Although a recent Harvard University study ranks Mississippi at number 13 when it comes to the academic improvement of its students, real academic proficiency remains an elusive goal, Yahoo News reports. People born in Mississippi remain the least likely to have a high school diploma of native-born Americans from any other state even as current governor Phil Bryant reiterates that the strength of the state’s education system will determine its future economic success.

The GOP-controlled state Legislature has taken education improvement seriously in the past several years, adopting many reform measures such as school choice and greater teacher accountability. The efforts appear to be paying off. Compared to the 1980s, 2010 Census figures show a 25.6 percentage point improvement in the number of residents over 25 with a high school diploma. Only 54.8% of adults were high school graduates in the state in 1980.

Yet such steep improvements mask deeper problems. The same Harvard study that praised the state for its rapid pace of progress also showed that although more students in Mississippi schools have basic competence in subject areas like math and reading, the rates of “true proficiency” remain low, compared to other parts of the country.

Improvements are toughest in areas such as Clarksdale, where per capita income is about 78 percent of the national average and the unemployment rate was 13 percent in March. Half of all county children live in poverty, and 90 percent of Clarksdale’s 3,200 students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. Most white children attend private schools, while 97 percent of students in the public system are black. Of children born in Coahoma County, 18.8 percent have a low birth weight. That critical predictor of future problems is more than twice the national rate of 8.1 percent.

Public schools in districts like Clarksdale are likely to be more affected by the upcoming change that would have students in K-3 held back if they’re not reading at grade level. Similar laws were adopted in 14 other states. Although teachers in Clarksdale elementary schools – two of which were rated B last year with the remaining four graded F – are working to improve the literacy of their students, a lack of support at home is making that tougher.

Some help could come in the next few years as state lawmakers make provisions for a pre-K program that could reach a growing number of Mississippi kids. The extra money provided by the state will come in handy in Clarksdale where three pre-school programs are already running – serving 60 kids in total – funded by federal grants.

Clarksdale could also be an early target for a charter school under a new law easing creation of the alternative public schools. The Knowledge is Power Program, a national group, operates a charter school in nearby Helena-West Helena, Ark. The group has expressed interest in Clarksdale and many Mississippi leaders have said the school is a model. Some Clarksdale residents, including Luckett and his mayoral rival, Democratic state Rep. Chuck Espy, also support charter schools.

The post Despite Improvements, Mississippi Schools Continue to Struggle appeared first on Education News.

Idaho Governor Butch Otter has signed into law many of the limits on teachers’ collective bargaining rights that voters rejected in a referendum only a few months ago.

Earlier this week, Otter signed five bills that brought back to life parts of Proposition 1 – voted down last November – which limits teacher contracts to just one year and gives school districts more freedoms to cut teacher pay without first declaring a financial emergency.

Four of the bills have language that will allow them to become effective immediately, while the measure limiting teacher contracts to a single year is retroactive to November 21, 2012 – the day after the referendum vote went into effect.

In November, 57 percent of Idaho voters rejected Proposition 1, covering teacher contract provisions. Proposition 2, which concerned performance pay, was turned down by 58 percent of voters, and Proposition 3, requiring online learning, was rejected by 67 percent.

“I think it shows a great disrespect to the voting public,” said Rep. Shirley Ringo, D-Moscow, a retired teacher. “They were all three put down, and I can’t believe we can’t respect that for at least a year.”

Otter, however, expressed pride in the new laws, saying that just because there might be partisanship involved in the drafting of the legislation, that doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t benefit Idaho residents. As he pointed out, laws don’t need broad bipartisan support to be useful; he said that among the five new bills were measures that were popular, including making the contract negotiation for teachers public and for a master labor agreement to be made publicly available on district websites.

However, like the “Students Come First Laws” which passed in 2011, the five bills signed into law by Otter had almost no Democratic support and plenty of opposition from both parties. House Speaker Scott Bedke recommended inserting so-called “sunset provisions” into all five bills to allow the legislative committee to meet and assess their impact after a year before making them permanent. Two of the five laws have such provisions.

