Thursday, March 1, 2012
Every Child Moving Forward (ECMF)
26 More States and D.C. Seek Flexibility from NCLB to Drive Education Reforms in Second Round of Requests
February 29, 2012
Twenty-six new states and the District of Columbia have formally submitted requests to the U.S. Department of Education for waivers from key provisions of No Child Left Behind. This adds to the 11 states that the Obama Administration announced earlier this month had developed and agreed to implement bold education reforms in exchange for relief from burdensome federal mandates.
The latest 26 states—Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin—along with D.C., have all proposed plans to raise standards, improve accountability, and support reforms to improve principal and teacher effectiveness.
Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Tennessee have already received flexibility from NCLB based on their locally designed plans to spur education reform.
"The best ideas to meet the needs of individual students are going to come from the local level. Like the first round of waiver applicants, these plans will protect children, raise the bar and give states the freedom to implement reforms that improve student achievement," said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
If their plans are approved, these 26 states and D.C. will:
Set performance targets based on whether students graduate from high school ready for college and career rather than having to meet NCLB's 2014 deadline based on arbitrary targets for proficiency.
Design locally tailored interventions to help students achieve instead of one-size-fits-all remedies prescribed at the federal level.
Be free to emphasize student growth and progress using multiple measures rather than just test scores.
Have more flexibility in how they spend federal funds to benefit students.
The 27 waiver requests will be posted online along with the names of the peer reviewers who will convene next month to review them. States seeking flexibility in the second round will be notified later this spring. The Department expects additional states to request flexibility by Sept. 6 for the third round of review.
The flexibility was developed with input from state and other education leaders across America under waiver authority granted to the U.S. Department of Education in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. More comprehensive reforms, outlined in President Obama's Blueprint for Reform, await Congressional reauthorization of the ESEA.
Cheating...
It is sad that my 100th blog entry is about cheating. But this news bothers me a lot.
On Education
Eager for Spotlight, but Not if It Is on a Testing ScandalBy MICHAEL WINERIP
Published: August 21, 2011
On Education
Eager for Spotlight, but Not if It Is on a Testing ScandalBy MICHAEL WINERIP
Published: August 21, 2011
Ms. Rhee, the chancellor of the Washington public schools from 2007 to 2010, is the national symbol of the data-driven, take-no-prisoners education reform movement.
It’s hard to find a media outlet, big or small, that she hasn’t talked to. She’s been interviewed by Katie Couric, Tom Brokaw and Oprah Winfrey. She’s been featured on a Time magazine cover holding a broom (to sweep away bad teachers). She was one of the stars of the documentary “Waiting for Superman.”
These days, as director of an advocacy group she founded, StudentsFirst, she crisscrosses the country pushing her education politics: she’s for vouchers and charter schools, against tenure, for teachers, but against their unions.
Always, she preens for the cameras. Early in her chancellorship, she was trailed for a story by the education correspondent of “PBS NewsHour,” John Merrow.
At one point, Ms. Rhee asked if his crew wanted to watch her fire a principal. “We were totally stunned,” Mr. Merrow said.
She let them set up the camera behind the principal and videotape the entire firing. “The principal seemed dazed,” said Mr. Merrow. “I’ve been reporting 35 years and never seen anything like it.”
And yet, as voracious as she is for the media spotlight, Ms. Rhee will not talk to USA Today.
At the end of March, three of the paper’s reporters — Marisol Bello, Jack Gillum and Greg Toppo — broke a story about the high rate of erasures and suspiciously high test-score gains at 41 Washington schools while Ms. Rhee was chancellor.
At some schools, they found the odds that so many answers had been changed from wrong to right randomly were 1 in 100 billion. In a fourth-grade class at Stanton Elementary, 97 percent of the erasures were from wrong to right. Districtwide, the average
number of erasures for seventh graders was fewer than one per child, but for a seventh-grade class at Noyes Elementary, it was 12.7 per student. At Noyes Elementary in 2008, 84 percent of fourth graders were proficient in math, up from 22 percent in 2007.
Ms. Rhee’s reputation has rested on her schools’ test scores. Suddenly, a USA Today headline was asking, “were the gains real?” In this era of high-pressure testing, Washington has become another in a growing list of cheating scandals that has included Atlanta, Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas.
