The Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents (ALAS) celebrates its tenth Annual ALAS Education Summit Oct. 16-19 in Denver. Assistant Secretary of Education, Deb Delisle, will be the keynote at the second general session on Thurs., Oct. 17.

This year’s summit features sessions and keynote speakers addressing challenges facing school and district leaders.

(Next page: A link to register, and key summit strands)(Register for the summit here ^[1].)

Summit strands at this year’s conference include:

• ELLs: School and district best practices
• Technology: Data management, assessment, or instruction
• Research, policy, and legal: Trends and issues
• Leadership: Challenges and opportunities

More than 600 school and district leaders attended last year’s summit, and a post-summit ALAS survey indicated that 92 percent of 2012 attendees said they would return for the 2013 summit.

ALAS is now accepting applications for the 2013 ALAS $10,000 Scholarship Award, sponsored by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.  This scholarship recognizes Latino administrators and principals for their leadership by providing assistance toward an advanced degree in education.  The winner will receive a one-time $10,000 monetary award, made payable to their institution of higher learning, and will be presented during the Awards Banquet at the 10th Annual ALAS Education Summit in Denver on Oct. 17, 2013.

The ALAS Scholarship, sponsored by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, recognizes Latino administrators and principals for their leadership by providing assistance toward an advanced degree in education. The winner will receive a one-time $10,000 scholarship, made payable to an institution of higher learning, and will be presented the award during the Awards Banquet at the 10th Annual ALAS Education Summit in Denver, Colorado.

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), one of two assessment consortia developing next-generation assessments aligned to the Common Core State Standards, has released a manual ^[2] detailing how students with disabilities and English language learners will be accommodated in the computer-based assessment.

Diane August, member of the PARCC Technical Working Group, said that by assessing on computer devices, PARCC states will now have the opportunity to provide student with tools they frequently use in the classroom and daily life. “Many features that were once considered accommodations are now available for all students through the online delivery platform and the commitment to universal design principles,” said August.

The majority of the proposed accommodations policies are currently in use across PARCC states. What is different from many current state accommodations manuals, however, is that the manual includes not only proposed participation and accommodations policies for students with disabilities and English learners, but also information about tools that will be provided through PARCC’s computer-based assessment delivery system for all students.

(Next page: Reaction to the manual)“Although the accessibility features available on the PARCC Assessments are based on universal design principles as applied to assessments, and are intended to increase access for most students, many students with disabilities may need additional accommodations when taking the PARCC assessments,” the manual notes.

“Concerns for English learners and their diverse needs were taken into account since I have been involved with this process,” said Gary Cook, a member of the PARCC Technical Working Group for English learners and an associate research scientist at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research. Cook noted that decisions were based on current research in the English language learners field.

“These brochures will be a great resource for parents and teachers,” said Otha Thornton, National PTA president. Thornton added that the release will “allow parents and teachers of these children access to the quality information they need to make decisions about improving learning outcomes.”

“The brochures will help parents and teachers become informed participants in the critical conversations that will be held in states and districts,” said Joanne Cashman, director of the IDEA Partnership at the National Association of State Directors of Special Education. PARCC will also release brochures for parents and teachers of English learners later this year.

On January 16, 2013, PARCC initially released two draft accommodations policies for public comment, the reading access accommodation and the calculator use accommodation. On February 8, PARCC released the draft accommodations policy for writing access. Between April 18 and May 13, 2013, PARCC released the draft manual for a public comment period. These comments drove the many changes that were made to the document before the first addition was approved by the PARCC Governing Board on June 26, 2013.

In fall 2013, PARCC will release full administrative guidance in support of the policies released today. These guidelines are designed by the states with input from leading experts and will support states and districts in the implementation of the policies. Additional policy and guidance on assistive technology is also in development.

At a time when the job of principal has become more demanding and less attractive to some aspiring leaders, a new report details how six urban districts are training and retaining school leadership talent.

“The importance of principals to lead education reform, such as the Common Core State Standards and teacher evaluation, has been documented in research and demonstrated in these six districts,” said Jody Spiro, The Wallace Foundation’s director of education leadership. “There is much that they can and should do to support principals, including setting high performance standards, ensuring that leaders are well prepared and supported.”

The report, “Building a Stronger Principalship: Six Districts Begin the Principal Pipeline Initiative ^[3],” is the first of several reports that are part of a multi-year evaluation conducted by Policy Studies Associates ^[4] and the RAND Corporation ^[5].

Over time, the researchers will measure the effects on schools and student achievement of principals who have emerged from these pipelines.

(Next page: Why districts are changing tactics)

This first report finds that the districts share several common purposes:

• District leaders in several sites want a larger pool of strong principal candidates due to a decline in the number of quality of applicants.
• District leaders want to roll out evaluations that can hold principals accountable. Yet, in several districts, accountability has resulted in principal dismissals, which have increased demand for new principals while making the job seem less secure to applicants.
• To find new qualified applicants, district leaders want to start as early as possible in educators’ careers, reaching into the teaching force to cultivate leadership talent.
• All districts are developing standards for the principalship and aligning training, hiring, evaluation, and professional development to them. One district called these standards “the driving force.”

Research for the initial report is based on the collection and analysis of qualitative data, including the districts’ proposals, work plans, and progress reports and semi-structured interviews in spring 2012 with 91 administrators employed by districts and their partner institutions.

The six districts, which serve thousands of low-income students, are Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, N.C.; Denver Public Schools; Gwinnett County Public Schools, Ga.; Hillsborough County Public Schools, Fla.; New York City Department of Education; and Prince George’s County Public Schools, Md.

An example of the extreme demand for high-quality principals can be seen in New York City, which needs to hire as many as 200 principals a year.

“These school districts, like other nationwide, face a problem: They need strong principals, but it’s a demanding job that, in some places, offers little job security,” explained lead author Brenda Turnbull of Policy Studies Associates. “They want to bring in new principals who are ready to meet those challenges.”

(Next page: How they’re changing their strategies)

The six districts are participating in The Wallace Foundation’s ^[6] $75-million Principal Pipeline Initiative, a multi-year effort supporting the districts and training partners as they strengthen and align the four key parts of a pipeline:

1. Leader standards: In an effort to recruit qualified principals, the six districts are clarifying standards for principals and translating them into required job skills. District officials are working to align principal preparation, hiring, evaluation, and support to these standards. This is a change from the past when each of these functions evolved separately and didn’t always reinforce each other.

2. Pre-service training: Participating districts are creating or strengthening training partnerships with one or more universities, and universities are aligning their curricula with districts’ leadership standards. This collaboration is significant because all too often districts feel that local universities’ graduates don’t meet district hiring needs. Yet some pre-service university training programs remain relatively un-selective, meaning that people who will never be hired are earning credentials.

3. Selective hiring procedures: Pipeline districts are now basing their hiring criteria on the leader standards and, overall, making hiring procedures for principals much more selective. In Denver, for example, candidates must create a professional development plan for a school. And in Prince George’s County, applicants now analyze videos and different scenarios, and personal recommendations are less likely to determine whether someone is hired. Unsuccessful candidates receive information about their identified weaknesses so they can address deficiencies.

4. On-the-job evaluation and support for principals: While principal evaluations are still a relatively new area in education reform, all six districts are working to align evaluation and support for novice principals. Each district’s standards and competencies for principals will provide a common basis for evaluation criteria and will help determine the support principals receive. Districts are developing evaluations that identify gaps in skill, knowledge, or behavior that principal supervisors or coaches can help principals address on the job.

