The Daily Report Card

--- Wednesday --- April 16, 1997 --- Vol. 7 --- No. 33 ---

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THE NATIONAL UPDATE ON AMERICA'S EDUCATION REFORM EFFORTS
A service of the National Education Goals Panel

============== QUOTE OF THE DAY ==============
"Isn't it wonderful?"
Louisiana State Rep Robert Barton (R), on the state's budget
surplus, some of which will be targeted to education. (#1)
Marilyn Adams, Harvard Graduate School of Education. (#3) _______________________________________________________________
| (c) by the Education Policy Network, Inc. |
| 1255 22nd Street NW; Washington, D.C. 202/632-0952 |
| The DRC hereby authorizes further reproduction and |
| distribution with proper acknowledgement. |
| Publisher: Barbara A. Pape |
| |
|_______________________________________________________________|

============== TABLE OF CONTENTS ==============

GOAL ONE: SCHOOL READINESS
WHITE HOSUE: Where's the story

GOAL THREE: STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT AND CITIZENSHIP
READING RECOVERY: Cuts special educaiton costs. (#2)
WANT TO READ?: Learn to break the code. (#3)
SHORT ON FACTS: Group criticizes environmental curricula. (#4)

GOAL FOUR: TEACHER EDUCATION/PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
FORT WORTH WANTS YOU: Teacher recruitment in the works. (#5)

GOAL SEVEN: SAFE SCHOOLS
TIGHTEN UP ON DISCIPLINE: A cry from the field. (#6)

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===== GOAL ONE: SCHOOL READINESS =====

*1 MEETING OF THE MINDS: WHITE HOUSE SEMINAR ON EARLY LEARNING
A "unique" White House gathering that included scientists
and child development specialists deliberated on the impact of
emering brain research and its potential to aid in the
development of a child's early learning experiences (Vobejda,
WASH POST, 4/18). Panelists, citing new research that indicates
a child's language, cognitive and emotional health are "largely
formed before age 3," called for early intervention programs to
help disadvantaged children meet their potential, writes teh
paepr.
President Clinton attended the meeting, which was hosted by
first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke at the meeting. "We know
what works," said HIllary Clinton. "We have to intervene with
overstressed parents. But we don't have nay systematic way to do
it."
A report issued by the Families and WOrk Institute,
"Rethinking the Brain," was released at the meeting. The report
documents emerging brain research, tieing it into programs and
policies that would help children, particularly those living in
disadvantaged households.
For example, the report presents several findings that have
an impact on early learning: "human development hinges on the
interplay between nature and nurture;" "early care has a
decisive, long-lasting impact on how people develop, their
ability to learn, and their capacity to regulate their own
emotions;" "the human brain has a remarkable capacity to change,"
although timing is crucial;" "the brain's plasticity also means
that there are times when negative experiences or the absence of
appropriate stimulation are more likely to have serious and
sustained effects;" and "evidence amassed by neuro-scientists and
child development experts over the last decade point to the
wisdom and efficacy of prevention and early intervention."
The brain research depicts a brain that is still forming
after birth, and that the environment babies are exposed to --
the language they hear, images they see and toys they play with -
- have an impact on the brain's long-term development by
effecting the brain's synaptic density. In short, the "use it or
lose it" notion in brain development has been confirmed, said
Carla Shatz, professor neurobiology at the U of California at
Berkeley. She pointed to experiments that found when cataracts
were removed from the children, the children remained blind,
unlike adults who have cataracts removed, reports the paper. The
reason: brain pathways necessary for sight were never developed
in the children.
At the meeting, renowned pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton
described a child-health crisis in the U.S., in which 40% of the
nation's children are not getting the appropriate preventive
health care. He agreed that health and education initiatives
must reach children during their youngest years.
Patricia Kuhl, a researcher at the U of Washington and
another panel member, commented on brain development and language
acquisition. At birth, children can understand sounds made from
all the world's languages. "This is quite a feat," she said.
"But infants have to change to culture-bound specialists,"
focusing on acquiring only one language. SHe added that studies
also have found that by 20 weeks old, babies understand that
language is a "social enterprise," used for communication.
Parents and caregivers play a critical role during those early
years, agreed panel members. "When we speak," said Kuhl, "we
bring about brain development. Infants are born to learn. Our
role is to be good developers."
Kuhl also noted that babies are attracted to "parent-ese,"
the idiosyncratic speech patterns of their parents. They will
pay more attention to "parent-ese" than other adult conversation.
>From the paper: "And for that reason, a child is not likely to
learn language in the same way from exposure to a radio or
television."
For the text of Hillary Clinton's remarks at the conference,
click on the icon at the WASH POST's Web site:
www.washingtonpost.com. Also, visit the Families and Work
Institute at www.familiesandwork.org.

