Across the nation, more than 1,000 schools have increased learning time in order to raise students' core academic skills and ensure a truly well-rounded education. Most of these schools have adopted what the authors of this Policy Perspectives paper term the "new day" — about two more hours of scheduled school every day.
This paper highlights a dozen design principles that the authors, Christopher Gabrieli and Warren Goldstein, believe should be part of future new day schools. Their conclusions are based on their direct experience in helping create such schools, on-site visits, review of the available data, and best judgment. Gabrieli and Goldstein's intent is to encourage more people to seek change and to help those who want to make the new school day work. The paper ends with a discussion of key issues that call for more experience, data, and perhaps innovation.
"The new school day is still young as an educational strategy," the authors note. "We should learn a good deal over the next few years. We hope our candor about matters that need more thought and work will help stimulate a creative, productive dialogue as well as more research and experimentation."
Full report:
http://www.wested.org/online_pubs/pp-09-01.pdf
MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Past, Present and Future (2008)
This is the 25th anniversary edition of a survey series begun in 1984, and there is good news to report. Many of the findings are substantially more positive than they have been in the past.
One striking finding is the improvement in teachers’ assessment of the state of their profession. Teachers today are more satisfied in their careers than teachers were in earlier years. While their love of teaching has been a constant over the last 25 years, today more teachers feel respected in society, recognized for their work and better compensated than they have in the past. They rate the quality of their schools higher, as well as their school’s academic standards and curricula. Overall, principals agree with teachers on the improvements of career satisfaction and school quality and are generally even more positive than teachers in their assessments.
The trends on student achievement are also positive. Teachers view students today as better prepared for grade level work and they see improvements in student knowledge on specific subjects and skills. Most principals and teachers believe their schools do well in preparing students for college, and a higher percentage of students aspire to attend college today than 20 years ago (and girls aspire to go at higher rates than boys). Teachers and students generally feel encouraged by their school culture to build strong relationships with one another.
Students generally rate teachers highly in preparing them academically, and students today are more trusting of their teachers than they were in past decades. Students often mention interpersonal skills when asked about what makes a good teacher.
The MetLife Survey also reveals encouraging signs for the quantity and quality of teachers for the future. The majority of teachers and principals do not see the supply of qualified teachers as a serious problem for their school, and teachers and principals also rate the training preparation of teachers for the classroom more highly than they did in the past. Furthermore, teachers today are more likely to recommend a career in teaching than they were a generation ago.
However, there are serious causes for concern which pose challenges to educators and policy makers.
Educators in urban schools are significantly less positive in their assessment of many factors than their colleagues in suburban and rural schools. Teachers and principals tend to rate urban schools significantly lower on school quality, and teachers and principals in schools with a high proportion of minority students give significantly lower ratings on academic standards, curriculum, and student preparation. Urban educators also show greater concern about factors including the supply of qualified
teachers, teacher turnover, student dropout rates, quality of college preparation, school disciplinary policy, parental support, poverty and poor nutrition. One notable exception to this pattern of urban schools being more at-risk is in the area of professional development. Urban principals give professional development higher ratings than their suburban or rural counterparts, and urban teachers report that their professional development has prepared them to face a variety of challenges effectively at rates in line with their suburban or rural counterparts.
Much has changed in education over the past 25 years, and the education environment will continue to change.
Education reform since 1984 has shifted from a focus on teaching to a focus on student achievement, with teachers as leaders in a responsibility more broadly shared among teachers, administrators, parents, the community and the students themselves. Teachers today have access to a wider range of resources for instruction, professional development, and professional communication than teachers did in 1984. Most new teachers meet at least once a month and a substantial amount meet once a week with more experienced teachers to discuss teaching.
Most teachers also meet at least once a month to discuss student data with other teachers in their school to improve teaching. Teachers see progress in addressing outside challenges that can inhibit learning, and in how well prepared they are to address those challenges, yet areas for improvement remain. Fewer teachers today value standardized testing as a resource for improving teaching than in the past. Although some improvement in grade level preparation of students is evident, substantial numbers of teachers seldom communicate with teachers at other grade levels in their district about how well students are prepared, and ratings of student preparation do not increase as students progress from primary to secondary grades.
