- Hundreds of D.C. students unable to use discounted Metro passes
- University programs that train U.S. teachers get mediocre marks in first-ever ratings
- Can School Reform Hurt Communities?
- U.S. education slipping in world rankings: report
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown and Mark Berman
June 17, 2013
Hundreds of D.C. students heading to school Monday morning were unable to use discounted Metro passes meant especially for them because of a “technical glitch,” transit officials said. The issue affected more than 500 students using D.C. One cards, which include subsidized passes for traveling to and from school. As a result, some students had to pay a fare on top of what was spent on the pass to enter the system. Some students taking final exams were delayed.
Stefan Natzke of Capitol Hill said his daughter Emma, a junior at Wilson High, was turned away when she tried to enter the Eastern Market Metro station using her student card. Emma was hurrying to get to Wilson to take her exams, but the station manager told her that “school was over with and therefore her card wouldn’t work,” according to her father. “I was pretty angry,” said Natzke, who gave his daughter his SmarTrip card. She was late for her first final exam. She might not have gotten to school at all, Natzke said, if he had been at work and unavailable to help. “It was certainly an inconvenience for us,” he said. “I’m sure it was worse for some other people.”
Metro spokeswoman Caroline Lukas said the problem was caused by a “a technical glitch” but said she didn’t know specifically what the problem was or why the passes were rejected. Lukas said very few riders were affected before Metro “identified the problem and resolved it” by 9 a.m. Students who were erroneously charged will receive an automatic credit, Lukas said. But she said she did not know how riders who had to use separate passes or cards to enter the system would receive refunds.
Metro has had problems in recent months dealing with fares, hours and timing. In March, Metro riders were charged peak fares for an additional hour the day after daylight saving time began. And Metro closed an hour earlier than normal the night clocks were turned back an hour in November, stranding riders. Fare gates at McPherson Square were malfunctioning for at least two days last month and would not read cards. Monthly student passes can be purchased for $30 and allow for unlimited trips on buses or Metro trains during a calendar month. A monthly pass issued to a student for June is valid until June 30, according to Monica Hernandez, a spokeswoman for the District Department of Transportation.
The monthly passes for June were sold through last week. Monthly passes for the summer went on sale Sunday, five days before the last day for D.C. public schools. Santos Lopez of Petworth said the issue affected his four children. “My daughter said, ‘Daddy, we don’t have money on the card,’ ” Lopez said. “I told her that it had to have money. . . . We pay $30 for her monthly pass and it has to work.” Sir Blair, 16, said he tried entering the Fort Totten station at 7:30 a.m. but his D.C. One Card didn’t work. When he asked the station manager, he was told to add money to his card. “They already stole my money,” Blair said.
The Washington Post
By Lyndsey Layton
June 18, 2013
Some other professions have standardized systems and national exams to ensure consistency. Medical students, for example, undergo a four-year program and a residency before taking a state licensing exam and national board exams, all designed so new physicians have the same core knowledge and practical skills. But teacher preparation programs vary from school to school, and each state sets its own licensing requirements. Most programs are run by universities. Others are run by nonprofit groups or school districts. They each have their own standards of admission and completion requirements. A 2007 McKinsey study found that 23 percent of U.S. teachers graduated in the top third of their class, while that figure was 100 percent in Singapore, Finland and other nations whose students lead the world on international exams.
To improve quality, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has proposed a rigorous professional exam for teachers, akin to the bar exam for lawyers, and wants universities to get more selective, requiring a minimum 3.0 grade-point average to enroll in teacher preparation programs and to graduate. The effort has stalled because of a lack of funding, AFT President Randi Weingarten said. About half the states have agreed to raising admission standards to education programs, but only a handful have acted.
Kate Walsh, the president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, said the organization developed the ratings because it was frustrated by too much talk and not enough action. “Our feeling is if we gave consumers more information, we could help to drive business and students to high-performing programs and away from low-performing ones,” Walsh said, noting that the ratings reflect the content of what is taught and not the quality of instruction. “This is a market strategy.”
The review was funded by 62 organizations, led by the Carnegie Corporation and the Broad Foundation. The National Council on Teacher Quality analyzed admissions standards and inspected syllabuses, textbooks and course requirements and rated 1,430 programs on a scale of zero to four stars. The organization did not visit the schools or interview students and faculty. “Take it with a salt shaker full of salt,” said Linda Darling Hammond, an expert onteacher education at Stanford University.
Bob Pianta, dean of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, which received one and a half stars, said he would study the review to see whether U-Va. could learn from it. “Almost everyone who’s working in teacher preparation now explicitly acknowledges we need to do a better job,” Pianta said. Still, the review is limited, he said. “This is a paper audit, really. It doesn’t dive into whether schools are implementing these programs very well or students are learning what they should be learning.”
George Washington University was among the lowest-ranked programs in the country. It received this warning from the council: “No prospective teacher candidates should entrust their preparation to these programs because candidates are unlikely to obtain much return on their investment.” Like many other universities, George Washington did not cooperate with the organization, leaving the reviewers to collect syllabuses and course requirements through unofficial channels. “It is important to note that although [GWU] did not participate in this project, our faculty, staff, and students welcome the opportunity to study the report to see what can be useful to us as we strive toward continued excellence in the preparation of future teachers,” the dean of the program, Michael Feuer, wrote in a statement.
