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Item(s) found: 174

Program to assist at-risk students

Date Captured

Wednesday August 29 2007, 7:26 AM

Poughkeepsie Journal reports, "To prevent students from falling behind and to encourage them to stay in school, the Wappingers school district is creating an afternoon intervention program at its Orchard View Alternative High School for students who have have failed ninth-grade English and/or social studies at least once. The program, which has been included in the district's Contract for Excellence with the state, was discussed during Monday's board of education meeting. It is slated to start in the second quarter of this school year."

The Gifted Children Left Behind

Date Captured

Monday August 27 2007, 12:14 PM

Washington Post op-ed contributors Susan Goodkin, executive director of the California Learning Strategies Center and David G. Gold, lecturer and consultant on strategic issues in negotiation opine, "With reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act high on the agenda as Congress returns from its recess, lawmakers must confront the fact that the law is causing many concerned parents to abandon public schools that are not failing. "

THE CHARTER DIFFERENCE

Date Captured

Thursday August 23 2007, 8:03 AM

NY Post op-ed contributor Malcolm A. Smith, state Senate minority leader and founder of two public-charter schools opines, "Her [Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby] team also found that public charters disproportionately serve poor and minority students. In fact, nearly 70 percent of New York City's 12,000 charter-school students are black, vs. 32 percent of the city's general student population. Ninety-one percent of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, compared with 73 percent citywide. In practical terms, this means that the most rapidly improving public-school students in New York City are black, poor or both. Charter schools are standing the traditional racial-achievement gap on its head. At a time when less than half of the city's black and Latino students graduate with a Regents diploma, and those who do lag four grade levels behind their high-income peers, these results should get our attention."

KLEIN SEES 3 R'S FOR 3-YEAR-OLDS

Date Captured

Sunday August 19 2007, 7:50 AM

NY Post reports, "'We should have all of our students start and have rigorous standard-based programs at age 3, age 4, age 5,' he [NYC School chancellor Klein] said. He added that it's especially important in high-poverty areas where private preschool is not necessarily an option. 'We're not there yet, but we made progress,' he said, saying the Department of Education is working on a proposal for preschool for all 4-year-olds. 'We certainly have the direction arrow pointed in the right direction.' Klein also sees a future with kids 'testing out' in 10th grade and either proceeding to two more years of high school and then college, or a vocational school, depending on their grades and ambitions."

New Kids on the Block

Date Captured

Tuesday August 14 2007, 10:27 AM

By Lisa Sanbonmatsu, Jeffrey R. Kling, Greg J. Duncan and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn write, "In the end, we were surprised and disappointed by the inability of the Moving to Opportunity experiment to help poor children succeed in school. After following more than 5,000 MTO children over five years, we can offer some tentative conclusions about policy interventions designed to improve student performance. Moving poor families to neighborhoods that, while less poor, have schools that are only marginally better than those in the original neighborhoods is unlikely to solve the children’s academic problems. Interventions might be more profitably focused on factors more directly related to the child, family, and school. The question remains whether these same conclusions will hold after a full decade of living in new neighborhoods, especially for the youngest children who, because of the MTO program, will have spent their entire lives outside of public housing projects. We will be collecting additional data next year and look forward to learning more."

Relocating Poor Families to More-Affluent Neighborhoods Doesn’t Necessarily Lead to Improved Student Achievement

Date Captured

Tuesday August 14 2007, 10:21 AM

A randomized evaluation of the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) program--a federal housing program piloted in five major U.S. cities that sought to relocate poor families by providing housing vouchers--shows that, contrary to expectations, moving families out of high-poverty neighborhoods has no overall positive impact on children’s learning. Using data on more than 5,000 children between the ages of 6 and 20, researchers Lisa Sanbonmatsu, Jeffrey Kling, Greg Duncan, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn compared the educational outcomes of children whose families were offered housing vouchers through a lottery with those of children in families who entered the lottery but were not offered vouchers. During the first four years of the program, more than 4,000 families applied for the housing vouchers in the five pilot cities--Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York.

Neighborhoods' Effect On Grades Challenged -- Moving Students Out of Poor Inner Cities Yields Little, Studies of HUD Vouchers Say

Date Captured

Tuesday August 14 2007, 9:54 AM

Washington Post Jay Mathews reports, "Researchers examining what happened to 4,248 families that were randomly given or denied federal housing vouchers to move out of their high-poverty neighborhoods found no significant difference about seven years later between the achievement of children who moved to more middle-class neighborhoods and those who didn't. Although some children had more stable lives and better academic results after the moves, the researchers said, on average there was no improvement. Boys and brighter students appeared to have more behavioral problems in their new schools, the studies found."

The Productivity Argument for Investing in Young Children

Date Captured

Thursday August 09 2007, 9:55 AM

Heckman and Masterov write, "We argue that, on productivity grounds, it appears to make sound business sense to invest in young children from disadvantaged environments. Sub- stantial evidence from economics, sociology and public policy studies suggests that children from disadvantaged families are more likely to commit crime, have out-of-wedlock births and drop out of school. Early interventions that partially remedy the effects of adverse early environments can reverse some of the damage done by disadvantaged families and have a high economic return relative to other policies. They will benefit not only the children themselves, but also their own children as well as society at large. While more rigorous analysis is necessary to obtain a better understanding of the effects of such programs, their precise channels of influence, and their precise benefits and costs, the existing evidence is promising." James J. Heckman is the Henry B. Schultz Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Economics, University of Chicago. Dimitriy V. Masterov is a graduate student in the Department of Economics, University of Michigan.

Newburgh school district unsettled by Supreme Court decision

Date Captured

Thursday July 19 2007, 8:59 AM

Times Herald-Record reports, ""The state Department of Education is reviewing the impact of the decision. The issue will come before the state Board of Regents Wednesday, Robert Bennett, chancellor of the Regents, said yesterday. Among the mid-Hudson's 34 school districts, only four have non-white populations exceeding 40 percent: Newburgh (66 percent), Middletown (65 percent), Fallsburg (43 percent) and Monticello (44 percent), according to the most recent state Report Card data. Newburgh is the only one under a desegregation order. It went into effect in 1975."

Pre-K programs growing throughout Tier

Date Captured

Tuesday July 17 2007, 9:16 AM

Press & Sun-Bulletin reports, "New York began its Universal Pre-Kindergarten program in 1997. But, in the 2002-03 school year, fewer than 250 of the state's 700 districts administered pre-kindergarten programs, according to the National Child Care Information Center. And grants had been frozen since 2001, meaning districts could not get into the program, said Cindy Gallagher, coordinator of the Office of Early Education and Reading Initiatives for the state Education Department. By contrast, this year's state budget boosted spending for Universal Pre-Kindergarten by $145.9 million to $438 million. The additional money means 44,000 slots were added to the 73,000 slots available in the last school term, state figures indicate. The state has about 240,000 4-year-olds, Gallagher said."

Research Links Summer Break, Achievement Gap

Date Captured	Tuesday July 10 2007, 8:51 AM
NPR Larry Abramson reports, " Research indicates that low-income school kids lose an average of two months of reading achievement over the summer. The achievement gap between whites and minority children is being attributed to this factor."

Never-ending story -- Reading shouldn't take a 'summer vacation'

Date Captured

Monday July 02 2007, 8:51 AM

Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin GUEST VIEWPOINT contributor Maria Neira, former bilingual elementary school teacher and vice president of New York State United Teachers opines, "By encouraging their children to read -- and by reading to and with their children -- parents can help children close the achievement gap and do better in school by avoiding the 'summer slump.' Any time that parents spend reading with their children is helpful to the learning process. Parents should also encourage discussion about plot, characters and themes. Talking to children about their favorite characters, or about the parts of a book they liked best, is a way to help develop reading comprehension skills."

Graduation season: Don't forget the dropouts

Date Captured

Friday June 22 2007, 8:29 AM

Ithaca Journal opines, "For those who don't get their high school diploma, the statistics are not promising. Compared with other people their age, the dropout is more likely to end up in prison, divorced, unemployed, living in poverty, unhealthy or receiving public assistance, according to a report on high school dropouts from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The dropout earns about $9,200 less a year than high school graduates. And a study conducted in 2001 found that four out of 10 young adults who did not receive a high school diploma received some type of government assistance. When the Ithaca City School District and the Village at Ithaca published the first Equity Report Card, we were particularly concerned that more than four out of 10 African American, Latino or Native American children who entered ninth grade in 2001 did not graduate in 2005."

His Charge: Find a Key to Students’ Success

Date Captured

Thursday June 21 2007, 8:17 AM

NY Times reports, "His [Roland G. Fryer] first job, though, he said, will be to mine data — from graduation rates to test scores to demographic information — to find out why there are wide gulfs between schools. Why, for example, does one school in Bedford-Stuyvesant do so much better than a school just down the block? And he will monitor the pilot program to pay fourth- and seventh-grade students as much as $500 for doing well on a series of standardized tests. That program will begin in 40 schools this fall. He hopes to find other ways to motivate students. 'I don’t know what it is, but I will tell you what it can’t be,' Dr. Fryer said. 'It can’t be what happened when I was in schools, you know, people come and say, you know, "Go to school and get a good job."’ Words like that, he said, were not enough, because 'this dream that we are all talking about is less tangible to people who have not actually seen someone making the dream real.'”

It all adds up to success

Date Captured

Wednesday June 13 2007, 10:15 AM

NY Daily News opines, "Next year, Bloomberg and Klein are giving teachers the ability to closely track how well students are learning, so those who lag can get immediate special attention. And the mayor and chancellor are giving parents report cards that will grade how individual schools are working. The trends are moving in the right direction after years of stagnation, and the innate abilities of thousands of kids are finally being unlocked."

