The rate of childhood obesity has risen significantly in the United States, with many children becoming overweight at younger ages. At the same time, the number of preschoolers in center-based programs is also on the rise. Now a new study finds that, contrary to conventional wisdom, preschoolers don't move around a lot, even when they're playing outside.
The study, by an interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of South Carolina (USC), Michigan State University, and East Carolina University and led by Professor Russell R. Pate (at USC), is published in the January/February 2009 issue of the journal Child Development.
Using information from the Children's Activity and Movement in Preschools Study (CHAMPS), a project funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the researchers looked at 3-, 4-, and 5-year olds enrolled in 24 community-based preschool programs.
They found that the preschoolers were inactive for much of their preschool day, with 89 percent of physical activity characterized as sedentary. Even when they played outside, a time when children are expected to move around, 56 percent of their activities were sedentary.
Furthermore, teachers very rarely encouraged the children to be physically active. But when balls and other items were made available, especially outside, and when they had open spaces in which to play, the children were more likely to be active.
"The low levels of children's activity and the lack of adult encouragement point to a need for teachers to organize, model, and encourage physical activity," according to William H. Brown, professor in the College of Education at USC and the study's lead author. "Because children's health and physical well-being are an important part of development, their physical activity needs to be increased in order to promote healthy lifestyles, particularly for preschoolers who are growing up in low-income families and who are at greater risk for poor health outcomes."
Summarized from Child Development, Vol. 80, Issue 1, Social and Environmental Factors Associated with Preschoolers' Non-sedentary Physical Activity by Brown, WH (University of South Carolina), Pfeiffer, KA (Michigan State University), McIver, KL (East Carolina University), Dowda, M, Addy, CL, and Pate, RR (University of South Carolina).
Do children understand how feelings affect school performance?
Most of us know that the way we feel emotionally and physically can influence how we do on tests. That's why we're told to get lots of rest and eat a good breakfast before taking a big exam. And previous studies have found that people do worse on tests and solving problems when they're tired, hungry, or upset.
But do children understand the link between feelings and performance? A new study by researchers at the University of Washington and the University of California, Davis, tells us that children comprehend the influence of one on the other, but only under certain circumstances. The study is reported in the January/February 2009 issue of the journal Child Development.
The researchers looked at more than 70 children who were 5, 6, and 7 years old, as well as a group of adults. Study participants heard stories about children who felt different positive and negative emotions (such as happiness or sadness) or different physical feelings (such as feeling well-rested or hungry), then faced challenging tasks at school (such as a spelling test, math problems, and a science lesson). For example, in one story, a girl loses her favorite teddy bear on the way to school and feels sad. Later that day, still feeling sad, she has to complete a difficult math assignment.
The researchers also looked at the participants' understanding of how other factors—such as how much effort a student makes and the amount of noise in the classroom—affect school performance.
They found that children of all ages understood that negative emotional and physical states would lead to poorer school performance. The fact that young children knew that negative emotions could cause poor school performance was especially surprising, since parents and teachers often focus on the physical side of getting ready for school (hence the advice to get lots of rest or eat a good breakfast), and rarely talk about the emotional side (for example, advising children to try not to feel sad). The researchers also found that children understood that levels of interest, effort, and classroom noise would affect performance.
When it came to positive feelings, however, only 7-year-olds recognized, as adults do, that positive feelings could improve school performance. For the younger children, seeing the tie between positive emotions and school performance was difficult; it was easier for them to grasp how positive physical feelings would lead to doing well in school.
The older children also had a better understanding of why emotions and physical states affect school performance. In explaining their judgments, they described how such feelings influence concentration, attention, the brain, and other aspects of thinking.
"Changes in emotional and physiological states are an inevitable part of children's everyday experience in the school setting," according to Jennifer Amsterlaw, research scientist at the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences at the University of Washington, who led the study. "If children know how and why these experiences affect them, they will be better able to prepare for and control their ultimate impact on school performance."
Summarized from Child Development, Vol. 80, Issue 1, Young Children's Reasoning About the Effects of Emotional and Physiological States on Academic Performance by Amsterlaw, J (University of Washington), Lagattuta, KH (University of California, Davis), and Meltzoff, AN (University of Washington).