It took the USA Today reporters a year to finish their three-part series. So many people were afraid to speak that Ms. Bello had to interview dozens to find one willing to be quoted. She knocked on teachers’ doors at 9:30 at night and hunted parents at PTA meetings. She met people in coffee shops where they would not be recognized, and never called or e-mailed sources at their schools.
Hari Sevugan, a spokesman for Ms. Rhee, said the reporters were “provided unprecedented time and access to report out their story,” including many meetings with senior staff members and the chief of data accountability. By last fall, Mr. Sevugan said, district officials’ patience was wearing thin. The deputy press secretary, Safiya Simmons, complained in an e-mail to a colleague, “Jack Gillum isn’t going away quietly, Uggh.”
“Just stop answering his e-mails,” advised Anita Dunn, a consultant who had been the communications director for President Obama.
The reporters made a dozen attempts to interview Ms. Rhee, directly and through her public relations representatives. Ms. Bello called Ms. Rhee’s cellphone daily, and finally got her on a Sunday.
“She said she wasn’t going to talk with us,” Ms. Bello recalled. “Her understanding was we were writing about” district schools “and she is no longer chancellor.”
On March 29, the day after the story came out, Ms. Rhee appeared on the PBS program “Tavis Smiley” and attacked USA Today.
“Are you suggesting this story is much ado about nothing, that this is lacking integrity, this story in USA Today?” Mr. Smiley asked.
“Absolutely,” Ms. Rhee said. “It absolutely lacks credibility.”
Mr. Smiley asked if she was concerned that she had put too much pressure on teachers and principals to raise scores. “We want educators to feel that pressure,” she answered.
Ms. Rhee emphasized that the district had hired a top security company, Caveon, to investigate in 2009, and was given a clean bill of health. The district released a statement from John Fremer, Caveon’s owner, saying, “The company did not find evidence of cheating at any of the schools.”
However, in subsequent interviews with USA Today and this reporter, Mr. Fremer made it clear that the scope of his inquiry was limited, and that the district had not requested that he do more. Indeed, Caveon’s report, posted on USA Today’s Web site, was full of sentences like, “Redacted was interviewed at redacted.”
Teachers described security as “excellent” and “very vigilant,” and investigators, for the most part, took their comments at face value.
It did not take Ms. Rhee long to realize she had miscalculated. Three days later, she told Bloomberg Radio she was “100 percent supportive” of a broader inquiry.
Still, she would not talk to USA Today. Mr. Sevugan gave no explanation, but pointed out that she had spoken with several other news outlets.
The reporters did not give up. On April 26, Emily Lenzner, a spokeswoman, wrote Mr. Gillum, “Michelle is willing to do an interview, but we’d like to do this in person.” She asked if they could hold their story, and arranged for a meeting on May 3 at the StudentsFirst office in Washington.
On May 2, another Rhee spokeswoman e-mailed to say the reporters were too interested in cheating and not enough in StudentsFirst. She said they could submit a list of questions.
There were 21 questions; Ms. Rhee did not answer 10 of the 11 about cheating.
Mr. Gillum, who recently took a job at The Associated Press, said he was surprised by how unresponsive Ms. Rhee has been. “She talks about how important data is, and our story is data driven,” he said.
So that people could make their own judgments, Linda Mathews, the project editor, posted the relevant public documents on the USA Today Web site.
Shortly after the follow-up story appeared, the district’s inspector general began what was supposed to be an inquiry, but in July The Washington Post reported that just one investigator had been assigned. “Basically it was one guy in a room who made 10 phone calls,” Mr. Toppo said.
Officials with the federal Department of Education have indicated that they are assisting with the investigation.
In Washington, two investigators spent five days at eight schools. In Atlanta, the state deployed 60 investigators who worked for 10 months at 56 schools. They produced a report that named all 178 people found cheating, including 82 who confessed. There was not a single case of “redacted and redacted doctoring redacted grade answer sheets at redacted.”
People in Atlanta could go to prison. Last week, a grand jury issued subpoenas seeking the names of school employees who had received bonuses for test scores. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that there were subpoenas for “signed copies” of “any and all oaths of office” taken by Beverly Hall, the former superintendent.
The three reporters still hope to interview Ms. Rhee. “Absolutely,” said Mr. Toppo.
Which brings things full circle: Why won’t Ms. Rhee talk to USA Today?
