Professional Readings
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Professional Readings includes reviews of recent publications and highlights of reports on current issues that affect schools. Your contributions are welcome. Send them to principal@osu.edu. Please indicate if we may use your name in the “contributor” credits.
National Reports on Education
by Joan Platz
Estimates of Literacy in America
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released a report on January 8, 2009 called Indirect County and State Estimates of the Percentage of Adults at the Lowest Literacy Level for 1992 and 2003. The report estimates that one in seven Americans is illiterate, and approximately 32 million Americans have low literacy skills. The estimates in this report are based on the results of surveys conducted in 1992 and 2003.
“This report describes the statistical methodology used to produce the model-dependent-indirect-estimates of the percentages of adults at the lowest literacy level for individual states and counties for 1992 and 2003. In the absence of any other literacy assessment data available for individual states and counties, the estimates do provide a general picture of literacy for all states and counties.”
Maryland’s Bridge to Excellence Act Evaluated
MGT of America released on December 19, 2008 a report called An Evaluation of the Effect of Increased State Aid to Local School Systems through the Bridge to Excellence Act: Final Report. The report summarizes a 3-year independent study of the Bridge to Excellence in Public Schools Act of 2002 (BTE), approved by the Maryland General Assembly and based on the recommendations of a commission to restructure Maryland’s school finance system. The commission became known by its chair, Dr. Alvin Thornton. The Bridge Act advances five objectives:
- Wealth equalization across LSSs
- Adequate funding to enable all students to meet Maryland's rigorous performance targets
- Quality education for all students in terms of a variety of performance measures
- Local control in determining how resources are allocated
- Community involvement in planning to address the unique needs of each local school system
This final evaluation addresses the last three objectives. According to the report, “Maryland became the first state in the country to endorse a comprehensive reform of its school finance system based on principles of adequacy and equity without being forced to do so by a court order.” As a result of BTE, total funding for education increased in Maryland by $3.4 billion— $2.029 billion from the state and $1.317 billion locally, and local school districts were required to design a Comprehensive Master Plan to meet the needs of students as part of the state school reform process.
Researchers made the following observations regarding the results of the BTE:
- For every $1,000 of increased per pupil expenditures since the enactment of BTE, the proficiency gaps in both reading and math were closed by 4% at the elementary school level and 8% at the middle school level.
- In the years since the implementation of BTE, LSSs demonstrated substantial improvements in the percentages of their student populations who were proficient in reading and mathematics.
- BTE funding has been and continues to be instrumental in assisting Maryland schools during this transition.
- The gaps in the percentages of Maryland students who needed to demonstrate proficiency to meet the NCLB goal of 100% proficiency by 2014 were closed by 51% in reading and 49%t in math for the statewide aggregate of students in the elementary school grades (3-5), and 36% in reading and 39% in math for the aggregate of students in the middle school grades (6-8).
- Nine categories of educational best practices contribute to improvements in student achievement.
- Teachers’ perceptions of the quality of leadership provided by their principal were found to be the most important individual factor influencing the extent to which schools closed their students’ proficiency gaps in both reading and mathematics.
- The practice of differentiated instruction is statistically significant in predicting higher reading achievement in schools with high percentages of economically disadvantaged students.
Arts Education for the Whole Child
The January/February 2009 issue of Principal Magazine published by the National Association of Elementary School Principals features several articles on the importance of arts education:
- “Using Interdisciplinary Arts Education to Enhance Learning” by Maureen Reilly Lorimer—Infusing visual and performing arts into the curriculum adds critical components to educating the whole child.
- “Arts Education and the Whole Child” by Hal Nelson—High-quality arts programs can contribute to the intellectual, physical, and emotional well being of children.
- “A School Revitalized through the Arts” by Roma Morris—How to make the transition to an arts-integrated curriculum
- “Masterpieces in the Hallways” by Philip Downs and Erin Patton-McFarren—Decorating school walls with great art can influence the entire curriculum.
Wisconsin Report on Arts and Creativity
The Wisconsin Task Force on Arts and Creativity in Education, chaired by Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton and Superintendent of Public Instruction Elizabeth Burmaster, released on January 9, 2009 a Plan for Action for arts education in Wisconsin. The report recommends ways to “re-center” the arts and creativity in all forms…science, technology, engineering, the arts, mathematics, etc. throughout the curriculum to essentially transform schools in Wisconsin. A sample of the recommendations includes the following:
- Business and Creative Economy. Foster a climate of creative inquiry and innovation in Wisconsin through strategic changes in education, workforce training, and entrepreneurial development systems.
