Education Week - January 21, 2015 - 5

REPORT ROUNDUP www.edweek.org/go/rr
struction in Mandarin, French,
Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Japanese,
or Spanish, depending on the
school site.
In dual-language programs, lessons
are taught in English and a
second language, with the goal
of students' fluency in both. City
schools already offer about 480
bilingual programs. One in seven
students in the 1.1 million-student
district is an English-language
learner.
Federal Title III language-instruction
money will cover the cost of the
programs.
-C.M.
Boston Teachers Support
School Day Extension
The Boston Teachers Union last
week voted overwhelmingly to
support a proposal to lengthen the
school day by 40 minutes for students
in the city's elementary and
middle schools to help boost student
achievement.
Under a tentative agreement,
about 1,900 teachers at some 60
schools will each receive a pay
increase of $4,464 a year for the
extra hours, which include 75 minutes
a week for teacher planning,
development, and collaboration.
Each school will decide how to use
the additional time, although the
agreement reached by the union,
the district, and the city strongly
recommends that schools focus on
boosting academic achievement
and offering a range of enrichment
activities, such as in the arts, computer
coding, science, and foreign
languages. The plan goes to the
school board for a vote later this
month.
-KATHRYN BARON
Scholarships to Be Offered
To Honor Slain Teenager
Students at an eastern Missouri
high school will be offered
scholarships to three historically
black colleges in honor of Michael
Brown, who graduated from the
high school just days before he was
fatally shot by a Ferguson, Mo., police
officer.
The 11 scholarships will cover
four years' tuition at three schools
operated by black Methodist
denominations, which wanted to
do something to show students
that the religious community
was concerned about their futures,
said the Rev. Jamal Bryant of
Baltimore.
The 18-year-old youth, who was
black, was unarmed when he was
shot and killed Aug. 9 by a white
police officer, prompting nationwide
protests.
CORRECTION
An article on nanoscience education
in the Jan. 7, 2015, issue of
Education Week mischaracterized
the MathScience Innovation Center
in Richmond, Va., and its funding
source. It is an independent
consortium of 13 Virginia school
divisions formed to provide stem
educational research, learning, and
professional development.
-AP
COLLEGE READINESS
"Does Failing a Placement Exam Discourage
Unprepared Students From Going to College?"
When high school students do poorly on college-placement
exams and learn they must
take a remedial course, they are no less likely
to enroll in college than students who score
just above the remediation placement cutoff.
The findings are published in an article in the
latest issue of Education and Finance Policy, the
official journal of the Association for Education
and Finance.
Lead author Paco Martorell, an assistant professor
of education at the University of CaliforniaDavis,
said it's hard to tell why students aren't
discouraged after finding out they aren't collegeready,
but it may be that they don't fully understand
the implication.
"Sometimes students are so interested in getting
a degree that it is not is much of hindrance,"
Mr. Martorell said in an interview. -CARALEE J. ADAMS
TIME AND LEARNING
"Expanded Learning Time: A Summary of
Findings From Case Studies in Four States"
Adding extra time to the day or year is easier
said than done, according to a report released
last week by the Center on Education
Policy, a Washington research organization.
And the report says it's far too early to say
whether federal incentives to encourage schools
to add learning time really have moved the needle
much on student achievement, in part because it's
early going and in part because extended learning
time is usually paired with other strategies.
Among some of the implementation issues cited
in the report, which focuses on 17 low-performing
schools in four states:
* Extended learning time is expensive. States
that got waivers from No Child Left Behind requirements
were given access to increased resources-control
over 20 percent of their Title I
funding for disadvantaged kids. And the department
encouraged states to spend those dollars
on school improvement efforts, including additional
learning time. But the states studied
didn't tend to spend money on adding instructional
time, opting more often for less expensive
after-school programs.
* Everyone does extended learning time differently.
Some schools added to the school day,
others to the school year. And others added instructional
time without lengthening the school
day or calendar.
* Longer instructional blocks were hard on
both teachers and students. Some schools chose
to shift the extra time to teacher collaboration;
others added enrichment activities or enlisted
community partners.
-ALYSON KLEIN
SCHOOL CHOICE
"What Schools Do Families Want (and Why?)
