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--- Wednesday --- June 3, 1998 --- Vol. 1 --- No. 45 ---
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THE UPDATE ON AMERICA'S EDUCATION REFORM EFFORTS
www.negp.gov
TURNING ON MORE LIGHTS
The Edison Project announced
plans to double its size this
fall by adding 23 more schools
to its national network. The
private, for-profit firm,
founded by media entrepreneur
Chris Whittle, will run 48
public schools by this fall.
Edison opened its doors in 1995
with four schools.
"We are demonstrating that
our schools work and that we
have the ability to grow," said
Christopher Cerf, executive
vice president of the New York-
based Edison Project. "We've
also gone a long way to proving
the economics of this can work,
too." However, the WASH POST
reports that the firm has not
yet earned a profit (Sanchez,
5/27).
The paper also writes that
Edison's "scope is unrivaled:
It spent more than $40 million
creating its own curriculum,
and it uses the per-pupil money
it receives from school systems
to hire its own teachers and
administrators." Edison
Project schools run about 90
minutes longer a day than
typical public schools, and
operate about one month longer.
__________ __________
| SPOTLIGHT |
| |
| BRUSH OR FLOSS? |
| |
| Tired of the incessant |
| battle between phonics and |
| whole-language instruction, |
| one local Va. school board |
| member compared the debate |
| to teeth cleaning: "Should |
| you brush or floss? Both." |
| |
| School board members in |
| Fairfax County, Va., and |
| Prince George's County, |
| Md., did just that -- |
| elevated the role of |
| phonics instruction in |
| public schools, bringing a |
| more balanced approach to |
| reading programs. |
| |
| FAIRFAX: Issued a set of |
| guidelines to the school |
| textbook-review committee, |
| which stressed phonics.(#3) |
| |
| PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY: |
| Will purchase a new reading |
| series that features |
| phonics instruction. (#2) |
| |
| Both counties provided |
| funds for teacher training. |
|_____________________________|
============== QUOTE OF THE DAY ==============
"They're looking for the correct answer and the process on how
they solve the problem. Time is not an element of scoring on the
test."
Tom Bick, director of student services in the Hazelwood, Mo.,
School District, on a new statewide exam. (#4)
_______________________________________________________________
| (c) by the Education Policy Network, Inc. |
| 1255 22nd Street NW; Washington, D.C. 20010; 202/724-0124 |
| EPN, Inc. hereby authorizes further reproduction and |
| distribution with proper acknowledgement. |
| Publisher: Barbara A. Pape |
|_______________________________________________________________|
============== TABLE OF CONTENTS ==============
GOAL TWO: HIGH SCHOOL COMPLETION
NEW VISIONS: Staten Island grapples with at-risk program. (#1)
GOAL THREE: STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT AND CITIZENSHIP
PHONICS: Comeback kid in Prince George's County, Md. (#2)
PHONICS: It's on the books in Fairfax County, Va. (#3)
MISSOURI ASSESSMENT PROGRAM: Untimed tests introduced. (#4)
GOAL FIVE: MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE
EIGHTH-GRADE ALGEBRA: Gateway to higher math. (#5)
===== GOAL TWO: HIGH SCHOOL COMPLETION =====
*1 NEW VISIONS: STATEN ISLAND GRAPPLES WITH AT-RISK PROGRAM
Although an alternative program designed for students at-
risk of dropping out has been hailed as highly successful in
other parts of New York City, Staten Island educators have yet to
endorse the New Visions program for their schools (Hack, STATEN
ISLAND ADVANCE, 5/19).
The New Visions program breaks the "cookie-cutter approach
to education" by enrolling at-risk students in small, innovative
schools that rely less on rote learning and more on an
integrated, hands-on curriculum, notes the paper. About 50,000
of the city's 1 million public school students in Brooklyn, the
Bronx, Manhattan and Queens currently are enrolled in 140 of
these "scaled-down" schools, with about one-third of the programs
created in the last five years by New Visions for Public
Education, a not-for-profit education group.
The alternative schools are developed in partnership with
the Board of Education, and enroll students in grades six to 12.
Many are quite successful, reports the paper. "Our attendance
will break 90 percent this year and our dropout rate is less than
2 percent," said Madeline Lumachi, principal of Bridges to
Brooklyn/Brooklyn College Academy. The majority of students in
Lumachi's school are labeled at-risk, yet manage to take college-
level courses in their junior and senior years.
Another program located at the Science Skills Center High
School in Brooklyn boasts that over 90% of its first class of
seniors graduated last year, with all but three going on to
college. The paper reports that 81% of the 534 seniors who made
up the first graduating classes for these alternative schools
were accepted to college last year, "a rate well above that of
high schools in the rest of the city or state."
Loretta Prisco, a former teacher who now heads an Island-
wide education watchdog group, Parents Action Committee for
Education, is a strong supporter of alternative programs for at-
risk youth. "A standard, normal school places a lot of evidence
on drill work and rote work. But there are a number of kids for
whom school is just a turn-off and while our districtwide
attendance is high, our attendance for certain kids is low."
The paper cites a New York U study that backs Prisco's
claims about the smaller, alternative schools. The study found
that "the large, factory model of schooling is not effective for
teaching and learning, especially for disadvantaged students."
