February #1

State Education Reforms (SER) Website Updated

NCES has just updated the State Education Reforms (SER) website. This website is based on the report "Overview and Inventory of State Education Reforms: 1990 to 2000," and is updated periodically to incorporate new data on state education reform activities.

The SER website, which draws primarily on data collected by organizations other than NCES, compiles and disseminates data on state-level education reform efforts in four areas: 1) standards, assessment, and accountability, 2) school finance reforms, 3) resources for learning, and 4) state support for school choice options. Specific reform areas include student and teacher assessments, adequate yearly progress, statewide exit exams, highly qualified teachers, open enrollment laws, and charter schools.

In the "State Support for School Choice Options" area of the website, three tables were updated. To locate these tables on the State Education Reforms website, please look for the "Updated!" tags next to the table titles.

To view the site, please visit:
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/statereform/


Course Credit Accrual and Dropping Out of High School, by Student Characteristics

This Statistics in Brief uses data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002) to examine the number of credits earned by high school students and the relationship between course credit accrual and dropping out. Findings indicate that high school dropouts earned fewer credits than did on-time graduates within each year of high school, and the cumulative course credit accrual gap increased with each subsequent year.

The pattern of dropouts earning fewer credits than on-time graduates remained across all examined student and school characteristics (student sex, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, school location, and sophomore class size). However, the size of the cumulative course credit accrual gap between on-time graduates and dropouts varied within academic years for males versus females, Blacks and Hispanics versus Whites, and students attending city high schools versus students attending suburban, town, and rural high schools. For example, the cumulative gap between on-time graduates and 12th-grade dropouts in 2001-02 and 2002-03 was larger for males than for females, indicating that male 12th-grade dropouts were further behind their on-time peers in cumulative course credits accrued than were female 12th-grade dropouts

Report:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/2009035.pdf

Kids Need More Physical Activity in School, Review Says

A new review from Canada supports programs pushing more — and more active — physical education, both in gym class and throughout the school day.
“We have an issue of children not being physically active according to guidelines, that childhood overweight and obesity is increasing and that these habits track into adulthood and lead to cardiac disease,” said Maureen Dobbins, Ph.D., associate professor at the School of Nursing at McMaster University in Ontario, and lead author of the new systematic review of studies.
Along those lines, proposed legislation aims to increase the quality and quantity of physical education in U.S. schools.
“Schools have the responsibility of providing good physical education but parents may think locales are doing a lot more than what’s actually going on,” said Russell Pate, Ph.D., a spokesperson for the American Heart Association (AHA).
“Prevailing guidelines are that children should be active an hour a day, so 30 minutes should be in school,” he said. Instead, “a typical child gets about half the recommended physical activity dose in school — 15 minutes.”
“Activity levels are decreasing,” Pate said. “We’re in an obesity epidemic, with type 2 diabetes and cardiac risk factors at unacceptable levels in our children. At the same time, school PE programs are being eroded. This is a very unfortunate intersection.”
The new review appears in the latest issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research. Systematic reviews like this one draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing medical trials on a topic.
Dobbins and a team of researchers looked at 26 studies of school-based “multifaceted interventions focused on changing multiple risk behaviors associated with adult-onset cardiovascular disease…including physical activity, nutrition and smoking.”
Successful interventions led to modest increases in physical activity and aerobic fitness, as well as decreased TV viewing and blood cholesterol levels in school-age children.
In general, programs did not change physical activity rates outside of school or affect body mass index (BMI).
Gym teachers appear to be the best choice to run these programs: “Interventions that involved someone with specialized training in physical education had more positive outcomes then, say, a home room teacher or general education teacher,” Dobbins said.
Parents also are a big part of the fitness picture, and many programs sought to increase their involvement.
Programs tried to increase physical activity and health education beyond the realm of PE class, to encompass the entire curriculum; for example, by incorporating discussions on healthy eating and physical activity in science class. Other programs carried over into school cafeterias, which provided healthier food choices.
Dobbins said the review’s take-home message “is rethinking the school day so that there are more opportunities throughout the day for kids to be active.”
There was pushback by non-physical education staff, Dobbins said. “There was some reaction from teachers that there is already a full curriculum and finding the time and resources to also focus on physical activity and healthy eating can be difficult.”
This does not surprise AHA’s Pate: “Time and resources are huge issues. There are only so many hours in a school day, so many dollars in a school budget. Part of the issue is priorities. As a society we have to ask ourselves, what is most important for our children?”
All reviewed studies included a control group of school or schools that did not receive the intervention. Most studies took place in urban areas, with the majority in the United States, but also in Europe, Australia and Russia.
Elementary schools received the most attention, with programs ranging from five weeks to six ears. The study with the longest follow-up period found no initial improvement, but did see delayed effects.
In that study, “they intervened with these kids when they were very young,” Dobbins said. “Eleven years later, the researchers compared participants who did and did not have the intervention. As young adults, those who had received the intervention in childhood are now more physically active.”
The AHA supports passage of the Fitness Integrated with Teaching Kids (FIT Kids) Act, intended to amend No Child Left Behind with changes to improve physical and health education, including reporting requirements for schools, districts and states. “This legislation would bring a much higher level of scrutiny to the nation’s physical education program,” Pate said.
FIT Kids Act: www.fitkidsact.org
Dobbins M, et al. School-based physical activity programs for promoting physical activity and fitness in children and adolescents aged 6-18 (Review). Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2009, Issue 1.