Parent surveys tend to overstate the importance
of academics in the school choices made
by families in New Orleans' all-charter system,
according to a new study.
This is especially true of low-income families,
says the report from the Education Research
Alliance for New Orleans, which is housed in
Tulane University. Although academic performance
does drive parent choice to some
extent, distance and extracurricular activities
are among other factors that influence school
decisions. It also found that families preferred
"legacy" school names-or those that were used
before Hurricane Katrina accelerated the city's
charter conversion.
For example, parents preferred a C-graded
elementary school (in terms of student performance)
that is located across the street with an
after-school care program to a B school with no
Funding colleges based on the number of degrees
they award may boost the wrong types of
credentials for students, finds a new study of
Washington state policy.
The study focused on Washington's 2007 Student
Achievement Initiative, which rewards community
colleges for improving student retention,
progress in gaining college-level math skills, and
completion of certificates, apprenticeships, and associate
degrees.
Researchers Nicholas Hillman of the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, David Tandberg
of Florida State University, and Alisa Fryar of
the University of Oklahoma found student retention
rates rose at some community colleges
after performance funding was implemented-
but declined at others, and there was no significant
change on average.
Great Recession
Recession Linked to Drop
In School Lunch Buying
"National School Lunch Program: Trends and
Factors Affecting Student Participation"
Declining participation in the National School
Lunch Program was not caused by more stringent
nutrition standards, an analysis by the
Food Research and Action Center says.
Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture
show that school lunch participation
increased from 28.9 million students on an
average day in the 2003-04 school year to
31.8 million in 2010-11, before dropping to
30.3 million in 2013-14.
Critics of standards have argued that the required
reductions in fat, salt, and calories, and
increases in fresh produce and whole grains
have forced school cooks to create meals that
students won't eat.
Instead, the report contends that since the
recession deepened during 2007-2008, the
number of children who eat free or reducedpriced
meals has increased. That shift was due
in part to more children who meet the criteria
and in part due to more schools adopting community
eligibility, which allows them to provide
free meals to all students.
The number of children who pay full price
for meals had been declining for years before
the 2012-13 school year, when the Healthy,
Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 was implemented,
the report says.
"The timing of these trends, and the rise in
participation among the largest group of children
in the program, strongly suggest that the new
nutrition standards are not causing significant
participation trends," the authors write. -EVIE BLAD
AVERAGE DAILY PARTICIPATION IN THE
NATIONAL SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM
l Free
l Reduced Price
l Full Price
2012-13 School Year School
Nutrition Standards Implemented
School Year
SOURCES: Food Research and Action Center; U.S. Department of Agriculture
such program and two miles away. Parents also
typically chose a C-graded legacy high school
with football and band over a B-graded school.
Low-income families are more likely to prefer
these nonacademic factors, especially location
and after-school care, in their school choices.
The report is based on 2013-14 data from the
OneApp unified enrollment system, which allows
families to list up to eight school choices.
-ARIANNA PROTHERO
COLLEGE COMPLETION
"Evaluating the Impacts of 'New' Performance
Funding in Higher Education"
Also, while students earned more short-term
professional certificates after policy enactment,
colleges awarded the same number or fewer associate
degrees, which are significantly more valuable
for careers in the long term than certificates.
Washington has since changed its policy to reward
colleges for students earning short-term
certificates only if they lead to advanced credentials
or well-paying jobs.
-SARAH D. SPARKS
EARLY-CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
"Changes in Body Mass Index Associated
With Head Start Participation"
Obese and overweight preschool-aged children
were found to have significantly healthier weight
statuses by the time they reached kindergarten
age if they participated in Head Start programs,
according to a study published online last week
in the journal Pediatrics.
The study authors drew upon 19,023 children
from 12 Head Start programs in Michigan. The
programs measured the changes in each child's
body mass index from the beginning to the end
of two academic years, including the intervening
summer.
The authors then compared the results with
two comparison groups from a Michigan primary
health-care system-5,405 children receiving
Medicaid and 19,320 not receiving Medicaid.
Head Start programs were also linked increases
in body mass index measures for children
who started out underweight.
-BRYAN TOPOREK
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Education Week - January 21, 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - January 21, 2015
