In This Issue:  | | • | "DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I VOTE" | | | • | OBJECTIVES OF CHARTER SCHOOLS WITH TURKISH TIES QUESTIONED | | | • | L.A. SCHOOL DISTRICT DOESN'T BITE AT 'FOOD REVOLUTION' CHEF'S OFFER: English chef Jamie Oliver is bringing his reality show to L.A. | | | • | WHY ICELAND EVALUATES ITS STUDENTS’ SELF-ESTEEM | | | • | HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest of the Stories from Other Sources | | | • | EVENTS: Coming up next week... | | | • | What can YOU do? | |
Featured Links: | | | | The great Republican Tsunami of 2010 swept across the nation right-to-left last Tuesday, a red tide of tea and conservatism, sweeping Democrats and Blue Dogs and incumbents away - and crashed against the eastern slope of the Sierra and rolled back …while we Californians filled our pools with blue and became bluer still. Two California congressional races are too-close-to-call - but besides for those ALL California incumbent congresspeople were returned to Washington.
Are we in CA out of step? …or marching against-the-tide to our different drummer?
Our new drummer-in-chief has always been different. He was once the youngest, now he's the oldest (life is like that) …and is this following actors into the governor's office a trend or an anomaly? I suppose we will have to wait and see if Jerry v.3.0 follows Governor Gyllenhaal …or Fanning. (Gov. Dakota Fanning is an electoral stretch; she's named after two other states!)
It can't be something we were smoking - we kept that illegal. And we lowered the majority to pass a budget but raised the majority to assess a fee. Maybe we can get the feds to call for supermajority vote for a postage rate hike? Forever stamps forever!
Maybe we seen locally how gridlock really works and looks and feels and just voted - mixed-metaphorically - to loosen the knot? Or maybe we just don't like businesswomen who've bought more than one corporate jet.
THE WATERS ARE STILL ROILING - but this is clear: not much.
Progressives have been muttering that Education is the Civil Rights Issue of the Twenty-first Century since Y2K ….and shouting it from the rooftops since 2008. Now, with the new regime/reality/repression in Washington (and abroad in the land) we can reuse/recycle most of those words and create The New Agenda with a simple search-and-replace. Find "Civil" and replace with "State's". Done.
Teapartiers and libertarians have been fierce advocates for eliminating the U.S. Department of Education - seeing public education as a local control issue. Some of them got elected Tuesday and it's a message that kinda-sorta resonates to my tin ear, albeit for different reasons. I don't recall Horace Mann - the Father of American Public Education - advocating for a big role for the federal government in public education. First the feds should insist in Equity. Standards can come later if at all.
There was little talk of Ed Policy in this election - none of charter schools or school choice. The G.O. (and T.) Partiers were swept in on promises of smaller government, reductions in spending, and a return of local control. Those promises are bound to have impact on federal and (other) state education policy.
EduFlack opines that historically Republicans prefer to fund education research and assessment, while Democrats prefer to fund implementation. The Obama Dept of Ed prefers to fund completion instead of research, assessment or implementation. (Free Lakers tickets if you get your test scores up.)
Congressman John Boehner, the incoming Speaker of the House, was a key architect and principal author of NCLB - back in the day he was chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee.
Valerie Strauss in her WaPost blog asks what the effect of the new GOP mandate in DC will be on Public Ed: "The answer seems to be not much, other than slowing down even further what has been a sluggish effort to rewrite the No Child Left Behind law into something that better fits what we have learned about federal involvement in local schools.”
"But," Strauss goes on: "…Republicans have had an extraordinary taste for federal intervention in local school decisions in the past decade. It was Republican president George W. Bush who championed the No Child Left Behind law, which changed the daily life of millions of schoolchildren.
"Bush’s successor, President Obama, instead of turning back NCLB as many of his supporters had hoped, has taken some of the most damaging elements and made them worse.
"NCLB ushered in an era of high-stakes standardized tests as a way to judge schools. Obama’s policies give them even more importance; now student test scores are being used to evaluate and pay teachers." http://wapo.st/bX1ZUf
But Bush, on the event horizon of NCLB, had inherited a budget surplus and a growing economy. That was not what he left behind.
HOPEFULLY DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS will not fall into a fight over who can do the most 'reform' fastest to public education. Hopefully this will not become a war over whether Charters or Vouchers or Privatization; Reconstitution or Value-Added-Assessments - or the loving philanthropy of Gates, Broad, Riordan, Bloomberg, Zuckerberg and Co. are the bestest magic bullets in the great six-shooter of Ed Reform.
