May 2010 Archives

After a couple of false starts in recent weeks amid partisan wrangling, the U.S. House of Representatives today approved a bill to reauthorize the America COMPETES Act, legislation that contains a strong focus on improving education in the STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

The final vote was 262 to 150, with 17 Republicans joining most, but not all, Democrats in favor. Some Republicans have complained that the price tag for the legislation—all told, some $86 billion over five years—is too high, but Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., the chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, said the measure is essential to the nation's future.

"If we are to reverse the trend of the last 20 years, where our country's technology edge in the world has diminished, we must make the investments necessary today," Gordon, a key proponent of the bill, said in a prepared statement. "The path is simple. Research and education lead to innovation. Innovation leads to economic development and good paying jobs and the revenue to pay for more research."

Among the bill's GOP critics was Rep. Ralph Hall of Texas, the top Republican on the science committee.

"I am disappointed that my Democratic colleagues resorted to using a procedural tactic to defeat Republican changes that would have saved over $40 billion and restored the original COMPETES priority of basic research," he said in a statement today. "While I am glad we were finally able to reauthorize many of the important research and education program in this bill, the bill that passed today spends too much money, authorizes duplicative programs, and shifts focus away from the bill's original intent."

Despite the GOP criticism, the bill was backed by a wide range of organizations (some 750, by the count of science committee Democrats), from the National Science Teachers Association to the American Chemical Society to major universities, the Business Roundtable, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The legislation reauthorizes a number of programs that support STEM education, including the $55 million Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program, which encourages talented STEM majors and professionals to become K-12 math and science teachers.

I haven't had a chance to review details of the final bill, but as it was approved by the science committee, it contained language to reduce the Noyce program's cost-sharing requirement for colleges and universities so that a more diverse group of institutions could afford to participate.

However, I'm told that, oddly enough, the bill is silent on the Mathematics and Science Partnership Program, which was part of the original America COMPETES Act and is run by the National Science Foundation. (I'm afraid I'll need more time to sort out why that is, but stay tuned!)

The bill contains a new measure designed to ensure better coordination of STEM education activities across federal agencies, language modeled on another House bill, HR 1709, which was approved last year on a bipartisan basis. Another provision would require the White House to create an advisory committee on STEM education responsible for soliciting input from a variety of stakeholder groups, with the goal of offering guidance to the president on how to better align federal programs with the needs of states and school districts.

Still another measure calls on the NSF, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Education to collaborate in identifying "grand challenges" in STEM education research and then determining what role each federal agency should play.

"This section of COMPETES instructs these agencies to solicit input from a variety of stakeholders in STEM education, those who know best the needs of the STEM community," Rep. Marcia L. Fudge, D-Ohio, said in a statement she issued earlier this month about that particular provision. "This will ensure that the research performed is relevant and useful."

As I indicated earlier, the bill has been the subject of some unusual back and forth in recent weeks, including a procedural maneuver by Republicans that led Democrats, who hold a majority in the House, to delay a final vote. For more on what's been going on, including a thorny "motion to recommit" dealing in part with the touchy subject of federal employees viewing pornography on the "company" dime, see this recent blog item.

I'm no expert on House procedures, but as I understand it, House Democrats today figured out their own procedural maneuver to deal with some of the problems caused by the Republicans' "motion to recommit." The MTR basically led many Democrats to vote in favor of some measures to substantially rewrite the America COMPETES legislation that they really did not support. By breaking that motion into a number of separate pieces, Democrats today were able to strip out the provisions they found objectionable.

"As I've said before, this bill is too important to let fall by the wayside," Rep. Gordon said. "Today, we took the action necessary to see consideration of this bill completed. And we allowed the members of the House to be on record voting on provisions gutting funding for our science agencies, voting on whether we should eliminate programs that will help create jobs, voting on whether to eliminate programs that will make us more energy independent, voting in opposition to federal employees watching pornography, and voting on whether universities that ban military recruiters should receive federal research dollars. We have provided all members, in a reasonable manner, with the ability to vote on each of these items separately instead of all together."

For his part, Rep. Hall criticized the "procedural tactic" Democrats employed, and said: "Given the current state of our national economy and the fact that our nation's budget deficit has increased 50 percent since the last authorization (of the America COMPETES Act) three years ago, we must be mindful of our spending if America is to continue to compete globally."

For more background on the America COMPETES Act, check out this recent Education Week story. Oh, and in case you're dying to know, COMPETES stands for Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science.

The next step for the reauthorization effort is for the Senate to develop and approve its own version, which some analysts have suggested may prove difficult this year for a variety of reasons, including a very busy agenda in that chamber and the especially intense partisanship of an election year.

Posted by Erik Robelen at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

As we move into what I've come to think of as adoption season for the common standards, states have much to think about. But the Race to the Top competition doesn't give states much time to think things over. (To maximize their points in that competition, they have to promise to adopt common standards by Aug. 2.)

That's why some have been arguing that the federal education department should consider easing up on that Aug. 2 deadline. Deciding whether to supersede your own standards, which took boatloads of time, money and political juice to put in place, is no small decision, so states should be able to give it the time and thought needed. Having millions of dollars dangled over your head on a deadline, especially in lean financial times like these, doesn't lend itself to sound decisionmaking, according to some in the edusphere.

Take a look at yesterday's post by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute's Checker Finn for an example of this argument. And his colleague, Kathleen Porter Magee, weighs in as well , urging states to think deeply about implementation before adopting the common standards.

Think, think, think. The Queen of Soul has been arguing this case for decades now. ;-) Will states have the time they need to think?

And do they need more time? They've been reviewing the drafts of the common standards as they've undergone revisions. But those reviews have taken place largely at the department-of-education level. Have the state boards, who are the ones charged with adopting standards in most states, had the chance they need to really mull over these standards?

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Since leaving the U.S. Supreme Court, retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has taken up the cause of promoting civics education. (In fact, so has former Justice David Souter.)

Yesterday, she stepped onto the public stage again to champion the subject, and leveled criticism at the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which she argues shares some of the blame for the weak knowledge of civics among young people, according to an Associated Press story.

"Barely one-third of Americans can even name the three branches of government, much less say what they do," the AP quotes O'Connor as saying at a conference sponsored by Games for Change, a project that aims to promote computer and video games for social change. "Less than one-fifth of high school seniors can explain how civic participation benefits our government. Less than that can say what the Declaration of Independence is, and it's right there in the title. I'm worried."

O'Connor argued that an "unintended consequence" of No Child Left Behind is that many schools have neglected civics education because of the law's intensive focus on improving student achievement in math and reading (and science, she said, though while the law requires science testing, those results do not count for purposes of the law's accountability measures).

She had more to say on No Child Left Behind and civics education (as well as Elana Kagan and the Supreme Court) during a follow-up interview for ABC News' Good Morning America.

"The No Child Left Behind program was an incentive to the schools to get their kids up to snuff on math and science and reading," she said, according to a transcript of the interview, but not for civics, American history, or many other subjects. "And the result was a number of schools stopped teaching, or giving scores on, civics and government and history."

Of course, I should note that O'Connor certainly is not the first, and won't be the last, person to suggest the No Child Left Behind Act has narrowed the curriculum.

The former justice also used both her speech yesterday and the ABC interview as occasions to promote some new video games available for free on the iCivics website that are designed for middle school students.

Games on the iCivics website include:

• Do I Have a Right?, in which the player runs a firm specializing in constitutional law;
• Executive Command, which offers a chance to play president;
• Supreme Decision, about the high court,
• Branches of Power, which gives the player control of all three branches of government; and
• LawCraft, in which the player is a member of Congress.

The iCivics program is based at Georgetown University Law School, the AP story says. O'Connor is the project's founder and leads the board of the nonprofit iCivics Inc.

Posted by Erik Robelen at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Another state has given the conditional nod to the common standards. At its May 12 meeting, the West Virginia board of education voted unanimously to "approve" the standards in English/language arts and math, and implement them in the 2011-12 school year.

I was intrigued by the phrasing in the board's motion (the board "approved" the standards "for alignment" with its own.). So I asked department of education spokeswoman Liza Cordeiro if "approval for alignment with" was the same thing as adoption. She said it was.

