New York Mulls Giving Mayor Control of City Schools

The non-profit group Learn NY is campaigning to give New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg control of the city's schools.

Here is the group's website.

No More Money for Day Cares

Technically, there will be money, but in New York City the city controllers are cutting the budgets for day care centers.

Those reductions are part of a package of $62 million in cuts that will affect day care services to struggling working families across the five boroughs. Mr. Mattingly said some hard choices were necessary “to avoid a train wreck” to the city’s day care programs in this time of fiscal crisis.

The rest of the cuts will affect school-age children, who could be served by Department of Education programs, he said. By the start of the next school year, for example, Children’s Services will no longer pay for day care slots for 3,300 5-year-olds who could be served through kindergarten and after-school programs.

It will also stop co-financing slots for 4-year-olds who are enrolled in universal prekindergarten programs. Currently, child welfare funds go to provide enrichment in these classrooms.

More American Students Study In China Than Ever Before

These days, when a student wants a real education, she studies abroad. The New York Times finds that more students than before are choosing China as their hot spot.

As a person formerly employed in China, I highly recommend it. Nothing prepares the American better for participation in a hyper-capitalist global economy than doing business or learning how the world is run from the Chinese point of view.

India Has More Honors Students than America Has Kids

glumbert - Did You Know?

Entrepreneurs, Create the Future of Education

If you are like most entrepreneurs, you value conversations, ideas, and you understand and appreciate the value of risk.

I'm not talking petal to the metal risk. I'm talking about risk that refines your business and takes your ideas into a direction that few people travel.

Are you an education innovator who is out to disrupt traditional education services? Are you online savvy? Do you want to answer the call to action that students are giving you by offering them and their schools a service that addresses real need in the market?

Do you think you have a school idea that would work well in the for-profit K12 and Post Secondary industry?

Sign up to participate in the 11th Annual Education Industry Investment Forum and apply to be on of the Five Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2009.

Are you a John Katzman, founder of 2Tor?

Does your business plan's vision of the future resemble the innovative energy and forward thinking of a Jordan Goldman, founder of Unigo.com?

Do you look at publishing like Jeff Shelstad at Flat World Knowledge?

If so, and even if you are wildly different than these individuals, you have an opportunity to join them at the 2nd Annual FuturED Symposium, a showcase and platform for the latest developments in the education industry.

We look forward to seeing you in Phoenix in March.

Will Tenure for Public School Teachers Disappear in DC?

The Washington, D.C. public schools chancellor Michelle Rhee is floating an eyebrow-raising proposal to abolish tenure plans in the school district and incorporate the investment assistance of private foundations and individuals.

From the article:

Ms. Rhee has not proposed abolishing tenure outright. Under her proposal, each teacher would choose between two compensation plans, one called green and the other red. Pay for teachers in the green plan would rise spectacularly, nearly doubling by 2010. But they would need to give up tenure for a year, after which they would need a principal’s recommendation or face dismissal.

Teachers who choose the red plan would also get big pay increases but would lose seniority rights that allow them to bump more-junior teachers if their school closes or undergoes an overhaul. If they were not hired by another school, their only options would be early retirement, a buyout or eventual dismissal.

In an interview, Ms. Rhee said she considered tenure outmoded.

“Tenure is the holy grail of teacher unions,” she said, “but has no educational value for kids; it only benefits adults. If we can put veteran teachers who have tenure in a position where they don’t have it, that would help us to radically increase our teacher quality. And maybe other districts would try it, too.”

But the proposal that could garner up to US$75 million for increasing teacher salaries is drawing fire from the Washington Teachers' Union.

Washington Teachers' Union

Pre-School Math Critical to Education Growth: Columbia University Report

Faculty at Columbia University's Teacher's College calling for advanced focus on early education in math to boost equality in socio-economic status in the United States.

From the article at Columbia:

Research has clearly shown that nearly from birth, children develop an “everyday mathematics”—informal ideas of more and less, taking away, shape, size, location, pattern and position—that is broad, complex and often sophisticated. Indeed, everyday math is so fundamental to children’s understanding of the world that they could not function without it. And math ability upon entry to kindergarten not only predicts later math achievement, but also may be an even better predictor of success in later grades than is early reading ability.

