1.   Vermont’s Report Card is Good According to the NAEP
2.   Transformation of Education in Vermont
3.   Reforming Education
4.   San Francisco School Choice Model
5.   Interactive Whiteboards: Are they Worth the Cost?

Vermont’s Report Card is Good According to the NAEP

The Nation’s  Report Card just came out. More than 700,000 4th and 8th graders participated in the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The results are positive in that scores are rising and not falling. Although nationally the 8th grade reading scores have increased slightly, the national average for reading is about the same as the average found in 1998. When comparing Vermont’s scores for reading and math between 2005 and 2007, Vermont’s math scores have made gains in both 4th and 8th grades and Vermont’s reading scores made gains in 8th grade only. Vermont is above the national average for reading and math. In each state, a representative sample of children takes these tests.

For further reading:

The Nation’s Report Card: Reading 2007
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/main2007/2007496.pdf

The Nation’s Report Card: Mathematics 2007
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/main2007/2007494.pdf

Transformation of Education in Vermont

The State Board of Education had its September meeting in Colchester, Vermont. This meeting continued a conversation that they had at their August retreat. This conversation centered on creating a “Framework for Transforming Schools into 21st Century Learning Environments.” They put many of their ideas from the August retreat on paper in draft format.

They are trying to describe what the “desired state” of education should look like in the 21st century. The SBE would like to move beyond their current vision statement and transform Vermont’s education system. They have identified five components of the “desired state” for the purposes of creating a statewide dialog. These ideas were presented at this meeting of the board. Following is a brief description of those components using wording from their draft.

As you read this, please remember that this is about input from the citizens of Vermont. This is about describing “what” this desired state should look like. This is not about “how” to bring it about. That is for a later discussion.

Current vision statement of the State Board of Education:

"The State Board of Education and the Department of Education shall sustain a vision of high skills, creative thinking and love of knowledge, and learning for every student while ensuring student achievement in a safe and healthy learning environment.”

Component #1: Student-centered Education

Every student will design and be guided by an individual learning plan. Student and parent voices will be listened to and their ideas and experiences will be incorporated in designs for learning. No two students are the same. Instruction and learning opportunities will recognize this. A variety of pathways will be used to achieve success. Student progress will be based on assessments of competency and the time frame in which the learning takes place will no longer be a measure. Use technology to leverage the “anytime, anywhere” access to resources to provide students with a learning environment unrestricted by time or location.

Component #2: Leadership in a Student-centered Environment

Leaders will set expectations to implement and sustain student centered learning environments. Leadership will allocate resources that will support desired learning results. Leaders will understand and appreciate student-centered learning and the role of parents in student’s education. Leaders will assist in the development of new leader in the learning environment. Teachers and others responsible for facilitating learning will be prepared … to successfully create student-centered learning environments.

Component #3: Smart Learning Environments

Learning environments will provide necessary structure and flexibility for the success of students. The pace of learning will be guided by the individual learning plans and the standards as indicators of success. Students will be provided with caring and supportive relationships. Student will be provided with resources for thinking, assessing and constructing meaning from the information that they gather and resources for creating new knowledge.

Component #4: Engaged Community Partners

Learning environments will be places where – Parents are encouraged to be meaningfully participating in their children’s learning. Community members are invested in the outcomes of learning organizations. Members of the professional and business community serve as resources to help the educational community to understand the skills, talent, and ethics needed for the future.

Component #5: Accountability

(Perhaps this should be titled “Indicators of Success”) - Students will graduate from places of learning with the ability to continue their education; to live and work as contributing citizens in diverse and global communities; and to acquire 21st century skills. Parents, teachers, principals, and all staff will model lifelong learning.

The State Board of Education hopes to finalize this draft by January 1, 2008. It was an interesting conversation to watch at their August meeting and it has been interesting to read what they have put on paper. It will also be interesting to listen to the conversation the State Board wishes to have with many others interested in education in Vermont.

Reforming Education Part I of VI

VermontTiger.com “…will be publishing a series of articles that examine the cost/benefit performance paradigm of Vermont’s primary and secondary education system; specifically how we can drive improved performance through more efficient use of resources.”

Apples & Oranges: Part II of VI

"We continue to hear that Vermont ranks near the top of the charts for educational performance; these statistics are often cited as justification for our high levels of spending. But, as others have pointed out, such statements are a statistical felony – they tell us more about the demographics of Vermont than the quality of its educational outcomes.”

The discussions at the bottom of these articles are worth reading.

San Francisco School Choice Model

This article is rather long and I have used excerpts to point out a few ideas. What if Vermont used a similar model to deliver education to children?

The Agony of American Education
by Lisa Snell, Reason Magazine

Excerpts---

Paragraph 1:
"Imagine a city with authentic public school choice?a place where the location of your home doesn’t determine your child’s school. The first place that comes to mind probably is not San Francisco. But that city boasts one of the most robust school choice systems in the nation.”

