The Trump administration’s budget, due out later this month, is likely to combine three significant research programs—the State Longitudinal Data System grants, the Regional Educational Laboratories, and the Comprehensive Centers—advocates with knowledge of the proposal say.
Money for all three programs—nearly $140 million all told—would instead be rolled out to states through formula grants, said Michele McLaughlin, a senior adviser at Penn Hill Group, a government-relations organization.
McLaughlin is also the president of the Knowledge Alliance, a lobbying coalition for the education research community, who learned of the proposal ahead of the budget’s release. Another advocate in the research community with knowledge of the details also confirmed the proposed changes.
“This proposal is nonsensical and does not reflect congressional intent,” said McLaughlin. She noted that the Education Sciences Reform Act, or ESRA, which was last renewed in 2002, keeps all three programs separate. So does a bipartisan bill to reauthorize ESRA—the Strengthening Education Through Research Act—which passed the House in 2014 and the Senate in 2015 but still hasn’t made it over the finish line.
The budget change the Trump administration intends to propose would require a legislative change, she said.
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The Bureau of Indian Education recently wrapped up its tribal consultation process on its latest proposed strategic plan “to guide its work and service delivery to [Native] students, schools, and tribes.” While the BIE creates plan after plan intended to restructure, realign, reform, redesign, revise, and redo their education system, in actuality these plans are rarely carried out. The necessary changes to schooling simply remain words written on paper. Meanwhile, tribes, schools, educators, parents, and students continue to wait for the federal government to meet its legal trust responsibility to provide a quality education to American Indian students.
For over a century, the federal government has proven that attempting to control and oversee a nationwide network of schools leads to an ineffective and disheartening system of education that fails to address the cultural, linguistic, and overall learning needs of American Indian children. If the BIE’s record of failure reflected on any other group of students, there would be a national outcry.
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Last month, a pair of Apple shareholders demanded in an open letter that the company address growing concerns about children’s addiction to their products. In light of research on the detrimental effects of electronic-media use, investment firm JANA Partners and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System argued, parents need better resources to make sure children are using devices “in an optimal manner.” While Apple defended its parental controls and protections for children, the letter was proof that more people are starting to realize what many in the scientific community have been saying for years: Overuse of screen-based technology is bad for children’s health.
Modern technology is powerfully addictive, especially for the young, developing mind. With teenagers ages 13-18 averaging almost nine hours of entertainment media use a day—that doesn’t include homework or other media use in school—it’s no wonder many parents are starting to notice. (Even two of technology’s most prominent creators, Bill Gates and the late Steve Jobs, famously admitted in interviews that they limited their own children’s screen use.) Psychologists and neuroscientists have shown correlations (and in many cases, causation) between overusing technology and lower grades, trouble sleeping, inability to focus, poor self image, and depression and anxiety. Some research even shows a decrease in gray matter—the brain tissue responsible for sensory perception, memory, emotion, and self-control—in a technology addict’s cerebral cortex.
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CHICAGO CRUSADER — Gary has lost the greatest amount of its school-aged students to private schools, according to a recent report by the Indiana Department of Education.
The report used data from the start of the 2017-2018 school year. It includes all public schools in Lake County. The report shows most districts lost students to private charter schools, but the district with the greatest loss is Gary. While a majority of students still attend public schools in neighboring cities, Gary students are leaving a district that’s mired in debt and low academic achievement.
This is the first year the department conducted the report.
According to the report, the city had 12,032 school-aged children in the fall, but only 4,681 or 39 percent attended the Gary Community Schools. About 61 percent or 7,354 students attended other schools. Of that amount some 5,466 of those students or 45.4 percent are in charter schools and 1,266 or 10.5 percent are attending public schools outside the city, while 578 attend private schools through state vouchers.
Gary’s biggest enrollment losses stem from elementary schools. Gary has not had a middle school since 2016 when the Williams Annex closed. To boost enrollment, Emergency Manager Peggy Hinckley is exploring the possibility of bringing back a middle school.
The state took over Gary’s public schools after the majority of the district scored an F grade on the Indiana Accountability Report. With over $100 million in debt, Hinckley was given full control to make academic and financial decisions to turn- around the district.
Elsewhere, in East Chicago only 988 of the city’s 5,329 students are in public charter schools and 367 attend private charter schools, according to the report. Approximately 70 percent (3,721) of the 5,329 children who attend school in East Chicago’s public School City District.
The report shows Hammond’s public school system is still preferred over public and private charter schools.