STATEWIDE STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT IMPROVES ACROSS GRADES 3-8 ON 2007 MATH TESTS

Date Captured

Wednesday June 13 2007, 7:58 AM

NY SED press release: Achievement in grade 3-8 math has improved overall this year, according to State test results announced today by Regents Chancellor Robert M. Bennett and State Education Commissioner Richard Mills. The improvement is notable in middle school, from grades 5-8. This year, 73 percent of students across grades 3-8 achieved the math standards, compared to 66 percent last year. Fewer students also are showing serious academic problems in all grades. The achievement gap narrowed. Across grades 3-8, the number of black students achieving the standards increased from 46 percent last year to 55 percent this year. The number of Hispanic students achieving the standards increased from 52 percent last year to 61 percent this year. White students increased from 76 to 82 percent. Results for students with disabilities also improved overall.

Study ties religion to student success

Date Captured

Monday May 28 2007, 9:43 AM

CONTRA COSTA TIMES reports, "The White House has embraced a researcher whose work suggests religion can do what ample federal nourishment has not -- narrow the achievement gap between white and minority students. The gap narrows by 25 percent in religious schools, said William Jeynes of Cal State Long Beach in the current issue of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion. When the student comes from an 'intact family' and professes religious commitment, the gap disappears."

Regents board touts rise in English scores

Date Captured	Wednesday May 23 2007, 7:56 AM
Times Union reports, "State education officials on Tuesday applauded what they said were rising scores for reading and writing, especially in the middle-school grades, which are typically characterized by a decline in academic accomplishment."

Ithaca Central School District programs extend academic support

Date Captured

Monday May 21 2007, 7:13 AM

Ithaca Journal Op-ed contributors Lisa Harris, director of Academic Intervention Services and others write, "Money from the Consolidated Grants is continually being cut. However, the ICSD has done its best to provide instructional enrichment in after-school/extended-day programs. These programs offer field trips, exposure to arts, sciences and crafts, as well as assistance with homework practice and review or previewing of key concepts, including vocabulary. Mentoring and tutoring provided by trained community volunteers augment our staff's resources."

Evaluating 'No Child Left Behind'

Date Captured

Friday May 11 2007, 8:35 AM

The Nation contributor Linda Darling-Hammond, the Charles E. Ducommon Professor of Education at Stanford University writes, "Perhaps the most adverse unintended consequence of NCLB is that it creates incentives for schools to rid themselves of students who are not doing well, producing higher scores at the expense of vulnerable students' education. Studies have found that sanctioning schools based on average student scores leads schools to retain students in grade so that grade-level scores will look better (although these students ultimately do less well and drop out at higher rates), exclude low-scoring students from admissions and encourage such students to transfer or drop out. Recent studies in Massachusetts, New York and Texas show how schools have raised test scores while 'losing' large numbers of low-scoring students."

Statement from Secretary Spellings on National Charter Schools Week

Date Captured

Thursday May 03 2007, 8:34 AM

These schools [charter] are dispelling the myth that some children can't learn. By acting as laboratories for best practices, they are changing attitudes about education and they're getting great results for kids. Charters are also transforming urban education and tackling head-on our nation's stubborn achievement gap. They are proving that new approaches to education can work—that breaking tradition and taking risks can yield tremendous results for students. Through the groundbreaking No Child Left Behind Act, President Bush and I have supported a robust expansion of school choice options for students and parents, helping to pave the way for greater access to charter schools. Since 2001, the President has invested $1.4 billion in the Charter Schools Program to facilitate start-ups and spread clear information about successful schools and provided over $262 million for charter school facilities. We will continue to support charter schools as they strive to help students achieve their potential.

Charter school finds home, still needs state approval

Date Captured

Friday April 20 2007, 9:22 AM

Kingston Freeman reports, "Washington [co-applicant for the Teaching Wisdom and Responsibility Charter School of Higher Learning] said she has been working on the charter school plan for two years and has secured space on O'Neil Street to house the school. The school would target students at risk of being left behind academically and will only admit students who scored at Levels 1, 2 or a low 3 on New York state's four-level English language arts or math exams. Washington hopes the school eventually will serve grades kindergarten through eight but said it will start with just kindergartners and fifth-graders. The following year, those students would become first and sixth graders and new classes of kindergartners and fifth-graders would come in, she said. The process the would continue until the school served all grades."

Duffy, Rivera meet to mend fences

Date Captured

Friday April 20 2007, 9:13 AM

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reports, "Mayor Robert Duffy, outgoing city school Superintendent Manuel Rivera and city and school district officials met Thursday to clear the air over requests for information concerning the academic achievement of students and the funding and operation of city schools. The meeting is the first since City Hall filed an open records request for and obtained a list of items from the district, including graduation and suspension rates, central office salaries and bonuses, and various district policies."

Faith, Stable Homes Close Black-White Achievement Gap

Date Captured

Saturday March 31 2007, 9:37 AM

Christian Post reports, "Jeynes' analysis of a study on a national sample of 20,706 12th-grade high school students indicated that highly religious African American and Latino students from intact families, when controlling for socioeconomic status, scored equally as well as white students on the social studies test and the Test Composite (combination of math and reading). The two groups of students also showed little difference on math and reading with 0.4 percent of blacks and Latinos scoring better than whites on math and 0.4 scoring worse on reading tests."

MIKE'S MILLIONS TO BE 'REWARD' $$ FOR POOR

Date Captured	Friday March 30 2007, 8:06 AM
NY Post reports, "Regular attendance at elementary school would be worth $25 every two months. At the high-school level, the payoff doubles to $50. Students who get high grades on major exams could earn $200 to $300 a pop for their struggling households. Similar payoffs would be available for 20 to 25 other activities deemed beneficial to society and the family."

Research: Summer Vacation Hurts Low-Income Kids' Chances for Academic Success

Date Captured

Monday March 26 2007, 9:37 AM

Battle Creek Enquirer reports, "The study ["Lasting Consequences of the Summer Learning Gap"]contends that there is a summer learning gap between lower- and higher-income children and it begins during elementary school. Higher-income children's home environments are resource rich. They are more likely to have access to magazines, books, and have their parents read to them. Consequently, this gap accumulates over the years and results in unequal placements in college preparatory tracks once the children get to high school. The gap also increases the chances that children from low socio-economic families will drop out of high school and decreases their chances of attending a four-year college."

Remarks of Secretary Spellings at the Celebration of Teaching and Learning Conference

Date Captured

Saturday March 24 2007, 8:44 AM

US Department of Education Press Release: In the last 50 years, American ingenuity has put a man on the moon, a rover on Mars, and computers in our businesses, our homes, and even our pockets. We launched the World Wide Web, mapped the human genome, and developed life-extending drugs and treatment for AIDS. Having every child on grade level by 2014 is another great goal, and it's one we can accomplish. With the right support for teachers, including new technologies, we will close the achievement gap and reach our goal of No Child Left Behind.

Baltimore County Schools stymied, audit shows

Date Captured

Tuesday March 13 2007, 9:08 AM

Baltimore Sun reports, "A lack of oversight and teacher training have undermined academic progress in Baltimore County schools and perpetuated a minority achievement gap that could take 50 years to close, according to an independent review that found a breakdown between what children need to learn and what is being taught. In an unprecedented, in-depth examination, the audit found that teachers are inundated with new programs but little direction, and many schools are in disrepair. It also found that 'no one is "in control'" of curriculum management - a critical function that includes determining what will be taught and when, ensuring that teachers have the necessary training and tools and measuring whether programs are working before trying something new."

D.C. Saturday Academy to help students meet grade levels

Date Captured	Saturday March 03 2007, 10:30 AM
Washington Times reports, "D.C. Public Schools officials are offering students extra help in reading and math to reduce the number of students performing below grade level."

Statement by Secretary Spellings Regarding Report on States' Educational Effectiveness

Date Captured	Wednesday February 28 2007, 8:28 PM
"The report underscores what we already know—student achievement is not where it should be. That's why President Bush has called for more rigorous state academic standards to close the achievement gap, particularly in our nation's high schools, and prepare students for college and the workplace."

North Carolina grad rates vary by race, ethnicity

Date Captured

Wednesday February 28 2007, 2:27 PM

The News & Observer reports, "The results showed noticeable gaps in the graduation rate among racial, ethnic and economic groups. While 73.6 percent of white students graduated, the rate dropped to 60 percent for blacks, 55.3 percent for low-income students and 51.8 percent for Hispanics. There was also a gap among the sexes, with 72.4 percent of female students graduating, compared with 63.9 percent of males."

Middle schools called key to anti-dropout strategy

Date Captured	Saturday February 24 2007, 9:58 AM
Staten Island Advance reports, "The summit, coordinated by the City Council's Black, Latino and Asian Caucus and the advocacy group Directions for Our Youth, also focused on the achievement disparity between white and minority students."

Dunce cap on school reform

Date Captured

Saturday February 24 2007, 8:48 AM

TU publishes LA Times story, "Although the reports came out five years after passage of President Bush's signature education reform initiative, No Child Left Behind, Hall and others said it would be unfair to blame that program for the students' poor showing. They were already in high school when No Child Left Behind was enacted, and it is primarily aimed at elementary and middle schools." (Read report at www.educationnewyork.com/policy filed under Achievement Gap)

Statement by Secretary Spellings on 12th-Grade Achievement Reports Released by the Nation's Report Card

Date Captured

Friday February 23 2007, 9:03 AM

Secretary Spellings, "The consensus for strengthening our high schools has never been stronger. It is unacceptable that only half of our African American and Hispanic students graduate from high school on time when nearly 90 percent of our nation's fastest-growing jobs require post-secondary education or training. The President's new proposals include: a $1.2 billion increase in Title I funds for high schools; an additional $1 billion over five years for Academic Competitiveness Grants for low-income students who take on a rigorous high school course load; and $365 million for the American Competitiveness Initiative to strengthen math and science instruction."

