February 2009 Archives

Edweek.org now has a widget for our coverage related to the federal stimulus. You can embed this widget in your blog or on your Web site to help readers follow the latest news and analysis on how the huge infusion of federal money is being targeted for schools.

Just click on the grey "Get Widget" tab, above, and copy and paste the code into your blog or Web site. It's easy!

Our crack Web team has already posted a page with all of Education Week's comprehensive stimulus coverage to date. They've also embedded the widget in the right column.

Our widget cover page displays a range of topical EdWeek widgets, including ones for "Charters & Choice," "Curriculum & Learning," "No Child Left Behind," and "Technology."

EdWeek widgets are a great way to help your readers find up-to-date and relevant information from the nation's education newspaper of record.

Posted by at 5:54 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I recently came across this item in Plus magazine, an online publication which seeks to introduce readers to the "beauty and practical applications of mathematics." It asks readers to vote for their favorite fictional mathematicians. I was a bit surprised by the top vote-getter.

Then again, maybe I shouldn't have been. (After voting, scroll to the bottom of this entry, about math teachers swooning over the appearance of a couple celebrity math geeks at an NCTM annual meeting.)

What about a poll of favorite real-life mathematicians? Pythagoras? Descartes? Physicist-mathematician Einstein? I would guess the stock of John Nash has risen among a younger generation, thanks in no smart part to the work of Russell Crowe.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 4:28 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Most elementary teachers report that instruction time for arts education stayed about the same between the school years of 2004-05 and 2006-07, according to a report released today by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Still, teachers at schools with higher percentages of minorities and that have been identified as needing improvement under the No Child Left Behind Act were more likely to report a decrease in time spent on arts education in their schools. Four percent of elementary teachers surveyed said arts education increased at their schools, and 7 percent reported a decline.

In some ways, it's surprising that more teachers didn't report a decrease in the time of instruction spent on the arts given what I've read elsewhere about how schools have adjusted their curricula to meet the accountability provisions of NCLB. I'm thinking particularly about an essay, "Why Arts Education is Crucial, and Who's Doing It Best," that I just read in edutopia. Here's an excerpt:

It has become a mantra in education that No Child Left Behind, with its pressure to raise test scores, has reduced classroom time devoted to the arts (and science, social studies, and everything else besides reading and math). Evidence supports this contention—we'll get to the statistics in a minute—but the reality is more complex. Arts education has been slipping for more than three decades, the result of tight budgets, an ever-growing list of state mandates that have crammed the classroom curriculum, and a public sense that the arts are lovely but not essential.

The findings from the GAO report indicate that the "mantra" may apply mostly to some kinds of schools, those that register as less academically successful under the No Child Left Behind Act.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 4:20 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

A new "carnival" of blogs focused on math and science issues is open for business. For those new to carnivals—and I am one of you—they serve as a sort of clearinghouse of links to blogs, and specific posts, on a particular topic. This one is sponsored by Kim's Play Place, a blog run by a self-described "homeschooling mom to two girls with a toddler," who is especially interested in math and science topics.

The carnival will publish on the second and fourth Mondays of each month. The deadline for submissions is 8pm EST on Sunday, March 8 for the first edition on Monday, March 9. Submit your own entry to the carnival here.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

While an "impact study" by the federal government has raised questions about the success of Reading First nationally, an evaluation in California credits the program with raising student achievement in that state significantly. Reading First, which has been the flagship reading program of the No Child Left Behind Act, is a K-3 program, but in California, even 5th graders in Reading First schools are scoring significantly higher on reading tests than those not in Reading First schools. The study by Educational Data Systems also shows that students in schools that implemented the program to a high degree had much higher achievement than students in schools that didn't implement the program in a comprehensive way.

The pattern of higher achievement for students at Reading First schools in California even applied to English-language learners.

The national impact study by the Institute of Education Sciences showed that Reading First had helped students to learn to recognize letters, sounds, and words, but hadn't made an impact on reading comprehension among 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders in Reading First schools.

The House of Representatives approved a bill for the current fiscal year this week that eliminated funding for Reading First.

But at least one Republican in the House, Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon is opposed to nixing the program, and some observers are saying that some tenets of the program should be carried on even though the program is dead. Here's an excerpt from Eduflack:

Eduflack has come to grips with the fact that Reading First is dead. The program itself was long plagued with significant implementation problems and a poor public perception. But its core tenets remain both true and essential. ... RF is dead, absolutely. But that doesn't mean we give up on teaching our kids to read or offering the research-proven approaches and interventions that are necessary to raising student literacy levels and getting all students reading at grade level.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 8:50 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Most teachers have probably seen their students transmit all kinds of silly, strange, and downright inappropriate gestures over the course of the school day. But sometimes in-class gestures can have a benign and productive effect, at least in mathematics.

That's the conclusion of a new study published online in the journal Psychological Science this month. It found that children required to produce correct gestures learned more than children required to produce partially correct gestures, who, in turn, learned more than children required to produce no gestures.

The researchers, who included Susan Wagner Cook of the University of Chicago and others from that institution and the University of Iowa, manipulated student gestures during math lessons and studied the results.

The findings suggest that body movements are related not only to processing old ideas, but also in creating new ones, the authors assert. "We may be able to lay foundations for new knowledge simply by telling learners how to move their hands," the study explains in its abstract.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 3:09 PM | Permalink | 6 Comments | Recommend

The American Chemical Society, a big organization that seeks to take an active role in school science and math issues, is seeking to hone its message on these topics and figure out a way it can have a bigger impact. And they're looking to the K-12 community to give them ideas.

The ACS, headquartered in Washington, has created a task for force to "identify a unique role for the world’s largest scientific society in transforming education in the United States." The task force is loaded with private industry officials, academic scholars, and some K-12 officials. They describe their mission this way:

"The task force’s charge extends across all educational levels, from primary through graduate and post-graduate science studies, as well as continuing professional development and more informal science education forums, such as museums and programs sponsored by civic and special interest groups."

ACS already takes an active role in trying to shape "STEM" policy at the federal level. The organization says it has 160,000 members worldwide, and describes itself as the world's largest chemical society.

More information about the task force can be found here. Input and advice for the task force can be sent to educationtaskforce@acs.org.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

As state leaders and education advocates weigh evaluating U.S. students using international benchmarks, a new report argues that one prominent test, the PISA, is flawed and may not be appropriate for judging American schools on global standards.

The author, Tom Loveless, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, also contends that questions asked on the Program for International Student Assessment surveys of students’ beliefs and attitudes about science reflect an ideological bias, which undermines the test’s credibility.

Here's our story on the report, which includes a response from the OECD, which oversees PISA, and the National Governors Association.

A separate part of the report deals with the performance of urban districts, following up on a 2001 analysis of their performance. The report finds that big-city districts made even larger gains than other districts in states. "They are closing the gap with suburban and rural districts, slowly, to be sure, but they are clearly making progress," Loveless' report says. He cites policies shifting power to city mayors as a possible factor, and No Child Left Behind, with its demands to improve achievement among low-performers, as possible factors.

