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Proud
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Solution Centers
*Core Learning;
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Proud Foundation Vision & Mission
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Megasmart email:
jeff@proud.com |
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Jeff's
Education Blog |
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1/05/2008 - 9:25:52 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
It's starting to happen. For several years we've
known that about 50% of teachers will retire in the
next decade. That means older teachers in inner city
schools too. New teachers don't have the same
tolerance for tough kids as their predecessors.
Therefore, inner city schools will continue to lose
teachers, eventually students, and finally they will
close their doors.
Beset by the retirement of
veteran teachers and the flight of younger
faculty, schools in poor neighborhoods across
the country are increasingly turning to combat
pay to recruit and retain replacements. But the
controversial strategy will not produce the
700,000 teachers they need in the next decade.
The bleak outlook has particular relevance for
California, where every year 10 percent of
teachers in schools serving poor students
transfer to other schools. The most recent
evidence comes from Dallas, which had only 65
takers for its offer of $6,000 annual bonuses to
lure teachers to the city's hard-to-staff
schools. Researchers at the University of Texas
at Dallas attributed the disappointing results
to the amount tendered. They estimated that
bonuses would have to equal 45 percent of base
pay to attract the number of teachers required.
If they are correct, the amount would come to an
average of $20,000 for mid-career teachers.
But even that overly optimistic prediction
offers only a partial solution because it
focuses solely on the recruitment side of the
equation. It says nothing about the equally
important retention side.
Churn is costly. It forces a school to
repeatedly screen new teachers, undermines
instructional continuity, and makes students
feel abandoned. Massachusetts serves as a case
in point. In 1999, the Bay State began offering
$20,000 sign-up bonuses to teachers, primarily
to lure them to failing schools. After one year,
however, one-fifth of these teachers bailed out
of the classroom entirely, while many others
fled to suburban schools. Massachusetts's
experience does not bode well for Denver. Under
a recently implemented strategy known as ProComp,
which was funded after voters agreed to pony up
an additional $25 million in property taxes,
teachers receive bonuses for working in
hard-to-staff schools as well as for meeting
three other requirements. This likely explains
why teacher applications, so far, are up
substantially. But it's doubtful that the trend
will continue once word travels through the
grapevine about the daunting task of educating
students with huge deficits in socialization,
motivation and intellectual development.
None of the data comes as a surprise. A
study by the Texas Schools Project from 1993 to
1996 confirmed long standing anecdotal evidence.
It concluded that working conditions and student
characteristics matter far more than salary in
attracting and keeping teachers. Although the
study focused exclusively on elementary
teachers, who tend to have similar educational
backgrounds and similar opportunities outside
the school system, the findings apply to middle
and high school teachers as well.
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12/23/2007 - 12:43:13 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
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(I didn't realize all the troubles I'd run into changing
servers. We're coming along okay...we should be done this week. Thank
you & Merry Christmas)
The first steps in Reading!
This is a super-duper reading method, there
aren't any frills, just good basic down-to-earth reading, and they
keep a good schedule. More time spent on the program, the more you
get out of it. Steps to Literacy, covers phonetics,
vocabulary, spelling, writing, word recognition, reading
comprehension and fluency in kindergarten through second grade. One
of the program's strengths is that it appeals to students with
different learning styles and ability levels, advocates say.
The students are learning to read in a fast-paced program that
is being phased in systemwide to accelerate student literacy skills
and eliminate achievement gaps.
In a study involving first-graders at more than a dozen
schools that use the curriculum, the school system found that about
88 percent met targets in a statewide literacy test last year,
compared with 74 percent three years earlier. A quarter of the
students were from low-income families, and more than a third
represented racial or ethnic minorities. That kind of progress can
help eliminate achievement gaps.
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12/16/2007 - 10:21:40 AM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
School or the Streets: Crime and California's Dropout Crisis
Sheriff Lee Baca and other local law
enforcement leaders unveiled a new report that links low graduation
rates with violent crimes such as homicide and aggravated assault.
The report noted that high school dropouts are over three times more
likely than graduates to be arrested and eight times as likely to go
to jail or prison. Nationwide, 68 percent of state prison inmates do
not have a high school diploma. The report highlights research
showing that California’s dropout crisis damages California’s
economy, in addition to threatening public safety. According to data
released in August by the California Dropout Research Project:
dropouts earn less, pay fewer taxes, and are more likely to collect
welfare and turn to crime; for each year’s worth of dropouts,
California suffers billions of dollars in economic losses over time,
including $12 billion in crime costs alone; and every dollar
invested in programs proven to increase graduation rates will return
a long-term savings to taxpayers of $2 to $4.
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12/13/2007 - 5:18:13 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
The host server for Proud Foundation is being changed.
We should be up and running smoothly in a few days. This is the printed
sources of thoughtful hypotheses representing the state of education
today in the USA.
This research is the foundation for my book titled:
"Megasmart & Freedom to Learn."
This book
gives you the ability to educate your own kids to a very high bar,
making them influential and compelling persons; people that you will
want to meet!
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12/10/2007 - 5:44:17 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
Until recently, the doors to college
were essentially closed to students with
cognitive disabilities.
Those students
typically remained in high school,
taking life-skills and transition
classes until they turned 22 and
could no longer receive services
through the public schools. But
increasingly, students with
intellectual disabilities that
prevented them from earning high
school diplomas are continuing their
education at the college level.
Massachusetts stands at the
forefront of the movement, with a
pilot program that allows students
with cognitive disabilities to
attend regular community college
classes. The initiative, which began
this year, marks the first time a
state has launched a coordinated
effort to give such students access
to postsecondary education.
Nationally, there are 121
college programs for students with
such intellectual disabilities as
Down syndrome and mental
retardation, but most separate the
students from typical campus life.
More than a dozen students
with disabilities are taking classes
at MassBay and Holyoke Community
College, and the program will expand
next semester to include at least
four other community colleges and
the University of Massachusetts at
Boston. The program works in tandem
with the students' high schools,
which provide educational coaches to
assist them.
MassBay students typically
audit a single course, either an
introductory academic, vocational,
or recreational class.
The initiative, financed
through a $1.5 million state grant,
seeks to determine whether students
like Lee, who are of traditional
college age but unlikely to receive
a high school diploma, will benefit
from exposure to college life. They
are not expected to pursue degrees.
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12/09/2007 - 1:23:08 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
Is there a Crisis in Mathematics and Science
Education in the USA?
What
is the rationale for all United States
high students passing three advanced
courses in math and science to receive a
high school diploma? What is the
rationale for "all" high school
graduates satisfying the requirements
for admission to a four-college program?
There is none!