The On Education column on Aug. 22, about Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of Washington public schools, and her avoidance of questions from USA Today reporters after the newspaper reported suspiciously high test-score gains at 41 Washington schools during her tenure, misstated the given name of Ms. Rhee’s press secretary at the time. She is Safiya Simmons, not Satiya.
A version of this article appeared in print on August 22, 2011, on page A11 of the New York edition with the headline: Eager for Spotlight, But Not if It Is On a Testing Scandal..
On Education
Eager for Spotlight, but Not if It Is on a Testing ScandalBy MICHAEL WINERIP
Published: August 21, 2011
On Education
Eager for Spotlight, but Not if It Is on a Testing ScandalBy MICHAEL WINERIP
Published: August 21, 2011
Ms. Rhee, the chancellor of the Washington public schools from 2007 to 2010, is the national symbol of the data-driven, take-no-prisoners education reform movement.
It’s hard to find a media outlet, big or small, that she hasn’t talked to. She’s been interviewed by Katie Couric, Tom Brokaw and Oprah Winfrey. She’s been featured on a Time magazine cover holding a broom (to sweep away bad teachers). She was one of the stars of the documentary “Waiting for Superman.”
These days, as director of an advocacy group she founded, StudentsFirst, she crisscrosses the country pushing her education politics: she’s for vouchers and charter schools, against tenure, for teachers, but against their unions.
Always, she preens for the cameras. Early in her chancellorship, she was trailed for a story by the education correspondent of “PBS NewsHour,” John Merrow.
At one point, Ms. Rhee asked if his crew wanted to watch her fire a principal. “We were totally stunned,” Mr. Merrow said.
She let them set up the camera behind the principal and videotape the entire firing. “The principal seemed dazed,” said Mr. Merrow. “I’ve been reporting 35 years and never seen anything like it.”
And yet, as voracious as she is for the media spotlight, Ms. Rhee will not talk to USA Today.
At the end of March, three of the paper’s reporters — Marisol Bello, Jack Gillum and Greg Toppo — broke a story about the high rate of erasures and suspiciously high test-score gains at 41 Washington schools while Ms. Rhee was chancellor.
At some schools, they found the odds that so many answers had been changed from wrong to right randomly were 1 in 100 billion. In a fourth-grade class at Stanton Elementary, 97 percent of the erasures were from wrong to right. Districtwide, the average
number of erasures for seventh graders was fewer than one per child, but for a seventh-grade class at Noyes Elementary, it was 12.7 per student. At Noyes Elementary in 2008, 84 percent of fourth graders were proficient in math, up from 22 percent in 2007.
Ms. Rhee’s reputation has rested on her schools’ test scores. Suddenly, a USA Today headline was asking, “were the gains real?” In this era of high-pressure testing, Washington has become another in a growing list of cheating scandals that has included Atlanta, Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas.
It took the USA Today reporters a year to finish their three-part series. So many people were afraid to speak that Ms. Bello had to interview dozens to find one willing to be quoted. She knocked on teachers’ doors at 9:30 at night and hunted parents at PTA meetings. She met people in coffee shops where they would not be recognized, and never called or e-mailed sources at their schools.
Hari Sevugan, a spokesman for Ms. Rhee, said the reporters were “provided unprecedented time and access to report out their story,” including many meetings with senior staff members and the chief of data accountability. By last fall, Mr. Sevugan said, district officials’ patience was wearing thin. The deputy press secretary, Safiya Simmons, complained in an e-mail to a colleague, “Jack Gillum isn’t going away quietly, Uggh.”
“Just stop answering his e-mails,” advised Anita Dunn, a consultant who had been the communications director for President Obama.
The reporters made a dozen attempts to interview Ms. Rhee, directly and through her public relations representatives. Ms. Bello called Ms. Rhee’s cellphone daily, and finally got her on a Sunday.
“She said she wasn’t going to talk with us,” Ms. Bello recalled. “Her understanding was we were writing about” district schools “and she is no longer chancellor.”
On March 29, the day after the story came out, Ms. Rhee appeared on the PBS program “Tavis Smiley” and attacked USA Today.
“Are you suggesting this story is much ado about nothing, that this is lacking integrity, this story in USA Today?” Mr. Smiley asked.
“Absolutely,” Ms. Rhee said. “It absolutely lacks credibility.”
