US Education Update UK Education Update

US Education Update

Issue 12, January 2002

Contents

 

US Education Bill

President Bush signed the US Education Bill into law on January 8th. The legislation will give authority for the use of federal monies as leverage to force improvements in low-performing schools and ensure more help for needy students.
The main elements of the new bill are as follows:

Education Spending - The bill authorizes $26.5billion in spending on primary and secondary education for the 2002 financial year. This represents an increase of $8billion over 2001. The agreed spending figure was a major focus of debate between all parties and is $4billion more than Bush had proposed and $6billion less than the Democrats had requested. Even now, some senators believe that the agreed spending totals are not sufficient to ensure that proposals relating to special education will be successful.

Proficiency in Reading and Maths - In order to qualify for federal education funding, states will have to establish a "Proficient" level in reading and maths and make steady progress bringing students up to this level over the next 12 years. Additionally, schools must close the gaps in academic scores between rich and poor students and white and minority pupils.

Annual Tests - As has been trailed throughout the year, the bill does contain a provision that ties federal funds to annual tests in reading and maths for every child in school grades 3 to 8 (approx. age 8 to 13). These tests will be designed by the individual states but federal oversight will be in place to ensure that these tests are meaningful. Schools whose scores fail to improve for two years on the trot will receive additional federal aid to assist them to overcome identified barriers. If still no improvement is achieved, low-income pupils will be eligible for money for additional tutoring or transportation costs involved in moving to another, better performing, state school. In an initiative not dissimilar to that in the UK, staff changes can be required if the school continues to fail its pupils academically, but only after 6 years of trying. Other options will include a revamping of the curriculum or conversion to charter school status.

Faith-Based Involvement - Churches and other religious groups can provide tutoring and after school programmes paid for from federal funds. However, the bill does not allow for "vouchers" to enable pupils to transfer to private or religious schools as Bush had originally proposed.

Teacher Qualifications - All states wishing to receive federal education funds must ensure that, within 4 years, all teachers are professionally qualified in their subject area. (This is likely to exacerbate existing teacher shortages in maths and science.)

School Report Cards - Schools will be required to develop periodic report cards showing the school's standardized test scores compared with other local and state schools. These reports will also be required to show two-year trends in scores and also compare the percentage of qualified teachers in a school with other schools.

Reading Improvement - The bill provides $1billion each year for 5 years to improve reading skills. This is in line with the Bush election commitment to ensure that every child can read by age 7.

English Language Skills - schools will be required to test pupils whose first language is not English to ensure that they are proficient in the language after 3 consecutive years of attending a US public school.

Partnerships with Higher Education - The bill provides money to help schools form partnerships with colleges and universities to improve maths and science instruction.

Charter Schools - The bill provides federal aid to build new charter schools and help existing ones.

Restrictions in Spending - The bill will allow states the freedom to use a limited portion of federal funds as they wish to enable states to experiment with new education initiatives. However, one small clause allows federal funds to be withdrawn from any school district that discriminates against the Boy Scouts or similar groups that ban homosexuals.

Many in Congress regard this bill as the most far-reaching federal school measure since passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965. Bush commenting after the bills passage through Congress said "These historic reforms will improve our public schools by creating an environment in which every child can learn through real accountability, unprecedented flexibility for states and school districts, greater local control, more options for parents and more funding for what works."

Democrats, including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Chairman of the Senate's Education Committee, commented "This bill lays a solid foundation for a stronger, better and fairer America in the future."

But the bill did not please everyone. Sen. James Jeffords (I-Vt.), Kennedy's predecessor as Chairman of the Education Committee who left the Republican party after a dispute about education spending, voted against an education bill for the first time in his 25 years in Congress. He stated that "I fear that this bill, without the sufficient resources, will merely highlight our shortcomings. . . . I believe it is better to approve no bill rather than to approve a bad bill." (Legislation to reauthorize special education programmes, Jefford's main preoccupation, will be considered next year.)

So the first legislative year of the Bush Administration finished as it began with the focus on education. This was the first proposal Bush sent to Congress some twelve months ago and, as the President promised, it was the first bill he signed in the new year.

