The NEGP WEEKLY for December 7, 2001

[NEGPweek <NEGPWEEK@WESTAT.com>]

*****************THE NEGP WEEKLY*****************
A weekly news update on America's Education Goals 
and school improvement efforts across America from the 
NATIONAL EDUCATION GOALS PANEL

Friday - December 7, 2001 -- Vol. 2 -- No. 128
*************************************************

CONTENTS

**STATE POLICY 
1.) Teacher Salaries:  New Structure Proposed In Arizona (Goal 4)
2.) Nationally Certified Teachers: Financial Incentives Cut In Virginia
(Goal 4)

**COMMUNITY AND LOCAL NEWS 
3.) Sanctions On Parents:  Chicago's Tough Anti-Truancy Policy (Goals 2 & 8)
4.) Parents and Payzant:  Boston's Latest Dispute (Goal 8)

**FEDERAL POLICY NEWS 
5.) Teacher Preparation:  ED Releases State Report (Goal 4)
6.) Long-Term NAEP:  It's Future Is Dim (Goal 3)

**RESEARCH AND EDUCATION PRACTICE 
7.) Microsoft's Settlement:  Technology For Needy Schools (Goals 3 & 4)
8.) Early Childcare:  An NICHD Study (Goal 1)

**FEATURE STORY
9.) Small Is Beautiful:  Research Backs Claim (Goals 2 & 3)


********************
STATE POLICY NEWS
********************

1.) ******** Teacher Salaries:  New Structure Proposed In Arizona
(Goal Four:  Teacher Education And Professional Development

An Arizona task force of business and education leaders has proposed paying
teachers "what they are worth," and giving raises to top-notch teachers
(Sherwood, ARIZONA REPUBLIC, 11/28).  Task force member Penny Kotterman,
president of the Arizona Education Association said the proposal rewards
'teachers who do their jobs well and it professionalizes the art of
teaching, which is valuable in itself."

Arizona Governor Jane Hull appointed the task force members and charged them
with overhauling the current education salary structure in which teachers
are rewarded for years of service and extra education.

If the state legislature approves the new plan, Arizona will join Iowa as
the second state to reject the uniform pay scale, notes the paper.

For more information on Arizona education, visit the Arizona Education
Association at http://www.arizonaea.org.


2.) ******** Nationally Certified Teachers:  Financial Incentives Cut In
Virginia
(Goal Four:  Teacher Education And Professional Development)

An unexpected high number of teachers certified by the National Board of
Professional Teaching Standards has forced Virginia to become the first
state to reduce the amount of money it awards these teachers, according to
Charles Pyle, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Education (Carroll,
Richmond TIMES-DISPATCH, 11/28).

The National Board last month announced that a record 6,500 teachers earned
certification this year, including 132 from Virginia.  Currently, the state
boasts 278 board-certified teachers.

For more information, visit the National Board for Professional Teaching
Standards at http://www.nbpts.org.


*************************
COMMUNITY AND LOCAL NEWS
*************************

3.) ******** Sanctions On Parents:  Chicago's Tough Anti-Truancy Policy
(Goal Two:  School Completion and Goal Eight:  Parent Involvement)

Chicago public school leaders last month unveiled a new get-tough program to
curb truancy:  sanctions on parents or guardians who make "little effort" to
get their children back to school (Quintanilla, 11/29).  The program is
being piloted in several high schools with the highest truancy rates.

The new program calls for parents or guardians to attend mandatory hearings
with school counselors and administrators if their child is absent from
school for more than 18 days without a valid excuse.  If parents are
uncooperative, they will be sent to the state's attorney's office for
prosecution and could "face penalties such as performing community service,"
writes the paper.
For more information on Chicago public schools, visit the Chicago Public
Schools at http://www.cps.k12.il.us.


4.) ********  Parents and Payzant:  Boston's Latest Dispute
(Goal Eight:  Parent Involvement)

Boston Superintendent Thomas Payzant's plan to cut about $500,000 of funding
to parent advocacy groups and instead focus on building parent involvement
on a school-by-school basis and strengthen his department's three parent
Information Centers has caused much consternation from the advocacy groups
and some parents (Hayward, BOSTON HERADL, 11/29). 

Payzant said he is no longer willing to fund groups that "often are at odds
with department policies," writes the paper.  The BOSTON HERALD also reports
that many of the groups "were created by court decisions to resolve failings
of the department."

For more information, visit http://www.boston.k12.ma.us.


*********************
FEDERAL POLICY NEWS
*********************

5.) ******** Teacher Preparation:  ED Releases State Report
(Goal Four:  Teacher Education and Professional Development)

U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige announced the release of study
reporting on the quality of teacher preparation from the 50 states, the
District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and outlying territories.  Paige noted in
the state reports and submit findings to Congress by spring 2002.

Each state report includes information on efforts to boost teacher quality,
including:

* data for each college and university with a teacher education program,
including number of students taking state certification assessments, number
and percentage of students passing each assessment and the school's quartile
ranking based on pass rates;

* certification and licensure requirements; and

* information on alternative routes to certification.

For more information, visit the Department of Education at
http://www.ed.gov.


6.) ******** Long-Term NAEP:  It's Future Is Dim
(Goal Three:  Student Achievement and Citizenship)

Members of the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) are pondering the
future of the National Assessment of Educational Progress's (NAEP)long-term
trend assessment (Galley, EDUCATION WEEK, 11/28).  Instead, state-by-state
tests would be given more often.

