NCTAF News Digest:

A Weekly Digest of News Articles & Reports

Thursday March 13, 2008

In this Issue:

--NCLB Watch

--Message From NCTAF

--Life Expectancy Tied to Education

--Population Shift Sends Universities Scrambling
--Conversation: How Many Billionaires Does it Take to Fix a School System?

--Smaller Classes Don't Close the Learning Gap, Study Finds

--11 States Poised to Pilot National Test for Seniors

--Reading, Writing and Engineering

Greetings,

This is the NCTAF News Digest, a timely news service provided to our partner states, commissioners, and the education policy community. This Digest is for the personal educational use of the recipient. At publication time, all links were active. Some publications may require free registration. You may wish to bookmark links for future reference.

A Message From NCTAF:

We mourn the loss of Secretary Richard Riley’s beloved wife Tunky, who passed away on March 7 in her sleep after a long illness.  Secretary Riley observed that: "Tunky was a part of every important decision I've made in my private and public life during our 50-plus years of marriage."  Over those years, the Riley’s raised a beautiful family of four children and thirteen grandchildren.  In public life Tunky was active in initiatives that have improved the lives of children and their families in South Carolina and across the country.  Tunky will be missed.  We have the Riley family in our thoughts and prayers.  

Life Expectancy Tied to Education

-HealthDay News; March 11, 2008

Life expectancy in the United States is on the increase, but only among people with more than 12 years of education, a new study finds. In fact, those with more than 12 years of education -- more than a high school diploma -- can expect to live to 82; for those with 12 or fewer years of education, life expectancy is 75. "If you look in recent decades, you will find that life expectancy has been increasing, which is good, but when you split this out by better-educated groups, the life expectancy gained is really occurring much more so in the better-educated groups," said lead researcher Ellen R. Meara, an assistant professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School. "The puzzle is why we have been successful in extending life span for some groups. Why haven't we been successful in getting that for less advantaged groups?" Meara said. The answer may lie with tobacco, the study found. About one-fifth of the difference in mortality between well-educated and less-educated groups can be accounted for by smoking-related diseases such as lung cancer and emphysema, Meara said. But the disparity in life expectancy is not only a function of education, Meara said. "Those with less education are likely to have lower income. They're likely to live in areas that have their own health threats, either through crime or poor housing conditions.

In addition, they may have worse access to health insurance coverage and health services," she said.The study was published in the March/April issue of Health Affairs.

For the study, Meara's team collected data on people who took part in the National Longitudinal Mortality Study. The researchers used death certificates, plus estimates from Census data, to create two datasets -- one covering 1981 to 1988 and the other from 1990 to 2000. The researchers found that in both datasets, life expectancy rose but only for people with more than 12 years of education. For those with 12 years of education or less, life expectancy remained flat through the periods.When the researchers compared data from the 1980s to data from the 1990s, people with more education had almost a year and half of increased life expectancy. But, for people with less education, life expectancy increased by only six months.In the period of 1990 to 2000, the better educated saw their life expectancy increase by 1.6 years. For the less educated, life expectancy didn't increase in all.

To read the full article, click here.

Population Shift Sends Universities Scrambling
-Washington Post; March 10, 2008

Colleges and universities are anxiously taking steps to address a projected drop in the number of high school graduates in much of the nation starting next year and a dramatic change in the racial and ethnic makeup of the student population, a phenomenon expected to transform the country's higher education landscape, educators and analysts said. After years of being overwhelmed with applicants, higher education institutions will over the next decade recruit from a pool of public high school graduates that will experience: A projected national decline of roughly 10 percent or more in non-Hispanic white students, the population that traditionally is most likely to attend four-year colleges. A double-digit rise in the proportion of minority students -- especially Hispanics -- who traditionally are less likely to attend college and to obtain loans to fund education. Despite those obstacles, minority enrollment at undergraduate schools is expected to rise steadily, from 30 percent in 2004 to about 37 percent in 2015, some analysts project. "The majority will become the minority," said Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, president emeritus and professor of public service at George Washington University. "There will be more Hispanics, more African Americans, more Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis, Koreans. I anticipate that the most common last name in the freshman class will be Kim." The demographic changes will be profound for individual students: Some will probably see their chances of getting into selective schools improve, and others will see opportunities to enroll at the most selective schools decline. And for colleges, the demographic changes will mean new ways of recruiting and educating students. "One challenge will be looking at the interface between high schools and college and the issue of college readiness, and the other will be the whole issue of the cost of college," said David Ward, president of the nonprofit American Council on Education.