America’s High School Graduates: Results from the 2005 NAEP High School Transcript Study

Date Captured

Friday February 23 2007, 8:54 AM

NCES: Among those who took higher level mathematics and science courses, male graduates had higher NAEP scores than female graduates. Increased percentages of White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian/Pacific Islander graduates completed at least a midlevel curriculum in 2005 compared with 1990. The GPAs of all four racial/ethnic groups also increased during this time. In 2005, both Black and Hispanic graduates were less likely than White graduates to have completed calculus or advanced science courses and to have higher GPAs.

Intelligence in the Classroom

Date Captured

Tuesday January 16 2007, 6:30 AM

Wall Street Opinion Journal contributor Charles Murray, W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute opines, "I am among the most emphatic of those who think that the importance of IQ in living a good life is vastly overrated. My point is just this: It is true that many social and economic problems are disproportionately found among people with little education, but the culprit for their educational deficit is often low intelligence. Refusing to come to grips with that reality has produced policies that have been ineffectual at best and damaging at worst."

Should schools be allowed to consider race when assigning students to its schools? No

Date Captured

Sunday January 14 2007, 3:37 PM

Seattle Times editorial columnist Bruce Ramsey opines, "Racial balancing has done little to close the achievement gap between the races. School districts managed by race because it looked good — and school officials, especially white officials, desperately need to look good. They also used race because it was easy, but it didn't accomplish much. The things that would actually increase student achievement are a more demanding curriculum, more professionalism by principals and teachers, more involvement by parents and, most of all, a more serious attitude among students. None of these is as easy as racial gerrymandering, but they work. They are what that taxi driver would want for his kids, and what would work for kids of all races."

National standards under review as lawmakers prepare to take up No Child Left Behind law

Date Captured

Saturday January 13 2007, 3:42 PM

AP NANCY ZUCKERBROD reports, "Among educators, there is a concern national standards would become outdated and that changing them would be difficult and bureaucratic. Brenda Dietrich, a superintendent in the Topeka, Kan., area, said she has not formed an opinion on national standards, but does see a logic to them. 'If we're all going to be held to a standard, it certainly would be nice if it were the same standard,' Dietrich said. That is probably going to be the winning argument, says Michael Dannenberg, who directs education policy at the Washington-based New America Foundation, which recently held a forum on national standards. 'My view is that the country is on an inexorable march toward national standards, and the question is not if but when and how,' he said."

Inner-city Buffalo students 'nudged' toward college

Date Captured

Friday January 12 2007, 11:23 AM

Buffalo News reports, "African-American high school students in Buffalo are getting a nudge toward higher education under a new initiative at Hilbert College. The small liberal arts college in Hamburg is partnering with two Buffalo churches to bring high school juniors to the Hamburg school. The students will stay for three weeks during the summer, get a dose of campus life and receive tutoring to sharpen the academic skills they will need for college."

Complaining all the way to education successes in the nation's schools

Date Captured

Wednesday January 10 2007, 8:44 AM

Journal News opines, "A critical review of NCLB is overdue. Nationwide and locally, some schools and districts are still making sense of the accountability game (see staff writer Leah Rae's Sunday article about "erasure analysis" - a necessary tool for uncovering teachers and schools that, unfortunately, look for the easy way out on standardized tests; to whit, they cheat). And we'll have more to say later on about what specifically is right and wrong about NCLB. But we think there is more than anecdotal evidence to suggest that Congress should get behind NCLB, preferably one that is improved, better funded and up to the very hard challenges that remain."

OEA (Ohio Education Association): It's Time to Keep the Promise of No Child Left Behind

Date Captured

Friday January 05 2007, 8:34 PM

PR Newswire reports, "The OEA strongly supports the stated goals of NCLB: improving student achievement and closing student achievement gaps that persist among rich and poor, ethnic and minority groups and among school districts that have huge variations in resources. The OEA is a strong advocate of the National Education Association's Positive Agenda for improving the NCLB Act and addressing its flaws."

The state of public education: a state-by-state comparison

Date Captured

Thursday January 04 2007, 5:56 AM

The Journal News reports on survey produced by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center and The Pew Center on the States, "New York does better than the national average in terms of elementary and middle school test scores, but has a lower percentage of students who graduate from high school. And while underperforming some states, New York does better than the average on the success index. The state scores higher than the national average on 9 of the 13 success indicators, including family income, percentage of children who have a parent with a college degree, preschool enrollment and college enrollment."

Test scores for Pennsylvania special education students on rise

Date Captured

Tuesday January 02 2007, 8:18 AM

Herald-Standard reports, "Test scores for special education students in the state's 501 school districts are reportedly on the rise with local educators lauding the efforts of inclusion implemented in January under No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The law was revised to include a special emphasis on the achievement gap for all states that accept Title 1 federal grants that provide funding for remedial education programs for poor and disadvantaged children in public schools and in some private programs. A class action lawsuit filed against the Pennsylvania Department of Education also determined that starting last January special education students be integrated into the regular education classroom for instruction where the special education teacher and regular education teacher co-teach."

Narrow the achievement gap in education

Date Captured	Sunday December 31 2006, 7:52 AM
Boston Globe reports, "The road to closing that gap is outlined in a report called 'Fulfilling the Promise of Education Reform, ' the union's [Massachusetts Teachers Association] action guide for the coming year. The organization will push for legislation and funding for more early childhood programs, full-day kindergarten for all, as well as reduced class sizes."

Act early

Date Captured

Sunday December 24 2006, 9:06 AM

Times Union contributor Karen Schimke, President/CEO of Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy in Albany and a co-convener of the Winning Beginning NY coalition writes, "Making access to early care and education a public responsibility allows children of all economic classes to share in the well-documented developmental benefits of such care. This, in turn, helps reduce future achievement inequalities between more- and less-advantaged children. This may cost us taxpayers more today, but we'll reap handsome rewards in the future."

Congress should fix, not nix, No Child Left Behind measure

Date Captured

Saturday December 23 2006, 9:43 AM

The Press Democrat reports, "Some critics have called the very notion of 100 percent proficiency an oxymoron - something that, if proficiency is to have any meaning, can't be achieved. And since the states themselves define proficiency and set their own standards, some, such as Wisconsin, have lowered their standards to make the targets. California, which has among the highest standards in the nation, is not one of them, despite some legislative efforts to water them down. But as seemed evident from the start, the federal mandate on schools to get students in all ethnic, economic and educational subgroups to full proficiency is a near impossibility, especially for learning disabled students and immigrants who have been in U.S. schools for three years - or perhaps five years - or less."

Charter schools also closing achievement gap

Date Captured

Saturday December 23 2006, 8:39 AM

B. JASON BROOKS, Senior Research Associate , Foundation for Education Reform & Accountability, in a letter to the Times Union writes, "Unfortunately, it is the traditional education establishment that more often than not stands in the way of expanding and replicating such successful schools. Just look at the effort put forth this very week by the state teachers' union as a last-ditch attempt to prevent new, successful charter schools from opening anywhere in the state. While people make excuses for why an achievement gap persists and continue to stand in the way of expanding successful schools, the demand for high-quality charter school options -- schools that are closing that gap right now -- continues to grow."

Report Says Poor Students Shortchanged

Date Captured

Thursday December 21 2006, 3:45 AM

AP reports, "'We cannot close the education achievement gap in this country without addressing the funding gap which keeps our low-income and minority children at a disadvantage,'' Kennedy [Sen. Ted Kennedy] said in a statement Wednesday. 'States must take responsibility for ensuring access to resources for all our children, but the federal government has to do its part as well.'' Like the government, states also are failing to allocate their own school dollars in a way that targets the neediest students, the report says."

Test results show some New Jersey students' scores fall in middle school

Date Captured

Tuesday December 19 2006, 7:25 PM

AP reports, "Department officials also said the performance gap between students in the 31 poor, mostly urban schools districts known as the 'Abbott districts' and the other schools has been closing. In 1999, for instance, less than one-third of the students tested in the Abbott districts, which have been designated for increased financial aid from the state, passed the math test while about two-thirds of students in other schools passed. In tests this year, the scores of both groups improved, but the gap between the poorest students and the others decreased markedly. About 65 percent of Abbott students passed, compared with 86 percent in other schools."

Champaign, Illinois schools must improve attendance — but how?

Date Captured

Monday December 18 2006, 7:46 AM

The News-Gazette reports, "While the district works with students of all races who are missing school, the consent decree mandates it reduce the gap between black and white students in attendance. Stephanie Record said she deals disproportionately with black students. Earlier this month, almost all of the top 30 truants at Central were black. At Centennial, the list was almost evenly split between white and minority students. Officials hope the involvement of black churches will help boost the attendance of black students. But, as one principal noted at the Ministerial Alliance breakfast, those students involved with a church are not usually the ones missing school. The issue is not unique to Champaign, but 'We're under the gun here because everybody is watching,' Stephanie Record said. The school district is trying a number of other things to keep kids in school. Currently, it is holding a contest between Central and Centennial high schools. Whichever school improves its attendance the most by the winter break will win a live radio remote from WCZQ 105.5-FM."

