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| State & Local Education News |
Virginia using $250,000 grants for preschool pilot programs
WSLS10
August 30, 2016
Two areas in southwest Virginia are getting money to improve early childhood education. The $250,000 grants come from the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation to improve pre-school and test some methods that could change future policy in the Commonwealth.
The United Way of Roanoke Valley and Wythe County Public Schools each received a grant. They are partnering with other organizations to replicate the same types of classroom education in different daycares and pre-schools.
The $250,000 in grant money will pay for things like teacher training to become more in line with what Roanoke City Schools preschools offering as well as paying for updated props and shelving for two classrooms. After the eighteen month grant period is over (July 2016-June 2018) they will compare test scores to see if it’s working and possibly change Virginia policy while changing lives like Johnny’s.
Affordable Education at University of Virginia: Student Claims Bargain Enrollment
University Herald
August 27, 2016
Phoebe Willis, a current student of the University of Virginia Law School feels impacted by the rising cost of higher education. She is currently the student representative on the University of Virginia Board of Visitors.
She explains that she witnessed the increase of this cost nationwide. Willis states that it is hard to keep up with the rising cost. For her, it does not matter which school because enrolling in a four year course in a university or college brings a financial burden to anyone.
"I understand the privilege of attending the University of Virginia, which provides a first-class education at a fraction of the cost of its peer group colleges and universities," Willis says to Roanoke.
Virginia School District Disproportionately Punishes Black Students, Complaint Says
Time
August 24, 2016
Black students and students with disabilities are disciplined more harshly than their classmates in Richmond, Va.’s public schools, according to a complaint filed Wednesday with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.
The anti-discrimination complaint, filed against Richmond Public Schools, was brought by two black students with disabilities and the Richmond branch of the NAACP.
During the 2014-15 school year, African-American students received 93% of short-term suspensions, 98% of long-term suspensions and 97% of expulsions, according to the complaint. African-American students make up about 76% of the total student population in Richmond Public Schools.
Black students with disabilities were also nearly 13 times more likely than white students without disabilities to receive a short-term suspension, the complaint said, citing data from the Virginia Department of Education. The data includes mental, emotional and physical disabilities.
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National & Federal Education News
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All eyes on East Greenwich school start times this year
WPRI
August 30, 2016
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – School officials across Rhode Island will have their eyes on East Greenwich this year as the already high-performing district moves to later school start times for middle and high school students as part of an effort to further improve outcomes.
When the new academic year begins Wednesday, East Greenwich High School will open at 8 a.m., a full 30 minutes later than 2015 and one of the latest start times of any public high school in the state. Middle school start times have also been pushed to 8 a.m.
It’s a change Supt. Dr. Victor Mercurio says is grounded in research – some of which was conducted by experts who happen to be from East Greenwich – that suggests middle school and high school classes should begin no earlier than 8:30 a.m in order to encourage teenagers to get at least eight hours of sleep a night.
“The research is clear,” Mercurio said in an interview. “If students get more sleep and get better sleep, they are going to do better.”
Office for Education Policy Offers Free Conference on Challenges Faced by Schools
University of Arkansas
August 29, 2016
Assisting schools with challenges they face is the theme of the fall conference sponsored by the Office for Education Policy at the University of Arkansas. The conference takes place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 14, at Heifer International Educational Facilities, 1 World Ave. in Little Rock.
The conference is designed to educate policymakers, researchers, superintendents, post-secondary educators and personnel of education foundations. It is free but advance registration is encouraged by visiting the online registration page. Onsite registration will also be available, beginning at 8 a.m., if space permits. Professional development credit for attendance is available through the Arkansas Department of Education.
"We are very excited about partnering with Regional Educational Laboratory Southwest on this year's theme of 'Unlocking Key Challenges Facing Arkansas' Schools,' " said Sarah McKenzie, executive director of the Office for Education Policy. "REL Southwest is one of 10 Regional Educational Laboratories funded by the Institute of Education Sciences in the U.S. Department of Education. These labs provide applied research and evaluation, technical support, and information and products to inform education policy and practice."
The limited order in the case, Carcaño v. McCrory, applies only to the transgender plaintiffs who filed suit to challenge the law. But the judge's order also said that the plaintiffs are likely to eventually prevail in the case because of Title IX, a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded programs and activities. And the judge openly questioned the need for a law regulating which bathrooms people can use.
"Ultimately, the record reflects what counsel for Governor McCrory candidly speculates was the status quo ante in North Carolina in recent years: some transgender individuals have been quietly using bathrooms and other facilities that match their gender identity, without public awareness or incident," the order by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Schroeder says.
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How Did School Systems Fare on Reading SOLs?
Two weeks ago, the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) released SOL scores from the 2015-16 school year, along with a
news release celebrating the one point increase state-wide across all tests. We shared links to news articles from the
Washington Post, the
Richmond Times-Dispatch and the
Roanoke Times. Numerous other news outlets covered the release of the statewide improvement and provided pass rates for the local divisions in their coverage area. But we were curious to see what a state-wide picture looks like in terms of the variation between school divisions.
