eSchool News » Research

The best and worst states for science education

staff and wire services reports — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:51:38 +0000

“Don’t know much about science” may be a good description of many students in U.S. public schools, at least if you’re swayed by a new report issued by The Fordham Institute, the Huffington Post reports. The report, The State of State Science Standards 2012, indicates that K-12 science standards of most U.S. states are mediocre at best – with only 13 states getting an A or B and 38 receiving a grade of C or lower. Which states fared the worst? You may be surprised…

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Watch: Teachers union calls CPS unused vacation, sick days payout report ‘unfair’

staff and wire services reports — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:13:16 +0000

The Chicago Teachers Union on Friday stated that a report finding that Chicago Public Schools, since 2006, paid out $265 million to ex-employees due to their unused vacation and sick days “unfairly characterizes teachers and paraprofessionals as abusing the system,” the Huffington Post reports. The finding that some 19,000 former CPS employees were paid out an average of just less than $14,000 upon their departure from the school system were the result of a joint investigation by the Chicago Sun-Times and Better Government Association. Some former CPS employees have received six-figure payments as high as just more than $250,000 under the policy, including more than 300 principals and administrators who received more than $100,000. The BGA claims that some ex-employees used the payouts to boost their pension benefits…

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Pictures on lunch trays help students pick and eat their vegetables

staff and wire services reports — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:07:21 +0000

Getting young children to eat their servings of fruits and veggies, particularly in school, has been a long and hard struggle for parents, schools and lawmakers over the years. But a new study suggests that a quick fix could be as simple as showing kids some pictures, the Huffington Post reports. In the first move of its kind in over 15 years, the government last week announced new guidelines to ensure students are given healthier options for school meals. The new standards call for more whole grains and produce as well as less sodium and fat in school meals. While the measures mark a step forward from previous years, they still compromise amid push-back from Congress to keep pizza and french fries on the menu–counting both the tomato paste on pizza and the potatoes that make fries as vegetables. But children might not have to be forced by the law or school to eat their fruits and vegetables. According to research published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, students who were given visual hints were more likely to choose and eat their vegetables…

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New report examines international ed-tech policies

Laura Devaney — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:24:26 +0000

A new report examines how different countries approach ed-tech management and access.

A new report comparing educational technology use of K-12 students in 21 countries found that, despite global economic uncertainty, many countries are still investing in technology to improve educational systems and boost student achievement.

Twenty governments said that giving students better access to the internet is a top priority, and roughly half said students need more access to computers.

The January 2012 report, International Experiences with Technology in Education (IETE), comes from SRI International’s Center for Technology in Learning and was conducted at the request of the U.S. Department of Education.

It seeks to identify what types of educational technology data are being collected, how technologies are being used to improve international students’ access to high-quality instruction, how technologies are being used to increase teacher effectiveness, and how other governments are tracking student progress and using those data to inform policy decisions.

The governments shared many of the same national goals when it comes to improving educational technology for students, including “updating infrastructure; ensuring equity of access to digital technologies; improving information and communications technologies (ICT) proficiency among students, teachers, and administrators; increasing the availability of digital learning resources; and increasing the integration of ICT into instruction to support students’ creativity and problem-solving and collaborative skills.”

“This report is unprecedented in the range of countries that were included and the compilation of success indicators that are being used across large-scale international studies,” said Gucci Estrella Trinidad, educational researcher at SRI and manager of the research project.

“Countries are exploring different mechanisms and avenues for making technology more accessible to students and teachers to support learning. By making cross-country comparisons, a wider audience can benefit from experiences and solutions of other countries.”

Research took place in two phases during 2009 and 2010. In the first phase, researchers examined literature and the internet for multinational data collections, and they sought to identify methods, instruments, and available data on government efforts to integrate ICT into teaching and learning. The report’s second phase involved updating available data and surveying and interviewing representatives of the 21 governments included in the research.

Countries and governmental bodies included in the report are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, South Korea, and Sweden.

Important findings

Key findings include:

Teachers: Budgets block classroom technology access

Laura Devaney — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:25:27 +0000

Ninety-one percent of teachers said they have access to computers in their classrooms.

Despite advances in digital learning tools and efforts to close the ed-tech access gap, school budgets remain one of the biggest barriers to classroom technology access, according to a national PBS LearningMedia survey of preK-12 teachers.

Although ed-tech advocates campaign for technology’s seamless integration into instruction, only 22 percent of teachers surveyed said they have the “right” level of technology in their classrooms.