Looking forward, digital information and communication represent both challenges and resources for schools and for educators. Teachers value technology and use the Internet. They are using the Internet and technology in a variety of ways including accessing online courses, using software to track student performance, and participating in social networking sites related to teaching, but do so with varying frequency. In fact, digital communication and information accessing is more common among principals than teachers.
Complete report:
http://www.metlife.com/assets/cao/contributions/citizenship/teacher-survey-25th-anniv-2008.pdf
Supports Intensity Scale is effective for identifying needs in people with intellectual disability
New study confirms SIS effectiveness
Study was conducted with 274 adults with intellectual disabilities currently receiving funding from a state developmental disability agency
Washington, DC—(February 23, 2009)—The Supports Intensity Scale (SIS) assessment tool can effectively predict funding for people with intellectual disability based on individual needs, and it is truly a needs-based assessment tool, unlike adaptive behavior instruments or other measures of personal competence commonly used to determine services for people with intellectual disabilities, reveals a new study with 274 adults currently receiving funding from a state developmental disability agency. The study, titled, "Efficacy of the Supports Intensity Scale (SIS) to Predict Extraordinary Support Needs" is published in the January 2009 issue of the American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AJIDD). The SIS is a planning tool developed by the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities to assess needs of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in 85 life areas.
"The most significant finding of this study is that the Supports Intensity Scale measures something unique from measures of personal competence. It captures a person's support needs," explains Dr. Michael Wehmeyer, Senior Scientist at the Beach Center on Disability and the study's co-author. "This is significant because it presents the field of developmental disability with a unique opportunity to base services and funding decisions on the needs and goals of a person living with an intellectual disability."
Dr. Wehmeyer explains further, "Measures of personal competence such as IQ tests and adaptive behavior assessments, while serving an important role in the diagnosis and classification of intellectual disability, are not necessarily designed to provide meaningful information for developing programs and services for people with developmental disabilities." Historically, in developmental disability services, funding and services for people are based on the assessment of the skills of a person with an intellectual disability, that is, what a person can or cannot do. The Supports Intensity Scale on the other hand, measures the level and intensity of support a person needs to do whatever the individual needs or wants to do in life.
In the study conducted by six researchers, including four of the original SIS authors, 274 people with intellectual disability currently receiving funding from one state using the Developmental Disabilities Profile (DDP), a commonly-used tool to determine eligibility for developmental disability services, were administered the Supports Intensity Scale assessment. The researchers then examined the variations in support needs as a function of level of disability, medical concerns, and other factors.
The study concludes: "Using the SIS as a means to determine actual supports needed would be as or more effective than using the DDP or professional/personal judgment alone…the SIS would be potentially more effective for equitably determining need for extraordinary funding if equitable refers to funding on the basis of an individual's intensity of supports needed."
The Supports Intensity Scale was developed by 10 disability experts over five years and the Scale is currently adopted by 13 North American states and Canadian provinces. To learn more about the Scale, visit http://www.siswesbite.org/.
Full report:
http://aaidd.allenpress.com/aamronline/?request=get-document&doi=10.1352%2F2009.114:3-14
Report find Communities in Schools provides positive support to almost 90,000 students a year
Communities In Schools (CIS) of Texas, a best practices dropout prevention program, annually provides positive support that helps keep almost 90,000 at-risk students in school, a new study found.
The report titled Evaluation of Communities In Schools (CIS) of Texas conducted by ICF International of Fairfax, Va. found that “For middle and high school students, CIS was clearly making a difference. It was common to hear students express how CIS helped them with their attitudes and behaviors both within and outside of school. As a result of CIS, students indicated they were fighting less with parents and peers, making better decisions, taking more responsibility for their actions and accepting the consequences of their actions, doing better in school on homework, grades and even tests and that they understood why going to school was important.”
CIS provides personalized case management services to students and coordinates community resources in schools. Begun in 1979 in Houston, CIS of Texas now has 28 affiliates located in 55 counties throughout the state. The state invests more than $20 million annually in CIS dropout prevention efforts. The CIS program is part of a national organization that operates in more than 30 states. Communities In Schools of Texas is managed statewide by the Texas Education Agency.
The evaluation, required by the 80th Texas Legislature, found that TEA “provides significant management and technical support to local affiliates. This support is credited with the implementation of a statewide CIS program that is well managed and of high quality.”
The evaluation looked at data through the 2006-2007 school year. During that year, CIS of Texas served 86,836 students in 741 schools. Those students received 2,233,719 hours of service or an average of 26.6 hours of service per student per school year.