Low-socioeconomic status (SES) preschool children generally perform more poorly on many simple (particularly verbal) math tasks than do their more privileged peers. But both groups use similar strategies to solve problems, perform as well on non-verbal math tasks and exhibit few differences in the everyday math they use in free play. Both groups have the potential to learn school math.

Join us for the 11th Annual Education Industry Investment Forum on March 9-11, 2009.

Doing Math Like They Do It In India

The New York Times is recommending that young children struggling in math take a lesson from India, literally.

Grand Canyon University

Get ready for the Grand Canyon University IPO at the end of the month. Am I right in assuming this is coming a month late? I thought they would be launching the IPO in October.

The deal is set to price the week of Nov. 17, The Journal said, citing underwriters. Grand Canyon, which filed for its I.P.O. in May, plans to sell 10.5 million shares at a price between $16 and $18, $2 lower than originally planned.

Barack Obama's Education Agenda

A kind reader has alerted me to the location of the Obama education agenda.

You can access it here.

As there has been some commentary lately about the agenda disappearing from the president-elect's Change.gov site, here is the education platform in full:

The Problem

No Child Left Behind Left the Money Behind: The goal of the law was the right one, but unfulfilled funding promises, inadequate implementation by the Education Department and shortcomings in the design of the law itself have limited its effectiveness and undercut its support. As a result, the law has failed to provide high-quality teachers in every classroom and failed to adequately support and pay those teachers.

Teacher Retention is a Problem: Thirty percent of new teachers leave within their first five years in the profession.

Soaring College Costs: College costs have grown nearly 40 percent in the past five years. The average graduate leaves college with over $19,000 in debt. And between 2001 and 2010, 2 million academically qualified students will not go to college because they cannot afford it. Finally, our complicated maze of tax credits and applications leaves too many students unaware of financial aid available to them.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden's Plan

Early Childhood Education

* Zero to Five Plan: The Obama-Biden comprehensive "Zero to Five" plan will provide critical support to young children and their parents. Unlike other early childhood education plans, the Obama-Biden plan places key emphasis at early care and education for infants, which is essential for children to be ready to enter kindergarten. Obama and Biden will create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state "zero to five" efforts and help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school.
* Expand Early Head Start and Head Start: Obama and Biden will quadruple Early Head Start, increase Head Start funding and improve quality for both.
* Affordable, High-Quality Child Care: Obama and Biden will also provide affordable and high-quality child care to ease the burden on working families.
o Reform No Child Left Behind: Obama and Biden will reform NCLB, which starts by funding the law. Obama and Biden believe teachers should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests. He will improve the assessments used to track student progress to measure readiness for college and the workplace and improve student learning in a timely, individualized manner. Obama and Biden will also improve NCLB's accountability system so that we are supporting schools that need improvement, rather than punishing them.
o Support High-Quality Schools and Close Low-Performing Charter Schools: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will double funding for the Federal Charter School Program to support the creation of more successful charter schools. An Obama-Biden administration will provide this expanded charter school funding only to states that improve accountability for charter schools, allow for interventions in struggling charter schools and have a clear process for closing down chronically underperforming charter schools. An Obama-Biden administration will also prioritize supporting states that help the most successful charter schools to expand to serve more students.
o Make Math and Science Education a National Priority: Obama and Biden will recruit math and science degree graduates to the teaching profession and will support efforts to help these teachers learn from professionals in the field. They will also work to ensure that all children have access to a strong science curriculum at all grade levels.
o Address the Dropout Crisis: Obama and Biden will address the dropout crisis by passing his legislation to provide funding to school districts to invest in intervention strategies in middle school - strategies such as personal academic plans, teaching teams, parent involvement, mentoring, intensive reading and math instruction, and extended learning time.
o Expand High-Quality Afterschool Opportunities: Obama and Biden will double funding for the main federal support for afterschool programs, the 21st Century Learning Centers program, to serve one million more children.
o Support College Outreach Programs: Obama and Biden support outreach programs like GEAR UP, TRIO and Upward Bound to encourage more young people from low-income families to consider and prepare for college.
o Support College Credit Initiatives: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will create a national "Make College A Reality" initiative that has a bold goal to increase students taking AP or college-level classes nationwide 50 percent by 2016, and will build on Obama's bipartisan proposal in the U.S. Senate to provide grants for students seeking college level credit at community colleges if their school does not provide those resources.
o Support English Language Learners: Obama and Biden support transitional bilingual education and will help Limited English Proficient students get ahead by holding schools accountable for making sure these students complete school.
o Recruit Teachers: Obama and Biden will create new Teacher Service Scholarships that will cover four years of undergraduate or two years of graduate teacher education, including high-quality alternative programs for mid-career recruits in exchange for teaching for at least four years in a high-need field or location.
o Prepare Teachers: Obama and Biden will require all schools of education to be accredited. Obama and Biden will also create a voluntary national performance assessment so we can be sure that every new educator is trained and ready to walk into the classroom and start teaching effectively. Obama and Biden will also create Teacher Residency Programs that will supply 30,000 exceptionally well-prepared recruits to high-need schools.
o Retain Teachers: To support our teachers, the Obama-Biden plan will expand mentoring programs that pair experienced teachers with new recruits. They will also provide incentives to give teachers paid common planning time so they can collaborate to share best practices.
o Reward Teachers: Obama and Biden will promote new and innovative ways to increase teacher pay that are developed with teachers, not imposed on them. Districts will be able to design programs that reward accomplished educators who serve as a mentor to new teachers with a salary increase. Districts can reward teachers who work in underserved places like rural areas and inner cities. And if teachers consistently excel in the classroom, that work can be valued and rewarded as well.
o Create the American Opportunity Tax Credit: Obama and Biden will make college affordable for all Americans by creating a new American Opportunity Tax Credit. This universal and fully refundable credit will ensure that the first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for most Americans, and will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students. Recipients of the credit will be required to conduct 100 hours of community service.
o Simplify the Application Process for Financial Aid: Obama and Biden will streamline the financial aid process by eliminating the current federal financial aid application and enabling families to apply simply by checking a box on their tax form, authorizing their tax information to be used, and eliminating the need for a separate application.

