District Administration - August 2009 - (Page 10)

Briefings Newsupdate PeoPle Watch Crossing the Bay anthony smith has been named the new superintendent of the Oakland Unified School District. He already resides in Oakland, having most recently served as deputy superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District. staying Put Paul Vallas has decided to remain superintendent of the Louisiana Recovery School District through the 2009-2010 school year. He had considered returning to Illinois to run for Cook County board president. by Don Parker-burgard Longer School Day and Year Trials Yield Different Results Is a longer school day and school year a ticket to higher achievement? recent reports on 26 schools throughout Massachusetts and 39 schools in Miamidade (Fla.) county Public schools provide widely different answers. The school Improvement Zone, an experimental initiative in M-dcPs, was a three-year, $100 million project designed to boost achievement in the district’s lowest-performing schools. It was the centerpiece of former superintendent rudy crew’s agenda for the district and was named a Top 50 Innovative Program by the ash Institute for democratic governance and Innovation at harvard’s Kennedy school of government in 2008. Little to No Effect The district’s final report on the program, however, found that the district has very little to show for its investment. released in late spring, the report compared the 39 schools in the school Improvement Zone to another group of 39 schools within the district that have similar demographics. on the exams that comprise the Florida comprehensive assessment Test, students in the control group scored higher than those in the school Improvement Zone in math, science and reading. school Improvement Zone students outperformed their peers only on the writing exam, but even then the difference was small. The report characterizes the extension of the school day and year as in fact problematic. students and teachers alike reported exhaustion from the extra hour per day, and many students stopped attending school altogether once summer vacation began at the district’s other schools. In addition, principals and teachers reported that “proficient students felt stigmatized by the mandatory additional time, which was viewed as a punishment rather than an enhancement.” Different State, Different Story a report by the Massachusetts Teachers association, the american Federation of Teachers Massachusetts, and Massachusetts 2020 was more positive. In Listening to Experts: What Massachusetts Teachers Are Saying about Time and Learning and the Expanded Learning Time Initiative, state teachers identified time as the most important factor in teaching. Fifty percent of teachers whose schools are part of the expanded learning Time Initiative, a statewide effort to expand school time by at least 300 hours per year, report that they have adequate time to cover the curriculum, versus 34 percent of the teachers whose schools are not part of the elT. despite the additional workload, teachers in the 26 elT schools were more likely to affirm the statement “If I could start over again, I would still become a teacher” than their non-elT peers (88 percent versus 80 percent), and 56 percent of elT teachers answered yes to “do your students take their schoolwork seriously?” while only 42 percent of the non-elT teachers did so. District Administration Call for More taxes gov. Beverly Perdue (N.C.) has called for tax increases in order to stave off large teacher layoffs and increases in class size. North Carolina is facing a $4.7 billion shortfall out of a $21 billion budget. resigned After 11 years, randi Weingarten has resigned as president of the United Federation of Teachers, the AFT affiliate that represents teachers in New York City. She will retain her position as AFT president, to which she was elected in 2008. a soCial aPPointMent Elluminate has named Classroom 2.0 founder steve hargadon its first social learning consultant. Hargadon will moderate Elluminate’s new LearnCentral social learning network for education, which was just announced at NECC. 10 August 2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - August 2009

District Administration - August 2009
Contents
From the Editor
Letters
News Update
Standards & Assessment
Stimulus Monitor
Admin Profile
District Profile
Tell It to the Mayor
Fighting Fraud in Schools
Recovery High Schools
Keeping the Community in the Know
How Well Does This Web Site Work?
Problem Solution
Tech Disruptions
New Products
Product Focus
Professional Opinion

District Administration - August 2009