Famous rapper and British chef create “Dream School”

The Sundance Channel announced recently the greenlight of a new non-fiction television series, produced by rapper 50 Cent, called “Dream School,” which centers around troubled teens who are paired up with mentors from various professions including musicians, politicians, and more.

The premise of the show is something like this: What would happen if the kids who were the hardest to reach in conventional school, instead attended a place of learning where the educators were achievers and leaders–many of whom have become household names? In “Dream School,” classes are taught by professionals from the top of their fields-and the faculty includes professional musicians, politicians, filmmakers, scientists, actors and artists.

(Next page: Video trailer and Jamie Oliver)…Read More

Teacher evaluation in PreK: Using student data is risky

According to a new report, many states will soon measure student learning in the “untested grades,” meaning teacher evaluation will use data from students in prekindergarten through third grade. The report explores the risks associated with this and its potential impact on teachers?

The brief, “An Ocean of Unknowns: Risks and Opportunities in Using Student Achievement Data to Evaluate PreK-3rd Grade Teachers,” funded through grants from the Foundation for Child Development and the W. Clement and Jessie V. Stone Foundation, reports that as of 2012, 20 states and Washington, D.C. require evidence of student learning to play a role in evaluating teacher performance. As a result, better information on student learning is in high demand, and no grade level is immune.

Historically, most states have required standardized testing only in grades three through eight. But now those 21, with likely more to follow, must devise comparable ways to measure student learning in the “untested grades,” as well, including preK, kindergarten, and grades one and two. And even with testing in grade three, a lack of baseline data has implications for those teachers, too.…Read More

Innovative schools share ideas to improve learning

A network of schools is working to improve their programs and share ideas with other member schools.

Failing 9th grade for the second year in row, A.J. Swan had accepted that he wasn’t going to graduate from his Vermont high school. He’d barely made it this far, after being held back in 7th grade.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t learning, he said, but he didn’t find what he was learning important and didn’t feel a need to write it down _ as homework and papers _ to show he knew it.

“It wasn’t like a good feeling,” he said of knowing that he wouldn’t get a high school diploma.…Read More

Here’s how to scale school innovation

In a new TED talk, Adam Frankel, former executive director of Digital Promise, discusses how technology can help bring personalized learning and school innovation to scale.

After writing education speeches for President Obama, Frankel told the audience that he wanted to get “closer to the point of action,” and “wanted to enact the words on the page.”

It was tricky, Frankel said, because as Roland Fryer (the Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics at Harvard University, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, founder and faculty director of the Education Innovation Laboratory at Harvard) suggests, conventional approaches to education reform that should work—such as smaller class sizes—haven’t made a huge difference at scale.…Read More

Why video cameras and teacher evaluation do not mix

Bill Gates’ latest big idea is the creation of a new $5 billion teacher evaluation system that includes the placement of video cameras in every classroom in America, The Washington Post reports. (I wrote about it here.) The folks at the Gates Foundation seem a bit dismayed at how this proposal has been received. “Bill Gates’ School Panopticon,” wrote Walt Gardner, raising fears of the ever-watchful eye. The dilemma we face is that the Gates Foundation has embedded a collaborative feedback process into an evaluation system, against a backdrop of a campaign to rid our schools of “ineffective teachers.” Teachers must feel a level of safety and trust with their colleagues before they will open themselves up to the sort of critical feedback they envision. That trust is not likely to be found in the context of measurement, supervision and evaluation now being built. Therefore, this project is unlikely to have the positive effects that Bill Gates envisions…

Read the full story

…Read More

How to train students’ brains for the Common Core

The Common Core State Standards ask students to perform with higher levels of cognition and application, and brain training and specific teaching methods can help students succeed with these new standards, experts say.

According to Margaret Glick, a neuroscience expert and educational consultant at the International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE), the Common Core State Standards and the accompanying assessments will cognitively require more than past standards.

“They will require a deep understanding of content, complex performances, real-world application, habits of mind to persevere, higher levels of cognition and cognitive flexibility,” Glick said during “The Common Core State Standards and the Brain,” a webinar sponsored by the Learning Enhancement Corporation.…Read More

Report: Here’s how to fix school funding

Until the current school funding model is redesigned to one that is based on students instead of on institutions, even the most potentially revolutionary educational models will fail, according to a new financial report.

The report, “Funding Students, Options, and Achievement,” part of  Digital Learning Now’s Smart Series, stresses that today’s school finance system was not created with the flexibility needed to support the wave of educational innovations, such as online learning, spreading across the U.S.

“Decades of layering on attempted fixes to a broken system have only created a funding structure that is fraught with a growing list of problems,” the report says. “Today’s broken school finance system stifles innovation; locks in outdated delivery models; restricts universal student access to divers, high-quality learning opportunities; and ignores the relationship between spending and student outcomes.”…Read More

Education, STEM receive boost in federal budget proposal

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) would see a 4.6 percent boost in discretionary funding, to $71.2 billion, under President Obama’s proposed 2014 budget, which focuses on STEM education and emphasizes early education in a proposed partnership with states that would ensure access to high-quality preschools for 4-year-olds.

The budget proposes a “major reorganization effort” that would see ED partner with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other federal agencies to boost the impact of STEM education investments.

Obama has put forth a recommendation for a $150 million STEM Innovation Networks program, which would create effective strategies to boost and strengthen STEM education, direct $35 million to create a STEM Master Teacher Corps, and allocate $80 million to recruit and train STEM teachers for high-need schools.…Read More

Could your school lead in world rankings?

A new test from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) will let individual schools see how their achievement ranks compared to schools in other countries around the world. The goal, say the creators, is to spur school improvement.

According to a recent report released by the nonprofit educational organization America Achieves, it’s not just low-income schools in the U.S. that have poor performance—it’s the country’s middle-class students, too.

“While the need for educational improvement in low-income communities is real and important, this new report suggests that the need also extends deeply into America’s middle class,” the organization maintains.…Read More

Like kids, Virginia schools will get letter grades

Students will not be the only ones who may dread showing their grades to parents. Starting in 2014, each Virginia public school will get a very public letter grade ranging from A to F, the Virginia Gazette reports. On the last day of the legislative session, the General Assembly passed a bill creating a system to rate each school on an A-to-F grading scale based on student performance. The final version of House Bill 1999 was approved Saturday on a 22-17 vote in the Senate and a 65-31 vote in the House. This version had been negotiated through a conference committee of members from both chambers…

Click here for the full story

…Read More

Does school reform perpetuate inequity?

Many critics of modern school reform say that while reform efforts are intended to close achievement gaps and provide equitable educational experiences for all students, they are having the opposite effect. The Washington Post features that argument by Paul Thomas, an associate professor of education at Furman University in South Carolina. This appeared on his blog, the becoming radical…

Click here for the full story

…Read More

A 15-year-old student’s ed reform plan: Self-directed learning

Arooj Ahmad is a high-achieving 15-year-old high school sophomore at Libertyville High School in suburban Chicago who has taken a focused interest in reforming the U.S. education system, which he calls outdated, he reports in the Washington Post. He says that schools spend too much time forcing students to memorize a mountain of facts rather than teaching relevant knowledge that can help them select a career path and function well as adults. In this post he explains what he thinks is wrong with school and how he would fix the system…

Click here for the full story

…Read More