Joshua P. Starr, the superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools, said he is concerned that the new ratings amount to teacher bashing. “I would imagine that not all PhD programs in molecular biology are the same and not all law schools are the same,” Starr said. “Teacher prep is like any other part of American education. There is great variability. . . . I get concerned about the drumbeat of debasing anything related to teachers these days.”
One problem in trying to prepare teachers is the fact that the country hasn’t come to a consensus on what students need to learn, Starr said. Montgomery County spends $28,000 on each new teacher for the first three years in professional development, an investment Starr calls “start-up costs.”
“I have not met a young teacher coming out saying, ‘I know everything,’ ” Starr said. “They want to learn, they want to be in an environment where they can be supported. It’s up to us to take these great people and help them do their best work.
To view complete article, visit link above.
The New York Times
By Sarah Carr
June 15, 2013
NEW ORLEANS — BEFORE Hurricane Katrina, about 74 percent of this city’s schools were considered “failing,” based mainly on their standardized test scores. By 2012, that figure had dropped to 42 percent, even as the bar for passing was raised. Average ACT scores for the city’s public school students have inched up. In 2011, black students in New Orleans outperformed their peers in the rest of Louisiana for the first time since the state test scores have been tracked.
There are multiple explanations for the improvements. The schools spend more per pupil on average than they did before Katrina, for example. But most explanations have focused on the radical overhaul of the city’s education system: the expansion of independent charter schools (which more than 80 percent of New Orleans public school children now attend); a greater reliance on alternative teacher training programs like Teach for America; and the increased use of test scores to determine whether educators should keep their jobs and schools should stay open.
New Orleans may be the extreme test case, but reforms like these are reshaping public education across the country. The movement is rooted in the notion that “fixing” schools is the strongest lever for lifting communities out of poverty. The criminal justice and health care systems may be broken, living-wage jobs in short supply, and families forced to live in unstable or unsafe conditions. But the buck supposedly stops in the classroom. Thus teachers can find themselves charged with remedying an impossibly broad set of challenges that go far beyond reading at grade level.
In New Orleans, this single-minded focus on school improvement has given new hope to many low-income families, but it has also destabilized the broader community in some unanticipated ways. Consider the cost to many veteran educators, who formed the core of the city’s black middle class. After the flood, officials fired 7,500 school employees. An unknown number were ultimately rehired by the reconstituted traditional and charter schools, but they often found themselves working in a very different environment.
The growth in charter schools has fostered an unrelenting focus on preparation for standardized tests and college. Some classes begin with students as young as 5 chanting: “This is the way — hey! — we start the day — hey! We get the knowledge — hey! — to go to college — hey!” At the end of the summer, this year’s incoming kindergartners will most likely be told that they are members of the class of 2030, for the year they will graduate from college.
The obstacles that stand in the way of this goal — poverty, trauma, parental ambivalence — are considered “excuses” that must not distract from the quest. Watching this mentality play out in the lives of families and educators can be both inspiring and frightening.
FOR teachers it has meant a bias toward a kind of youthful idealism that prevails in many New Orleans charter schools. The consummate teacher willingly works 70-hour weeks, consents to daily feedback on everything from lesson plan to tone of voice, and takes full responsibility for his students’ successes and failings. Young principals pump up their even younger teachers, telling them, “What you do is the most important work in the world.” Staff meetings can feel like a cross between summer camp and cult revival, as teachers gather in circles, praise one another for redirecting a wayward student or helping an overwhelmed colleague, and recite one another’s names in unison. This mentality has attracted ambitious, talented young teachers from across the country. But it has also risked turning teaching into a missionary pursuit. At a few of the charter schools I have reported on over the last six years, less than 10 percent of the teachers came from New Orleans or were older than 35. “I think a lot of people who come to New Orleans want to change New Orleanians,” said Mary Laurie, a veteran school administrator and principal of O. Perry Walker High School.
To view complete article visit link above.
The Washington Times
By Jessica Chasmar
June 17, 2013
The U.S. education system is not as globally competitive as it used to be, a study by the Council on Foreign Relations revealed on Monday. “The real scourge of the U.S. education system — and its greatest competitive weakness — is the deep and growing achievement gap between socioeconomic groups that begins early and lasts through a student’s academic career,” wrote Rebecca Strauss, associate director for CFR’s Renewing America publications.
“And while America does spend plenty on education, it funnels a disproportionate share into educating wealthier students, worsening that gap,” she said.
According to the report, the United States has slipped 10 spots in both high school and college graduation rates in the past three decades. The gap is in part due to the majority of developed countries investing more resources per pupil in lower-income school districts than in higher-income ones.
“Human capital is perhaps the single most important long-term driver of an economy,” Ms. Strauss writes. “Smarter workers are more productive and innovative. It is an economist’s rule that an increase of one year in a country’s average schooling level corresponds to an increase of 3 to 4 percent in long-term economic growth. Most of the value added in the modern global economy is now knowledge based."
Edward Alden, CFR senior fellow and Renewing America director, wrote in a blog post that “the failure of federal education policy has been greatest in its core mission of reducing disparities in public education.” The CFR reports that although the Obama administration “has worked to reform and improve federal programs that serve low-income students, some of the biggest changes in federal funding priorities favor wealthy students who need the least help.”
Mailing Archive: