Florida

Putting Education Reform To The Test

This Week In Education Polling

New school year, new education polls -- often with conflicting results.

Martin Deutsch / Flickr

New school year, new education polls -- often with conflicting results.

The start of the school year in Florida and many parts of the country has meant a glut of new education polls asking about shared education standards, standardized testing, teacher evaluations and policies adopted by Florida and other states.

The most noteworthy poll is the annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll of education issues. This is the 45th year of the poll. The poll sampled 1,001 adults and had a margin of error of 3.8 percent.

The PDK/Gallup poll found broad belief that two major education reforms will have little effect on U.S. schools.

Just 22 percent of respondents said the increased use of standardized testing to measure school performance has helped. 36 percent of those who responded said the testing has hurt schools, while 41 percent said it made no difference.

Florida is one of 45 states which has fully adopted new education standards known as Common Core, but the PDK/Gallup poll shows only 38 percent of those responding had heard of Common Core. Even for those with children in public schools, less than half were familiar with Common Core.

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Three Questions For Teachers About Common Core Standards, Part 2

Alexis Hill teaches at Thomas P. Corr Elementary in Hillsborough County.

John O'Connor / StateImpact Florida

Alexis Hill teaches at Thomas P. Corr Elementary in Hillsborough County.

As we’ve attended summer training sessions for teachers on new Common Core State Standards, we’ve been asking teachers the same three questions.

Florida is one of 45 states to fully adopt the Common Core State Standards, which outline what students are expected to know in math and English at the end of each grade. Every grade in Florida is scheduled to use the standards beginning next school year.

Yesterday we published the answers of two teachers. Here’s what another two teachers think about Common Core.

Name: Alexis Hill

School: Thomas P. Corr Elementary in Hillsborough County

Teaches: 2nd grade

Experience: 7 years

Q: How well prepared do you feel for the switch to Common Core?

A: It’s going to be new this year for second grade, so it will definitely still be new ideas and new standards and things are changing – but they constantly change in education. It’s different, but I still feel like we are getting trainings. It started throughout last school year and then the opportunity for the summer trainings have been tremendous. There’s been lots of availabilities for you to come in. And just today I walked in and they found a training for me. The opportunity is there for us. It’ll be new, but I feel like we’ve been prepared.

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New Data Raises Questions About Advanced Placement Courses

New Advanced Placement data suggests little benefit for student taking Advanced Placement courses who can't pass the final exam.

William and Mary School of Education

New Advanced Placement data suggests little benefit for student taking Advanced Placement courses who can't pass the final exam.

Students failed nearly 1.3 million Advanced Placement exams last year, according to an analysis by Politico. And the overall passage rate for the exams has declined since 2002.

In addition, The College Board, the nonprofit which administers the Advanced Placement exams, said research no longer supports the idea that students benefit just by taking the more difficult classes. Instead, research now shows students only benefit if they earn a passing score of 3 or higher on the exam.

Florida is among the states pushing more students to take accelerated coursework such as Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate. The state grading formula for high schools gives credit for the percentage of students taking an AP or other accelerated course.

UPDATE: Low-income Florida students have been more successful, with nearly 28 percent passing at least one AP exam in 2012. Just 7 percent passed an exam in 2003.

Here’s the key graphs from the Politico story:

The trend challenges a widespread philosophy that students exposed to higher standards will find a way to meet them. Graded in part by college professors, AP exams provide a fairly objective measure of performance — and the results suggest that when the bar is raised too high, a good number of students trip.

“Well-meaning policy makers encourage Advanced Placement in order to set high expectations,” said Kristin Klopfenstein, an education professor who has studied AP trends and now runs the Education Innovation Institute at the University of Northern Colorado. “But their eagerness for expansion has gotten ahead of the support systems in place for these kids.”

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What Education Experts Said About Tony Bennett’s Resignation

The Oscar Wilde statue in Dublin. Wilde was almost as quotable as some of the education experts in this month's Whiteboard Advisors survey.

Stephane Moussie / Flickr

The Oscar Wilde statue in Dublin. Wilde was almost as quotable as some of the education experts in this month's Whiteboard Advisors survey.

Every month, Washington, D.C.-based education policy firm Whiteboard Advisors anonymously survey “insiders” about their views on education issues.

August’s survey is all about former Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett.

Whiteboard’s insiders were evenly split — 50/50 — on whether Bennett should have resigned.

Whiteboard also asked about the effect Bennett’s resignation will have on Common Core State Standards, whether Florida will ditch the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers and other issues — and that’s where the fun starts. Even usually boring eduwonks can become as quotable as Oscar Wilde when granted anonymity.

You can read the full survey here, but this is a sampling of the most interesting questions and answers:

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Three Questions For Teachers About Common Core Standards, Part 1

Tricia Craig teaches at Walden Elementary School in Hillsborough County.

John O'Connor / StateImpact Florida

Tricia Craig teaches at Walden Elementary School in Hillsborough County.

Yesterday we told you that we spent a lot of time at summer Common Core training sessions for teachers.

One of the things we were curious about is how teachers felt about the new education standards fully adopted by Florida and 44 other states.

We asked teachers the same three questions about Common Core as they prepared for next year’s deadline to use the standards in every Florida classroom.

Name: Tricia Craig

School: Walden Lake Elementary in Hillsborough County

Teaches: Fifth grade

Experience: 11 years

Q: How well prepared do you feel for the switch to Common Core?