Problems continue to plague the long-term assessment, including obsolete
questions and grammatical problems.  Gary Phillips, acting commissioner of
the National Center for Education Statistics, the branch of the Department
of Education responsible for the nation's "report card," wrote that some
background items asked on the trend test "could be regarded as poor quality,
inappropriately personal, intrusive or controversial."  Phillips letter led
to the "first systematic review of the questions in the trend test by the
board," reports the paper. 

For more information, visit the National Assessment of Educational Progress
at http://www.nagb.org.


*********************************
RESEARCH AND EDUCATION PRACTICES
*********************************

7.) ******** Microsoft's Settlement:  Technology For Needy Schools
(Goal Three:  Student Achievement and Citizenship and Goal Four:  Teacher
Education and Professional Development)

Up to 14,000 schools may benefit from a proposed settlement plan that calls
for Microsoft Corporation to "launch a $1 billion company-sponsored program
to pour technology into needy schools."  (Trotter, EDUCATION WEEK, 11/28).
Microsoft faces "scores of private lawsuits for allegedly using its monopoly
position to overcharge computer buyers for its software products," report
the paper.
Under the settlement, the company would provide the schools with cash,
computer software and hardware and training for five years.  Microsoft also
would establish a national educational foundation and award it $150 million
in seed money to make grants to local foundations and community
organizations to purchase computers and software for schools.

For more information on Microsoft and education, visit
http://www.microsoft.com/education.


8.) ******** Early Childcare:  An NICHD Study
(Goal One:  Ready To Learn)

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
recently released a study of early childcare that found small increases in
family income can better prepare low-income students for school.  These
financial gains help young children improve social skills, vocabulary and
knowledge of colors, shapes and letters, according to researchers from
Harvard University and Baylor University.

Researchers are following the children and plan to measure their development
at frequent intervals from birth through middle childhood.  Phase One of the
study began in 1991.

For more information, visit NICHD at
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/about/crmc/secc/index.htm.


*****************
FEATURE STORY
*****************

9.) ******** Small Is Beautiful:  Research Backs Claim
(Goal Two:  School Completion and Goal Three:  Student Achievement and
Professional Development)

A growing body of research points to the many benefits of smaller schools,
reports EDUCATION WEEK (Viadero, 11/28).  From the paper:  "Studies
conducted over the past 10 to 15 years suggest that in smaller schools,
students come to class more often, drop out less, earn better grades,
participate more often in extracurricular activities, feel safer and show
fewer behavior problems."

Mary Anne Raywid, a "pre-eminent" researcher in the field, goes so far to
say that the superiority of smaller schools has been established "with a
clarity and a confidence rare in the annals of education."  Raywid,
professor emeritus of education at Hofstra University, adds:  "An awful lot
of people, including some who are professional educators, think the secret
of education is in curriculum and pedagogy, and those are the only two
things that matter.  And that is wrong."

EDUCATION WEEK notes conflicting data from the public.  The paper refers to
a Public Agenda survey published this fall that found one in four parents
and teachers would oppose breaking up their large high school into smaller
schools of 500 or fewer students.  

The article traces the growth of large, comprehensive high schools,
beginning with the 1959 report by the late James Conant.  The former Harvard
University president argues for schools with no fewer than 400 students in
order to offer students "an adequate range of rigorous academic courses,"
writes the paper.  However, the next 40 years found the size of high schools
burgeoning to over one thousand students to support competitive football
teams and music programs, with lower-level schools growing as well.

EDUCATION WEEK reports on the more recent dissatisfaction with these mega
schools and the growth of the small-school movement, led by educators
"mostly in impoverished neighborhoods in New York City, Philadelphia and
Chicago."  The article features a Chicago charter school, Perspectives,
which is a 150-student public school situated in the city's downtown area.

Perspectives, launched in 1992 by two high school teachers, embraces a
student body of 150 in grades 6 through 12.  About 90 percent of students
enroll in postsecondary education, the school's dropout rate is zero and 98
percent of students return each year.  

"When teachers, regardless of what they're teaching, know the names of all
the children in the school, that makes a big difference," said Patricia
Wasley, lead author of a small schools study of Chicago high schools.  In
this study, a team of researchers from Bank Street College of Education
found that "on average, students in smaller schools or sub-schools came to
class more often, dropped out less frequently, encountered less violence in
school and got better grades than those in regular-sized schools.

Advocates for larger schools point out the tradeoffs made when moving to
smaller schools:  Small schools cannot maintain a "wide range of athletic
teams, clubs, theatrical productions and competitions that Americans expect
from high schools," reports the paper.  But Kathleen Cotton, a researcher at
the Northwest Regional education Laboratory, notes that only 5 percent to 12
percent of students in large schools participate in these activities.  "If
you think of the situation in a large school, it kind of has a small school
in the middle of it," she said.  "There are concentric circles, and at the
center are a small number of students who participate in everything and get
most of the attention of the adults in the school."

A review of the research also suggests that the creation of smaller school
units within larger schools does not always produce results equal to that of
smaller schools.  For example, the Bank Street study found that many
schools-within-schools are "fragile," with several of those studied closing
after two years.   "The minute they become more successful than the host
school, things like this happen," explained Wasley.  "The principal will
want the teachers to come and do coaching with the larger school faculty, or
the host school staff becomes resentful of the smaller unit and works to
undermine it."

For more information on research about small schools, visit the ERIC
Clearinghouse at http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed425049.html.


************************************
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 Acting Executive Director: John Barth 
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 Frank O'Bannon, IN (Chair,
2001); Jim Geringer, WY (Chair-elect); John Engler, MI; Jim Hodges, SC;
Frank	Keating, OK; Paul E. Patton, KY; Jeanne Shaheen, NH; Tom Vilsack,
IA;
U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman, NM; U.S. Senator Jim Jeffords, VT; U.S.
Representative George Miller, 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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