The Public Education Visioning Institute was born from the work and ideas of thirty-five public school superintendents who came together as a community of learners to create a new vision for public education in Texas. Here is a summary of their conclusions:
Why a New Direction and Why Now
Every parent has a dream that their children will be happy and successful. Our communities and the schools that serve them should equally share in that dream and have a plan for making that dream a reality. Preparing students for success in the workforce is secondary to preparing children for success in life. The core business of schools is to provide engaging, appropriate experiences for students so that they learn and are able to apply their knowledge in ways that will enrich their lives and ensure their well-being. Unfortunately, the present bureaucratic structure has taken away that focus and replaced it with a system based on compliance, coercion, and fear. If proper focus is to be restored, the system must be transformed into one based on trust, shared values, creativity, innovation, and respect.
Engaging the Digital Generation
In today’s digital world, most students come to school computer and technology savvy. With their iPods, iPhones, computer games, MySpace pages, and text messaging, they routinely use multimedia and internet resources in their daily lives. Technology development has also resulted in widespread change in the way students learn. To keep students fully engaged, schools must adapt to this new and rapidly changing environment. They must embrace the potential of new technologies and make optimum use of the digital devices and connections that are prevalent today to make learning vibrant and stimulating for all.
New Learning Standards for a New Era
A transformed system that meets the diverse needs of students in a digital environment demands new learning standards. Standards should reflect the realities of the age and recognize that students are not just consumers of knowledge, they can be creators of knowledge as well. Standards should focus on development of the whole person, tapping curiosity and imagination, and providing opportunities for all talents to be cultivated, nurtured, and valued.
From Misuse of Standardized Tests to Unleashing the Power of Assessment
Assessment should inform accountability, but the present practice of one-shot, high-stakes assessment has failed the test. Appropriate and varied assessment using multiple tools for different purposes informs students, parents, the school, the district and the community about the extent to which desired learning is occurring and what schools are doing to improve. For assessment to be of any value, it must move from the present “autopsy” model to one that more resembles a “daily check up,” which continuously identifies student strengths, interests, motivations, accomplishments, and other information necessary so that teachers can design the learning experiences that will best meet each student’s needs.
Accountability that Inspires
Accountability systems of themselves do not produce excellence. Excellence can only come from commitment and meaning. The present accountability system has created schools in which the curriculum is narrowed and only academic abilities are valued. Students become expert test takers but cannot retain or apply what they “know” in a context other than the test environment; and creativity, problem solving, and teamwork are stifled. The punitive approach and “referee” model embraced by that system have hindered the success of students and schools. A more appropriate coaching model is needed to transform the system into one that inspires and stimulates.
Transforming our Schools from Bureaucracies to Learning Organizations
Bureaucracies value power and authority, while learning organizations are driven by beliefs and values. Schools must be transformed from their current bureaucratic form, characterized by rules and sanctions, punitive accountability systems, routines, and standardization of everything, to learning organizations where only the mundane is standardized and standards are used to nurture aspirations and accommodate human variables. Learning organizations maintain a clear sense of doing the right thing and doing it well, shared commitments and beliefs, common purpose and vision, trust, accountability, and use of standards to inspire. Bureaucracies discourage and are disruptive to innovation and cannot create the dynamic conditions that foster superior performance of teachers and students. Learning organizations capture the learning of adults, share it, and support its application so that capacities to improve student learning are extraordinary.
Saying No to Remote Control
The shift in power in setting education policy from the local community to the state and federal government has resulted in a system where schools feel more accountable to the Legislature than to their students and their communities. The school district’s role has been relegated to one of compliance, and the local community has been denied the opportunity to make the more important decisions and choices regarding the education of the children and youth who live there. A more balanced and reinvigorated state-local partnership is needed to create the type of schools that can best provide the learning experiences to help students succeed in today’s world.
Complete report:
http://www.tasanet.org/files/visioning/visioningfinal.pdf
New Study, Online Tool Address Critical Knowledge Gap in Out-of-School Time: the Cost of Quality Programs; Study, Commissioned by The Wallace Foundation From The Finance Project and Public/Private Ventures, Offers New Knowledge, Tools for Policymakers to Use in Planning for Quality Out-of-School Time Programs
NEW YORK, Jan. 27 (AScribe Newswire) -- To assist policymakers, providers and funders, The Wallace Foundation releases today one of the most comprehensive studies to date analyzing the costs, funding streams, and expenditures of a wide range of high-quality out-of-school time (OST) programs, accompanied by a companion online calculator that generates cost estimates for specific programs.