The efforts come as the nonprofit Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education plans to release a report this month that will show a decline in high school graduation next year in most areas of the country, except the West, senior research analyst Brian Prescott said. That is at least a year earlier than in some past projections. Schools likely to thrive through the changes will be those in popular areas, endowed well enough to continue upgrading facilities and programs, and public flagship universities that offer lower tuition than private colleges, admissions experts say. So will schools with strong workforce programs amid a surge of adult students, said Trinity Washington University President Patricia McGuire.Schools in more remote areas, with fewer resources and no particular academic focus, could struggle, said Steven Roy Goodman, an educational consultant and admissions strategist. That is why the 700-student Northland College in Wisconsin uses its location on Lake Superior to promote it as "the environmental liberal arts college." "To use the obvious ecological metaphor, we must specialize in our niche, because we can't compete with dramatically better-resourced generalists," Provost Rich Fairbanks said.

For the full article, click here.

Conversation: How Many Billionaires Does it Take to Fix a School System

-The New York Times; March 9, 2008

For as long as wealthy Americans have given their money away, education has been a leading recipient of their largess. Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller: the biggest philanthropists of the 20th century all gave significant portions of their fortunes to schools, teachers and libraries. Today, according to the Foundation Center, about a quarter of all foundation giving goes to education; overall, only religious organizations receive more charitable donations. Since the turn of the millennium, education philanthropy has been undergoing a major transition, as a new generation of donors has emerged. The most prominent giver is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which made its first education donations in 2000 and now directs more than $350 million a year to schools. But Gates is not alone, and the philanthropists who have followed often arrive armed with controversial ideas about education and some very different approaches to giving their money away. Last month, The New York Times Magazine invited five interested parties to lunch to discuss the new world of educational philanthropy.

Participants: Steve Barr, Frederick Hess, Vanessa Kirsch, Joel I. Klein, Tom Vander Ark, Paul Tough.

Paul Tough: Here’s our scenario: We’ve been brought together today by a high-tech entrepreneur whose company just went public, netting him $4 billion. He has decided to give half of his fortune away, and he wants to give it to education — specifically to primary and secondary education in the United States. But this is not a field he knows. He has been working hard for the last decade, and he hasn’t thought much about philanthropy. So he has assembled this panel of experts to give him advice. Rick, let me start by asking you: What kind of impact will this gift have? Is $2 billion suddenly being injected into the realm of K-12 education a big deal?

Frederick Hess: Not on its face; it’s just a ripple. Each year, nationwide, about $500 billion is spent on K-12 education, and almost all of it comes from taxpayers. By that measure, this gift is a fraction of 1 percent of total expenditures. But in terms of existing philanthropy, yes, $2 billion actually would be a huge deal. No one has exact figures, but the best estimates are that K-12 educational philanthropy in the United States totals nearly $4 billion a year. So if our billionaire decides to spend the entire $2 billion just in fiscal ’08, that would be a big portion of the national total.

Tom Vander Ark: But if he does what most philanthropists do — puts it in the bank and only spends 5 percent each year — then it’s a relatively small portion.

For the full article, click here.

Smaller Classes Don't Close Learning Gap

-Washington Post; March 10, 2008

For 20 years, a large study of class size in Tennessee, known as Project STAR, has raised hopes that reducing the number of children in inner-city classrooms to 17 or fewer would yield significant increases in achievement. It was by far the most authoritative finding in favor of reducing class size and was generally considered one of the most important educational studies of its time. But a Northwestern University researcher, looking closely at the same data on thousands of students from kindergarten through third grade in 79 schools, has concluded that high achievers benefited more from the small classes than low achievers. Since low-income students in urban neighborhoods have lower achievement, on average, than students from more affluent families, the finding in the March issue of Elementary School Journal contradicts assumptions that class size reduction might have a significant effect on the gap between rich and poor students.