The United States is the
uncontested leader of the world in
scientific research in respect to
published accomplishments, Nobel Prizes,
volume of research and expenditures on
scientific research. The United States
is the leader of the world in technology
and the unchallenged leader of the world
in the global economy. The United States
dominates the world because of its
educational systems, including K-12
public education, post-secondary
colleges and universities that produce
the most highly educated, productive and
successful workforce in the world.
(Example See
www.jobseducationwis.org 276
Nobel Prizes in Science 2006
The American high tech workforce
has made corporations like Microsoft,
Intel, Cisco and IBM the absolute
leaders in technology in the world and
the global economy. It is
incomprehensible how American K-12
public school critics, including the
CEO's of the major high tech
corporations and Microsoft's Bill Gates,
the richest person in the U.S. ($51
Billion) and Harvard dropout, get away
with the bashing of all American K-12
schools based on bogus analysis of
useless international tests. Critics of
American public schools use K-12
education as the scapegoat for all of
the social and economic problems of the
United States. (Example See
www.jobseducationwis.org 261
Corporate Greed: Global Corporations
Outsourcing High Tech Jobs for Cheap
Labor While Bashing American Education
The Center for the Study of Jobs &
Education in Wisconsin has analyzed the
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and
Wisconsin Dept. of Workforce Development
ten year projections of employment
1996-2006, 1998-2008, 2002-2012 and
2004-2014(Example see
www.jobseducationwis.org267
Just Another Big Con: Jobs and Education
in the United States: United States
Employment Projections 2004-2014 272
Wisconsin Projections of Employment 2004
to 2014: Education and Training
The
political, business and education
leaders in the U.S. and Wisconsin, who
are responsible for education policies,
and inexcusably the media, ignore the
actual employment statistics and
projections. Only selected statistics
and anecdotal stories that support the
spurious claims about the crisis in
American K-12 education and future skill
worker shortage are reported.
The U.S. 2004-2014 BLS Projections
were released in the November Monthly on
December 7, 2005. (See
http://stats.bls.gov/ Employment
Projections listed under Employment and
Unemployment heading) The statistics in
Table 1 and 2 that follow on pages 2 and
3 of this report come from the BLS
November Monthly Labor Review. (http://stats.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/11/art5exc.htm)
Jobs and Education in Math and
Science in the United States:
As shown in Table I, 80 job titles
related to math and/or science are
projected to employ 7,469,000 in the
United States in 2014, an increase of
1,291,000 from 6,178,000 employments in
2004. The 7,469,000 represents 4.5% of
total United States employment projected
for 2014 of 165,540.000 in 760 job
titles. The 2004 math and/or science
employment of 6,178,000, was 4.2% of
2004 total employment of 145,612,000
workers.
A majority of workers in math and
or science occupations are employed in
Computer Occupations (53.6% in 2014).
Many of there workers do not have 4-yr
college degrees. This is also true of
math and science Technician occupations.
Table IMath & Science Employment in
the United States 2004-2014
|
Occupational Areas |
U.S.
2004 |
U.S.
2014 |
% |
Change |
% |
Number/ |
|
Employment |
Employment |
Job
Titles |
|
Architecture |
220,000 |
258,000 |
3.4 |
38,000 |
17.8 |
4 |
|
Engineers |
1.449,000 |
1,644,000 |
22 |
195,000 |
13.4 |
18 |
|
Engineering Technicians |
532,000 |
595,000 |
8 |
63,000 |
11.8 |
12 |
|
Physical Scientists |
250,000 |
281,000 |
3.8 |
30,000 |
12.2 |
7 |
|
Life Scientists |
232,000 |
280,000 |
3.7 |
48,000 |
20.8 |
12 |
|
Phy. & Life Technicians |
342,000 |
291,000 |
3.9 |
49,000 |
14.4 |
10 |
|
Computer Occupations |
3,046,000 |
4,003,000 |
53.6 |
957,000 |
31.4 |
11 |
|
Math Scientists & Tech. |
107,000 |
117,000 |
1.6 |
10,000 |
9.7 |
6 |
|
Totals |
6,178,000 |
7,469,000 |
100 |
1,291,000 |
20.9 |
80 |
|
Total U.S. Employment
|
145,612,000 |
164,540,000 |
18,928,000 |
13.0 |
760 |
|
%
Total U.S. Employment |
4.2% |
4.5% |
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics,
Occupational employment projections to
2014, Monthly Labor Review, November
2005.
The great numbers of high paying
jobs of the future that are claimed to
require college graduation and high
academic skills for all high school
students are a great exaggeration. The
majority of the jobs of the future in
Wisconsin and the United States are low
or average paying jobs that require
short term or moderate-term on the job
training and do not require high-level
academic skills in any academic areas,
particularly in higher mathematics. The
projections of high skill job employment
shortages in the future may also be
significantly lowered because of
outsourcing of jobs for cheaper labor.
American corporations justify
their outsourcing of jobs by bashing
American education and quoting
statistics about the higher percentage
of China and India's college graduates
with engineering and science degrees and
that there is a shortage of high skilled
American high tech workers and college
graduates. A January 2006 report from
Duke University, published in Education
Week,"U.S. Asian Engineering Gap
Overstated" says, "It is clear that the
U.S is not in the desperate state that
is routinely portrayed." Almost one
third of the world's science and
engineering graduates are employed in
the U.S."
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12/08/2007 - 2:56:13 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
The Family: America's Smallest School
This report
examines the family and home experiences
that influence children's learning.
Factors include single parent families,
poverty and resources, parents talking
and reading to children, quality day
care, and parental involvement in
school.
"When parents,
teachers and schools work together to
support learning, students do better in
school and stay in school longer," says
Barton. "Our analysis shows that factors
like single-parent families, parents
reading to children, hours spent
watching television and school absences,
when combined, account for about
two-thirds of the large differences
among states in National Assessment of
Educational Progress (NAEP) reading
scores."
Findings in the report show that:
- Thirty-two percent of U.S.
children live in single-parent
homes, up from 23% in 1980.
- Thirty-three percent of
children live in families in which
no parent has a full-time,
year-round job.
- By age 4, children of
professional families hear 35
million more words than children of
parents on welfare.
- Half of the nation's
two-year-olds are in some kind of
regular day care. Seventy-five
percent are in center-based day care
rated of medium- or low-quality.
- A comparison of
eighth-graders in 45 countries found
that U.S. students spend less time
reading books for enjoyment — and
more time watching television and
videos —than students in many other
countries. Forty-four percent of
births to women under 30 are
out-of-wedlock.
- Nationally, 11 percent of all
households are "food insecure." The
rate for female-headed households is
triple the rate for married
families.
- Sixty-two percent of high SES
kindergartners are read to every day
by their parents, compared to 36
percent of kindergartners from low
SES groups.