The metaphors of mayhem: "magic bullet", "fight", "war", "battle" are not the answers. If there's someone-worth-waiting-for in 'Waiting for Superman" it's Geoffrey Canada - and his message is the übermensch ain't coming!
The magic is in the deliberate hard work in the classroom by the teacher and the student - supported at home and in the community - and the long-term-investment made in the success of the next generation. Will the next generation be better/smarter/more prepared parents to their children then the present one? We are not training workers, we are preparing citizens. [Please read the article about how+why Iceland evaluates students' self-esteem.]
I HAVE A PAGE FROM A BROCHURE from SIAS, a Chinese University, push-pinned to my wall. It asks a question: "What would a 21st century education do if not prepare us for the 22nd?"
THE FUTURE, GENTLE READERS, IS WHERE ONWARD! LEADS. It's not Norm Day or the Seven Test Days in May or that day when Sacramento publishes the STAR/API/AYP results …or the last day of school when the final report card is handed out. The future will not be Dec 1 - when the plant managers all report to central offices rather than their home schools - and when the final proposals for PSC 2.0 are due.
THE FUTURE IS THE DAY when those kids now in the classroom bring their kids back to the school - filled with promise and expectation.
¡Onward/Adelante! -smf
"DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I VOTE"
Themes in the News for the week of Nov. 1-5, 2010 By UCLA IDEA | http://bit.ly/9Zsc1F
11-05-2010 - Californians went to the polls this week and for the third time in 36 years elected Democrat Jerry Brown as governor. Much has changed for California schools since the 1970s when Brown followed Ronald Reagan to lead the state. At that time, California schools were considered among the best in the nation. But that was before the full impact of Prop. 13 set in to limit property taxes, which were an important source of school funding.
This time around, Governor-elect Brown won’t have the cushion of a robust and envied school system. Since Brown was last governor, California’s school funding has fallen precipitously relative to the rest of the nation. This year, California’s average per pupil expenditure lags further behind the national average than ever before. http://bit.ly/cZwsbY The effects of this funding decline are clear: California students now are packed into larger classrooms and have less access to academic counselors than students in any other state.
Further, California’s 2010 electorate rejected measures that might have made it easier to generate funds for schools. Prop. 24, which would have repealed $1.3 billion in corporate tax breaks, was defeated. Prop. 26, requiring a two-thirds vote to levy fees, passed. In a hopeful sign for schools, Prop. 25 won, so a simple majority of legislators will be able to pass the state budget instead of the two-thirds vote previously required (Los Angeles Times). http://lat.ms/aETsoL It remains to be seen if this new budget threshold helps schools.
Californians are sending a mixed message considering recent survey data on their views about schools. http://bit.ly/bthb3Q Earlier this year, the Public Policy Institute of California found that the majority of those polled said the state doesn’t spend enough on education. Three in four said education reform should be a top priority for the next governor.
Yet, on election night Jerry Brown was clear in his interpretation of the electorate’s attitudes: “The taxpayers gave and they took away… This tells me they’re not in the mood to dig deep into their pockets.” For Brown, the key questions now are: "What does California need, what does California want and what is California prepared to pay?" (Los Angeles Times). http://lat.ms/bwMASE
While it will be difficult for Sacramento to generate new revenue for California’s schools, the prospects for new funds from Washington D.C. are even dimmer (Education Week http://bit.ly/bUqfVd) . The new Republican majority in the House of Representatives will press to reduce spending, curtail stimulus funds, and pull back the federal involvement in schools (Education Week|http://bit.ly/9wedUf , Washington Post|http://wapo.st/bX1ZUf, Hechinger Report|http://wapo.st/bX1ZUf, Eduflack|http://bit.ly/d75Uee).
So, barring a significant grassroots mobilization that might change the political calculus in California, the outlook for school reform remains bleak at the dawn of Brown's third administration. With the continuing drumbeat for school improvement, innovation and reform, politicians, including Brown, will be searching for low-cost incentives and sanctions to squeeze higher performance out of schools. Schools will do their best, but they will remain buffeted by contradictions between what Americans say they want for schools and what they vote to provide them.
