Education Week - August 7, 2013 - 5

EDUCATION WEEK AUGUST 7, 2013 www.edweek.org
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REPORT
ROUNDUP
ance on them, according to a newly
released industry report.
Preliminary results from a report
by the Connecticut-based research
firm Gartner Inc. indicates that PC
shipments dropped almost 9 million
units worldwide during the second
quarter of 2013, marking a loss for
the fifth consecutive quarter—the
longest sustained decline in history
for those devices, the analysis says.
—KEVIN CONNORS
Grant Will Expand
Teach For America
The Walton Family Foundation,
already the largest single donor to
Teach For America, has committed
an additional $20 million to recruit,
train, and place an additional 4,000
corps members.
The new investment brings its financial
support of TFA to about $95
million in all.
The money will support nine
cities: Denver; Detroit; Indianapolis;
Los Angeles; Memphis,
Tenn; Milwaukee; Newark, N.J.;
New Orleans; and the District of
Columbia. It’s the first time the
foundation has directly supported
TFA’s efforts in Detroit, Indianapolis,
and Memphis.(The Walton
Foundation supports Education
Week’s coverage of parent engagement
and empowerment.)
–S.S.
Indiana Test Glitches
Did Not Hurt Scores
One in three Indiana students experienced
interruptions while taking
the state’s online standardized
tests this spring, but the widespread
glitches had no discernible effect on
statewide student scores, says a review
commissioned by the state education
department.
The testing problems occurred
TRANSITIONS
Kara Kerwin will become president of the Center
for Education Reform, in Washington, replacing
the group’s founder, Jeanne Allen, who will retire
in October. Ms. Kerwin has worked for the center
for 13 years and is currently its vice president for
external affairs.
Sharon Robinson, the president and CEO of the American
Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, is the 2013-14
chairwoman of the Learning First Alliance’s board of directors.
Lucille E. Davy, a senior adviser to the James B. Hunt Jr. Institute
for Educational Leadership and Policy in Raleigh, N.C., was
appointed to a four-year term on the National Assessment
Governing Board, beginning Oct. 1. The board sets policy for the
National Assessment of Educational Progress. Current members
Doris Hicks, an elementary school principal in New Orleans; Tonya
Miles, a parent and former educator from Maryland; W. James
Popham, a testing expert from the University of California, Los
Angeles; and Leticia Van de Putte, a Democratic state legislator
from Texas, were appointed to new terms on the 26-member board.
Lea Crusey, a former classroom teacher and state director for
StudentsFirst, based in Sacramento, Calif., has been named
deputy director of Democrats for Education Reform, a political
action committee.
in late April and early May, as
nearly half a million students
in grades 3-8 took the Indiana
Statewide Testing for Educational
Progress-Plus, or ISTEP+, exams.
The interruptions were the result
of faulty memory on the servers
of the state’s testing vendor, CTB/
McGraw-Hill.
In a statement, state schools
Superintendent Glenda Ritz said
there is “no doubt” that the problems
adversely affected students
and schools and acknowledged
that there is no way to definitively
know how children would have
performed had the interruptions
not occurred.
The state is still negotiating a
settlement with the company. Oklahoma
recently settled with CTB/
McGraw-Hill for $1.2 million over
similar problems.
–BENJAMIN HEROLD
Philadelphia to Salvage
Some Axed Programs
Public school officials in Philadelphia
say they’ll use $33 million
in savings and new funding
to recall laid-off music teachers
and school secretaries and restore
fall sports programs that
were axed.
The Philadelphia Inquirer says
the School Reform Commission
also voted late last month to expand
two successful schools, open
a new high school, and turn over
three low-performing schools to
charter operators.
Faced with a $304 million shortfall
in June, the district laid off
nearly 3,900 employees and eliminated
art, music, and athletic programs.

Superintendent William Hite Jr.
says the $33 million comes from
district savings initiatives and
increases in the state’s basic education
funding and city tax collections.