- One in five students misses
three days or more of school a
month. The United States ranked 25th
of 45 countries in students' school
attendance.
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12/05/2007 - 4:26:53 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
The United
States lags behind most other developed countries when it comes to
science education.
That is one conclusion of a major report
released Tuesday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD). It measures student literacy in science, math,
and reading (focusing this year on science) among 15-year-olds, and
is an often-cited reference for policymakers sounding the alarm
bells about the state of education in the United States and its
implications for the ability of Americans to secure jobs in a global
economy.
Finland emerged at the top of 57 countries in science,
according to the 2006 survey results from the Programme for
International Student Assessment (PISA). The US ranked 29th, behind
countries like Croatia, the Czech Republic, and Liechtenstein, and
ahead of just nine other OECD countries.
The US is average in the number of students at the highest
levels of scientific literacy, but has a much larger pool – nearly 1
in 4 – at the bottom.That worry has energized education advocates
and reformers, who see the test as a useful tool to catalyze public
opinion behind the need for fundamental change in how America
educates.
"To most policymakers there's almost a believed connection
between how well our kids do in school and how well our economy does
in the global economy," says Marc Tucker, president of the National
Center on Education and the Economy.
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12/04/2007 - 9:34:44 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
Houghton Mifflin Co. is selling its
college textbook unit to Cengage
Learning for $750 million so it can
focus on its publishing business geared
to kindergarten through 12th grade, as
well as trade and reference
publications.
Cengage, previously known as
Thomson Learning, said yesterday's
transaction would help broaden its
education products, including
textbooks and study guides.
Boston-based Houghton Mifflin
and Stamford, Conn.-based Cengage
also said they plan to cooperate in
expanding distribution of Cengage's
book titles into the US market for
high school advanced placement
textbooks.
Yesterday's cash transaction
is expected to close in the first
half of next year, subject to
conditions including regulatory
approval.
Tony Lucki, chairman,
president, and chief executive of
Houghton Mifflin, said the privately
held company's college division "has
been an important contributor to
Houghton Mifflin for many years, but
moving forward we will focus our
efforts on our K12, trade, and
reference businesses."
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12/03/2007 - 5:13:37 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
Teachers draft reform plan
Teachers would decide what to teach and when.
Teachers and parents would hire and fire principals. No supervisors
from downtown would tell anyone -- neither teachers nor students --
what to wear.
These are among the ideas a delegation of teachers and their union
officers are urging L.A. schools Supt. David L. Brewer to include in
the school reform plan he will present to the school board Tuesday.
Will this improve education?
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12/02/2007 - 4:52:13 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
Young, Gifted and Skipping High School
As Jackie Robson rushed off to
Japanese 101, a pink sign on the main door of
her college dorm reminded her to sign out. There
were more rules: an 11 p.m. curfew, mandatory
study hours, round-the-clock adult supervision
and no boys allowed in the rooms.
Jackie is 14. She never spent a day in
high school.
Like the other super-bright girls in her
dorm, the
Fairfax County teen bypassed a
traditional education and countless teenage
rites, such as the senior prom and
graduation, to attend the all-female Mary
Baldwin College in the
Shenandoah Valley.
The school offers students as young as
12 a jump-start on college in one of the
leading programs of its kind. It also gives
brainy girls a chance to be with others like
them. By all accounts, they are ready for
the leap socially and emotionally, and they
crave it academically.
Last spring, Jackie finished eighth
grade at
Langston Hughes Middle School in
Reston. This fall, she's taking
Psychology 101, Japanese 101, English 101,
Folk Dance and U.S. History 1815-1877:
Democracy and Crisis.
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12/01/2007 - 3:20:41 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
The Clark County teachers union has fended off
a takeover attempt by the Teamsters union, only to face a threat
from another organization that wants to render it all but useless.
Facing a Friday deadline to turn in signatures of support,
Teamsters Local 14 will announce today it has officially abandoned
its effort to challenge the teachers union for the right to
represent the school district's 18,000 licensed personnel.
Teamsters Secretary-Treasurer Gary Mauger said in a statement
Wednesday the union was unable to obtain the support of a majority
of members in the five-month organizing window to petition the state
labor board for an election.
But the teachers union can't rest. Even as it prepares to
battle casinos by trying to raise the gaming tax by three percentage
points, its members are being targeted by a new organization, the
Professional Association of Clark County Educators, which says it
can better help rank-and-file teachers without raiding their wallets
for political purposes.
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11/29/2007 - 7:30:34 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
Who or what is to blame for lagging performance by minority students?
Disadvantaged students' low performance has
many mutually reinforcing causes. We're the most unequal society in
the industrialized world; it would be silly to expect academic
performance to be equal when nothing else is. Every industrialized
society has achievement gaps. Ours are bigger because our economic
system is more unequal.
Educational debates are corrupted by insistence that schools alone
can close achievement gaps. Certainly, better schools would lift
achievement. Groups trying to improve schools, train better teachers
and principals, improve curriculum and raise standards are
essential.
Closing gaps requires combining better schools with greater social
and economic equality.
On Monday, I gave one example of why better schools alone can't do
it, describing how low-income children have more frequent asthma,
resulting in more school absence. Imagine two groups of children,
identical except that one has high absenteeism from untreated
asthma. When children in this group do come to school, they are
often drowsy from being awake at night. Without proper medical care,
they can't suppress symptoms with inhalants, as more fortunate
children do. The second group has adequate medical care and less
absenteeism. If both groups have great teachers, curriculum and
standards, they will still differ in average learning.
Of course, good teachers will get higher average achievement from
children who are frequently absent than will inadequate teachers.
But will good teachers get the same average achievement from the
frequently absent that they get from healthier students? Certainly
not.
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11/28/2007 - 5:17:26 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
Lawsuit challenges state law defining gender in schools
A federal lawsuit was filed Tuesday challenging a
new state law that will change the way “gender” is defined in
schools.
The new law says “no teacher shall give instruction nor shall
a school district sponsor any activity that promotes a
discriminatory bias” against students. The lawsuit, filed in federal
court in San Diego, seeks an injunction barring the law from going
into effect as well as a finding that the law is unconstitutional.
The lawsuit says the change “recklessly abandons the traditional
understanding of biological sex in favor of an elusive definition
that is unconstitutionally vague.” The lawsuit argues that the new
law redefines gender as sex, and says it includes “a person's gender
identity and gender-related appearance.” Robert Tyler, a lawyer for
Advocates for Faith and Freedom, said it is a safety issue. In a
press release issued earlier in the day, he said: “What will prevent
the 250-pound linebacker from deciding he wants to share the locker
room with the cheerleaders?” “If implemented, this bill will have
disastrous effects in our school system,” Tyler said. “This social
experiment defies common sense.”
