Education Week - January 22, 2014 - 10

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Is the Ed. Department Nitpicking
States Over NCLB Waivers?
| POLITICS K-12 | There are some alarming revelations in the new
No Child Left Behind Act waiver reports issued last week by the U.S.
Department of Education. But then there are some not-so-alarming
revelations.
For example, New York failed to put out a press release announcing
its reward schools-as it had promised to do in its waiver application.
Instead, it published the list on its website. For that transgression,
the state earned a "not meeting expectations" for its reward schools.
Perhaps more significant, Idaho, which does have some big
problems with how it's intervening in its lowest-performing schools,
did not put NAEP and high-quality teacher data on its school report
cards. It is also not meeting expectations in that area.
Don't get me wrong, Politics K-12 is all for transparency. It's good
to know that New York did not do a press release as it had promised.
And it's good to be informed that Idaho isn't putting all of the
necessary data on its report cards.
But this kind of scrutiny raises an important question, one that
the Education Trust's Daria Hall put this way to me: "There needs to
be a serious question about, is the department focusing on the right
high-leverage things, or checking boxes on compliance? It doesn't help
anyone if the feds aren't thinking about high-impact areas."
Under Race to the Top, Education Department officials began to
stress how they wanted to take a different view of their oversight
responsibilities-that they weren't all about checking boxes on a
compliance list but giving states a lot of room to maneuver as they
work toward their goals. This is why the department has been flexible
in allowing some significant amendments to Race to the Top plans.
Department officials have emphasized that they want to work with
states, and not dictate to them.
So, just how much wiggle room will federal officials allow? And if
states keep getting dinged over things like posting something on a
website versus issuing a press release, will their patience run thin?
-MICHELE McNEIL
If You Want Analytical Thinking,
Extend Recess for Children
| EARLY YEARS | Most parents of very young children intuitively
know how important outdoor playtime is to their little ones, but
early-childhood experts say we adults are often not giving them
long enough stretches of play to develop their minds-especially
during the school day.
Preschools or day care centers often limit recess to 30-minute
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blocks, but that's just when the deep thinking is starting, said Myae
Han, the president of the Rochester, N.Y.-based Association for the
Study of Play and an assistant professor of human development and
family studies at the University of Delaware.
"A higher quality of play begins to emerge at around 30 minutes,"
she said in an interview. "They might take 20 minutes to just explore
the materials," which in the case of outdoor play might be a wooden
fort, a sandbox, or even leaves at the base of a tree.
Sometimes, imaginative, high-quality play begins long after that,
she said.
"Children need free play so they can make choices and learn
responsibility for those choices," Ms. Han said.
Truncating outdoor playtime to 30 minutes or less curtails this
important type of deep, creative, and analytical thinking, she said.
According to research done in the 1990s on outdoor play by Arizona
State University's James F. Christie and Francis Wardle of Red Rocks
Community College, children stop trying to access a deeper level of
play in anticipation of being interrupted.
"If you shorten playtime," Han explained, "you actually hurt their
ideas."
Getting Your Preschooler
*Effective March 1, 2014. All courses are available to the user for one year following date of purchase. Prices subject to change.
Ready for the Common Core
| CURRICULUM MATTERS | We already knew the marketing machine
was in high gear for common core, but it's always interesting to see
just how far it's trying to reach.
Exhibit A for today: a workbook-"Let's Get Ready for Preschool:
Great Preparation for Common Core Standards"-that purports to
get your 3-year-old up to speed for the new expectations.
For the sale price of $8.99, you can have confidence that your "little
learner" will have "the engaging activities and worksheets they need
to succeed at school." Sound like all work and no play? Rest easy: The
workbook includes music that's "also educational."
A quick search on Amazon.com yields more than 100 preschool
resources for the common core.
10 | EDUCATION WEEK | January 22, 2014 | www.edweek.org
PD_Online_EW3-5Ad_0114.indd 1
12/31/13 2:17 PM
-JULIE BLAIR
-CATHERINE GEWERTZ

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Education Week - January 22, 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - January 22, 2014