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--- Wednesday -- April 21, 1999 --- Vol. 2 --- No. 14 ---
NATIONAL EDUCATION GOALS PANEL
NEGP Weekly
THE UPDATE ON AMERICA'S NATIONAL EDUCATION GOALS
in cooperation with the DAILY REPORT CARD
SCIENCE CONTEST
The Siemens Foundation announces its first annual Westinghouse Science and
Technology Competition open to high school seniors and to teams of students
who develop independent research projects in the physical or biological
sciences, or mathematics. Judging will be held on regional and national
levels from Oct. through Dec. 1999. The contest will result in over $1
million in scholarships and awards. For more information: Siemens
Foundation; 1301 Avenue of the Americas; New York, N.Y. 10019;
www.siemens-foundation.org.
IN THIS WEEKLY
VIRGINIA votes down plan to tie teacher bonuses to student testing. New
TEACHER MANIFESTO. SCHOOL-TO-WORK report released. NIGHT SCHOOL gets a new
look. Drug use rises for MIDDLE SCHOOL students.
SPOTLIGHT
NIGHT SCHOOLS' NEW LOOK
Adults going back to school to upgrade or add new skills are part of a
"dynamic trend" in higher education, says the WASHINGTON POST MAGAZINE
(4/11). And night schools are giving themselves a facelift to meet the new
needs of today's adult learner.
Many schools are developing partnerships with businesses to, for example,
design customized training for workers. Other colleges are adding
technology courses and going online to deliver the education mandated by
today's economy.(#4)
==== QUOTE OF THE DAY ====
"They're not here for the football team."
G. William Troxler, president of Capitol College, on today's adult learner.
(#4)
_______________________________________________________________
| (c) by the DAILY REPORT CARD |
| 1255 22nd Street NW; Washington, D.C. 20010; 202/724-0124 |
| The DRC. hereby authorizes further reproduction and |
| distribution with proper acknowledgment. |
| Publisher: Barbara A. Pape |
|_______________________________________________________________|
==== TABLE OF CONTENTS ====
GOAL FOUR: TEACHER ED/PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
*1. TEACHER EVALUATION: VOTED DOWN IN VIRGINIA
*2. TEACHERS WE NEED: AND HOW TO GET THEM
GOAL SIX: ADULT LITERACY AND LIFELONG LEARNING
*3. FINGER POINTING: SCHOOL-TO-WORK FAILURES
*4. NIGHT SCHOOL: ATTRACTIVE OPTION FOR LIFE-LONG LEARNERS
GOAL SEVEN: SAFE, DISCIPLINED AND DRUG-FREE SCHOOLS
*5. MIDDLE SCHOOL: DRUG USE JUMPS
==== GOAL FOUR: TEACHER ED/PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ====
*1 TEACHER EVALUATION: VOTED DOWN IN VIRGINIA
Virginia Governor James Gilmore III's plan to evaluate teachers was
voted down earlier this month in the General Assembly. His plan included
giving cash bonuses to high-performing teachers and requiring some type of
evaluation of teachers' skills, which could have included testing.
His first proposal called on all state teachers to "demonstrate
mastery" of the content covered in the state's new Standards of Learning
(SOL) exams given to student in grades 3, 5, 8 and in high school. Gilmore
left up to the Board of Education development of the details of this plan.
This amendment to the state's Education Accountability Act did not pass the
House, while the Senate split 20 to 20 over it.
The Virginia Education Association, one of the state's teachers
union, argued that Gilmore's plan depended too much on the SOL curriculum
and tests in developing education policy, writes the WASH POST (Timberg and
Mathews). "They want to put all the eggs in the SOL basket," said Dick
Pulley, a union lobbyist. "I think what they're trying to do is make
everything tied to, glued to, chained to the Standards of Learning."
Elaine Furlow, Arlington County School board member, questioned why
some apparently think the current teacher credential process is flawed.
According to Furlow and other local school officials, the state's licensing
process is "supposed to ensure that only teachers capable of handling the
SOL material are being certified," writes the paper.
A second Gilmore proposal would have allowed a $5,000 bonus to
Virginia teachers who complete National Board Certification only if those
teachers improved student performance, as tested by SOL exams. The POST
reports that no state pays bonuses to individual teachers based on improved
student test scores. This measure also was defeated in the General
Assembly.