Grossmont Union High School District board member Priscilla
Schreiber is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which also is
being supported by board members Larry Urdahl, Robert Shield and Jim
Kelly. At a news conference held outside Lincoln High School,
supporters of the lawsuit said the new law would allow students to
define themselves as either male or female, regardless of biology.
It also would prohibit anyone – students, teachers and other staff
members – from speaking against homosexuality or transgender issues.
“If you say anything that is opposed to that alternative
lifestyle, you are discriminating against those individuals,” said
Ron Prentice of the California Family Council, which oversees the
California Education Committee. “It's an indoctrinating bill. It's a
bill that says you must respect the rights of homosexuals to the
degree that the traditional world view is silenced.”
But Geoff Kors, the executive director of Equality California,
which sponsored the bill, said the lawsuit is wrong. Kors said the
new law was just a “language clean-up bill” which clarified
conflicting state laws regarding students' discrimination and
harassment. He said that the definition of gender has been in the
education code since 2000, and there have been no controversies
surrounding it. “This bill did not make any change to the definition
of gender,” Kors said. Equality California is one of the state's
leading same-sex rights' groups
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11/27/2007 - 1:57:41 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
Spending a huge amount of money on health care is considered a national
scandal - but huge spending on higher education isn't.
"It takes more resources
today to educate a postsecondary student than a
generation ago," writes Richard Vedder, a
professor of economics at Ohio University and a
rare insider who is critical of rising costs.
"That is not true for most goods and services .
. . . Relative to other sectors of the economy,
universities are becoming less efficient, less
productive, and, consequently, more costly."
The problem is not only that teaching is
the only profession that has had absolutely no
productivity advance in the 2,400 years since
Socrates taught the youth of Athens." To make
matters worse, Vedder notes, the
nonteaching staff at universities is
ballooning; growing third-party payments are
eroding consumer cost-consciousness (just as
they have in health care); and universities lack
any equivalent of the bottom line by which to
measure executive performance.
Vedder's paper on this topic,
Over Invested and Over Priced, was
published to little notice this month by the
Center for College Affordability and
Productivity. The far bigger news in academia
was captured by this New York Times
headline of Nov. 12: "More College Presidents in
Million-Dollar Club."
Yes, pay for college presidents is now
soaring to once unimagined heights. They are
being rewarded for . . . well, for what? For
successfully deflecting any serious questions
about how their institutions operate?
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11/26/2007 - 5:58:07 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
TECHNOLOGY CLICKS WITH KIDS - Computers transform classrooms - gadgets
get students excited to learn
The kids grab small voting devices
on their desks, then punch in their answer to a
question posed on the screen above them: "¿Cual es
verde? "In an instant, teacher Nancy Conn
pushes a button and up pops a chart showing the
correct answer -- the green square -- among six
squares of varying colors.
All of this is happening on a large interactive
white board -- a cross between a blackboard,
computer screen and projector -- that Conn uses in
her Spanish classroom at Hickory Grove Elementary
School in Bloomfield Township.The boards
-- which will be in every classroom in the
Bloomfield Hills Schools district by the beginning
of next year -- are among the ways schools in metro
Detroit are using technology to teach and capture
the minds of a generation growing up in a digital
age.
At Lottie Schmidt Elementary School in New
Baltimore, students in Jim Alvaro's fifth-grade
class create podcasts of their lessons, broadcast
for anyone on the Web to hear. Rob McClelland, a
teacher at the Oakland Technical Center campus in
Wixom, has created computer games that help solidify
students' understanding of key lessons.
And at Fisher Elementary School in the South
Redford School District, students are learning
Chinese and interacting with pen pals in China via a
webcam, computer, projector and software.
"You always learn something new by using
technology," said Natalie Joniec, 10, a Fisher
fifth-grader.
Technology boosts performance
While some schools are pushing forward with
plans to fully integrate technology, others struggle
to do so in ways that engage kids and help them
learn, said Ledong Li, an assistant professor of
education at Oakland University.
And that's a problem, he said.
"If we deliver information like we used to do
in the traditional way, kids are bored in the
classroom," said Li, who organized a workshop in
June on using video games in the classroom. "They
don't feel they are engaged."
Li said technology can be intimidating to
teachers who aren't familiar with how to use it, or
how it can benefit their lessons. And so much is
focused today on improving test scores that it's
easy to see technology as an extra. Yet, Li said
research shows technology can improve student
performance.
Still, some teachers "look at the requirements
for raising test scores as the kind of signal that
they have to do things in a traditional way," Li
said.
State Superintendent Mike Flanagan has
announced proposed changes to teacher preparation
programs, and he's making the integration of
technology into teaching practices a priority. Last
year, Michigan became the first, and still the only,
state in the nation that will require students to
take an online class or have online experience to
graduate high school.
Ric Wiltse, executive director of the
Lansing-based Michigan Association for Computer
Users in Learning, said budget crunches have
impacted how schools integrate technology.
But, Wiltse said, "teachers are getting more
and more creative about how they use the technology
tools students have these days."
That includes Alvaro, whose classroom has a
blog called the Skinny as well as the podcasts. The
students worked on a project that had them research
and write about when their ancestors arrived in the
United States.
Games that teach
Today's kids are steps ahead of their
teachers, in many cases. They instant message, text
message, play video games, blog and use social Web
sites like MySpace and YouTube.
"Everything we do is about technology," said
Kala Kottman of Commerce Township, a senior at
Walled Lake Western High School and the Oakland
Technical Center campus in Wixom. "It's a big deal."
Kala, 17, is enrolled in the culinary arts
program at the technical center. She was among a
group of students in a computer lab playing a game
created by McClelland, who provides support to
fellow teachers.
There are about 100 culinary tools students
must memorize, and while they still use rote
memorization tricks, McClelland's game gives them a
fun way to test their knowledge. McClelland has
produced a similar game for two other technical
center programs.
In the game, which is timed, students must
quickly match a picture of a tool with its correct
name.
McClelland programmed the game using popular
phrases familiar to kids. For instance, if they
click on the wrong answer, they're likely to hear
the "D'oh!" popularized by Homer Simpson. If they
get it right, they might hear a "Woo hoo."
Instant feedback
The Bloomfield Hills district is making a
significant investment in the Promethean white
boards. About $2.1 million has been committed to put
them in all of its classrooms.
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|
11/25/2007 - 5:03:29 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
The Achievement
Crisis
The American public sees that
something is badly amiss in the education of our young people.
Employers now often need to rely on people from other countries to
do the math that our own high school graduates cannot do. We score
low among developed nations in international comparisons of science,
math, and reading. This news is in fact more alarming than most
people realize, since our students perform relatively worse on
international comparisons the longer they stay in our schools.