OBJECTIVES OF CHARTER SCHOOLS WITH TURKISH TIES QUESTIONED
OBJECTIVES OF CHARTER SCHOOLS WITH TURKISH TIES QUESTIONED + CHARTER SCHOOLS BY THE NUMBERS + GÜLEN CHARTERS IN LAUSD + Q&A WITH FETHULLAH GÜLEN + 'THE MOVEMENT IN TERMS OF IDEAL STUDENT/TEACHER RELATIONSHIPS’
► OBJECTIVES OF CHARTER SCHOOLS WITH TURKISH TIES QUESTIONED
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY | http://usat.ly/c4rd6t
8/17/2010 9:36 AM | They have generic, forward-sounding names like Horizon Science Academy, Pioneer Charter School of Science and Beehive Science & Technology Academy.
Quietly established over the past decade by a loosely affiliated group of Turkish-American educators, these 100 or so publicly funded charter schools in 25 states are often among the top-performing public schools in their towns.
The schools educate as many as 35,000 students — taken together they'd make up the largest charter school network in the USA — and have imported thousands of Turkish educators over the past decade.
But the success of the schools at times has been clouded by nagging questions about what ties the schools may have to a reclusive Muslim leader in his late 60s living in exile in rural Pennsylvania.
Described by turns as a moderate Turkish nationalist, a peacemaker and "contemporary Islam's Billy Graham," Fethullah Gülen has long pushed for Islam to occupy a more central role in Turkish society. Followers of the so-called Gülen Movement operate an "education, media and business network" in more than 100 countries, says University of Oregon sociologist Joshua Hendrick.
Top administrators say they have no official ties to Gülen. And Gülen himself denies any connection to the schools. Still, documents available at various foundation websites and in federal forms required of non-profit groups show that virtually all of the schools have opened or operate with the aid of Gülen-inspired "dialogue" groups, local non-profits that promote Turkish culture. In one case, the Ohio-based Horizon Science Academy of Springfield in 2005 signed a five-year building lease with the parent organization of Chicago's Niagara Foundation, which promotes Gülen's philosophy of "peace, mutual respect, the culture of coexistence." Gülen is the foundation's honorary president. In many cases, charter school board members also serve as dialogue group leaders.
Education officials who are familiar with them say the schools aren't trying to proselytize for Gülen's vision of Turkey. While Turkish language and culture are often offered in the curriculum, there's no evidence the schools teach Islam.
Nelson Smith, former president of the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, sees no evidence of an "active network. What I do see is a really impressive group of educators."
The Turkish-affiliated schools focus on math and science and often appear as top scorers on standardized tests. Still, lawmakers, researchers and parents are beginning to put the schools under the microscope for hiring practices — they import hundreds of teachers from Turkey each year — and for steps they take to keep their academic profile high.
The schools' unacknowledged ties to Gülen, they say, mock public schools' spirit of transparency.
"That's what I was always asking for," says Kelly Wayment, a former board member and parent at Beehive Science & Technology Academy in Holladay, Utah. He has pressed for more than a year to get the school to acknowledge ties to Gülen. "I said, 'Parents have a right to know.' "
Wayment says Beehive removed him from the board last year after he began investigating the decision to fire a popular Spanish teacher, saying it was based on a single classroom visit by the Tustin, Calif.-based Accord Institute of Education Research, an education services company with ties to a chain of California charter schools inspired by Gülen. He complained to Utah state Rep. Jim Dunnigan, a Republican lawmaker, who launched an audit of charter school governance — the audit is ongoing.
But Beehive's Karlene Welker says Wayment "removed himself (from the board) by pulling his students out of the school."
Utah's State Charter School Board launched an investigation last year after American teachers complained that Turkish colleagues got hiring and promotion preferences.
The charter school board looked into Beehive's ties to Islam and found them "circumstantial," but a financial probe found that the school was $337,000 in the red — and that Accord officials had loaned it thousands. The board last April revoked its charter, but in June voted to keep the school open on probation.
Dunnigan, the state lawmaker who requested the legislative audit, says the financial details, such as personal loans and public funds spent recruiting overseas faculty, are what concern him. "When they're in such financial difficulty, should they spend $53,000 to bring these people over from another country?"
But questions about hiring and academics also have arisen in Arizona, where Daisy Education Corp. runs five schools and has received certifications for 120 H-1B visas for foreign teachers since 2002, records show. In Texas, the Cosmos Foundation has filed 1,157 H1-B applications since 2001. It operates 25 Harmony schools statewide. Since 2001, Harmony has imported 731 employees using H-1Bs, surpassing all other secondary education providers nationwide. Parents last year also accused one Harmony school of "pushing out" underperforming students — a charge the Texas Education Agency confirmed.