–AP
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SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION
“The Invisible Lever”
The public education sector is
proving to be a highly soughtafter
career track for some top
graduates of business, law, and
technology programs—one that
is more likely to give them highlevel
management responsibilities
than if they’d gone into the
private sector, a report finds.
In a survey of 1,300 profession-
als chosen for a highly competitive
fellowship program for a high-profile
assignment in education while
in graduate school, more than 70
percent of respondents stayed in
the education sector after completing
their degrees. The students
who stayed in the field were
twice as likely as fellows who
went to the private sector to have
high-level management jobs.
The survey and the related re-
port were produced by Education
Pioneers, a national nonprofit
group in Oakland, Calif., that selects
and places graduate fellows
in law, business, public policy,
and education.
—LESLI A. MAXWELL
CHILDREN OF IMMIGRANTS
“Diverse Children: Race, Ethnicity,
and Immigration in America’s New
Non-Majority Generation”
While children of immigrant
families are generally more
likely to be poor and to struggle
academically than those of
United States-born families,
their well-being varies far more
based on their race or ethnicity
and economic position than on
their immigration status, concludes
a study by the Foundation
for Child Development.
In fact, for some racial and eth-
nic groups, children of immigrants
are doing better than those of
their native-born counterparts.
For example, black children of
American-born parents fared
worse than all or nearly all other
groups, both immigrants and
other U.S. natives, on 15 out of 19
indicators. By contrast, black children
of immigrant parents fared
better than their native-born
counterparts in income level, parent
education and employment,
and high school graduation.
—SARAH D. SPARKS
EARLY LEARNING
“Synthesis of IES Research on
Early Intervention and EarlyChildhood
Education”
The results of dozens of research
studies in early intervention and
early-childhood education are
synthesized in a new report released
by the federal Institute of
Education Sciences.
The report notes that teachers
who learn strategies to engage
Geography Is Destiny in Study
Of Children’s Social Mobility
“The Economic Impacts of Tax Expenditures:
Evidence From Spatial Variation Across the U.S.”
Communities with better public schools and more integrated
housing offer better opportunities for poor children to climb out of
poverty as they grow, according to a new study from the ongoing
Equality of Opportunity Project at Harvard University and the
University of California, Berkeley.
The study looked at 741 “commuting zones”—geographical
groups of counties based on commuting patterns that are similar
to metro areas but also cover rural areas—across the United
States. Researchers analyzed characteristics of the communities
in which children who were born between 1980 and 1981 grew up
(to age 16), and then tracked those children’s income at age 30, in
order to gauge how frequently children born poor, middle-class, or
wealthy moved among the socioeconomic tiers.
Social mobility varies tremendously between different geographic
areas, the study found. For example, a child born into the lowest 20
percent of family income in Gettysburg, S.D.—less than $25,000 a
year—has more than a one-in-three chance of growing up to earn
in the top 20 percent of Americans’ annual incomes (more than
$70,000), while a child born in poverty in Salt Lake City or Scranton,
Pa., has better than a one-in-10 chance of doing the same.
By contrast, much of the South and Southwest has more limited
social mobility. A child born in poverty in the Atlanta area has
only a 4 percent chance of becoming a top earner. Even a middleclass
child in that city has only a 14 percent chance of earning
more than $70,000 by age 30.
The researchers found that social mobility did improve in communities
with relatively stronger economies overall, but that the
overall economy wasn’t the main source of differences in social
mobility from city to city, nor was the cost of living. However, cities
with a smaller middle class, and those in which the wealthiest
and poorest families live farther apart geographically, had lower
social mobility, suggesting that more economically integrated communities
are associated with better social mobility.
In general, researchers found higher-than-average rates of so-
cial mobility in communities which, after controlling for incomelevel
differences, had higher K-12 test scores, lower dropout rates,
and higher per-student spending on education.
—SARAH D. SPARKS
children in print-focused conversations
during group-reading
time often produce a boost in
literacy skills for their young
pupils. And structured mathematics
curricula can improve
children’s knowledge of the subject
beyond counting or identifying
shapes. Yet some of the
instructional methods that have
been connected to positive student
gains are used infrequently,
researchers have found.
The report focuses on studies
funded through the National
Center on Education Research
or the National Center on Special
Education Research, and
published in peer-reviewed journals
from 2002 to June 2010.
—CHRISTINA A. SAMUELS
STUDENT WRITING
“The Impact of Digital Tools on
Student Writing and How Writing
Is Taught in Schools”
Digital technology has “tangible,
beneficial impacts on student
writing” and on writing instruction,
according to nearly 2,500
middle and high school teachers
surveyed by the Pew Research
Center’s Internet and American
Life Project.
But those same teachers—most
of whom are teaching students in
> > For links to these reports, go to www.edweek.org/go/rr
Advanced Placement, honors, and
accelerated courses—also worry
that such technology is making
students more likely to “take
shortcuts,” more likely to let the
truncated language of text messages
and social media “creep”
into their papers, and less able to
“produce a solid piece of writing
containing a coherent and persuasive
argument that synthesizes
material well.”
The report is the third from the
research center on technology
use in schools.
BUSINESS OF EDUCATION
“2013/1st Half/Trends Report/
Education Industry”
Mergers and acquisitions in the
education industry rose by 5 percent
in the first half of 2013 over
the second half of last year, an
uptick driven by deals focused on
testing and assessment products,
cloud-based systems, e-reading,
and other areas, says a new
analysis.
The overall number of education-focused
transactions rose
from 128 in late 2012 to 135 in
the first half of this year, reports
Berkery Noyes, a New York
City-based investment bank
that conducts market research.
—SEAN CAVANAGH
—BENJAMIN HEROLD
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Education Week - August 7, 2013

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