K-12

* Reform No Child Left Behind: Obama and Biden will reform NCLB, which starts by funding the law. Obama and Biden believe teachers should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests. He will improve the assessments used to track student progress to measure readiness for college and the workplace and improve student learning in a timely, individualized manner. Obama and Biden will also improve NCLB's accountability system so that we are supporting schools that need improvement, rather than punishing them.
* Support High-Quality Schools and Close Low-Performing Charter Schools: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will double funding for the Federal Charter School Program to support the creation of more successful charter schools. An Obama-Biden administration will provide this expanded charter school funding only to states that improve accountability for charter schools, allow for interventions in struggling charter schools and have a clear process for closing down chronically underperforming charter schools. An Obama-Biden administration will also prioritize supporting states that help the most successful charter schools to expand to serve more students.
* Make Math and Science Education a National Priority: Obama and Biden will recruit math and science degree graduates to the teaching profession and will support efforts to help these teachers learn from professionals in the field. They will also work to ensure that all children have access to a strong science curriculum at all grade levels.
* Address the Dropout Crisis: Obama and Biden will address the dropout crisis by passing his legislation to provide funding to school districts to invest in intervention strategies in middle school - strategies such as personal academic plans, teaching teams, parent involvement, mentoring, intensive reading and math instruction, and extended learning time.
* Expand High-Quality Afterschool Opportunities: Obama and Biden will double funding for the main federal support for afterschool programs, the 21st Century Learning Centers program, to serve one million more children.
* Support College Outreach Programs: Obama and Biden support outreach programs like GEAR UP, TRIO and Upward Bound to encourage more young people from low-income families to consider and prepare for college.
* Support College Credit Initiatives: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will create a national "Make College A Reality" initiative that has a bold goal to increase students taking AP or college-level classes nationwide 50 percent by 2016, and will build on Obama's bipartisan proposal in the U.S. Senate to provide grants for students seeking college level credit at community colleges if their school does not provide those resources.
* Support English Language Learners: Obama and Biden support transitional bilingual education and will help Limited English Proficient students get ahead by holding schools accountable for making sure these students complete school.