I wondered, also, if aligning the common core with a state's own standards is the same thing as adopting 100 percent of the common standards, word for word, as the National Governors Association and Chief State School Officers have said is the express intent—and full expectation—of the initiative.

Cordeiro said the state is adopting the entire common core. "This in no way means we are going to pick and choose pieces of the common core," she said. It's more a matter of making sure the common standards are put into a form that's consistent with West Virginia's curriculum and standards format, she said.

The state's approval, like the approvals of Hawaii, Maryland and Kentucky, is contingent on reviewing the final version of the standards, which are due out June 2.

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The entanglement of Race to the Top competition and the common standards has provided grist for those who cast a hairy eyeball on federal intrusion into local education decisions. Though the folks leading the Common Core State Standards Initiative try mightily to remind skeptics that the common-standards movement grew from states' own demands, this federal-intrusion shadow hasn't disappeared.

Two cases in point from this week: Virginia pulled out of the Race to the Top competition, citing as a key factor the federal pressure to adopt common standards. (See coverage in The Washington Post here, and in the Richmond Times-Dispatch here.) And Oklahoma legislators threw a wrench into a bill designed to enhance its RTT position. One lawmaker said she was bugged because the common standards, which enhance a state's attractiveness in the RTT judging, are "not American," they're "United Nations" standards. (I don't know what that means. Do you know what that means? But hey, you get the basic sentiment.)

I would guess that United Nations ambassadors would be quite surprised to hear that they have designed academic standards. But brushing inaccuracies aside for a moment, when state lawmakers, state board members, or anyone else with clout in the standards work sees them as a violation of states' rights (an argument I've heard from some state board members)—let alone un-American—you know there is a burr in folks' fur that just hasn't shaken loose.

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Two more states have adopted the common standards even before they are out in final form.

Yesterday, the Maryland board of education voted to adopt them, and last Thursday, Hawaii's board of education did the same. (See here for an earlier memo that formed the basis of the motion the board later voted on.) With Kentucky's February decision, that makes three states (unless I've missed something) that have approved the common standards. All three states made their approvals conditional upon examination of the final standards document, which is due out on June 2.

You'd be hard pressed to separate these early adoptions from states' desires to secure a portion of the money available under Race to the Top, which favors states that commit to adopting the common core by Aug. 2. More than two dozen states are currently planning to adopt within that timeline.

As Maryland department of education spokesman William Reinhard told The Washington Post: The state "wants to show the folks that are evaluating Race to the Top proposals that we're serious about it." And as Hawaii board of ed spokesman Alex Da Silva told me by e-mail yesterday: "The Board wanted to take this vote ahead of Hawaii turning in its phase 2 Race to the Top application because of its strong support for the Common Core State Standards and what it can do to help all states better prepare students for college and careers."

These states aren't voting blind, because they've been reviewing and giving feedback on each iteration of the standards as they have evolved. Stay tuned as more states face the issue, and as the conditional states vote again on full, final adoption.

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A chief criticism of recent actions by the Texas board of education to revise the state's social studies standards is that conservatives are injecting political bias into classrooms. (For their part, the conservatives say they're correcting a previous liberal bias.)

I'll leave it to others to draw their own conclusions. That said, I can't help but point out something that caught my eye while perusing the standards. It's the title of the high school economics section, the only portion that won bipartisan approval last week. In fact, it was unanimously passed 14-0 (one Republican was absent).

The title? "Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Economics with Emphasis on the Free Enterprise System and Its Benefits." (Italics added by me.)

Sure, most Americans probably believe the free enterprise system works pretty well. But the language begs the question of whether Texas students will also be asked to at least ponder any of its possible shortcomings. Certainly, the tough economic news over the past couple of years suggests the U.S. system isn't perfect.

It turns out that the title is not a product of this board. The revised Texas standards simply keep the name adopted by the state board in 1997. And, in fact, the name apparently wasn't the idea of the state board back then, either. The language was taken straight out of a provision crafted by the state legislature, in the Texas Education Code, section 28.002.

The section provides a list of subjects Texas school districts must offer as part of the curriculum: English language arts, science, math, etc. For social studies, it says this should "consist of Texas, United States, and world history, government and geography." Pretty straightforward so far.

Further down, it calls for education in "health, with emphasis on proper nutrition and exercise." Seems like a pretty innocuous clarification. Next, physical education, fine arts, and then, yes, "economics with emphasis on the free enterprise system and its benefits."

I'm ready for the criticism to come rolling in. "What are you, some kind of socialist? Or worse yet, a communist?" Nope. But the wording in the Texas code, and in the title of the standards, seems a bit loaded, suggesting students don't really need to bring an open mind to examining our nation's economic system.

Posted by Erik Robelen at 5:02 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

You've been reading here about Massachusetts' tightrope walk on Race to the Top and the common standards. You remember: the state, much revered for its high academic standards, says it will not adopt the common standards if they are less rigorous than its own. But to be best positioned to win a chunk of the money available under Race to the Top, it has to promise by the June 1 RTT application deadline to adopt the common standards—which won't be released in their final form until June 2—by August 2.

What's a state to do?

Some people are suggesting that U.S. education officials ought to at least ease up on the Aug. 2 timeline. Another idea making the rounds is that the feds could carve out an exception to their tough RTT talk, allowing states with top-notch standards to certify that their standards are as rigorous as those in the common core. (see Mike Petrilli of the Fordham Institute and a recent brief by Democrats for Education Reform for some of these arguments.)

The seal-of-approval idea is interesting—interesting enough that the feds are actually allowing it themselves, in another arena. You might remember that President Barack Obama has proposed tying Title I money for disadvantaged students, in part, to whether states have adopted the common core. This controversial proposal allows states an alternative: they don't have to adopt the common standards if they work with their higher education systems to draft standards that are just as good, or certify that the ones they already have are equivalent.

Back in March, a state commissioner of education wondered in a conversation with me whether this same logic and exception could be applied to Race to the Top. So I put the question to Race to the Top chief Joanne Weiss, and got a very quick and very clear answer: nope.

She was pretty darn clear about saying that the RTT rules would not be changing. Okay. Is it possible the department will reconsider the Aug. 2 adoption timeline then?

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

In case you missed it, another controversial chapter in the annals of the Texas board of education closed Friday. For the moment, at least.

The elected state board, led by a bloc of staunch conservatives, approved a new set of social studies standards that will guide state testing and instructional materials for the coming decade. The action came in a series of strictly party-lines votes, with the exception of economics, where the 15-member board somehow managed to muster bipartisan unanimity.

To say the Texas effort has been controversial is an understatement. Leading conservatives on the board have said their goal has been to balance a perceived liberal bias in the state's existing standards. But Democrats on the board, as well as many outside observers, and even a majority of the educators tasked with helping to craft the new standards, instead say the panel's Republicans have muscled through a lot of amendments that inject their political and religious views into the classroom.

"I think we've corrected the imbalance we've had in the past and now have our curriculum headed straight down the middle," said Don McLeroy, one of the board's leading conservatives, according to a story in the Dallas Morning News.

Democratic board member Mary Helen Berlanga criticized the addition of "all these last-minute cut-and-paste proposals," the Morning News reported, while fellow Democrat Mavis Knight said the board "has made these standards political and had little academic discussion about what students need to learn."

Even U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan issued a statement on the action. Although his words seemed carefully chosen so as not to directly criticize the Texas board, it wasn't hard to read between the lines when he said politics should be kept out of curriculum debates.

"Parents should be very wary of politicians designing curriculum," he said.

Earlier last week, as I noted in a blog item the other day, former Education Secretary Rod Paige, a Republican who served in President Bush's cabinet, also weighed in.

"The history of our nation and the history of the state should not be handmaidens to carry political ideology for either party," Paige, a former superintendent in Houston, SEE ADD was quoted as saying by the San Antonio Express-News. He told the newspaper that the board appears to be too involved in establishing what details of history students should learn.

"Let history speak its authoritative voice through the qualified historians and educators," he said.

More than 200 amendments were considered last week, on top of several hundred more that were debated during two previous rounds of board discussion in January and March.

Looking ahead, a few news stories suggest this may not be the final word on the state's social studies standards.

