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NEGP Weekly for March 23, 2000
****April 13, 2000 1 PM EST - National Education Goals Panel's national
teleconference on using business principles, Total Quality Management and
the Baldrige criteria in education. Visit the NEGP's Web site at
http://www.negp.gov/teleconf/index.htm or call the Goals Panel at (202)
724-0078 to find out how you can get involved.****
*******************THE NEGP WEEKLY****************
A weekly news update on America's Education Goals
and school improvement efforts across America from the
NATIONAL EDUCATION GOALS PANEL
Thursday - March 23, 2000 -- Vol. 2 -- No. 48
***************************************************
CONTENTS
**STATE POLICY
1.) PRESCHOOL: MORE STATES OFFER PROGRAMS (Goal 1)
2.) TEACHING-LICENSURE EXAMS: A REVIEW (Goal 4)
**COMMUNITY AND LOCAL NEWS
3.) CHICAGO SCHOOL COUNCILS: TIME TO VOTE (Goal 8)
4.) THE LURE OF THE EAST: IMPORTING MATH PROGRAMS(Goal 5)
**FEDERAL POLICY NEWS
5.) NAEP WRITING ASSESSMENT: TROUBLE WITH DATA (Goal 3)
6.) MATH AND SCIENCE TEACHERS: HOW TO GET AND KEEP THE BEST
(Goals 4 and 5)
**RESEARCH AND EDUCATION PRACTICE
7.) EDUCATION: A NATIONAL VALUE (All Goals)
8.) "COMMUNITY COUNTS:" SERVICES FOR YOUTH (Goal 3)
**FEATURE STORY
9.) DUAL-LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION: RILEY'S PLAN WINS PRAISE
(All Goals)
***FACT OF THE WEEK***
Between 1992 and 1996, the U.S. and 7 states (out of 39) significantly
increased the percentages of public school 4th graders who scored at or
above Proficient in mathematics. These states were Colorado, Connecticut,
Indiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia.
--The National Education Goals Report: Building a nation of learners, 1999
(http://www.negp.gov/reports/99rpt.pdf
********************
STATE POLICY NEWS
********************
1.) ********PRESCHOOL: MORE STATES OFFER PROGRAMS
(Goal One: School Readiness)
The preschool movement is taking the nation by storm, similar to the move to
offer kindergarten opportunities to children at the dawn of the 1900s,
according to the WASHINGTON POST (Salmon and Grimsley, 3/13). Forty-two
states offer free or subsidized preschool, reports the Children's Defense
Fund, a child-advocacy group. Many of the programs target disadvantaged
children, but some states have taken a signal from Georgia and are opening
up preschool programs to all children.
The paper reports on the following state activity on preschool programs:
> Georgia - provides free preschool to four-year-olds
> Oklahoma and New York - beginning to make preschool available to all
children
> New Jersey - promotes its goal of enrolling 44,000 of the state's
poorest children in preschools
> Connecticut - is in the midst of a five-year school-readiness plan that
has enrolled 6,500 children in all-day preschool
> Maryland - offers a state-funded program for 11,000 low-income,
four-year-olds
> Virginia - has 6,100 children enrolled in a five-year-old preschool
initiative for at-risk children
While many state, business and education leaders extol the virtues of
preschool, critics wage that taxpayers are left paying the bill for working
parents to have free child care. "I question the premise that there is an
overwhelming unpreparedness - that kids are spending [the ages of] zero
through five doing nothing, and then go through some sort of shock when they
get to kindergarten," said Darcy Olsen, director of education and child
policy at the Cato Institute.
Visit the Children's Defense Fund at http://www.childrensdefense.org and the
Cato Institute at http://www.cato.org for more information.
2.) ********TEACHING-LICENSURE EXAMS: A REVIEW
(Goal Four: Teacher Education and Professional Development)
While teaching-licensure exams can provide information about a teacher
candidate's basic skills and qualifications, it is not designed to determine
who will be effective in the classroom, according to a new report issued by
the National Research Council of the National Academies (NRC). The state
licensure system also is too fragmented to allow for meaningful
state-by-state comparisons, explained committee chair David Robinson, former
executive vice president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
According to a NRC press release, 41 states currently require prospective
teachers to pass tests to obtain a license. States vary in what they test
for, how and when they test for it and the minimum score required to pass
the exams, notes the commission. The commission points out that as a
result, federal regulations calling for state reports on passing rates could
produce incomplete or misleading information about the quality of
teacher-education programs across the country.