Services provided through CIS include supportive guidance and counseling; health and human services, parental and family involvement, career awareness and employment, enrichment and additional educational services. The evaluation found that through both direct and brokered services, CIS provides the necessary services to address risk factors for preventing school dropout.
The report found that supportive guidance, such as having an adult advocate or mentor, was one of the most successful aspects of the program. “Providing more hours of general supportive guidance is associated with lower odds of dropping out of school, greater odds of being promoted to the next grade level and greater odds of staying in school,” according to the evaluation.
This type of assistance can be helpful as students transition to a new school, such as moving from elementary school to middle school as this is a period of great adjustment for students.
Regarding parent involvement in education, the report found that “CIS has been successful in engaging parents, which is a necessary ingredient to a child’s success.”
The report concludes that “If CIS can serve more students within a school for a longer period of time, the impacts, both immediate and long term, are expected to be greater.”
The full report is available at:
http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/opge/progeval/DropoutPrevention/CIS_of_Texas_Final_Evaluation_2008.pdf.
Report on Best Practices in Dropout Prevention
A new report on Best Practices in Dropout Prevention recently released by ICF International, in partnership with the National Dropout Prevention Center/Network, found that three Texas programs had consistent, positive and meaningful effects on preventing dropouts. The three dropout programs with the most potential for success were CareerAcademies, Communities In Schools, and Project GRAD.
Career Academies operate as alternative schools within a larger high school and focus on making students career-ready by combining regular academic coursework with career centered curricula, having students focus on one career track, and giving them the opportunity to intern with local businesses.
Communities In Schools is a stay-in-school program utilizing a case management model to help students by providing services directly or linking students with other agencies and programs in the community to help them stay in school, attain better attendance rates, reduce behavior problems, improve academically and graduate or receive a GED.
Project GRAD works with high schools and their feeder schools to prevent dropouts and encourage college attendance by providing scholarships, while focusing on classroom management, student performance, parental involvement, graduation rates and college acceptance rates.
The Best Practices in Dropout Prevention study was a requirement of House Bill 2237, passed by the Texas Legislature in 2007. The bill, which included a number of provisions and programs aimed at improving high school completion and success rates, required the Texas Education Agency to conduct a study on best practices in dropout prevention.
In addition to identifying the most effective dropout programs, the study provides an overview of dropout prevention efforts and research, both nationally and across Texas. The study found that the most effective dropout programs utilized the following dropout strategies:
_ School-community collaboration;
_ Safe learning environments;
_ Family engagement;
_ Mentoring/tutoring;
_ Alternative schooling;
_ Active learning; and
_ Career and technology education
The report also provides legislative recommendations and identifies dropout prevention programs that have potential for success in Texas.
The report stated that “results indicate that dropout prevention programs are reporting successes in various settings and with different populations. The evidence demonstrates that it is possible to achieve positive results using a core set of effective strategies, even among the highest risk populations.”
To view the full report, go to http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/comm/leg_reports/bpdp_finalreport_20081219_toTEA.pdf
Artificial Turf Fields: Experts Weigh in on Potential Dangers
While the recognized benefits include the potential for increased use and thereby increased physical activity, these benefits must be tempered by the potential risks. It is widely recognized that there is a potential for burn injuries related to high temperatures on the turf surface in the heat of the day. Studies in athletes have also shown increased risk for wound infections when playing on these surfaces.
A major question that remains unanswered is whether exposure to the myriad of potential toxins found in recycled tires may unduly expose players on the fields and hence negatively impact health. There is a potential for these toxins to be inhaled, absorbed through the skin and even ingested.
These exposures do not remain on the field alone. Players track the rubber pellets found in the surface into their homes where young children may also be exposed. More recently, lead, a toxin with well-studied health concerns, was found in the plastic, green blades of fake grass that top the fields. Citizens and school boards should question the wisdom of installing synthetic turf until a credible independent study has been conducted and published.
Tips for safer uses of turf fields:
• Do no use the turf fields on extremely hot days.
• Be sure to clean and monitor any “turf burns” obtained while playing._
• Attempt to remove all pellets from shoes and clothes prior to leaving the fields._
• At home, shake out your equipment and clothes in the garage or over the garbage._
• Shower and wash thoroughly after playing on the field.
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