The Dallas Morning News piece reports that some state Democratic lawmakers and other critics in Texas have said the board could revisit the standards next January, after two of the social conservative members who are being replaced by more moderate members take office. But most experts, the story continues, suggest that the board is unlikely to amend the new standards unless Democrat Bill White wins the governor's race. If he does, then the Democrat could appoint the board's chairman, the story explains, who controls the agenda and could put the issue back before the board.

White said on Saturday that that's exactly what would happen if he defeats incumbent Gov. Rick Perry in November.

"Obviously, I would pick a chair who would try to undo some of the damage that is being done as quickly as we can," he told the San Antonio Express-News.

But a spokeswoman for Gov. Perry, a Republican, said state board members are "independently elected officials, and the governor has no intention of getting involved in that process," the Express-News story reports.

Meanwhile, an editorial by the Austin American-Statesman points out that legislators don't actually have to provide any money for textbooks written to reflect the new standards.

"Clearly, [the legislature] has the right to decide whether to pay for textbooks that shouldn't be in the classroom," the editorial quotes state Rep. Dawnna Dukes, a Democrat on the House appropriations committee, as saying.

In fact, money problems in the Lone Star State are already likely to delay state adoption of new social studies textbooks. At the board meeting last week, members voted once again to postpone the purchase of new science textbooks and related instructional materials. Those materials are needed to reflect science standards the board approved in 2009.

Finally, some critics of the current state board have suggested it's time for the legislature to rein in the board's authority to write state standards. It's already taken other recent actions that reduce the board's role over instructional materials. Although the state board still has responsibility for adopting textbooks for use in Texas classrooms, measures approved last year hand the state education commissioner authority to develop a separate list of online instructional materials. For more on those changes, see this recent EdWeek story.

I'll close with a quote on last week's action by Republican board member David Bradley, who was unapologetic about the influence of politics on the process, which he argues is nothing new in Texas.

"We took our licks, we got outvoted," he said of the last time the standards were debated and approved in 1999, according to a story in the Associated Press. "Now it's 10-5 in the other direction. ... We're an elected body, this is a political process. Outside that, go find yourself a benevolent dictator."

Photo: Board member Mary Helen Berlanga shows her frustration at the many amendments under consideration during last week's meeting in Austin. Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman/AP

Posted by Erik Robelen at 3:32 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A lot of attention has focused on the development and content of the common standards as they have undergone multiple iterations. Now the final standards document is set for a June 2 release. How happy states—and a multitude of interest groups—will be with it remains to be seen. But once the common standards are finished, many pairs of eyes will turn to the states to see what they will do.

State have, of course, already been engaged in a lot of discussion about the standards. But now they're getting down to the nitty-gritty question of whether they will actually adopt them. The Race to the Top competition, which favors states that promise to adopt by Aug. 2, stirs incentive into the pot.

A recent memo issued by Colorado Commissioner of Education Dwight D. Jones offers a glimpse of the process states are going through now (some news coverage of it here). Distributed to the state's local superintendents, the memo tries to address many of the questions educators are asking about how the common standards mesh with states' own standards, and how the common assessments being developed by consortia of states would interact with states' own testing systems.

It's tricky territory for state leaders. Note how Commissioner Jones dismisses rumors that Colorado standards will be thrown out in favor of the common standards. Colorado recently spent lots of time and money reworking its own, and officials there have wondered why all that effort would be tossed overboard for a new set of standards. This is just one of a number of objections we can expect to hear as states seriously consider which way to go with common standards.

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

As I wrote the other day, the Texas state school board is back in action this week, focusing its energy on debating, and debating, new social studies standards. It's expected to hold a final vote on the standards later today.

Among the topics of discussion? Whether to include President Obama's full middle name, Hussein—which, of course, also happens to be the last name of a former dictator in the Middle East—in a standard that calls on high school history students to examine the historical significance of the 2008 presidential election, reports the Dallas Morning News.

David Bradley, one of the board's staunch conservatives, had offered the amendment. But at least one fellow Republican was skeptical of his motives, according to the newspaper's account.

"The intent of what you're doing is pretty obvious, but I don't think it is necessarily correct," said board member Bob Craig, noting that other presidents like John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan don't have their middle names listed in the standards.

Democrat Mary Helen Berlanga was more blunt: "I'm getting pretty fed up with this conduct and the way you're trying to be derogatory."

Ultimately, Bradley agreed to abandon his amendment, in order "to stop the whining," the Morning News story reports.

Meanwhile, an Associated Press story says that Texas students would be required to evaluate efforts by global organizations to undermine U.S. sovereignty under one amendment championed by conservatives that was approved yesterday.

Another Republican amendment dropped the study of a landmark 1949 federal court ruling that declared schools could not legally segregate Mexican-American students, even though the practice remained popular in Texas for decades, the Associated Press story says. But fellow Republican Bob Craig successfully restored it.

On Wednesday, a long list of people testified about the proposed standards, including many who criticized them. The critics include former U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, who was a superintendent for the Houston school district before joining President Bush's cabinet.

Amendments that conservatives on the state board have made since January came under fire from six of the nine members of a panel of teachers and professors who helped write the original draft of the new high school history standards.

"The SBOE's suggested edits to the new curriculum reflect their lack of historic knowledge and their failure to listen to the appointed citizen review committees," those members wrote in a two-page statement, according to another Associated Press story this week. "We have reunited as public citizens to voice our concern, our collective disgust if you will, at the distorted culmination of our work."

But some conservatives defended the board's handiwork.

"I think you've come up with a darn good product," state Rep. Wayne Christian, a Republican, told the board, speaking on behalf of the Texas Christian Coalition.

Posted by Erik Robelen at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

You might think that passing a bill to reauthorize the America COMPETES Act would be a pretty easy sell in Congress.

After all, the legislation, which includes a major focus on improving education in the STEM fields, is supported by a wide array of organizations, from the National Science Teachers Association, the American Chemical Society, and major universities, to the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It's a pretty safe bet for politicians of all stripes.

But this is an election year. And like so much else in Washington, the bill is generating some partisan tensions. (That said, I should emphasize that at least some Republicans have joined their Democratic colleagues in backing the legislation.)

Last week, House Democrats, who hold a solid majority, abruptly yanked the legislation from the House floor in response to a surprise Republican maneuver that forced an uncomfortable vote on an anti-pornography provision. (In essence, if Democrats were to vote against the GOP measure—which made major changes to the bill, including cutting funding levels and scrapping some proposed new programs—they also would be on record as implicitly saying they're OK with federal employees' watching pornography on Uncle Sam's dime.) I blogged about this action last week.

Then, on Wednesday of this week, Democrats brought the legislation back to the House floor, under special rules that required a two-thirds majority for passage, after having made some new concessions to attract broader support. But they didn't get enough votes. The final tally was 261-148 in favor, with only 15 Republicans voting aye.

"I'm disappointed, but not deterred," Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., the chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, said in a statement on May 19. "As I've said before, this bill is too important to let fall by the wayside. More than half of our economic growth since World War II can be directly attributed to development and adoption of new technologies."

The press release notes that the bill as revised for this week had two changes. First, it reduced the authorization period for the legislation from five years to three. Second, it included the Republican language added last week that bans the use of the authorized funds to pay the salaries of federal employees disciplined for looking at pornography at work. It also included 52 amendments adopted on the floor earlier this month.

But Rep. Ralph Hall of Texas, the science committee's top Republican, was apparently unimpressed.

"While I remain committed to the underlying goals of the America COMPETES Act and to working with Democrats in a true bipartisan fashion to address Republican concerns, the bill before us today continues to take us in a much more costly direction and authorizes a number of new programs which have little to do with prioritizing investments in basic research and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education," he said in a press release.

Norman Ornstein, a senior scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, penned a piece for the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call criticizing the Republicans for their maneuver on the America COMPETES Act, a device known as a motion to recommit, or MTR.

He explained what happened this way: "These MTRs have been in the news not because they represented the minority party's alternative vision for dealing with energy policy or science and tech and jobs policy—but because they were designed to kill bills by offering red herring 'gotcha' amendments, including one in the energy bill to require contractors to ensure that no employee had been convicted of child molestation and one in the [America COMPETES] bill to require that any federal employee who had viewed or downloaded pornography be fired. Both were attempts to force Democrats to withdraw their bills—and more importantly, to set up 30-second attack ads against vulnerable members for supporting child molesters and pornography."

