In case you missed the buzz this morning. Race to the Top grants will soon be available to districts. Alyson Klein seems to have the most comprehensive rundown, but if you see other helpful links, please post them below. (Politics K-12/Education Week)

Nothing to study, or not as studious? College students study less today than they did 50 years ago. A WaPo article asks if college has become too easy, but we wonder if student motivation has declined. (Washington Post)

Promise and challenges of online learning. Students learn about the same, whether they are in a traditional higher ed classroom or online, according to a new study. But researchers added: Online courses should be more customizable for educators and more fun for students. (h/t Chronicle of Higher Education) (Ithaka S+R)

Out with a bang. A University of Maryland celebrates his graduation with a backflip. (Huffington Post)

Teachers are inundated with data—data about their students’ performance, data that shows whether their students are making progress, and data that can help identify students for targeted remediation. But the data doesn’t make a difference if it isn’t interpreted or used correctly to inform instruction. How best to learn? In training, of course. But a new report out today says the majority of educators never learn how to use data in their university preparation programs.

Of a sample of 180 undergraduate and graduate programs, only six programs were found to adequately prepare teachers-in-training to sufficiently collect, analyze, and use assessment data, according to the report by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ). Only 12 percent of programs in the sample had class work or homework that involved analyzing data from student assessments.  Even more alarming: In order for a program to be deemed “adequate” in this NCTQ analysis, it had to include just one objective or lecture addressing assessment data, when continued and repeated practice in this realm is certainly warranted. “The bar to earn a passing rating in this study was set low,” authors Julie Greenberg and Kate Walsh write. “But it also means that our margin of error is so substantial that there should be little doubt that a program designated as inadequate is in fact inadequate.”

The report makes a series of recommendations, including more incentives from the federal government to include relevant coursework in teacher preparation programs and more accountability from states.

Annual state report cards on teacher preparation programs, released in March, show that accountability measures vary widely from state to state. States set their own performance targets and criteria for identifying low-performing programs, so it’s not surprising to hear that less than 2 percent of programs receive that designation. Of the 38 programs identified as low-performing or at-risk, 13 come from Texas. But when you look at the state’s performance criteria, which are included in every state report card, you will see that Texas judges its programs based, in part, on achievement data of the students taught by program graduates. Linking student achievement to a teacher preparation program’s performance is one of several indicators we recommended in a report last year, but the vast majority of states do not, instead relying on one-time site visits or a simple review of standards.

Without more targeted and responsive state oversight, teacher preparation programs will continue in this somewhat unknown space, churning out graduates as they see fit. But in today’s world of data-driven instruction, schools and districts need more than that; they need educators who can use data to diagnose problems and re-direct their energies to more sufficiently—and more quickly—turn our schools around.

The College Board has announced a slick new campaign called Don’t Forget Ed. The goal will be to elevate education to a top election issue for the fall election.

Forgive me if I’m underwhelmed. As a former public official, I can assure you that every candidate is going to try to be viewed as pro-education. Candidates always say they’re for education.

One of the reasons candidates want to be seen as “pro-education” is included in the polling that backs up the new campaign: “Candidates who place a priority on education are viewed through a positive lens. They are seen as ‘forward looking,’ ‘caring about ensuring opportunities for all,’ ‘in touch with the concerns of the average family,’ and ‘understanding what it takes to compete in today’s global economy,’” says a polling memo prepared by Hart Research Associates.

But what will “supporting education” mean? In Montgomery County, Maryland, candidates vie to get on what’s known as the Apple Ballot. Developed by the county’s teacher union, the ballot endorses candidates who have agreed to issues that the union cares about–among them salary and benefits. (They’re also expected to pay for the privilege of appearing on the slate.)

But in Connecticut, the education reform organization Conn Can developed its own endorsement process in a campaign called “Vote for Ed.” It laid out four specific issues–including a more rigorous teacher evaluation plan and school funding that would follow the child.

The College Board hasn’t announced specifics on the campaign. Perhaps they will lay out a series of criteria that will spell out exactly what they mean by being “for” education.

Otherwise, I can already tell you that when the votes are in, everyone will claim that they were on the winning side. And no one will have a mandate to do anything.