School District 31 (Staten Island) Superintendent Christy
Cugini defends the district's choice not to develop a New
Visions-type program. "The standard curriculum works for most
kids," he said. He added: "By and large, they're [New Visions
schools] established to promote something other than the
standard, normal school and on Staten Island, people prefer the
standard, normal school." Prisco argues that even if residents
demand standard, normal schools, it is up to school district
leaders to "lead people to where they should be."
===== GOAL THREE: STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT AND CITIZENSHIP =====
*2 PHONICS: COMEBACK KID IN PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, MD.
Public school students in Prince George's County, Md., can
expect to face more phonics instruction after a recent school
board vote that made phonics a "major component" in the system's
reading program.
Board members also agreed to purchase a new reading series
with "a strong strand of phonics instruction" as well as whole-
language strategies, notes the paper.
The resolution called on Schools Superintendent Jerome Clark
to "evaluate teacher competency to teach phonics/linguistics and
to provide for in-service where appropriate and necessary."
Summer reading institutes will be offered free-of-charge to K-
through 6th-grade teachers. The workshops will introduce
teachers to the $4M, board-approved 1999 Invitations to Literacy
reading series, published by Houghton Mifflin, writes the paper.
*3 PHONICS: IT'S ON THE BOOKS IN FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA.
After a tumultuous battle, the Fairfax County, Va., School
Board passed guidelines to emphasize phonics instruction at the
elementary school level (Barnes, Fairfax JOURNAL, 5/26). The
board will send the guidelines to a school textbook committee
that is preparing to review elementary school textbooks this
summer for the first time in 10 years, notes the paper.
Specifically, the new guidelines directed Superintendent
Daniel Domenech to ensure that the texts:
are research-based and include phonemic awareness, "which is
used to help students hear the different sounds in words;"
encourage students to apply and extend their knowledge of
phonics;
include a literature component to teach comprehension skills
through teachers reading stories for younger children;
include materials for children with auditory problems, notes
the paper.
Teacher training also is provided for in the guidelines,
with board members calling on Domenech to develop a mandatory
training program for teachers in grades K-2. The program should
"help teachers make better use of phonemic awareness and plan
phonics lessons," writes the paper.
One amendment, adopted by the board, excluded the proposal's
initial call for a "primary" focus on decodable text, which means
that stories would feature only words that students have learned
to sound out, according to the paper. "We must be careful that
in an effort to address what has been a shortcoming in the past -
- reading books without a strong phonics component -- we go too
far in the other direction and cause new problems by not
addressing other learning needs in addition to phonics,"
cautioned board member Jane Strauss, who introduced the
amendment.
The paper quotes Sandra Rae White, chairwoman of the English
department at Marymount U, who said the research has found that
"there isn't one way to teach children to read and that children
need a combination of phonics instruction and what is known as
whole language, or reading in context to real literature."
Board member Kristen Amundson commented on the phonics-whole
language wars, saying it is similar to asking "should you brush
or floss? Both."
*4 MISSOURI ASSESSMENT PROGRAM: UNTIMED TESTS INTRODUCED
The new Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) introduced to
students last week did not have time limits, but did include
essay writing as well as multiple-choice questions (Meuller, St.
Louis POST DISPATCH, 5/28).
"They're looking for the correct answer and the process on
how they solve the problem," said Tom Bick, director of student
services in the Hazelwood School District. "Time is not an
element of scoring on the test."
However, Jim Friedebach, director of assessment for the
Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said
that taking more than one hour to complete each part of the test
"is a little bit beyond reason."
State officials will "receive feedback from administrators
and teachers" statewide about the new test. The comments will
help refine the test, according to Friedebach.
For this test, trained graders from CTB-McGraw Hill will
hand score the exams. Officials from the state's Department of
Elementary and Secondary Education will randomly re-grade some
tests, "to see if they match the previous score," notes the
paper.
===== GOAL FIVE: MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE =====
*5 EIGHTH-GRADE ALGEBRA: GATEWAY TO HIGHER MATH
School Board members in Arlington County, Va., are
considering ways to encourage more students to enroll in Algebra
1 class in eighth grade (Pickhardt, Arlington JOURNAL, 5/28).
Only 24% of Arlington students take Algebra 1 in eighth grade,
with the majority enrolling in ninth grade. Twenty-six percent of
eighth-graders statewide take Algebra 1 in eighth-grade.
The district's Advisory Council on Instruction is reviewing
the schools' High School Program of Studies. Members would like
to better inform parents of the benefits of taking Algebra 1
early. They also recommend the creation of a committee to review
math prerequisites for higher level science classes.
According to the paper, parents expressed concern that they
were not made aware of the importance of taking Algebra 1 early,
particularly because it is a prerequisite for student
participation in the Arlington Science Initiative Program, a lab-
based high school program notes the paper.
Students who take Algebra 1 in eighth-grade also have an
easier time squeezing in the necessary classes to eventually sign
up for advanced physics in high school
However, some educators claim that "throwing middle school
students into algebra when they're not ready ... could be a
mistake," writes the paper. "If they're not ready to take
algebra, then it's going to close down doors," said Sara Ann
Bounds, a math skills teacher at Williamsburg Middle School.
Patricia Robinson, Arlington Mathematics Supervisor said the
new state Standards of Learning demand a stronger emphasis on
patterns, functions and algebra at the elementary level, which
will provide a foundation for middle school students who enroll
in Algebra 1.
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