency of neck injuries in kids than sports participation. Neck injuries in football, ice hockey and lacrosse are rare, but can be catastrophic, according to Treme. Football players represented 29 percent of the cases of children with neck injuries from sports participation. In particular, the number of 7 – 17-year-olds playing tackle football increased by nearly 45 percent between 1997 and 2006, according to the National Sporting Goods Association.

“Although these events are uncommon, they can be tragic,” says Treme. “The initial treatment, usually within the first 10 minutes, is critical to how the patient will do long term. The goal, of course, is to avoid paralysis or neurological damage.”

Treme and David Diduch, MD, principle investigator, professor, and team physcian at University of Virginia studied 31 boys from a local youth football league between the ages of 8 and 14. X-rays were taken of each child lying down wearing shoulder pads only, wearing helmet and shoulder pads and wearing no equipment. Next, they measured the alignment of the head, neck and spine to determine if the head tipped back, risking further damage. After examining the X-rays, the study investigators determined that there was no statistically significant difference in alignment when the children wore no equipment compared to wearing both helmet and shoulder pads. However, alignment changes seen with shoulder pads only were considered unacceptable and could place the athlete at risk if the helmet alone was removed.

“With this study, there is at least some information we can use for the 8 -14 year old age range, in the unfortunate event of suspected neck injuries on the field,” said Treme. “The ‘all or nothing’ policy for adult emergency on-field treatment is also appropriate for kids between 8 and 14.”

The Grinding Battle with Circumstance: Charter Schools and the Potential of School-Based Collective Bargaining. 2008

Through a review of available research, the paper assesses the current state of the charter school movement, including an assessment of charter school achievement data and a critique of the charter school policy framework, with particular emphasis on charter school financing, philanthropic support, and access to human capital. The paper also describes the recent and politically counter-intuitive work by the United Federation of Teachers, New York City’s teachers union, in founding two charter schools. With the broad history and state of the charter school movement established, this paper analyzes recent events through the agenda setting frameworks developed by Baumgartner and Jones (1993) and Kingdon (1984).

Specifically, the paper argues that the charter school movement may be approaching an instance of “punctuated equilibrium” due to the charter school movement’s changing “policy image” and the loss of “monopolistic control” over the charter school agenda by a small interest group. The paper concludes that school-based collective bargaining may be a “new institutional structure” that could have transformative and productive consequences for the charter school movement

Full report:

http://www.ncspe.org/publications_files/OP152.pdf

School Governance and Information: Does Choice Lead to Better-Informed Parents? 2008

Analyzing data from the experimental evaluation of the Washington Scholarship Fund, a privately-funded K-12 scholarship organization, this report finds that presenting parents with educational choices does lead to higher levels of accurate school-based information on measures of important school characteristics. Specifically, parents in the school choice treatment group provided responses that more closely matched the school-reported data about school size and class size than did parents of control group members.

Full report:

http://www.ncspe.org/publications_files/OP151.pdf

Legislative Activities on Charter Schools: The Beginning of Policy Change? 2008.

Despite the recent enthusiasm for charter schools as a policy alternative for improving student learning, studies indicate that they are not increasing student achievement over traditional public schools (Bettinger 2005; Crew & Anderson 2003). Nevertheless, legislative activity in the states suggests that charter schools as a policy alternative is gaining support on the public agenda. Agenda setting theory suggests that interest groups, state and citizen ideology, political context, policy entrepreneurs, focusing events and state resources influence the ability of issues to reach the institutional agenda (Baumgartner and Jones 1993; Kingdon 1995).

This study uses panel corrected cross-sectional time series analysis to explore which of these factors are motivating increased interest in charter school legislative activities at the state level from 2003-2006. The number of charter school bills proposed in state legislatures is the dependent variable (National Council of State Legislatures).

Full report:

http://www.ncspe.org/publications_files/OP150.pdf