"Well-designed licensure tests provide information that states consider
necessary, but the information is not sufficient to know whether a teacher
will be successful in the classroom," said Robinson. For more information,
visit the National Resource Council at http://www.nationalacademies.org.
*************************
Community and Local News
*************************
3.) ********CHICAGO SCHOOL COUNCILS: TIME TO VOTE
(Goal Eight: Parent Participation)
At first, this year's election of local school council members in Chicago
was thought to be lacking candidates. The numbers surged, however, after
the filing deadline was extended two weeks. More than 7,000 people now have
signed up to run for the approximately 5,700 seats on the local councils
(Richard, EDUCATION WEEK, 3/15).
The councils were established in 1988 under a comprehensive education reform
act. Elections are held every four years. According to the paper, the
number of candidates vying for positions on school councils has never
reached the peak of 17,000 registered during the first election of school
council members. However, interest has held steady over the past few years.
"While we would have liked more of an increase, we've gotten a lot more
publicly visible," said Andy Wade, executive director of the Chicago School
Leadership Development Cooperative, a group that publicizes the council
elections and recruits candidates.
This year's school council elections are scheduled for April 5 and 6. Visit
the city of Chicago at http://www.ci.chi.il.us/
4.) ********THE LURE OF THE EAST: IMPORTING MATH PROGRAMS
(Goal Five: Math and Science)
Singapore's math program is being hailed by many as a cure for what ails
American math instruction (Strauss, WASHINGTN POST, 3/21). The country's
math curriculum, along with the Japanese program known as Kumon is being
distributed in the United States. According to the POST, professors in
Wisconsin and Illinois are training math teachers in the Singapore method,
and Montgomery County, Maryland, Superintendent Jerry Weast has approved a
pilot program for next fall at five elementary schools. Baltimore,
Maryland, is in the midst of a two-year experiment with the curriculum.
Both the Singapore and Japanese curriculum "promote a versatility in basic
math skills that makes it easier for students to venture later into more
difficult problem-solving," reports the paper. Teachers who have used the
Singapore text praise it for moving form basic to more advanced math in a
logical sequence, according to the paper.
Some Montgomery County officials worry that the program is not aligned with
the state test, the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP).
However, others note that when Taiwan students were given the MSPAP in math
and science in 1998, they scored higher than Maryland children, "even though
the Taiwanese teachers did not teach to that test," writes the paper.
For more information, visit Kumon Center at http://www.kumon.com
*********************
Federal Policy News
*********************
5.) ********NAEP WRITING ASSESSMENT: TROUBLE WITH DATA
(Goal Three: Student Achievement and Citizenship)
The National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) recently voted to exclude the
results of the 1999 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
long-term writing assessment from its trend report because the data are
unreliable, reports EDUCATION WEEK (Manzo, 3/15). "I've just lost
confidence that the data are reliable," said Gary W. Philips, acting
commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics. He explained
that his greatest concern with the data is that "the long-term trend in
writing has really been [determined] just using five or six [test] items,
and you just can't carry two decades of achievement and measure progress on
five or six items."
According to the paper, the data problem primarily stems from too few
writing prompts used on the test. Although the potential for problems had
been noted before, no errors had been found in analyzing data until now.
The long-term NAEP data trends are not the same tests as the state NAEP that
the National Education Goals Panel reports. NAEP continues to remain the
best way to compare student achievement across states, according to the
Goals Panel.
For more information on NAEP, visit http://www.nces.ed.gov/, see nation's
report card.
6.) ********MATH AND SCIENCE TEACHERS: HOW TO GET AND KEEP THE BEST
(Goal Four: Teacher Education and Professional Development and
Goal Five: Math and Science)
Members of the National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for
the 21st Century devoted last week's meeting to developing a series of
recommendations for recruiting and retaining top-notch math and science
teachers. Chaired by former Senator John Glenn, the federal commission was
launched last summer and is expected to release a series of recommendations
to Congress by the end of this year.