"We commissioned this research to fill a critical knowledge gap - accurate data about the full cost of providing high-quality out-of-school time programs," said M. Christine DeVita, president of The Wallace Foundation. "This study provides the field, for the first time, with comparable cost data on a wide variety of high-quality program types. Especially at a time of great fiscal challenges, we hope it will allow state and city policymakers, funders, providers and their partners to make more informed decisions about how to sustain and support the kinds of high-quality programs that we know produce the greatest benefit for children."
Wallace funded the study, The Cost of Quality Out-of-School-Time Programs, as part of an initiative that aims to help develop citywide approaches to provide more children access to high-quality out-of-school time programs. The study and online cost calculator, along with many other research reports, is available without charge at http://www.wallacefoundation.org .
The Cost of Quality Out-of-School-Time Programs, one of the largest and most rigorous studies on the subject, analyzed data from 111 high-quality OST programs in six cities (Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Denver, New York and Seattle). All of the programs in the study had key characteristics associated with quality OST services, including high attendance rates and high staff/youth ratios. The study presents detailed quantitative analysis of:
- program costs by program characteristics, including the ages served (elementary school, middle school, teen-agers), program content (academic, enrichment, or multi-focused), location (school-based and community-based), operator (school or community-based organization), and schedule of operation (school year or full year);
- program expenditures, including salaries and benefits; material, administrative and transportation costs; and space costs and utilities; and
- program funding portfolios of diversified funding streams, including public funds, in-kind contributions, foundation grants, corporate and individual donations, and parent fees.
"Our most interesting finding is that there isn't one 'right cost' for quality OST programs," said Jean Grossman, senior vice president for research at Public/Private Ventures. "Costs vary depending on the type of program provided and who it serves. So this study provides a benchmark for policymakers - to help them understand the cost implications of the OST decisions they make, and to determine the different levels of funding that are appropriate to support the different types of quality OST programs they need."
The Out-of-School Time Cost Calculator is designed to provide decision makers with an online, user-friendly tool to better understand the costs involved in funding an OST effort, and how similar communities have addressed those challenges. Modeled on calculators used in other fields, users input their unique characteristics of the OST program they desire information on, such as age groups served, location of program, times of operation, and program focus, and the calculator generates cost estimates to guide their financial planning and operation. The Cost Calculator, available at http://www.wallacefoundation.org/cost-of-quality , also provides brief descriptions of other OST programs with their funding strategies, examples of OST program and systems financing strategies, and an examination of quality factors related to program costs. Because all of the formulas in the calculator are derived from real data from quality OST programs, not all possible program configurations are covered.
The Wallace Foundation has invested in the out-of-school time field with two beliefs in mind: that children and youth gain learning and developmental benefits by frequent participation in high-quality programs, and that the best route to providing such high-quality services to more children is to adopt a citywide, coordinated approach that is sustainable. Since 2004, it has been working with Boston, Chicago, New York, Providence, and Washington, DC, providing more than $40 million in grants to develop and implement sustainable, systemic, coordinated approaches to increase access to high-quality OST programs. Their strategies have included: allocating funding to areas based on need; establishing management information systems to track participation; creating quality standards; and building online program locators so parents and youth can find programs in their neighborhoods.
Studies show that 80 percent of children's waking hours are spent outside of school, and 6.5 million school-age children participate in OST programs that are intended to protect their safety, help develop and nurture their talents, improve their academic performance and provide opportunities for them to form bonds with adults and older youth who are positive role models.
Investment in OST programs has increased in recent years, including $1 billion from the 21st Century Community Learning Centers each year and nearly $137 million from corporations in 2006. A November 2008 survey conducted by Lake Research Partners for the Afterschool Alliance revealed that 76 percent agree that afterschool programs are "an absolute necessity" for their community, and the same percentage wants the new Congress and their newly elected state and local officials to increase funding for afterschool programs (http://www.afterschoolalliance.org/advocate.cfm?story_id=4001026).