What helps kids learn?

Date Captured

Tuesday December 12 2006, 9:48 AM

The News-Sentinel columnist Kevin Leininger’s writes, "With 77 languages spoken in Fort Wayne schools alone, it’s self-defeating not to acknowledge that while diversity can be an asset, it can also complicate the educational process. Segregating students into more easily taught homogeneous groups isn’t necessarily the answer. But with $8.6 million of last year’s FWCS budget of $181 million dedicated to achieving racial balance – and with the U.S. Supreme Court reviewing race-based admission policies in Seattle and Louisville – we should at least be willing to discuss whether the quality of education has been helped or hindered by the social expectations heaped upon our schools."

New U.S. Department of Education Guide Showcases Charter High Schools Closing Achievement Gaps

Date Captured	Tuesday December 12 2006, 9:29 AM
The U.S. Department of Education has released a new publication that highlights eight charter high schools that are using innovative methods to help close the achievement gap between low-income, minority, and special need students and their peers.

Charter High Schools Closing the Achievement Gap

Date Captured

Tuesday December 12 2006, 9:01 AM

Prepared by WestEd for the U.S. Department of Education Office of Innovation and Improvement. Study concludes, "Closing the achievement gaps that separate the academic performance of various subgroups of students is a central goal of current education reform efforts nationwide. Hard-earned progress has been made at the elementary school level, but high school students are not progressing nearly as well. Indeed, it is at this level that performance gains in general have been most elusive and chronic student achievement disparities among significant subgroups seem most intransigent. Yet success is not beyond reach. This guide profiles eight charter secondary schools that are making headway in meeting the achievement challenge. They are introduced here so their practices can inspire and inform other school communities striving to ensure that all of their students, regardless of their race, ZIP code, learning differences, or home language, are successful learners capable of meeting high academic standards." U.S. Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement, Charter High Schools: Closing the Achievement Gap, Washington, D.C., 2006.

University of the State of New York, P-16 Education: A Plan For Action

Date Captured

Monday December 11 2006, 1:53 PM

We will confront the data, share it broadly, and use it to define as precisely as possible where resources and energy should be applied. We will recognize the achievements and also declare the problems as clearly as we can. We will engage everyone by listening to the people the education system is supposed to serve, to parents, to educators at every level, to the employers, and to the elected officials who must weigh enormous competing demands for scarce resources. In particular, we will engage students and their parents, and the wider community because educational institutions do not belong to the educators but to the people. We will create a communications plan to listen to, inform, and involve people statewide. We will define measurable objectives so that others can hold us accountable, and we can hold education leaders accountable for improving results. We will study the practices of high performing education systems, states and nations, and adapt the best to New York’s situation. We will examine what actions are most effective, and invite others to learn with us. We will take action focused on systematic change to effect sustained improvement. We know, for example, that closing the achievement gap for students requires correcting the unequal distribution of teaching talent. And we know that in demanding change in educational institutions to achieve better results, we must also build capacity in our own State Education Department to take on its part of this improvement strategy. We will continually renew the alignment of our actions to ensure coherence and effectiveness. For example, academic standards, curriculum, assessment, and instructional practice have to be aligned to be effective. When one element changes, all other elements must be examined to ensure that the system remains effective. We will strengthen USNY, because it has great potential to build more effective transitions for students from one level of the system to the next. We will advocate for State and federal financial resources and legislative actions that will help achieve better educational outcomes. And we will be accountable for the effective use of those resources.

Achievement gap seems to be widening even as scores rise

Date Captured

Sunday December 10 2006, 10:11 AM

Louisiana Weekly contributor Marc H. Morial, President and CEO, National Urban League writes, "It is partially our responsibility as parents and members of the community to ensure that future generations acquire the skills needed to thrive in a dynamic and competitive world economy and to hold the powers that be accountable for their obligation to provide a good public education to all - regardless of color, religion or economic class."

Why the Achievement Gap Persists

Date Captured

Friday December 08 2006, 3:41 AM

NY Times opined, "It’s impossible to brand No Child Left Behind as a failure, because its agenda has never been carried out. The law was supposed to remake schools that serve poor and minority students by breaking with the age-old practice of staffing those schools with poorly trained and poorly educated teachers. States were supposed to provide students with highly qualified teachers in all core courses by the beginning of the current academic year. That didn’t happen."

Football schools do well in classroom, but racial achievement gap exists

Date Captured

Tuesday December 05 2006, 8:22 AM

The Orlando Sentinel reports, "A study released Monday by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida concludes that the majority of colleges and universities with the best football programs are making high marks in the classroom and on the field. The study also concludes, though, that there's a wide gap between the academic success of black and white football players."

Early action on early education

Date Captured

Tuesday December 05 2006, 6:46 AM

Boston Globe opines, "Menino [Boston mayor] has a big vision: not just a program or two, but a citywide culture of excellence, an early-education artery that runs through maternity wards, pediatricians' offices, grocery stores, and neighborhoods. Narrowing the achievement gap that leaves many poor and minority students struggling to keep up is one goal. But Menino wants to go farther, to meet the needs of the whole family. So, for example, just as parents live in a given school district, very new parents might live in a certain early-education district, and that could mean access to any number of services, from home visits to parenting classes. Medical, dental, and mental-health care would be readily available. Prevention would be key, especially of well-known problems such as maternal isolation and depression."

Education New York Reader Writes....

Date Captured

Monday December 04 2006, 1:00 PM

"I truly thought that an act about the school system was a great idea. I thought it was time to change the system. However the child that I was tutoring has started to fall through the cracks. Is this not what this act was in place for! I didn't think that it was when a child couldn't pass our tests that we would send them else where...? This is a frustrating process, that I really believe is not working. There should be more done for the children who work more with their right brain."

How the No Child Left Behind Act Punishes Schools with Disadvantaged Students

Date Captured

Monday December 04 2006, 11:14 AM

This column asks whether NCLB accomplishes its objective, based on a recent study of Kansas and Missouri by William Duncombe, Anna Lukemeyer, and John Yinger, "As discussed in my previous column, a state can lower the share of its schools that are subject to federal sanctions by lowering its student performance targets. This strategy will not, however, save schools with high concentrations of disadvantaged students, which are, for reasons outside their control, the schools most likely to be sanctioned. However, a state could help to resolve the unfair treatment of schools with concentrated disadvantage by altering its own aid formulas. Existing state aid formulas do not adequately recognize the higher cost of education in these schools, but they could easily be adjusted to do so. The federal government could also encourage this type of response by revising NCLB to reward the states that do the best job of focusing their aid on the neediest school districts. Another possible reform to NCLB would be to increase both the amount of federal funds and the extent to which these funds are focused on the schools with the highest concentration of disadvantaged students."

Teaching - the solution is as simple as that

Date Captured

Friday December 01 2006, 7:53 AM

Community Press contributor and testing coordinator in the Princeton City School District writes, "The good news - we have control over teaching quality as opposed to controlling poverty, ethnicity, culture or environment. At Princeton, more time and effort has gone into hiring top notch teachers than ever before. They are interviewed extensively and complete a battery of screening tests. We screen for people with demonstrated competency in working with groups from very diverse backgrounds that can be flexible in meeting the needs of our students. More time and money has been spent on training and retraining than ever before. Why all the extra effort with hiring, training and teacher collaboration? Because we believe those efforts are critical to our ability to provide the very best teachers for our students. The very best teachers are those who understand the need to continue their professional learning, and who are willing to implement research-based practices to do whatever it takes to help their students be successful."

Washington Assessment of Student Learning achievement gap costly to fix, officials say

Date Captured	Thursday November 30 2006, 1:34 PM
Seattle Times reports, "The Washington Assessment of Student Learning serves as "a messenger" that students of color continue to lag behind white students and some Asian students, and the so-called academic achievement gap still exists, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson said Wednesday."

School reform: Haven't we been here before?

Date Captured

Tuesday November 28 2006, 9:07 AM

Washington Times reports, " Schools cannot improve academic performance alone. They do not, and cannot, operate in a vacuum. But we expect educators to address all manner of social ills and economic impediments plaguing students who are not ready or too stressed to learn when they reach the schoolhouse doors. Then we place the additional pressure on overwhelmed teachers of teaching to a standardized test, as if that is the Holy Grail of measuring individual improvement."

Assessing the value of pre-k: Benefits seem clear, but are there unintended consequences?

Date Captured

Sunday November 26 2006, 8:41 AM

The Daily Progress (Virginia) reports, "Private and public preschools are growing as more research has developed that reinforces the importance of early childhood development to later academic success. Parents who can afford private preschools have acted on these findings, enrolling their children earlier and at an increasing rate. But some worry this may contribute to the gap in achievement that exists in public schools."

List for Schools Seems to Grow More Wishful

Date Captured

Saturday November 25 2006, 7:44 AM

NY Times DAVID M. HERSZENHORN reports, "The sum at issue is substantial: $2 billion a year translates to roughly $1,887 per student, or about $943,500 annually in a school with 500 students. While the amount ordered by the court is still huge, a leading critic of school financing lawsuits that have been filed across the country said the focus on the money had distracted from the work of actually fixing the city schools. 'For five years, people have looked to the courts and argued about the money without thinking seriously about what to do,' said the critic, Eric A. Hanushek, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution."

Preschool Is School, Sometimes: Making early childhood education matter

Date Captured

Tuesday November 21 2006, 9:45 AM

Education Next contributor Robert C. Pianta, professor of education at the Curry School of Education and director of the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning, the University of Virginia writes, "Recent work suggests that direct training methods, such as mentoring and coaching and constructive feedback based on observation of teachers, can improve early education practice and children’s performance."