For more background on the education components of the America COMPETES legislation, see this blog item and this EdWeek story.

Posted by Erik Robelen at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

When it comes to assessment, comparability is something lots of folks are interested in. In other words: How do we compare Idaho students with Georgia students?

While No Child Left Behind lifted the veil in a new way on achievement gaps, it offered limited help in making cross-state comparisons of that achievement, since each state gets to design its own tests.

Now that the common-standards-and-assessment train has picked up speed, there is renewed talk about the prospects for comparability. Especially with federal money hovering to design assessment systems used by many states, some are asking, might it be possible that enough states sign on to one type of test that we could get traction on cross-state comparisons?

Or is there a way to design tests that still yield comparability even though multiple tests are being used? (This is a question the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association, which are organizing the common-standards work, are exploring with experts, according to a paper they released last month.)

Now another paper is exploring some of this comparability terrain. This paper, released last week, is written by six researchers from the College Board, the Educational Testing Service, and Pearson Learning.

The paper is on a new resource page created by the ETS.

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 9:57 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

This morning, we published a story highlighting a new analysis of 2009 NAEP results for urban districts in reading. At the big-picture level, 8th graders in large cities posted small gains in reading over the past two years, though urban 4th graders failed to show any improvement deemed statistically significant.

The story provides plenty more details about the results for urban districts overall, as well as for a batch of individual school systems. The strongest improvement over time is seen in Atlanta, which saw big gains at both the 4th and 8th grade levels since 2002. The increases, in fact, far outpaced the growth of the nation as a whole on NAEP since then, though Atlanta still trails the national averages in actual performance on the exams. (Urban 4th graders overall also saw larger gains since 2002 than the nation as a whole in reading.)

Of course, my story only touches the surface. To dig more deeply, check out for yourself the NAEP Trial Urban District Assessment for reading 2009.

Also, you may be interested in this EdWeek story about the companion report for math, which was released in December.

Posted by Erik Robelen at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

206. That's how many people have signed up to testify today before the Texas state board of education about proposed new social studies standards, according to the Associated Press.

Yes, indeed, the Texas board, no stranger to controversy, is aiming to wrap up debate this week on the revised standards, which have attracted national attention. A final vote is scheduled for Friday.

Led by a bloc of staunch conservatives, the state board in April gave tentative approval to the standards on a party-line vote of 10-5, with all Democrats opposed.

Among those scheduled to testify before the board today is none other than former U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, who was the superintendent of the Houston Independent School District before being tapped in 2001 for President Bush's cabinet.

"The history of our nation and the history of the state should not be handmaidens to carry political ideology for either party," Paige was quoted as saying by the San Antonio Express-News. He told the newspaper that the board appears to be too involved in establishing what details of history students should learn.

"Let history speak its authoritative voice through the qualified historians and educators," he said.

NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous also is expected to testify today. Jealous told the News-Express that the proposed standards don't mention Texas' secession from the Union to fight with the Confederacy during the Civil War, and it doesn't require students to learn about the NAACP.

The newspaper explains that while the standards don't mention secession, they do mention the Civil War 18 times and instruct students to understand "how events and issues shaped the history of Texas during the Civil War."

For background on the Texas situation, here are some links that may be useful.

First, I blogged last month when the board released the latest revisions to the draft standards, so you can read them for yourself.

Second, one reason the Texas standards have received so much attention is that they not only guide the development of new textbooks and related instructional materials in the Lone Star State, but are widely seen as shaping the materials used in many classrooms outside the state. In this story, I more closely examine the extent to which Texas standards and textbooks really do have national reach, and how recent changes in Texas could diminish that influence over time.

Third, in another story, I examine recent efforts to revise social studies standards not only in Texas, but also in North Carolina and Ohio. Suffice it to say, it's a topic that tends to generate plenty of debate, from what gets taught to when.

Finally, to help make sense of what's going on in Texas, you might want to check out TEKSWatch, which is hosted by the Center for History Teaching & Learning at the University of Texas at El Paso. Amid all the passion and rhetoric inspired by the Texas debate, the site provides what appears to be a fairly even-handed look at the facts and the background. (For example it notes that while Jefferson has been removed from a list of figures influencing 18th-century revolutions, in 10th grade world history, he remains in the treatment of the American Revolution, in 8th grade U.S. history.)

TEKSWatch also provides a handy set of links to a long list of news stories and commentaries about the situation.

Posted by Erik Robelen at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Yeah, there's a debate about common standards, but until now, I haven't seen this tactic used: A Massachusetts research and policy group that has been critical of the proposed standards, has filed Freedom of Information Act requests for correspondence between Massachusetts officials and other major figures involved in the initiative.

You can read details of the FOIA request yourself, in the Pioneer Institute's press release.

The Pioneer Institute has been arguing that the common-core standards would represent a step down from Massachusetts' rigorous standards. See here and here for papers it has issued on the topic.

Secretary of Education Paul Reville responded to the FOIA requests by casting them as a political attack on the state's consideration of common standards. (The Pioneer Institute was once helmed by Charlie Baker, a Republican who seeks to challenge Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick in November.)

"We have made it very clear that we will not adopt any standards unless they are at least as rigorous as our own existing Massachusetts standards, and [we] have been fully open, honest and available to discuss this important policy consideration," he said in a statement e-mailed to EdWeek.

The state won't make any decisions about adoption without reviewing the final drafts, engaging the public in the discussion about them, and giving the board of education time to consider and vote on them, Reville said. (See here for a related blog post about the state's adoption timing.)

"Certain critics," Reville noted, "have assailed Massachusetts for even considering the common-core national standards. But our repeated message to them and to the public has been clear: We will not adopt the national standards unless we are confident that they match the rigor of the existing Massachusetts standards."

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

It was only Monday that we were telling you how Massachusetts Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester had laid out a timeline for common-standards adoption that would get the state maximum points in Round 2 of Race to the Top. Now comes news that maybe Massachusetts won't apply at all.

Chester told a Boston radio station that it's "maddening" that the state lost points in Round 1 because it refused to promise it would adopt common standards before the final version was even out. Nonetheless, he said, the state is moving ahead at full speed to prepare its application, but it's not sure it will actually submit it.

Hmmm. It's not as though the final standards document will come as a surprise to top Massachusetts education officials, who have been working closely with the standards-writers the whole way through. (The state board of education, which will have to go thumbs-up-or-down on the standards, has not had the same level of intimate involvement, though.)

Both Chester and state Education Secretary Paul Reville have, you might remember, made a very public and very repeated point of saying that the state would not adopt any standards that are inferior to its own much-admired set. So it was interesting to hear on Monday of the RTT-compliant timeline Chester had sketched out for the board. And now, perhaps, some misgivings?

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 9:34 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Okay. So if you were a reporter who was keeping track of the different consortia forming to apply for Race to the Top assessment money, and you saw this Web page newly posted by the Educational Testing Service, would you get the impression that perhaps ETS is partnering with the College Board and Pearson Learning to help states in one of those consortia?

Mmm-hmm. You might. But that doesn't mean you would necessarily be correct.

Confused? Let me back up.

Not long ago, we told you that the College Board and ACT Inc., were each talking with states to see if they could help them tackle high school end-of-course tests for the $30 million being given out in the RTT assessment competition. (And we've been writing a good deal about the other consortia vying for the $320 million for comprehensive assessment systems.)

Now the ETS comes along and posts the new resource page. In the very first paragraph, it talks about the consortia forming for the Race to the Top competition. In the second paragraph, it mentions that it stands "ready to help in the common assessments initiative."

Among the resources on the page are a paper that discusses how different tests can yield comparable results, a topic of great interest to the organizers of the common standards initiative. The paper is written by six men from the ETS, College Board, and Pearson Learning.

Also among the resources is a paper about high school assessment, which is one of the two areas in the RTT assessment competition. It's co-authored by the same six men. Another white paper on the resource page, the more general "Thoughts on an Assessment of Common Core Standards," is also, uhh, authored by... you got it. The same team. And the very first sentence in that "Thoughts" paper announces that the three organizations have formed an assessment collaborative.