Please see the attached document "Education Bill (K Kafer).doc" for a short op-ed article on the ESEA bill, written for the Update by Krista Kafer, Senior Policy Analyst for Education, The Heritage Foundation. For more information on The Heritage Foundation, please see: www.heritage.org

 

Education and Crime

High School Drop Out Statistics
A report from the Coalition for Juvenile Justice suggests that low achievement at school or dropping out can be an early indicator for future involvement in crime. The report finds that
10. more than 1/3 of the children in the juvenile court system have very low literacy levels
11. 70-87% of youth in prison suffer from learning or emotional disabilities
12. 82% of adult prisoners were high school dropouts

The report, which will be submitted to Congress, calls for increased funding on special programmes to provide non-traditional learning for at-risk students, along with increased parental and community involvement.

For more information:
www.juvjustice.org/ - Coalition for Juvenile Justice
nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/droppub_2001/ - The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has released a report on high school dropout and completion rates from 1972 - 2000, including state level information and data on family characteristics and their relationship to high school completion.
Read the discussion paper, "Powerful Pathways, Framing Options and Opportunities for Vulnerable Youth", from the Youth Transition Funders Group. It includes sections on education strategies and innovations at policy level: www.ydrf.com/ytfg

American Youthworks
Educating High School Drop-Outs American Youthworks is a charter school in Austin, Texas, which provides education for young people who have dropped out of the mainstream. Started in 1996, the school offers the chance for students with "multiple challenges" to graduate high school and also to undertake community service. Its goal is to recover those young people who have dropped out of high school, or who are at risk of dropping out.

The school uses innovative teaching methods and allows students to learn at a pace, which suits each individual. With the goal of motivating young people to complete high school and become productive citizens, the curriculum enables students to apply what they have learned, to work in teams and to think creatively and critically. Most students are from an ethnic minority, the majority are from low- -5- income households, almost half are female and, to date, 75% have gained a high school degree and/or have gone on to further training/education.

The school's community work includes building new, energy-efficient, affordable homes for low-income families and building/recovering parks and public walkways. They also have a "Computer Corps" who gain first-rate computer skills and then go out into the community to teach these skills. Students are offered healthcare, career preparation, job placement and counselling services. Many are enrolled in programmes such as AmeriCorps (Corporation for National and Community Service).

Funded in part through partnerships at local, state and national level, the school actively seeks out new sources of funding. For example, they are currently working to set up a partnership with a major IT company to help with their Computer Corps.

The school's founder is a former teacher of inmates of the county jail. He discovered there that 80% of offenders had dropped out of school. The school's aim is to "break the walls of the traditional classroom to engage high-risk, at-promise youth in applied learning through service to the community". The school has won awards for its work and is a fully accredited public high school with a ten-year charter and a permitted enrolment of 750.

For more information:
www.ail.org/charter.html - American Youthworks charter school
www.americorps.org - AmeriCorps

Inmate Education
Two studies show that prisoners who receive high school, vocational or college level education are less likely to re-offend within three years of their release. The first study followed 3,000 prisoners in Maryland, Minnesota and Ohio and noted that 31% of those who had not taken classes returned to prison compared to 22% of those who had. The second study, at a maximum-security prison for women in New York state, showed a much greater benefit. Less than 8% of the women who followed a college programme while in prison returned there, compared to 30% of those who had not taken college classes. (It was noted that women tend to have lower rates of re-incarceration than men in general.) The reports conclude that the savings to the taxpayer in reduced re-incarceration are large. Funding for inmate education programmes varies from state to state, and is generally low. However, there has been an increase in funding for vocational education targeted at inmates under 25 years old with less than five years to serve.

For more information:
www.ed.gov/offices/OVAE/OCE/index.html Office of Correctional Education (Office of Adult and Vocational Education, Department of Education). Click on "Current Research": Three-State Recidivism Study
www.changingminds.ws/ - full report on study at the women's maximum security prison
www.soros.org/usprograms/index.htm - Open Society Institute
www.ceanational.org - Correctional Education Association

 

Not Your Ordinary School (NYOS)

The NYOS Charter School in Austin, Texas was set up in 1998 by parents and educators and serves all school ages from five to 18-year-olds. The school has doubled in size since its opening and now has almost 300 students.

The school's philosophy is that every child should realize his/her maximum potential though an innovative curriculum, which involves partnerships with the corporate world. Underlying this is that public education should be a shared responsibility between parents, teachers and students. Parents are actively involved in all aspects of the school's work from fund-raising to recruitment

The school's principal and governing council did not want to "teach to the test" but, like all Texas schools, their students have to be tested against state standards: their academic results are excellent. There is open enrolment and absolutely no "creaming off" the best applicants. The school has a number of Special Education students.