America’s fourth graders score ninth in reading among 35 countries,
which is respectable. By tenth grade they score 15th in reading
among 27 countries, which is not promising at all for their (and
our) economic future.1 A person’s and a nation’s economic success
depend on high reading and/or math ability. We have learned from the
phenomenon of outsourcing that those who have these abilities can
find a place in the global economy no matter where they happen to
live, while those who lack them can be marginalized even if they
live in the middle of the United States.
Reading ability is the heart of the
matter because it correlates with learning and communication ability
across subjects. Reading proficiency isn’t in and of itself the
magic key to competence. It’s what reading enables us to learn and
to do that is critical. Given current and rapidly growing uses of
technology in daily life and in many jobs, the key to economic and
political achievement is the ability to gain new knowledge rapidly
through reading and listening.
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11/23/2007 - 3:44:55 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
Texas has to make schools safe for learning without turning misbehaving
students into criminals
Something went horribly
wrong after Texas decided to crack down on mayhem in public schools by
mandating zero tolerance for weapons, drugs and violence on campus.
Given broad discretion to remove unruly pupils from class, teachers and
administrators restored order. But they also created a terribly
efficient fast track to prison for a shocking number of Texas
schoolchildren.
According to an analysis of statewide data for 2001-2006 and thorough
studies of more than a dozen Texas school districts, the number of
students suspended and the number removed to alternative discipline
campuses skyrocketed after the Legislature's 1995 overhaul of school
discipline laws. This, the public interest law group Texas Appleseed
states, has caused a "school-to-prison pipeline" that puts inordinate
numbers of youngsters on a path to dropping out of school and into the
juvenile justice system. The far end of the pipe pours into Texas'
massive adult prison system.
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11/21/2007 - 3:15:24 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
The National Endowment for
the Arts shows how reading habits have declined
in recent years. Here are some of the troubling
highlights of "To Read or Not to Read: A
Question of National Consequence." From 1982 to
2002, the percentage of 18- to 24-year-olds who
read literature dropped from 60 percent to 43
percent.*
The percentage of
17-year-olds who read for pleasure almost every
day dropped from 31 percent to 22 percent over
the period 1984-2004.
In study after study the
reading results are very consistent. The number
of adults with bachelor's degrees who score
"proficient in reading prose" fell from 40
percent in 1992 to 31 percent in 2003.
Some argue that questioning
"reading" fails to capture the entire picture if
they do not account for the Internet This is
true, but 90ty percent on the time on the
Internet is spent on sites like MySpace, or
FaceBook, etc. I'm sure you won't find a lot of
kids using their Internet time looking up the "Reading
Masters." You can figure out the
rest on your own.
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|
11/20/2007 - 5:38:50 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
California schools are failing all our kids
State schools Supt. Jack O'Connell hosted a
summit in Sacramento last week of 4,000 educators, policymakers and
experts. He asked them to confront California's "racial achievement
gap" -- the persistently lower test scores of California's African
American and Latino public school students compared with their white
and Asian peers. In 125 packed sessions, participants probed causes
of the gap and offered strategies to close it. O'Connell asked them
to "honestly and courageously face this pernicious problem," and for
two days, the capital was abuzz with ideas, energy and even some
hope.
Strikingly, the state's other "achievement gap" was barely mentioned
at the summit; this is the gap between California and the rest of
the nation.
The most recent results from the National Assessment of Education
Progress test (popularly known as "the nation's report card") place
California's fourth- and eighth-graders below those in nearly every
other state in math and reading achievement. (Although California's
math scores have improved over the last decade, so have the scores
in the rest of the country.)
This national achievement gap affects students across the state
regardless of their race. If we don't address both the racial and
national achievement gaps, it's hard to imagine solving either one
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11/19/2007 - 8:27:35 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
An Interview with Dr.G. Gbaanador, a Nigerian-born general and Trauma
surgeon practicing in Houston,
Dr. G was there as a board member for the Fort
Bend Independent School District's Thurgood Marshall High School
Electronic Engineering Academy. Being a surgeon and participating
with a high school was of particular interest to me because of the
education aspect of his exemplary work. He had just returned from
Nigeria where he continues his efforts towards building a hospital
for those who need health care.
|
|
11/18/2007 - 2:38:12 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
Rhee Weighs D.C. Privatization
Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee of the D.C. Schools is
considering turning over the management of 27 failing public schools
to nonprofit charter education firms, is sending a clear signal that
she intends to shake up the moribund bureaucracy that has failed
generations of students.
Experts and school advocates say they are uneasy about the
lack of details surrounding her idea, particularly given evidence
across the country that charters and schools under private
management sometimes fare no better than traditional public schools.
(Please
note that experts and school advocates designed the system that's
there now. HooRah, Michelle is really
thinking! And her ideas are outside the "Box" - very cool!)
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|
11/17/2007 - 11:33:24 AM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
Election '08 Meets The Great Education Myth
"Advanced economies,
whether America's or Denmark's, are knowledge economies. And
knowledge economies reward education. Get a degree, expand your
skills, and you will do just fine."
"Today, the
Economic Policy Institute issued a report that should come as a
clarion call to everyone concerned about the impact of unfair trade
agreements and practices on America's working families. In their
report, the EPI concludes that between 25 to 30 million American
jobs -- about one in five American jobs -- in states all across the
nation, are at risk for being off-shored over the next decade. And
it's not just manufacturing jobs - the report shows those jobs that
require at least a four-year college degree are actually the most at
risk. This report makes clear what the labor community has known for
far too long: bad trade deals, cheap foreign labor, illegal foreign
subsidies and foreign currency manipulation are having a devastating
effect on American workers...Given this reality, I find it alarming
that Senator Clinton and Senator Obama have chosen to support a
flawed Peru Trade deal that will only further expand the NAFTA-model
that has already cost us well over a million jobs."
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11/16/2007 - 5:14:33 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
Commentary:
Socrates, Aristotle and Plato
If our
television networks spent as much time
trying to teach people about Socrates,
Aristotle and Plato, as they did trying to
follow the latest gossip about Lohan, Spears
and Hilton, our society might be a better
place. (this is really the truth,
read the whole article)
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|
11/15/2007 - 4:36:18 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
For her students, developmental math finally adds up
(read the original article - it shows that students'
with math difficulties are easily brought back to proper grade level
proficiency with the appropriate level of extra attention)
Professor Rosemary Karr constantly
challenges the perception that math is something to be feared.People
think it's OK to say "I've never been good at math," says Karr, who
teaches at Collin County Community College in Plano, Texas. But "if
I were to tell you, 'I can't read,' or 'I can't write,' are you
going to be laughing? Why is it socially acceptable to say, 'I can't
do math'? "
Karr, who will be honored today in
Washington, D.C., as community college professor of the year, has
spent much of her career demystifying mathematics for remedial
students. "At the developmental level, you see increased
frustration, and that's something I'm good at, helping students to
relax a little bit more and see the fun of mathematics, and not just
see math as something to torture people," she says.