“This first evaluation can provide school districts, especially complex urban districts, with descriptive lessons about how to address current challenges in hiring and retaining qualified instructional leaders,” said Edward Pauly, Wallace’s director of research and evaluation. “Each year we will learn more about how districts implement their pipelines, including progress made on improving principal training, hiring, and evaluation practices.”

He continued: “Ultimately, the research team will determine whether building a stronger principal pipeline improves student achievement across the district. Stay tuned.”

 

The percentage of U.S. students living in poverty jumped by 40 percent in the last decade, and total funding for K-12 education dropped by $1 billion from 2008-09 to 2009-10. Yet, despite these challenges, high school graduation rates are slowly climbing—and more students are completing math and science courses, according to the latest figures from the National Center on Education Statistics.

Released May 23, “The Condition of Education 2013 ^[7]”—the latest in an annual series of reports from NCES, a branch of the U.S. Department of Education—is chock full of valuable statistics for policy makers and education leaders. Here are seven findings of particular significance for K-12 education.

1. Public school enrollment is projected to increase by 7 percent from 2010-11 to 2021-22.

From school years 2010-11 through 2021-22, public elementary and secondary school enrollment is projected to increase by 7 percent overall, from 49.5 to 53.1 million students. But changes will vary widely across states, ranging from a projected increase of 22 percent in Alaska to a decrease of 15 percent in the District of Columbia.

In grades preK-8, enrollment is projected to increase by more than 20 percent in Alaska, Nevada, Arizona, and Washington but decrease by 11 and 13 percent, respectively, in the District of Columbia and West Virginia. Enrollment in grades 9-12 is expected to increase by more than 20 percent in Texas, while enrollment in these grades in the District of Columbia is projected to decrease by 20 percent or more.

2. The percentage of students living in poverty has risen sharply.

The percentage of students living in poverty in the United States rose sharply in the last decade, from 15 percent in 2000 to 21 percent in 2011, according to NCES data. This rise comes after a decade in which the percentage of students living in poverty had declined, from 17 percent in 1990 to 15 percent in 2000.

From 2000 to 2011, all regions experienced an increase in the percentage of school-age children living in poverty. The percentage of school-age children living in poverty in 2011 ranged across the United States from 9 percent in North Dakota to 30 percent in the District of Columbia. The South had the highest rate of poverty for school-age children (23 percent), followed by the West (21 percent), Midwest (19 percent), and Northeast (17 percent).

3. State revenues for K-12 education are declining, leading to an overall drop in school funding.

From school years 2000-01 through 2009-10, total K-12 public school funding increased from $522 billion to $627 billion—a 20-percent increase, adjusting for inflation. From school years 2008-09 through 2009-10, however, total revenues for public elementary and secondary schools decreased by about $1 billion.

The federal stimulus led to a spike in support from the federal government, but it wasn’t enough to offset a sharp decline in state revenues during the same period, NCES data show.

4. The percentage of U.S. public schools students who are English Language Learners increased from 9 percent in 2002-03 to 10 percent in 2010-11.

ELLs are on the rise, growing by more than 10 percent in the last decade. The percentage of ELL students in public schools was higher in 2010-11 than in 2002-03 in all but 12 states, with the largest percentage-point increases occurring in Kansas, South Carolina, Hawaii, and Nevada (all with 4 percentage points) and the largest percentage-point decreases occurring in Arizona (8 percentage points) and New Mexico (6 percentage points).

The percentage of ELL students in public schools was higher in 2010-11 than in 2009-10 in just over half of the states (28 states), with the largest increase in percentage points occurring in Nevada (3 percentage points) and the largest decrease in percentage points occurring in Minnesota (2 percentage points).

This trend has huge implications for instruction and achievement. In 2011, the achievement gaps between ELL and non-ELL students in the NAEP reading assessment were 36 points at the 4th-grade level and 44 points at the 8th-grade level, NCES said.