For the next several weeks, we'll be sharing visual maps of the SOL data for each of the five test areas (Reading, Writing, Math, Science and Social Sciences). This week we start off with Reading.
The state accredits individual schools against a pass rate benchmark of 75 on English Reading and Writing tests, so our first question was where school divisions as a whole would be relative to that benchmark. The map below gives a quick visual sense of which school systems were above the benchmark (those in green) and which were below (those in red). The darker the shade, the further from the breakpoint of 75 the pass rate was. Click on the map or
here to see an interactive version on Tableau Public.
The quick sense we get is that many of the school systems below that benchmark are either urban or in the rural areas of South Side and along the Chesapeake.
This past year, VDOE also began looking at whether school systems were making progress relative to prior years when they categorize schools for accreditation. The same question of improvement is worth looking at for school districts as a whole, while also keeping in mind that small variations in test scores may be due to random factors that aren't connected to teaching. The map below provides a quick sense of which systems saw their SOL Reading pass rate improve from 2014-15 to 2015-16 and which saw their pass rate decline. (Click on the map or
here to see an interactive version on Tableau Public.)
Again, green is a positive improvement and red is a drop in pass rate. The map shows us clearly that most school systems saw small changes - the largest pass rate improvement was 7 points while the largest drop was 4 points.
We hope you find these maps interesting and helpful. We also want to share some relevant data from our recent poll.
Below, you'll find insights on what the public thinks about the SOLs. In short, a majority of respondents (58%) in our 2015-16 poll disagreed with the idea that SOL's help improve student achievement. Back in 2002, when the SOLs were new, only 38% disagreed. Read on to get more detail.
We hope you have a great week!
Sincerely,
CEPI
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CEPI Poll Snapshots - Public Views on High Stakes Testing
Drawn from our 2015-16
Commonwealth Education Poll.
(The margin of error for the poll is ± 4.2 percentage points.)
As national efforts increased to cap the time spent taking tests or reduce the number of standardized tests required of students, the public continues to register strong concerns about the impacts that testing has on students and teachers while also agreeing that Virginia’s Standards of Learning (SOLs) and the testing to assess progress against them hold schools accountable and lead to equal standards for all students.
Narrow majorities of respondents see the SOLs as a positive in promoting accountability and equity across educational institutions. Fifty-five percent (55%) see a benefit in accountability, agreeing that the SOLs hold schools accountable for student achievement. Only 41% disagree. A slightly smaller majority, 53%, see an equity benefit, saying that the SOLs make sure that all students in Virginia meet the same academic standards. Minority respondents are more likely to agree that SOLs hold schools accountable (63%) and ensure that all students meet the same standards (61%) when compared to whites where only 52% and 51% agreed with the same respective statements.
Though part of the argument for standardized testing has been its potential use as a tool for assessing and improving student achievement, a majority of Virginians (58%) disagree with the statement that SOLs help improve student achievement. Women (65%) were more likely to disagree than were Men (51%). Likewise, those with household income above $100,000 (66%) were more likely to disagree than those with incomes between $50,000 and $100,000 (60%) or those with incomes below $50,000 (54%).
However, not all demographic categories showed majority disagreement with the statement that SOLs help student achievement. A small majority of minority respondents (52%, compared to 33% of whites) and respondents in the 35-44 age bracket (50%, compared to 32% for the 18-34 age bracket) agreed with the statement.
If modest majorities see benefits in accountability from the SOLs there is a clear and resounding sense from the public that SOLs create negative impacts on the classroom experience and for the individual student. More than eight-in-ten Virginians (80%) agree that preparations for SOL testing take so much class time that teachers can’t cover all the important material. A strong majority (67%) agree that SOL tests are putting too much pressure on students.
When comparing the responses of demographic cohorts on the issue of too much pressure on students, similar majorities of Democrats (70%) and Republicans (66%) agreed strongly or somewhat that SOLs put too much pressure on students. There was a significant difference between white and minority opinion, with 71% of white respondents agreeing strongly or somewhat that SOLs put too much pressure on students, compared to 59% of minority respondents. Also, several groups were more likely to strongly agree that SOLs put too much pressure on students:
- Among women, 54% strongly agreed, compared to 34% of men.
- Among respondents with some college, 56% strongly agreed, compared to 42% of those with an education level of high school or less and 35% of those with an education level of college graduate or more.
Examining the demographic breakdowns on the issue of SOLs preventing teachers from covering all the important material, agreement (strong or somewhat) was again similar across party identification – Democrats (83%); Republicans (82%) – with Independents less likely to agree (66%). Several other groups were more likely to agree strongly or somewhat with the statement that “SOLs take so much class time that teachers can’t cover all the important material”:
- Respondents in the 35-44 age bracket (90%) compared to 83% for those 18-34, 79% for those 45-65 and 72% for those 65 and older.
- White respondents (83%) compared to minority respondents (75%).
(To read the full poll, visit our
website.)
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