- Posted by David on September 29, 2008
At Brookfield East High School, Laura Turner is the kind of student who shouldn’t have to worry about getting into the college of her choice.
She’s articulate, mature and enthusiastic, a hard worker with high marks — a 3.88 grade-point average — who organized hundreds of students last year in Waukesha County to sleep in a parking lot and raise thousands of dollars for displaced Ugandan citizens.
But ranked against her peers in terms of GPA, Turner isn’t in the top 25% of her senior class.
The stratification caused by class rank, which arguably makes a student such as Turner appear less accomplished, compelled the Elmbrook School District last week to start looking at whether its two high schools should quit tracking the data. It’s a move that’s been implemented within the past five years at Whitefish Bay and Shorewood high schools, where administrators say they’ve seen more seniors being accepted into the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Nationally, reports show that college admission departments have already started to ease scrutiny on class rank, but at least one UW-Madison official is still perturbed by the trend at high schools, saying that withholding a piece of data impedes their work and forces them to more heavily emphasize ACT or SAT scores.
Turner doesn’t know yet how rank will affect her own UW-Madison application — this month begins the scramble to apply to colleges. It’s situations like hers that prompted a curriculum committee in the district to recommend looking more closely at class rank; last year’s seniors with a GPA of 4.05 weren’t in the top 10% of their class, and 3.8 GPA students didn’t clear the top 20%.
“We’ve got a high-achieving district with very bright students, but you can only have so many in the top 10%,” said Eileen Depka, assistant superintendent for educational services. “That doesn’t mean that those not in the top 10% aren’t terrific students.”
Unlike GPA, an individual score, class rank measures something beyond each student’s control — how well their peers are performing around them. Private high schools such as University School and Marquette University High School haven’t ranked students for years.
Dave Hawkins, the director of public policy for the National Association of College Admissions Counseling, said many colleges already have realized the limitations of the figure and have de-emphasized it in favor of other factors: the strength of the applicant’s school’s curriculum, the courses he or she took, and GPA.
But that hasn’t kept an increasing number of high schools from viewing rank as a barrier to student access.
Shorewood High School confronted the issue several years ago after parents complained that high-achieving students weren’t getting into highly competitive schools — UW-Madison in particular.
“In 2004-’05, the last year we ranked students, 18 attended Madison,” said Tim Kenney, the school’s assistant principal. “In 2005-’06, 31 attended. In 2006-’07, 46 attended Madison — almost one-third of the class.”
At Whitefish Bay High School, Principal Bill Henkle said dropping class rank in 2003 has kept seniors from fretting so much.
“They used to be obsessed with it,” Henkle said. “With each passing semester, it was like kids were watching their stock go up or down, thinking ‘I just fell out of the top 10% and now I’ll never get into such and such a place . . . ’ ”
At UW-Madison, Associate Director of Admissions Tom Reason said this perception is misguided.
“It’s categorically untrue that if you’re not in the top percentage of your class, that you don’t get a look from us,” Reason said, a hint of irritation rising in his voice. For more than a decade, he said, the UW system has comprehensively reviewed incoming freshmen, rather than making an initial determination based on GPA and class rank.
“In spite of how hard we say that, people don’t want to believe us,” Reason said.
Most high schools that have done away with class rank say they don’t mind extra emphasis on their graduating seniors’ ACT and SAT test scores — at high-achieving schools, these tend to be high anyway. But placing more weight on these scores may not be a good idea either, warned Hawkins, whose organization released a report last week criticizing the use of standardized testing as a sole benchmark for college admittance.
“The commission report basically says: We think there could be a better assessment,” Hawkins said. “Colleges do need some way to compare students who didn’t go to the same high school. SAT and ACT tests aren’t really optimal for that because they don’t measure student achievement, they measure aptitude.”
The difference? Aptitude is a student’s ability to figure out a particular test (an opportunity exploited by the multimillion-dollar test prep industry). Achievement measures how well the student has learned the content taught in high school.
Taking this into consideration, more than 750 colleges around the country no longer require an ACT or SAT score for admission.
Other students have found a way around the whole numbers stress that accompanies freshman admittance. Bobby Flehr graduated from Brookfield East in 2007 and attended a junior college for a year before transferring as a sophomore to San Jose State in California.
“That way,” Flehr said, “my class rank didn’t have any effect.”
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=799998
- Posted by David on September 22, 2008
Are school vouchers a reform that could save poor students, or a crackpot idea that�s also dangerous for public education? Lisa Snell and David Tokofsky debate.