Why hide data? For the first time, Jay Matthews includes a sampling of private schools in his annual High School Challenge Index. But he questions why many schools are reluctant to participate. As Education Sector’s Anne Hyslop has said before, outcomes data is particularly important for determining college readiness. (Class Struggle/Washington Post)

Prehistoric school days. National Teacher of the Year Rebecca Mieliwocki, in a candid Q&A, says more needs to be done to reform the school day. Extending the day is a good start, “but it’s got to be better. I think we need a real change in how kids get educated. We walk into schools that look prehistoric.” Education Sector’s Elena Silva, in a recent report, agreed that extending the day isn’t enough; more attention must be paid to the quality of that extra time. (Los Angeles Times)

Cha-ching. An annual survey of university president salaries shows that their pay is up 3 percent over last year. Ohio State University’s Gordon Gee is the top earner, taking home almost $2 million per year. (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

“Rehearsal’s over. You’re going out there now, you’re going to do this thing. How you live matters. You’re going to fall down, but the world doesn’t care how many times you fall down, as long as it’s one fewer than the number of times you get back up,” Academy Award-winning producer Aaron Sorkin told the graduating class at Syracuse University. (Syracuse University)

‘The dilemma of academic diversity.’ On today’s anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, Mike Petrilli asks how we can better integrate our schools. (Flypaper)

Vital information. The proposed “college scorecard” that aims to give prospective students an idea of college costs lacks one very important piece of information: the average debt per student at graduation. (Inside Higher Ed)

Parental perceptions. A new survey shows that a large majority of parents (94 percent) expect their children to go to college, but more than half (57 percent) don’t see college as “good value” for the money spent. (Pew Research Center)

An apple a day, and now a book too. A new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report finds that more educated people have lower obesity rates and higher life expectancy rates. They’re also less likely to be smokers. (TIME)

We think someone forgot the first rule of Fight Club. Patrick McGuinn takes a look inside education reform advocacy groups, whose monthly strategy meetings are referred to as the “Fight Club.” (Education Next)

Not one or two, but… three (!) sets of Georgia twins have earned the valedictorian spots at their respective high schools. (Get Schooled)

Chronic absenteeism. One in 10 students misses at least one month of school per year (or more), according to a new study. (Education Week)

It all adds up. This series on families and their financial decisions features couples who are simultaneously paying for their students’ college education and their parents’ elderly care. (NPR)

Source: http://photography-business-tips.com

The New York Times’ most emailed articles list typically does not include the most hard-hitting journalism. Instead, the list features pet stories about Ivy League graduates forced to wait tables or, this week, parents paying for their middle-aged daughters to freeze their eggs as grandparent insurance. Monday morning’s list, however, had an important story that examines a tradeoff posed by the charter school movement: the increasing self-selection into segregated schools.

Over the last few decades, the charters have brought the market to the schoolhouse. For parents whose children would have been siphoned into a low-performing school, school choice can provide other, hopefully better, options. But, as N.R. Kleinfield’s article, At Explore Charter School, a Portrait of Segregated Education, demonstrates, charters can also further segregate schools.

School assignment policies—often based on neighborhoods where families choose neighbors who look like them— can create segregated schools. I’ve written before about Wake County, NC, and the consequences of its transition from an innovative income-based busing policy to neighborhood-based school assignments. School choice takes this concern one step further.

While New York City’s public school population is racially diverse, more than half of the city’s schools are at least 90 percent black and Hispanic. Explore Charter School falls into that category: its student population is both racially (92.7 percent black and 5.7 percent Hispanic) and economically homogenous (80 percent of the students are eligible for subsidized lunch.) As Kleinfield points out: “the school’s makeup is in line with charter schools nationally, which are over all less integrated than traditional public schools.”

This is a worrisome tradeoff to the school choice movement. Research over the past fifty years indicates that segregation has a negative impact on academic achievement, especially for minority students. But school is not just about test scores.  For many children, school is the first opportunity to have significant contact with children from different backgrounds. Interracial contact—whether in the classroom, the choir room, or the basketball court—improves the chances of friendship. Charlie Clotfelter, a professor of public policy and economics at Duke University, writes that integrated schools provide intangible benefits that can increase post-secondary achievement:

Whereas whites in the all-white school took for granted cultural distinctions associated with whites, white students in the diverse school were fully aware of these distinctions because they were the subject of routine interracial discourse. Among black adults, those who reported having at least one close white friend were much more likely than other blacks to believe that whites are not indifferent to the well-being of blacks, but rather want to help them get ahead.