Ed Fuller, a University of Texas-Austin researcher, found that Harmony schools throughout Texas had an "extraordinarily high" student attrition rate of about 50% for students in grades six through eight.
"It's not hard to be 'exemplary' if you lose all the kids who aren't performing," Fuller says.
Crossing the line?
At minimum, the rapid growth of the Turkish-affiliated schools shows how the freewheeling world of charter schools has changed the face of K-12 education in the USA.
In most cases, charters are loosely regulated in exchange for improved performance. A few schools are affiliated with religious groups or offer programs that others can't. But in several cases, a school's orientation has forced it to show that it's not crossing lines and endorsing religion. Examples:
* Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, a Minnesota charter school authorized by Islamic Relief USA, a Virginia-based aid group. In 2008, the school ran afoul of state officials who said having teachers take part in voluntary Friday prayers could give students the impression that the school endorsed Islam.
* Sacramento City Unified School District in California, which for 12 years has fought a lawsuit that says the city's Waldorf schools are based on the religious beliefs of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner.
Whether such schools continue to grow is no small question, since President Obama has made charter school expansion a priority.
While the Turkish-affiliated schools disavow any connection to the Gülen Movement, Gülen himself maintains in legal filings that he's the inspiration behind their growth. But William Martin of Rice University in Houston says educators' assertions of "no organic connection" to Gülen are accurate.
Nonetheless, he says their efforts to minimize ties to Gülen, likely from fear of being branded Islamists, bring "unnecessary and probably counterproductive" suspicion. "I do not think they are a sinister organization."
In an e-mail interview, Mehmet Argin, principal of Tucson's Sonoran Science Academy, says his school's parent corporation, Daisy Education Corp., "has no legal or organic ties" with other schools. He cautions against linking charter schools founded by Turkish-Americans directly to the Gülen Movement "just because Turkish-Americans may be inspired by Mr. Gülen."
In an e-mail interview, Gülen denied any direct connection to these schools, rejecting the notion that there is a "Gülen Movement," but acknowledging there may be educators now in U.S. schools who have listened to his philosophy. "I have no relation with any institution in the form of ownership, board membership or any similar kind," he said.
A 'third force'
Gülen has pushed for more dialogue between the Western and Muslim worlds, yet he is a controversial figure in Turkey.
The University of Oregon's Hendrick, whose writings explore the Gülen Movement, calls him "Turkey's most famous religious personality." His movement is considered the nation's "third force" alongside the military and Turkey's ruling Adalet ve Kalkýnma Partisi, or AKP Party.
In 1999, after traveling to the USA for medical treatment, Gülen was charged in Turkey with trying to create an Islamic state. Since then he has remained in Pennsylvania. After the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service in 2007 denied his bid for a visa as an "alien of extraordinary ability in education," Gülen sued, saying his followers "had established more than 600 educational institutions" worldwide. He eventually prevailed, earning a green card in 2008. But Turkish educators in the USA continue to disavow their ties.
"Gülen is both the reason behind his schools, and he has nothing whatsoever to do with them," Hendrick says.
CHARTER SCHOOLS BY THE NUMBERS bu USA Today
5,043: Total public schools founded, or "chartered," by universities, private groups or even teachers in the USA
1,536,099: Number of students
39: Number of states in which charters exist, plus the District of Columbia
Source: Center for Education Reform, a D.C. charter-school advocacy group
► GULEN AFFILIATED CHARTER SCHOOLS IN LAUSD
from Magnolia Schools website | http://bit.ly/915VVL
Magnolia Science Academies (MSA) are identified as being connected to Gulen. They are:
* MSA-1 Reseda
* MSA-2 Valley
* MSA-3 Carson
* MSA-4 Venice
* MSA-5 Hollywood
* MSA-6 Palms
* MSA-7 Van Nuys
* MSA-8 Bell
► Q&A: FETHULLAH GULEN RESPONDED TO QUESTIONS FROM USA TODAY'S GREG TOPPO THAT WERE SUBMITTED THROUGH AN INTERMEDIARY.
Q: Would he reflect on his connection to the U.S. public charter schools inspired by the Gulen movement?