On visiting the school, the first impression is that it is a hive of activity. Housed in a new building (designed by one of the parents) students appear to be busy and stimulated by their work.

Perhaps the most surprising thing is the mix of ages - very small children alongside teenagers. This mix apparently works very well and both the older and younger pupils enjoy being housed in the same building. On school trips the older children spontaneously take care of the little ones.

The school prides itself on its sound financial management. Apparently a key reason for charters to fail is that those starting them, though well intentioned, are often poor administrators. The State of Texas regards the school as a model of academic and fiscal excellence.

NYOS teachers either hold, or are working towards, special education and gifted and talented credentials. The school has no recruitment problems at all.
Not Your Ordinary School's website is: www.nyos.org

 

Dealing With Disruptive And Violent School Pupils

In Georgia (and this happens in other states too) students not coping within mainstream education can be moved temporarily to alternative schools. The aim of these schools is to provide students with the full curriculum and to help them to get back either to their previous school or to another mainstream school.

The young people in the alternative schools are there for a number of reasons - persistent disruption in class, persistent breaking the rules, violence/ threatening violence, breaking the law or because their needs are not served within the mainstream, e.g. young mothers who might need help with childcare, young people who have been bullied and abused in the mainstream system and need the "protection" of a more sheltered environment. The students are therefore young people who have behaved in an unacceptable way or who have been subjected to unacceptable behaviour. Nearly all students who are there because of disruptive behaviour are academically between two and three levels below grade.

Run by dedicated and supportive staff, these schools often succeed in raising academic achievement and in raising the aspirations of their students. Their "failure" is that students often thrive in the alternative environment and do not want to leave to return to the mainstream.

Common to these schools are small classes, a basic philosophy that all adults in the school are there to help and listen to the students, and that there must be respect for all.

Texas operates similar schools and also has more radical solutions, e.g. the much-publicized boot camps. These are for incarcerated juvenile offenders and operate a "military" regime involving physical training, basic comforts only and very strict discipline. Their primary focus is not education

For more information, please email judith.grant@worldnet.att.net.

 

Boston Schools Connect Volunteering with School-to-Work

In 1995, the Boston school district committee approved a plan to link service learning (volunteering) to its learning standards, curriculum and school to work preparation. As a result the district, with 63,000 students, has integrated service learning into its schools and views the experience the children gain as an essential tool to learning job skills, as well as benefitting the community at large. Trained teachers share best practice with their colleagues who adapt models to fit their own lessons.

The Massachusetts Department of Education provides an overview of the Massachusetts Community Service Learning programme at: www.doe.mass.edu/csl/overview.html

A packet of materials, "What Community Service Is ... and Is Not," describing how to integrate service learning standards into a school's curriculum is available at: www.doe.mass.edu/csl/whatis.html

Teachnet provides examples of teachers' service-learning projects in Boston at: www.teachnet.org/docs/Network/Project/Boston/

A publication from the National Association of Partners in Education outlines the thinking of advocates and policymakers at the state and local levels (in 6 states) on the complementary nature of service learning and school-to-work.
It can be downloaded at: www.partnersineducation.org/kellogg.htm

Sources: Education Week, Public Education Network online bulletin

 

More Schools Introduce Economic Desegregation

The Cambridge, Massachusetts, school district will begin desegregating its schools based on family income rather than race from September 2002. (At present, Cambridge parents can list their top three school choices and a decision is made based on factors such as race, location, siblings and if a child has special needs.) Cambridge, which is home to Harvard University, has racial diversity in its schools but not economic desegregation with affluent blacks and working class whites sending their children to school with their economic peers. The school district, in making its decision, has pointed to education research which shows that family income is a reliable indicator of future academic success and poor students benefit from being in classes with more affluent peers. The research also suggests that children of more affluent families are not adversely affected by classes with poorer children. The key, according to education researchers, is to maintain a -9- balance where there is a majority of middle-class children in the classroom to avoid the possibility of changing the school culture. A handful of school districts across the nation are experimenting with similar economic desegregation plans. The Cambridge plan will be introduced gradually with the incoming kindergarten class in the autumn.

