DeKalb County (Atlanta) ranks 15th on School Choice -- Ahead of Boston and Charlotte and Cobb Co. (outside Atlanta) School Districts

A Brookings study released in Q1 2014, purportedly ranks school districts based School Choice, measured by 13 different categories of policy and practice.  Some of the 13 categories include virtual schools (and the % of students enrolled), availability of alternative schools (such as magnets, vouchers, affordable private, and tax credit scholarships), whether there is a policy of restructuring or closing schools, whether there is a common application to enroll, performance data, comparable standards and assessments, and transportation.  The purpose of the study is to "to create public awareness of the differences among districts in their support of school choice."  

A conversation about measurables aside (everyone knows that what you measure often dictates what you find), Brookings ranks the top 107 school districts -- with only New Orleans schools and NYC schools getting overall "A" or "A-" grades and school districts like Atlanta - Fulton County, Clayton County (south of Atlanta) and Shelby County, TN receiving grades of "F."  

DeKalb County (Atlanta) comes out passing with a "C+" at rank number 15.

Article found here:
http://www.brookings.edu/research/interactives/2014/ecci_2013

-E

Apparently, Just as Many Congresspeople attended UGA as Stanford

While legitimately pursuing Huffington Post (for a work assignment, I promise), I came across this little nugget.  According to research and data collection from a company called FindtheBest.com, just as many members of Congress attended the public universities of University of Virginia and the University of Georgia as members attended Stanford University.  Not quite sure whether that elevates those public universities, pulls down Stanford, or says something far less provocative, but I found it interesting -- in a I-might-need-this-as-a-trivia-answer kind of way.  Even more, The University of Texas - Austin has more than any of those schools.  Only Harvard (duh), Yale, and Georgetown have more members of Congress counted as alum.

What about the method?  Well, without a full statistical analysis, it seems that these differentials may even be underestimates.  For example, says FindtheBest.com, the study only counted a member's school once -- so if the member attended undergrad at particular university and then also attended some other graduate or post-secondary program at the same school, the study only counted the school once.  I suspect, if each program were independently counted, Harvard's numbers might be far and away above the others.  But, then again, so could fun public universities.  Thoughts?

-E

How did your Georgia K-8 school do on the CRCTs (End-of-Year Summative Assessments)?

The Georgia Department of Education released the Criterion Referenced Competency Tests (CRCT) results on its website.  The CRCT tests 3-8th Graders on grade-level material in math, reading, science and social studies.  (Of course, the CRCT testing was the source of the "cheating scandal" I've written about before, but this is the final year of those tests.)

See this year's testing data here, by state, district, and school results.

The Most Compelling Points of Hobby Lobby (the dissent that is)

In light of the huge decision yesterday from the Supreme Court of the United States in Hobby Lobby et al., here are portions of the dissent where Justice Ginsburg speaks so eloquently on several points -- with which I agree.

On Corporations as "people"

“In a sole proprietorship, the business and its owner are one and the same. By incorporating a business, however, an individual separates herself from the entity and escapes personal responsibility for the entity’s obligations.  One might ask why the separation should hold only when it serves the interest of those who control the corporation.”  – J. Ginsburg (dissent at p. 19).

“The distinction between a community made up of believers in the same religion and one embracing persons of diverse beliefs, clear as it is, constantly escapes the Court’s attention. . . . Again, the Court forgets that religious organizations exist to serve a community of believers. For-profit corporations do not fit that bill.” – J. Ginsburg (dissent at p. 17, 18).

On impact of corporate owner's religious beliefs (permitted to be exercised through a for-profit entity) on third-parties (i.e. employees)

“Women paid significantly more than men for preventive care, the amendment’s proponents noted; in fact, cost barriers operated to block many women from obtaining needed care at all. See, e.g., id., at 29070 (statement of Sen. Feinstein) (“Women of childbearing age spend 68 percent more in out-of-pocket health care costs than men.”); id., at 29302 (statement of Sen. Mikulski) (“co-payments are [often] so high that [women] avoid getting preventative and screening services] in the first place”).” – J. Ginsburg (dissent at p. 4).  “It bears note in this regard that the cost of an IUD is nearly equivalent to a month’s full-time pay for workers earning the minimum wage . . . that almost one-third of women would change their contraceptive method if costs were not a factor . . . and that only one-fourth of women who request an IUD actually have one inserted after finding out how expensive it would be . . . .” – J. Ginsburg (dissent at p. 25).  

“Importantly, the decisions whether to claim benefits under the plans are made not by Hobby Lobby or Conestoga, but by the covered employees and dependents, in consultation with their health care providers. Should an employee of Hobby Lobby or Conestoga share the religious beliefs of the Greens and Hahns, she is of course under no compulsion to use the contraceptives in question. . . . Any decision to use contraceptives made by a woman covered under Hobby Lobby’s or Conestoga’s plan will not be propelled by the Government, it will be the woman’s autonomous choice, informed by the physician she consults.”  – J. Ginsburg (dissent at p. 23).

Bing! asks for support for ad-free searches

K-12 students are children and youth inundated by information everyday.  Some of that information -- and probably more than we'd realize -- is marketing of products, services, and entertainment.  To that end, Bing! has launched an initiative to provide ad-free searching to schools to reduce some of this exposure to students in learning environments.

If you support this effort, go here. 

New Study says a college degree continues to be more valuable

An article published in the New York Times today shows that the value of having a college degree has risen dramatically since 1980 (for the 80's babies like me), and has even risen since 2010.

Here's a bit of the scoop of what David Leonhardt writes:

The pay of people with a four-year college degree has risen compared to that of those with a high school degree but no college credit. The relative pay of people who attended college without earning a four-year degree has stayed flat.

Importantly, the article also notes:

a bachelor’s degree does not guarantee success. But of course it doesn’t. Nothing guarantees success . . .

The article even goes on to criticize the discussions aimed to depress people from going to college.

The decision not to attend college for fear that it’s a bad deal is among the most economically irrational decisions anybody could make in 2014.

To read the whole thing yourself, see here:

Is College Worth It? Clearly, New Data Say

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/upshot/is-college-worth-it-clearly-new-data-say.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

Did you know? "Children of alumni had a 45 percent greater chance of admission"

This week the U.S. Supreme Court issued an Opinion that upheld the state of Michigan's ban on affirmative action policies for state undergraduate institutions.

The case is Schuette v. BAMN (the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigration Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary).  It stems form a prior case, Grutter v. Bollinger, where the U.S. Supreme Court considered University of Michigan Law School's policy to consider an applicant's race/ethnicity as one of many factors toward law school admission.  After that decision, the state of Michigan voters adopted "Proposal 2" (which subsequently became part of the state's constitution -- Art. I, §26), a state law that "prohibits the use of race-based preferences as part of the admissions process for state universities."  Slip Opinion, page 1. In this instant case (that's what legal people say when they are referring to the case in discussion), the Supreme Court needed to determine whether the lower court should have struck down the voter's law.  Our U.S. Supreme Court determined that the appellate court was incorrect:  the state law of Michigan banning affirmative action was upheld as a proper.

The full opinion can be found here: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-682_5367.pdf

More to write on this soon. Including a juxtoposition like this one: affirmative action and legacy preference.

"New" Math of the Common Core is really THOUGHT Math

Circulating around the internet is a basic subtractions problem and an alternative way (under the Common Core curriculum) about how a student might go about finding the solution.

Here's the problem:

32 - 12 = ___

Here's an intuitive but not traditional way of solving it (although it does use the method of "adding to subtract" -- a way that first grade teachers have been using all over for years):  

- From "12" count up to the next number with a base of 5...   or "15"

- From "15" count up to the next number with a base of 10 ... or "20".  Generally, bases of 10 make for easy math.

- From the base of 10, count to the closest number with a base of 10 and careful not to exceed the integer ...  here, we count to "30" the closest base-10 integer without going over "32."

- Add any additional ones that it takes to reach the integer ... or "2" more ones.

Essentially, 

we have added "12" plus "3" more to make "15"

then we have added "15" plus "5" more to make "20"

then we have added "20" plus "10" more to make "30"

finally we have added "30" plus "2" more to make "32"

If we account for everything we had to "add" to get from "12" to "32"... we reach the answer of "20" (3+5+10+12).  

Although this sounds complicated, it's actually mental math that many people do everyday.  Here's a great article that explains why this method is really not "new" and probably doesn't deserve visceral reactions. 

At Harvard: An examination of educational disparities between "haves" and the "have mores"

I renamed this piece, as the original author's title is "Kids, defined by income: Panel examines rising educational disparities between haves, have-nots" by CHRISTINA PAZZANESE/HARVARD STAFF WRITER.

This article was published on February 18 in the Harvard Gazette and on February 19, 2014 on the Harvard Graduate School of Education website.  

In the short article, Pazzanese covers a new book entitled “Restoring Opportunity: The Crisis of Inequality and the Challenge for American Education” (Harvard Education Press) by Richard J. Murnane, Thompson Professor of Education and Society at Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), and Greg J. Duncan, distinguished professor at the University of California, Irvine’s School of Education.  Pazzabese writes:

• "income trend lines for affluent and poor Americans have dramatically diverged over the last 40 years, [and] so too have the educational achievement rates of their children."

• "average per-pupil spending in public schools continues to vary widely among communities and states, so does the amount spent on student enrichment outside of school. In 1972-1973, wealthy parents spent $2,857 more per child than low-income parents to supplement learning; in 2005-2006, wealthy parents spent $7,993 more per child, according to the book."

Summer Opportunity: White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans

The White House Initiative’s Year-round Internship Program provides current undergraduate and graduate students with an opportunity to learn about African American-focused education policy, communications, and outreach at the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C. 

Find the application here: http://www.ed.gov/edblogs/whieeaa/internship-opportunities/

APPLICATIONS FOR SUMMER 2014 WILL BE ACCEPTED FEBRUARY 3 - MARCH 15, 2014