Recruit, Prepare, Retain, and Reward America's Teachers

* Recruit Teachers: Obama and Biden will create new Teacher Service Scholarships that will cover four years of undergraduate or two years of graduate teacher education, including high-quality alternative programs for mid-career recruits in exchange for teaching for at least four years in a high-need field or location.
* Prepare Teachers: Obama and Biden will require all schools of education to be accredited. Obama and Biden will also create a voluntary national performance assessment so we can be sure that every new educator is trained and ready to walk into the classroom and start teaching effectively. Obama and Biden will also create Teacher Residency Programs that will supply 30,000 exceptionally well-prepared recruits to high-need schools.
* Retain Teachers: To support our teachers, the Obama-Biden plan will expand mentoring programs that pair experienced teachers with new recruits. They will also provide incentives to give teachers paid common planning time so they can collaborate to share best practices.
* Reward Teachers: Obama and Biden will promote new and innovative ways to increase teacher pay that are developed with teachers, not imposed on them. Districts will be able to design programs that reward accomplished educators who serve as a mentor to new teachers with a salary increase. Districts can reward teachers who work in underserved places like rural areas and inner cities. And if teachers consistently excel in the classroom, that work can be valued and rewarded as well.

Higher Education

* Create the American Opportunity Tax Credit: Obama and Biden will make college affordable for all Americans by creating a new American Opportunity Tax Credit. This universal and fully refundable credit will ensure that the first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for most Americans, and will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students. Recipients of the credit will be required to conduct 100 hours of community service.
* Simplify the Application Process for Financial Aid: Obama and Biden will streamline the financial aid process by eliminating the current federal financial aid application and enabling families to apply simply by checking a box on their tax form, authorizing their tax information to be used, and eliminating the need for a separate application.

Joel Klein as Education Secretary Provokes Wrath of Bloggers

Courtesy: Annie Tritt, New York Times

The result of the Klein name being floated, from the perspective of The New York Times, is that the public is not too keen on the role the New York City Schools Chancellor might play in the future of American education.

New York Times commentary on Klein

What are your ideas on who will be education secretary?

What is Obama's education platform? Where is it going right? Where do you think it veers from helping grow a sustainable education future for the United States?

What role can education leaders from other countries -- and the lessons they have learned -- play in forming American's education future?

Please write in your thoughts, or send them to me at dcrets [at] iirusa dot com.

We will post views with your permission.

TASC Pres Lucy Friedman Answers NY Times Questions

You can visit the New York Times CityRoom site today to ask questions about after school activities and programs from children in the city

Answering the questions will be Lucy N. Friedman.

Ms. Friedman is founding president of the After-School Corporation, or TASC, a nonprofit organization dedicated to giving all kids opportunities to grow through after-school and summer programs that support, educate and inspire them.

KIPP Leader Tells Barack Obama to Focus on Early Education

What should the new president do for education in America?

Mike Feinberg, co-founder of KIPP, gives President-elect Barack Obama some suggestions to focus on opportunities in education.

Among his recommendations:

Focus on the early years: Even in this time of economic uncertainty, we need to make critical investments in pre-K and early childhood education.
In his recent book "Whatever It Takes," New York Times Magazine editor Paul Tough notes that by age 3, children in low-income communities have been exposed to 20 million fewer words than their more affluent peers. By providing a language-rich learning environment at an early age, schools can offset this gap and give children the tools they need to succeed.

Within the comments section at the Houston Chronicle, where this article is published, a man named Bob Rose also offers this advice:

Maria Montessori wrote, almost a century ago, that three- and four-year-old preschoolers will learn to read spontaneously if they get "sufficient" practice forming alphabet letters. Although boldly claimed in her "The Montessori Method" this possibility has strangely never before been subjected to a scientific test.

In 2002-2004 I found five kindergarten teachers on the Internet who provided experimental data on 106 experimental kindergarten students as they practiced printing fluency and we monitored their reading ability (and also five other first-grade teachers who did NOT make the effort of inducing printing practice, but who only measured how much of the serial alphabet students could print in a timed, twenty-second period of time, and the correlation with reading skill. These 94 students formed a control group).

The correlation was very obvious in all ten classrooms. We found that all but a very small percentage of students read well, and with good comprehension, shortly after the point in time when they were able to print at least the first thirteen letters within 20 seconds. Multiplied by three, this equates with a fluency rate of 39 letters per minute.

The children enjoyed the practice sessions, and observing their gradual increase in fluency as the weeks passed. No apparent stress was noted, and it was found that the median kindergartner, after spending five minutes daily of each school day practice printing, was "printing fluent" after a mere three months. But printing fluency didn't correlate with reading skill among older students, according to our results with a group of fifty fourth-graders.