A third section of the report says that many 8th graders are being put into algebra courses they simply aren't equipped to handle. I wrote about that issue last year.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:33 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

Teachers College released today a free guide for teachers "designed to enhance understanding of Islam and promote tolerance of Muslim students," according to the press release for the guide (download it here). After all, about one in 10 of New York City's students are Muslim, estimates Louis Cristillo, a research assistant and lecturer at Teachers College who developed the guide.

But the publication gives only tangential treatment to religion in favor of focusing on the culture and identity of Muslims. Lessons focus, for instance, on the history of Muslims' presence in the United States, what contributions they have made to American society, and their diversity.

The guide doesn't discuss, for example, the five pillars of Islam, the significance of Ramadan, or the differences between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

One of the most direct references to religion that I could find is a link to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life about the beliefs and practices of Muslims (search by "tradition"). But that survey tells you about as much about Islam as a religion as a survey of the beliefs and practices of Roman Catholics (search the same site as above by "tradition") in the United States tells you about Catholicism. You won't learn about what the seven sacraments are in Catholicism, for example, by reading the survey.

The guide is meant to be a companion to a publication by Teachers College released last year, "This is Where I Need to Be," which contains oral histories of Muslim students in New York City's schools. I wrote a post about that publication over at Learning the Language, and that became one of the top-10-most-visited posts on that blog. So the topic must be of interest among educators.

The guide is thoughtful in teaching about tolerance for Muslims or anyone. It features some excellent resources, such as the 2007 documentary "Prince Among Slaves." That film tells the story of Abdul Rahman, an African prince and Muslim who was sold into slavery in 1788. I saw this film by chance one night on PBS, and it opened my mind to the fact that many slaves brought to the United States were Muslim. It was amazing to learn the story about a slave who knew how to read Arabic.

If I were a teacher, I'd turn to the guide for some interesting activities and unusual resources that aren't likely to be in textbooks. But if I wanted to actually teach students about the religion of Islam, I'd turn to other sources.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Two sets of early-grades math curricula, Saxon Math and Math Expressions, emerged as big winners in a major study released by Mathematica. A curriculum that's drawn major heat from parents in some districts, Investigations in Number, Data and Space, did not fare as well. Nor did Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley Mathematics. Read my colleague Debbie Viadero's story here.

Various factions in the much-discussed "math wars" are sure to go to the report for ammunition in advancing their causes. The study only focused on 1st graders, in four states. It involved about 1,300 students.

Investigations is often referred to as a "reform" math curriculum. In the minds of some parents, it shuns traditional arithmetic problem solving in favor of less traditional problem-solving approaches. The Scott Foresman-Addison product, however, is described as a more basic-skills oriented approach in the study, the story says. Math Expressions, meanwhile, seems to take a more integrated approach. So make of that what you will. The study can be found here.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 2:07 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

Don't miss my colleague David Hoff's post over at NCLB: Act II about a vote at the winter meeting of the National Governors Association to approve a policy statement that could lead to a set of national standards.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

One of the elementary math curricular programs that tends to raise the ire of parents locked in the so-called "math wars" is Investigations in Number, Data and Space. Well, a federal review of that program is in, and the grade is (drumroll) incomplete.

The What Works Clearinghouse, a federal center for reviewing the quality of curricula and interventions on strict criteria, identified 40 different studies of Investigations. Unfortunately for those seeking a clarity on the merits of the curricula, none of the studies fell within the "review protocol meet What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards," the office found.

"The lack of studies meeting WWC evidence standards means that, at this time, the WWC is unable to draw any conclusions based on research about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of Investigations in Number, Data, and Space," the clearinghouse says in a new report.

Investigations is a K-5 curriculum published by Pearson Scott Foresman. It's raised hackles in a number of districts around the country, recently including Prince William County, Va., in the suburbs south of Washington. In general, critics say it does not pay enough attention to traditional problem-solving methods. The program's backers say it cultivates broader mathematical skills in young students, which serves them well in later math.

Keep in mind that the What Works Clearinghouse holds review standards that are often difficult to meet. One of its nicknames is the "Nothing Works Clearinghouse." Even so, a few curricula and interventions have made the cut, including the popular early-grades math program, Everyday Math.

Of course, that hasn't spared Everyday Math from attacks, either.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

"Reading First is still out" of the spending bill for fiscal 2009 expected to soon be taken up by the U.S. Congress, according to my colleague Alyson Klein over at Politics K-12. But at the same time, Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon of California, the top Republican in the House Education and Labor Committee, is expressing discontent about the committee's decision to kill what had been the flagship reading program of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 9:29 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Over at the Digital Education blog, my colleague, Katie Ash, has an interesting report on a discussion she heard at the Northwest Council for Computer Education's "Navigating the New World With Technology" conference in Portland.

Debra Pickering, author of several books about teaching and learning that she's co-wrote with Robert Marzano, gave the keynote address about building lessons that incorporate technology. It's about the lesson, not the technology, Pickering said.

From Katie's post: "At the root of those questions was something I hear over and over again from the ed-tech community—don't use technology for technology's sake. Just because you can use technology doesn't always mean you should, Pickering stressed. Without a clear purpose and effective integration, technology doesn't add anything to the lesson and could even be more distracting, she said."

A decade or so ago, the prevailing conversation was more about the hardware, but now there is more and more discussion about the substance of learning, and how to use technology to deliver that content and improve learning.

Posted by at 4:01 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

With all the wondrous and free exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution, we here in the Washington, D.C., area tend to take museums for granted. But the availability of such resources in communities large and small is not guaranteed, particularly as the economic crisis continues to put pressure on budgets.

Schools across the country, however, rely on museums for curriculum content, class trips, and enrichment opportunities. And now schools have many more opportunities to "visit" great museums through virtual field trips.

This week the American Association of Museums is calling on museum patrons to take action to ensure that all kinds of programming, including zoos and aquariums, can tap into the federal stimulus money to secure jobs and resources needed to keep the facilities open.

The Washington-based organization is urging people to take any number of steps to tell the powers that be about the roll museums play in their communities. Here are its recommendations for advocating for museums.
(Photo of Smithsonian Institution, courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Posted by at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A press conference about "Writing in the 21st Century" hosted by the National Council of Teachers of English today here in the nation's capital promoted two seemingly different strains of thought concerning the teaching of writing to students.

Kathleen Blake Yancey, a professor of English at Florida State University, spoke about the value of teachers' supporting students in writing through new modes of communication, such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. People are writing "with new audiences, for new audiences, and to new audiences," she said. She stressed that the emphasis on audience with the new modes adds relevancy to writing for students. Yancey authored a report, "Writing in the 21st Century," released at the press conference, which calls for the creation of new curricula, teaching models, and teaching methods for teachers and college professors to engage students in using new technologies for writing.