A: First of all, I do not approve the title "Gulen Movement" given to the civil society movement that I call "volunteers' movement." I see myself one of its participants. There might be some educators who have listened to or read my thoughts on humanity, peace, mutual respect, the culture of coexistence, and keeping the human values alive, and have come to the United States for various reasons and work at private or public schools. In fact, I have heard from the media that there are such educators.
I have no idea about the number of such educators in the United States. My relation to them is not different from the one between me and any academician working at a U.S. university who may somehow value my thoughts. Those are individuals whom I do not know personally, though they may be familiar with and may think that they benefit from my books and speeches.
Q: Does he take pride in the schools, which are quickly multiplying and are generally high-performing?
A: I do not have specific knowledge about the schools which are referred to in the question, nor about their academic successes. If they are successful in contributing to human well-being, love, social peace and harmony, I would applaud that. Indeed, I wish any activities contributing to the shared human values to be successful, whether they are in the field of education or any other fields of human endeavor. I do not differentiate between ethnic or religious backgrounds in this concern. This is a consequence of my being human.
Q: How does he feel about the school leaders' recent assertions in the U.S. press that the schools have "no organic connection" to Mr. Gulen or the movement?
A: I do not regularly follow the U.S. press. It is well-known that I have no relation with any institution in the form of ownership, board membership, or any similar kind. For many decades, I have expressed my ideas and opinions about social issues facing humanity. Many people have listened to my speeches and read my works. I do not approve that those who are familiar with and share these ideas and opinions to any extent, or the institutions they work at, should be viewed as connected with my person.
► THE MOVEMENT IN TERMS OF IDEAL STUDENT/TEACHER RELATIONSHIPS
from FGulen.com | http://bit.ly/9xVEWN
A model that fits some aspects of the organization is one drawn from Islamic education, the classical madrasa or Islamic school that is then broadened to a secular context in which teachers care deeply for the personal welfare and moral edification of their pupils.
In Gülen's rhetoric, the schoolteacher becomes prophet, fulfilling the mentioned Islamic principles by imparting secular school knowledge. (Agai 2005).
Fethullah Gülen's own training was in a madrasa setting and his writings reflect the Ottoman Turkish intellectual tradition and the body of classical works studied in that environment. For most of the generation of businessmen and activists following Gülen in the early period this knowledge, as well as competence in Arabic was remote. In a certain sense, then, we see a revival of this classical learning tradition occurring at the core of the Gülen movement through the training of a special group of pupils selected by the senior Abis. These students are then sent for a number of years to study in an intimate residential setting with Gülen himself. Recruits are primarily graduate students in Turkish theology faculties who have a good command of the Arabic language. Perhaps seven or eight students are chosen each year (Interview, Cemal Türk).
According to one interviewee who has passed through this system, the 1st year students simply listen and may achieve results through peer learning. In subsequent years they are increasingly able to participate in the lessons and ask direct questions. The curriculum includes heavy tomes of Hanafi fiqh, for example in one year a 14 volume commentary (sharh) on al-Tirmidhi by the contemporary Indian scholar, Mubarakpuri (Interview, Enes Ergene) or Umdat al-Qari of al-Ayni (25 volumes), but also in every year at least one work of classical Sufism such as al-Muhasibi or al-Qushayri. (Interview, Cemal Türk)
The works of Said Nursi and many of Gülen's books and speeches are steeped in the late Ottoman synthesis of philosophy, mysticism, and acumen in commentary on classical religious sources including Qur'an and hadith. The embodiment in the activities of the movement of classical adab, gender decorum, etc., also creates a certain atmosphere while the role of discussions in frequent study circles creates a sort of "imagined madrasa"[4] for those modern Turks seeking to spiritualize and Islamize their personal and social worlds.
L.A. SCHOOL DISTRICT DOESN'T BITE AT 'FOOD REVOLUTION' CHEF'S OFFER: English chef Jamie Oliver is bringing his reality show to L.A.
THE DISTRICT SAYS IT WILL KEEP WORKING WITH ITS OWN NUTRITION EXPERTS AND ADVOCATES TO MAKE SCHOOL MEALS MORE HEALTHFUL.
By MARY MACVEAN - Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/9Kbk6w
Saturday, Nov. 6, 2010 - LOS ANGELES Jamie Oliver, the English chef who took on the "lunch ladies" of Huntington, W.Va., in an attempt to make school food more healthful, has been told thanks but no thanks by the Los Angeles Unified School District.
