Fixing Failing Schools

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has fundamentally reshaped debates about American schooling by mandating that students in each district school make “adequate yearly progress.” Schools and districts that fail to improve are subjected to a five-year “cascade” of remedies and sanctions. These detailed prescriptions are intended to force low-performing schools and districts to improve and provide new options for their students.

Now available is a comprehensive five-year assessment of the implementation of all NCLB remedy provisions. Until now, NCLB as a whole has attracted extensive analysis and even more opinion, but complete and rigorous examinations of its remedy provisions have been sparse—especially when compared to the attention lavished upon the law’s testing and reporting sections. This assessment was conducted by a wide-ranging group of renowned education scholars and analysts.

The 12 studies, produced by researchers in eight states for the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, credit the five-year-old law with creating some school improvement, but doubted that it can solve some of the most intractable problems…

The studies cite a series of problems both from a national perspective and from case studies in California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, and New Jersey. A common theme is the ability of schools to block the changes envisioned by the law…

Under the No Child Left Behind law, schools that fail to meet minimum testing standards for two consecutive years must let students transfer to a different school in the district, then pay for tutoring in the third year. Schools eventually could face the removal of their leaders.

Several of the studies mentioned the low rate of parents accepting the transfers or tutoring, in part because many schools don't tally their test results until the subsequent school year…

I: The Big Picture—National Implementation and Capacity

Presenters:
Michael Casserly, Council of the Great City Schools
Jeffrey R. Henig, Columbia University Teachers College
Paul Manna, College of William and Mary
Michael J. Petrilli, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation

II: The NCLB Remedies in the States

Presenters:
Julian Betts, University of California, San Diego
Patrick McGuinn, Drew University
Alex Medler, Colorado Children’s Campaign

III: The NCLB Remedies in the Districts

Presenters:
Stephen K. Clements, University of Kentucky
Jay P. Greene, University of Arkansas
Jane Hannaway, Urban Institute
David Plank, Michigan State University

Individual reports by the presenters are available at:

http://www.aei.org/events/eventID.1351,filter.all/event_detail.asp

To read more about the studies go to:
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2006/12/01/study_says_localities_curb_ed_reform/

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The Kids Left Behind

The authors have compiled 18 timely research studies to reveal an abundance of practical, usable best-practice strategies you can implement at district, school, and classroom levels.

Purchase here:
http://www.solution-tree.com/Public/Media.aspx?ShowDetail=true&ProductID=BKF216

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NCTM Releases Curriculum Focal Points to Focus Math Curricula

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) has released Curriculum Focal Points, which identifies three important mathematical topics at each level, prekindergarten through grade 8. The publication is intended to bring more coherence to the very diverse mathematics curricula currently in use. It provides a framework for states and districts to design more focused curricular expectations and assessments for pre-K–grade 8 mathematics curriculum development.

“The Curriculum Focal Points are designed to promote a discussion on the refinement of mathematics curricula and address the impression that various state and district curricula are ‘a mile wide and an inch deep,’” said NCTM President Francis (Skip) Fennell.

“The Curriculum Focal Points present a vision for the design of the next generation of state curriculum standards and state tests, and they present a way to bring needed focus to what is taught in mathematics.”

State standards often describe specific learning expectations by grade. In some cases there are close to 100 expectations per grade, with different expectations from state to state. The focal points are intended as a first step toward a national discussion on how to bring consistency and coherence to the mathematics curricula used in the United States. At each grade level, prekindergarten through grade 8, the Curriculum Focal Points identify three topics, described as “cohesive clusters of related knowledge, skills, and concepts,” which form the necessary foundation for understanding concepts in higher-level mathematics.
Curriculum Focal Points for Prekindergarten through Grade 8 Mathematics: A Quest for Coherence was developed with the involvement of mathematicians, math educators, curriculum developers, and classroom teachers.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is a public voice of mathematics education, providing vision, leadership, and professional development to support teachers in ensuring mathematics learning of the highest quality for all students. With 100,000 members and more than 240 Affiliates, NCTM is the world’s largest organization dedicated to improving mathematics education in prekindergarten through grade 12.

The Council’s Principles and Standards for School Mathematics includes guidelines for excellence in mathematics education and issues a call for all students to engage in more challenging mathematics. NCTM is dedicated to ongoing dialogue and constructive discussion with all stakeholders about what is best for our nation’s students.

Curriculum Focal Points for Prekindergarten through Grade 8 Mathematics is available for PDF download as a full document, or by section:
Full Document [18.9 MB]
Introductory Materials [122 KB]
Focal Points by Grade [522 KB]
Appendix & References [1 MB]
Additional Downloads
Overview Presentation - PowerPoint Show [5MB – PC/PPT2003 only] or PDF [600KB – Mac and PC]

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