Penni Cyr, Idaho Education Association president, said teachers have been flexible. “We came to the table and engaged in conversation every single time we were asked,” she said. She noted that an earlier version of the open-negotiations bill, proposed by the Idaho School Boards Association, paired it with a controversial proposal regarding labor negotiations; that proposal later was killed, while the open-negotiations bill passed.

Bedke said, “We have got to set up a system where local school districts can react to the financial realities of the day. At the same time, you need a motivated, well-paid workforce to teach the kids. So I don’t want to go back to any of the buzz words of the past. I want to look forward.”

The post Idaho Governor Revives Ed Reform Laws Voted Down Last Fall appeared first on Education News.

Over the past several decades a miracle has happened in India — and no one seems to have noticed. Thanks to innovators and companies like GE, the way medical help is delivered to the poor in the country has been completely overhauled and now even those without money to pay can find a doctor nearby to provide them with care and drugs.

So, why hasn’t the same force pushed a revolution in education – a sector in similar need of dramatic change?

Indian children’s thirst for knowledge is obvious if you watch a classroom like one of the small private schools located in the middle of one of the largest slums in New Delhi. Even though getting to the school requires a bus, a car, a tuk tuk and finally a bicycle when the roads narrow too much, once the person is through the door he is greeted by rows of highly disciplined, neatly dressed, attentive students eager to begin their daily lessons.

he school, despite its name, is private, and it is a miracle of compression: floor upon floor of children, 25 to a class, crowded into a narrow concrete block. It is also a miracle of order: the children wear uniforms and stand up to greet visitors. One classroom is decorated with bright pictures and perky slogans such as: “We will get more than 80% in maths.”

The teacher worked for Infosys, a giant IT firm, before finding her vocation. Other classrooms are drabber. Dr Bhandari, the school’s owner and headmaster, is clearly a shrewd businessman. He runs a fancier school next door, decorated with images of Mickey Mouse. He has an impressive collection of certificates. He uses an interpreter to explain that one of his school’s strengths is that it is “English medium”.

What makes schools like this possible is India’s version of a voucher program where the main source of funding is not the government but a local think-tank called the Centre for Civil Society that chooses 400 applicants each year to receive a voucher they can apply to a private school of their choice.

According to the CCS research, the vouchers are a success. Those who are able to take advantage of one perform better on almost all academic metrics against their public school educated peers.

India’s education system does have another thing in common with the education system in the U.S. The role that teachers union play is frequently cited as stifling progress.

That poor parents will pay for something the state provides free speaks volumes. India’s state schools pay their teachers far more than private ones, yet they are often worse. Surveys suggest that a quarter or more of government teachers are absent at any given time. Unions prevent the authorities from disciplining slackers or rewarding good teachers.

The post India Education Reform Looks to Medical System, Choice for Ideas appeared first on Education News.

by John Jensen, PhD

Why is education reform so hard?

The problem may lie in our plans, of course.  Poor plans don’t work well.

But we have been at this a long time.  Why don’t we learn from our mistakes?  I’d like to attempt an answer that suggests an initial step for reform efforts.

Rational people occasionally look at themselves and ask, “How am I doing?”  About a recent experience we may say, “I could have done that better,” and “Next time I’ll remember to …”  We take it for granted that we have our own unique system of approaching life, and we improve it in bits and pieces seemingly freely.

Examining our experiences as a set, however, our pattern appears far less free. Any given event might depend on chance conditions, but our overall responses to life constantly issue from our standard behavior.  We may make the same mistake over and over,  do poorly what others no smarter than us do well, dismiss the same kind of information repeatedly, and react predictably to events.  Using our habits of self-limitation, we sort our way through life with the habits completely accounting for our level of progress.

Occasional dissatisfaction can prompt us finally to ask why.  Why are we so stuck in the way we are?

Think of it like this. Today’s pattern is the leftovers of everything we have experienced, felt, decided upon, and chosen.  More than the impact of events from outside us, what we have claimed about them matters most.  Our personal interpretations drive feelings that in turn drive habits that become ourselves.  As we forget the events that brought them on, the patterns of response become us and serve up our actions automatically.