The kindergartners wrote and read with about the same skill as the first graders at the end of the winter of school. The fact that kindergartners were reading and writing at a level of children a full grade ahead shows that the early acquisition of literacy in the kindergarten (experimental) group was caused by the dedicated attempt to induce practiced fluency in printing, and not just a coincidental marker of some third, and unknown, causative factor.

At the present time (May, 2008) I have collected another group of kindergarten and first-grade teachers on the Internet. Fourteen K-1 teachers have already submitted correlations of the printing fluency and reading skills of their pupils. In each case the correlation has been obvious and strong. Anyone wishing to join and monitor (or participate on) this free list need only send any email to k1writing-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Returning the automated "confirmation message" to the computer will result in automatic list membership.

Printing practice and fluency training in the early grades has completely gone out of style during the twentieth century, though it is still practiced (though not specifically tested) in India and China. This rediscovery of this important principle offers an inexpensive and effective means toward ensuring reading and academic success from the earliest grades for children of all races and ethnic backgrounds.

It has also been found that second-graders able to give correct answers to simple addition facts more fluently than 40 answers per minute rarely have problems with math or science thereafter.

Five Questions with Andy Ross, Florida Virtual Schools

Andy Ross, VP -- Global Services, FLVS

Once again, the 11th Annual Education Industry Investment Forum presents 5 Questions, its running series of professional chats with education industry leaders.

Today we talked with Andy Ross, Vice President -- Global Services and Business Development, Florida Virtual School. He shares with us his insights on where technology can take education and what he hopes to do with the FLVS mandate.

Florida Virtual School web site

EEIF: What act of strategic investment in the education industry by any player in the past five years do you admire most, and what was its outcome?

Andy Ross I really have to say it is the investment that the State of Florida has made in the creation of Florida Virtual School and its On-Learning Program. The creation of this K-12 school district has served over 500,000 enrollments during the last 12 years. It is proving to be a cost effective solution for students but more importantly it is proving to be an effective means of learning for today’s students. The data supports that results are exceeding expectations. From credit recovery to Advanced Placement courses this is a very powerful solution for education.

EEIF: What industry genre will have the most influence in the future of education over the next five years?

Andy Ross On-Line learning for K-12. When solid content is merged with a solid instruction model the results can be outstanding. The model at Florida Virtual School allows students to learn at their own pace, when they want to learn, how they want to learn and is the ultimate in individualized education.

EIIF: If you could name any industry within education that requires the most change, what industry is it and what changes do you think it needs?

Andy Ross Traditional format of the high school model needs to be reinvented to meet the needs of today’s students. Don’t misunderstand me, though. There are some fantastic experiences in today’s high schools. But we live in a world today where one model does not fit all. We need to have choices for students but most importantly we need to have legislators and education administrators adopt and support a variety of models for their students.

EIIF: What inspirational idea outside of education has had a dominant effect on how you do business?

Andy Ross Use of technology in education and how it can positively affect learning. Over my 25 years of working in this area I have seen many amazing results where technology has made a positive impact on learning.

EIIF: For an education company or for profit school that is looking to grow, what is the one thing they need to be prepared to do before meeting investors or before launching their product or service into the marketplace?

Andy Ross The solution needs to address learning, learning styles, instruction, data collection, and it should have a relationship component to it. The solution also needs to be flexible and not necessarily used during the tradition school day or calendar. The solution needs to address learning, advance learning, and credit recovery.

You can meet Andy Ross and his colleagues from Florida Virtual Schools, at the 11th Annual Education Industry Investment Forum.

Join now and receive a discount for early registration!
We also have discounts available for qualifying members who belong to non-profit organizations and public school boards.

Education Aide to Obama Campaign Dies

Terence Tolbert has died unexpectedly of a heart attack in Nevada, reports The New York Times at the CityRoom blog.

We are reporting it because it is a newsworthy story that directly speaks to the election campaign, which ends tomorrow.

Mr. Tolbert had served since 2006 as the New York City Education Department’s chief lobbyist in Albany and Washington. He had been poised to take a leading role in Mr. Bloomberg’s upcoming fight to convince state lawmakers to reauthorize the law, which expires at the end of June, giving the city’s mayor control of its public schools.

Someone close to Terence has also set up a memorial blog for the man.

We wish his family the best.