It's the hard work that fosters responsibility in teen programs
Millions of American teenagers participate in Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, 4-H, and other programs designed to develop responsibility in young people. A new study suggests that it's not the fun and games of these programs, but the tough tasks—those that ask young people to make sacrifices and do difficult things for the good of the group—that are most likely to foster responsibility and self-discipline.
The study, conducted by researchers at Wake Forest University and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, appears in the January/February 2009 issue of the journal Child Development.
The researchers surveyed more than 100 high schoolers who took part in 11 different summer and after-school programs. Many teens spontaneously reported that developing responsibility was a goal of their participation in the program. They said they achieved this goal by having important official roles, investing time, and being committed to the adults and other youths in the program.
These young people also said the program helped them develop responsibility by asking them to carry out demanding tasks, from caring for pigs in an FFA agricultural program to forgoing time with friends to attend rehearsals of a school play. Programs that were deemed most successful in increasing teens' responsibility were those that gave young people ownership for their ideas, were highly structured, held teens accountable for their work, and expected a lot of the participants.
"Although the teenagers we interviewed generally enjoyed their program experiences overall, it is the programs in which young people are called to perform tasks that are boring, difficult, or obligatory that are most likely to help them develop characteristics like responsibility and self-discipline," according to Dustin Wood, assistant professor of psychology at Wake Forest University, who led the study.
Summarized from Child Development, Vol. 80, Issue 1, How Adolescents Come to See Themselves as More Responsible Through Participation in Youth Programs by Wood, D (Wake Forest University), Larson, RW, and Brown, JR (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign).
An Evaluation of Teachers Trained Through Different Routes to Certification
This study provides rigorous information on the impact of alternative routes to certification on student achievement for those types of programs that are most prevalent. It also provides suggestive evidence about what training and pre-training characteristics may be related to teacher performance. The evaluation is a randomized controlled trial (RCT) in which students in the same grade and school are randomly assigned to either a teacher who chose to be trained through a traditional education school route (AC teachers) or an alternative route (TC teachers) to certification.
The evaluation compares the student achievement of elementary school students assigned to teachers who chose to be trained through different routes to certification - traditional education school routes that complete coursework prior to becoming the teacher of record and alternative routes.
The evaluation found that students of teachers who chose to enter teaching through an alternative route did not perform statistically different from students of teachers who chose a traditional route to teaching. This finding was the same for those programs that required comparatively many as well as few hours of coursework. However, among those alternative route teachers who reported taking coursework while teaching, their students performed lower than their traditional counterparts.
Full report:
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20094043/pdf/20094043.pdf
2008 AP® Results: More U.S. Students Succeed on AP Exams, Predictors of Success in College
More than 15 percent of the public high school class of 2008 achieved at least one AP® Exam score of 3 or higher1 — the score that is predictive of college success — announced Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board. Additionally, AP students are much more likely to earn a bachelor’s degree in four years than their peers, thereby reducing college costs and supporting higher education’s goal of on-time degree completion.
In its fifth annual “AP Report to the Nation,” the College Board, the not-for-profit membership association that administers the AP Program, spotlights educators’ quantifiable successes in helping a wider, more ethnically diverse segment of students gain access to and achieve success in college-level work. The report documents that, of the estimated 3 million students who graduated from U.S. public schools in 2008, more than 460,000 (15.2 percent) earned an AP Exam score of at least 3 on one or more AP Exams during high school. This is up from 14.4 percent in 2007 and 12.2 percent in 2003.
Caperton said, “The economic effect of this positive trend on families is significant. Performing well on an AP Exam is more than just the completion of a rigorous course; it is the bridge to college success, which includes graduating on time.”
New research shows that AP continues to prepare students for college success in many ways, including helping offset college costs. While the majority of students entering college today fail to earn a bachelor’s degree on schedule in four years,2 AP students are much more likely to graduate within four years,3 saving the cost of additional tuition and preventing a delay in their entry into the workforce. AP participation and success also now helps students qualify for scholarships at 31 percent of U.S. colleges and universities.4 And studies continue to show that students scoring at least 3 on an AP Exam experience greater academic success in college and graduate from college at higher rates than their comparable, non-AP peers.5
“In these times of economic distress, as family budgets are squeezed and financial aid resources are spread thin, rigorous courses like AP that prepare students for the demands of college and foster an increased likelihood of on-time graduation, can be a very valuable resource for families,” Caperton said.
In addition to the national report, individual reports for all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia provide even more detailed information about AP in each state.