For better or worse, the effect of this is that 99% of what we think, feel, and do arises automatically. Automaticity is our critical limiting condition.  We automatically discount certain people and believe others.  We automatically bring a certain thought into our heads and don’t notice others.  We automatically judge information, events, and plans according to our standard priorities.

Automaticity has the effect of limiting our capacity even to imagine an alternate way of doing things, an alternate plan, an alternate behavior we might engage in, and even less so anything that challenges our worth or rationality. If change means we must admit we were wrong before, we spontaneously object from deep within our protective cover.

The same limits hold for group activity. Our personal automaticity becomes group automaticity as we cluster with people who already agree with us, and together convince laggards to adhere to group norms. “Our” people tend automatically to believe others like us, assume viewpoints standard in our group, and interpret events with prescribed prejudices. We spontaneously categorize some people as “other,” and give their viewpoint short shrift. We label and pigeon-hole them before we even consider their ideas.

Such social patterning cannot fail to affect education reform. Even with the best intentions, we find it hard to open ourselves to change and carry it out.  Just for fun, try this exercise to check yourself.  Look in the mirror, and with congruence and conviction say to the person in the mirror, “You are very limited in your thinking.  You have dismissed countless ideas that might help you.”  The two sentences are categorically true of each one of us but you may notice a protesting voice inside.  If so, the point is not that readers of this website are narrow thinkers, but that all of us human beings have the same problem!

The implication for education reform is, “Because I automatically dismiss ideas that could help my school, I may have to check my own reactions if I am to avoid sabotaging change.”  The more firmly you insist that your own view is right already, the more you need the warning.

It is said that you can divide the employees of schools or any organization into three categories: speedboats, barges, and reefs.  Speedboats dash about making waves and trying to move things. They bring change.  Once a direction is clear, barges carry the load but without much flexibility to change course.  Reefs try to sink the whole  thing by presenting obstacles to others’ efforts.

For reform to succeed, all three of these need changes in their thinking, but those who need it the most—the reefs—find the greatest difficulty. Even a few reefs in a group can make a big difference.  Present conditions usually are  what multiple interests will put up with so that any given stakeholder may possess the power to sink a change process.  And those rewarded most under present conditions tend to become a conserving force keeping things as they are.

For initiating mutual change, we first need to recognize what softens the resistive patterning.  What loosens it up enough that change can begin?

Group dynamics give us a clue.  People change best and easiest when they enter a group and involve themselves in its actions and values. Membership is the doorway, but beyond the door is active involvement; developing common values and a means of carrying them out. Education reform may need to start in a group process of support, self-examination, and group action.

People do not re-examine their personal pattern under force or pressure.  Mutual care and support instead enable even large numbers to work together to achieve a purpose all perceive as worthy. If your district weighs a change process, point out that people advance best when they are cared about, their thinking becomes the template for what occurs, they can envision constructive change, and they can support each other as they act together.

When you ask them to give up what they are in order to become what they can be, they need reassurance that this is possible.

John Jensen is a licensed clinical psychologist and author of the three-volume Practice Makes Permanent series (Rowman and Littlefield). He will send a proof copy of the volumes to anyone on request: jjensen@gci.net

The post John Jensen: How Automaticity Kills Education Reform appeared first on Education News.

It was — and in many cases, still is — a tough fight in many states to put a standardized teacher assessment system into every school. The push for new evaluation systems was meant to look more deeply at the quality of every teacher to identify those who perform well and target those who are considered to be less than effective for improvement or dismissal.

The first set of results were awaited nervously by both supporters of the changes and its opponents, but now that data is slowly beginning to trickle out, neither side seems sure what to think.

Based on the early results, it appears either that the new evaluation systems are too lenient or that teachers are performing much better than everyone had believed. In Florida, for example, a full 97% of teachers were found to be either effective or highly effective, while in Michigan, 98% of teachers were rated effective or better.

Similar number are being seen in Tennessee, where 98% of teachers who were evaluated were found to be “at expectation” or better.

Advocates of education reform concede that such rosy numbers, after many millions of dollars developing the new systems and thousands of hours of training, are worrisome.

“It is too soon to say that we’re where we started and it’s all been for nothing,” said Sandi Jacobs, vice president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, a research and policy organization. “But there are some alarm bells going off.”