Program Raises Test Scores, Narrows Achievement Gap Among Middle School Students
When Dennis Orthner, Ph.D., professor in the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, helped launch CareerStart four years ago, he had one primary goal in mind: to keep more students in school. Orthner saw the intervention program, which helps students connect what they are learning in school to future career opportunities, as a way to reach those most at-risk of failing.
What he didn’t expect was that this same program would amount to a possible solution to raising academic performance and closing the achievement gap among students statewide. But according to a recent study of student progress in one North Carolina school system, CareerStart may hold that potential.
The success is being touted in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, where Orthner, Patrick Akos, an associate professor in UNC’s School of Education, and Donald Martin, county school superintendent, launched CareerStart in 2004. According to a recent analysis, eighth-graders in the school system’s middle schools were more likely than other students to achieve “mastery” or proficiency on state end-of-grade (EOG) math and reading tests if they were taught by seventh and eighth-grade teachers who regularly used career examples to illustrate their classroom lessons.
Furthermore, results show that minority and low-income students who hear these career examples from their teachers were more likely to achieve state test scores similar to white students, helping to narrow the achievement gap that has long separated minority and disadvantaged children and their white peers.
“We know that students learn better if they know how they will use the information,” said Orthner, the associate director for policy development and analysis at the Jordan Institute for Families at the School of Social Work. “For many low-income kids, this is particularly true, especially if they don’t yet have a sense of their future.”
These latest results follow an earlier CareerStart analysis, which found that students regularly exposed to lessons with career examples had fewer unexcused absences and school suspensions and were more likely to “find school exciting, look forward to learning new things and see school as being important in their lives.”
CareerStart now serves 15,000 students in six school systems across the state, though Orthner hopes the program will expand to others. CareerStart focuses on the core courses of math, language arts, science and social studies in sixth, seventh and eighth grades. The program is tailored to students in the middle grades, an educational turning point for many children who often begin to show a disinterest in school. According to UNC research, students who lose interest in their education in these middle grades are less likely to succeed in high school.
As the name implies, CareerStart aims to get students thinking earlier about their possible futures. Though many teachers already rely on career examples to make learning real, CareerStart also offers mini lessons online to support a school’s curriculum. For example, math and language arts lessons enable teachers to demonstrate why caterers need to know fractions when baking decadent desserts or why a marketing and advertising agent needs to understand proper grammar and the power of persuasive language.
“We want all students to feel like school has value,” Orthner said.
All of the program findings are based on a study of 3,500 middle school students whose academic performances were tracked from fifth- through eighth-grades.
Overall, 72 percent of eighth-graders who had seven to eight classes in the past two years in which teachers used career examples achieved mastery in math compared to 58 percent of students who took classes in which no job opportunities were connected to their regular lessons. In reading, 52 percent of students who were given career examples in seven to eight classes were considered proficient compared to 47 percent of those whose teachers used no job illustrations.
Reading scores likely didn’t improve as much as math scores, Orthner said, because most studies show that student performance in reading is established in earlier grades, and changing these competencies is more difficult as children age.
More promising, he said, were findings in math for low-income students, especially among Hispanic and black students. According to the study, 62 percent of Hispanic and 51 percent of black students who were exposed to career examples in seven to eight classes achieved mastery in math compared to 30 percent of Hispanics and 33 percent of blacks in classes that used no job illustrations.
Overall, according to the UNC study, minority students in core classes where teachers did not provide career examples scored about 30 percentage points lower on EOG tests than white students. But that gap nearly closed when most of their teachers provided career examples in their classrooms. White students, meanwhile, scored at about the same level, regardless of whether their teachers illustrated instruction with career examples.
“Although this program is universal and does not single out particular students, some seem to need to hear the career relevance message more than others,” Orthner said. “It appears to have the biggest impact on lower-income kids, and particularly kids of color, all of which gets to the achievement gap issue.”
The program has also shown positive effects on school attendance rates and student behavior. For example, when most teachers offered career examples with their lessons, the average number of annual unexcused absences among low-income students dropped by nearly half. Similar results were achieved among some minority students. The number of absences among Hispanic children declined, on average, from six per year per student, down to three, while annual absences among black children fell, on average, from nearly three per student down to one.
Suspension rates also declined by half, down from an average of one per student per year, Orthner said.
“What this tells us is if you can improve a student’s sense that school is really important, their attention improves and the number of behavior incidents decreases,” he added.