So, wassup? Are ETS, the College Board and Pearson talking with states about an RTT assessment consortium? (the College Board discussed this possibility with states in a May 10 conference call, which we told you about last week.)

In response to my inquiry, the ETS, Pearson, and the College Board drafted a statement saying that they have "formed a collaboration to explore how innovative approaches and best practices in high-quality assessments can be applied to the creation of a common assessment system. This agreement does not prohibit ETS, Pearson or the College Board from pursuing work outside of the collaboration. While neither ETS nor the group as a whole is working directly with states on Race to the Top assessment grant matters, the collaboration is helping in the public discussions surrounding Race to the Top assessments by providing information, research and practical experience."

Stay tuned.

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 2:46 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A high school math teacher in Alabama chose to illustrate a geometry lesson by discussing with students the angles they would need to calculate if they were aiming a gunshot at President Barack Obama.

I'm not making this stuff up. It's all here in a story from The Birmingham News.

Apparently the content of the lesson was alarming enough that the Secret Service was summoned. But those officials left after finding no "credible threat" to the president.

The teacher has an understanding boss. Jefferson County Schools Superintendent Phil Hammonds tells the newspaper that the teacher used bad judgment, but that there are no plans to fire him. A long talk, instead, is in the offing.

UPDATE: Since we first told you about this story this afternoon, Hammonds has had a change of heart and the teacher involved has been put on administrative leave and may be fired. Hammonds told The News his office was flooded with calls from people upset the district had taken no action agains the teacher after the story about the geometry lesson went viral on the Internet.

"As a district, we are embarrassed by his actions and what he said," Hammonds told The News this afternoon. "There is nothing that can be said to rationalize what was said. We take this very seriously. There is no place in our society for a person to make these comments."

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 1:53 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

As the common standards initiative nears the point of producing the final standards document, more attention will shift to the states as they weigh adoption.

A good bit of outreach is taking shape by standards advocates to address states' concerns. But it's not hard to imagine that there will be a number of bumps in the road in more than a few places.

This account of a recent regional policy summit hosted by the Council of State Governments is generally upbeat and supportive of the standards, but contains a few tidbits about some things states are wary about.

One is the prospect of comparing states that have differing levels of resources. There's also concern about whether states can implement the standards quickly, and whether they can afford the necessary investments in professional development.

Stay tuned as the landscape of state adoptions—and rhetoric about adoptions—becomes clearer.

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 9:48 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

States are working to complete their applications for Round 2 of the Race to the Top competition. In doing so, they are, of course, scrutinizing the ways in which their Round 1 applications fell short, and trying to shore up those weaknesses for a second bite at the apple.

Case in point: Massachusetts. This story from the Lowell Sun notes that the state could pick up 15 points by adopting the common standards by the Aug. 2 deadline specified in the RTT rules (though the Ed Department's RTT scoring rubric specifies 20 points for standards adoption. Hmmm.). In a memo to the Massachusetts board of education last week, Commissioner of Education Mitchell D. Chester sketched out a timetable for adoption that complies with that timeline. UPDATE: Race to the Top chief Joanne Weiss e-mailed in response to my "hmmm." She explains that Massachusetts got only 5 of the 20 points available for adopting common standards in Round 1, so in Round 2 it could conceivably pick up the other 15. Thanks for the clarification!

Whether the Massachusetts board will indeed adopt the standards—especially in the face of criticism and questions in some quarters about whether they're as rigorous as Massachusetts' current standards—is anyone's guess. And whether they'll do so by the Aug. 2 deadline, to gain maximum RTT points, is also a question. (Ed Secretary Paul Reville addresses this watering-down allegation at a recent convening about the common standards.)

Then there's the question of whether gaining any points for adoption will make a difference, if other stumbling blocks in the state's Round 1 application (think teacher evaluation, union buy-in) can't be resolved.

Massachusetts is not the only state mulling over the role common standards will play in its Round 2 RTT strategy. A recent Power Point presentation made by Florida department of education officials mentions it as well, and notes that the state board of education is aiming to adopt the standards in late July.

UPDATE: Maryland plans a tentative approval of the standards next week. Department of education spokesman William Reinhard says the board "believes that embracing the common core could have a positive effect on Maryland's RTTT submission." Since the final standards won't be available before the June 1 deadline, however, the board will reserve final approval for later, he said.

Common-standards advocates who are tracking state adoption timelines have found that fewer than a dozen plan adoptions later than the Aug. 2 RTT deadline.

My colleague Michele McNeil details the Round 2 activity, including Massachusetts' and Florida's actions to resituate themselves, in this story.

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Americans of all racial and ethnic groups are finishing high school and college in greater shares than they were a decade ago, according to a new report from the Brookings Institution.

Today's story by my colleague Erik Robelen gives you the lowdown.

The percentages of Hispanics and African-Americans that completed high school rose significantly (8 percent). But before we get too excited, let's note a couple of more sobering facts: Even with that progress, only six in 10 Hispanics and eight in 10 blacks finish high school, compared with nine in 10 of whites.

And these figures include people who complete high school by taking the GED, which many view as a big cut below a high school diploma. In a time when more and more people are saying a high school education falls far short of what's necessary for a good future, and as the U.S. population continues to diversify, these figures and gaps offer plenty of cause for concern.

College-completion rates rose in the past decade, though more modestly. And we still see troubling gaps. Black and Hispanics lag behind whites, and whites lag behind Asians.

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

As readers of this blog know, I've been following the Race to the Top assessment competition in stories and in blog posts in this space. (If you're new and want to catch up, this story and this blog post will get you started, with lots of links to earlier stuff.)

Those of you who wonder how much $350 million will reshape the assessment landscape might want to take a look at what former Gates Foundation education director Tom Vander Ark has to say about it today in his blog for the Huffington Post.

Vander Ark argues that the federal grants represent a tremendous opportunity for states to throw their weight behind fully revamped, new-age, comprehensive assessment systems. But he fears that tight financial times could lead too many to opt for a cheaper, not-really-that-different form of exam, trading away a pivotal opportunity to make testing a valuable form of insight into student learning (and school improvement).

I'm not sure I completely agree with his characterizations of what the two camps in the main "comprehensive" part of the competition are planning. (See here for a paper outlining the visions of the consortia applying for the money.)

And I'm not sure what to think of Vander Ark's assertion that half the states are "focused on less expensive common tests; the other half will venture into the realm of possibility." Hmmm. Wonder what he's basing his count totals on? But his depiction of the two camps' positioning and views of each other are intriguing. UPDATE: A key player in one of the consortia responds to Vander Ark's depictions here.

In any case, the post is worth a read. See what you think. (Those of you who are a tad squeamish should skip over the blood-and-scalpels metaphor. Wonder how he's working that into a blog item about testing? We're back at square one again: read it.)

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

In what organizers are billing as a "first of its kind" initiative, a Chicago museum and university are teaming up to offer a new teacher-training program in science that aims to address the need for better qualified science instructors in local schools.

The partnership will seize on the individual strengths of the Museum of Science and Industry and the Illinois Institute of Technology, says a press release on the plans. The program will lead to the awarding of a master of science education degree or a middle-school science endorsement, with candidates attending classes both at the museum and the university.

The announcement notes that in Chicago, more than 70 percent of middle-school science teachers lack a degree or endorsement in science.

"Without the content and teaching strategies, research confirms that these teachers are left at a disadvantage to create the next generation of scientists and engineers," David Mosena, the president and chief executive officer of the science museum, said in the news release. "Every child should have the opportunity to achieve their full potential in science and technology from well-qualified science teachers, and this ground-breaking partnership serves teachers whose students are most in need of improved science instruction."

Through the courses at the science museum, candidates will develop a broad background in science that aligns with national science standards and local curricula, the announcement says. Meanwhile, the Illinois Institute of Technology's "research in the effective delivery of science content and classroom instructional practices" will provide a foundation for the program's structure and approach. The institute will also provide required courses on curriculum and adolescent psychology.

Posted by Erik Robelen at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

College completion rates among Latino students are stagnant at very low levels, a troubling indicator of lackluster future choices for those students, and of needed improvement in the K-12 system, a new paper from WestEd argues.