Paragraph 6:
"San Francisco is one of a handful of public school districts across the nation that mimic an education market. In these districts, the money follows the children, parents have the right to choose their children’s public schools and leave under performing schools, and school principals and communities have the right to spend their school budgets in ways that make their schools more desirable to parents. As a result, the number of schools parents view as “acceptable” has increased greatly in the last several years. In Grannan’s words, “Parents who are willing to go beyond the highest-status schools can now easily find many more acceptable options, and can avoid the fight for a few coveted seats in the most prestigious schools.”

Paragraphs 7-9:
"Give credit to Arlene Ackerman, San Francisco’s superintendent of schools since 2000. Ackerman introduced the weighted student formula, pioneered in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1976, which allows money to follow students to the schools they choose while guaranteeing that schools with harder-to-educate kids (low-income students, language learners, low achievers) get more funds. Ackerman also introduced site-based budgeting, so that school communities, not the central office, determine how to spend their money. Finally, she worked to create a true open-enrollment student assignment system that gives parents the right to choose their children’s schools.

"In San Francisco the weighted student formula gives each school a foundation allocation that covers the cost of a principal’s salary and a clerk’s salary. The rest of each school’s budget is allocated on a per student basis. There is a base amount for the “average student,” with additional money assigned based on individual student characteristics: grade level, English language skills, socioeconomic status, and special education needs. These weights are assigned as a percentage of the base funding. For example, a kindergartner would receive funding 1.33 times the base allocation, while a low-income kindergartner would receive an additional 0.09 percent of the base allocation. In 2005–06 San Francisco’s base allocation was $2,561. Therefore, the kindergartner would be worth $3,406, and the low-income kindergartner would generate an additional $230 for his school.

"The more students a school attracts, the bigger the school’s budget. So public schools in San Francisco now have an incentive to differentiate themselves from one another. Every parent can look through an online catalog of niche schools that include Chinese, Spanish, and Tagalog language immersion schools, college preparatory schools, performing arts schools that collaborate with an urban ballet and symphony, schools specializing in math and technology, traditional neighborhood schools, and a year-round school based on multiple-intelligence theory. Each San Francisco public school is unique. The number of students, the school hours, the teaching style, and the program choices vary from site to site.”

Paragraphs 11 & 12:
"All this diversity is useless if parents don’t know about it, so schools have an incentive to market their programs as well. Much of the marketing is done through a local chapter of Parents for Public Schools. The district and the chapters host school enrollment fairs, and the schools offer parent tours throughout the school year. Parents can select up to seven schools on their enrollment application. In the 2005–06 school year 84 percent of parents received one of the schools they listed, with 63 percent receiving their first-choice school. More than 40 percent of the city’s children now attend schools outside their neighborhoods.”

"Decentralized school management is a growing trend in the United States. To date the weighted student formula has been implemented in Cincinnati, Houston, St. Paul, San Francisco, Seattle, and Oakland. This year a weaker version that does not include school choice is being implemented statewide in Hawaii, and pilot programs are underway in Boston, Chicago, and New York City.”

Interactive Whiteboards: Are they Worth the Cost?
By Curt Hier
 
Some 750,000 interactive whiteboards can be found in elementary and secondary classrooms today.  Estimates indicate that 3 million will reach our classrooms by 2010.  And Vermont schools are diving headlong into the whiteboard craze.
 
Interactive whiteboards are large white screens that are connected to computers.  They show projected images that can be manipulated by touch  (although often teachers struggle to get them to work right). The whiteboards must be accompanied by computer projectors. The whiteboards themselves can cost up to $3000.  Projectors can be bought for under $1000. In my classroom, I have found that the projectors alone can accomplish nearly as much as the whiteboards with the projectors.  I have found that the marginal return on the whiteboard is not worth the marginal cost.  But don't take it from me.  Consult the research.
 
There is no research that correlates the use of these expensive boards with greater student achievement.  What research there is finds greater student engagement, but it fails to compare the use of the whiteboards and projectors to the use of projectors alone.  Instead it compares the use of whiteboards to the traditional chalkboards.
 
Moss, et al., from the University of London, recently conducted a study of interactive whiteboard use in London schools. Their findings included the following:  "Overall, the statistical analysis failed to find evidence of any impact of the increase in IWB (interactive whiteboard) acquisition in London schools on attainment in the three core subjects in the academic year 2004/5."
 
Vermonters should question this expense.

We do!  Please consider a gift to Vermonters for Better Education, the publisher of the weekly Vermont Education Report, Vermont's ONLY continual source of education news. Send donations to: VBE, PO Box 255, Woodbury, VT 05681. VBE is a nonprofit organization and contributions are tax-deductible.

The VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT is published by Vermonters for Better Education PO Box 255, Woodbury, VT 05681 - 802-472-5491. The Vermont Education Report may be reprinted with the editor's permission. For more information contact: VBE@comcast.net or visit us on the web: http://www.schoolreport.com

VERMONTERS FOR BETTER EDUCATION is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose mission is to enlist parents and the public at large in achieving quality educational opportunities for all the children of Vermont by monitoring the state of education in Vermont; promoting the value of educational freedoms for all parents; and giving parents the evaluative tools with which to identify excellence.

Retta Dunlap, executive director
VBE@comcast.net