But a second purpose of the conference was to announce the council's partnership with the Norman Mailer Writers Colony to establish a national writing contest for high school and college students for creative nonfiction. Gay Talese, a best-selling author and the late Mailer's friend, was on hand to promote the contest. Talese said the dominance of technology over students, writers, and even journalists is "dangerous" and cautioned against "Googling our way through life," while sitting in front of a computer screen rather than "getting up and getting information." During a Q & A period, he gave details about his own process of writing and the importance of spending time to listen to the people he is writing about and to understand them. In order to write a book about people who built a bridge, for instance, Talese said that he spent two years "hanging out" with the bridge builders.

Yancey steered attendees away from thinking that teachers had to make a choice in embracing new technological modes for writing or rejecting them. "It's not an either/or world," she said.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 1:54 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

Difficult economic conditions are having an impact on students' pursuit of GEDs, recent reports suggest.

The number of people seeking out the credentials, officially known as the General Educational Development test and diploma, has risen in California, according to this AP story. The article notes that in that state, where unemployment is the highest in 15 years (at 9.3 percent), the number of people taking the GED test has increased from 46,184 in 2005 to 59,416 in 2008. Just last year, the number of people taking the exam rose 15 percent in the state, according to a state official.

A good portion of GED-chasers appear to be adults, who've been told they need the credential, or at least believe an employer will demand they have one in the future.

But a good share of them are most likely recent dropouts. Thousands of teenagers in North Carolina are saying that they have dropped out of high school to pursue a GED, in the hope of getting a job relatively quickly, according to this interesting piece in the Asheville Citizen-Times. It's difficult to know the extent to which students are actually following through and taking the steps necessary for a GED, because much of the information about them is self-reported, the story says. Even so, the story has some surprising insights. Districts are required to report why students drop out. "Across the state, the top reason for dropping out has been too many absences to graduate. For the past four years, the No. 2 reason has been earning a GED," the article says.

Many of those students ultimately find themselves disappointed by the surprisingly tough demands of the GED test, North Carolina school officials report. Relatively few of them go on to obtain professional certification or a community college degree, they say.

GEDs have long been a prime option for high school dropouts and others lacking a traditional diploma. The value of the GED has long been questioned in some quarters. In 2007, more than 728,000 adults worldwide took some combination of the GED's battery of five tests; 451,000 earned passing scores on the five tests, according to the American Council on Education. Participants must be at least 16 years old to pursue the GED credential.

(Thanks to the Association for Career and Technical Education for alerting me to the issue.)

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

While the stimulus provides a major cash infusion to the nation’s schools, the flow of federal money to school and college “STEM” education efforts, in particular, is smaller and more difficult to track.

As my colleagues at Ed Week have detailed in past stories, the package provides about $95 billion, total, for the U.S. Department of Education. Most science and math education programs at the federal level today are overseen by the department and the National Science Foundation, but they are also scattered across other agencies.

As far as the Obama stimulus plan goes, probably the largest STEM education-specific pool of funding in the stimulus is $100 million for the National Science Foundation’s math and science teacher-training and recruitment ventures. Those funds provide $60 million for Noyce scholarships, a long-standing effort that offers aid to college students and working professionals; $25 million for math and science partnerships, which support links between K-12 schools and universities; and $15 million to support master’s degree programs for teachers.

Other examples of targeted STEM-education funding are few and far between, however.

Part of the reason is that the nearly $100 billion going to the Department of Education leaves many funding decisions to the states, so it’s not clear how much will be spent on STEM education. As some people have pointed out to me, it seems very likely that some of the money from various pools of cash going to the department, such as the $5 billion in discretionary state funds and the $650 million for school technology, will eventually go to STEM.

STEM “was treated very well treated in the stimulus,” James Brown, the co-chair of the STEM-ed coalition, an advocacy group, told me. State education officials, when given the choice, are almost certain to direct stimulus funds toward math and science teacher and classroom programs, Brown predicted. “In general, it’s a big victory,” he said.

There’s been no shortage of interest in STEM issues on Capitol Hill in recent years. In 2007, Congress approved the America COMPETES Act, which authorized billions in new spending on math and science, much of it focused on supporting cutting-edge research and innovation, and created many new federal programs. (It called for about $840 million to be spent on K-12 and college STEM education, I was told last year.)

Yet Congress has yet to actually fund most of those efforts, to the frustration of the COMPETES Act supporters. The stimulus doesn’t appear to make up much of the slack, as far as STEM education goes (though STEM research fares much better). For instance, you don’t see funding for the Math Now program, which was included in the COMPETES legislation, in the stimulus. Math Now, which was backed by the Bush administration, is supposed to support “research-based” math programs in schools.

It’s possible that STEM education funding could roll out through other channels in the stimulus. After all, 11 total agencies across the federal government, including NASA and the Department of Energy, support a total of about 105 different STEM education programs, worth $3 billion, according to one recent estimate. So researchers, teachers-in-training, and school districts have a lot of math and science resources they can tap.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 3:54 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A report by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice says that vouchers improve the academic achievement of public schools. The author, Greg Forster, reviewed 17 empirical studies on that topic. All but one found that vouchers improved public schools, and none found that vouchers detract from them, according to the report.

Twenty-four school-choice programs now exist, in 14 states and the District of Columbia, which serve about 160,000 students, the report says. Forster's evaluation examines voucher efforts in Milwaukee, Florida, Ohio, and other areas.

The Friedman Foundation is home to "the nation's leading voucher advocates," according to a description accompanying the release of the report. It was founded by economist Milton Friedman and his wife, Rose D. Friedman. Check out the report here and weigh in with your own review of its findings.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 11:58 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

Informal science experiences—trips to zoos, museums, TV shows, computer games, and the like—can play an important part in improving students' science learning, a recent study found. Now the House Science and Technology Committee, chaired by Rep. Bart Gordon of Tennessee, is delving into that topic, holding a hearing on Thursday, Feb. 26, on those out-of-school science connections.

The scheduled speakers include Joan Ferrini-Mundy of the National Science Foundation; Phillip Bell, who co-chaired a National Academies panel that studied the topic recently and produced a report that I wrote about last month (linked above); and Robert Lippincott, the senior vice president for education at PBS.

Time: 10 a.m. Place: 2318 Rayburn House Office Building. It appears that a webcast of the discussion will be available, but see the committee's Web site on the hearing for more information.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 6:05 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Call me cynical, but I chuckled when I read the following statement in a press release pitching software to teach students about personal finances:

With concerns growing over the nation’s lack of personal finance skills and increasing credit card debt, this simulation allows students to experience what life is really like in the real world.

Have any of you been hearing about "the nation's lack of personal finance skills?" Not me. Laugh out loud.

It seems like a good idea for teachers to teach students about personal finance. But it also seems to me that it's NOT JUST STUDENTS who have been missing out on lessons about financial responsibility. Let me stop there.