(Adding fuel, a paper by the Pew Hispanic Center finds that Hispanic high school dropouts are less likely to earn a GED than are black or white dropouts. See my colleague Mary Ann Zehr's blog for more on the Pew report.)

The WestEd paper, by UCLA's Patricia Gándara, argues for a number of policy supports that straddle the worlds of education, housing and social services. In education, she advocates early and ongoing cognitive enrichment work, at home as well as at school, that capitalizes on Latino students' language and content knowledge. This approach views Latino students' cultural and language skills as assets rather than impediments to learning.

Gandara also discusses the importance of recruiting and training good teachers into two-way bilingual education programs, and ensuring a broad approach to college preparation that includes not only academic work, but financial aid advice and peer support.

While you're at it, you might take a look at some of WestEd's other policy papers. In line with this blog's coverage of college readiness issues are David T. Conley's look at how K-12 education should be restructured and reconceptualized to prepare kids for college, and E.D. Hirsch Jr.'s look at why our education system has a "knowledge deficit."

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Opponents in Idaho of the International Baccalaureate program have recently been "taking to the streets" to publicize their concerns that the IB is spreading an anti-American ideology in local schools, an Associated Press story reports.

Protesters have objected to IB programs at an elementary school in Hayden Lake and a high school in Coeur d'Alene. Similar controversies erupted in Utah in 2008 and in Michigan in 2005, the AP notes.

One protester interviewed by the AP, Luke Sommer, expressed concern that the IB program undermines American values.

"They want to change the way your child thinks, not feed your child's mind with information," he said.

But Drew Deutsch, the director of the IB Americas program in New York, told the AP that the curriculum "isn't anti-anything."

"It's a program that approaches education from a global perspective and it reinforces a rigorous curriculum with high standards," Deutsch said. "The emphasis is on critical-thinking skills."

Meanwhile, in March, a Georgia parent filed a federal civil rights complaint against the DeKalb County, Ga., schools, alleging discrimination against black students in the district's IB program.

For more background on the IB, check out this EdWeek story from 2007, which explains how the number of U.S. schools offering IB programs has expanded rapidly in recent years.

Posted by Erik Robelen at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Earlier this afternoon, I was working feverishly to get a story ready for EdWeek about the U.S. House passing the America COMPETES Act, bipartisan legislation that aims in part to improve education in the STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, and math. I had left a few holes to fill, such as the actual vote count. But then Congress threw a curve ball.

As I was in the midst of typing an especially eloquent passage (OK, maybe not so eloquent), I got an e-mail explaining that a Republican "motion to recommit" the bill had just been approved. In response, the majority Democrats opted to abruptly pull the legislation from the House floor without a final vote.

The Hill newspaper, which covers Capitol Hill, helpfully explained what was really going on in a story headlined: "Anti-Porn Provision Sinks Dem Jobs Bill."

"[T]he Republican motion to recommit the bill—a parliamentary tactic that gives the minority one final chance to amend legislation—contained language prohibiting federal funds from going 'to salaries to those officially disciplined for violations regarding the viewing, downloading, or exchanging of pornography, including child pornography, on a federal computer or while performing official government duties,' " the story explains. The provision apparently "scared dozens of Democrats" into voting with their Republican colleagues to pass the motion, the story says.

Democrats ultimately decided to pull the bill from the House floor because the Republican move also made a host of other changes directly relevant to the COMPETES Act, such as eliminating any authorization for programs beyond 2013, striking proposed new programs from the bill, and freezing funding in existing ones at current levels.

Rep. Bart Gordon, a Tennessee Democrat who is the chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, sharply criticized the Republican maneuver.

"I'm disappointed that politics trumped good policy," he said in a press release. "The minority was willing to trade American jobs and out nation's economic competitiveness for the chance to run a good political ad."

He added: "We're all opposed to federal employees watching pornography. That is not a question; but that's not what this was about. The motion to recommit was about gutting funding for our science agencies."

A press release from Republicans on the House science committee explained that GOP lawmakers support many of the programs in the legislation but are concerned about "increased costs, a shift in priorities, and the inappropriate use of federal funding represented in some of the programs."

"I remain committed to the underlying goals of the America COMPETES Act," said Rep. Ralph Hall of Texas, the panel's top Republican. "However, this bill spends too much money and goes far beyond the original intent and scope of the COMPETES legislation."

I should note that not all House Republicans appear to agree with Rep. Hall. Some were expected to support the House bill.

For more background about the bill, see this recent blog item and check out this story.

Word has it that Democrats will try again to pass the legislation next week.

Posted by Erik Robelen at 5:12 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Arizona is already the subject of national debate because of its new immigration law. But there's more to watch in that state that has ethnic and racial implications.

Gov. Jan Brewer signed a bill Tuesday making it illegal to teach courses that encourage "ethnic solidarity" in the schools. That measure is intended to do away with "ethnic studies" courses, and was sparked by such classes in Tucson.

The new law, House Bill 2281, forbids teachings that "promote the overthrow of the United States government, promote resentment toward a race or class of people, are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group, [or] advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals."

State schools superintendent Tom Horne, who pushed for the law, is also making the issue a prominent part of his campaign for state attorney general, featuring mention of it on his campaign website.

You can see what a New York Times blogger has to say about it here, read Politico's story here, and see Horne debate sociologist Michael Eric Dyson about it on CNN here.

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The organizers of the Common Core State Standards Initiative are aiming for June 2 to release the final version of that much-talked-about document.

Delaying such target dates isn't without precedent in this initiative, but as of now, June 2 is the date to watch for.

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Tomorrow is National Lab Day, but don't worry if you've got other plans. Despite the name, organizers of the public-private initiative explain that it's not really a one-day event. In fact, it's a five-year effort launched last fall to promote hands-on student learning in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

The centerpiece of National Lab Day is the website, which provides a service akin to online dating sites like Match.com. Classroom teachers register online and post the description of a project they want to undertake, as well as a request for help, whether the expertise of a scientist or money to pay for lab equipment. Then they're matched up with volunteers and potential funders who have registered with the site and get notified of the requests. Volunteers can also simply browse the online requests.

"We're putting aside the textbook for a little bit," Jack D. Hidary, an entrepreneur in the finance and technology sectors who is chairing National Lab Day, told me in a recent interview. "We've got astronomers working with kids. We've got doctors coming in, ... scientists from NASA."

The effort is a partnership among federal agencies, foundations, professional societies, and other STEM-related groups, such as the National Science Teachers Association, the American Chemical Society, and the National Science Foundation. The emphasis is not only on promoting hands-on science, but also on connecting students with professionals to inspire them.

I explain more about National Lab Day, as well as several other recent initiatives to help students gain access to high-quality lab experiences, in this EdWeek story.

In recognition of National Lab Day, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is scheduled to appear tomorrow morning at Martin Luther King Elementary School in the District of Columbia, where he'll observe a solar-car project and discuss the long-term value of STEM education to the U.S. economy.

Other Obama administration officials are also appearing at STEM-education events this week pegged to National Lab Day, including NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, White House Domestic Policy Council Director Melody Barnes, and John Holdren, the president's science and technology adviser.

For another perspective on National Lab Day, check out this recent EdWeek commentary by Francis Eberle, the executive director of the NSTA.

Posted by Erik Robelen at 4:22 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Texas has the unfortunate distinction of being home to one of the bigger dropout-rate scandals. (If you don't remember, here's a little prod.) Now comes news that some are raising questions about whether thousands of students categorized as home-schooled are actually dropouts.

According to the Houston Chronicle, more than 22,000 high school students who disappeared from class in 2008 were not counted as dropouts because administrators said they were being taught at home. The population of home-schooled high school students in Texas has tripled in the last decade, and the state's "lax documentation and hands-off practices make it impossible to know how many of these students are actually being taught at home," according to the newspaper.

One expert tells the paper: "Schools are beginning to use the home-schooling designation as a way to encourage students to leave or indeed for some school districts to look like they have fewer dropouts."

Ouch.

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has a new president, J. Michael Shaughnessy, who has just written a column highlighting some top agenda items for the group.

The first—surprise, surprise—is its work on the Common Core State Standards Initiative. The group will continue to provide "perspective" on the standards themselves and on their implementation across the country, Shaughnessy writes.