*2 THE TEACHERS WE NEED: AND HOW TO GET THEM
An online manifesto signed by a diverse cast of educators and
policymakers calls for placing greater emphasis on "teachers' in-class
performance than their college training and licensing." (Mathews, WASH
POST, 4/20). The group rails against the "regulatory strategy being pursued
today to boost teacher quality." According to the manifesto: "Every
additional requirement for prospective teachers - every additional
pedagogical course, every new hoop or hurdle - will have a predictable and
inexorable effect: it will limit the potential supply of new teachers by
narrowing the pipeline while having no bearing whatever on the quality or
effectiveness of those in the pipeline."
Instead, the group calls for simplifying the entry and hiring
process by abandoning "long lists of courses and degrees" for testing of
future teachers on their knowledge and skill. They also argue that
principals should be granted the authority to hire the teachers they need
and to focus "relentlessly on results," which means whether there is
improvement in student achievement.
The POST notes that the manifesto, called "The Teachers We Need and
How to Get More of Them," "immediately drew criticism." "One of the best
predictors of low student performance in Prince George's County is the
number of uncertified teachers at a school," said Willis D. Hawley,
executive director of the Washington-based National Partnership for
Excellence and Accountability in Teaching, who supports teacher
credentialing. The paper also reports that the manifesto rebuffs efforts
made by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE)
to goad education schools to raise their standards.
According to the POST, the manifesto emerged from discussions among
educators assembled by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. Signers include:
William Bennett, former U.S. Secretary of Education, Governor John Engler
(R-Michigan), E.D. Hirsch, University of Virginia, and Governor Tom Ridge
(R-Pennsylvania).
The manifesto can be found at the Thomas B. Fordham's Web site:
www.edexcellence.net.
==== GOAL SIX: ADULT LITERACY AND LIFELONG LEARNING ====
*3 FINGER POINTING: SCHOOL-TO-WORK FAILURES
Lack of support from teachers and school counselors are the main
culprits in failed school-to-work programs, according to a study recently
released by the Institute on Education and the Economy (IEE) at Columbia
University's Teacher's College. IEE examined 12 school-to-work programs and
found that three programs had ended or faltered due to low student
participation rates, "while a lack of support from teachers and counselors
may also have been an obstacle," writes ED DAILY (Fox, 4/6).
"School counselors were repeatedly blamed for either not presenting
school-to-work programs as options to students or for advising interested
students not to enroll in them," writes Katherine Hughes, the author of the
report, "Employer Recruitment Is Not the Problem: A Study of School-to-Work
Transition Programs."
According to ED DAILY, the IEE report has entered the fray over
placing blame for failed school-to-work programs. Some researchers claim
that a short supply of employers is the death knell for many school-to-work
projects. Paul Osterman, a labor researcher at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, estimates that if 25% of high school juniors and seniors
eventually participate in an apprenticeship program, 1.5 million work
placements will be needed, reports the newsletter. Osterman says it is
impossible to achieve that number of work placements. A 1995 study by
Congress's Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) holds that in many cases,
employers are reluctant participants in school-to-work programs.
IEE's study argues against claims that employers are the primary
obstacles for school-to-work. "The fact that the main problem of some
programs is that they lack students, rather than employers, is significant,
as it calls into question the assumption that employer participation is the
principle challenge to creating a school-to-work system," said Hughes. Her
study found that 5 of the 12 programs reviewed were having difficulty
securing employer participation, but the problem was not "insurmountable,"
writes ED DAILY. Hughes: "Everyone agrees that employer recruitment
requires a concerted effort, but the experiences of many programs is that it
is not impossible."
The study, "Employer Recruitment Is Not the Problem: A Study of
School-to-Work Transition Programs" is available for $7.00 from IEE; Box
174; Teacher's College; Columbia University; New York, New York 10027;
(212)678-3091; www.tc.columbia.edu/~iee.
*4 NIGHT SCHOOL: ATTRACTIVE OPTION FOR LIFE-LONG LEARNERS
Night schools have been around for quite a while, but lately have a
"new look" shaped in part by the rise of technology in the American
workplace. (Mullaney, WASHINGTON POST MAGAZINE, 4/11). "When you're in
the field for a number of years, as technology advances, you're not always
able to catch up as fast as you want to," said Robert Dickens, a public
television engineer, explaining why he returned to higher education. "I've
tried to keep up, but I've seen the introduction of computers into TV more
than ever - I needed to get better skills in computer languages,
programming, etc."
The magazine writes that Dickens and others like him struggle to
"keep up in a world where old skills seem to melt faster than ice cream on
hot pavement and new ones are not just desirable, but crucial."
Night schools are reinventing themselves to better serve the needs
of workers. In some cases, new partnerships between colleges and companies
are forging to help customize training for workers. For example, colleges
and other higher education institutions also are offering more online
classes. "What's changing most is the mode of delivery," said Nicholas
Allen, executive vice president and chief academic officer of the University
of Maryland University College, the continuing education arm of the state
university system.