February 13, 2008
Today, Snell and Tokofsky discuss the effect of voucher programs on public education. Previously, they debated choices in the Los Angeles Unified School District for students in low-performing campuses and the role of the teachers union in improving public schools. Later in the week, they'll discuss L.A. Unified's dropout problem and breaking up the district.
Vouchers: alive, well and working
By Lisa Snell
David, you may refer to vouchers as an "ivory tower idea," but in practice vouchers are alive and well in the United States, bringing educational hope to thousands of students trapped in poorly performing schools. Even in Los Angeles, privately financed vouchers through the Southern California Children's Scholarship Fund have served thousands of low-income children. In Los Angeles, fewer than 200 children a year are given transfers under the No Child Left Behind Act even though thousands are eligible to transfer out of low-performing schools. In contrast, the Southern California Children's Scholarship Fund placed 1,600 children in more than 240 private schools and has a waiting list of more than 5,000 names.
Nationwide, there are 21 school-choice voucher and tax-credit programs that serve approximately 200,000 students. Since 2004, nine new school-choice programs have been enacted in Georgia, Utah, Ohio, Arizona, Rhode Island and Washington D.C. These 21 programs are ranked in a February 2007 Milton Friedman Foundation report (PDF) that evaluates how well they live up to the late economist's gold standard for school choice. These programs include the 17-year-old voucher program enacted by the Wisconsin Legislature, which serves about 18,500 students in 122 private schools; Florida's McKay Scholarship Program, in which 25,000 special education students use vouchers to attend the school of their choice; and Arizona's voucher program for foster children.
A significant body of research demonstrates that school choice through vouchers and tax credits has produced significant improvement in public schools. For a full review of the literature, see the recent analysis by the University of Arkansas' Jay P. Greene: "Is School Choice Enough." Greene cites a review by Clive Belfield and Henry Levin, both from Columbia University's Teachers College, of more than 200 analyses of school choice literature. Belfield and Levin conclude, "The above evidence shows reasonably consistent evidence of a link between competition (choice) and education quality. Increased competition and higher educational quality are positively correlated."
A new study of the Milwaukee voucher program by SchoolChoice Wisconsin shows that vouchers have also improved the graduation rate for low-income students. The Milwaukee public schools' 2005-06 graduation rate was 53%, compared with 64% in the voucher-program schools.
California families already use vouchers. For preschool education, California offers child-care grants that follow the child into the preschool of the parents' choice. For college education, there are Pell Grants and other financial aid programs. It is only in K-12 education that we have been resistant to adopting voucher-like programs for California.
At the national level, President Bush proposed a Pell Grants for Kids program in his 2008 State of the Union address. The program would provide more than $300 million in scholarships to allow low-income children in failing elementary and secondary schools to attend the public or private school of their parents' choice. Under the president's proposal, states, cities, local educational agencies and nonprofit organizations could apply for grants to administer the scholarships. Los Angeles would be a perfect location for a Pell Grant pilot program for students stuck in low-performing schools.
School vouchers and tax-credit programs are not just a pipe dream. They are legitimate programs serving kids in more than 13 states. If kids in failing schools in Milwaukee, Cleveland and Florida have access to more school choice through vouchers and tax credits, why shouldn't kids in Los Angeles?
Lisa Snell is director of education and child welfare at the Reason Foundation.
Vouchers don't have a monopoly on choice
By David Tokofsky
Lisa, you forgot to read my first post. In it, I agreed that choice is important. I noted that L.A. Unified has choices everywhere. Lack of choice is not the core problem here. Bringing up examples such as Milwaukee, Cleveland and Jeb Bushville Florida does not make me want to move my kids out of L.A. Unified to Daytona Beach. I don't see tremendous emigration to these bastions of mediocre performance. Even the Dodgers are leaving Vero Beach. In fact, the irony is that while Bush's Florida might have more voucher programs, more of its schools are under the federal "Performance Improvement" category than most states. Those PI campuses are what mayors call "failing schools."
Lisa, you state that fewer than 200 L.A. Unified children are given transfers under the No Child Left Behind Act. But the fact is that most of the 60,000-plus kids in L.A. Unified magnet schools are those whose families you say need choice. They already had market savvy; they are already in the magnets. They have been taking advantage of L.A. Unified's choices for decades. They didn't need No Child Left Behind.
You cite examples of special-education students in Arizona who use vouchers, preschool kids in California getting child-care grants and some charitable philanthropists handing out their money to the poorest children to liberate them from state schools. I love these examples — they are good topics for my education doctorate thesis. But why are we neglecting to mention that after decades of vouchers, choices and now charters in Washington D.C. , its district spends more than $15,000 a kid? Or the fiasco of Philadelphia outsourcing control over many of its campuses to private companies? A good, balanced discussion at least requires insights from troubled examples, failures, successes and the 16 shades of gray between heaven and hell.
So let me enumerate yet again L.A. Unified's choices. More than 60,000 students are enrolled in more than 100 magnet schools. Thousands more choose to attend Schools for Advanced Studies or regional gifted and talented programs. Roughly 5,000 kids participate in the district's Permits with Transportation program, which sends students to campuses outside their neighborhoods. More than 100 charter schools that enroll more than 40,000 students have opened in less than 10 years. Nearly 100,000 high school students opt to attend nontraditional schools using our Options programs. Families come from every corner of the western United States to take advantage of our special education services.
Lisa, you note that 200,000 kids across the nation are in school-choice voucher and tax-credit programs. You make me realize that L.A. Unified might beat the entire nation. But let me double-check my Monday post to make sure I'm not forgetting any other choices in L.A. Unified.
Darn, we don't have vouchers!
L.A. Unified's problem is not lack of choice. What we do need is enhanced rigor and relevance in the curriculum. We need a stable leadership team like Boston and Atlanta have. We need a funding structure like ones in Kentucky, Connecticut, New York and other states. We need to make what's available at Brentwood School, Archer School and Harvard Westlake to our nation's newest immigrants and our district's working families. Can you send me two vouchers so my daughters can leave their solid L.A. Unified schools and go to private religious campuses — like my mayor's kids?
David Tokofsky was an L.A. Board of Education member for 12 years. Before that, he taught social studies and Spanish at John Marshall High School for 12 years.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-dustup13feb13,0,272792,print.story
- Posted by David on September 19, 2008
Spellings Creates Education Index
The latest unemployment rates, inflation rates, and other economic indicators are staples of TV and radio newscasts.
If Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has her way, newscasters will be giving annual updates on leading education indicators.
Ms. Spellings has created a composite index of five important data points of student performance: overall achievement; the size of the gap in achievement between minority and white students; the high school dropout rate; the college-readiness rate; and the college-completion rate.
“We need to make sure we focus on all of these five things,” Ms. Spellings said in an interview last week.
When applied to the 7½ years President Bush has been in office, the overall index has increased, but some indicators have been stagnant during that period, she said.
The college-completion rate is 31 percent, Ms. Spellings said. Thirty years ago, the United States had the highest such rate in the world, but it now ranks 10th. “The rest of the world has passed us by,” the secretary said.
Likewise, college readiness. which is measured by sat and act scores, isn’t improving. The high school dropout rate, which is estimated by an analysis of student enrollment trends, hasn’t moved upward since 2001.
The overall index has increased because of growth in student achievement and progress in closing the test-score gap between whites and minorities such as African Americans and Hispanics. Progress on those indicators is determined by scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Ms. Spellings attributes the achievement gains to the accountability measures in the No Child Left Behind Act, the Bush administration’s signature K-12 initiative.
She planned to unveil the new index in Washington on Sept. 15, when she was scheduled to speak at an all-day education summit sponsored by the Aspen Institute, a think tank that convened a task force to propose changes to the nclb law.
After Ms. Spellings leaves office in January, she expects that the index of education indicators will be part of her legacy.
“I hope my successor will do this,” she said. “If he or she doesn’t, I’m sure someone else will. Maybe it will be me.”
By David J. Hoff
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/09/17/04fedfil.h28.html?print=1
- Posted by David on September 12, 2008
Why Ninth Grade Is Critical for College Admission
WestEd Report Demonstrates Need for Middle School Interventionwith Minority, Low Income Youth
San Francisco, CA -- A WestEd report finds that too many California high school seniors fail to meet college admission requirements because they fall off the college-preparatory track in ninth grade -- and can't get back on. The study suggests that school districts need better "early warning systems" for ninth graders, especially those not enrolling in the English and math courses accredited by the state's four-year colleges.
The study, "Course Taking Patterns and Preparation for Postsecondary Education in California's Public University Systems among Minority Youth," analyzed high school transcripts to find out which students completed and earned a C or better in California's "A-G Requirements," a sequence of college preparatory courses beginning in ninth grade that act as a gatekeeper for admission to the state's two university systems.
The study's key findings include:
Students who complete key college preparatory courses in ninth grade have a greater probability than students who postpone these courses of meeting the complete set of A-G Requirements.
* White and Asian students are more likely than their Hispanic and African American peers to meet the college eligibility requirements.
* More than a third of all students sampled did not meet the English requirement.
* Only 40% of African American ninth graders enrolled in courses that meet California's public university requirements.
* More than 40% of all students sampled had not completed or received at least a C in two semesters of college-preparatory math by the end of the freshman year, also an A-G requirement.
"Our study indicates students may be unaware that not all courses in which they enroll will meet college admissions requirements," says Neal Finkelstein, senior research scientist at WestEd. "Early intervention and ongoing communication with parents and students about entrance requirements are critical to keeping students on the college track."
The full WestEd study, prepared for the Regional Educational Laboratory West, is available at: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?projectID=86&productID=40
- Posted by David on September 8, 2008
By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY
Another pregnant teenager in the limelight has focused new attention on just how much teens know about sex and when they know it.
This pregnant teen, of course, is the 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, and the pregnancy has reignited the national debate over two different approaches to sex education: abstinence-only vs. comprehensive. But as it turns out, there's no systematic tracking of what U.S. schools are teaching kids about sex — and either way, there seems to be little connection between what they're taught and their behaviors, researchers say.
"As much as we fight about sex education, we actually know very little about it in the real world," says Sarah Brown, CEO of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
State and local policies trickle down to the individual classrooms. A study of sex education in Illinois public schools published earlier this year found that 30% of those teaching the subject had never received training.
Teens say their schools take a whole gamut of approaches, from neglect to scare tactics.
"There was no sex education in my school," says Rebecca Carroll, 18, of Linden, Tenn. "It was in our book, but when I took it, the teacher completely skipped over the section on sexual health."
Taylor McCleod, 17, a high school senior from Cincinnati, says he learned about sexually transmitted diseases in ninth-grade English class. "They came in with projectors and showed us the diseases. Everybody was a little bit shocked to see the actual pictures."
Bridget Rekow, 18, says her ninth-grade health class in Ellendale, N.D., split into two sections, for girls one semester, boys the next. "One of the females didn't know where babies come from. … Some were already sexually active. It was a little late for them."
Some teens report a better experience.
Sam Weidman, 18, says his private high school in Hidden Hills, Calif., "definitely did cover a good amount of sex education. It was in biology class, and we spent about one-quarter (of the class) on sex education. Sexual orientation was covered primarily in psychology, but science was really a good class."
Some parents say they count on schools to supplement what they teach their children at home. Marie Kittredge of Cleveland, a mother of four, says her two older kids went through eighth grade in public school, where some sex education was offered.
"I was disappointed and a little bit worried when they went to private school and did not have sex education," she says. "As much as you hope they listen to you as parents, you can't guarantee it."
Some sex education programs preach abstinence-only, while others take a more comprehensive approach, discussing contraception, sexual orientation and other topics. Success in delaying first sex and reducing teen pregnancy is mixed, yet proponents of each cite studies about why their way is best.
Abstinence programs have received more than $1.5 billion nationally since 1996. According to a new report by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States that examines state-by-state spending for abstinence education, 25 states are now rejecting the money. The state profile found that almost half of the abstinence money goes to Southern states, with Texas receiving the highest amount — $18.2 million for 2007.
Several studies have questioned the effectiveness of abstinence programs. One often-cited government-sponsored study found that abstinence education programs didn't delay first sex or affect the number of partners or the rates of sexually transmitted disease or pregnancy. Another study, published this year in the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that teaching about contraception was not associated with increased risk of sexual activity or sexually transmitted diseases.
The newest review, published in the September issue of Sexuality Research & Social Policy, is by Douglas Kirby, a senior research scientist at Education, Training and Research Associates, a non-profit in Scotts Valley, Calif. Kirby, who has studied sex education programs for decades, reviewed studies of nine abstinence programs and 48 comprehensive sex education programs.
He says a couple of the abstinence programs showed "weak evidence" for delaying sex, but most did not delay initiation of sex. Nearly half of the comprehensive programs delayed first sex, reduced the number of partners and increased condom or contraceptive use. One-quarter of the 48 programs reduced the frequency of sex.
Some aren't surprised by inconsistencies.
"You can't expect that one class is going to undo all the misinformation teens are receiving from the other sources," says Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association. "It needs to be reinforced, and parents should be the primary sex educators of their children."
Says Elizabeth Schroeder of Answer, a New Jersey-based group that favors comprehensive sex education: "For any kind of behavior change or healthy maintenance, it has to be an ongoing program."
That doesn't always happen.
"A lot of times, parents just don't want to deal with the situation — 'the talk' or whatever," says high school senior McCleod. "They truly believe the best sex education is at school. That's not the case in schools that I know. That's not the case at all."