"While decreasing class size may increase achievement on average for all types of students, it does not appear to reduce the achievement gap within a class," Spyros Konstantopoulos, assistant professor at Northwestern's School of Education and Social Policy, said in a statement released by the university. The $3 million Project STAR study was launched in 1985. It was unusual for the large size of the sample of students, for the long, four-year period in which their progress was recorded and for the random assignment of students to three kinds of classes -- small (13 to 17 students per teacher), regular (22 to 25 per teacher) and regular with aide (22 to 25 students with teacher and full-time aide). Classroom teachers were also randomly assigned, giving the study a scientific validity rarely found in educational research.

For the full article, click here.

11 States Poised to Pilot National Test for Seniors

-Education Week; March 11, 2008

For the first time, a select group of states is expected to take part in a 12th grade version of the National Assessment of Educational Progress in reading and mathematics, a move that could lay the foundation for even greater state participation at that grade level on the heavily scrutinized test. The board that sets policy for NAEP, known as “the nation’s report card,” has approved tentative plans to have 11 states voluntarily participate in the exam. Each of those states would have a representative sample of its high school seniors take part in a reading and math NAEP beginning in 2009, a process that would eventually allow for state-by-state comparisons of high school seniors’ scores. The National Assessment Governing Board approved the 12th grade proposal at its quarterly meeting, held March 6-8 in Albuquerque, N.M. The board also set in motion plans to add seven big-city districts to the special NAEP edition for urban school systems. Eleven districts took part in the most recent version of the Trial Urban District Assessment, which was given in reading and math in grades 4 and 8.

Currently, states are required to participate in NAEP reading and math every two years at the 4th and 8th grade levels in order to remain eligible for federal funding under the No Child Left Behind Act. Those 4th and 8th grade scores, called state NAEP, typically receive widespread attention because they allow the public to judge individual states’ academic progress over time—and compare states against one another. There is no such mandate for 12th grade, though some elected officials, including President Bush, have advocated expanding the state-by-state tests to high school seniors. Federal officials will not release the names of the states and urban districts that have voiced an interest in joining in the expanded NAEP until they go back to policymakers from those jurisdictions and make certain they want to go forward, said Charles E. Smith, the executive director of the governing board. Those agreements could become final in the next few weeks, he said.

For the full article, click here

Reading, Writing and Engineering

-The Wall Street Journal; March 13, 2008

In Room 10 at Odyssey Elementary School in Colorado Springs, Colo., teacher Erik Russell leads a class of 27 fourth-graders in a lesson not on reading or writing -- but engineering. Chemical engineering, actually. As part of a unit on solids and liquids, the students are asked to gradually mix combinations of flour, water and salt -- marking down what happens as they go along -- to come up with an optimal play-dough consistency.What seems like child's play is actually an experiment in moving engineering beyond higher education and into surprisingly early grades. Of course, kids have long learned basic scientific principles through hands-on experiments -- many of today's parents remember baking-soda-and-vinegar volcanoes. But many of these lessons are specifically aimed at inspiring future engineers. They're steeped in problem-solving or design challenges that deal with the real world, rather than theory. And the effort is being spurred, in part, by concerns that in math and science, American students are falling behind other countries -- particularly such industrial competitors as Japan and South Korea.

Corporate America has a business interest in creating more homegrown engineers as well, amid growing evidence of an impending shortage. In the U.S., 62% of doctoral degrees in engineering went to foreign nationals in 2006, compared with 50% in 2000, according to a recent report from the American Society for Engineering Education. To spur interest in the field, Intel Corp., for instance, provided funding to the Museum of Science in Boston to write the Engineering is Elementary grade-school curriculum, and to Odyssey Elementary to teach it. The program is now in 900 schools, up from five schools in 2003. More than 2,200 middle and high schools use engineering courses offered by Project Lead the Way, a Clifton Park, N.Y., nonprofit that receives industry support, up from just 12 when the initiative started in 1997. And Infinity Project, developed out of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, is now in 300 schools, up from 12 in 1999. The impact of these initiatives on the ranks of engineers remains to be seen. Besides creating curricular approaches, groups are lobbying state governments to add engineering to their education standards. Massachusetts included engineering content in its state science requirements for grades K-12 starting in 2001. New Hampshire began sprinkling engineering and technology concepts into its science curriculum starting last school year. New Jersey incorporated engineering concepts into its state education standards starting in 2004. And more states are following: Texas is working on creating standards for an engineering course that can be used to fulfill a high-school science credit.

For the full article click here.

See Related Article: Panel Finds Faults in America's Math System, Washington Post, March 13, 2008.