Out of all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, Maryland achieved the highest percentage (23.4) of public school students scoring at least a 3 on an AP Exam. Maine attained the largest single-year increase in the percentage of high school graduates who scored a 3 or higher on an AP Exam while Vermont realized the largest five-year gain. The report highlights the six states with the highest five-year gains: in addition to Vermont, these include Maine, Maryland, Arkansas, Washington and Oregon. (See “States with the Greatest Expansion of AP Scores of 3+ Since 2003,” page 6.) Additionally, Maryland, New York, Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts and California all saw more than 20 percent of their students graduate from high school earning at least one AP Exam score of 3 or higher. AP achievements for each state’s class of 2003, class of 2007 and class of 2008 are detailed in the report. (See the fifth annual “AP Report to the Nation,” Table 1, page 5.)
“Educators, administrators and policymakers should be proud of the achievements produced by their sustained commitment to helping students gain access to and achieve success in AP courses and exams,” Caperton said. “Each year sees more students from diverse backgrounds accomplishing success in AP, but we can’t afford to let ourselves believe equity has been achieved until the demographics of successful AP participation and performance are identical to the demographics of the overall student population.”
The report notes that an equity and excellence gap appears when traditionally underserved students — such as African American, Hispanic or Latino, or American Indian students — comprise a smaller percentage of the group of students experiencing success in AP than the percentage these students represent in the overall graduating class. This means that despite strides that have been made by educators to provide traditionally underrepresented students with access to AP courses, more work remains. This work includes ensuring that all students are provided with the kind of academic experiences that can prepare them for the rigors of AP and college.
Though several states have successfully closed the equity and excellence gap for Hispanic/Latino students, no state closed the gap for African American students and no state with large numbers of American Indian students closed the gap, says the report.
Some states have seen progress toward this goal. For example, Alabama has seen the largest five-year increase in the percentage of its successful AP student group who are African American. In 2008, 7.1 percent of the state’s successful AP student population was African American, up from 4.5 percent in 2003, notes the report. Additionally, 16 schools lead the nation in helping African American and/or Latino students succeed in particular AP subjects, and the report applauds the example these schools (in California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Tennessee and Texas) are setting. (See “Schools with the Largest Numbers of African American or Latino Students Experiencing Success in AP,” page 10, and the corresponding Table 3, page 11, for details.)
Though 75 percent of U.S. high school graduates enter college,6 dropout rates and the high percentage of college students required to take at least one remedial course show that secondary schools must dedicate themselves to more than just college admissions,7 the report says.
“With remedial college course work costing taxpayers an estimated $1 billion each year, we must target the divide between high school graduation standards and the skills all students need to successfully manage college,” Caperton said. “Dropping high school juniors and seniors into college-level courses without laying the appropriate groundwork will neither produce excellent AP results nor prepare these students for college success. Instead, we must continue to seek out ways to reach students in middle school and ninth and 10th grades so that they will have stronger prospects for success when they take AP courses.”
National Initiatives
As part of the new administration’s education agenda, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have prioritized initiatives that help prepare students for college and the workforce. Among these is the “Make College a Reality” initiative, which has a goal of increasing by 50 percent the number of U.S. students participating in AP or college-level classes by 2016. Additionally, the administration intends to support outreach programs like GEAR UP, TRIO and Upward Bound in an effort to encourage more young people from low-income families to consider and prepare for college.
College Board Initiatives
To support its mission of connecting students to college success and opportunity, the College Board has a College Readiness System™ that integrates programs, services and professional development for educators, and is designed to help schools and districts create a culture focused on student success; implement rigorous, high-quality curricula; effectively assess student learning to inform instruction; and help teachers differentiate instruction to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student population.
Among these programs are SpringBoard®, an English and math curriculum for grades six through 12; CollegeEd®, a college and career-planning curriculum for students in grades seven through 12; PSAT/NMSQT®, a rigorous national assessment that measures skills that are important for success in college; AP Potential™, a tool that identifies potential AP students; and the College Board Standards for College Success™, freely available content standards for middle school and high school English language arts and mathematics and statistics that will prepare all students for AP or college-level work.
