Education News: March 27, 2009

Following are some of the top headlines from the world of education for the week ending March 27, 2009.

More and More People are Changing Careers to Become Teachers
(USA Today, March 21, 2009)  As the recession deepens, greater numbers of professionals are changing careers to become teachers.  Making up about one third of new teachers, career changers often bring real-life experience and deep knowledge of the subject which can dramatically increase the quality of the teaching workforce.  Many of the career changers find themselves in high-needs schools, which can add to the myriad challenges of being a new teacher.  The New Teachers Project, an alternative pathway program to help people become teachers as quickly as possible, has reported a 44% increase in applicants since last year.  Many cities have Teaching Fellows programs for those who don’t have time or money to earn another degree.  The programs train participants over the summer so that they can begin teaching in the fall.  Many of those programs are not very selective and many fear places the least qualified people straight into the classroom.  According to a study released last month by the Education Department, however, students did just as well under alternative pathway teachers as they did under traditionally trained ones. 

Some Schools are Weighing Stress Against Homework and Decide to Cut Back
(Los Angeles Times, March 22, 2009)  For years, a vocal group of parents and educators have been claiming that homework overload is robbing students of sleep, playtime and time with their families as well as placing undue stress on young minds.  All over California, schools have begun to listen and take preventative measures such as banning busywork, setting time limits on homework or barring it on weekends and vacations.  Some point to the fact that in the late 1800s and early 1900s homework was extremely controversial, with social commentators and physicians even crusading against it.  Homework has fallen in and out of favor since, but often is seen as a boon when the nation feels threatened. 

Strip-Search Case Reaches Supreme Court, Will Define Limits of Drug Policies
(New York Times, March 23, 2009) On April 21st, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case Safford Unified School District v. Redding.  In 2003, Ms. Savana Redding was strip-searched by two female school employees under instructions from the school’s assistant principal who suspected Ms. Redding of having brought prescription-strength ibuprofen pills to school and was enforcing the school’s drug policy.  While Savana had no pills, she did have an angry mother and a lawyer, and sued the school for having been unreasonably searched.  The verdict will likely decide for the nation how much leeway school officials have in enforcing drug and violence policies.  United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, ruled that school officials had violated the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches.  The Supreme Court’s last major decision on school searches based on individual suspicion was in 1985 and decided that officials could search a student’s purse without a warrant or probably cause as long as their suspicions were reasonable.  The case did not address intimate searches.  In a sworn statement submitted in the caser, Wilson said he had good reason to suspect Ms. Redding after she and other students had been unusually rowdy at a school dance a couple of months before, and members of the school staff thought they had smelled alcohol.  Additionally, a student accused Ms. Redding of having served alcohol at a party before the dance.  Savana claims that she was never asked if she had pills before the strip-search.

In D.C., Incoming Multiracial Students Will be Counted in a New Way
(Washington Post, March 23, 2009)  In an effort to more accurately document statistics regarding the races and ethnicities of students, schools are abandoning the check-one-box approach to gathering information about race and ethnicity in student surveys.  Beginning next year, schools will use a two-step questionnaire.  The first will indicate whether a student is Latino/Hispanic or not.  The second will identify a student as one or more of the following: American Indian or Alaska native; Asian; black or African American; native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander; or white. The change is federally mandatory for new students, but is encouraged to be applied to all.  The information, which is collected when a student registers for schools, is used to inform school board decisions on reading programs, discipline procedures or admissions policies for gifted classes.  Educators often use the data to select programs meant to narrow achievement gaps and equalize academic opportunity.  Many multiracial families support the law, as they have long felt forced to deny part of their heritage.  One drawback, however, is that the new system will make it harder to track the progress of groups who have historically trailed in school, such as black and Hispanic students.

Study Identifies Areas Where High-Achieving Schools Have an Advantage Over US
(Christian Science Monitor, March 24, 2009)  A recent report titled Professional Learning in the Learning Profession has identified the areas in which nations with high student achievement have an advantage over the US.  One area is in the support of new teachers, where other nations have mandated mentor programs and only seven out of ten new teachers have a mentor in the US.  Additionally, in most European and Asian countries, teachers spend half of their work week, about fifteen to twenty hours, working on lessons and meeting with students and parents.  Teachers in America are typically given three to five hours a week for such activities.  While teachers in many other nations have strong influence over budgets, curriculums and the design of major tests, only six out of ten American teachers have influence over the curriculum, and only 22% claim to have say in the budget.  Finally, teachers in Singapore, Sweden and the Netherlands are given over 100 hours of professional development a year, while only about half of the teachers in the US were given any time away from their class for development. 

Duncan’s “Race to the Top Fund” Will be Used to Shape School Reform
(Washington Post, March 26, 2009)  In a Wednesday conference call with reporters, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan stated that he intends to use a $5 billion “Race to the Top” fund to shape school reform by rewarding schools that push for classroom innovation and denying extra aid to those that do not.  Duncan said he will also base his decisions for where to give the money on how states and school systems use the rest of the stimulus money that they have received to prevent layoffs and program cuts.  Duncan’s goal is to get states away from investing in the status quo and towards thinking creatively.  While most of the $100 billion that will be pumped into education will be given out based on long-standing formulas, experts think the fund will convince schools that are really in need to experiment with performance pay, extended school hours or other reforms supported by Duncan.

NYC Study Examines Effectiveness of Teachers from Different Pathways
(Christian Science Monitor, March 27, 2009)  Researchers have begun applying value-added models to link individual teachers to student performance in an effort to figure out which routes produce the most effective teachers.  The most comprehensive study so far focuses on Teachers in New York City schools whose origins range from traditional pathways to NYC Teaching Fellows and Teach for America to those on a temporary license.  The study found that student achievement was most helped by a certified teacher who had graduated from a university program, had been teaching more than two years, and had a strong academic background.  Student achievement was most hindered by an inexperienced teacher on a temporary license.  The study also identified that the most effective teacher training has classroom work with good oversight, the opportunity to study the local curriculum, university coursework in the subject a teacher will be teaching, and a study of learning practices.