"Our feeling was that his time would be better spent or invested in other communities," Melissa Infusino, the director of partnerships in the superintendent's office, said Friday.
Oliver is bringing his "Food Revolution" reality television show to L.A. for its second season, and he and his family plan to move to the area in January, a spokeswoman said. ABC posted a casting notice on its website: "We're searching for families with children who could use Jamie's help in the kitchen to overcome the obstacles to healthy eating."
But just what the show will focus on remains undecided.
"We are not prepared to comment about the show because it's still in the creative stages," said Amber Gereghty, an ABC publicity director. She said there would be an element involving schools.
L.A. Unified has written the supervising producer of the show, Joe Coleman, thanking him for "reaching out."
"While we appreciate your interest in our school meal program, we believe our direct work with nutrition experts, health advocates, the community, schools and students is the most effective strategy for our continued success and improvement," said the letter, signed by Infusino.
The Oct. 25 letter also said that taking part in the show could be too time-consuming.
The district has already been forced to shorten the school year and require roughly 40 furlough days a year, she noted. "Due to these budgetary challenges, participation in the 'Food Revolution' program would prevent us from committing 100 percent of our efforts to our students," the letter said.
Infusino said Friday that she had talked with Coleman about other ways "Food Revolution" might be helpful, including working in neighborhoods on such issues as food "deserts": places with little access to affordable fresh produce and other healthful groceries
Infusino wrote Coleman that his efforts "are in perfect alignment" with the mission of LAUSD's food service program to promote health and healthful food. She cited the school board's 2004 ban of soda sales in schools and its votes to ban the sale of junk food and reform the nutritional value of meals.
Oliver has railed against flavored milk and says schools should serve less processed food and more that is cooked from scratch. But some authorities say that if schools don't offer chocolate milk, children will miss out on the nutrients in milk. And processed food often is cheaper than fresh.
Megan Hanson, an advocate for improvements in school food, said campuses should welcome Oliver.
"I think it would be a good thing if they loosened up and let some light in. They just keep resisting what seems to be inevitable change," said Hanson, executive director of RootDown LA, which works with South L.A. high school students to improve nutrition.
Oliver's efforts to improve the school lunch in West Virginia proved to be popular television, as he encountered resistance from cafeteria staff and talked to children who couldn't identify common fruits and vegetables. To make his points, the British chef with the just-out-of-bed hairstyle went so far as to dress up as a pea pod and run around the school grounds. He seemed to have made some progress by the end of his stay.
Rhonda McCoy, Cabell County school district food services director, didn't return phone calls seeking comment. When the district called West Virginia to discuss the experience, people replied with "no comment," Infusino said.
This article appeared originally in the Bellingham WA Herald: http://bit.ly/drpxDh
●● smf's 2¢: As a recovering filmmaker I have real professional issues with the reality of reality television - nobody is real in the presence of a film crew - with the possible exception of small children and Nanook of the North. Unscripted TV saves on paying writers but the fingerprints of producers and editors are on every frame and created situation. (see the article cited below on the staged scene in W4S|http://bit.ly/9VJZij)
from CASABLANCA:
CAPTAIN RENAULT: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
CROUPIER: Your winnings, sir.
CAPTAIN RENAULT: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much.
[aloud]
CAPTAIN RENAULT: Everybody out at once!
That said, being one of the District's "own nutrition experts and advocates" perhaps LAUSD should listen to Chef Oliver - and take ABC's money and suffer Oliver's suggestions and perhaps abuse. We are doing good things in LAUSD Food Service - albeit in industrial kitchens. Suggestions+Abuse will come anyway - as they did last week in Venice HS student newspaper: VENICE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS REPORT CAFETERIA FOOD SHORTAGE | http://bit.ly/bt2T7I
We might as well take the check!
WHY ICELAND EVALUATES ITS STUDENTS’ SELF-ESTEEM
WHAT AMERICAN SCHOOLS MIGHT LEARN FROM RESEARCHERS IN ICELAND ABOUT HOW TO TEST NOT ONLY LITERACY AND MATH SKILLS, BUT THE EMOTIONAL LIVES OF CHILDREN.
Brian Suda| Informatician | good education | http://bit.ly/c4fjJD
November 4, 2010 • 5:00 pm PDT | Over the last few years, Iceland has gone from economic boom to bust and is back on the upswing. All of these rapid changes have had drastic effects on lifestyle, which everyone assumed would trickle down to the well-being of the nation's children. Sadly, it's historically been difficult to track.