More than 85 percent (12,416) of Hammond’s 14,521 school-aged students remain in the city’s public schools. Approximately 2,109 students attend other schools, but of that group, only 926 are enrolled in a private school through a state voucher. Approximately 809 attend a public charter school.
Of all the school districts in Lake County, Munster and Lake Central had the highest percentage of students in public schools with 98 percent and 97 percent, respectively.
Other cities in Lake County show public districts are keeping a majority of their students. They include River Forest (97 percent), Crown Point (96.7), Tri-Creek (96 percent), Highland Creek (96 percent), Hanover (93.9 percent), Hobart (93.9 percent), Griffith (92.6 percent), Lake Ridge (91.9 percent), Lake Station (81 percent), Merrillville (89 percent), Whiting (88.6 percent).
Public schools in cities in Portage County have also kept a high majority of their students.
“We are pleased to compile and release the 2017-2018 transfer report, providing our schools with even more insight into the individual students they serve,” State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jennifer McCormick said in a statement. “Having a great understanding of every aspect of our local districts will allow our educators to make important decisions and better plans.”
In its February 1, 2018 meeting the Utah State Board of Education:
Voted to seek a waiver from the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provision that requires states to count non-tested students as zeros for school accountability purposes.
Voted to seek additional funding to provide teacher training on restorative justice.
Reviewed the state’s first Kindergarten Entry and Exit Profile (KEEP) report showing kindergarten student literacy and numeracy readiness.
The USBE Finance, Law and Licensing, and Standards and Assessment standing committees will meet on Friday, February 2, 2018.
Committee items approved Friday will be heard by the full Board during its March 15, 2018 meeting.
Those who wish to comment on pending administrative rules or rule changes or existing rules are invited to contact us via e-mail at rule.comments@schools.utah.gov.
At a certain moment last year, an uncomfortable silence took hold in my classroom. Lauren had volunteered to read the part of Mama during a reading of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. Lauren was an excellent student: She was kind, insightful, a frequent participant in class discussions, and a remarkably hard worker. That day though, her mind was elsewhere.
In perfect silence, her classmates stared at me with faces that anticipated how I would respond to Lauren’s missed cue. I looked in her direction, waiting for some acknowledgement on her part before breaking the silence. Eventually, she caught on. “Oh, God,” she said, re-orienting herself. “I’m so sorry.” Her classmates giggled and sighed, as she put aside her iPhone and struggled for some time to find her place in the paperback. We weren’t able to finish the scene before the bell rang.
Of all the individual struggles I had with students and their smartphones over the past few years, this one got to me most. This wasn’t a case of a student being disengaged or bored—she had volunteered to read, after all—yet, Lauren’s impulse to check her Twitter account was strong enough that she was willing to risk stalling the entire class’ progress to satisfy it. Surely, I told myself, the smartphone issue was more complex than I wanted to believe.
Indeed, the numbers are staggering: According to Common Sense Media’s 2015 Census, on any given day the average American teenager consumes just under nine hours of entertainment media, excluding time spent in school or for homework. This raises the question: Where can learning fit in?
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(Harrisburg) — Over the past two-and-a-half years, out-of-school suspensions in the School District of Lancaster dropped by 42 percent. However, a sharp disparity exists between who gets suspended.
African Americans make up 17 percent of the district’s student body, but they account for more than 30 percent of suspensions.
For other racial groups, the suspension rate is either proportional or lower than the population.
Superintendent Damaris Rau says the gap became clear when administrators reviewed suspension data last summer.
Now, she says, they’re taking a closer look at the root causes of suspension.
On Oct. 28, 2015, the D.C. public school district put out a statement lauding itself, with this headline: “DC Public Schools Continues Momentum as the Fastest Improving Urban School District in the Country.”
For years, that has been the national narrative about the long-troubled school district in the nation’s capital: After decades of low performance and stagnation, the system was moving forward with a “reform” program that was a model for the nation. The triumphant story included rising standardized test scores and “miracle” schools that saw graduation rates jump over the moon in practically no time at all. Arne Duncan, President Barack Obama’s education secretary for seven years, called it “a pretty remarkable story” in 2013.
That tale is looking a lot less remarkable in the wake of revelations that educators and administrators, feeling pressure from their bosses to boost graduation rates and student performance, allowed many students who did not have the requisite qualifications to graduate.
