Analysis Ties 4th Grade Reading Failure to Poverty

Note: This is a very interesting article on the importance of early reading proficiency -- with some real implications for the Amherst schools (e.g., it suggests that concentrations of low income kids in one school hurt achievement and describes the hazards of summer fall back and the benefits of preschool education).

Education Week
By Debra Viadero
May 17, 2010

Eighty-five percent of poor 4th graders in predominantly low-income schools are failing to reach “proficient” levels in reading on federal tests, according to a new study by a national foundation that is gearing up to lead a 10-year effort to raise 3rd graders’ reading proficiency.

“The evidence is clear that those students who do not read well have a very tough time succeeding in school and graduating from high schools and going on to successful careers and lives,” Ralph R. Smith, the executive vice president of the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation, said in an interview. “The Casey Foundation is putting a stake in the ground on grade-level reading by the end of the 3rd grade.”

The report, which is due to be released this morning, lays out the statistical case for the foundation’s soon-to-be-announced, 10-year initiative to ensure that more children become proficient readers by the time they leave 3rd grade.

As part of the new campaign, the report says, the foundation plans to join with other philanthropies to finance reading-improvement efforts in a dozen states representing different geographic regions in the country. But Mr. Smith said details of that new venture will not be available for another two months.

The report, “EARLY WARNING!: Why Reading by the End of Third Grade Matters,” is the 21st in a series of statistics-laden Kids Count special reports by the foundation. While some of the foundation’s previous studies have emphasized its “two-generation” approach to improving the well-being of disadvantaged young children and their parents, the new report shifts the focus to getting children on the path to reading proficiency from birth through 3rd grade.

Context Matters

Nationwide, the report notes that 68 percent of all 4th grade public school students scored below proficient levels on 2009 reading tests administered through the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a congressionally mandated testing program. But on a state-by-state basis, the percentages ranged from a high of 82 percent in Louisiana to 53 percent in Massachusetts.

National results for the 2009 NAEP reading tests were released in March, and the U.S. Department of Education on Thursday is scheduled to release results in reading from the Trial Urban District Assessment, which compares the performance of 4th and 8th grade students in 18 of the largest U.S. school districts.

The foundation adds a new wrinkle to those analyses, though, by breaking out passage rates for disadvantaged students in the nation’s neediest schools.

The figures show how poverty and different school contexts can exacerbate the proportion of students having trouble mastering reading. While 83 percent of poor black students in schools with moderate to low levels of poverty failed to hit the grade-level reading target, for example, the corresponding percentage for low-income African-American students in schools with high concentrations of poor students was 90 percent. For economically disadvantaged Hispanic students, the percentage of students falling short of proficiency drops from 88 percent in the schools with the most poor children to 82 percent in better-off schools.

The nation’s reading problem is also worse than it seems, the foundation says, because many states, facing pressure to boost students’ scores on state exams, have lowered the “cut scores,” which are the number of items that students must answer correctly. To underscore that point, the report cites an earlier study by the National Center for Education Statistics, which showed that only 16 states set their proficiency standards at levels that met or exceeded NAEP’s lower “basic” standard.

It’s crucial that children master grade-level reading by 3rd grade, the report says, because that’s when instruction moves from a focus on learning to read to reading to learn.

Room for Improvement

The report also offers several recommendations for improving children’s reading, including targeting absenteeism—an aspect of schooling that is often overlooked. Nationwide, the report says, an average of one in 10 kindergartners and 1st graders miss 10 percent or more of the school year because of excused or unexcused absences. In some districts, the ratio is as high as one in four for children in grades K-3.

“Because we generally thought about it in terms of truancy, we haven’t really done the math,” Mr. Smith said. “When you do that, you find that for many reasons we have not completely built a culture of attendance.”

The report also targets the disproportionate learning losses experienced by poor children over the summer as another area ripe for improvement.

To underscore that point, the report cites research showing that low-income children fall behind during the summer by as much as two months in reading achievement, while middle-income students tend to make slight gains in that subject over the same period. That’s because more-affluent parents can better afford books, computers, summer camps, and other learning opportunities that keep students learning when school is out, the report says.

The report also makes a pitch for developing a coherent system of early care and education that “aligns, integrates, and coordinates what happens from birth through 3rd grade,” so that children enter 4th grade healthy and better able to understand the more-complex reading tests they encounter at that level.

The Case for Common Educational Standards

Note: This article was sent to me by one of my blog readers, and I thought was really interesting (and timely).

Wall Street Journal
April 6, 2010
By CRAIG BARRETT

Recently, the Common Core State Standards Initiative, a group of 48 states organized by the nation's governors and chief state school officers, released draft K-12 education standards in English and mathematics.

As a former CEO of a Fortune 500 company, I know that common education standards are essential for producing the educated work force America needs to remain globally competitive. Good standards alone are not enough, but without them decisions about such things as curricula, instructional materials and tests are haphazard. It is no wonder that educational quality varies so widely among states.

English and math standards have so far mostly been set without empirical evidence or attention as to whether students were learning what they needed for college and the workplace. College educators and employers were hardly ever part of the discussion, even though they knew best what the real world would demand of high school graduates. Luckily, about five years ago, states began to raise the bar so that their standards would reflect college- and career-ready expectations.

The draft common core state standards build on this effort and are a significant improvement over most current state standards. The reaction to them has been positive from across the political spectrum, from teachers unions (the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers) to conservative governors such as Georgia's Sonny Perdue and Indiana's Mitch Daniels. They provide a grade-by-grade progression from kindergarten to high school graduation and rely heavily on well-regarded state standards, such as those from Massachusetts, Minnesota and California.

Fifty different sets of standards make no sense. It is much more efficient and less costly for states to mutually develop standards and then work together on the tools needed, such as tests and textbooks, to ensure the standards reach classrooms, teachers and students.

I realize that some critics worry that common state standards will lead to federal standards and a big government encroachment on matters traditionally the domain of states and localities. But as a conservative businessman, I can't agree with these arguments. The common core effort has been 100% voluntary. And while the federal government hopes to incentivize states to adopt common standards, the effort has been entirely state-led, with no federal funding or exertion of influence over their content.

The world has changed considerably in the past century, and our education system must keep pace. In 1950, 60% of all jobs were classified as "unskilled" and available to those with high-school diplomas or less, according to research published by the Education Testing Services. Now more than 80% of jobs are skilled, requiring education and training beyond high school, according to research published by the Brookings Institution. For example, to work on the manufacturing floor at Intel today, an employee must have an associate's degree or higher.

Of course, education reform is not merely about creating future workers. Making sense of retirement options, health-care plans and mortgages—not to mention bills pending in Congress—requires a sophisticated level of knowledge and skills. We have an obligation to prepare our students to be capable adult citizens.

State education standards evolve over time, and the Common Core State Standards Initiative is an important step forward. I hope final standards soon will be issued and that states begin to adopt and implement them. This will help ensure that all students can receive the college- and career-ready, world-class education they deserve, no matter where they live.

Mr. Barrett, a former CEO of Intel Corp., serves as co-chair of Achieve, a nonprofit, bipartisan
education reform organization.

Special Meeting of the Amherst School Committee - Wednesday, June 2, 2010

AGENDA (ARHS Library, 7 pm)

1. Review of Attorney’s Report on Options for Union 26

2. Discuss Possible Interviews with Legal Firms on Selected Dates

Local school advocates ready to fight any regionalization efforts

Hampshire Gazette
By Ben Storrow
Wednesday, May 26, 2010

This is a very interesting article about how some Western MA districts are fighting the push coming from the state for reigonalization (and includes specific reference to how Union 28, which includes Leverett and Shutesbury). You can find the full article at: http://www.gazettenet.com/2010/05/26/local-school-advocates-ready-fight-any-regionalization-efforts.

Concern over 'official' bloggers spurs query to DA

Hampshire Gazette
By Ben Storrow
Wednesday, May 26, 2010

This article examines concerns over elected officials who have blogs, and specifically described a letter sent to the DA (written by five School Committee chairs in the Amherst area) requesting advice on the legality of blogs.

http://www.gazettenet.com/2010/05/26/concerns-over-official-bloggers-spurs-query.

Beth Graham Appointed Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment

Interim Superintendent Maria Geryk has made an appointment for the position of Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment. Geryk issued this statement on Tuesday, May 25:

I am pleased to announce that I have appointed Ms. Beth Graham as Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment. Ms. Graham will begin her work in the district on July 1. Ms. Graham’s most recent position is that of Director of Curriculum and Instruction at Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School, a position she has held for two years. Prior to this, Ms. Graham was Director of New Teachers Collaborative, F.W. Parker Charter Essential School in Devens, MA, Dean of Curriculum and Program at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, and Director of Unified Arts (K-12) in Danvers, MA. Her educational leadership career began in the Watertown Public Schools as K-12 Director of Music. Ms. Graham’s teaching career began in 1978 in the North Andover Public School District as Choral and Band Director for elementary and secondary students.

Ms. Graham’s background also includes significant experience in a variety of School Coaching experiences. She is a National Facilitator for the School Reform Initiative training Critical Friends coaches. Ms. Graham has served as a Coach for the Connecticut Center for School Change, as Facilitator and Professional Development Coach for the Education Alliance at Brown University, and others. Ms. Graham has been a presenter at a variety of workshops over a 15-year period for the Coalition of Essential Schools, the United Stated Department of Education, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and numerous others. The full resume of Ms. Graham is attached below. Ms. Graham has Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education certification as Superintendent/Assistant Superintendent (All Levels), Supervisor/Director (All Levels), Principal/Assistant Principal (PK-12), and Vocal and Instrumental Music (PK-12).

I expect to have the opportunity to formally introduce Ms. Graham to you at one of the School Committee meetings that will be scheduled next September. Ms. Graham will be able to outline her work to date as she entered our district and describe to the community her plans as our new Director. I hope you will join me in warmly welcoming Ms. Graham to our school community.

You can find Ms. Graham's resume at: http://www.arps.org/node/1419.

Small-town school board puts opt-out stamp on state ed reform - TAKE 2

Note: Given all the interest that the Amherst School Committee's decision to seek information on options regarding Union 26 has generated, I decided to post the link to the story that really started it all -- which appeared in March in the Gazette. As you can read in this story, the change in the law was a direct result of action on the part of the Chair of the Shutesbury School Committee, and in fact occurred because Shutesbury was interested in studying its options to get out of Union 28. I am surprised that there wasn't considerable turmoil about the School Committee in Shutesbury's interest in studying this issue, JUST LIKE THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE IN AMHERST. I first put up this link on Friday, but it wasn't working -- it is now available, and I encourage you to read it.

One more note -- I'm now going to be posting links to stories in the Gazette, and if you click on the link, you will get to the full story. The Gazette has moved to make their stories on education (that might be of interest to my readers) available without a subscription. Please let me know if you have problems accessing the full story (now or at any time) and I will then check into that.


Hampshire Gazette
By BEN STORROW
Thursday, March 11, 2010

http://www.gazettenet.com/2010/03/11/small-town-school-board-puts-opt-out-stamp-state-ed-reform.