Mr. Smiley asked if she was concerned that she had put too much pressure on teachers and principals to raise scores. “We want educators to feel that pressure,” she answered.
Ms. Rhee emphasized that the district had hired a top security company, Caveon, to investigate in 2009, and was given a clean bill of health. The district released a statement from John Fremer, Caveon’s owner, saying, “The company did not find evidence of cheating at any of the schools.”
However, in subsequent interviews with USA Today and this reporter, Mr. Fremer made it clear that the scope of his inquiry was limited, and that the district had not requested that he do more. Indeed, Caveon’s report, posted on USA Today’s Web site, was full of sentences like, “Redacted was interviewed at redacted.”
Teachers described security as “excellent” and “very vigilant,” and investigators, for the most part, took their comments at face value.
It did not take Ms. Rhee long to realize she had miscalculated. Three days later, she told Bloomberg Radio she was “100 percent supportive” of a broader inquiry.
Still, she would not talk to USA Today. Mr. Sevugan gave no explanation, but pointed out that she had spoken with several other news outlets.
The reporters did not give up. On April 26, Emily Lenzner, a spokeswoman, wrote Mr. Gillum, “Michelle is willing to do an interview, but we’d like to do this in person.” She asked if they could hold their story, and arranged for a meeting on May 3 at the StudentsFirst office in Washington.
On May 2, another Rhee spokeswoman e-mailed to say the reporters were too interested in cheating and not enough in StudentsFirst. She said they could submit a list of questions.
There were 21 questions; Ms. Rhee did not answer 10 of the 11 about cheating.
Mr. Gillum, who recently took a job at The Associated Press, said he was surprised by how unresponsive Ms. Rhee has been. “She talks about how important data is, and our story is data driven,” he said.
So that people could make their own judgments, Linda Mathews, the project editor, posted the relevant public documents on the USA Today Web site.
Shortly after the follow-up story appeared, the district’s inspector general began what was supposed to be an inquiry, but in July The Washington Post reported that just one investigator had been assigned. “Basically it was one guy in a room who made 10 phone calls,” Mr. Toppo said.
Officials with the federal Department of Education have indicated that they are assisting with the investigation.
In Washington, two investigators spent five days at eight schools. In Atlanta, the state deployed 60 investigators who worked for 10 months at 56 schools. They produced a report that named all 178 people found cheating, including 82 who confessed. There was not a single case of “redacted and redacted doctoring redacted grade answer sheets at redacted.”
People in Atlanta could go to prison. Last week, a grand jury issued subpoenas seeking the names of school employees who had received bonuses for test scores. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that there were subpoenas for “signed copies” of “any and all oaths of office” taken by Beverly Hall, the former superintendent.
The three reporters still hope to interview Ms. Rhee. “Absolutely,” said Mr. Toppo.
Which brings things full circle: Why won’t Ms. Rhee talk to USA Today?
The On Education column on Aug. 22, about Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of Washington public schools, and her avoidance of questions from USA Today reporters after the newspaper reported suspiciously high test-score gains at 41 Washington schools during her tenure, misstated the given name of Ms. Rhee’s press secretary at the time. She is Safiya Simmons, not Satiya.
A version of this article appeared in print on August 22, 2011, on page A11 of the New York edition with the headline: Eager for Spotlight, But Not if It Is On a Testing Scandal..
more on first graders...
First Grade Readiness for Reading
First grade children don't generally think logically. For example, many don't yet use "because" correctly. Some have trouble with words indicating location -"over," "under," "behind," and "in front of."
Most first graders don't realize that, by changing the shape of a ball of clay by rolling it out, the amount of clay remains the same - it just LOOKS different. Many don't see that, while two and three are five, by taking away the two and the three we are back at the starting point.
We adults can mistakenly assume that first graders are capable of our ways of thought.
First grade children vary in their development. In first grade, boys, particularly, need time. It is a teacher's task not to worry. Often, a little bit of learning in a child is OK.
In a stimulating environment, all children grow in many ways.
The First Grade Teacher's Wisdom
Some values have come to be highly regarded by most people, such as honesty, good sportsmanship, courtesy, and respect for the rights of others.
When there has been a breach, the teacher can use the situation to teach clear thinking by asking questions. "How did you feel afterwards?" "Would you do it the same way again?" "Would someone else have handled it differently? What do you think that person would have done? Are their differences between the two of you?" "What do you like (or not like) about what you did (or didn't do)?" "Do you have purpose in mind for what you did?" "Will something happen that you want to happen because of what you did (or won't it)?"