The press release I received featured On Your Own Coast-to-Coast software, which students can use to simulate paying bills, opening bank accounts, saving and investing, and other skills.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 3:28 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

An early-childhood researcher at the University of Illinois is featured in this Science Daily article, which argues that unstructured playtime is a critical part of literacy development. Pushing more traditional kinds of academic work in early childhood at the expense of play, Anne Haas Dyson says, is akin to "banning the imagination."

Many early-childhood experts have pointed out the importance of play in developing inquiry and critical-thinking skills that are the building blocks for later learning. But there has been a movement toward more formal instruction in pre-K and kindergarten as a way of getting children on grade level by the 3rd grade.

The findings of the National Early Literacy Panel, released last month, suggest that more attention to foundational literacy skills is needed in early-childhood classrooms. But experts quickly cautioned against interpreting those findings as supporting a strict instructional approach. Instead, many researchers say, young children should have rich learning environments with ample opportunities for hands-on learning, interaction with peers and adults, and large blocks of play time. Lack of such unstructured experiences, they argue, is detrimental to both health and learning.

Posted by at 1:52 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

If U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has started a fire in proposing that states adopt common academic standards, a report released today by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute is adding kindling to the flames. The report looks at how the academic standards in 28 states are playing out in 36 elementary and middle schools. Basically, it found that it's much easier for schools to make adequate yearly progress goals under the No Child Left Behind Act in some states rather than other states.

"Can we now officially say that accountability as currently conceived and practiced is a joke?" poses The Core Knowledge Blog in response to the report.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

After posting a series of items on national standards on this blog, like this one, I got an email from Neal McCluskey over at the Cato Institute. There are naysayers when it comes to national standards, for sure. McCluskey, the associate director for the Center for Educational Freedom at the Libertarian institute, is among them. And remember, the nation's initial foray into national standards was contentious and largely ineffectual.

So it's only fair to present the counter argument. In his response to the Weingarten piece, McCluskey argues that standards do not guarantee quality. He elaborates in a handful of Op-Eds on the subject.

Feel free to add your two cents.

Posted by at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

In another sign of the growing interest of renewable energy lessons in schools, community colleges—a destination for many high school graduates—are getting into the act.

One example is Kalamazoo Valley Community College, in Michigan. The college's officials have announced a new program to train wind-turbine technicians, according to this story. A similar program for wind-turbine workers is being created at North Iowa Area Community College. Iowa has no shortage of wind, the author of this blog item, a native Midwesterner, will attest.

I learned of those programs through an organization that works heavily with community colleges, the Association for Career and Technical Education. One of the places where renewable energy lessons are becoming more common, in addition to science classes, are technology and career-oriented (formerly known as voc-ed) courses, as I discussed in a story a few weeks ago.

The growth of green power education in community colleges is interesting for a couple reasons. First of all, it seems likely to make high school students (whether they're on a career-tech track or not) believe that there's a future in green industries.

It's also relevant because in tough economic times, many students are choosing the community college option because of the colleges' affordability, job losses in local industries, and other factors. I've always thought that the value and role of community colleges doesn't receive enough attention from the media, and in the public sphere, generally.

(Photo from the AP)

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

In Massachusetts, three school districts are rethinking whether to offer full-day kindergarten for free, and the school board of a California district recently discussed cutting kindergarten altogether. The Boston Globe reported this week in "Schools reconsider full-day programs" that one district halted a plan to add full-day classes, another wants to charge fees for parents that opt to enroll their children in full-day kindergarten, and another has already announced fees.

The Capistrano Unified School District in California recently announced a list of possible budget cuts that included eliminating kindergarten. That idea didn't go over well with some parents, who wondered if it was legal, according to the Orange County Register. The reporter for the newspaper asked around and concluded, "there is no clear legal answer."

This is happening in a national context in which we've heard a number of politicians, including Ohio's governor, Ted Strickland, and U.S. President Barack Obama, promote the importance of early-childhood education.

These news stories are a sign to me that the financial crisis is weighing really heavily on some school districts.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 3:06 PM | Permalink | 2 Comments | Recommend

One essential skill I wasn't taught in my kindergarten-through-master's-degree education was how to read a road map. I learned this skill on my own through trial and error after I bought my first car at the age of 25 and worked as a reporter-intern at the Indianapolis Star. I'm spatially challenged, and maps and MapQuest directions are now my lifeline when I visit a new city for Education Week. And even then, sometimes I get lost.

So if learning how to read a wide range of maps—from a highway map to Google Earth—isn't yet part of state academic standards (let me know if it's part of your state's), I think it should be. I got a press release today for a book that it seems could be a resource for teachers who want to help advanced students learn how to read some really sophisticated kinds of maps. It's called Map Use: Reading and Analysis, Sixth Edition.

In browsing the Internet, I see that teachers are sharing lessons about how to familiarize students with ordinary kinds of maps, both for children in lower grades and in higher grades. Update: The International Cartographic Association sponsors a map-making contest for children, which looks intriguing.

ESRI Press, the publisher of Map Use, also publishes some other books that seem to be tailored for educators to teach about maps or mapping software.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Researchers from around the country are coming to the National Science Foundation this week to discuss cutting-edge and otherwise innovative research on science, technology, mathematics, and engineering ("STEM") education topics.

On Thursday, Feb. 19, educational psychologists, cognitive scientists and others will present information on work funded through NSF's Research and Evaluation on Education in Science and Engineering program, known as REESE.

A number of researchers will make presentations from 3:30 to 5 p.m., at NSF's offices at 4201 Wilson Boulevard, in Arlington, Va. A full roster of the participants, along with background information on their research, is available here.

(Image courtesy of NSF)

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 2:58 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

At a time when cities are starved for revenue, New Orleans will lose a little bit of convention-related cash as a result of the state's new policy on teaching evolution.

According to this story in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology has told Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal that the organization is choosing Salt Lake City over New Orleans for its 2011 convention. The reason? The group's objections to the Science Education Act, signed into law by the Republican governor last year. That law gives teachers permission to use supplementary materials on topics such as evolution and global warming.

Scientists strongly objected to the bill, which passed the state legislature by a huge margin. You can read the scientific society's objections on its Web site, www.sicb.org, under the entry titled "Thanks, but No Thanks, New Orleans."

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 12:09 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Just in time for the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth, Oklahoma legislators took up a bill that would have allowed students to "analyze, critique, and review" scientific theories, including evolution. Lawmakers, by a narrow margin, weighed and measured the proposal and found it wanting.

The state's Senate Education Committee rejected the "Science Education and Academic Freedom Act," sponsored by Republican Sen. Randy Brogdon, by a 7-6 vote, according to this story in the Associated Press. The bill's language bore a resemblance to "academic freedom" measures considered in other states. It asserts that scientific subjects such as evolution, global warming, and human cloning can "cause controversy" and that teachers are unsure of how to approach those topics.