She uses clips from movies such as Cast
Away and Little Big League to introduce math concepts in a
non-threatening way and has a knack for analogies that build
understanding. Untangling algebraic equations, for example, is like
taking off shoes before socks and socks before pants.
Karr left a tenured position at Eastern
Kentucky University in 1989 when her husband was transferred to
Plano. At Collin, she started working with remedial students and
found that helping students get over their fears of math at the
developmental level went a long way toward setting them up for
success.
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|
11/14/2007 - 7:15:21 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
Study Compares States’ Math and Science Scores With Other Countries’
American students even in
low-performing states like Alabama do better on math and science
tests than students in most foreign countries, including Italy and
Norway, according to a new study released yesterday. That’s the good
news.The bad news is that students in Singapore and several other
Asian countries significantly outperform American students, even
those in high-achieving states like Massachusetts, the study found.
“In this case, the bad
news trumps the good because our Asian
economic competitors are winning the race to
prepare students in math and science,” said
the study’s author, Gary W. Phillips, chief
scientist at the American Institutes of
Research, a nonprofit independent scientific
research firm. The study equated
standardized test scores of eighth-grade
students in each of the 50 states with those
of their peers in 45 countries. Experts said
it was the first such effort to link
standardized test scores, state by state,
with scores from other nations.
Gage Kingsbury, the chief
research and development officer at the
Northwest Evaluation Association, a group in
Oregon that carries out testing in 2,700
school districts, praised the study’s
methodology but said “a flock of
difficulties” made it hazardous to compare
test results from one country to another and
from one state to another. “Kids don’t start
school at the same age in different
countries,” he said. “Not all kids are in
school in grade eight, and the percentage
differs from country to country.”
Because of such
differences, Dr. Kingsbury said, it would be
a mistake to infer too much about the
relative rigor of the educational systems
across the states and nations in the study
based merely on test score differences.
Scores for students in the United States
came from tests administered by the federal
Department of Education in most states in
2005 and 2007. For foreign students, the
scores came from math and science tests
administered worldwide in 2003, as part of
the Trends in International Mathematics and
Science Study, known as the Timss.
Concern that science and
math achievement was not keeping pace with
the nation’s economic competitors had been
building even before the most recent Timss
survey, in which the highest-performing
nations were Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea,
Hong Kong and Japan. American students
lagged far behind those nations, but earned
scores that were comparable to peers in
European nations like Slovakia and Estonia,
and were well above countries like Egypt,
Chile and Saudi Arabia.
The Timss survey gives
each country a metric by which to compare
its educational attainment with other
nations’. The nationwide American test,
known as the National Assessments of
Educational Progress, allows policy makers
in each state to compare their students’
results with those in other states.
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|
11/13/2007 - 3:15:21 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
Dr. Philip Shaw of the National Institute of
Mental Health said that although brain development was slower among
children with ADHD, it followed a normal pattern, which should
reassure parents. Shaw, lead author of the report published in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said the results
could help explain why many children with ADHD appear to grow out of
the disorder and become less impulsive and fidgety as they mature.
About 4.4-million school-age children in the United States, or
3 percent to 5 percent, have ADHD, which can lead to poor school
performance and behavior problems. Half of children diagnosed with
the disorder are treated with stimulants, such as Ritalin, or other
medicines.
Researchers used magnetic resonance imaging equipment to scan
the brains of 223 children and adolescents with ADHD and 223
youngsters without the disorder. The scans were repeated two, three
or four or more times at three-year intervals.In children with ADHD,
developmental lags were most pronounced in the prefrontal cortex,
which supports attention and working memory, among other things.
Half of the cortical points in ADHD children reached peak thickness
at an average age of 10.5, contrasted with 7.5 in children without
the disorder.
Since brain development in ADHD is just slower and not a
permanent disability, we can catch these kids up by just teaching
them at their own rate.
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11/12/2007 - 5:08:04 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
DREAM Act's failure dashes
dreams of youths -
Illegal immigrant
children caught in middle of debate
Some local students felt their own dreams
dim last month when the DREAM Act failed in
Washington."I may have to start all over again
in
Mexico," said one
Clark County high school junior who lives illegally in
the
United States. "There are a lot of people who want to
continue their lives here and now can't." The Development,
Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act would have allowed
illegal immigrants who came to the United States with their
families before they turned 16, and who plan to attend
college or join the military, to move toward legality. But
the Senate last month blocked the legislation with a 52-44
vote for the act. Sixty votes were needed to advance the
proposal.
Opponents argued the bill would put people on a path to
citizenship even if they were living in the country illegally,
amounting to a type of amnesty.Clark County schools
don't track how many of their students are living illegally in
the country. But some administrators say the number is probably
substantial..
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|
11/11/2007 - 12:21:22 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
November 11, 2007 --
One-third of the graduates of the city's
Leadership Academy, the pricey principals
training program heralded as the cornerstone
of Mayor Bloomberg's school reform, are not
leading city schools - and a dozen grads
earned failing grades on new report cards.
The city is paying more than $7
million this year for the Aspiring
Principals Program - one of three programs
the academy runs - and is poised to take
over the bill for the entire academy at a
price that could reach $20 million a year.
The training cost an average of $146,000 per
graduate last year.
Meanwhile, about
half of the schools
headed by Leadership
Academy principals
last year received
grades of C, D or F
in school report
cards last week. The
12 failing schools
being led by academy
grads represent one
quarter of all F
schools in the
system and put the
principals at risk
of being ousted.
About 15 percent of
schools led by
academy grads got
A's, but that number
falls short when
compared to all
schools. Citywide,
23 percent of
schools earned A's.
Some grads are
heading schools
where they have been
harshly criticized
by teachers and
parents who cite
their lack of
experience and,
ironically,
leadership skills.
The Department
of Education
maintains that the
new principals take
on tough schools
that require years
to turn around.
Schools Chancellor
Joel Klein said the
placement and
performance of the
graduates has been
strong. "Would I
like it to do
better? You bet I
would," he said.
"Would I like
everyone who starts
to finish? Yes.
Everyone who
finishes to be an
A-plus principal?
Yes."
The academy
was created in 2003
with a mission to
create new leaders,
or "change agents,"
using
corporate-style
training. For three
years it was almost
entirely funded by
$69 million in
private money.
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11/06/2007 - 7:10:30 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
Law shielding gay students is to
take effect in January.
A conservative
group has launched a petition drive to try to
overturn a new law that is intended to protect gay
students from discrimination.
