Education Week - September 26, 2012 - 5

EDUCATION WEEK

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

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REPORTto these reports, go to For links ROUNDUP www.edweek.org/go/rr.
to track students who are repeatedly bullied or accused of bullying.
–AP

Report: Common Core Has ‘Literature Gap’
The common academic standards adopted by all but four states contain a “literature deficit” that could harm students’ preparation for college, the authors of a new white paper argue. The paper, released Sept. 20 by the Boston-based Pioneer Institute, takes aim at the Common Core State Standards’ emphasis on informational text, saying that such a focus, especially in high school, would shortchange the analytical-thinking skills students need to thrive in college. To remedy the problems, authors Sandra Stotsky and Mark Bauerlein argue, state policymakers must require English/language arts teaches to design their secondary curricula in a way that emphasizes the standards’ literary-historical standards. The lead authors of the standards have argued that they do not reduce the role of literature in students’ studies, since teachers of social studies, science, and other subjects will carry much of the increased focus on informational text.
—CATHERINE GEWERTZ

some state aid. The state department of education has been overwhelmed by the work required to go through the evaluations, said Executive Deputy Commissioner Valerie Grey during a state board of regents meeting this month. Ms. Grey said the state did not expect the wide variety of plans it received. Plans are reviewed three times and the process can take up to six weeks for completion. So far, the state has approved just 75 plans and offered feedback on another 151, out of a total of 700 districts. About 295 of the state’s districts have submitted teacher-evaluation plans. Districts are already under significant pressure to implement the plans by Jan. 17. That’s when Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, has promised to cut off state aid increases for districts that don’t have evaluation plans in place.
–AP

STUDENT TESTING
“State High School Exit Exams: A Policy in Transition”

Del. Officials Unveil Charter Standards
Delaware education officials have unveiled a new accountability system aimed at strengthening oversight and performance of the state’s charter schools. The new charter school framework incorporates several suggestions in a report published last year by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, officials said. The framework sets clear expectations for charter schools, said Gov. Jack Markell, a Democrat. The new standards are aimed at making sure charter schools are academically successful, financially viable and organizationally sound. While Delaware charter schools serve more than 10,000 students, some have struggled with poor academic performance and financial and management problems. State officials have been working on the new framework over the past two years. It will take effect next school year. –AP

States are increasingly aligning their high school exit exams with career- and college-readiness standards, and many will replace their exams with ones developed for the Common Core State Standards, a report says. The Center on Education Policy, at George Washington University in Washington, annually tracks changes in the high-school-exam landscape. Its new report finds that half the states required students to take exit exams before receiving their high school diplomas in 201112—about the same as the previous year. The report counts 16 states planning to replace their exit exams with the common-core assessments being developed by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.
—CARALEE ADAMS & CATHERINE GEWERTZ

by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, says 29 million—21 percent—of the economy’s 139 million jobs are those so-called “middle jobs.” Two-fifths of such jobs pay more than $50,000 a year, the report says. It urges federal spending on career-technical education that opens pathways to postsecondary education and jobs, and it recommends creating an information system to link high school and post-high-school transcripts with employer wage records to show various programs’ success at “producing job-ready graduates.”
—C.G.

them, Phoenix had the highest rate of such disconnection, with 19 percent, while Boston had the lowest, with 9 percent. The report also says the number of disconnected youths surged by more than 800,000 from 2007 to 2010, which it attributes to the Great Recession.
—C.A.

SCHOOL MEALS
“Tuna Surprise: Mercury in School Lunches”

DISCONNECTED YOUTHS
“One in Seven: Ranking Youth Disconnection in the 25 Largest Metro Areas”

A report shows that 14.7 percent—or 5.8 million—of all Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 are neither working nor in school. The report was released last week by Measure of America, an initiative of the Social Science Research Council, of New York City. Using federal census data, the study ranks the 25 largest metropolitan areas. Among

Children should eat light tuna no more than once or twice a month, depending on their size, and they should never eat albacore tuna, to reduce their exposure to mercury, a research and advocacy group says in a report. Those limits apply to all children’s meals, at school and home, according to the report from the Mercury Policy Project, based in Montpelier, Vt. Studies link excessive mercury exposure to impairments in cognition, memory, attention, language, and fine-motor and visual-spatial skills. While most research has focused on such effects on fetuses, the Mercury Policy Project said mercury also affects children’s developing brains. —N.S.

SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING
“2013 CASEL Guide: Effective Social and Emotional Learning Programs”

STEM, Arts Highlight Literacy Campaign
Reading Is Fundamental has unveiled a new early-literacy campaign that officials say is designed to inspire the next generation of innovators by combining the arts with science, technology, engineering, and math, or stem, learning. R if , a Washington-based national nonprofit organization that delivers free books to children and families in underserved communities, kicked off a multiyear campaign this month with the release of a collection of 40 multicultural children’s books and related activities with themes that integrate the arts and stem subjects, according to a press release. Free downloadable activities, based on the Common Core State Standards, are also available at www.rif.org. Selected by rif staff members, educators, and other experts, the collection offers books on themes ranging from nature to math to science. —JULIE RASICOT

CORRECTIONS
•An item in the Report Roundup section in the Sept. 12, 2012, issue of Education Week about a study that found cutting special education spending could improve student achievement should have said that the median district employs 7.6 special education teachers per 1,000 students enrolled. •In the same issue, an article about a summit on AfricanAmerican achievement misstated the membership and mission of the Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color. The group represents both coed and singlegender schools and promotes a range of strategies for improving achievement of black and Latino males.

A review of dozens of social- and emotional-learning programs for pre-K and elementary students highlights 23 that promote students’ self-control, relationship building, and problem-solving, among other skills. The Chicago-based Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning rated programs on whether they provide opportunities for students to practice their social and emotional skills, the contexts in which those skills are promoted and reinforced, and whether there is evidence of effectiveness. Program outcomes varied. Most demonstrated an effect on students’ behavior, but only some showed an effect on emotional distress and academic performance. The project was underwritten by the NoVo Foundation, which also helps supports Education Week’s coverage of school climate and student behavior and engagement. —NIRVI SHAH

Researchers Say Nation’s Schools Undergo More Resegregation
“E Pluribus ... Separation: Deepening Double Segregation for More Students”

‘MIDDLE JOBS’
“Five Ways That Pay Along the Way to the B.A.”

N.Y. Districts Lagging On Teacher Plans
Many New York school districts have been slow to submit required teacher-evaluation plans to the state, despite a looming deadline that could eliminate

A new report calls for federal investment in training for jobs that require education beyond high school, but short of a bachelor’s degree. It calls such jobs a crucial ticket to middle-class life. The study, released this month
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The nation’s public schools have experienced dramatic resegregation over the past two decades, a trend that is “systematically linked to unequal educational opportunities” for minority students, according to a new report released by the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at the University of California, Los Angeles. In its latest in a series of reports analyzing segregation trends in public schools, the organization used federal data from the 2009-10 school year in making comparisons with previous trends. Since the 1991 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Oklahoma City v. Dowell made it easier for districts and courts to dismantle federal court desegregation orders, schools, particularly in the South, have experienced significant resegregation, says the report. Elsewhere, increasing racial and ethnic diversity has led to segregation of schools. In 1970, nearly four out of every five students across the nation were white, but by 2009, just over half were white. “In spite of declining residential segregation for black families and large-scale movement to the suburbs in most parts of the country, school segregation remains very high for black students,” the report says. “It is also double segregation by both race and poverty.” In the early 1990s, Latino and black students, on average, attended a school where roughly a third of students were considered low-income. Now, those students attend schools where low-income students account for nearly two-thirds of their classmates—nearly double the level, on average, of schools attended by white or Asian students, according to the study. Additionally, the rapidly growing Latino population has seen increasing segregation of students recently, particularly in the West. Latino enrollment in public schools has gone up from one-twentieth of U.S. students in 1970 to one-fourth in 2009. In the West, the share of Latino students in such settings has increased almost fourfold, the report says, from 12 percent in 1968 to 43 percent in 2009. –KIMBERLY SHANNON

For links to these reports, go to

www.edweek.org/go/rr

http://www.edweek.org http://www.rif.org http://www.edweek.org/go/rr

Education Week - September 26, 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - September 26, 2012