- Community Involvement. Describe a community partnership process/protocol that will expand and improve available arts and creativity programs and services in Wisconsin schools.
- Creativity in the Classroom. Educators at all levels place creative processes at the core of all disciplines taught in the classroom, professional learning programs, parent/community relationships, and teacher education.
- Legislative and Policy. Develop policies to support all the changes identified in the action plan developed by the Wisconsin Task Force for Arts and Creativity in Education.
According to the report, “Our goal is to ensure an environment that encourages original thought and risk-taking in the classroom and the workplace, a curriculum that inspires and facilitates creative inquiry, and assessments and evaluations that ask students to demonstrate what they have learned by applying it in real situations. Creativity drives innovations in science, business, technology, and even service industries; entrepreneurs are problem-solvers, innovators by definition and visionaries when at their best. Developing arts and creativity in education programs is a deliberate workforce development strategy and will stimulate creativity and innovation and enable entrepreneurship.”
NGA Report on the Arts and the Economy
The National Governors Association (NGA) Center for Best Practices released on January 14, 2009 Arts & the Economy: Using Arts and Culture to Stimulate State Economic Development, which supports including the creative industries—arts and cultural facilities—in efforts to stimulate the economy. The arts and cultural facilities are valuable assets to communities and states, providing employment, improving the quality of life, and providing opportunities for the expression of creativity and innovation.
According to the report, “Arts and culture-related industries, collectively known as ‘creative industries,’ provide direct economic benefits to states and communities by creating jobs, attracting new investments, generating tax revenues and stimulating tourism and consumer purchases.”
“By investing in the arts and incorporating arts and culture into their economic development plans, states can reap numerous benefits—economic, social, civic, and cultural—that help generate a more stable, creative workforce; new tourism; and more livable communities.”
The comprehensive report includes a number of examples and recommendations to expand the role of the creative industries in state and community development. Full report (PDF) >
Report Shows Segregated Schools Increasing
The Civil Rights Project at the University of California released on January 14, 2009 a report called Reviving the Goal of an Integrated Society: A 21st Century Challenge by Gary Orfield. The report “"is an assessment of the current status of the promise of the Supreme Court nearly 55 years ago to end segregated schooling of southern blacks, which the Court ruled was ‘inherently unequal.’”
According to the report, “American schools, in the recently released enrollment data from the 2006-2007 school year, show continued declines in the proportion of white students, increases in minority growth, particularly of Latino and Asian students, and deepening segregation of both black and Latinos by race and poverty.” Thirty-nine percent of African-American students and 40% of Latino students attend segregated schools. White students make up 56% of the U.S. school population and are less integrated with students who are nonwhite.
Segregation matters to students and communities, because segregated schools have higher levels of poverty, lower levels of academic achievement, less experienced teachers, high mobility rates, high dropout rates, fewer students who go on to college, and more students who speak languages other than English in the home. The report found that the average African-American and Latino student attends a school that has nearly 60 percent of students from families who are near or below the poverty level. In addition, the report notes that the No Child Left Behind Act “has clearly failed in its goal of ending the racial and ethnic achievement gap in test scores.”
The report also notes that “since the federal aid program for voluntary integration efforts was eliminated in l981, nothing significant has been done by any branch of the federal government to foster integrated education. Federal aid has, however, fostered charter schools, which are the most segregated sector of public schools, and, unlike magnet schools, charters are supported without any policies for fostering integration.”
The report identified several reasons for the segregation trend, including the lack of a national civil rights policy, demographic changes, intensified residential segregation due to lax enforcement of the Fair Housing Act, recent Supreme Court decisions, and policy decisions of the Bush administration.
The report recommends that civil rights policies, education, and leadership are needed to reverse the current trend. The author states, “This is not about busing. The immediate issue is about using choice mechanisms in ways that bring our children together, not deepen the stratification among our communities. We have many examples of successful magnet and transfer programs that provide successfully integrated opportunities in our segregated urban society. On the other hand, we transfer many students from one segregated area to another and from one weak school to another.”