===== GOAL THREE: STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT AND CITIZENSHIP =====

*2 READING RECOVERY: CUTS SPECIAL EDUCATION COSTS
Linda Randall, a Montgomery County, Md., reading teacher
trained to use the Reading Recovery program, testified before the
state school board on the benefits of Reading Recovery. One
advantage of the program: It keeps a district's special
education costs down by helping more students remain in their
regular class (Barrett, MONTGOMERY JOURNAL, 3/17).
According to the paper, the program stresses one-on-one
instruction. It was developed twenty years ago by Marie Clay, a
New Zealand educator to be used for first-graders in the bottom
twenty percent of achievement. "It's knowing more about how kids
learn," said Randall. She typically meets with children every
school day for a half-hour over 12 to 20 weeks.
Last month, the school system's Early Intervention for
Reading Committee recommended that the state Board of Education
adopt Reading Recovery for all counties. Committee members claim
it would reduce the disproportionately high number of black
students who currently are sent to special education programs.
"If we have a tool out there good for at-risk kids, based on
research ... you will cut down on the referrals in special
education," said committee leader Frieda Lacey, director of the
Division of Equity Assurance and Compliance in the school
system's special education department.
However, school members balked over the cost. The committee
estimated that it would cost about $5,000 to train one teacher in
the Reading Recovery program, writes the paper. "It's not an
inexpensive program," said school board President Reginald
Felton. "We don't have the funding for 5,000 or 10,000
teachers."
Frieda and Randall countered that the program would save
money in the long run. They pointed out that a 1995 study found
that special education enrollment at an Ohio school district
declined by two-thirds in the three years after Reading Recovery
was established in district schools.
Board members ended the discussion by requesting that the
committee provide "more details on exactly how to expand the
Reading Recovery program in the most efficient way," reports the
paper.
For more information on the Reading Recovery program, call
Ohio State U at 614\292-7807.

*3 WANT TO READ?: LEARN TO BREAK THE CODE
The battle between whole-language instruction and phonics is
a distraction for those wanting to teach children to read,
according to some researchers. Current research suggests that in
order for children to learn to read, they must first be taught to
"break the code" of reading (Crensan, AP/3/9).
"It really is a huge scientific eureka," said Marilyn Adams,
a visiting scholar at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
"We've been able to learn why reading is difficult for so many
kids and how to make it learnable, but because of this stupid
phonics-whole language debate, we can't get it through to
anybody."
From the paper: "By teaching kids to 'break the code' of
reading as if it were a skill such as playing the piano or
swimming, educators hope they can teach reading a lot more
effectively." Adams noted that phonics, which breaks words down
into sounds, only works for those who already know how to read.
"If you think you can hear the three letters in the word 'bag,'
you're wrong," she said. "It's one big ballistic utterance --
bag."
Whole-language proponents hold that learning to read is
analogous to learning to speak; that it happens spontaneously.
>From the paper: "So if you give [children] books to read, signs
to look at and plenty of encouragement, they ought to learn
reading the same way," according to whole language theorists.
David Pesetsky, a linguist at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, derides this premise of the whole language movement.
"If the whole language movement is teaching that learning to read
is natural, that's bull." The paper reports that linguists
discovered during the 1950s that spoken and written language are
acquired very differently. While spoken language is an "ancient
trait evolutionally hard-wired into the brain, ... written
communication is a relatively recent cultural development," notes
the paper.
In a report written by Adams and commissioned by Congress in
the late 1980s, Adams compares beginning reading to athletic
activities. "Beginning reading behaves very much like an
athletic activity or a physical skill, like walking or ice
skating or swimming, where some kids just act like mermaids right
when they jump in the pool." The publication, "Beginning to
Read," summarizes current research about teaching children to
read, with the assumption that reading is a skill that must be
learned through practice, writes the paper.
The paper also notes that reading, just as swimming, demans
that children receive systematic instruction that "should foster
something reading experts call phonemic awareness." Phonemic
awareness is the realization that spoken language can be broken
down into component sounds that then can be represented by
strings of letters.
However, having phonemic awareness is not enough. Children
also must understand that there is a system to how words are
spelled. From the paper: "Before they can read effectively,
they must realize sounds can be represented in ways that don't
follow phonic rules, such as 'ight' standing for the 'ite' sound
in most cases."
The paper also reports that cognitive neuroscientists, "who
model aspects of the human brain with computers, have gotten so
good at their craft that they actually can design phonemically
aware computer programs that learn how to read," a step that
reading experts say about 20% to 40% of beginning readers fail to
take. "There are smart children who have this problem and there
are fairly average or below-average students who do not have this
problem," said John Silber, chairman of the Massachusetts Board
of Education.
It is critical to catch these children young and to teach
them phonemic awareness, notes the paper. One parent, Nora
Newcombe, a developmental psychologist whose son was having
difficulty learning to read, used a set of 130 words from the
experimental Benchmark School in Media, Pa., reports the paper.
According to the paper, Andrew hated learning the words, but his
reading scores jumped from the 24th percentile in first grade to
the 84th percentile by the end of second grade.