Luckily, since Iceland is in the European Economic Area as well as an OECD member, every three years member countries are required to take part in PISA, a standardized set of questions that test a student's ability and capacity to continue learning throughout life. In addition to testing academic abilities like literacy and math, it also tests factors such as enjoyment of reading and self-worth, among many other things.
This is a great tool to get a baseline and compare between nations, but it suffers from other issues. Namely, that only 15-year-olds take the test and do so at the end of the school year. In Iceland, as in many countries, this is the age at which they are finishing compulsory
education and move from compulsory education to college level. Any major issues found in the months after testing are no longer applicable because those students are long gone, making intervention and change difficult to manage.
We have been focusing on closing the feedback loop between discovering problems and intervention. Taking a page from the business world, we looked at how many companies are designing and building a product through several small iterative cycles rather than a long and drawn out one. Having many smaller cycles of development has plenty of advantages, but the main one is that problems are spotted early and can be addressed sooner.
Using this approach, we built software that allows participating schools in Iceland to upload their student list at the beginning of the school year and each month, we randomly select a smaller representative set and administer a short online survey. Each school is able to get a data point on their progress in engagement of students, their well-being and school ethos, as well as compare themselves to a national average within Iceland.
So far, the results have been amazing.
Previously, let's say a school had a bullying problem and might might think their situation was typical—that boys will be boys and girls will be girls. Now, schools can see how much of a bullying problem they really do have, compare it to the average, and see how it develops over time. The next step then becomes instituting policies to reduce problems.
Along with each data point, we are able to break down the information in further detail. Once a critical mass of students have taken the survey to make it both anonymous and statistically robust, we break down the information by gender, grade, and gender within grade. For instance, boys' enjoyment of sports constantly stays high, whereas girls' interest declines with age and while boys' self-esteem says high across all grade levels, for girls it tends to drop dramatically.
This information has also proven to be extremely valuable when it comes to deciding how school funds are to be spent. Recently, to address the problem of boys underperforming in school, the simple answer has been to throw more money at the problem. While this is certainly a noble solution, what is missed in the finding is that levels of anxiety, depression, and bullying are much, much higher in girls than in boys, but because it isn't measured as a GPA on a report card, it's commonly overlooked. An entire generation of young women is leaving compulsory school with low morale, but no one is paying attention. Possible efforts to increase students' sense of belonging within school will not only cost less but also result in fewer cases of bullying. Knowing how the different psychometric values connect and tie together allows you to see the bigger picture.
This is the third school year where we have been running this survey in Iceland. As more and more schools use the system, the better the results become. As schools self-evaluate and improve, the national average also increases, putting more pressure on lagging schools to improve the quality of life for students in their institutions. In the end, students are the real winners as the quality of the schools steadily improves.
Brian Suda, based in Reykjavik, Iceland, is part of a small company called Skólapúlsinn, which focuses on educational testing and research. His own little patch of internet is where many of his past projects and crazy ideas can be found.
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest of the Stories from Other Sources
• • PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE 3.0: Remaking it up and changing the rules as we go along: (note the change of rules for Huntington Park High School and and the on- gaian/off-agin adherance to previous promises in San Pedro - and please explain to me why the "Choice" in these cases isn't being made by the Board of Education member.)
• PSC v 3.0: TEST SCORE REVIEW MEANS NEW FUTURE FOR HUNTINGTON PARK HIGH. The campus had improved its score on the... http://bit.ly/bohFpO
• PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE 3.0: REFORM OR GIVEAWAY? – The Players, The Scorecard + The imminent arrival of 'Superman' | http://bit.ly/93rfRj
the headlines:
• SAN PEDRO SECONDARY SCHOOL WILL NOT BE PART OF SCHOOL CHOICE PROGRAM
• SCHOOL DISTRICT PUTS WILSON HIGH UP FOR GRABS
• MORE LAUSD SCHOOLS UP FOR REFORM: DISTRICT SAYS 43 CAMPUSES ARE ELIGIBLE, INCLUDING NINE FROM VALLEY.