Much of the debate in Oklahoma seems to have followed the traditional script in evolution fights. But interestingly, one provision in the bill seems to have worried a Republican on the committee, Sen. Jim Halligan. The lawmaker worried that the bill's language would have allowed students to have refused to have answered test questions because they didn't believe the material presented in textbooks.

Halligan may have been referring to wording in the bill saying that while students could be "evaluated based on their understanding of course materials," they could not be "penalized in any way because [they] subscribe to a particular position" on scientific theories, presumably including evolution.

The notion that students could opt out of particular test questions because of their philosophical objections to evolution seems like a new twist. Of all the things that teachers and district officials have to worry about with high-stakes tests, I can't imagine that they'd be eager to add that one to the list. Of course, lawmakers tend to adjust the language of evolution-related bills to overcome legal and political objections of this sort, so expect similar proposals in the future to take a slightly different shape.

A link to the proposal, SB 320, can be found here.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

At a time when many educators are looking for ways to encourage more students, and more girls in particular, to take an interest in science, a new study suggests gender bias in male and female views of their high school teachers' abilities could be setting back those efforts.

The study finds that male students rate their female science teachers significantly lower than their male teachers in biology, chemistry, and physics. Females students also rate women teachers negatively, though only in physics.

Those attitudes' show up despite male and female teachers showing roughly the same level of effectiveness in preparing students for college-level science courses, as demonstrated by their grades in undergraduate science classes.

Students' different attitudes toward male and female teachers also came through even when the authors accounted for different teaching styles, different levels of popularity among students, and other variations in classroom experiences, the study found. The overall picture indicates that students' attitudes toward their science teachers are specifically linked to gender, say the authors, from Clemson University, the University of Virginia, and the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Their study was published in the journal Science Education.

The study was based on a large-scale survey of undergraduates called "Factors Influencing College Science Success." Part of the survey asks students to rate their high school teachers on various points, from their subject-matter knowledge to their ability to keep the class on task.

You can find a link to the study here.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:50 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

Now AFT President Randi Weingarten is making a case for national standards. In this Washington Post commentary, Weingarten says it is time to revisit the need for a common set of rigorous standards for all U.S. children if we are to be competitive with high-performing countries that already have such a system in place.

"I am not talking about federal standards for every subject taught in American public schools, nor am I proposing that state and local education authorities lose all say on curriculum," she writes. "I certainly am not suggesting that teachers be forced to provide instruction in a scripted, lock-step manner, unable to tailor lessons or draw on their own expertise."

Weingarten acknowledges that agreeing on standards will not be easy, and she wants to ensure that teachers' judgment in the classroom is honored.

"Education is a local issue, but there is a body of knowledge about what children should know and be able to do that should guide decisions about curriculum and testing," the piece continues. "I propose that a broad-based group -- made up of educators, elected officials, community leaders, and experts in pedagogy and particular content -- come together to take the best academic standards and make them available as a national model."

Eduwonk and the Core Knowledge Blog also respond to Weingarten's proposal.

Posted by at 9:09 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Jim Burke, the English teacher, author, mentor, and celebrity or sorts among his peers, is now a blogger. And one of his first blog items makes quite a claim. He's been to more than his share of big education conferences, from the niche English-teacher meetings to the more all-encompassing type events.

But he thinks that they are on the demise.

He points to his own observations, and the fact that several of his own speaking engagements this year were canceled for lack of attendance. The cost and time away from the classroom are too much to ask anymore, he argues. Burke hopes that teachers and administrators will find other ways to share their ideas, discuss their challenges, and to network with their colleagues.

Burke is mostly talking about teacher-focused conferences, though. I imagine that the economy is having an impact on many, if not all, education conferences. You won't see many educators taking the kinds of executive retreats that have caused a backlash against Wall Street bankers this year. Do you agree with Burke, though, that the big state or national convention will become "a memory of a distant time"?

Posted by at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I mention over at Learning the Language that reporters for the Christian Science Monitor have found a refugee kid named Bill Clinton Hadam in Georgia and are following him for a series "Little Bill Clinton: A school year in the life of a new American."

One of the latest installments of the series, "Who's failing—the student or the test?," explores what's at fault in that a school doesn't get credit in adequate yearly progress calculations under the No Child Left Behind Act for the progress of an English-language learner such as little Bill Clinton.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 9:38 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Take a guess at which countries in the world are "not free." Among them are China, Iraq, Kazakhstan, and Sudan, according to the Map of Freedom that is part of a new Web site, Democracy Web. And which countries would you put in the column of "free?" The Map of Freedom says that Argentina, India, Mongolia, Ukraine, and South Africa are all free. Jordan and Ethiopia get a partly free ranking.

The site is sponsored by the Albert Shanker Institute and the Freedom House and is aimed at supporting teachers to educate students about democracy. It comes with a study guide. Whether a country is considered to be free, not free, or partly free is based on the Freedom of the World survey, which awards countries freedom points depending on the answers to questions about religious freedom, corruption, independence of the media, and other issues. But I notice that the description of the survey doesn't say who provides the answers.

I think an interesting exercise would be for students to conduct research about individual countries to see if what they learn about a country's civil and political rights seems to match its ranking in the Map of Freedom.

For example, I'm questioning if the "partly" free ranking for one of the African countries that I have some knowledge about is on the mark, given that I've met several people from that country in the Washington area who have told me they were tortured by the current government there. Can a country torture its own citizens and still be partly free? hmmmm

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 3:50 PM | Permalink | 2 Comments | Recommend

One of the more visible benefits of the federal Reading First program was that the $1 billion-a-year funding provided for reading coaches in each participating school. Those coaches were assigned to work with teachers to improve practice and expand their understanding of the research on literacy development.

Now, with the funding stream dried up and the growing economic woes across the country, schools are starting to abandon some of the basic tenets of the Reading First program, particularly when it comes to the additional staffing it required.

See these news reports out of Florida and New York. The extensive professional development provided under the program is not likely to last either. I wonder if teachers will get to keep those nifty hand-held computers either.

Of course, the bigger question is how will schools and districts sustain the changes they've made under Reading First given the lack of resources?

Posted by at 3:13 PM | Permalink | 2 Comments | Recommend

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is accusing Scholastic Inc. of using school book clubs to sell video games, jewelry kits, and toy cars, The New York Times reported this week. A spokeswoman for the Boston-based advocacy group said it reviewed brochures for Scholastic's book club for 2nd and 3rd graders and for 4th through 6th graders and found that 14 percent of items weren't books. The group claims that an additional 19 percent of items in those brochures were books accompanied by trinkets, such as stickers or toys.

Judy Newman, the president of Scholastic Book Clubs, stands by the products in the book- club brochures. Even a product like a make-your-own-jewelry kit would have a reading component in the instructions, she said, according to the article.