The group, Capitol Resource Family Impact,
contends the statute will require changes in school
curriculum that will make homosexuality seem
acceptable.
Opponents need to collect valid signatures of
more than 400,000 registered voters to put a
referendum on the ballot.
The law was signed by Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger last month and is scheduled to take
effect in January.
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|
11/05/2007 - 4:43:53 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
The State
believes that Parents are Idiots!
Thank goodness parents are idiots.
Otherwise, at least half of the current tax-funded bozos – the
so-called public servants whose sole mission is to supplant parental
rights and decision-making - the teachers - would be unemployed,
taking their aggressive panhandling to the streets nonetheless. And,
we can't have that, can we?
Of course, not all parents are
idiots. One special class of the omniscient exists; those parents
employed by government or associated organizations (can you say
teachers unions). These folks are never idiots since they drink from
the fountain of enlightenment. The fountain whose source is the
never-ending stream of tax dollars, and whose drain is the
never-clogged pipeline of bloated salaries.
Parents are idiots. Yes, that is a
harsh statement. However, from what I read – from what the state and
its minions believe, it is absolutely true. Offensive, but true.
Alright, put up or shut up! Fair
enough.
A recently published study on public school choice looked at the
schools parents chose when they were allowed to select between the
various Milwaukee public schools. The study reports that many
parents chose schools based on nonacademic reasons; parents chose
schools for reasons other than the state's definition of a quality
program.
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11/01/2007 - 11:41:22 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
The Science Education Myth
A
new report by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan
think tank, disproves many confident pronouncements
about the alleged weaknesses and failures of the
U.S. education system. This data will certainly be
examined by both sides in the
debate over highly skilled workers and immigration
(BusinessWeek.com, 10/10/07). The argument by
Microsoft, Google, Intel, and others is that there
are not enough tech workers in the U.S.
The authors of the report, the Urban
Institute's Hal Salzman and Georgetown University
professor Lindsay Lowell, show that math, science,
and reading test scores at the primary and secondary
level have increased over the past two decades, and
U.S. students are now close to the top of
international rankings. Perhaps just as surprising,
the report finds that our education system actually
produces more science and engineering graduates than
the market demands.
These findings go against what has been the
dominant position about our education system and our
science and engineering workforce. Consider reports
on national competitiveness that policymakers often
turn to, such reports as the 2005
"Rising Above the Gathering Storm" by the
National Academy of Sciences. This report says the
U.S. is in dire straits because of poor math and
science preparation. The report points to declining
test scores, fewer students taking math and science
courses, and low-quality curriculums and teacher
preparation in K-12 education compared to other
countries.
The call has been taken up by some of the most
prominent people in business and politics. Bill
Gates, chairman of Microsoft, said at an education
summit in 2005, "In the international competition to
have the biggest and best supply of knowledge
workers, America is falling behind." President
George W. Bush addressed the issue in his 2006 State
of the Union address. "We need to encourage children
to take more math and science, and to make sure
those courses are rigorous enough to compete with
other nations," he said.
Salzman and Lowell found the reverse was true.
Their report shows U.S. student performance has
steadily improved over time in math, science, and
reading. It also found enrollment in math and
science courses is actually up. For example, in 1982
high school graduates earned 2.6 math credits and
2.2 science credits on average. By 1998, the average
number of credits increased to 3.5 math and 3.2
science credits. The percent of students taking
chemistry increased from 45% in 1990 to 55% in 1996
and 60% in 2004. Scores in national tests such as
the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the
SAT, and the ACT have also shown increases in math
scores over the past two decades.
And the new report again went
against the grain when it compared
the U.S. to other countries. It
found that over the past decade the
U.S. has ranked a consistent second
place in science. It also was far
ahead of other nations in reading
and literacy and other academic
areas. In fact, the report found
that the U.S. is one of only a few
nations that has consistently shown
improvement over time.Why
the sharp discrepancy? Salzman says
that reports citing low U.S.
international rankings often
misinterpret the data. Review of the
international rankings, which he
says are all based on one of two
tests, the Trends in International
Mathematics & Science Study (TIMMS)
or the Programme for International
Student Assessment (PISA), show the
U.S. is in a second-ranked group,
not trailing the leading economies
of the world as is commonly
reported. In fact, the few countries
that place higher than the U.S. are
generally small nations, and few of
these rank consistently high across
all grades, subjects, and years
tested. Moreover, he says, serious
methodological flaws, such as
different test populations, and
other limitations preclude drawing
any meaningful comparison of school
systems between countries.
As far as our workforce is
concerned, the new report showed
that from 1985 to 2000 about 435,000
U.S. citizens and permanent
residents a year graduated with
bachelor's, master's, and doctoral
degrees in science and engineering.
Over the same period, there were
about 150,000 jobs added annually to
the science and engineering
workforce. These numbers don't
include those retiring or leaving a
profession but do indicate the size
of the available talent pool. It
seems that nearly two-thirds of
bachelor's graduates and about a
third of master's graduates take
jobs in fields other than science
and engineering.
Michael Teitelbaum,
vice-president of the Alfred P.
Sloan Foundation, which, among other
things, works to improve science
education, says this research
highlights the troubling weaknesses
in many conventional policy
prescriptions. Proposals to increase
the supply of scientists and
engineers rapidly, without any
objective evidence of comparably
rapid growth in attractive career
opportunities for such
professionals, might actually be
doing harm.
In previous columns, I have
written about research my team at
Duke University completed that
shattered
common myths (BusinessWeek.com,
7/10/06) about India and China
graduating 12 times as many
engineers as the U.S. We found that
the U.S. graduated comparable
numbers and was far ahead in
quality. Our research also showed
there were
no engineer shortages (BusinessWeek.com,
11/7/06) in the U.S., and companies
weren't going offshore because of
any deficiencies in U.S. workers.
So, there isn't a lack of
interest in science and engineering
in the U.S., or a deficiency in the
supply of engineers. However, there
may sometimes be short-term
shortages of engineers with specific
technical skills in certain industry
segments or in various parts of the
country. The National Science
Foundation data show that of the
students who graduated from 1993 to
2001, 20% of the bachelor's holders
went on to complete master's degrees
in fields other than science and
engineering and an additional 45%
were working in other fields. Of
those who completed master's
degrees, 7% continued their
education and 31% were working in
fields other than science and
engineering.
There isn't a problem with the
capability of U.S. children. Even if
there were a deficiency in math and
science education, there are so many
graduates today that there would be
enough who are above average and
fully qualified for the relatively
small number of science and
engineering jobs. Science and
engineering graduates just don't see
enough opportunity in these
professions to continue further
study or to take employment.