Why science scores stink

Date Captured

Monday November 20 2006, 7:44 AM

NY Daily News contributor Gross, emeritus university professor of life sciences at the University of Virginia writes, "In the end, no attempt to improve science achievement will succeed without addressing the obvious problem staring us in the face. Namely, teachers who haven't studied science are teaching it to our kids. More than 25% of seventh- to 12th-grade science teachers nationwide have neither a major nor a minor in their subject area. Yes, we need reform. But, in the spirit of the scientific method, that reform must be realistic and informed by the mistakes we've made over the years. It must not put faith in untested hypotheses."

Hunger in East Tennessee - fallacies and facts

Date Captured	Sunday November 19 2006, 3:54 AM
Knoxville News reports, "Food for Kids and Kids Cafe -- Youth programs serve more than 3,000 kids monthly in nearly 100 locations. These kids show increased attendance, improved learning, better overall health and healthier social behavior. Several corporations have donated $2,500 each to adopt and fund a neighborhood elementary school for a year."

Most Students in Big Cities Lag Badly in Basic Science

Date Captured

Thursday November 16 2006, 3:33 AM

NY Times DIANA JEAN SCHEMO reports, "At least half of eighth graders tested in science failed to demonstrate even a basic understanding of the subject in 9 of 10 major cities, and fourth graders, the only other group tested, fared little better, according to results released here Wednesday. The outcome of those tests, part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called the nation’s report card, showed that student performance in urban public schools was not only poor but also far short of science scores in the nation as a whole."

Teachers aim for inclusion in school events

Date Captured

Monday November 06 2006, 5:25 AM

Poughkeepsie Journal reports, "Teachers shared their ideas about how to celebrate diversity during the Multicultural Education Conference on Friday at the State University of New York at New Paltz. The 12th annual conference was sponsored by the New Paltz college and a number of state and local educational organizations. A total of 275 teachers, administrators, students and community members from the mid-Hudson Valley attended the event, themed 'Opening Minds, Closing the Gap: Fostering Achievement and Equity for All.'"

No Joke, the Troops Did Their Homework

Date Captured

Sunday November 05 2006, 7:55 AM

NY Times reports, "About 97 percent of the 1.4 million Americans serving in the active duty Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines have graduated from high school or the equivalent, according to Pentagon figures. That compares with 85 percent of all adults 25 years or older who reported they had completed at least high school, according to a 2005 survey by the Census Bureau. Roughly 17 percent of the active duty members of the military have a bachelor’s or graduate degree, the Pentagon figures show, while in the nation as a whole, 28 percent of adults reported they had at least a bachelor’s degree."

Student journalists deserve an apology

Date Captured

Tuesday October 31 2006, 7:15 AM

St. Petersburg Times reports, "Orr [principal of Florida high school] stripped an article from the October edition of Red & Black, the school newspaper, that described the gap in academic performance between white and minority students. Never mind that the figures were compiled by other governmental agencies, that student journalists have broad legal rights to publish or that the data was readily available on the school district's own Web site."

In New Jersey, System to Help Poorest Schools Faces Criticism

Date Captured

Sunday October 29 2006, 11:59 PM

NY Times WINNIE HU writes, "Garfield is a so-called Abbott school district, one of 31 poor districts that have received a total of $35 billion in state aid since 1997 as part of an ambitious court-ordered social experiment to narrow the achievement gap between rich and poor students, whites and minorities. In a decision that set a precedent for school equality cases nationwide, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that the poorest urban school districts should be given the resources to spend as much on their students as the wealthiest suburban districts do. Now a growing number of New Jersey elected officials, educators and parents are calling for sweeping changes to this school financing system, saying that it has wasted millions of taxpayer dollars in the Abbott districts. For every success story like Garfield, where fourth-grade test scores have risen to the state average, there are chronic problems, like those in Newark, Camden and Asbury Park."

The coed classroom

Date Captured

Thursday October 26 2006, 6:25 AM

Boston Globe contributors Rosalind C. Barnett, senior scientist at the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University and Caryl Rivers, journalism professor at Boston University write, "If some boys in Massachusetts are having trouble with vocabulary, or see literature and learning as 'uncool,' schools need to tackle such problems. Will all-boy classrooms eliminate such attitudes? Not if they operate on the assumption that boys inherently have inferior verbal skills and have to be 'yelled at' to learn. Such classrooms could, in fact, further alienate bright kids from education."

Federal Rules Back Single-Sex Public Education

Date Captured

Wednesday October 25 2006, 3:16 AM

NY Times DIANA JEAN SCHEMO writes, "To open schools exclusively for boys or girls, a district has until now had to show a 'compelling reason,' for example, that it was acting to remedy past discrimination. But a new attitude began to take hold with the passage of the No Child Left Behind law in 2002 when women senators from both parties came out in support of same-sex education and asked the Education Department to draft guidelines to permit their growth. The new rules, first proposed by the Education Department in 2004, are designed to bring Title IX into conformity with a section of the No Child Left Behind law that called on the department to promote single-sex schools."

The Children Left Behind

Date Captured

Tuesday October 24 2006, 7:44 AM

The Cornell Daily Sun contributor Laura Taylor, a senior in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University writes, "The achievement gap between whites and Latinos and blacks is staggering. At the end of high school, black and Latino students have reading and mathematics skills that are roughly the same as white students in eighth grade. Beyond that, black students are half as likely as white students to have a college degree by age 29, and Latinos are only one third as likely."

NAEP State Comparisons

Date Captured

Friday October 20 2006, 2:44 PM

You can create tables that compare states and jurisdictions based on the average scale scores for selected groups of public school students within a single assessment year, or compare the change in performance between two assessment years. For example: See how the average reading score for male students in a particular state compares to the average reading score for male students in other states in 2005, or See how the change (from 2002 to the focal year) in reading scores for male students in a particular state compares to the change in reading scores for male students in other states.

Kids' skills aren't adding up

Date Captured	Tuesday October 17 2006, 4:41 AM
NY Daily News reports, "Only 25% of the borough [Bronx] schools' eighth-graders performed at grade level on the math exam, the lowest score of all five boroughs. In Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island, nearly 40% or more of eighth-graders hit the mark, with Brooklyn, for example, coming in with a score of 39% at grade level."

There is no 'boy crisis'

Date Captured

Friday October 13 2006, 7:36 AM

USA TODAY contributor Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women writes, "One proposed solution has been to segregate boys from girls in school, but not only does that fail to improve performance, it also sends a message that it is difficult for the sexes to work and learn together, and that the best remedy is to give up trying. If we want women and men to compete on a level playing field as adults, they must start in school."

Educators slow to wise up to the gender problem

Date Captured

Friday October 13 2006, 7:35 AM

USA TODAY writes, "In addition to being a matter of fairness, a shift to boy-oriented policies has the potential to produce other gains: Raise parents' and teachers' awareness. Parents with struggling boys often are told not to worry because boys are slow to pick up reading skills and math is their strong point. That conventional wisdom is outdated. Many boys don't catch up in reading, and they don't always do better in math."

Scores on State Math Tests Dip With Districts’ Income

Date Captured

Thursday October 12 2006, 3:40 AM

NY Times reports, "It was the wide gap between poor cities and wealthy districts that Mr. Mills identified as a cause for alarm when he announced the scores in Albany yesterday. While 86.3 percent of students in rich, or so-called low-need districts scored proficiently, only 28.6 percent did so in Buffalo, 30.1 percent in Syracuse, and 33.1 percent in Rochester. 'I am talking about state aid, and it’s a reminder that resources have something to do with this as well,” Mr. Mills said. He added: 'The low-needs school districts, that is, the ones that have the resources, are higher performing — much higher performing.'”

Teaching preschoolers is good for everybody

Date Captured

Tuesday October 03 2006, 7:41 AM

The Denver Post reports, "Researchers have solidly documented what happens to children who do not get mental, physical and environmental stimulation during those crucial early years: Their cognitive skills are woefully inadequate, and they wind up behind in first grade. That is where the education gap first appears between poor and wealthy children. As taxpayers, we pay for a public school education system that starts too late."

Boy trouble

Date Captured	Monday October 02 2006, 5:00 PM
The Boston Globe opined, "Gender-specific academic initiatives can be difficult to square with antidiscrimination laws. Yet public school systems in other states have managed to establish separate courses for boys and girls within a school, provided they do not set up entirely separate institutions. An enterprising school district or charter school could make history here by taking on the boys."

Strides being made to meet NCLB Act

Date Captured	Monday October 02 2006, 4:52 PM
Connecticut Post opined, "Still, the overriding problem for Connecticut to fully comply with meeting NCLB standards for high schools largely resides in schools located in cash-poor urban areas where there is a diverse student population that is heavily minority and where large pockets of poverty exist."

Ohio National Board Certified Teachers to Meet for First-Ever Education Policy Summit

Date Captured

Monday October 02 2006, 3:42 PM

PRNewswire reports, "For the first time ever, hundreds of the state's top teachers will join Ohio policymakers and educational leaders for a daylong policy summit to discuss the most critical issues facing educators today--closing achievement gaps and staffing high-needs schools. 'We're looking for concrete, workable recommendations that will foster the conditions for high-quality teaching and learning for all students,' said OEA President Gary Allen."

New York Reading Skills Drop After 5th Grade

Date Captured

Thursday September 21 2006, 3:30 PM

NY Times DAVID M. HERSZENHORN reports, "The pattern of success in elementary school but failure in the middle grades, while hardly new, offered the most pessimistic assessment yet of New York State’s chances of meeting the goal of the No Child Left Behind law, which seeks 100 percent proficiency in reading and math among all categories of students by the 2013-14 school year, or even of a more realistic target of 80 percent proficiency for students without special needs."