The debate over what kind of book accessories are appropriate to pitch in schools brings to mind the debate from more than 10 years ago about whether it was appropriate for students to be exposed to ads through daily news programs produced by Whittle Communications.

I may be new to this curriculum beat, but I think I'm safe in concluding that issues about how much commercialism is appropriate in schools will not go away.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 8:19 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Here in the Washington area, many public schools have gotten involved with teaching children about homelessness through participation in the annual Fannie Mae Help the Homeless Walkathon, which is a fundraiser for nonprofit organizations that serve the homeless or try to prevent homelessness. Full disclosure: For five years I organized walkers to participate in this event to raise money for a local soup kitchen.

And more schoolchildren in this area are increasingly homeless themselves, according to "Schools Face Sharp Rise in Homeless Students," published Feb. 8 in the Washington Post.

So I was eager to take a look at a short preview of a DVD about homelessness sent my way that the producers are hoping will be used in an educational setting. It's called "Adrift on American Streets" and it features 27 homeless men and women who were filmed talking about their lives.

It's heavy stuff. One woman talks about how she's been "sober for two days." Another man talks about the difficulty of finding a job because he's been to prison. "I want to find one city I can stumble into ... and get myself a job," he says. But it's not all gloomy. "I hitchhiked around the country. Those are the glory days," says one man. The monologues by homeless people are very engaging.

I think that "Adrift on American Streets" could provide a centerpiece for a serious discussion about urban issues—or even the possible impact of the economic downturn—among older high school students.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The Obama administration has pledged to make the federal government's work more transparent and to give the public more opportunities to make its opinion known on issues through technology and other means.

Whether those campaign visions come to fruition remains to be seen. But the administration is launching a new online tool to allow students to share ideas and opinions on environmental policy. It's a new blog called "Greenversations," run by the Environmental Protection Agency. The site is aimed at encouraging students to share ideas about the environment and energy issues, and reducing personal energy use.

In an announcement of the new blog, officials from the EPA note that students have historically played a big role in shaping some environmental policy, such as the growth in interest in recycling. The site is being created amid a surge of interest in renewable energy and green topics in schools.

The EPA says the site is supposed to be up and running officially later this week. What's up now is a basic introduction to it. The blog will written by Michelle Gugger, a participant in the AmeriCorps VISTA program, a volunteer effort, who is working with EPA’s regional Water Protection Division; and Loreal Crumbley, an intern at the EPA’s Office of Children’s Health Protection in Washington. It will present a new topic each week, and include tools such as a carbon calculator for students to evaluate their energy use.

(Credit for the photo goes to Steven Katovich, of the USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org)

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:35 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

Over at Jim Burke's Ning at The English Companion, a teacher raised the question of what to do with the remaining budget her department has for the rest of the school year. All $37.40!

In the comments, someone suggested buying coffee and bagels and getting the teachers together for a brainstorming session on how to tap into other resources. The department had to make an expensive purchase of textbooks for middle school students, but now there is little left for the interactive whiteboard they were hoping to buy for one classroom.

I'm sure a lot of districts are facing this same issue. So what do you do when the funding well is almost dry but needs are ongoing for materials and equipment that will help teachers and students?

Posted by at 4:38 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

There is a fairly regular stream of stories in the news about schools and districts tackling requests to ban or restrict students' access to books that a parent or community member finds offensive or inappropriate. I wrote about one case in Fayetteville, Ark., that sparked heated debate over dozens of books, including classics and young adult literature.

Banning books seems to have become a time-honored tradition in some places, and challenges happen so frequently that the American Library Association began commemorating the fight against unreasonable censorship in schools more than 25 years ago with Banned Books Week.

The latest effort in the news is in Stanislaus County, Calif., where the Newman Crows Landing Unified School District voted this month to remove Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima from the reading list for high school sophomores. The superintendent of the district outside San Francisco argued that the vulgar language in the critically acclaimed book—which has earned recommendations from former first lady Laura Bush and the National Endowment for the Arts—offended him.

This Los Angeles Times editorial, however, suggests there were broader issues of religious sensitivity. When school officials start to make such decisions based on complaints from particular interest groups, it can be a slippery slope in which academic considerations are undermined by the demands of vocal outsiders.

What usually results is greater interest in the books deemed inappropriate, as the editorial notes.

"Ever since school officials took aim at Bless Me, Ultima, the local library has been doing a fire-sale business lending it out," it states. "Young people who are told it won't be assigned in the classroom, where a teacher presumably would offer some guidance, instead are reading it on their own and delighting in precisely what offends their elders."

Posted by at 11:51 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

Someone recently forwarded me this link to a citizens' organization that is apparently tracking the revision of state math standards in New Jersey. Many of its members' concerns, and their language, will seem familiar to anybody who's followed debates over K-12 math over the years, particularly in state academic standards. For instance, the coalition's members are concerned about students at early grades becoming too reliant on calculators, and they say the draft state document is misleading from a mathematical standpoint. (I'm not certain if the draft has been reworked since then.) Nothing unusual about those complaints, as far as these things go.

But in other respects, the site shows how debates over K-12 math have changed during the last few years. First, this organization is calling itself the "New Jersey Coalition for World Class Math." It's not just that New Jersey needs a strong set of math standards, the coalitions says; it's that the state needs to be looking to the practices of high-performing countries on TIMSS and PISA. They name them, with Finland and Singapore getting a mention. Of course, your definition of "world class" standards might differ from the coalition's, but this is one sign that the globalization push within the standards movement seems to continue unabated.

Another sign of change: Much of the opinion offered on the coalition's Web site stresses the need for "coherence" in K-12 math resources, as a way of helping teachers and others. This, as opposed to more ideological debates about how to teach math (though some of those are in evidence, too.).

Finally, the coalition holds up documents offered by both the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (it's K-8 "Focal Points") and the National Math Panel as effective blueprints for how early-grades math should be taught. Advocates of those two documents have not always been on the same sides of the so-called "math wars" in the past. But they are here.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Her message is that bullying, even in its mildest form, can have ramifications, according to a review of the book on page 9 of the newsletter. Also, she urges educators and others to get help for students who feel that violence is an option.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Since I write about math and science education, I spend a good amount of time reporting on topics where elected officials, influential advocacy groups, and big businesses seem to speak with one voice—agreeing, to a large extent, about middling U.S. performance on international tests, unfocused math and science curriculum, poorly trained teachers, and the need to help prepare students for crucial subjects, like algebra, which are springboards to more advanced studies. The general thinking on a lot of these issues is that schools can and should be listening to the business lobby. After all, employers presumably know what skills students will need for the workplace, and where high school graduates are falling short now.

But as the nation’s economic crisis worsens, it sure looks as if the public’s resentment over a seemingly endless succession of business scandals, corporate bailouts, and investor rip-offs is spilling over into the world of education.