Second, the council will follow up on recommendations for research and practice the NCTM has just issued in a report focused on "linking research and practice." The council recently assembled some 60 math education researchers and classroom teachers for a four-day working conference to examine strengthening that link.

Third, the council has launched several new task forces to "create and promote innovative ways" to implement the NCTM vision for emphasizing "reasoning and sense making as the primary goals in all mathematics classrooms," Shaughnessy explains, "particularly secondary school classrooms."

Shaughnessy, who became president of the NCTM last month, will serve a two-year term. He succeeds Hank Kepner. Shaughnessy was the director of the math education Ph.D. program at Portland State University from 1996 to 2008. In addition to that work, he taught for 18 years at Oregon State University and has held visiting professorships in Spain, Australia, and New Zealand.

Posted by Erik Robelen at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Michigan high schoolers could skip a required Algebra II course with their parents' consent under a bill headed to the desk of Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm, reports the Detroit Free Press.

The bill won overwhelming majorities last week in both the state House and Senate.

The Free Press story explains that critics say the Algebra II mandate, added as part of changes to the statewide curriculum several years back, prompts many struggling math students to drop out of school. The bill would allow students instead to take an alternative math course, such as statistics or data analysis.

"If someone has very good math skills, then they probably should take higher-level math courses," Rep. Joel Sheltrown, a Democrat, was quoted as saying in the bill's favor. "I'm worried about those kids that don't have those skills."

The story notes that Gov. Granholm and others who championed the original Algebra II requirement have said it would raise expectations for students and better prepare them for college.

It's not clear from the story whether Gov. Granholm, a Democrat, would sign the bill. A separate article from the Associated Press did indicate that Granholm has resisted changes to the state's graduation standards.

I've left a message with the governor's press office and will post an update if I learn more.

UPDATE: I finally heard back from the governor's office. The official word from a spokeswoman was that the governor is "currently reviewing the bill."

Posted by Erik Robelen at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

To get your week started, you could do worse than to begin with a bracing attack on an approach to literacy instruction. It's not often that you will encounter someone comparing a popular literacy-instruction approach to an invasive plant species (and not in a good way).

Will Fitzhugh, the editor of The Concord Review, which publishes impressive research papers by high school students, launches that attack on his blog. He coins the memorable term "literary kudzu" to describe the laser-like focus with which educators are advocating evidence-based techniques and processes in teaching writing. Fitzhugh has long called attention to the importance of in-depth research papers in high school, and the lack thereof. Check it out.

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

We're learning a little more about possible applicants for a slice of the $30 million in Race to the Top money to design high school end-of-course assessments.

Sources tell me that the College Board and ACT Inc., are each soliciting states' interest in forming consortia to apply for the money. The ACT hosted a webinar for interested states this morning, I'm told, and College Board is doing likewise on Monday.

(For those of you just checking in to the Race to the Top assessment competition, check my blog posts here and here to learn about what it is and who's officially thrown their hats into the ring. But any groups that feature the College Board or ACT would be add-ons to that list.)

We don't yet know how far the ACT or College Board ideas have evolved, and whether they will ultimately result in forming state consortia to apply for the RTT money. But an e-mail sent to some states last Friday by the College Board said its idea is to "leverage the design used in Advanced Placement (AP) examinations, which are teacher-developed (in collaboration with college faculty) and teacher-scored assessments, and which include extensive use of performance-based items that yield summative scores that are highly reliable, valid and fair. On-line administration could enable innovative assessment formats such as projects and other performance activities, and could also support lower-cost web-based teacher scoring."

We should hasten to add here that the e-mail didn't say that applying for RTT money was a given. It said the College Board was interested in supporting states' efforts that way, or "in some other way."

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

It's been a while since we've chatted with you about a plan to pilot the common standards in urban school districts. That's because the plan has been incubating at the American Federation of Teachers and the Council of the Great City Schools.

We've mentioned it in passing in our blogs, and AFT President Randi Weingarten has mentioned the plan in an official statement about the release of the standards. But no details have emerged thus far.

Now comes news about which districts are participating in that pilot. At this very-early stage of the game, it seems that Albuquerque, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Cleveland and St. Paul, Minn., are the players. Figuring this stuff out is thorny, though, so I'm guessing that the shape of the project is very much a work in progress.

UPDATE: I chatted with Jodi Omear and Stephanie Shipton of the National Governors Association (one of the two lead partners in the common standards initiative). They noted with rather a fine point that the urban pilot is "very much in the early stage" of discussion, with no final decisions yet made on the work, the funding, or the sites. Ohhhh-kay!

Also, I really should have noted in my original post on the urban pilot that not every state that includes one of those potential pilot districts is waving the for-sure flag on the common standards. And it would be kind of tough to pilot a set of standards your state hasn't adopted. As we said: a work in progress.

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A couple end-of-week things to read. First is an interesting study of supplemental reading comprehension programs that was released this week. (See my story here.) Researchers on this federally funded study found that most of the supplemental programs they tested on 5th graders offered no help in boosting their comprehension. This is a really large-scale, randomized study done over two years, so it's worth taking a look.

Also, my colleague Mary Ann Zehr has a story about a new study that defines characteristics of schools that do particularly well with African American and Latino boys. The group that catalyzed the study, the Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color, got off the ground a few years ago (see my story from their inaugural gathering). Its members are driven by great passion and high hopes for schooling that will do right by this very vulnerable group of students.

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A new federal study finds "substantial evidence" that physical activity at school CAN help improve the academic achievement of students, including through leading to higher grades or improved standardized test scores.

But, as you may have noticed, I emphasize the word can, as the apparently exhaustive review of existing literature on the subject did not find unanimity across the data.

Issued in mid-April, the study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looked at 50 studies it deemed credible on the issue. Across those 50, there were a total of 251 associations between physical activity at school, including P.E., and student performance. Of those, about half were positive and 48 percent were not statistically significant.

At the same time, only 1.5 percent of the associations were negative.

"Increasing or maintaining time dedicated to physical education may help, and does not appear to adversely impact, academic performance," the study says.

The new analysis came out just days before the U.S. House of Representatives on April 21 approved a bipartisan physical-education bill. Supporters, including the American Heart Association, are hailing the measure as an important step to combat childhood obesity and improve the health of young people. But critics suggest that, even if well-intentioned, the measure's new reporting requirements on physical activity and P.E. will burden local schools already struggling to meet a vast array of federal mandates.

For more details on the House bill, check out my recent blog item.

Here's a quick pro and con view from the debate in the House last month, both from Republicans, suggesting there's not exactly unanimity among GOP lawmakers on the plan, which appears to have widespread support on the Democratic side of the aisle.

"P.E. has been squeezed out of our schools; it needs to be welcomed back with both arms," said Rep. Zach Wamp, a Tennessee Republican and coauthor of the measure. "We need healthier children. ... This is a minor first step."

He added: "If we are going to have federal involvement in education decisions, we better have P.E. as part of the mix."

But Republican Rep. Rob Bishop from Utah isn't so sure.

"Now, are the sponsors of this bill sincere? Yes. Are the goals of this program good? Yes," he said on the House floor. "Should the federal government take the initiative to introduce it? No. ... [S]omeone has to stand up and say, we are not a school board."

He argued that "the reporting requirements that will be mandated on every district in this nation by this bill will produce more resentment than reform."

Posted by Erik Robelen at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

If you have been following my posts on the Race to the Top assessment competition, you might remember that I was stumped, mystified and intrigued by one of the four groups recently proclaiming their intent to apply for a portion of those funds. (See my post for the run-down.)

The two groups applying for $320 million to design comprehensive assessment systems were groups we knew would apply, and which we've told you about before. We knew of only one group, however, that was going after the $30 million for high school end-of-course assessments, and we had told you about them, too. So we were surprised to see another group, the State Collaborative on Assessment and Student Standards on Career Technical Education, file a notice of intent for the high school money.

Well, the Mystery Consortium is no longer such a mystery. After a bunch of phone calls and emails, I have learned that it's a group of directors of career and tech ed from various state departments of education. Most or all of the states involved are also part of the Council of Chief State School Officers' State Collaborative on Assessment and Student Standards, which seeks to offer partnership and resources in building good standards and assessments.