About the Advanced Placement Program®
The College Board’s Advanced Placement Program® (AP®) enables students to pursue college-level studies while still in high school. Through more than 30 college-level courses, each culminating in a rigorous exam, AP provides willing and academically prepared students with the opportunity to earn college credit and/or advanced placement. Taking AP courses also demonstrates to college admissions officers that students have sought out the most rigorous curriculum available to them. Each AP teacher’s syllabus is evaluated and approved by college faculty from some of the nation’s leading institutions, and AP Exams are developed and scored by college faculty and experienced AP teachers. AP is accepted by more than 3,600 colleges and universities worldwide for college credit, advanced placement, or both on the basis of successful AP Exam scores. This includes over 90 percent of four-year institutions in the United States. In 2008, students representing over 17,000 schools around the world, both public and nonpublic, took AP Exams.
Full report:
http://www.collegeboard.com/html/aprtn/pdf/ap_report_to_the_nation.pdf
College Viewed as Essential, Out of Reach for Many
Americans see higher education as increasingly unaffordable, at the same time that more Americans view college as essential for middle-class success, and more than half say colleges and universities act more like businesses than educational institutions, according to a national survey of 1,009 adults released today by Public Agenda and the National Center on Public Policy and Higher Education. These findings, which suggest growing unease with the nation’s higher education system, are reported in “Squeeze Play 2009: The Public’s Views on College Costs Today,” the latest in a series of tracking surveys on attitudes about higher education begun in 1993.
The public’s rising anxiety about whether college is affordable for all qualified students comes at a time when more and more Americans see college as essential for economic security. More than half of Americans (55 percent) say that college is necessary to succeed in today’s economy, compared with just 3 in 10 Americans (31 percent) as recently as 2000. At the same time, two-thirds of Americans (67 percent) believe that qualified students do not have the opportunity to go to college, the highest percentage in the 15-year history of the survey.
Americans are also deeply concerned about the rapid rise in college prices and student debt, and increasingly think that colleges and universities are becoming more like businesses, focusing more on the bottom line than on educating students:
• Sixty-three percent of Americans say that college prices are rising faster than the cost of other items, up from 58 percent in 2007;
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• Nearly 8 in 10 (77 percent) of those who think college prices are rising believe that they are going up as fast or faster than health care;
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• Over 8 in 10 (86 percent) agree that students have to borrow too much, with nearly 7 in 10 (67 percent) strongly agreeing, up 7 points from 2007;
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• Four in 10 Americans (39 percent) say that financial assistance such as loans is not available to everyone, up from 29 percent just 18 months ago;
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• More than half of Americans (53 percent) say that colleges could spend less and still maintain high-quality education; and
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• Fifty-five percent say that higher education today is run like most businesses, with attention to the bottom line trumping the educational mission as a top priority.
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“Squeeze Play 2009” is available at http://www.publicagenda.org/pages/squeeze-play-2009 or http://www.highereducation.org/reports/squeeze_play_09/index.shtml. Full questionnaire results are also available at http://www.publicagenda.org/pages/squeeze-play-2009.
Volunteer Work in Grade Schools Produces Persistent Health Benefit for Older Black Women
A Johns Hopkins study reveals that older black women who spend time with young children in the classroom are not only more active than similar women who don't volunteer, but seem to stay active.
Building on results of a 2006 Hopkins study showing that 15 hours of volunteer work a week at a grade school nearly doubled a sedentary older person's overall activity level, the new study demonstrates that the increased activity remains high for at least three years.
"This is one more piece of evidence that volunteer programs that are designed to increase the health of the volunteers can help older adults be more physically active," says Erwin Tan, Ph.D., assistant professor of geriatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and lead author of the study, which appeared online January 29 in the Journals of Gerontology. "Anything that increases a level of activity for a long period of time is a huge plus, but the real news here is that this particular kind of volunteer work benefits children and the educational system as well as the volunteers, demonstrating the potential benefits for what many are calling an intergenerational social contract."
Tan says the focus on black woman was due to their preponderance in two community groups from which study subjects were recruited, but he believes the results would be the same for all elderly.
He says exercise is a critical factor in maintaining people's health as they age. But his study also suggests that volunteer work can be designed to be a potential win-win for the elderly and the community.
For the new study, Tan and his team repeatedly surveyed and collected medical information on 71 black women, older than 65, involved in the Experience Corps (EC) Baltimore, a volunteer program developed by the Johns Hopkins Center for Aging, which places elderly volunteers in kindergarten through third grade classrooms to be mentors and tutors for 15 hours a week.