Interracial contact can also provide minority students with access to networks that are important in finding jobs and opportunities for higher education. Studies show that black students from desegregated schools are more likely to go to college and to work in a diverse workplace.

School choice isn’t going away—and nor should it. But we have to understand the negative consequences of allowing parents to re-segregate schools through choice. With integrated schools come contact, friendship, and understanding. These things are not enough to fix our nation’s problems, but they are an important start. Without them, we risk starting with an achievement gap and ending with a divided nation.

Ignorance is bliss. After changes in a state formula, significantly more Fla. students failed this year’s writing test (in fourth-grade, they saw the passing percentage drop from 81 to 27 percent). So the state board of education re-adjusted the formula so the numbers don’t look so bad. (Orlando Sentinel)

He cost someone $1 million. Sara Mead profiles Ben Miller, a former Education Sector policy analyst who now works for the U.S. Department of Education, about his career in ed policy. Miller is one of Mead’s 17 young edu-leaders, which she named earlier this month. (Policy Notebook/Education Week)

To plug in or not. An interesting look at two D.C. area private schools, 20 minutes apart, that are on opposite ends of the spectrum, in terms of technology. (Washington Post)

“I got this.” N.J. Gov. Chris Christie and Newark Mayor Cory Booker released this video last night for the annual correspondents club dinner. (Political Wire)

“It makes me puke to think about borrowing more money.” A comprehensive look at the rising cost of college and how students and families, bogged down by student debt, handle expensive loan payments. (New York Times)

‘States lack capacity for reform.’ The Obama administration’s waiver program puts more pressure than ever on states and their education departments. Can they handle it? Some aren’t so sure. (Education Week)

Getting accepted is only half of the equation. Then there’s paying for college. Three college students won $1,500 each for creating how-to videos for their peers on college net price calculators. You can see the videos here. (Homeroom/U.S. Department of Education)

Take a cue from the business sector. A new report calls on business leaders to hold school boards more accountable in an effort to improve overall performance. The report includes 13 case studies of school boards in 12 states. (h/t Eduwonk) (U.S. Chamber of Commerce)

A couple of weeks ago, while discussing the announcement of the Harvard / MIT edX initiative, I included a brief recap of what’s been happening over the last six months in the land of Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which began as follows:

Throughout the fall 2011 semester, a group of well-known Stanford professors had been running an unorthodox experiment by letting over 100,000 students around the world take their courses, online, for free. Those who did well got a certificate from the professor saying so.

Later that day, I received an email titled “error in your blog” from a person who works in communications for Stanford, which I’m reprinting with permission. The person said:

Students who did well did not receive a certificate. Neither Stanford nor the professors issued a certificate. All students who completed the courses received a letter from the professor saying that they had completed the course. And that’s it.

This is telling. I used the word “certificate” deliberately, because “letter” seemed inadequate. A letter is a vehicle for interpersonal correspondence, e.g. “Dear Mom, I am having fun at camp this summer, please send cookies,” or “Dear Sir, we regret to inform you that your manuscript does not meet our standards for publication.” A certificate is a document describing some kind of important characteristic of the bearer, as attested by the issuer. A college diploma is a kind of certificate, as is a teaching certificate issued by a state licensing board, as were the old-fashioned “letters of introduction” people once used to facilitate business and social interactions. As is, I would argue, the document that students received upon completing the Stanford MOOC in question. Here it is:



Looks like a certificate to me.

This shows the biggest weakness in Stanford’s engagement with the rapidly-developing world of highly-branded MOOCs. By rights, Stanford should own this space. Winning the MOOC space will require a combination of investment capital, branded credibility in the marketplace, deep expertise in academics, and deep expertise in the formation and scaling of hugely popular online enterprises. There’s nowhere in the world with more of that stuff in one place than Stanford and the surrounding Silicon Valley environs.

But unlike Harvard and MIT, Stanford has thus far been unwilling to lend its super-valuable brand name to some kind of certificate of learning. That will make a huge difference over time. People need more than learning; they need evidence of learning. Stanford’s current reflexive “Don’t say certificate!” attitude reflects the deep ambivalence of organizations that look at MOOCs and see both immense opportunities to expand their mission and presence worldwide and huge risks to an exclusivity-driven success model that has served them well for the last century. Harvard and MIT have gotten over it. Stanford should, too.