Martin Luther King’s legacy lives on as we adhere to and practice the principles that he lived and died by!
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL
I would like to wish everyone a very fulfilling, happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year filled with God’s favors!
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Happy Christmas To All
I would like to wish everyone a very happy, healthy, relaxing and best Christmas ever!
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Every Student Succeeds Act Replaces No Child Left Behind Act
President Obama signed into law today the bipartisan supported Every Student Succeeds Act, ESSA. ESSA replaces the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act with its overemphasis on federally mandated testing and its punitive sanctions on schools and districts with low test scores.
President Obama declared, “The goals of No Child Left Behind were the right ones — high standards, accountability, closing the achievement gap, making sure every child was learning. But in practice, it often fell short. . . . It led to too much testing during classroom time, forced schools and school districts into cookie cutter reforms that didn’t produce the kind of results that we wanted to see.”
ESSA, on the other hand places the bulk of the responsibility for education on states and school districts. Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers President summarized the components of the Act as follows: ESSA
- Maintains funding for the students who need it most;
- Prohibits the federal government from mandating teacher evaluations;
- Stops the federal government from prescribing high-stakes consequences like school closures and conversions;
- Opposes support for private school vouchers, portability or other divisive policies;
- Includes more transparency and accountability for charters; and
- Maintains certification requirements for paraprofessionals.
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Happy Thanksgiving!
I would like to thank all of my readers for a wonderful year of blogging. Thank you for inspiring me to share with you the “goings on” in our world that impacts education. Thank you for your thoughtful comments as well.
With 4000 hits on this blog and counting, you affirm that:
Education continues and remains a civil right for all citizens!
Gobble! Gobble!
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The Impact of School Composition on Black and White Achievement Gap
According to a recent study conducted by Bohrnstedt, G., Kitmitto, S., Ogut, B., Sherman, D., and Chan, D. published by the National Center for Education Statistics, there is a significant positive correlation between school composition and black-white achievement gap.
Using data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2011 Mathematics Grade 8 Assessment and the Common Core for 2010–11, the study found that while the achievement gap between white and black students remains significant overall with white students performing higher, the “achievement for both Black and White students was lower in the highest Black student density schools than in the lowest density schools. For Black students overall, and Black males in particular, achievement was still lower in the highest density schools than in the lowest density schools.”
Policy makers and educational practitioners should use the results of this study to inform both allocation of resources, and instructional practices in this environment of increasing resegregation of public schools.
NAEP is the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America’s students know and can do in various subject areas.
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2015 NAEP Scores Take a Dip
The 2015 average scores for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)’s Mathematics assessments are significantly lower than the 2013 scores in grades 4 and 8. The 2015 Reading assessments average scores in grade 8 are also lower than those from 2013 while the grade 4 reading scores are not different in both years. These scores indicate that spending too much time on testing in schools did not improve student achievement.
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Spending Time on Testing Does Not Improve Academic Perfomance
The Council of the Great City Schools, launched a survey to determine how much testing is done in US public schools and how the tests are used. The survey result which was released on Saturday October 24, 2015 found that about 112 mandated tests are given to students in US big cities between prekindergarten and 12th grade. Advanced Placement and ACT tests are not included in the survey’s count.
The survey also found that spending time on tests did not improve the academic performance of students using the National Assessment of Educational Progress, as a measuring tool.
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Obama Administration Acknowledges Testing in Public Schools Has Gone Too Far!
The Obama Administration while admitting its part in encouraging the increase in testing, stated today, Saturday October 24, 2015 that tests should be limited to only 2% of instruction in the public schools. Under intense opposition from both the conservatives on the right, and parents, students, and teacher unions on the left, it urged Congress to limit testing in public schools in its reauthorization of the elementary and secondary education act according to a report by Kate Zernikeoct in New York Times.
Arne Duncan indicated that there should be a “check” annually to ensure that students are on track and to identify their areas of need. He stated that the Administration will assist states and school districts to solve the over testing in schools.
Randi Weigarten, the president of American Federation of Teachers, claiming victory on the part of teacher unions declared “Parents, students, educators, your voice matters and was heard.”
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The Paucity of African-American Teachers is a Cause for Concern!
According to a recent study conducted by the Albert Shanker Institute named after Albert Shanker, the late president of American Federation of Teachers, the diversity of the teaching force in the United States is a cause for serious concern.
Teacher diversity which the researchers referred to as an “educational civil rights for students” is critical because research supports that all students would benefit from a diverse teaching force that represents the population of the US. The study looked at nine cities, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. and found that from 2002 to 2012, a ten year period, minority teachers were underrepresented with African American teachers being the most severely underrepresented. The researchers attributed the severe decline of African American teachers to the “working conditions in their schools, lack of collective voice in educational decisions, a lack of professional autonomy in the classroom,” and new teacher hiring practices.
The Albert Shanker Institute, a nonprofit, and nonpartisan organization, is endowed by the American Federation of Teachers. It is “dedicated to three themes—children’s educations, unions as an advocate for quality, and both civic education and freedom of association in the public life of democracies”.
Ogo Okoye-Johnson 