A city study – undertaken after press reports revealed the scandal – found that more than 900 of 2,758 students who graduated from a D.C. public school last year either failed to attend enough classes or improperly took makeup classes. At one campus, Anacostia High in Southeast Washington, nearly 70 percent of the 106 graduates received 2017 diplomas despite violating some aspect of city graduation policy.
[/media-credit] In addition to her teaching and research, UWM Professor Wilkistar Otieno devotes significant time to mentoring students, in particular women and students from underrepresented backgrounds interested in engineering.
MILWAUKEE COURIER — The University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee’s Wilkistar Otieno knows firsthand that young women, especially young women of color, need strong mentors and role models. She knows that need is magnified in the areas of science, technology, engineering and math – STEM for short. So she’s committed to making a difference. A professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering, she advises UWM’s chapter of the Society of Women Engineers. And through the UWM STEM-Inspire Program, she mentors women and students of Latino, African- American and other backgrounds, many of whom are the first in their families to attend college. It’s all part of enhancing their experience at UWM, one of the nation’s top research universities.
“What I have seen,” Otieno says, “is that these students may not pursue engineering because of a lack of access to STEM opportunities in their prior educational experiences. Or, they may face a lack of role models.”
Women account for less than 15 percent of the engineers working today, and less than 20 percent of college engineering majors are women. The desire to grow those numbers is part of what drives Otieno’s call to mentorship, which also includes her participation in the UWM National Science Foundation Engineering and Computer Science Scholars Program and K-12 STEM outreach projects.
She wears many other hats. In addition to teaching and designing graduate and undergraduate courses in engineering, she conducts long-term research projects with top Wisconsin companies like Rockwell Automation and Harley-Davidson. All the while, she works so her mentees can follow similar paths in their chosen fields.
UWM’s STEM-Inspire group pairs every participating STEM major with a faculty mentor, peer mentor and a tutor. Partially funded by the Wisconsin Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, or WiscAMP, it provides opportunities like internships, STEM lectures, workshops, research opportunities and library study nights. This school year, the program has 18 participants, and you can learn more about the program at uwm. edu/steminspire.
Stem-INSPIRE mentors like Otieno seek to build a community among those students, whose majors cam range from mechanical or computer engineering to biological sciences or architecture. Doing so cultivates a sense of belonging, which maximizes their chances for academic and professional success.
It’s the kind of community that Otieno sought 20 years ago at Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya. She was one of only three women studying mechanical and production engineering there – out of 40 total students – during her undergraduate years. She worked closely with a small group of other underrepresented students, eager to fulfill her dream of becoming an engineer and educator.
“I had to work a lot harder than I needed to just to make the point that I belonged in mechanical engineering,” she says. She took seven to eight courses per semester, sleeping five to six hours a night.
Today, she participates in corporate research and training programs with industry partners who rely on UWM as a major educator of science and technology professionals. Her graduate students are involved in this research, enhancing their skillset as future engineers and educators.
That’s the path Priyanka Pillai is on. In May 2017, she earned her master’s degree from UWM’s College of Engineering & Applied Science, and Otieno’s mentorship played a key role in that success.
English is Pillai’s second language, and she worried her English writing skills would hinder work on her master’s thesis. Otieno stepped in as a writing coach, giving Pillai additional articles to read and reviewing early drafts of her writing.
“Dr. Otieno made me a better writer,” Pillai says, “because she is always giving her students the push to try something different.”
It worked. Today, Pillai is a supplier quality engineer and thinking about pursing her own doctoraldegree in engineering.
INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) announced today recipients of the 2018 School Improvement Grants. Over $5.3 million will be allocated to six schools and are made available to support student achievement in Title I schools.
“School Improvement funding is critical in supporting high-poverty schools in addressing low student achievement,” said Dr. Jennifer McCormick, Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction. “I am grateful to our awarded recipients as we work together to create academic success for Indiana’s students.”
School Improvement Grants are federally funded and were enacted under No Child Left Behind. Alternate school improvement funding streams will be utilized in the future in accordance with Indiana’s Every Student Succeeds Act. Funds were awarded through a competitive process to eligible schools who demonstrate a strong commitment to raise low student performance.
For more information regarding the 2018 School Improvement Grants, including a list of grantees, please visit: https://www.doe.in.gov/sig.
The Trump administration’s budget, due out later this month, is likely to combine three significant research programs—the State Longitudinal Data System grants, the Regional Educational Laboratories, and the Comprehensive Centers—advocates with knowledge of the proposal say.
Crusader Staff Report
February 1, 2018