The new systems, a central achievement of the reform movement, generally rate teachers on a combination of student progress, including their test scores, and observations by principals or others. The Obama administration has encouraged states to adopt the new methods through grant programs like Race to the Top.

If these preliminary results are to be believed, a large proportion of America’s teaching corps hails from Lake Woebegone, where everyone is famously above average. This poses a big problem for those who pushed for new evaluation systems on the basis that the previous ones used – which typically depended on an in-person evaluation by a superior – weren’t critical enough. If the new numbers are to be believed, the old evaluations might have been more critical than the systems designed to replace them.

In New Haven, Conn., where the teachers’ union collaborated with the school district in devising the new evaluation system, 90 percent of teachers were rated “exemplary,” “strong” or “effective,” and 2 percent received the lowest rating, “needs improvement.”

As part of the program, teachers are warned months ahead of time if they are in danger of receiving the lowest mark; some improved, and some left.

Washington, D.C., like New York a center of education reform, was among the first to try new evaluations, replacing a system under which 95 percent of teachers were meeting expectations and 0.4 percent received the lowest rating.

The post Early Results from Teacher Evaluation Data Proves Puzzling appeared first on Education News.

Because substantial charitable gifts almost always create a splash in the media and elsewhere, the generosity of the monied class in America is no stranger to praise. Yet according to Ken Stern, writing for The Atlantic, when it comes to percentages, people with lower incomes are actually more than twice as generous as people of means.

Those from the top 20% of America’s income distribution scale gave on average about 1.3% of their income to charity in 2011. Meanwhile, those from the bottom fifth gave 3.2% of their income over the same period.

This kind of generosity by those with less is even more puzzling in light of the fact that since they don’t typically itemize their deductions on their returns, they do not get to use those donations as tax relief.

But why? Lower-income Americans are presumably no more intrinsically generous (or “prosocial,” as the sociologists say) than anyone else. However, some experts have speculated that the wealthy may be less generous—that the personal drive to accumulate wealth may be inconsistent with the idea of communal support. Last year, Paul Piff, a psychologist at UC Berkeley, published research that correlated wealth with an increase in unethical behavior: “While having money doesn’t necessarily make anybody anything,” Piff later told New York magazine, “the rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people.” They are, he continued, “more likely to exhibit characteristics that we would stereotypically associate with, say, assholes.”

But that doesn’t explain everything. Even when their means were artificially limited in an experiment, participants with lower incomes were more generous than those who were much more financially secure when no additional motivation was applied. After viewing a video which illustrated the plight of poor children, though, both groups responded with equal generosity.

The difference in levels of generosity isn’t the only puzzle when it comes to charitable giving. Poor and rich are also far apart when it comes to the targets of their largesse. While the poor give to social service organizations, including religious ones, the rich funnel a lot of their gifts towards education – but mainly to higher education rather than K-12.

Alexander Russo on Scholastic’s This Week in Education Blog looks even deeper and wonders what those patterns say about the views rich people hold on the education system in the country – specifically, their views on the ongoing effort to reform education.

A secondary question — not addressed in the Atlantic article but on my mind — has to do with the notable absence of wealthy donors who choose to fund programs supported by reform critics.  There are rich liberals all around — fatcat Democrats and do-gooders who do their best to limit fracking and get Elizabeth Warren elected. But those who are giving to education — Broad, Zuckerberg, Jobs — aren’t giving to reform critics, at least not so far as I know. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s my impression that wealthy liberals have in recent years either ignored or abandoned the approaches and efforts espoused by reform critics. That wealthy liberals would do so — fund reform efforts rather than the approaches espoused by reform critics — is either very sad, or it tells you something about the level of frustration and impatience with the ideas and programs reform critics espouse.

The post Are Rich Americans Expressing Their Views on Ed Reform Via Charity? appeared first on Education News.

Although he recently suffered a minor setback, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal – and the education reform agenda he has championed – had a very good day in court this week. Judge R. Michael Caldwell made his ruling regarding the “Act 1″ reform laws to teacher salary and tenure by finding that three of its four sections did not violate the state’s Constitution, while rejecting only one part of the law.