Exactly which states belong to this consortium, what their plans are, and how firm their plan is to actually apply for RTT money are all open questions at the moment. But I do know that there has been concern in the CTE community that as assessments take shape to measure "college and career readiness," aligned to the common standards, the "career" part risks being overlooked. So perhaps this is the beginning of a CTE community response to make sure that readiness tests truly measure that students are prepared for good jobs as well as for college.

I'll bring you more when I get it.

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

We've heard it often: standards don't accomplish much without good curriculum, assessments, and professional development. And we've heard the same mantra from advocates of the common state standards initiative.

Not surprisingly, people are stepping up to provide those things (it's especially unsurprising given the amounts of money potentially involved in doing so. But I digress...). We already know that the folks at Core Knowledge Foundation are aligning their core curriculum sequence to the common standards, and that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given at least $18.5 million in grants to develop various kinds of curriculum materials that will support those standards.

And we know that the publishing industry is positioning itself to produce scads of materials that will market themselves as aligned to the common standards as well. How closely any of these materials will truly reflect the common standards is an open question, and what to do about that potential problem is something under discussion in many private rooms in Washington.

We also know that the assessment world is abuzz over development of "next generation" assessments for the common standards, especially in light of the Race to the Top assessment competition, which is dangling $350 million over groups of states who join forces to develop such testing systems.

What I haven't heard much about—until today—is plans to provide professional development for the common standards. (If you know more than I do, please share!) The ASCD, widely known for doing just that, has signed on to become an "endorsing partner" of the common standards initiative. As such a partner, it intends to design professional development to help teachers implement the common core. David Griffith, the ASCD's director of public policy, told me today that discussions are just beginning on how to do this.

"P.D. is our bailiwick," Griffith says. "With the number of states ready to jump on board [with the common standards], there is going to be a lot of discussion about this, and a lot of people needing resources and help. We want to be a part of that."

Stay tuned.

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 4:11 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

They had a bit of a lovefest for the common standards on Capitol Hill the other day. Senators were holding another in a series of hearings on the renewal of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which is currently known as No Child Left Behind. On April 28, the theme of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee gathering was the role that standards and assessments play in our education system.

I couldn't be there, but judging by my colleague Alyson Klein's story, her blog entry, and excerpted transcripts and video of the testimony from those hearings, the proposed common-core standards came in for a heap of praise and virtually no criticism.

The opening statement of committee Chairman Tom Harkin was an example. The ranking Republican on the committee, Mike Enzi, didn't go on the attack in his statement, either.

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 1:55 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Remember that other Race to the Top competition? The one that will dole out $350 million for development and implementation of assessments aligned to common standards? Well, we have our first official indication of who's going to apply for that money.

Those of you wonky enough to have followed every breath of this thing are going to jump all over me and say that we already had an inkling of who was going to apply. And that's true; we've reported on the evolution of the applicant groups, or "consortia," and how their applications will be judged, in stories here and here, and in blog posts here and here.)

But now consortia have submitted official "letters of intent to apply" for the money. And there is one group in the mix that we haven't told you about before.

In this list of applicants, you'll see a consortium applying for the high school exit-exam money called the "State Collaborative on Assessment and Student Standards on Career Technical Education." It's a bit of a mystery to me at this point; I'm bugging the department to tell me more, and I'll share it with you when I get it.

The other contender for the high school piece, the National Center on Education and the Economy, is one we told you about before. And both groups applying for the money to design "comprehensive" assessment systems are ones we've described for you as well. (The "Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Career" is the group earlier known as the "Florida-Achieve" consortium before it picked out a snazzy name for itself. The "Smarter Balanced" consortium has apparently stuck with a shorter version of the nickname that it got when three earlier groups—the SMARTER, Balanced, and MOSAIC consortia—merged into one.)

Keep in mind that just because these four groups met the April 29 deadline to file notices of intent to apply doesn't mean they'll actually apply, and it doesn't mean they are the only ones who will apply. The final regulations on this competition encourage applicants to submit these notices, but don't require them to do so. That means we won't really know who's applying until applications come in (deadline June 23).

The list of groups that filed notices of intent to apply is on the Ed Department's resource page for the assessment competition, along with a summary of the program, slides from an April 9 webinar about it, and information from an April 22 technical-assistance session the department hosted in Minneapolis for folks thinking about applying.

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

It's official. President Obama is heading to Michigan later this spring to deliver the commencement address at Kalamazoo Central High School.

Today, the White House and the Department of Education announced that the school has won the first annual Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge, which I've blogged about a few times lately.

"I congratulate our winner, Kalamazoo Central High School, and all of our six finalists for their innovative and effective approaches to teaching, learning, and preparing students to graduate ready for college and a career," President Obama said in a press release.

The school was one of more than 1,000 applicants narrowed down by the White House and the Education Department to six high school finalists, the news release explains. Between April 26 and 29, more than 170,000 members of the public voted on the finalist schools, which submitted short videos and essays. President Obama then picked the winner from the three schools with the highest average ratings.

Even if the other schools won't be seeing the president this spring, the Obama administration said it will work to provide a Cabinet secretary or senior administration official to deliver the commencement address for the five other finalists.

As a special tribute to Kalamazoo Central High, here's a link to the Glen Miller Band performing, yes, "(I've Got a Gal in) Kalamazoo." Enjoy!

Posted by Erik Robelen at 1:20 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

We don't get a chance very often to hear from the folks who are leading the writing of the common-core standards. Just a couple weeks ago, David Coleman (English/language arts) and Jason Zimba (math) discussed the project at length at a forum here in Washington. Now, excerpts from video interviews with two of the other lead writers, Sally Hampton (ELA) and Phil Daro (math), are being posted on the website of America's Choice, where both are senior fellows.

The interview clips, posted on the organization's "common-core-standards resources" page, are brief but interesting. (Hampton's are up now; Daro's are forthcoming.)

You might remember that America's Choice does school design work, as well as offers interventions in both literacy and math. It's a for-profit subsidiary of the National Center on Education and the Economy, whose CEO, Marc Tucker, serves on the ELA feedback group for the common standards, and which led work on the New Standards Project in the early 1990s. (See a history timeline by America's Choice.)

America's Choice recently held a forum in Salt Lake City about the common standards, where Hampton and Daro made presentations.

Posted by Catherine Gewertz at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced on Friday that state reviews have recently been completed for more than a dozen free digital textbooks for high school history, science, and higher-level mathematics. The texts were reviewed against the state's academic content standards and are now available for use in California classrooms.

A press release from the governor's office says that 17 reviews were made available last week, but Brian Bridges, who heads up the state agency that conducted the reviews, tells me that two of them have not yet been published, but will be shortly.

This action follows the review last year of 13 digital texts focused on high school science and math, including geometry, Algebra 2, physics, chemistry, and earth science, among other subjects.

"We now have more than 30 free digital texts available for use in the classroom that can provide a more interactive experience for students and cost districts less—a win-win that can allow educators to engage a new generation of tech-savvy students," Gov. Schwarzenegger said in the April 30 press release.

Under the California initiative, digital resources submitted by textbook publishers, teachers, and "other experts" are reviewed against the California content standards by the California Learning Resources Network "to give teachers confidence that these materials are appropriate to be used in California classrooms," the press release explains.

Students and teachers can use the materials in a variety of ways. The release notes that they are downloadable and can be viewed on a computer or hand-held device, but also can be printed chapter by chapter and bound for use in the classroom and taken home by students.

In an interview, Bridges, the director of the California Learning Resources Network, explains that the reviews do not constitute approval by the state of the textbooks. But the reviews provide detailed information on the extent to which the digital texts meet the state's academic content standards.

And he notes that of the 15 completed in this second round, 10 were deemed to fully meet the state standards. The texts were developed by the nonprofit CK12, as well as a range of college professors, Bridges said. In fact, he noted that CK12 made changes to three texts that were reviewed last summer, when they only partially met the state standards, and now fully meet them.

"Their whole purpose is to create open-source textbooks in high school around STEM, and they've done a superb job," he said.

I made a brief mention of the California initiative in a recent story about evolutions in the textbook market in Texas, which include recent legislation that is expected to make available new sources of digital instructional materials to school districts.

Posted by Erik Robelen at 4:48 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend