Child in America

Spring 2014

Opinionnaire

▪ Go to socrative.com.

▪ Click on “Student Log-In”

▪ Room Number: 474550

Final Project

▪ This is a final project put together by a group last semester

▪ Will give you a nice overview of the themes and purposes of this class, as well as the kind of work you will be expected to produce

Reforming Education

By Nichole Higgins, Claire Geinzer, Douglas Pelaez, and Taylor Foley

Main Issues that U.S. Schools Face

▪ Poverty rates

▪ Teachers are underpaid

▪ Unequal funding/resources

Theorist’s Support

“We posit that the most important function of spending is instructional“ (Condron and Roscigno). “The primary mechanism through which we expect instructional spending to matter is the attraction of more highly qualified and trained teachers.”

PISA Reports

▪ In the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the United States ranked 15 on the performance of students across countries and in a couple of cases, cities.

▪ South Korea, Finland, Hong Kong, Canada, and New Zealand rank in the top 5.

Finland

▪ Finland recruits its teachers from the top 10% of graduates. From primary through upper secondary level, all teachers are required to have a Master’s degree.

▪ Schools in Finland are focal centers for their communities. They provide a daily hot meal for every student, plus health and dental services, psychological counseling and a broad array of other services for students and their families.

Finland

▪ They are mostly small in size, with minimal administrative overheads, and are mainly funded by municipal budgets.

▪ Principals are expected to take their share of the teaching load, even in large schools.

Finland

U.S. State School Statistics

Darling-Hammond

▪ " While students in the highest-achieving states and districts in the United States do as well as their peers in high-achieving nations, our continuing comfort with profound inequality is the Achilles' heel of American education."

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Hawai

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Illin

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Maryl

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Massa

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North

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0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

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States and Percentage of School Students in Poverty

Series1

Axis Title

▪ Series 1: 4th Grade Math, Series 2: 8th Grade Math, Series 3: 4th Grade Reading, Series 4: 8th Grade Reading

0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8

-20

-15

-10

-5

0

5

10

15

20

Poverty vs. Testing Average

Series1Series3Series5Series7

Poverty Percentage

Poin

ts f

rom

Nati

onal A

vera

ge

Per Student Average Total Spending

Mississippi - $7,928.00 Highest Poverty 493,918 students Worst Testing

Massachusetts - $13,940.83 47th lowest poverty962, 806 students Highest Testing

Texas - $8,671.00 17th Poverty4,673,455 students 1st to test at least at average

What Massachusetts Does

What We All Should Do

Framework for District Accountability and Assistance

Accountability Assistance

State Actions District ActionsDistrict Actions State Actions

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Level 4

Level 5

Review & approve district & school

improvement plans

Conduct district reviews for randomly selected districts

Provide voluntary access to district analysis & review tools for every district &

school

Review level of implementation of district & school plans; review District

Standards & Indicators & Conditions for School Effectiveness; review

promising practice examples

Use district analysis & review tools to review & approve district & school improvement

plans

Conduct district reviews for randomly selected districts

Suggest assistance; targeted assistance for identified

student groups, professional development opportunities,

etc.

Review and revise district & school plans with respect to level of

implementation of District Standards &

Indicators & Conditions for School

Effectiveness

Use ESE’s self-assessment process

to revise plans & monitoring strategies

Conduct selective district reviews

Give priority for assistance; above plus guided self-

assessment, planning guidance, etc.

Complete ESE’s self-assessment process; develop

plans to implement Conditions at each identified school

Collaborate with ESE to implement (existing Level 4 schools) or develop for ESE approval a redesign plan that addresses rapid implementation of Conditions for School

Effectiveness. If required, develop a Level 4 district plan to accelerate district improvement & strengthen supports &

interventions in lowest-performing schools

Operate under joint district-ESE governance

Classification of districtsMassachusetts’ Framework for District Accountability and Assistance classifies schools and districts on a five-level scale, with the highest performing in Level 1 and lowest performing in Level 5. A district generally is classified into the level of its lowest-performing school, unless it has been placed in Level 4 or 5 by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education or has been required by the Department to develop a Level 4 District Plan to aid in turning around its Level 4 schools.

Classification of schoolsAll schools with sufficient data are classified into Levels 1-5. Eighty percent of schools are classified into Level 1 or 2 based on the cumulative Progress and Performance Index (PPI) for the aggregate and high needs group. Schools are classified into Level 3 if they are among the lowest 20 percent relative to other schools in their grade span statewide, if they serve the lowest performing subgroups statewide, or if they have persistently low graduation rates. The lowest achieving, least improving Level 3 schools are candidates for classification into Levels 4 and 5, the most serious designations in Massachusetts’ accountability system. A small number of schools each year will not be classified into a level: small schools, schools ending in grades 1 or 2, new schools, or schools that were substantially reconfigured.

Determination of need for technical assistance or intervention in the area of special educationA district’s need for technical assistance or intervention in the area of special education is based on five categories: Meets Requirements (MR); Meets Requirements-At Risk (MRAR); Needs Technical Assistance (NTA); Needs Intervention (NI); and Needs Substantial Intervention (NSI). In most cases these categories correspond to the district's accountability and assistance level, except when the district has specific compliance needs. Upon classification of a district into Level 3, two additional focus areas for special education will be reviewed at the district level and may require action: (A) over-identification of low-income students as eligible for special education; (B) Inordinate separation of students with disabilities across low income and/or racial groups.

August 2012

Addressing Unequal Resources

▪ Massachusetts scores all schools based on the lowest performing school in each district. We propose a mandate that all states are required to score schools on the same principal

▪ This will create an incentive for schools to focus on lower performing institutions and raise their level of performance at least equal to the higher performing schools.

Addressing Funding and Poverty

▪ Federal Grant to equalize funding. First school that shows testing at least equal to national average is the state to compare funding to.

▪ Take that states per student average spending and require lower testing states to at least equal per student funding.

▪ As long as state is capable of coming up with 50% of the difference, then a grant will be given to make up the other 50%.

Teacher Incentive

▪ Create a Federal Grant for teacher’s higher education funding needs

▪ When a teacher completes their masters in their area of specialization they can submit their student loans for review. Upon completion of review the Fed will pay up to 50% of loans

Continued Education Salary Increase

▪ New Teachers with a bachelors average $32,722. This increases to a 12 year cap of $44,916 per year

▪ With a Masters teachers are paid an average of $51,192 instead of $44,916, but no 12 year cap. Instead salary increases up to the point of $69,859 per year

▪ $69,859-$44,916= $24,943 per year average increase with a Masters

The end of the final project! Back to Katie…

PISA scores

▪ 2012 scores:

EdWeek PISA Scores Comparison

▪ Another analysis:

PISA Scores by Income

“The reports continue to be all about our failing or “mediocre” schools and incompetent teachers. I like the simple observation made by researchers in the past – if the argument is to be made that U.S. public schools and teachers are failing, then we have huddled all of our incompetent teachers and principals in our urban and rural schools, for they are the ones that struggle or “fail” – this is evidenced in the PISA data I provided and appears at every turn when outcomes are disaggregated based upon child poverty. Or are our urban and rural schools and teachers “failing” or “struggling” any more than our urban or rural police forces? Response times are higher in urban and rural areas (for different reasons), and crime rates are higher in our urban areas, so does this mean that our urban and rural police officers are failures?”

So what’s going on?

▪ Bad schools?

▪ Bad teachers?

▪ Poverty?

Resegregation

% of school-age population

School attended, on average

White children 57% 77% White

Black and Latino children

37% Over 50% minority

39% of Black and Latino schoolchildren attend schools which are more than 90% minority

Orfield & Lee, 2007, p. 24

Resegregation

A typical Black schoolchild in Maryland attends a school which is 22% White (4th worst rate in the US); Latino, 28% (9th worst)

Orfield et al, 2012, p. 46

In Maryland, 2009-2010, % of children in schools which are… (national rank)

50-100% non-White

90-100% non-White

99-100% non-White

Black 82% (6) 51% (4) 23% (8)

Latino 78% (8) 35% (9) 8% (6)

Resegregation

Orfield et al, 2012, p. 19

Resegregation

Orfield et al, 2012, p. 20

Resegregation

Orfield et al, 2012, p. 26

Percent poor in schools attended by the average student, 2009-2010

High-poverty schools are likely to be high-minority schools and vice versa

White Black Latino Asian

% poor 37 64 64 39

This class is about…

▪ Looking at these trends and studying:–How we got here–How current federal policy is

contributing to the situation/pushing for change

–How things could be different