Study links children's lead levels, SAT scores

…A Virginia economist who pored over years of national data says there's an "incredibly strong" correlation, which adds to a growing body of research on lead's harmful effects…

His analysis compared national snapshots of children's blood-lead test results with SAT scores 17 years later. As lead levels dropped, scores rose — and vice versa…

Complete article:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-02-02-lead-SAT_N.htm

Gender Bias Found In Student Ratings Of High School Science Teachers

A study of 18,000 biology, chemistry and physics students has uncovered notable gender bias in student ratings of high school science teachers.

Researchers at Clemson University, the University of Virginia and Harvard University have found that, on average, female high school science teachers received lower evaluations than their male counterparts even though male and female teachers are equally effective at preparing their students for college.
The findings appear in Science Education online in the research paper, “Unraveling Bias from Student Evaluations of their High School Science Teachers."

Most notably, say the researchers, the physics students in the survey showed the largest bias toward female physics teachers. In biology and chemistry, male students tended to underrate their female teachers, but female students did not. In physics, both male and female students tended to underrate their female teachers.

“The importance of these findings is that they make it clear that students have developed a specific sense of gender-appropriate roles in the sciences by the end of high school,” said Geoffrey Potvin, assistant professor of engineering and science education and the department of mathematical sciences at Clemson.

“Such a sense of what are and what are not appropriate roles for males and females in science likely impacts the choices students make when they consider their college studies," said Clemson researcher Zahra Hazari, also an assistant professor in engineering and science education and the department of mathematical sciences. "Such a bias could negatively impact female students and contribute to the loss of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics."

Potvin and Hazari collaborated on the study with Robert H. Tai of the University of Virginia and Phillip M. Sadler of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The survey was conducted at 63 different colleges and universities across the United States while students were beginning their college science studies. It asked students to reflect on their high school science experiences. Most of the questions focused on the content coverage in their high school classes, the classroom techniques used by their teachers, the nature and type of laboratory experiences as well as students' academic and family backgrounds. The data was then analyzed using quantitative statistical techniques.

Other factors also contributed to higher teacher ratings. Some were connected to the ways in which teachers presented material to their classes. For example, in each subject area, teachers who related the course material to real-world examples tended to receive higher student ratings.

The authors were able to show that while a few differences in teaching style do exist between male and female teachers they had no correlation with the gender-bias ratings.

The authors also found evidence that male and female teachers are equally effective at preparing their students for college. Students in the survey performed equally well in college science whether they had a female or a male high school science teacher. Also, the rate at which female teachers produce students bound for college-level science study appeared to be identical to the rate of their male counterparts.

You have read this article with the title February #1. You can bookmark this page URL http://universosportinguista.blogspot.com/2009/02/february-1.html. Thanks!