That group was compared to survey and medical information gleaned from 150 black women from the Baltimore Woman's Health and Aging Studies (WHAS) - a group of 1,400 women, older than 65, who live in 12 zip codes in Baltimore city and county and whose medical records have been tracked by Johns Hopkins since 1992.
Each participant filled out the Minnesota Leisure Time Physical Activity Questionnaire (MLTPAQ) at the start of the study and each year for three years. This questionnaire, which measures activity levels by rating calorie consumption, asks question about how a person spends free time and time on such things as household chores, exercise and leisure recreational activities.
When the researchers compared women from both groups who had little or no activity at the start of the study, women from the EC group burned twice as many calories as women in the WAHS group. This study shows that this increased physical activity was sustained throughout the three-year study period.
"Although our original eight-month study also showed this increase, the fact that it was sustained for three years illustrates the potential for a sustainable, long-lasting lifestyle change," says Tan. "And since this program has such a strong community-help component, it fits nicely with our new president's call to citizens to get involved and get active
United States Is Substantially Behind Other Nations in Providing Teacher Professional Development That Improves Student Learning; Report Identifies Practices that Work
Nation Making Progress in Ensuring More Teachers Have Deep Content Knowledge and Mentoring But U.S. Teacher Development Lacks Intensity, Follow-up, & Usefulness
Every year, nine in 10 of the nation’s three million teachers participate in professional development designed to improve their content knowledge, transform their teaching, and help them respond to student needs. These activities, which can include workshops, study groups, mentoring, classroom observations, and numerous other formal and informal learning experiences, have mixed results in how they effect student achievement.
Research shows that professional learning can have a powerful effect on teacher skills and knowledge and on student learning. To be effective, however, it must be sustained, focused on important content, and embedded in the work of collaborative professional learning teams that support ongoing improvements in teachers’ practice and student achievement.
A comprehensive new report released by researchers from Stanford University and the National Staff Development Council (NSDC) finds that while the United States is making progress in providing support and mentoring for new teachers and focusing on bolstering content knowledge, the type of support and on-the-job training most teachers receive is episodic, often fragmented, and disconnected from real problems of practice. The report also reviews promising strategies in high-performing nations and U.S. states.
Progress & Challenges_
The report – Professional Learning in the Learning Profession: A Status Report on Teacher Development in the U.S. and Abroad – includes analyses of newly available data sources, including the National Center for Educational Statistics’ Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) database for 2003-04. SASS is a nationally representative sample of more than 130,000 public and private school teachers across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Researchers also examined the NSDC Standards Assessment Inventory (2007-08), which has been administered to more than 150,000 teachers in more than 5,400 schools across 11 states and one Canadian province. Researchers examined data from 4 states (Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, and Missouri) that had administered the survey statewide._
The report documents some progress but many serious problems in teacher development today:
• Improvement in support for new teachers. According to the report, U.S. public schools have begun to recognize and respond to the need to provide more support for new teachers. Nationally, in 2003-04, more than two-thirds (68 percent) of public school teachers with fewer than five years of experience reported participating in a teacher induction program during the first year of teaching, and 71 percent reported being assigned some kind of mentor teacher. A decade earlier only 56 percent of teachers had experienced teacher induction in their first year of teaching.
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• Workshop overload. Research shows that professional development should not be approached in isolation as the traditional “flavor of the month” or one-shot workshop but go hand-in-hand with school improvement efforts. The report finds that teachers still take a heavy dose of workshops and do not receive effective learning opportunities in many areas in which they want help.
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• Little intensity, short duration. While rigorous studies indicate that intensive professional development efforts that offer an average of about 50 hours of support a year can make a significant impact on student achievement, raising test scores by an average of 21 percentage points, the majority of teachers in the United States (57 percent) receives no more than about two days (16 hours) of training in their subject areas. Fewer than one-quarter (23 percent) of all teachers receive more than 36 hours of professional learning in their subject areas.
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• Working in isolation. U.S. teachers report little professional collaboration in designing curriculum and sharing practices, and the collaboration that occurs tends to be weak and not focused on strengthening teaching and learning.
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• Major blind spots. Teachers are not getting adequate training in teaching special education or limited English proficient students. More than two-thirds of teachers nationally had not had even one day of training in supporting the learning of special education or LEP students during the previous three years, and only one-third agreed that they had been given the support they needed to teach students with special needs.