According to the magazine, a "curious short-term failure of market
economics" is the impetus for many of the changes underway at colleges.
>From the magazine: "Despite rising opportunities in new technology
industries, enrollment in undergraduate computer science and engineering
programs has fallen steeply from a high in the mid-'80s." The magazine
notes that technology industries are "scrambling for skilled help" due to
both fewer undergraduate tech and engineering majors and a "cohort of
middle-aged engineers whose skills need updating."
Adult learners also are a different breed of student. "They're not
here for the football team," said G. William Troxler, president of Capitol
College, located in Prince George's County, Maryland. "They're here to get
ahead. No one comes here to experiment. They come here for access."
The magazine notes the explosion of for-profit and nonprofit
institutions competing to serve the "growing market" of adult learners; even
the banking industry in the Washington, D.C., area has designed loans
uniquely for part-time students.
David Hunn, executive director of the Northern Virginia Regional
partnership, a nonprofit group operating with state funds to coordinate
efforts to train adult workers, reports that his organization is beginning
to "prime the pump" to discover new ways to bring people into the work
world. The partnership claims six programs underway in cooperation with the
Northern Virginia Community College and George Mason University, with two
more programs about to open. More than 500 students have completed training
in fields such Java and C++ computer programming languages, database
software packages and network administration, during the partnership's first
year, writes the POST. More than 1,000 students have enrolled in the
program.
Entrepreneurs are flooding into the adult-learner market. In the
Washington area, Caliber Learning Network is beginning to lease its
nationwide network of video-based classrooms to corporations to train people
in various skills, including Y2K problem-solving, notes the magazine.
Customized training is fast becoming a "staple" of business school
offerings, writes the magazine. Companies like MCI WorldCom tap Capitol
College and other higher education institutions to develop short-term
courses for their employees, which solves the problem of re-training workers
without the company entering the education business.
Despite the success of "night school," many human resources
executives point out that adult education is not a "panacea for their
problems in finding skilled labor," according to the POST. "Adult education
sounds like an area we probably should know something about, but we haven't
focused on it," said Diane Lawrence, UUNet's vice president for human
resources. "Actually, we've been looking at the high schools more. That's
an age where we have terrific Web skills."
=== GOAL SEVEN: SAFE, DISCIPLINED AND DRUG-FREE SCHOOLS ===
*5 MIDDLE SCHOOL: DRUG USE JUMPS
The transition from elementary school to middle school is a time
when many children begin to first experiment with drugs and alcohol,
according to a study issued by the National Parents' Resource Institute for
Drug Education (PRIDE). The study of students in grades 4 through 6 marks
the first time children this young were surveyed in a national study on drug
use (Wren, N.Y. TIMES, 4/8).
"The reported dramatic increase of marijuana use between the fifth
and sixth grades is a real wake-up call to parents," said retired Gen. Barry
R. McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy. "We have got to get the word out that the pre-teen years are the
key transition period where parents can play a critical role."
Findings from the study include:
1.6% of fourth graders said they smoked cigarettes, jumping to 7% in grade
6;
2.1% of fourth-grade students said they drank beer at least once a month,
while nearly 5% of sixth graders acknowledged to such beer drinking;
2.2% of fourth graders said they sniffed glue, rising slightly to 2.7% of
sixth graders;
Only 0.4% of fourth graders reported smoking marijuana in the last month,
compared to 1.7% of sixth graders.
Peer pressure and association with new friends are two reasons given
for the increase in drug and alcohol use as students progress from grade
school to middle school, notes the TIMES.
Researchers also found that students surveyed thought far more of
their friends and classmates were engaged in drug-taking than the number of
students that reported the behavior. Fourteen percent of sixth graders said
they thought their friends had smoked marijuana, while fewer than 4%
"admitted to trying it themselves at some point," writes the paper.
"This misperception alone - that everybody's doing it - can be a
powerful motivator behind much of the drug use we see," said Thomas Gleaton,
president of PRIDE. "Youth need an accurate portrayal of drug use that
begins with correcting the misperception that everyone is doing it."
The PRIDE survey was of 26,086 students at public and private
schools in 22 states during the 1997-1998 school year. All responses were
anonymous. The schools all volunteered to participate in the survey,
"making them somewhat less representative than a broader nationwide sample
would have been," writes the paper.
National Education Goals Panel
1255 22nd Street NW; Suite 502; Washington, D.C. 20037
202/632-0957 (Fax); e-mail: negp@goalline.org
Web site: www.negp.gov
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