Sixty-three percent of teachers said budgets continue to be barriers to classroom technology access, and in low-income communities, 70 percent of teachers reported budgets are their main obstacle. Aside from funding, teachers reported that unfamiliarity with technologies (8 percent), a lack of knowledge about where to find proper technologies or a lack of training (8 percent), technologies’ incompatibility with current curriculum (7 percent), slow/poor/no internet connection (6 percent), and other various reasons (9 percent) as barriers to classroom technology use.

Socio-economic status also plays a role in other areas: 38 percent of teachers in affluent school districts reported high levels of parental support, compared with just 14 percent of teachers in low-income communities; and 38 percent of teachers in high-income areas have school board support, compared to 21 percent of teachers in low-income areas.

Computer access is not a problem for the majority of teachers—91 percent have access to computers or laptops in their classroom—but access to “newer” technologies is. Fifty-nine percent have access to interactive whiteboards, and teachers in affluent districts are twice as likely to have access to tablets as teachers in middle- and low-income districts.

The most, least literate big U.S. cities

staff and wire services reports — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:15:09 +0000

Washington, D.C., is the most literate big city in the United States, and Bakersfield, Calif., the least, in the newest annual rankings that consider factors including the population’s education level and the number of bookstores, the Washington Post reports. The rankings have been done annually for six years by Central Connecticut State University, which also factors in a city’s newspaper, magazine and journal circulation, and library and Internet resources. The study looked at data in cities with populations of 250,000 and larger. The nation’s capital topped the list for the second straight year, with these right behind it in the top five: Seattle (2), Minneapolis (3), Atlanta (4) and Boston (5). Rounding out the top 10: Pittsburgh (6), Cincinnati (7), St. Louis (8), San Francisco (9) and Denver (10)…

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Youth unlikely to pursue science, technology, engineering jobs, survey finds

staff and wire services reports — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:01:44 +0000

Though President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address stressed the need for a competitive workforce, especially in more technical fields such as energy, young Americans see massive barriers to entering such professions, according to survey results released Wednesday, the Huffington Post reports. Sixty percent of respondents ages 16 to 25 to the Lemelson-MIT Invention Index, which seeks to gauge innovation aptitude among young adults, named at least one factor that prevented them from pursuing further education or work in science, technology, engineering and math fields (known as STEM). Thirty-four percent said they “don’t know much about these fields,” while a third said “these fields are too challenging.” Twenty-eight percent said they weren’t “well-prepared in school to seek out a career or further … [their] education in these fields.”

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Black, Latino students perform at levels of 30 years ago

staff and wire services reports — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:13:25 +0000

Educators are expressing alarm that the performance gap between minority and white high school students continues to expand across the United States, with minority teenagers performing at academic levels equal to or lower than those of 30 years ago, America’s Wire reports. Despite the hope that improving education for children of color would propel them to better life outcomes, Latino and African-American students are not being prepared in high school classrooms for brighter futures. While achievement levels have improved considerably for minority elementary and middle school students, educators say their academic performance drops during high school years. How prevalent is the achievement gap at the high school level?

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Homophobia starts in elementary school; teachers do little

staff and wire services reports — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:47:55 +0000

Clare Davidson-Sherman, the adopted daughter of Karen Davidson-Fisher, has “several mommies”–her biological one, her adoptive mother’s former partner who has joint custody, and now Davidson-Fisher’s legal wife, ABC News reports. The 8-year-old has come face-to-face with bullying in her Omaha, Neb., public school. One of her third-grade classmates used a derogatory and “sing-songy” tone as she taunted, “Clare has lesbian moms!”

“She was upset,” said Davidson-Fisher, a 39-year-old former mental health therapist. “But the teacher talked to the kid. There are at least three kids in my daughter’s class who have same-sex parents. It’s something that needs to be taken care of.”

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What the 1% majored in

staff and wire services reports — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:42:19 +0000

There are a lot of factors to weigh when picking your college major. Like, for example, will this major land me in the top 1% of earners? Despite the statistical rarity of such an ambition, there are majors that lead far more often to 1% status than others, the Huffington Post reports. The New York Times recently endeavored to find what the top 1% of earners majored in while in college. Using information from the Census Bureau’s 2010 American Community Survey, they found being a pre-med gave you the best chance of joining the financial cream of the crop. Economics came in second. In a surprise twist, zoology cracked the top 5. Funnily, this is a somewhat different list than 2011′s best paying majors, in which petroleum engineering took the top spot…

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