Some of the ideas discussed at the commission's meeting include:
> develop a mentor program, in which veteran teachers are teamed with
inexperienced teachers for their first few years
> provide appropriate training to current math and science teachers who do
not have the proper credentials to teach these courses
> add professional development days to the school year and summer workshops
to better prepare current teachers
> offer bonuses and raises for teachers who earn certification from the
National Board for Professional Teaching Standards
For more information on the National Commission on Mathematics and Science
Teaching, visit http://www.ed.gov
*********************************
Research and Education Practices
*********************************
7.) ********EDUCATION: A NATIONAL VALUE
(All Goals)
The issue of education has been "nationalized," writes Donald Stewart,
senior program officer and special advisor to the president, Carnegie
Corporation of New York, in the introduction to a new report issued by the
Washington-D.C.-based Center for National Policy (CNP). Stewart cites
results of CNP focus groups of voters and a survey of parents commissioned
by the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) that found
"remarkably strong support for the institution of public education in
America."
Acknowledging America's tradition of local control in school matters, CNP's
report focuses on defining the national and federal interest in providing
quality public education. Passing the Test: The National Interest in Good
Schools for All is divided into three parts. The first section is a
collection of three essays that discuss different aspects of a national
interest in education: economic competitiveness, maintaining an effective
democracy and social cohesion amid diversity. A second set of essays
focuses on a fourth national interest - reducing inequality of opportunity.
The final essays recommend proposals for increases in federal spending
designed to close the achievement gap between rich and poor.
The report also includes findings from a series of seven focus group
sessions with groups of middle-income and politically independent voters in
Richmond, Virginia, and Oak Park, Illinois. A summary of a poll of 750
public school parents commissioned by the AASA also is included in the
report.
For more information, visit the Center for National Policy at
http://www.cnponline.org
8.) ********"COMMUNITY COUNTS:" SERVICES FOR YOUTH
(Goal Three: Student Achievement and Citizenship)
Community youth organizations and schools need to work hand-in-hand to
deliver critical out-of-school services for young people that will help them
achieve to high standards and become productive citizens, according to a new
report issued by the Public Education Network. In the report, Community
Counts: How Youth Organizations Matter for Youth Development, author
Milbrey McLaughlin calls for communities to rethink how they design and
deliver services for youth, particularly during non-school hours.
McLaughlin, an education professor at Stanford University, based her
findings on more than 12 years of conversations with students ages 12 to 18
in challenging urban and rural areas. Her research finds that youth make
strides toward better school and life successes by being involved in
effective out-of-school programs. Youth participating in these programs are
found to:
> achieve at higher academic levels and hold higher expectations of
themselves
> demonstrate greater self-confidence and optimism about the future
> express a strong desire to "give back" to their communities
> go on to be productive, employed and active members of their communities
McLaughlin offers a series of recommendations for communities to step up
their involvement in ways that benefit youth development. For example, she
urges communities to engage all youth-serving institutions, particularly
schools and support a variety of smaller, innovative programs that offer
youth a menu of learning opportunities.
For more information, visit the Public Education Network at
http://www.PublicEducation.org.
*****************
Feature Story
*****************
9.) ********DUAL-LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION: RILEY'S PLAN WINS PRAISE
(All Goals)
U.S. Education Secretary Richard Riley in a speech on Latino education
promoted a teaching method called dual-language instruction, in which
English-speaking students and non-English speaking students are taught
together in their native languages. The goal is to make all students
proficient in both languages.
Bi-literacy, competency in two languages, should become a classroom priority
nationwide, Riley told educators during his speech at a Bell Multicultural
High School in Washington, D.C. The nation would benefit from
dual-instruction, said Riley, because it would enhance America's economic
competitiveness. "I think it is high time we begin to treat language skills
as the asset they are, particularly in this global economy," said Riley.
Riley highlighted the successful efforts of the dual-language program at
Grant Elementary School in Salem, Oregon, which is a dual Spanish-English
program. "Our nation needs to encourage more of these kinds of learning
opportunities, in many different languages," he said. He called on the
nation to quadruple the number of dual-language schools to 1,000 in five
years.