Boston schools win top education award; Jersey City a finalist

Date Captured

Tuesday September 19 2006, 8:48 PM

AP reports, "The Boston public school system won the nation's largest prize in public education Tuesday, earning $500,000 in college scholarships for making steady gains in the classroom. Jersey City's school system was a finalist for the award and will receive $125,000."The other four finalists will each receive $125,00. They are Bridgeport Public Schools in Connecticut, Jersey City School District in New Jersey, Miami Dade County Public Schools and the New York City Department of Education.

The battle over charter schools in California

Date Captured

Sunday September 17 2006, 11:31 AM

Inside Bay Area reports, "Despite the growth, charters make up only about 6 percent of the state's schools, and they enroll only about 3 percent of California students, according to EdSource, a nonpartisan educational policy group. Charter schools never have found easy acceptance in the state. School districts have fought or blocked their creation within city boundaries, teachers' unions accuse the movement of undermining hard-won contracts and charter operators complain they have been hamstrung and undercut by a confusing and constricting stream of laws that stifle the very reform the schools were formed to foster."

Wide Variety of Factors Involved in Achievement Gap

Date Captured

Saturday September 16 2006, 10:32 AM

Norwalk Citizen News reports, "The panelists [at a forum last week at Norwalk Community College] offered a wide range of observations dealing with the prospect of success in closing the achievement gap, including the following: *Educators have to think beyond the community. *Communities can't put blind faith in a charismatic leader. *Communities need to have courageous conversations about class and race and not be afraid to bring up the issues. *Communities have to be open to data that may fly in the face of beliefs. *Educators must look at the best practices that achieve success in other countries. *Thinking that low achievement in a school system is acceptable is offensive. *Investment in professional development should relate to what teachers are doing in the classrooms. *Opportunities for teachers to get together should be built within the school day. *Principals need to realize that their primary purpose is to know what's going on in the classrooms. *The way education is funded is a huge barrier to closing the gap. Therefore schools systems can't wait for more money to change a system. *The focus needs to be on the teachers and the students in the classrooms. *Four-to-six-week teacher-generated pupil assessment is important to determine if teaching goals are being met."

Nine local Mid-Hudson school still get failing marks

Date Captured

Wednesday September 13 2006, 7:00 AM

Times-Herald Record reports, "The list is more than name-calling. Districts have to pour resources into the problem areas — resources that local taxpayers often have to pay for. In the long run, teachers and principals might be fired if the failures continue. The federal No Child Left Behind Law sets the rules. It covers not only scores but the performance of various racial, ethnic, and other special groups."

'Low'down on New York City High Schools

Date Captured	Wednesday September 13 2006, 5:06 AM
NY Post David Andreatta reports, "Fewer city high schools got a failing grade from the state this year compared with last, but the dreaded roster included a handful of small schools and its first charter school - both high priorities of Bloomberg's administration."

Is local Ohio school performance linked to poverty?

Date Captured	Monday September 11 2006, 1:48 PM
Athens News reports, "Several factors contribute to the discrepancy in test results between students living in poverty and those who don't, but the size of the gap is still surprising."

Growing Up In New York: Charting the Next Generation of Workers, Citizens and Leaders

Date Captured	Monday September 11 2006, 10:02 AM
A report produced by SCAA, reviews the status of children and youth in New York State through charts and critical data. Authors write, "While many individual students have succeeded in New York’s public education system, students as a group show declining aptitude as they age. The implications for college readiness are obvious and alarming."

Secretary Spellings Announces Partnership with 100 Black Men of America, Inc.

Date Captured	Friday September 08 2006, 10:33 PM
According to the agreement, the U.S. Department of Education will seek "to fully engage the African American community and its leaders in the successful implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act as it relates to school choice, charter schools, supplemental services, parent report cards, and all of the benefits and options provided to parents with students in schools in need of improvement."

Backers push Arizona tax, say kids in need

Date Captured

Thursday September 07 2006, 8:16 AM

The Arizona Republic reports, "The $150 million tax would pay for voluntary early-childhood education programs and health screenings for children up to 5 years old. advertisement That's the plan by the First Things First campaign, which pushed Proposition 203 on to the Nov. 7 ballot. Foes argue the measure creates a new layer of government and minimizes the role of parents." The proposal is modeled after a North Carolina program.

Oneida teachers are taught how to reach all pupils

Date Captured	Wednesday September 06 2006, 6:14 AM
Post-Standard reports on school orientation and in-service program, "Weber [classroom teacher and an education consultant ] said people who live in poverty are focused primarily on basic survival, so those children come to school with nonverbal, sensory and reactive skills. Schools, however, value verbal, abstract and proactive skills."

Charter school lessons

Date Captured

Tuesday September 05 2006, 10:06 AM

Times Union opined on school choice, "The mixed results show that it is far too soon to declare charter schools a success. More time and more studies are necessary to determine whether this experiment has been worth it. More recent national data suggest that fourth graders in charter schools were, at best, keeping pace with their peers in public schools in reading last year, but lagged behind in math."

A ride to pre-K

Date Captured

Tuesday September 05 2006, 5:40 AM

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle opined, "It is well-known that children in the poorest city neighborhoods are more likely to live with single working parents or parents who don't own cars. This makes transporting children to a 21/2-hour pre-K program difficult, if not impossible. Those few agencies that host prekindergarten programs and use their own resources to transport kids find their services are in demand."

D.C. School Superintendent Janey Proposes Year-Round Classes to Aid Ailing Programs

Date Captured	Monday September 04 2006, 9:35 AM
The Washington Post reports, "D.C. School Superintendent Clifford B. Janey is proposing year-round classes at five mainly low-achieving schools in an effort to give students more time in the classroom by shortening the long summer break."

Texas education the elephant in the room

Date Captured

Sunday September 03 2006, 2:45 PM

The Houston Chronicle reports, "The new school finance law adopted by the Legislature this spring after five sessions over the past three years will make it harder for school districts to generate revenue because voter approval, not school board action, will generally dictate future school tax increases. And those voters with the most discretionary income will be older whites without children in schools."

National School Testing Urged: Gaps Between State, Federal Assessments Fuel Call for Change

Date Captured

Saturday September 02 2006, 10:23 PM

Washington Post Jay Mathews reports, "The growing talk of national testing and standards comes in the fifth year of the No Child Left Behind era. That federal law sought to hold public schools accountable for academic performance but left it up to states to design their own assessments. So the definition of proficiency -- what it means for a student to perform at grade level -- varies from coast to coast."

Where's the courage in education reform?

Date Captured	Saturday September 02 2006, 9:07 AM
Scrippsnews contributor Star Parker writes, "According to NCLB, students in failing schools must be notified and permitted to transfer to another school. We have found that 250,000, about 30 percent, of the students in the LA system are eligible for such transfers, yet notification is not being given and there have only been only slightly more than 500 transfers."

New York State English test scores delayed

Date Captured	Saturday September 02 2006, 8:54 AM
The Journal News reports, "Under the federal No Child Left Behind Law, students who score '1' or '2' on a four-point scale are required to receive extra help, called 'academic intervention services' for the following year." Chambers said the district would rely on its own assessments for extra help when school starts, and then readjust its program when the scores are released."

Promise Abandoned: How Policy Choices and Institutional Practices Restrict College Opportunities

Date Captured	Friday September 01 2006, 9:25 AM
Kati Haycock, Director of the Education Trust and author of the report writes, "Though college leaders may not have intended this, higher education — especially the four-year college sector — has become a mechanism for reinforcing social class, rather than a vehicle for fostering social mobility. That’s bad for low-income and minority families. And it is bad for America."

Education Secretary Spellings spotlights early literacy

Date Captured

Friday September 01 2006, 8:50 AM

The Providence Journal reports on funds granted, "The $3.6-million Reading First grant will be used to train childcare workers at four Providence daycare centers: Federal Hill House, West End Community Center, Genesis Center and John Hope Settlement House. The grants will also help the centers buy books and other materials to prepare children for kindergarten and first grade. The $3.3-million professional-development grant will pay for 250 hours of training in early childhood literacy for 200 childcare workers."

North Carolina to Pilot 'No Child Behind' Program

Date Captured

Thursday August 31 2006, 8:07 PM

The Pilot reports, "With the pilot project, schools entering their first year of Title I School Improvement in these seven districts must offer supplemental educational services to eligible students. If these schools continue not to make AYP, they must offer public school choice next year, while continuing to offer supplemental educational services. The piloting districts were selected based on geographic diversity, unique district characteristics and demographics, interest shown by the district and the projected numbers of Title I schools in the district that might be entering year one of Title I School Improvement in 2006-07."

Affirmation Exercise Dramatically Alters Racial Achievement Gap

Date Captured	Thursday August 31 2006, 1:14 PM
Medical News Today reports, "'People subjected to widely known negative stereotypes impugning the intelligence of their group are aware of these negative characterizations and may worry that performing poorly could confirm the stereotype of their group,' said Julio Garcia, associate research scientist in the Psychology Department at Yale."