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• Lack of utility. Teachers give relatively high marks to content-related learning opportunities, with 59 percent saying this training was useful or very useful. But fewer than half found the professional development they received in other areas, such as classroom management, to be of much value, despite the fact that they want more support in this area.
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• Out-of-pocket payments. U.S. teachers, unlike many of their colleagues around the world, bear much of the cost of their professional development. While most teachers were given some time off during the work day to pursue professional learning opportunities, fewer than half received reimbursement for travel, workshop fees, or college expenses.
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• Variation in support and opportunity among schools and states. A lower percentage of secondary school teachers reported participating in district-planned professional development than did elementary school teachers. Among states, Arkansas, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont had significantly higher proportions of teachers participating in professional learning than the national average.
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• Limited influence in decision-making. In many high-achieving nations where teacher collaboration is the norm, teachers have substantial influence on school-based decisions, especially in the development of curriculum and assessment, and in the design of their own professional learning. In the United States, however, less than one-fourth of teachers feel they have great influence over school decisions and policies in seven different areas noted in the SASS surveys. A scant majority feel that they have some influence over curriculum and setting performance standards for students, though fewer than half perceived that they had some influence over the content of their in-service professional development. And very few felt they had influence over school policies and decisions affecting either teacher hiring and evaluation or the allocation of the school budget.
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What Other Nations Do
The report notes that U.S. teachers participate in workshops and short-term professional development events at similar levels as teachers in other nations. But the United States is far behind in providing public school teachers with opportunities to participate in extended learning opportunities and productive collaborative communities. Those opportunities allow teachers to work together on instructional planning, learn from one another through mentoring or peer coaching, conduct research on the outcomes of classroom practices, and collectively guide curriculum, assessment, and professional learning decisions.
“The United States is squandering a significant opportunity to leverage improvements in teacher knowledge to improve school and student performance,” writes Gov. Hunt in the Foreword to the report. “Other nations, our competitors, have made support for teachers and teacher learning a top priority with significant results. In these countries, students learn and achieve more. Teachers stay in the field longer and are more satisfied with their work. Educators take on even more responsibility for improving what happens in their buildings.”
Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and other sources indicate that other nations provide:
• • Extensive opportunities for formal and informal in-service development.
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• • Time for professional learning and collaboration built into teachers’ work hours.
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• • Professional development activities that are ongoing and embedded in teachers’ contexts.
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• • School governance structures that support the involvement of teachers in decisions regarding curriculum and instructional practice.
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• • Teacher induction programs for new teachers that include release time for new teachers and mentors, and formal training of mentors.
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One of the reasons opportunities for teacher development are superior in other nations is that teachers in those countries don’t spend all of their hours in the classroom. U.S. teachers average far more net teaching time in direct contact with students (1,080 hours per year) than any other OECD nation. By comparison, the OECD average is only 803 hours per year for primary schools and 664 hours per year for upper secondary schools. U.S. teachers spend about 80 percent of their total working time engaged in classroom instruction, as compared to about 60 percent for these other nations’ teachers, who thus have much more time to plan and learn together, and to develop high-quality curriculum and instruction.
In most countries, about 15 to 20 hours per week is spent on tasks related to teaching, such as preparing lessons, meeting with students and parents, and working with colleagues. By contrast, U.S. teachers generally have from 3 to 5 hours a week for lesson planning, which is done independently.
Following are some examples of approaches to professional learning that provide lessons for states and the federal government.
• In South Korea – much like Japan and Singapore – only about 35 percent of teachers’ working time is spent teaching pupils. Teachers work in a shared office space during out-of-class time, since the students stay in a fixed classroom while the teachers rotate to teach them different subjects. The shared office space facilitates sharing of instructional resources and ideas among teachers, which is especially helpful for new teachers. Teachers in many of these countries engage in intensive lesson study in which they develop and fine-tune lessons together and evaluate their results.
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• In Finland, teachers meet one afternoon each week to jointly plan and develop curriculum, and schools in the same municipality are encouraged to work together to share materials.
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• More than 85 percent of schools in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland provide time for professional development in teachers’ work day or week, according to OECD.