"The two-way model is something we're seeing more and more of because
they're getting better results as immigrants develop English skills as well
as maintain and develop literacy in their native language," said Nancy
Rhodes, a foreign language specialist at the Center for Applied Linguistics
(Cooper, WASH POST, Cooper, 3/16). According to the Center, the
dual-language method emerged in public schools in 1963 and spread from Coral
Gables, a Miami suburb, to 261 schools in 23 states and the District of
Columbia.
Tim Schultz, from U.S. English, a group opposed to other bilingual programs,
also offers support to Riley's plan. "We agree that dual-immersion programs
are good," he said. "We just want kids to learn English." However, Schulz
pointed out that the program might be difficult to implement in communities
that do not enroll enough English-speaking students.
In his speech, Riley described another challenge facing Hispanic Americans -
"a demand for teachers and new ways of teaching." Riley: "We need teachers
who not only know more than one language but also have the background and
training to maximize the learning potential of students with diverse
backgrounds. He highlighted his plan for making teaching a year-round and
better paid profession, which he first mentioned in his State of American
Education address delivered last month.
Riley also called for closing the achievement gap between Hispanic and white
children and lowering the dropout rate for Hispanic students. Other issues
addressed in his speech include: the importance of getting an early start
on the education, social and emotional development of Hispanic youngsters,
community-based student programs and modern school buildings.
"In looking toward the future, we must think comprehensively - no single
solution will work," said Riley. " ... When we transcend stereotypes and
overcome the tyranny of low expectations, then we will be able to guarantee
everyone the key civil right for the 21st century - a quality education," he
concluded.
A copy of Riley's speech can be found at http://www.ed.gov/Speeches.
************************************
The NEGP WEEKLY is a publication of:
The National Education Goals Panel
1255 22nd Street NW, Suite 502
Washington, DC 20037;
202-724-0015
NEGP Executive Director: Ken Nelson
Publisher: Barbara A. Pape
http://www.negp.gov
************************************
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WHAT IS THE NATIONAL EDUCATION GOALS PANEL?
The National Education Goals Panel is a unique bipartisan body of state and
federal officials created in 1990 by President Bush and the nation's
Governors to report state and national progress and urge education
improvement efforts to reach the National Education Goals.
WHAT DOES THE GOALS PANEL DO?
The Goals Panel has been charged to:
* Report state and national progress toward the National Education Goals.
* Work to establish a system of high academic standards and assessments.
* Identify promising and effective reform strategies.
* Recommend actions for state, federal, and local governments to take.
* Build a nationwide, bipartisan consensus to achieve the Goals.
WHAT ARE THE NATIONAL EDUCATION GOALS?
There are eight National Education Goals set for the year 2000. They are:
1) All children will start school ready to learn.
2) The high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90%.
3) All students will become competent in challenging subject matter.
4) Teachers will have the knowledge and skills they need.
5) U.S. students will be first in the world in math and science achievement.
6) Every adult American will be literate.
7) Schools will be safe, disciplined, and free of drugs, guns and alcohol.
8) Schools will promote parental involvement and participation.
WHO SERVES ON THE GOALS PANEL AND HOW ARE THEY CHOSEN?
Eight governors, four state legislators, four members of the U.S. Congress,
and two members appointed by the President serve on the Goals Panel. Members
are appointed by the leadership of the National Governors' Association, the
National Conference of State Legislatures, the U.S. Senate and House, and
the President. The number of Republicans and Democrats are made even by
appointing five governors from the party that does not control the White
House.
The current Panel Members are Governors Tommy G. Thompson, WI (Chair, 2000);
John Engler, MI; Jim Geringer, WY; James B. Hunt, Jr., NC; Frank Keating,
OK; Frank O'Bannon, IN; Paul E. Patton, KY; Cecil H. Underwood, WV;
Secretary of Education Richard Riley; Michael Cohen, U.S. Assistant
Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education; U.S. Senator Jeff
Bingaman, NM; U.S. Senator Jim Jeffords, VT; U.S. Representative William F.
Goodling, PA; U.S. Representative Matthew G. Martinez, CA; Representative G.
Spencer Coggs, WI; Representative Mary Lou Cowlishaw, IL; Representative
Douglas R. Jones, ID;
Senator Stephen Stoll, MO.
The annual Goals Report and other publications of the Panel are available
without charge upon request from the Goals Panel or at its web site
http://www.negp.gov. Requests can be made by mail, fax, e-mail, or Internet.
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