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
…An en banc rehearing is warranted because the panel’s holding that the State of Florida can compel students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in violation of their personal beliefs directly contravenes precedent that has been firmly entrenched for over 65 years, since West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette held that the State does not have the power to compel minor students to recite the Pledge to the flag. 319 U.S. 624 (1943)….
The panel opinion finds facially constitutional a Florida statute that compels all students, including this 17-year-old plaintiff, to recite the Pledge unless they obtain written parental consent to exercise their First Amendment rights.1 The panel opinion ignores Barnette and fails to apply the strict scrutiny required when this most fundamental of rights is being violated by the State. Such a “permission” requirement is patently unconstitutional and this opinion puts us at odds not only with direct Supreme Court precedent, but with the decisions of other circuits addressing similar statutes….
See Circle Schools v. Pappert, 381 F.3d 172 (3d Cir. 2004) (applying strict scrutiny to and holding unconstitutional a requirement that a parent must be notified if a child chooses not to say the pledge); Sherman v. Cmty. Consol. Sch. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437 (7th Cir. 1992) (holding that a school may have its classes recite the Pledge so long as it does not compel pupils to espouse its content); Goetz v. Ansell, 477 F.2d 636, 637–38 (2d Cir. 1973) (holding that a student has the right to remain quietly seated during the Pledge). See also Elk Grove v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1, 8 (2004) (“Consistent with our case law, the school district permits students who object on religious grounds to abstain from the recitation.”) (citing to Barnette, 319 U.S. at 624).
.Students possess basic rights of belief and expression under the First Amendment independent of their parents, and the panel has, without any supportable legal reason, wrongfully deprived students of those rights. ..
I. Supreme Court Precedent Dictates that Students Cannot Be Compelled to Recite the Pledge of Allegiance
In Barnette, the West Virginia Board of Education passed a resolution requiring students to salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance at school. The Supreme Court recognized that this compulsion infringed on the students’ rights of conscience, and thus, found the law unconstitutional. There is no distinction between the rights of students in West Virginia schools and the rights of students in Florida schools.
The Barnette Court acknowledged the obvious fact that “[the] Pledge requires affirmation of a belief and an attitude of mind.” Id. at 633. The Court then recognized that to permit the State to compel the Pledge would require a complete abdication of the First Amendment. To sustain the State’s position, the Court would be “required to say that a Bill of Rights which guards the individual’s right to speak his own mind, left it open to public authorities to compel him to utter what is not in his mind.” Id. at 634. This position would be untenable and the Court emphatically rejected it…
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.
We think the action of the local authorities in compelling the flag salute and pledge transcends constitutional limitations on their power and invades the sphere of intellect and spirit which it is the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to reserve from all official control. Id. at 642. The Florida statute at issue would compel the very same students in Barnette to first obtain permission to do that which the Supreme Court has already explicitly ruled they have a constitutional right to do.
The panel opinion’s effort to distinguish Barnette and its progeny5 on the basis that “in those cases, the custodial parent was not opposing the child’s choice” whereas there is a potential conflict between parent and child6 here is unavailing on many levels. First, as noted, there is no conflict in this case as the suit against the State was brought by the student’s mother on his behalf. The panel opinion makes no mention of this fact nor addresses its significance.
…This statute is not prohibiting speech; it is compelling speech against one’s conscience. Whether one calls it “the right not to speak” or “liberty of conscience,” the freedom to think and hold beliefs that do not comport with state orthodoxy is a basic part of this nation’s foundation; yet this core tenet of our Founding Fathers is rendered hollow if the State can force individuals to espouse that with which they disagree. See, e.g., Everson v. Bd. of Educ., 330 U.S. 1, 15–16 (1947) (“The ‘establishment of religion’ clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a State nor the Federal Government can . . . [force nor influence a person] to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.”); Riley v. Nat’l Fed’n of the Blind, 487 U.S. 781, 791 (1988) (“‘The very purpose of the First Amendment is to foreclose public authority from assuming a guardianship of the public mind through regulating the press, speech, and religion.’ To this end, the government, even with the purest of motives, may not substitute its judgment as to how best to speak for that of speakers and listeners.”) (internal citations omitted) (emphasis added)…
Complete decision http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/200614462ord.pdf
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