You see it in the blogosphere, in comments to this blog and others, when somebody touts the supposed wisdom of the business community in promoting one K-12 innovation or another—and you'll find a response along the lines of, who's the genius who thought of that?

You read it in commentaries like this one, from Carl Glickman, in a recent commentary in Phi Delta Kappa:

“We feel compelled to report to the American people that the business and financial foundations of our society are currently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people. What was unimaginable a generation ago has begun to occur—companies that extolled themselves as models of excellent practices have deceived the American people with sloppy, undisciplined, and greedy practices that are driving Americans out of their homes, threatening their retirements, and dashing their hopes of a financially secure future. Indeed, if an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre corporate financial performance that exist today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.

"God forbid that our schools become more like these kinds of businesses! Our business and financial communities have, in effect, been committing rash, thoughtless acts of unilateral financial disarmament, dragging our citizens and their children into economic insecurity while having many of these same citizens pay the bill.”

If the language sounds familiar, that’s because Glickman is riffing on the tone of A Nation at Risk, the seminal 1983 report that said U.S. schools were in crisis.

You could take issue with Glickman’s ideas or his execution, but he’s expressing a point of view that, from my reading of things, is increasing as public anger grows. My question for readers—if you buy my premise—is this: Think back to previous periods when this country was slogging through a major economic downturn: the late 1970s, early 1980s. Was there any spillover, in the public's or the education community's view of the perceived wisdom of the business lobby’s K-12 ideas? Did it matter then? Will it matter now?

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 2:15 PM | Permalink | 3 Comments | Recommend

Many civic education experts and historians have touted the potential for tapping into the enthusiasm surrounding the recent presidential election and the inauguration to get students interested in related school lessons.

All well and good, but only if students have the background knowledge to understand the process and the rhetoric, Robert Pondiscio writes in this Ed Week commentary.

As the communications director for the Core Knowledge Foundation, Pondiscio is hitting on the message the foundation has long promoted about the importance of rich content. But this piece brings a compelling and relevant twist.

"President Obama’s inaugural address placed us—all of us—in the flow of history. With its references to the 'rights of man,' our 'common defense,' ideals that 'light the world,' and a generation that 'faced down fascism and communism,' the address was surely met with either nods or blank stares," he writes in "A Stirring Speech, Lost Upon Too Many Students."

"If our children do not know the events and phrases to which Obama referred, they cannot fully appreciate the significance of this moment or even what this president is asking of them. How is it possible for them to be 'the keepers of this legacy'—why should they value it and seek to keep it at all?—unless they understand the thing they are being asked to keep?"

Posted by at 9:38 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

A New York Times editorial on the stimulus bill this week makes a pitch for national academic standards amid recommendations, like this one among some think tanks and policy groups.

Education Secretary Arne "Duncan’s main goal should be to replace a wildly uneven patchwork of standards with a coherent system of national standards and tests that would allow parents to know, at last, how their schools compare with schools elsewhere in the country," the Times writes.

Of course even if everyone agreed to creating national standards in core subjects, it would take years of debate to figure out what content and skills to include (or not), and how to compel states and districts to follow them.

Posted by at 9:20 AM | Permalink | 3 Comments | Recommend

I've received a lot of responses to a story I wrote this week about the growth of "green" lesson plans and curriculum in schools. Some of the reaction has come from schools that are drawing power from solar energy and crafting lessons about the power of the sun.

One sun-powered display that I didn't have room to get in the story can be found in the Lagunitas school district, outside San Francisco. (It's pictured on the right.)

It was designed and built by Borrego Solar, also located in California. Borrego has seen more school districts use solar installations in recent years, efforts supported by tax credits and creative finance mechanisms, their director of business development, Brian von Moos, told me.

Images of another solar-powered school were forwarded to me by a representative of Tioga Energy. That company has built what looks like a pretty vast solar array at the Athenian School, in Danville, Calif. If you've heard of creative efforts to incorporate renewable energy into science lessons, feel free to post them.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A friend of mine who works at one of the District of Columbia's public libraries tells me that February is the most important month at her library because it's Black History Month.The library schedules special programs to feature African-Americans. So since I'm new to the curriculum beat here at Education Week, I decided to do a Web search to see just how big Black History Month is in schools.

Some schools have put together impressive collections of resources that can be used for lessons marking Black History Month. Here's a sampling:
—Lakewood City Schools, in Ohio, has links to Web sites about prominent African Americans.
—Chatham County Schools, in North Carolina, features the work of a poet, George Moses Horton, from Chatham County and provides a collection of links with resources.

A number of schools plan special activities or lessons to coincide with Black History Month.
—Potanico Hills Central School in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., is presenting a series of events to celebrate Black History Month, including a workshop by Guy Davis, a blues guitarist and storyteller.
—Sandusky High School started Black History Month by looking at the stories of Martin Luther King Jr. and President Barack Obama.

I also see, by scanning Education Week stories that mention Black History Month, that it's important to some members of school communities that not only do students learn about African-Americans' role in U.S. history during February, but that they're also exposed to the topic year round.

The fact that U.S. citizens have elected their first African-American president in Barack Obama gives everyone an opportunity to once again look at school curricula and ensure that students are well informed about African-Americans' contributions to the United States.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 12:03 PM | Permalink | 2 Comments | Recommend

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has just released a terrific series of resources on evolution, all of them free and accessible online here. Those documents cover current events and examine recent fights over evolution in the states, but perhaps more important, they offer a clear guide through some of the social, legal, and religious dimensions of those battles.

The documents are being put forward to coincide with the 200-year anniversary of British naturalist and evolution pioneer Charles Darwin's birth.

Pew's documents offer recaps of recent state skirmishes on the theory, many of which will be familiar to Ed Week's readers. The online materials from Pew provide a timeline of evolution's status in public school science classrooms in the United States, and a breakdown of key court cases.

But the item I think I'll find most useful is a breakdown of major religious groups' positions of evolution—Catholics, Buddhsts, Hindus, Muslims, Mormons, Episcopalians—with supporting documents.

It makes for good reading, and it's a timely resource for teachers, students, and the public.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Taking math seriously, and learning to enjoy it, will probably make your life easier in high school. It will almost certainly help you get into college and increase your odds of succeeding once you get there.

But what kinds of career options are out there for students with talent in math and a love for that subject?

I recently came across a good online resource that seeks to answer that question for students. It's the "Career Profiles" page, offered on the Web site of the Mathematical Association of America.

As the name suggests, the site aims to answer the question "why study math," by telling the stories of people in a range of careers—business, government, and academic research. The site offers the first-person accounts of workers on how math led them into their careers, and how they use it on the job.

There's the story of Capt. C.J. Haynes, a program manager who works on air traffic control systems and combat identification systems for the U.S. Navy. She also oversees a $3 billion budget, the profile explains. There's Mitchell Stabbe, a former math major in college who describes how he uses mathematical reasoning in his job as lawyer specializing in trademark law.There's former math major James L. Cooley, who's designing spacecraft for NASA.