Caldwell ruled that the section dealing with how much power local superintendents had over decisions made by local school boards needed to be thrown out because it didn’t “fit” with the rest of the bill. The Louisiana Constitution prohibits the passage of any laws that deal with more that one issue at a time – the so-called “single object” rule.

Jindal hailed the ruling, saying that the judge’s findings vindicated his efforts at education reform. He said that the fact that the three key parts of the bill passed muster – the ones dealing with tenure and salary – proves that the government is on the right path to creating a more accountable and more successful education system in Louisiana.

Caldwell ruled Tuesday three of four parts of Act 1 fell within the bill’s title, “TEACHERS: Provides relative to teacher tenure, pay-for-performance and evaluations.”

However, Caldwell said Section 1 of Act 1, which shifted some powers from school boards to the local superintendent and created performance targets for failing schools, was unconstitutional because it was not closely enough related to teacher tenure, pay-for-performance or evaluations. Caldwell said Section 1′s relation to the rest of Act 1 required “a long, tenuous and convoluted journey that this court is not willing to make.”

Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan has already announced that the union plans to appeal the ruling. Larry Samuel, who argued the case on the behalf of the LFT, said the fact that Part 1 was ruled unconstitutional should have invalidated the entire Act 1 and stopped its enforcement. He condemned Coldwell’s decision,  concluding that the judge was “splitting the baby.”

Monaghan added that the action wouldn’t have been brought if the Legislature just passed four separate bills instead of grouping the four parts together into a single act, .

Going forward, Monaghan said he hoped the governor didn’t see the issue of education reform as a zero sum game. He also hoped the with-me-or-against-me rhetoric could be softened.

“Tone it down a little from the governor’s end and from Superintendent [John] White’s end,” he said. He called for an honest discussion on education reform before April’s session.

The post Judge Hands Jindal Victory on Louisiana Ed Reform Law appeared first on Education News.

Tony Bennett, who will soon relinquish his post as Indiana’s Superintendent of Public Instruction after a surprise defeat to his Democratic challenger last month, will ply his education reform trade in Florida instead. In a unanimous vote this week, Bennett was selected to become the state’s Chancellor of Public Schools, replacing Pam Stewart.

Stewart has been filling the post on an interim basis after the resignation of Gerard Robinson late this summer.

Bennett said that he plans to continue to abide by his small-government philosophy, believing that the best results are achieved by setting out metrics and leaving it to districts to decide how to meet them. Speaking at the Roland Park K-8 Magnet School, he promised to keep in constant contact with districts around the state, and said that he wanted to make himself a barrier between schools and any meddling by the department of education.

The chairman of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change organization, Bennett, 52, said just about the only job he could enjoy more than the Indiana post would be in Florida. “This state is so vitally important to the national education conversation,” he said.

The job he faces is a big one, with Florida changing its testing model and moving to a more challenging curriculum standard, Common Core. The state is also making a transition to digital learning and progressing with new teacher evaluations.

Governor Rick Scott, who supported Bennett’s candidacy and appeared with him at Roland Park, said that where Florida’s education system goes, so goes the entire state economy. Scott added that one of the first priorities facing Bennett will be the improvement of the state’s teacher evaluation system.

Although his reception at Roland was enthusiastic, not everyone connected with education in Florida was similarly thrilled with Bennett’s appointment. Teachers especially expressed reservations, in particular over Bennett’s support for extensive testing.

They fear Bennett will bring even more high-stakes testing and push to further privatize education at a time when counties are struggling to implement many of the state’s mandates over performance pay and common core standards.

“He’s pro-testing, pro-charter schools, pro-vouchers. He’s everything that teachers dread,” said Debra Wilhelm, president of the Classroom Teachers Association in Palm Beach. “We don’t feel as though the state had any consideration for teachers whatsoever.”

Mike Dowling, who teaches at Emerald Cove Middle School in Wellington, questioned the wisdom of selecting a candidate who lost his bid for reelection this month for “being too extreme.” Dowling added that he considered Bennett to be a terrible choice.