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• In Singapore, the government pays for 100 hours of professional development each year for all teachers in addition to the 20 hours a week they have to work with other teachers and visit each others’ classrooms to study teaching. With the help of the National Institute of Education, teachers engage in collective action research projects to evaluate and improve their teaching strategies.
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• England has instituted a national training program in best-practice literacy methods, using videotapes of teaching, training materials, and coaches who are available to work in schools. This effort coincided with a subsequent rise in the percentage of students meeting the target literacy standards from 63 percent to 75 percent in just three years.
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• Since 2000, Australia has been sponsoring the Quality Teacher Programme, which provides funding for curriculum and professional development materials used in a trainer of trainers model to update and improve teachers’ skills and understandings in priority areas and enhance the status of teaching in both government and non-government schools.
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The experiences of these countries, the report says, “underscore the importance of on-the-job learning with colleagues as well as sustained learning from experts in content and pedagogy. The diversity of approaches indicates that schools can shape professional learning to best fit their circumstances and teacher and student learning needs.”
Copies of the report are available online at www.nsdc.org/stateproflearning.cfm. T
And in a more complete version at:
http://www.srnleads.org/resources/publications/pdf/nsdc_profdev_tech_report.pdf
New Study Identifies Classroom Gains in Philadelphia Schools Operated by For-Profit Companies
Philadelphia schools managed by for-profit companies outperform district-managed schools in math, and for-profits fare better in both reading and math when compared to schools under nonprofit management, according to research by Paul E. Peterson and Matthew M. Chingos of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
The Peterson-Chingos study, published in the peer-reviewed research section of the forthcoming issue of Education Next (Spring 2009), confirms that the effect of for-profit management of schools is positive relative to district schools, with math impacts being statistically significant. Over the last six years, students learned each year an average of 25 percent of a standard deviation more in math -- roughly 60 percent of a year’s worth of learning -- than they would have had the school been under district management. In reading, the estimated average annual impact of for-profit management is a positive 10 percent of a standard deviation -- approximately 36 percent of a year’s worth of reading. Only the math differences are statistically significant, however.
The researchers found the difference between the effects of for-profit and nonprofit management even more stark. In math, students in for-profits gained between 70 percent and greater than a year’s worth of learning more each year than in schools under nonprofit management. In reading, students learned approximately two-thirds of a year more in a for-profit than a nonprofit. Both math and reading impacts were statistically significant.
Peterson and Chingos used state and nationally normed test-score data as well as demographic and school enrollment information supplied by the Philadelphia school district for students enrolled in grades 2 to 8 from 2001 through 2008 to compare the performance of the for-profit, nonprofit and traditional schools.
“Year after year, students learned substantially more in reading and math if they attended a school under for-profit rather than one under nonprofit management,” Peterson and Chingos explain.
As part of a district-wide reform effort in 2002, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission (SRC) arranged for the for-profit management company Edison Schools to take over management of 20 of the city’s low-performing schools and the for-profit Victory Schools to take over management of five. Sixteen of the low-performing schools were to be managed by nonprofit entities -- the University of Pennsylvania (3 schools), Temple University (5 schools), Foundations (5 schools), and Universal, a community development corporation (3 schools).
In 2008, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission (SRC) terminated the contracts of five schools under for-profit management (four from Edison Schools and one from Victory Schools) for failing to meet the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) requirement of No Child Left Behind. Only one school was removed from nonprofit management ( Temple). The six schools were returned to district control.
Peterson and Chingos examined whether the SRC’s decision to terminate the contracts for the five schools under for-profit management had a strong educational basis in the district’s own test-score database.
The Harvard Kennedy School researchers found that the five for-profits had strongly positive impacts in math in all years (as compared to district schools), while the nonprofits had decidedly negative ones, leading to very large, statistically significant differences between the two groups of schools. In reading, the nonprofits fared slightly better than the for-profits but in no year were the differences statistically significant. Peterson and Chingos conclude that the large differences in math clearly offset the statistically insignificant differences in reading.
“If math and reading are given equal weight in evaluating a school, these results provide no support for the district’s decision to terminate the for-profit management contracts,” Peterson and Chingos explain.
Read “For Profit and Nonprofit Management in Philadelphia Schools” now available online or in PDF format._Read the full study:Impact of For-Profit and Nonprofit Management on Student Achievement: The Philadelphia Intervention, 2002-2008:
http://media.hoover.org/documents/ednext_20092_64_unabridged.pdf
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