The site is a part of the Mathematical Sciences Career Information Project. It's one of a number of useful resources I've seen in this area recently.

Another interesting one, which gives examples of how math is used from high-tech jobs to the factory floor, was published recently by Achieve. See my entry about the work in this area, "Making the Case for Advanced Math."

(Photo courtesy of the MAA.)

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 10:08 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

The folks at Common Core and Core Knowledge take issue with Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland's equating core knowledge with 21st-century skills. In blog posts here and here, the organizations take shots at the Democrat's P-16 education plan, outlined in his 2009 budget proposal. It calls for "mastery of core knowledge, critical thinking, possibility thinking, knowledge creation, development of strong interpersonal skills and effective work habits."

I have a feeling that the governor and the Common Core/Core Knowledge advocates have two distinctly different ideas about content.

"For the sake of Ohio’s students, we hope the governor and his advisors learn the difference between knowledge and skills," Common Core's Lynne Munson writes.

Over at Core Knowledge, Robert Pondiscio includes a rather humorous comparison of the governor's colorful circle chart with the artistry of another, more famous Ted: as in Geisel, A.K.A. Dr. Seuss.

Posted by at 11:16 AM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

Sometimes an in-class lab is not enough.

I recently received a notice about a bus that is being used in Chicago-area schools as a sort of mobile science classroom to teach students about clean-air and environmental issues. It's one of a number of mobile science labs I've heard of over the years. The idea is pretty simple. You retrofit a bus or vehicle of some sort, which you then send from school to school, so that teachers make use of it to teach students about a specific science concept—in this case, environmental issues. The bus is officially known as the Clean Air Bus Club.

The vehicle in this case is owned by the Cook Illinois Corp., a bus company that serves about 2,000 schools in the Chicago region. The company has switched 90 percent of its bus fleet to biodiesel. The bus that is being used for the mobile lab was old, and most likely destined for the scrap heap, John Benish Jr., the company's chief operating officer told me, until the company decided to retrofit it into a "museum-on-wheels." The company, according to a statement forwarded to me, sponsored the bus as a way to increase awareness of asthma among school-age children, and its link with pollution.

The bus, which features hands-on interactive environmental exhibits, is available for free visits to Chicago-area schools, libraries, and community events. The company spent about $20,000 renovating the inside and outside of the vehicle, Benish said. About 1,100 students have toured it so far.

One of the long-running science labs-on-wheels is Alabama Science in Motion , which delivers resources to students and professional development to teachers in that state. Mobile labs, operating in different regions, deliver resources to schools across the state, as part of the program. It operates as part of the Alabama Math, Science and Technology Initiative, or AMSTI, one of the largest state-run professional-development and classroom-improvement initiatives in math and science in the country. I wrote about AMSTI back in January, as part of a series of stories about Alabama's efforts to improve math and science instruction.

If you know of similar labs-on-wheels, or have ideas on how they can be improved, let me know.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Today, the National Museum of the American Indian launched a searchable online collection of 5,500 items and photographs. The online collections site, called the "Fourth Museum," is part of a plan by the museum to put its whole collection of more than 800,000 items online (see today's press release about it), which is expected to take four years. The Washington Post describes the effort in a Jan. 30 article.

The online collection could be a boost for teachers who are attempting to carry out new state laws or regulations that require them to teach students about the tribes in their states. Idaho, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin all require students to be taught about Native American tribes in their states, while North Dakota makes a similar mandate part of its teacher training. For more information, see an article I wrote about this topic, "Native American History, Culture Gaining Traction in State Curricula," in November for Education Week.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 8:36 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Rodney Ellis is fed up, and he's fighting back the way state legislators usually do.

The Texas state senator, having witnessed the latest hubbub over the teaching of evolution on his state's board of education, has filed a bill to strip the board of the bulk of its authority over textbooks and curriculum.

According to this story in his hometown newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, Ellis' move would leave the board with more narrow duties under the state constitution. The measure is unlikely to pass, even Ellis, a Democrat, acknowledges, because of conservatives' influence in the legislature.

So Ellis has filed what the newspaper calls "Plan B," a second bill that would establish a regular sunset review of the board by the legislature. Presumably, that would create more oversight of the board.

Ellis told the paper he was frustrated to see the topic of evolution once again emerge as a source of controversy over the past few weeks on the board, a discussion that he believes is weakening the teaching of science. On Jan. 23, the Texas board on the one hand approved science standards that removed language calling for students to be exposed to the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories. That move pleased scientists, who saw the "weaknesses" language as a misleading jab at evolution. Yet the board also approved language that called for students to analyze the "sufficiency or insufficiency" of common ancestry, a core piece of evolutionary theory. A final vote on the standards is expected in March.

"While on the national level in America there is more emphasis on a healthy respect for science, our board is engaged in a debate on how to teach evolution,” Ellis said in the Chronicle story. A House lawmaker has filed a similar sunset bill in the other chamber.

Ellis, in an interview with the paper, described his first bill as a "club," and his second as a "stiletto." They play rough in Texas.

Posted by Sean Cavanagh at 5:39 PM | Permalink | 4 Comments | Recommend

There's a long-running debate about how the skills of U.S. students compare with those of their peers in nations like China. A recent study seeks to cut through the speculation with research from both nations' university systems.

In an article published in the journal Science, a team of researchers found that first-year Chinese university students easily beat American freshmen in a test of their knowledge of specific scientific concepts in mechanics, electricity, magnetism. Yet the U.S. students equaled their Asian counterparts when it came to a measure of their broader scientific reasoning ability.

The students tested in the study were freshmen science and engineering majors enrolled in calculus-based introductory physics courses in both the United States and China. They were tested before receiving any college-level instruction in the topics, so presumably, the researchers, from Ohio State University, were gauging skills picked up in K-12.

The Chinese students' strong performance in science knowledge was especially evident in mechanics, where most of those tested scored in the area of 90 percent correct. The American students' scores varied widely, from about 25-75 percent.

The authors note the differences between the Chinese and American science curricula as likely factors in explaining the differences. In China, every student goes through the same physics courses in grades 8-12, the authors say. (I'm assuming they mean if those students have access to schools and teachers at all. This is no sure thing in some villages and regions in China.) Physics courses in China tend to be algebra-based, and the emphasize the cultivation of conceptual understanding and problem-solving skills, they report. In the United States, on the other hand, only one out of three high school students enrolls in a two-semester physics course.

As far as students' science reasoning goes, the authors point to research that shows that "inquiry-based science"—basically, the idea of using hands-on lessons and having students learn science as scientists actually go about it—is likely to help students' performance in this area. Not enough of that kind of teaching is going on today, they suggest.

"The current style of content-rich STEM education," the article says,"even when carried out at a rigorous level, has little impact on the development of students' scientific -reasoning abilities."

Here's a summary of the results, and a link to the full article.

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