$3 billion plan for struggling California schools is revealed

Date Captured

Thursday August 31 2006, 12:08 PM

UNION-TRIBUNE reports on agreement with the California Teachers Association, "The estimated 600 schools in the pilot program would be selected from applicants among 1,600 low-performing schools whose scores on statewide tests are in the bottom 20 percent. The schools would have to maintain an average class size of 20 students in kindergarten through the third grade, a current requirement, and an average of 25 students not to exceed 27 students in most fourth-through 12th-grade classes. The schools would have to have at least one credentialed counselor for every 300 students. Using a new index, the average experience of teachers would have to equal or exceed the district average. The schools also would have to move toward a three-year goal of improving their test scores. Pupil attendance and graduation rates also would be expected to show improvement."

On exam, Massachusetts charter schools get edge

Date Captured

Thursday August 31 2006, 11:59 AM

Boston Globe reports, "Jeff Wulfson, associate commissioner of the state Department of Education, said the findings show that charter schools outperform regular public schools, even when demographics are taken into account. For example, the study found that students in Boston's charter schools, including black and Hispanics who have scored lower in the past, performed significantly better than students in regular public schools."

Buffalo Superintendent Williams pushes for longer school year: Plan, which includes longer school day, is supported by Board of Regents chancellor

Date Captured

Wednesday August 30 2006, 12:02 PM

Buffalo News reports, "Bennett (chancellor) said he expects similar efforts across the state. Williams said the longer year and extended day are needed to: Give students more time to tackle increasingly demanding course work and state graduation requirements; Allow more classroom periods for vocational education, art and music, which are getting crowded out by the expansion of instruction in English, math and other 'core subjects'; Provide more time for teacher training and preparation. This school year, teachers report to school on Tuesday, then begin instruction on Wednesday; Allow time during the school day for Advanced Placement and honors courses that are being phased back into Buffalo high schools."

Statewide preschool pushed in Idaho

Date Captured	Monday August 28 2006, 9:21 AM
AP reports, "Advocates for early childhood education have told a legislative task force that eager-to-learn 3-year-old kids in the state are falling behind their counterparts elsewhere because Idaho doesn't give them a chance to attend publicly funded preschool."

Education by gender

Date Captured

Friday August 25 2006, 8:00 AM

Palladium-Item reports on upcoming release of gender regulations, "Washington deserves some belated credit for getting with it and recognizing that maybe gender-specific education does have a role -- albeit a controlled and monitored role -- in the public schools. Countless parochial schools, including notably Catholic schools, have demonstrated the merit to this approach. Some differences in learning especially at some earlier ages, research shows, can be attributed to gender."

Children's pre-K education is crucial to their future success

Date Captured

Thursday August 24 2006, 9:06 AM

Idaho Statesman Op-Ed contributor Eldon Wallace, retired associate commissioner of finance with the Missouri Department of Higher Education opined on early learning, "We are being confronted with overwhelming evidence that the great potential for early learning and for social-skill development during the first five years of life has not been met for many of our children. As a result, there is a major gap in kindergarten readiness in Idaho between the children who are educationally neglected and the children of parents who can afford preschool and/or have time, knowledge and motivation to work with their child."

The 38th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools

Date Captured

Tuesday August 22 2006, 10:47 AM

(September 2006) By LOWELL C. ROSE executive director emeritus of Phi Delta Kappa International and ALEC M. GALLUP, co-chairman, with George Gallup, Jr., of the Gallup Organization, Princeton, N.J. "In probing the public’s opinions of NCLB, the PDK/Gallup poll finds that there is widespread support for the law’s goals -- closing the achievement gap between African American and Latino students and their white peers and improving educational outcomes for all students -- but broad disagreement with its specific strategies. When asked whether testing students in only English and math, as currently required by NCLB, can give a fair picture of a school, 81% of the public say no. And 78% are worried that the law’s focus on these two subjects will mean less emphasis on other subjects. The poll finds that two-thirds of those surveyed oppose measuring school success by the percentage of students passing a single statewide test, while 81% prefer measuring the improvement that students make during the year."

The problems with gender separation

Date Captured

Monday August 21 2006, 5:00 PM

Reporter Times reports, "Korth [associate professor at the Indiana University School of Education] said while there is evidence suggesting girls’ brains mature faster than boys’, most of those differences have evened out by the fifth grade. "My personal view is that we still need to figure out, as educators, how to do a good job of teaching boys and girls in the same classroom. ... My ideal image of education does not include separating kids by gender,' she said."

Free preschool will help Latinos and US

Date Captured

Monday August 21 2006, 7:29 AM

Christian Science Monitor contributor Alexandra Starr, journalism fellow in child and family policy in 2005 opined, "To give all kids a chance to be successful in school, we have to intervene early. Kindergarten is too late. But creating more early education programs isn't enough; states need to proactively reach out to Latinos. If they don't, expanding pre-K could ironically increase the disparities in educational achievement, as more whites and African-American kids enroll in these programs, and Latinos continue to be left out."

ELITE SCHOOLS UNDER FIRE

Date Captured	Monday August 21 2006, 7:03 AM
NY Post editorial opined on academic achievement and enrollment at CUNY and elite schools, "Lowering admissions standards at elite public high schools - in other words, admitting students who are not able to handle a deliberately difficult and challenging workload - will hardly prepare those students for academically elite colleges and universities."

Suburban Ohio schools also home to test gap: Affluent districts now face disparities that some urban districts have overcome

Date Captured	Sunday August 20 2006, 2:36 PM
The Columbus Dispatch reports, "The disparity in achievement was hidden until recent years, Hall [senior policy analyst at Washington-based Education Trust] said, when the federal No Child Left Behind law began making all schools report how their minority, special-education and immigrant students are faring."

Family life key to success in school

Date Captured

Sunday August 20 2006, 2:16 PM

The Buffalo News former editor Murray B. Light opined on factors that impact learning, "None of the education studies I've reviewed has factored in one of the most dominant elements in American life - television viewing. It most certainly is a factor in the education and intellectual promise of school-age children. Almost every element of American life is now the subject of polls. I have never been satisfied that poll results are meaningful because the respondents may or may not be responding truthfully. Be that as it may, one cannot overlook the enormous influence television is today."

Looking beyond textbook learning: Upstate educators urged to embrace innovation at Saint Rose institute

Date Captured

Saturday August 19 2006, 8:21 AM

Times Union reports on seminar, "He [Noguera] is considered by many to be one of the nation's most important voices on education reform and diversity. The institute, formed last year with a $1.6 million federal grant, trains educators to better deal with modern issues affecting schools. Much of Noguera's address focused on creating a solid environment for teaching in urban areas, especially when dealing with low-income and special education students, as well as those who do not speak English. Teachers and administrators, especially in urban school districts, must work hard to create strong relationships with students to interest them in learning, he said."

New Mexico efforts to close achievement gap questionable

Date Captured	Friday August 18 2006, 9:58 AM
Alamogordo Daily News reports, "There continued to be a significant drop in all grade levels and on all three tests from the scores posted by Anglo and Asia students, and those posted by their Hispanic and African American peers, and then another significant drop in the scores posted by Native American students."

Gender Gap Worries Connecticut Educators

Date Captured	Monday August 14 2006, 12:17 PM
Hartford Courant reports, "Boys continued to trail girls by substantial margins in reading and writing on the annual Connecticut Mastery Test. The pattern has persisted since Connecticut first started keeping track of scores by gender in 2000, and is consistent with longstanding patterns on national tests."

No excuse in leaving kids behind

Date Captured	Sunday August 13 2006, 12:08 PM
The Enquirer opined on teacher quality, equity, and the achievement gap, "Children were left behind. They're still being left behind, and one reason is because they tend to get the teachers who are left behind as well."

Connecticut schools racial gap shrinking: Black, Hispanic students improving scores

Date Captured	Sunday August 13 2006, 11:28 AM
Republican-American reports, "Rising scores among minorities are not the only reason the gap is narrowing. The percentage of white students reaching the state goal here fell slightly in both reading and writing compared with 2000-01, though they rose from the previous year."

Business group rips schools, says taxpayers don't get good return on investments

Date Captured

Sunday August 13 2006, 10:17 AM

Star-Gazette, Jay Gallagher reports, "The state's test scores are improving but more needs to be done to shift money to poorer districts, said a spokesman [Dunn] for the state Education Department. '... Too few dollars still go to the students and the schools with the greatest need, and class sizes are bigger there. The Board of Regents is urging a major reform of the state aid system. This will help tremendously to close the achievement gap,' said spokesman Tom Dunn."

Graduation rates must be a focus

Date Captured	Saturday August 12 2006, 7:51 AM
Poughkeepsie Journal opined on graduation, "Statewide testing has shown where the achievement gap exists. While the drop-out rate is significant, especially in some minority communities, lowering expectations is not the answer. Far from a hindrance, these test results are giving the state the opportunity to fix the problems."

It Takes More Than Schools to Close Achievement Gap

Date Captured	Wednesday August 09 2006, 8:58 AM
NY Times DIANA JEAN SCHEMO reports on the social ills impacting learning.

61 Vermont schools fail to meet No Child Left Behind standards

Date Captured	Friday August 04 2006, 9:19 AM
AP reports, "Of the schools that did not meet the standard, 75 percent were identified because of students who are poor or who have disabilities, Cate said."

NCAA May Reinforce Academic Penalties

Date Captured	Thursday August 03 2006, 12:02 AM
AP reports, "Under the short-term penalties being implemented, any team scoring lower than 925 could lose scholarships in that sport. Now the NCAA might implement penalties that refer to a team's average over several years. Under the proposal, any team with an average score lower than the proposed 900 over a rolling four-year period would face the harshest sanctions."