5. The percentage of special-education students being served in traditional classrooms has increased significantly.

The number of youth ages 3-21 receiving special-education services was 6.4 million in 2010-11, or about 13 percent of all public school students. That’s actually down from 2004-5, when there were 6.7 million students receiving special-ed services, or about 14 percent of the total public school enrollment.

However, a much greater percentage of these students are now being taught in a general-education classroom environment, as compared to 1990-91. That year, fewer than 40 percent of special-ed students spent at least 80 percent of their time in a general-ed classroom; in 2010-11, more than 60 percent did.

6. Despite all these challenges, high school graduation rates are on the rise.

In the 2009–10 school year, some 3.1 million public high school students, or 78.2 percent, graduated on time with a regular diploma. That’s up from 75.5 percent in 2008-09 and 72.6 percent in 2001-02.

There are still troubling gaps in high school graduations rates across ethnicities, though. Among all public high school students, Asian/Pacific Islanders had the highest graduation rate in 2009-10 (93.5 percent), followed by Whites (83.0 percent), Hispanics (71.4 percent), American Indian/ Alaska Natives (69.1 percent), and Blacks (66.1 percent).

7. The percentage of students taking high school math and science courses also has risen.

The percentages of high school graduates who had taken math courses in algebra I, geometry, algebra II/trigonometry, analysis/precalculus, statistics/ probability, and calculus all increased from 1990 to 2009.

Similarly, the percentages of high school graduates who had taken science courses in chemistry and physics also increased between 1990 and 2009.

The 9th annual ALAS Summit on Hispanic Education is an opportunity for K-12 leaders to explore, address, and examine issues, best practices, resources, and successes in the education of ELL students with an emphasis on Hispanic youth.

Those who attend will experience dynamic keynote speakers and break-out sessions chosen to meet the specific challenges facing school and district leaders. The conference takes place Oct. 10-13 at the InterContinental Hotel in Miami, Florida.

Pre-conference Site Visits To High Performing Miami-Dade County Public Schools

A highlight of the 9th Annual ALAS Summit on Hispanic Education is our Miami-Dade school visits to see first-hand “what works: in urban education settings. View listings, schedule and additional information.

Online registration for site visits

If you have already registered for the summit and would like to be a part of the school visits, please go back to the registration page and add your site visit option and pay the additional $30. Please note that Imagine Learning School visit is complimentary. To register for this school only, go to www.imaginelearning.com/alas ^[8].

Keynote and Featured Speakers Include:

•        Dr. Bill Daggett – Founder and Chairman, International Center for Leadership in Education
•        Mr. Alberto Carvalho – Superintendent, Miami-Dade County Public Schools
•        Mr. Tony Plana – Movie and Television Actor and International Speaker
•        Dr. Joanne Urrutia – U.S. Department of Education
•        Ms. Martha Kanter – Under Secretary of Education
•        Ms. Jeannette Torres-Alvarez – Author and Television Personality – sponsored by Discovery Education

For more information, on summit, hotel, sponsorship, visit us online at www.alasedu.net ^[9]

It’s usually the editors’ job at eSchool News to create our own “Question of the Week” for our newsletters, but a few weeks ago we received a request from a reader that we ask our followers: “What are some ways technology helps in the education of ELL students?”

From award-winning software, to a teacher-created program that needs peer input, our readers offered some useful ways in which technology can help English-language learners and those for whom English is a second language. Here are six of the best responses (edited for brevity).

“One great way technology can help ESL students is to provide online English language teaching drills and interactive lessons in language arts. I have developed a program for this that can also be tweaked to better serve English language learners. It is not for sale just yet, because I need to pilot it and I’m looking for some schools to test it. Please check out my website ^[10] and you’ll see what I’m talking about (any feedback you can provide will be greatly appreciated).

