Compass Point
A Weekly Collection of Data, Articles and Insights from the Commonwealth Educational Policy Institute
A project of the Center for Public Policy
State & Local Education News

Without the YMCA, preschool programs in Chesapeake and Virginia Beach forge ahead
The Virginian Pilot
October 18, 2016


Preschoolers at Georgetown Primary clutched foods made from construction paper last week as they listened to "The Very Hungry Caterpillar."

As the animal gobbled up everything from strawberries and oranges to ice cream and cherry pie, they chimed in: "But he was still hungry!" And when the caterpillar became a butterfly, they showed off a big word.

Jacqueline Tate, Chesapeake's director of elementary curriculum and instruction, said school officials had no problem with the YMCA – they simply had been talking about taking over the preschool program. With operating funds and classroom space available, they decided now was a good time.


Area Virginia instructors say region is in education crisis
WCYB
October 14, 2016


WISE, Va. - More than 500 students in the area have pulled out of Virginia schools just since March of last year and a large part of that can be attributed to the decline of the coal industry in our area.

Southwest Virginia educators believe our region is in the middle of an education crisis. With a decline in enrollment and losses in funding, the region stands to lose $10.1 million in education funding this year.


They are trying to get help though by asking local and state leaders to back their cause.


State funding is based on a formula that accounts for a locality’s ability to pay. Many places in southwest Virginia have continued to fund education at current levels, but often times those decisions come at the expense of other departments and services. 

National & Federal Education News

For Out-of-School Children in Haiti, Education Cannot Wait
Huffington Post
October 18, 2016


A week that was supposed to be filled with hope for tens of thousands of school children in Haiti instead yielded to heartbreak. October 10th had marked the start of the academic year, but the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew left more than 100,000 children without schooling. Two weeks after the storm hit, international assistance has been slow and education aid minimal.

The challenges confronting Haiti have long been recognised. World Bank figures point toward a GDP per capita of $824 as 6 out of every 10 Haitians live in poverty. Following the January 2010 magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck the island nation claiming well-over 100,000 lives, the country – through patchwork international aid – moved to rebuild. From the rubble, schools rose and extreme poverty fell as primary school participation rates grew from 78 per cent to 90 per cent and extreme poverty dropped from 31 per cent to 24 per cent. But this story of progress is now in jeopardy.


Families in Flint say there’s a special education crisis that’s about to get worse
Think Progress

October 18, 2016

Nakiya Wakes’s two children have long lived with learning challenges: her eldest daughter, 17 years old, has epilepsy, and her seven-year-old son has ADHD. But they still both loved going to school in Flint, Michigan.

That changed after their struggles became compounded, Wakes says, by the water contamination crisis that exposed all residents to lead poisoning. Wakes began noticing that her daughter was no longer able to comprehend her reading. Her son started having behavioral issues. The year before the water crisis, Wakes says he was suspended once; this last year, he was suspended over 50 times.


Google: Race and gender gaps persist in computer science education
USA Today
October 18, 2016

SAN FRANCISCO — New research from Google shows that black students are less likely to have computer science classes in school and are less likely to use computers at home even though they are 1.5 times more interested in studying computer science than their white peers.

The findings are part a report released Tuesday by Google in partnership with Gallup that puts the spotlight on the racial and gender gap in K-12 computer science education. Google says its aim with the research, which surveyed thousands of students, parents, teachers, principals and superintendents, is to increase the numbers of women, blacks and Latinos in computer science.




What is the impact of school day start times?

As the days get shorter and sunrise moves later during the fall, more people are waking up in the darkness of early morning - even some university students. But as most parents and school teachers know, waking up to darkness outside the window is common practice for many school students who ride a bus to school.  

The question of when to start the school day may seem like a fairly simple question.  But as a recent proposal by Chesterfield Virginia schools to reorganize start times shows, three factors make discussions about any changes to a school systems schedule incredibly complex.

The first is the degree to which schools fit into the rhythms of our larger work patterns.  Parents whose employer asks them to be at the office or plant at 7am or 8am must find child care arrangements if schools start at 8:30am.  Students who help their families by working evenings are less likely to get significant hours at restaurants and retail stores if they don't get out of school until 4pm or later.  

The second factor is the logistical complexity of bus routes, pick-up times and school start times.  Most school systems don't have one start time for all schools, or even one for each level of school (e.g. elementary, middle, high school).  As the graphic representation of start times in the Chesapeake City school system show, start and end times are staggered across the system, allowing buses to potentially run multiple routes or, at minimum, serve multiple schools in one route.  As the article on the Chesterfield proposal notes, that school system "uses 520 buses to transport about 45,000 children over an area of 400 square miles."

    





























The final factor is the changing biology of students as they age.  Most of us are aware that a six year-old is more likely to bounce out of bed at 6am than is a 16 year-old.  But research shows that this is, at least in part, due to evolving brain chemistry - to some extent, teenagers really can't help it that they are sleepy at 7:30 in the morning. 

This last factor makes the question of which schools to start first a key decision.  In the case of Chesapeake, the elementary schools start first and the high schools start latest.  Other research has shown that sending the teenagers to school later helps reduce teen motor vehicle crashes, improves attendance and is correlated with less student-reported depression.  For a good review of evidence on this issue, click on the graphic below for a presentation by Suzanne Mazzeo, Professor of Psychology here at VCU.  
From presentation to Chesterfield County School Board - "School start times, an evidence-based review" by Suzanne E. Mazzeo, PhD. Click on image to access full presentation.

But in some schools systems like Chesterfiled, the reverse has been the tradition.  This is prompting discussions about changing the order and sparking signifcant debate.  What might at first seem like a simple policy decision to align policy with what we now know about students' changing biology ends up being a complex discussion as the proposed policy runs into the inertia of society's expectations for when parents need to be at the office.

Of course daily start times aren't the only decision school systems make - when to start the school year is another.  Some of you may remember a past Compass Point that visualized yearly start dates across the commonwealth, as well as the variation in break lengths for Winter and Spring Breaks.  We thought we'd look back at polling data on whether the public supports local schools being able to start before Labor Day - see  below.

Have a great week!

Sincerely,
CEPI
CEPI Poll Snapshot - Support for a Pre-Labor Day start for schools
A short data insight from our Commonwealth Education Poll.
 

While the school calendar in the U.S. still hearkens to a time when summers for children were often spent laboring on family farms (and schools didn't start until harvests were in), the post-Labor Day start is the result of legislative advocacy by various branches of the tourism industry that hire lots of high school students at cheap rates over the summer and still want them on duty for the final long weekend of the summer vacation season. Hence, the law mandating a post-Labor Day start is sometimes refered to as the "Kings Dominion law", after one of the main amusement parks near the state capital.

Numerous efforts to change the law have failed, though according to CEPI's annual Education Poll, not because doing so lacks public support. In 2014 we asked respondents whether they would support changing the law to give local school systems the ability to decide whether to start their school year before Labor Day. In both years, more than 60% said they would (see the breakout below).

 

Unlike many issues that have a well defined partisan difference, there is no real difference between Democrats (66% favor) and Republicans (65% favor) on this issue. Nor is there much difference across income lines. Parents of public school students (those most affected by a change) actually show lower support (54%) than those who don't have a child in public schools.

But perhaps the most striking difference in the demographic breakdown is that across education levels. Only 47% of those with a high school education or less favor giving the localities the power to decide whether to start before Labor Day. Those with some college (72%) and those with a college degree or more (70% favor) are much more supportive.

(To read the full poll, visit our website.)