• LAUSD TO PUT 3 AREA SCHOOLS UP FOR BID BY OUTSIDE OPERATORS
• LAUSD SEEKS THIRD ROUND OF APPLICATIONS TO IMPROVE SCHOOLS: SUPERINTENDENT RAMON CORTINES ANNOUNCES PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE 3.0
• ECHO PARK’S NEWEST SCHOOL BECOMES A TAKEOVER TARGET
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• WHY REPUBLICANS SHOULD EMBRACE OBAMA’S EDUCATION AGENDA: Nikhil Swaminathan - writer/education blogger | Good |h... http://bit.ly/da1eKI...
• IN ‘WAITING FOR SUPERMAN’, A SCENE ISN’T WHAT IT SEEMS: By SHARON OTTERMAN | NY Times | http://nyti.ms/aMY3E3 ... http://bit.ly/9VJZij
• EDUCATION SECRETARY DUNCAN UPBEAT DESPITE ELECTION BLOW: By ANGELA CHARLTON, The Associated Press | http://yhoo.... http://bit.ly/9BkQLL
• WHY ICELAND EVALUATES ITS STUDENTS’ SELF-ESTEEM: What American schools might learn from researchers in Iceland a... http://bit.ly/bT9uN7
• JUDGE BLOCKS CALWORKS ‘WELFARE-TO-WORK” CHILDCARE CUT PENDING MORE STATE ACTION: sACbEE cAPITOLaLERT: The latest... http://bit.ly/9PgSDt
• Deconstructing+Decoding Election 2010: IN STATES, GOP WINNERS MAPPING COURSE FOR K-12 + GOP VICTORY MAY PROMPT F... http://bit.ly/9ADfNH
• SETTLEMENT WILL BOOST EDUCATION AT L.A. COUNTY PROBATION CAMP: A civil rights lawsuit alleged that students were... http://bit.ly/9fTplS
• ONLINE LEARNING: Getting an education in learning over the Internet: Myriad videos on how to do pretty much anyt... http://bit.ly/dDaXTR
• 8 L.A. STUDENTS SICKENED AFTER EATING CHOCOLATE BAR + STUDENTS TAKEN TO HOSPITAL AFTER EATING WHAT MAY HAVE BEEN... http://bit.ly/bBy8kR
• WONDERLAND AVENUE SCHOOL PRINCIPAL DONALD S. WILSON WEIGHS IN ON “WAITING FOR ‘SUPERMAN’”: Zorianna Kit in The Huff... http://bit.ly/dk5jyH
• OBJECTIVES OF CHARTER SCHOOLS WITH TURKISH TIES QUESTIONED + CHARTER SCHOOLS BY THE NUMBERS + GÜLEN CHARTERS IN LA... http://bit.ly/d3YBjk
• FAILING GRADE FOR PROJECT LABOR AGREEMENT SCHOOL JOB? Nonunion builders report many union violations.: By Howard ... http://bit.ly/bDEOHo
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
*Dates and times subject to change. ________________________________________
• SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE:
http://www.laschools.org/bond/
Phone: 213-241-5183
____________________________________________________
• LAUSD FACILITIES COMMUNITY OUTREACH CALENDAR:
http://www.laschools.org/happenings/
Phone: 213-241.8700
What can YOU do?
• E-mail, call or write your school board member:
Yolie.Flores.Aguilar@lausd.net • 213-241-6383
Tamar.Galatzan@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Marguerite.LaMotte@lausd.net • 213-241-6382
Nury.Martinez@lausd.net • 213-241-6388
Richard.Vladovic@lausd.net • 213-241-6385
Steve.Zimmer@lausd.net • 213-241-6387
...or your city councilperson, mayor, the governor, member of congress, senator - or the president. Tell them what you really think! • Find your state legislator based on your home address. Just go to: http://bit.ly/dqFdq2 • There are 26 mayors and five county supervisors representing jurisdictions within LAUSD, the mayor of LA can be reached at mayor@lacity.org • 213.978.0600
• Call or e-mail Governor Schwarzenegger: 213-897-0322 e-mail: http://www.govmail.ca.gov/
• Open the dialogue. Write a letter to the editor. Circulate these thoughts. Talk to the principal and teachers at your local school.
• Speak with your friends, neighbors and coworkers. Stay on top of education issues. Don't take my word for it!
• Get involved at your neighborhood school. Join your PTA. Serve on a School Site Council. Be there for a child.
• If you are eligible to become a citizen, BECOME ONE.
• If you a a citizen, REGISTER TO VOTE.
• If you are registered, VOTE LIKE THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT.
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