“I am a Spanish teacher, and this is a totally new endeavor for me. The technology we used is low-grade, so it might not sound like it was done in a studio, but it’s sufficient to attract students’ attention, keep them on task, and reach their learning comfort zones. The need is so great for poor readers and migrant students to have an effective language teaching program at their disposal. I hope I will be able to provide that.” —Debra Buffington-Adams, author of the Mastery Reading program, New Heights Educational Services

“[I’m] using DynEd ^[11] software to ensure tracking [of] student progress and teaching with technology. Knowing the products that work, seeing the research of their proven results, and making powerful decisions to teach ELL students effectively [are key].” —Louise Eggert-Nevins

“Without sounding self-serving, I do know that quite a few teachers (ESL/ELL) in K-12 are using PicLits ^[12] to teach both Spanish/English and English/Spanish writing skills. There are two methods of writing: DRAG-N-DROP & FREESTYLE. The DRAG-N-DROP has drop-down arrows that allow for verb tenses and capitalization. D-N-D seems most effective for grammar, punctuation, spelling, and vocabulary.  FREESTYLE has a more open and creative feel, but both bring to the forefront the importance of writing. We hope to offer the site in Spanish by the end of 2012. We get dozens of PicLits per week that are written in Spanish.” —Terry Friedlander, founder, PicLits.com, Ketchum, Idaho

“At Odyssey Middle School and many other schools in Orange County Public Schools, ELL students have the opportunity to use the Rosetta Stone ^[13] program. As this is an online-based program, students are able to access it both at school and at home. I have seen immense language proficiency in many of our students! Some have shown incredible growth on the FCAT (state test) after only one year learning English with the help of Rosetta Stone.” —Linda Torres, ELL compliance/reading teacher, Odyssey Middle School, Orange County Public Schools, Fla.

“Non-native English students have difficulty understanding their teacher even under ideal classroom listening conditions. Background noise and sitting far from the teacher—unavoidable conditions in many classrooms—make it even harder. In fact, the speech perception accuracy and listening effort of children who are not native English speakers is similar to children who have 25 to 40 dB hearing losses.

“ELL students in FrontRow ^[14] classrooms are understanding up to 60 percent better than children in the non-amplified classrooms. According to Carl Crandell and other researchers at the University of Florida, ‘amplification significantly improved the perceptual abilities of ESL children.’ By ensuring that the teacher’s voice is clarified and evenly distributed around the classroom, FrontRow sound systems can be tremendously helpful to English language learners—who have particularly strong speech perception difficulties when seated in the middle or rear of the classroom. See the study. ^[15]” —Stephanie Seufert for FrontRow

[Editor’s note: Many other companies offer classroom amplification systems as well, including (but not limited to) Audio Enhancement ^[16], Califone ^[17], Crestron ^[18], Extron Electronics ^[19], Lightspeed Technologies ^[20], Promethean ^[21], and SMART Technologies ^[22].]

“Animation and technology are universal languages—that’s why they’re the perfect tools for teaching English to non-native speakers. BrainPOP ESL is an award-winning online English language teaching tool. It is a comprehensive, web-based program that combines animated movies, interactive features, and computer skills as it guides students through English language development. Through lively, engaging content, it is designed to teach English to beginning language learners and advance to a sophisticated level of knowledge and competency in both language and academic content.

“By lowering the affective filter, social and academic learning can be reinforced. As a result, students learn English in a fun, non-threatening platform, and practice computer skills at the same time. BrainPOP ESL was developed by experienced language educators and is designed to address the needs of students with diverse learning styles, and at various levels. Check it out: http://www.brainpopesl.com/ ^[23].” —Beverly Fine for BrainPOP ESL

“Parent trigger” laws, first passed in California and then elsewhere in the country, typically state that over 50 percent of the parents in a school or schools “feeding into” that school can sign a petition demanding that the district either convert the school into a charter, close it, hire a new principal, or bring in new staff, says Larry Ferlazzo, English teacher at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California, for the Washington Post. The first attempt at implementing the law—in the predominantly low-income city of Compton in southern California—was unsuccessful…

Click here for the full story ^[24]