*4 SHORT ON FACTS: GROUP CRITICIZES ENVIRONMENTAL CURRICULA
Materials designed to teach K-12 students about the
environment do a better job of advocating certain positions than
of teaching the facts, according to a report released by the
Independent Commission on Environmental Education. From the
report, titled, "Are We Building Scientific Literacy?": "The
field should place its emphasis on building environmental
knowledge, not on promoting a particular kind of behavior."
Labeling K-12 environmental education "science lite," the
report specifically criticized textbooks used to teach the
science and economics of the environment. "Going Green: A Kid's
Handbook to Saving the Planet," presents "a number of misleading
statements, such as that acid rain 'poison fish' and begins with
a picture of the Statue of Liberty under water," according to the
report. Other publications cited as not up to par: "Nature in
Danger," a series of classroom books and videos; and "Earth
Matters," published by Zero Population Growth.
The commission was assembled by the George C. Marshall
Institute, writes the WASH TIMES (Innerst, 4/3). The ten
commission members include Nicholas Eberstadt, Harvard Center for
Population and Development Studies; Thomas Gale Moore, Hoover
Institute; and Bruce N. Ames, U of California at Berkeley.
Panelists said they are "neutral in battles being waged in states
and school districts over environmental education, writes the
paper. However, members "gave fuel to critics" who claim
students are being "brainwashed into anti-industry and anti-
agriculture positions," notes the TIMES.
According to USA TODAY, the commission spent a year
examining more than 70 environmental-education curricula for
grades K through 12 (Barber, 4/3). "There is a need for qualified
scientists to read and evaluate these materials," said John
Disinger, a member of the commission.
Commission members recommended that students first study and
learn the foundations of science and social studies before
delving into the environment.

===== GOAL FOUR: TEACHER EDUCATION/PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT =====

*5 FORT WORTH WANTS YOU: TEACHER RECRUITMENT IN THE WORKS
Fort Worth, Texas, trustees are weighing a plan to bolster
their teacher recruitment efforts (Packer, Fort Worth STAR-
TELEGRAM, 4/8). The plan, priced at $175,750, would train 25
additional recruiters, create an Internet recruiting home page
and launch a $35,000 media campaign. One goal is to entice more
minority teaches to join Fort Worth's teaching ranks, writes the
paper.
"What we're trying to do is get more involved in the system
of teacher training at the college and university level," said
school board President Gary Manny. Currently, the district has
five full-time recruiters. The district stepped up recruitment
efforts two years ago by moving its job fair from the summer to
the spring. It also offered early signing bonuses for new
teachers and more pay for "hard-to-fill" areas such as science,
bilingual education, math and special education, reports the
paper.
Despite the efforts, the district has 109 teacher vacancies.
Long-term substitutes are filling many of those positions. Dale
Young, director of career services for Texas Christian U's school
of education, said the number of students seeking education
degrees has increased during the past four or five years, "but
they are not enough to keep up with the demand created by the
state's growing school enrollment and a recent law allowing
teachers to retire at 55," writes the paper.
Both teacher union concurred that more work needs to be done
to recruit new teachers. But they claim that certain provisions
of the plan are not cost effective, writes the paper. "I don't
think you need to hire consultants [to train] 25 people," said
Larry Shaw, executive director of the United Education
Association.

===== GOAL SEVEN: SAFE SCHOOLS =====

*6 TIGHTEN UP ON DISCIPLINE: A CRY FROM THE FIELD
Nine out of ten school principals say strict school rules
are essential, despite the fact that they cause an increase in
student suspension, according to a survey released by the
National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP press
release, 4/11).
Nearly 60% of those polled said adherence to strict
regulations, including zero tolerance policies for weapons,
harassment, drugs, etc, is significantly increasing suspensions
of students. Yet almost 95% of those surveyed said the strict
policies are necessary to ensure school safety. "The results of
this survey make it very clear that the safety and well-being of
children is the school principal's number one priority," said
Samuel Sava, NAESP's executive director. "When they have to
enforce the rules, principals may look like the bad guys, but
it's too dangerous and too costly to cut any slack these days."
Five out of six school principals also said they spend too
much time handling disruptive students. Seventy-eight percent
criticized federal law for "unreasonably" limiting their ability
to manage disruptive or dangerous special education children.
According to the release, the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act protects the rights of children with disabilities
and limits the time they can be kept out of class, even if they
are considered dangerous.
Despite concerns with IDEA, 80% of respondents said that
special education programs are essential and worth the cost.
Other findings: three out of four principals do not think
parents are as interested in their child's schooling as they used
to be; 76% said first-year teachers today are as good or better
than they were a decade ago; 58% said voluntary national reading
and math standards would be welcome in their states or districts,
however, 52% said those tests alone would not boost students
achievement; about 55% said single-sex education should not be an
option for public schools; and 61% said students and communities
would benefit from year-round schooling.
The national mail-back survey was completed by 1,350
principals last month. Most have been on the job for one or two
decades. They represent every state, and serve socio-
economically diverse schools. Almost all are public schools,
with only 16 private school principals responding.
The National Association of Elementary School Principals is
located at 1615 Duke Street; Alexandria, Va. 22314-3483;
703/684-3345.

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