In whole-class evaluation sessions, the teacher will help the children to learn important classroom values, such as taking responsibility for materials, taking turns, showing kindness, and accepting others regardless of race or religion.
all about first grade students...
The Basics
First grade can be wonderful - stories, art, music, play, friends, science, social studies, reading, writing, math, and a kind and conscientious teacher - how could life be better?
The idea of children's growing or unfolding is never more important than in first grade.
What's the hurry? With a good attitude, all first graders will learn in time. There is no need to force them.
The world is full of unexplained occurrences, both for children and for adults. Children's curiosity needs to be nurtured, but we cannot expect to answer every question.
The teacher's wisdom
The Harm in Pressuring First Graders
Pressuring an unready child to read can cause emotional reactions that interfere with reading later on. In the words of psychologist David Elkind, such children are "intellectually burned." They come to be considered to be developmentally defective, when in fact they would have been normal if they had not been pressured. Unready children can be given plenty of work - creative art, handwork, work with magazine pictures, sewing cards, puzzles, block play, etc. They can be allowed to play.

Basketball...
Largest high school gyms in the United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The largest high school basketball gyms in the United States refers to gymnasiums primarily used by secondary schools for basketball purposes. Most of the school gyms are located in the state of Indiana.[1] A 1998 New York Times article reported that 15 of the 16 largest high school gymnasiums were located in Indiana.[2]
The top fifteen in total seating capacity are as follows:
State City Venue Capacity
1 Indiana New Castle New Castle Fieldhouse 9,325[1]
2 Indiana Anderson Anderson Wigwam 8,996[1]
3 Indiana East Chicago John A. Baratto Athletic Center 8,296[1]
4 Indiana Seymour Lloyd E. Scott Gymnasium 8,110[1]
5 Indiana Richmond Tiernan Center 8,100[3]
6 Texas Dallas Alfred J. Loos Fieldhouse 7,500[1]
7 Indiana Elkhart North Side Gymnasium 7,373[1]
8 Indiana Michigan City "The Wolves' Den" Gym 7,304[1]
9 Indiana Gary West Side High School Gym 7,217[1]
10 Indiana Lafayette Jefferson High School Gym 7,200[4]
11 Indiana Indianapolis Southport High School Gym 7,124[4]
12 Indiana Washington "The Hatchet House" 7,090[5]
13 Indiana Columbus Columbus North High School Gym 7,071[4]
14 Indiana Marion Bill Green Athletic Arena 7,054[1]
15= Arizona Chinle Wildcat Den 7,000[6]
15= Kentucky Somerset Pulaski County High School Gym 7,000[7]
Hoosier Hysteria
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The largest high school basketball gyms in the United States refers to gymnasiums primarily used by secondary schools for basketball purposes. Most of the school gyms are located in the state of Indiana.[1] A 1998 New York Times article reported that 15 of the 16 largest high school gymnasiums were located in Indiana.[2]
The top fifteen in total seating capacity are as follows:
State City Venue Capacity
1 Indiana New Castle New Castle Fieldhouse 9,325[1]
2 Indiana Anderson Anderson Wigwam 8,996[1]
3 Indiana East Chicago John A. Baratto Athletic Center 8,296[1]
4 Indiana Seymour Lloyd E. Scott Gymnasium 8,110[1]
5 Indiana Richmond Tiernan Center 8,100[3]
6 Texas Dallas Alfred J. Loos Fieldhouse 7,500[1]
7 Indiana Elkhart North Side Gymnasium 7,373[1]
8 Indiana Michigan City "The Wolves' Den" Gym 7,304[1]
9 Indiana Gary West Side High School Gym 7,217[1]
10 Indiana Lafayette Jefferson High School Gym 7,200[4]
11 Indiana Indianapolis Southport High School Gym 7,124[4]
12 Indiana Washington "The Hatchet House" 7,090[5]
13 Indiana Columbus Columbus North High School Gym 7,071[4]
14 Indiana Marion Bill Green Athletic Arena 7,054[1]
15= Arizona Chinle Wildcat Den 7,000[6]
15= Kentucky Somerset Pulaski County High School Gym 7,000[7]
Hoosier Hysteria
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