Nip problem in bud with early education initiatives

Date Captured

Sunday July 30 2006, 8:44 AM

Indianapolis Star op-ed writes, "We need a comprehensive strategy similar to the P-16 Plan for Improving Student Achievement, adopted three years ago by business and education leaders on the Education Roundtable, but since shelved. The P-16 Plan wisely addressed a continuum of educational policies that ranged from the developmental needs of children in prekindergarten programs (the 'P' in P-16), to the skills needed by high school graduates, and the need for collaboration between secondary and postsecondary education."

Education race

Date Captured

Monday July 24 2006, 2:19 PM

The Boston Globe reports, "The achievement gap between Latino and non-Latino students 'begins before children even enter kindergarten and persists throughout the K-12 years,' according to a new report from Pre-K Now, a nonprofit organization in Washington. These children face a lifelong achievement gap, making it tempting to target preschool to children who are 'at-risk.'" READ REFERENCED REPORT ON EDUCATION NEW YORK ONLINE -- see EARLY LEARNING, IMMIGRATION.

Community can eliminate achievement gap

Date Captured

Friday July 21 2006, 8:32 AM

Ithaca Journal guest columnist Eldred Harris writes, "The Village has built strategic partnerships with existing local programs while filling a few key gaps in services necessary to achieve our goals. It's been a joy working with some of Ithaca's brightest and most dedicated youth, public service professionals, K-12 teachers and administrators, business leaders, ministers, moms, police officers, area college and university faculty and administrators, local and statewide elected officials, as well as countless other community volunteers to accomplish this important work —proving the adage that it does indeed take a Village to raise, affirm and educate a child!"

SMARTER CHARTER KIDS, SCORING ABOVE STUDENTS AT NEARBY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Date Captured	Thursday July 20 2006, 7:49 AM
NY Post reports, "The academic gap widens in the upper grades, the report said, with kids in five of six upper-grade charter schools faring better on eighth-grade English and math exams."

Why Johnny Can't Read: Schools Favor Girls

Date Captured	Wednesday July 19 2006, 3:20 PM
LiveScience.com reports, "The problem is partly developmental, 'Kleinfeld said. 'Girls mature more quickly than boys,' she said. 'They enter school with bigger vocabularies and better fine motor skills, so it's easier for them to learn to write.'"

A National Voucher Program?

Date Captured	Tuesday July 18 2006, 5:51 PM
People for the American Way reports, "Every child deserves a quality education. Publicly funded vouchers for private schools will not provide that. Instead they’ll drain precious funding from our school systems and widen the achievement gap."

Pre-K and Latinos: The Foundation of America's Future

Date Captured

Monday July 10 2006, 8:15 PM

Eugene E. Garcia, Ph.D., Arizona State University, College of Education, Tempe, AZ; Danielle M. Gonzales, M.Ed., Pre-K Now Washington, DC, July 2006. Providing Hispanics with much greater access to high-quality pre-k is critical to helping states meet the standards and mandates of NCLB. To maximize the benefits of increased Latino participation in pre-k, programs should be structured to build upon the existing strengths within Latino communities, including strong family bonds, a high value on educational achievement, and widespread support for public education and social systems.

High-Quality Pre-Kindergarten for Hispanic Children is Key to Closing Achievement Gap

Date Captured

Monday July 10 2006, 8:10 PM

PRNewswire writes, "The report notes that Hispanic children are more likely than whites to start school without the foundational math and reading knowledge and skills necessary for academic success. Studies have shown that these disparities persist throughout Hispanics' educational careers. However, pre-k has been shown to improve these skills in all children -- and particularly in Hispanic children."

Kati Haycock 'Takes Five'; Clear, high goals help schools close the achievement gap

Date Captured	Thursday July 06 2006, 8:49 AM
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, "When we look at the districts that are making the biggest gains, in terms of both overall achievement and narrowing gaps between groups, what seems to set them apart is their focus."

Black failure in school – who's to blame?

Date Captured

Wednesday July 05 2006, 10:28 AM

WorldNetDaily.com reports, "There's enough blame for this sorry state of affairs for all participants to have their share: students who are hostile and alien to the education process, parents who don't care, teachers who are incompetent or have been beaten down by the system, and administrators who sanction unwarranted promotions and issuance of fraudulent diplomas that attest that a student has mastered 12th-grade material when in fact he hasn't mastered sixth- or seventh-grade material."

REGENTS RATE SOARS UNDER EASIER RULES

Date Captured	Wednesday July 05 2006, 7:55 AM
NY Post registration required. NY Post reports, "At the same time, the gap between black and Hispanic students and white and Asian students earning a Regents diploma widened last year, despite strong growth across all ethnic lines."

False 'Crisis' of Educating Boys

Date Captured	Tuesday July 04 2006, 9:15 AM
redOrbit.com reports, "Reports of a 'boy crisis' in America's classrooms make for alarming headlines. But a new analysis of long-term trends finds that, at least by national testing standards, boys are doing better than ever by most measures -- if, that is, they are white and privileged."

Gender turf battles: What boy crisis?

Date Captured	Monday July 03 2006, 1:38 PM
International Herald Tribune. The New York Times reports, "It's been muttered for some time now in feminist academic circles that the 'boy crisis' - the near- ubiquitous belief that America's boys are being academically neglected and emotionally persecuted by teachers whose training, style and temperament favor girls - is little more than a myth."

Pennsylvania universities gear up for new program

Date Captured	Monday July 03 2006, 9:11 AM
A partnership between universities and Philadelphia schools has culminated in Project EFFORT, a summer urban academy for students participating in Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP).

BOYS' PROBLEMS IN SCHOOL NEED ATTENTION, NOT DISMISSAL

Date Captured	Monday July 03 2006, 8:56 AM

Nation’s "Best Schools" Fail Minorities

Date Captured	Friday June 30 2006, 10:27 AM
Diverse: Issues In Higher Education

Lack of educational success among boys is more the result of race and class than gender

Date Captured	Tuesday June 27 2006, 12:05 PM

The Truth About Boys and Girls

Date Captured	Monday June 26 2006, 8:40 AM
By Sara Mead, Education Sector. On many measures American boys are achieving more than ever, but girls have improved their performance even faster. A careful look at the evidence shows the boy crisis hype is overblown and benefits neither boys nor girls.

Connecticut PTA tackles achievement gap with aid money

Date Captured	Sunday June 18 2006, 9:20 AM

Reforms That Could Help Narrow the Achievement Gap

Date Captured	Thursday June 15 2006, 9:08 AM
Richard Rothstein, Research Associate of the Economic Policy Institute, outlines a series of reforms, in addition to school improvement, that could help narrow the achievement gap.

NCLB education policy to miss goals: Harvard study

Date Captured	Wednesday June 14 2006, 7:44 AM

50% more NYC schools win state kudos

Date Captured	Wednesday June 07 2006, 7:20 AM

Higher Performing Schools and Districts

Date Captured	Tuesday June 06 2006, 3:55 PM

Analysis reveals true performance, School's poverty level is the biggest factor, so eliminating it evens out the playing field

Date Captured	Sunday June 04 2006, 9:27 AM

Segregated classrooms benefit some students, but stop others from reaching full potential

Date Captured	Wednesday May 31 2006, 12:59 PM

Wealthy District's Special Ed Students More Likely to Graduate

Date Captured	Wednesday May 24 2006, 11:02 AM

Schools closing gap for disabled pupils

Date Captured	Sunday May 21 2006, 10:32 AM

Why do boys trail girls in school?

Date Captured	Tuesday May 16 2006, 6:00 PM

James Williams is on a mission

Date Captured	Tuesday May 16 2006, 3:02 PM

Expectations raised for minority students

Date Captured	Thursday May 11 2006, 8:31 AM

KLEIN GIVES POWERFUL 'NO CHILD' DEFENSE (NY Post registration)

Date Captured	Wednesday May 10 2006, 8:46 AM

Test links wealth to school readiness

Date Captured	Monday May 08 2006, 11:46 AM

The Effects of Moving on Academic Achievement

Date Captured	Sunday May 07 2006, 9:25 PM

The best way to expand 4K in South Carolina

Date Captured	Sunday May 07 2006, 8:01 AM

Education chief talks of AIS role

Date Captured	Sunday May 07 2006, 7:58 AM

California test pep talk targets black, Latino teens

Date Captured	Friday May 05 2006, 9:34 AM

Work on Madison, Wisconsin education gap lauded

Date Captured	Tuesday May 02 2006, 7:09 AM

Virginia Gov. Kaine Wants Schools to Aim Higher Than SOLs

Date Captured	Thursday April 27 2006, 8:34 AM

Report: North Carolina Minority Student Achievement Gap Grows Slightly

Date Captured	Wednesday April 26 2006, 5:57 PM

Leaving no child behind Utah's graduation imbalance; Utah educators go the extra mile to see minorities succeed

Date Captured	Wednesday April 26 2006, 9:34 AM

Boys lag behind girls

Date Captured	Monday April 17 2006, 9:31 AM

Black pessimism, blame and glimmers of hope

Date Captured	Monday April 17 2006, 6:18 AM

Stronger relationships may help close achievement gap

Date Captured	Saturday April 01 2006, 8:59 AM

Improving Assessment and Accountability for English Language Learners in the NCLB Act

Date Captured

Wednesday March 22 2006, 5:08 PM

Author: Melissa Lazarín, Mar 22, 2006. This report by the National Council of La Raza examines the impact of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) on English language learners (ELLs). It concludes that while the law has not been implemented adequately, it holds considerable promise for closing the achievement gap between ELLs and other students. The issue brief also provides a road map for policy-makers and school administrators for improving the law’s effectiveness for ELLs.

Got grit?

Date Captured	Tuesday January 24 2006, 12:00 PM