With U.S. competitiveness at stake,
we need to get our priorities
straight. Education is really
important, and a well-educated
workforce is what will help the U.S.
keep its global edge. But
emphasizing math and science
education over humanities and social
sciences may not be the best
prescription for the U.S. We need
our children to receive a balanced
and broad education.
Perhaps we should focus on creating
demand for the many scientists and
engineers we graduate. There are
many problems, from global warming
to the development of alternative
fuels to cures for infectious
diseases, that need to be solved.
Let's create exciting national
programs that motivate our children
to help solve these problems.
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|
10/31/2007 - 8:53:13 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
The Classroom of the Future Is Everywhere
The university
classroom of the future is in Janet Duck’s
dining room on East Chocolate Avenue here.
There is no blackboard and no lectern,
and, most glaringly, no students. Dr. Duck
teaches her classes in Pennsylvania State
University’s master’s program in business
administration by sitting for several hours
each day in jeans and shag-lined slippers at
her dining table, which in soccer mom
fashion is cluttered with crayon sketches by
her 6-year-old Elijah and shoulder pads for
her 9-year-old Olivia’s Halloween costume.
In this homespun setting, the spirited
Dr. Duck pecks at a Toshiba laptop and posts
lesson content, readings and questions for
her two courses on “managing human
resources” that touch on topics like
performance evaluations and recruitment. The
instructional software allows her 54
students to log on from almost anywhere at
any time and post remarkably extended
responses, the equivalent of a blog about
the course. Recently, the class exchanged
hard-earned experiences about how managers
deal with lackluster workers.
Those students, mostly 30-ish middle
managers and professionals trying to enhance
their skills, cannot be with her in a Penn
State classroom at a set time. One woman is
an Air Force pilot flying missions over
Afghanistan; other global travelers filed
comments last week from Tokyo, Athens, São
Paulo and Copenhagen. Dr. Duck cannot
regularly be at Penn State, largely because
of her three children. Yet she and other
instructors will help the students acquire
standard M.B.A.’s next August at a total
cost of $52,000, with each side having
barely stepped into a traditional classroom.
|
|
10/30/2007 - 5:49:22 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
One High
School out of every ten is considered a 'Dropout Factory'.
A "Dropout Factory," is a high school where no more than 60
percent of the students who start as freshmen make it to their
senior year. That description fits more than one in 10 high
schools across America. Ten percent of our entire school system at
the high school level is being ravaged. This is truly a frightening
number. Here's something that's even more scary, the whole
process is not done intentionally. If it is not intentional then it
must be something in the structure of "schools."
"If you're born in a neighborhood or town where the only high
school is one where graduation is not the norm, how is this living
in the land of equal opportunity?" asks Bob Balfanz, the Johns
Hopkins researcher who coined the term "dropout factory."
There are about 1,700 regular or vocational high schools
nationwide that fit that description, according to an analysis of
Education Department data conducted by Johns Hopkins for The
Associated Press. That's 12 percent of all such schools, about the
same level as a decade ago.
While some of the missing students transferred, most dropped
out, says Balfanz. The data look at senior classes for three years
in a row to make sure local events like plant closures aren't to
blame for the low retention rates.
The highest concentration
of dropout factories is in large cities or high-poverty rural areas
in the South and Southwest. Most have high proportions of minority
students. These schools are tougher to turn around because their
students face challenges well beyond the academic ones - the need to
work as well as go to school, for example, or a need for social
services.
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10/29/2007 - 3:39:56 PM |
posted by: Jeffrey D. Proud |
There is an astonishing
spread of lazy slacker-hood, or the fact that
cell phones and iPods and excess TV exposure
are, absolutely and without reservation,
short-circuiting the minds of the upcoming
generation. Experts express zero doubt that this
is actually happening.
Kids these days are overprotected and
wussified, don't spend enough time outdoors,
don't get any real exercise and therefore can't
identify basic plants, or handle a tool, or
build anything at all. These things are a given;
they are widely reported and tragically ignored.
This is not just a general dumbing down.
It is far worse than that. We are, as far as
urban public education is concerned, essentially
at rock bottom. We are essentially churning out
ignorant teens who are becoming ignorant adults;
at this our whole society will hit a "Tipping
Point" very soon and will pay dearly.
There is occurring a surefire collapse of
functioning American society in the next few
years due to the absolutely irrefutable
destruction of the American brain.
There are studies, reports and hard data,
about the appalling effects of television on
child brain development (i.e.; any TV exposure
before 6 years old and your kid's basic
cognitive wiring and spatial perceptions are
pretty much scrambled for life), to the fact
that, because of all the insidious mandatory
testing teachers are now forced to incorporate
into the curriculum, of the 182 school days in a
year, there are 110 when such testing is going
on somewhere at your High-School.
Asked to define the words "agriculture,"
or even "democracy," not a single student could
do it. It gets worse, of a sample of 6,000 high
school students, only a small fraction now make
it to the 10th grade with a functioning
understanding of written English. They do not
know how to form a sentence. They cannot write
an intelligible paragraph. Recently, after
giving an assignment that required drawing
lines, he realized that not a single student
actually knew how to use a ruler.
It is, in short, nothing less than a tidal
wave of dumb, with once-passionate, increasingly
exasperated teachers nearly powerless to stop
it. The worst part: It's not the kids' fault.
They're merely the victims of a horribly failed
educational system.
Is there generational relativity,
suggesting kids are no scarier, dumber, or more
dangerous than they've ever been, and that maybe
some of the problem is merely the same old
generation gap, with every current generation
absolutely convinced the subsequent one is
appallingly stupid and spiteful and will be the
end of society as we know it. Just the way it
always seems.
I also point out how, despite all the
evidence of total public-education meltdown, I
keep being surprised, keep hearing from/about
teens and youth movements and actions that
really impress me. Kids made the Internet what
it is today. Revolutionized media. Broke all the
rules. Still are. Some of the best designers,
writers, artists, poets, chefs, and so on are in
their early to mid-20s. And the nation's top
universities are still managing, despite a
factory-churning mentality, to crank out young
minds of astonishing ability and acumen. How did
these kids do it? How did they escape the
horrible public school system? How did they
avoid the great dumbing down of America? Did
they never see a TV show until they hit puberty?
Were they all born and raised elsewhere, in
India and Asia and Russia? Did they all go to
Waldorf or Montessori and eat whole-grain breads
and play with firecrackers and take long walks
in wild nature? Are these kids flukes?
Exceptions? Just lucky?
That's precisely what most of them are.
Lucky, wealthy, foreign-born, private-schooled
... and increasingly rare. Most affluent parents
in America - and many more who aren't - now put
their kids in private schools from day one, and
the smart ones give their kids no TV and minimal
junk food and no video games. (Of course, this
in no way guarantees a smart, attuned kid, but
compared to the odds of success in the public
school system, it sure |