Though last week was a notoriously slow news week, I was able to find a few interesting blogs and articles on a variety of education topics. There’s a lot of chatter around a new study by Education Trust which determined that nearly 1/4 of the individuals who take the Army Entrance exam lack the remedial math and science skills to past the exam.

How do teacher absences affect students?

by Jim Stergious, Boston.com

Though Educational pundits often speak about reforming the number of hours children spending in the classroom learning, but are teachers also guilty of playing hooky too often to effectively teach our children?

In reaction to a recent story in the Providence Journal about how at Central Falls High School there hasn’t been a single day that all 88 teachers have shown up to work, Jim Stergeious sends a call out for data on how teacher absences affect student performance.

Study: Nearly a Quarter of Takers Fails Army Entrance Exam

By Ed Payne, CNN

It’s a horrifying prospect. Are Americans too dumb for the Army?

Though America is fighting two overseas wars, teachers are also on the frontlines here at home trying to produce quality United States students. However, though they may be producing students who pass their classes, they’re not producing students who could potentially serve our country.

A quarter of all individuals who take the army entrance fail to meet even the most basic eligibility requirements. Every year the military turns away a large number of students because they lack the problem solving, math, and science skills to serve.

Deloitte CEO: Better Career Preparation Starts in High School

by Barry Salzberge, Guest Post on WSJ Blog

Though we may have tons of data (test scores, grades) on how much our students perform in high school, we have very little data on how they perform once they leave school for college and are out there working in the world.

Barry Salzberge believes that to truly prepare future generations there needs to be some way that colleges can share how students performed with educators from the student’s high school.

Are Your Students Moving?

by Kimberly Warner, I Love Ed Tech Blog

Using Ed Tech in the classroom doesn’t have to be a stationary activity. You can also use technology to get your students physically moving in the classroom and get them geared up partipate in class discussions.

Kimberly Warner from Simple K-12 speaks with Dave Dodgeson about how he uses cell phones in the classroom to motivate his students daily.

Holiday Party Chatter: Tracking and Testing

by Maureen Downey, Get Schooled Blog

With an education blogger in the room, there’s no doubt that the usual holiday chatter will take a turn toward education and technology at some point.

According to Maureen Downey, this holiday she received some interesting insights into how parents with school-aged children feel about the quality of the education that their children are receiving. One neighbor in particular felt that public schools focus on test score and test preparation was preventing their children from getting a full, balanced education.

featured photo by CS Muncy

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For the first time ever more than 50% of 7th and 8th graders tested more proficient or better in Math. The state categorizes students into the following buckets based on their scores: Failing/Warning, Needs Improvement, Passing, Proficient and Advanced.

High School students showed no improvement in English or Math and 35% scored below proficient in Science which is worrisome. Tenth-graders had a better passing grade, with 86% passing all three tests required for graduation on their first attempt. This was up year over year from 83% in 2009 and 80% in 2008.

Despite positive results on the whole, many students are still struggling to meet state standards:

25% of 11th graders failed to gain proficiency in math, and 22% did not reach the mark in English. Also, Only 54% of 4th grade students are proficient in English while only 48% are proficient in math. Proficiency is defined as “a solid understanding of challenging subject matter.’’ You can check out all the aggregated results below and school system and individual school results will be released next week.

[via the Globe]

Photo credit: Aaron Atencio Boston Globe Staff
Source: Mass Department of Education

So how exactly do the MCAS and all the other state exams stack up against the Common Core? There’s been a lot of debate here in Boston area and I found this great resource published by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute where they compared the state standards in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to the Common Core. Let the data put the debate to rest.

In Math, 39 states clearly had a standard that was inferior to the Common Core, and twelve states had equivalent standards with MA being one of those twelve.

In English, only three states had standards that were clearly superior. Those were California, D.C. and Indiana. Eleven states (MA among them) clearly had an equivalent standard while the rest of the states had standards that were clearly inferior to the Common Core.

So on the whole it seems that most states that move to the Common Core will be moving up from inferior standards. When it comes to MA, it seems for most part the Common Core will be in the same league as the MCAS exam. At the end of the does this help students learn any better? Not sure that’s the case.

What do you think? Do you think a move to a common standard is a beneficial move to schools? How about for students?

Image Source: Thomas B. Fordham Institute

6 Internet Trends to Watch In Education
A detailed review of the latest internet trends such as social media, video, game based-learning impacting education and how educators, teachers and tutors can embrace those changes with the rise of the digital- native.

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What are charter schools?

• An innovative approach towards school and education management
• They are public schools, funded by government money
• They can be under district management or state management
• Another interesting aspect is that, when a student moves from a regular school to a charter school, the school gets money from the public school district

There are about 4600 charter schools in the United States.  States have to pass laws to support charter schools, currently about 40 states support them.

How they are different and why people support charter schools

• Unlike public schools where school choice is dependent on where you live, for charters schools parents have a choice to pick a school aligned with their child’s needs
• Schools are accountable for student results. Charter School have to meet the goals and standards they set, or they are closed
• They have relatively less red tape
• They have independence to define their program structure
• Most importantly – there are no unions (this is one of the reasons traditional teacher unions do not support charter schools)

Why people dislike charter schools

• With every student move to a charter school the slice of money (about $9,000 to $15,000 / student) is taken away from the regular public school budget. There are questions about the complex formula by which the amount is calculated. Public schools believe they lose more money relative to the number of students, and hence the general student body and community suffers.
• There are no unions

What will happens if the law passes in Massachusetts?
There are limits on the number of charter schools in a state and at a district level. Currently there are 62 charter schools in Massachusetts. Under the current law there are 60 more charter school slots (about 10,000 seats) available in Massachusetts. In the proposed law, for certain districts the limits will double from 9% to 18% of school spending, thereby allowing 27,000 new charter slots in 33 districts. Boston will get another 6,000 slots.

So, by adding more capacity under the law (which is creating all the fuss) Massachusetts potentially will be able to access federal stimulus money. Interestingly, Massachusetts has not utilized the full capacity currently available under the current laws. It will be interesting to see if this law change is just a way to get the federal stimulus money or to really bring change?