The post Indiana’s Tony Bennett Appointed to Lead Florida Schools appeared first on Education News.

The U.S. Department of Education has announced 16 winners who will receive a portion of a $400 million grant fund allocated for district-level education reform plans. The results come on the heels of the Department recently announcing the winners of the second round of the Race to the Top competition, a round of grant funding that aimed to identify and reward effective state-designed plans for improving early childhood education,

The 16 chosen applications, which represent roughly 55 school districts across the country, will share in $400 million in grants to implement the proposals designed to improve student achievement and increase the quality of instruction and teacher effectiveness.

The awards range from $10 million to $40 million and will be distributed over the next four years. The amount of each individual award was determined by how many students are covered in the submitted proposal. In total, the winners were selected based on the score assigned to each proposal by independent peer reviewers. 372 plans were thus assessed, with the 16 best overall scores securing funds.

“Districts have been hungry to drive reform at the local level, and now these winners can empower their school leaders to pursue innovative ideas where they have the greatest impact: in the classroom,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “The Race to the Top-District grantees have shown tremendous leadership though developing plans that will transform the learning environment and enable students to receive a personalized, world-class education.”

The character of the districts chosen couldn’t have been more diverse. Some district-level proposals came from states that have already won some Race to the Top money — and from states whose proposals fell short. The plan that covered the largest number of individual districts came from a 24-member rural consortium, which alone represented 44% of the districts that will receive grant money in this funding round.

The Race to the Top program, which launched in 2009, was created to push education systems around the country to pursue out-of-the-box reform efforts in order to improve academic outcomes for their students and to ensure that a greater number of them are prepared at graduation to enter college or succeed in the workplace.

“Since the day he took office, President Obama has been laser-focused on the goal of ensuring that every child has access to a quality education,” said Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, Cecilia Muñoz. “Race to the Top exemplifies this commitment and marks an historic moment in American education, raising the bar and improving outcomes for schools across the United States.”

The post Feds Announce 16 District Winners of Race to the Top Funds appeared first on Education News.

The heralded move to greater transparency and accountability hit a bit of a snag in Florida this week after the state Department of Education had to remove the teacher assessment data from its website just hours after posting it. The statement from the DOE explained that the information had to be removed because it contained a number of errors due to a bureaucratic snafu that caused some teachers to be double-counted.

This continues a string of problems encountered by the state during the rollout of Florida’s new teacher evaluation system. Many teachers around Florida complained about the stress the new system placed on them, despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of instructors in the state were rated either “effective” or “highly effective” this year.

Perhaps the most succinct summary of the flap was delivered by Bob Schaeffer, public education director for Fair Test, who used “garbage in, garbage out,” – a popular statistics and programming phrase – to describe it. Fair Test has long advocated against the excessive standardized testing that underlies Florida’s assessment system. He said in a rush to deploy the system, state administrators didn’t take enough time making sure that it was ready, thus the resultant screw-up was not unexpected.

“We told you so,” said Marshall Ogletree, executive director of the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association.

The Florida Legislature approved the comprehensive new system and moved to implement it so quickly that it amounted to “trying to do something that’s impossible to do at breakneck speed,” he said.

The Tampa Bay Times reports that this is not the first time that the DOE “botched” a data release. Earlier this year, ratings for over two hundred Florida schools had to be yanked and the schools re-graded.

There was also an incident with the new, tougher FCAT writing test, when the passing grade had to be temporarily lowered because, according to officials, the DOE didn’t effectively communicate with districts, which resulted in a substantial uptick in failure rates statewide.

On Wednesday, the department posted the data at 10:30 a.m. and at 11 started a conference call for nearly an hour with news reporters from across the state. By early afternoon, Hillsborough County school officials had noticed the state said it employed 23,970 teachers — but the real number was less than 15,000.

“The numbers don’t look right, and it’s not just us,” Hillsborough schools spokesman Stephen Hegarty said. “We have asked the DOE to look at them.”

“They were the first to notice it and they called our people,” Sucher said later. Department officials then noticed that some other districts, but not all of them, also had data that was double-counted.

The post Teacher Data Removed from Florida DOE Website Due to Errors appeared first on Education News.