Source: Boston Globe

 

High School Seniors Score Lower in National Science Tests

Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show that the science scores of high school seniors (grade 12) have dropped since the last test four years ago while scores of grades 4 and 8 have remained the same despite efforts to raise standards. The NAEP, also known as "the Nation's Report Card", is the only nationally representative and continuing assessment of US students. Periodic tests are held in grades 4, 8, and 12 at the national and state level in basic subjects. For the 2000 science test, 240,000 students were assessed with 40 states participating. The results have been greeted with disappointment with some suggesting that science teachers have had to take a back seat to the emphasis in schools on reading and mathematics. Others have pointed to the lack of teachers with a proper science background.

For more information on the NAEP test and the results, please go to: nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/science/results/

 

University of California Broadens Admissions Criteria Again

In a further move to broaden its admissions policy (see Education Update 10, item 7), the University of California will introduce a measure called "comprehensive review". This will take into consideration such factors as an applicant's economic background and personal achievements in addition to high school grades and scores on college entrance examinations. It will replace the current two-tiered system which looks at an applicant's academic record first (accounting for 50-75% of initial admissions) before looking at other factors. Until now, around 50% of an incoming class were judged on additional criteria such as outstanding athletic or artistic ability, or ability to overcome poverty. The University hopes that the move will increase diversity on campuses which have seen a decrease in minority applicants since the abolition of affirmative action (decisions based primarily on race or gender) six years ago. The new policy will take effect for the 2002 admissions.

Sources: Washington Post, New York Times, Education Week

 

One-Stop Search Tool for US Educational Institutions

A new search tool from the National Center for Education Statistics allows you to look for all US public schools, private schools, colleges, universities, and public libraries. Over 150,000 educational institutions are listed.

To find out more, please go to: nces.ed.gov/globallocator/

 

Conferences on Closing the Achievement Gap

Two recent conferences organized by The Education Trust and the National Alliance of Black School Educators (NABSE) are worth highlighting as they looked at closing the achievement gap between groups of students.

The Education Trust works for the high academic achievement of all students at all levels, kindergarten through college. While they are aware that all schools and colleges could better serve their students, they focus on the institutions most often left behind in plans to improve education - those serving concentrations of low-income, Latino, African American or Native American students. Their twelfth annual national conference featured examples of the best work being carried out to improve student achievement, with a special focus on teacher quality.

NABSE is the largest network organization of Black school educators in the USA. It has an active membership of 6,000 members ranging from post grad students and superintendents through to education policy makers and professors. NABSE's goals are achieved through three primary areas of focus:

Professional Development Programs that strengthen the skills of teachers, principals, specialists, superintendents and school board members;
Information Sharing on innovative instructional and learning strategies that have proven successful in motivating African American youth and increasing academic performance in critical learning areas; and
Policy Advocacy to ensure high standards and quality in public and private education systems.

The British Council is working with NASBE to identify potential schools to host UK teachers participating in the Teachers International Professional Development programme (TIPD) in the USA.
For more information on the above conferences, please email: edward.burke@us.britishcouncil.org.
Please consult the British Council website for further details on the TIPD programme www.centralbureau.org.uk/tipd.

More information:
www.edtrust.org - The Education Trust
www.nabse@nabse.org - National Alliance of Black School Educators

 

Upcoming Events/Conferences

March 25-26: OECD conference "International Education Reform and the Role of Information Technology in Teaching and Learning" will be held at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee.
The conference will discuss research data on educational reform/technology, which have been collected in over 25 countries. The Vanderbilt event will focus on data from the Americas: how technology improves and/or hampers teaching and learning, and how its implementation impacts the larger issues of training, corporate productivity, skilled labour etc.
More information is available at: www.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/ICT
or from Gillian Cooper at the British Consulate-General, Atlanta: gillian.cooper@fco.gov.uk

June 16-19: International Teaching for a Change Conference will be held in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
The conference will include an examination of new and old teaching techniques and model faculty development programmes.
More information is available at: www.teachingforachange.com

 

Back Issues

Previous issues of the Education Update are available on the British Council's USA website.

 

For More Information
If there are any topics you would like to see covered in future editions of the Update, please contact: alison.corbett@us.britishcouncil.org
Education Research Officer

Additional contacts
jenny.scott@us.britishcouncil.org Director Education, British Council USA
judith.grant@worldnet.att.net Consultant to the British Embassy
andy.mackay@us.britishcouncil.org Director, British Council USA
sue.owen@fco.gov.uk Counsellor Economic, British Embassy
john.russell@fco.gov.uk Labour Officer, British Embassy


British Embassy website; www.britainUSA.com

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