A: I feel totally prepared. This summer I had taken the math and the reading, and I feel like before anything else this is the first time that we switched over standards that I’m ready. We’re not really rolling them out until the following year, but I’m excited to implement the things that can be implemented this year. Because they have given us so much background in the ‘Whys?’ that it’s going to be easy.

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Five Things We Learned About Common Core This Summer

Venice High School English teachers, from left, Larry Burke, Kathleen Jones and LaRay Biziawski write a learning goal at a recent Common Core training. Venice High School assistant principal Joshua Leinweber, in the blue shirt, joined them.

John O'Connor / StateImpact Florida

Venice High School English teachers, from left, Larry Burke, Kathleen Jones and LaRay Biziawski write a learning goal at a recent Common Core training. Venice High School assistant principal Joshua Leinweber, in the blue shirt, joined them.

We spent a lot of time this summer watching and listening as Florida school districts trained teachers about what to expect when the state makes the full switch to new education standards next year.

Florida is one of 45 states to fully adopt the Common Core State Standards, which outline what students are expected to know in math and English at the end of each grade. The standards also put more emphasis on reading and writing in other subjects.

Here’s five things we learned:

1. Common Core Will Turn The Keys Over To The Students

This is probably the most important change we noticed.

Common Core emphasizes that students know the underlying concepts, and not just the formula for how to reach an answer.

Hillsborough County teaching coach Cynthia Crim put it this way for several hundred teachers at a Frost Elementary School math training: Don’t tell students area equals length times width, and then have them calculate it ten times. Ask questions that lead them to discover the formula on their own or working with classmates.

“We’re going to have students explore different patterns; And we’re going to be asking questions that really require students to think and discover patterns within numbers,” Crim said. “You are going to have to be really strategic in what problem you’re showing to your students for them to see patterns.”

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Back-To-School Scenes From Across Florida

After a long, humid summer, kids across the state are waking up and getting ready to go back to school this week.

One of those students, 16-year-old Keri Grigas, started her junior year at South Broward High School this morning. Listen to her bus-stop interview with us from this morning:

Keri later met up with us at the bus stop after school to tell us how the day went:

Keri Grigas started her junior year on Monday.

Sammy Mack / StateImpact Florida

Keri Grigas started her junior year on Monday.

For your reading pleasure, we’ve also rounded up a few more of our favorite small moments from the big day back. Feel free to share your own in the comments.

The Miami Herald tagged along with an upbeat elementary schooler.

The sun had barely risen, but Gillian Pons, donning pink shoes, a golden uniform top and a blue hair ribbon to match her shoelaces, was already feeling chipper about the morning ahead.

“It’s a great day!” said the 9-year-old as she walked with her family en route to Cypress Elementary, where the first day of fourth grade awaited.

In Central Florida, City Year volunteers tried to energize their students.

“Get loose. Get funky. Get started with your knees!” chanted Will Phillips, the leader of the team, whose members will focus on mentoring students in third-grade and above to approve attendance, academics and behavior at the D-rated, low-income school.

“If I can get the to dance with us, I can hopefully get them to improve their grades as well,” Phillips said. “It takes the whole school to keep students excited.”

In Plantation, Anjan Joshi had a glass half full this time around.

“I feel very happy, it’s not that depressing this time,” said Anjan, a fourth-grader at Nova Eisenhower Elementary in Davie.

The Tampa Bay Times captured beginning butterflies—in a teacher.

In the pre-kindergarten classroom at Sanderlin Elementary School in St. Petersburg, the teacher was as nervous as the students.

“I put a lot of pressure on myself to do things perfectly,” said Ashley Cooley, 23, of her first-full-time teaching job. “Since I woke up this morning, nervous, I’ve been drinking lots of water and taking nice slow breaths.”

And a brave kindergartner found her place in a classroom in Escambia County.

Across the room, Aysha Rembert, 5, settled in at a table with two other kids.

Aysha said she is excited about starting school.

“I want to listen to my teacher like a big girl,” she said.

 

Classroom Contemplations: Why Teachers Leave The Classroom

Half of all teachers leave the classroom within five years, according to one study.

dpapworth / Flickr

Half of all teachers leave the classroom within five years, according to one study.

We all agree that every student should have good teachers.

I think we also agree that there are three ways to improve the teaching force:

  • We must get “bad” teachers who cannot or will not improve out of the classroom

  • We must help “mediocre” teachers improve.

  • We must keep “good” teachers in the classroom.

Now, time for some of the critical thinking we ask of our students: Of these strategies, which is the easiest?

I would argue that it’s the third. It simply requires us to keep people in the classroom who are already there.

So, how are we doing with this?

Richard Ingersoll, a professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, has done a lot of work looking at the changing workforce of teaching. He has found that nearly half of all teachers leave the profession within the first five years.

Half.

We’re not doing a bad job at retaining teachers. We’re doing an abysmal job.

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Tony Bennett’s Last-Minute School Grade Changes Benefited 165 Indiana Schools

StateImpact Indiana found 165 schools benefited from former state superintendent Tony Bennett's changes to the state grading system in 2012.

Kyle Stokes / StateImpact Indiana

StateImpact Indiana found 165 schools benefited from former state superintendent Tony Bennett's changes to the state grading system in 2012.

Our colleagues at StateImpact Indiana have crunched the numbers and found that 165 schools benefited from changes to the school grading formula former Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett made in 2012 while the elected leaders of Hoosier State schools.

Much of the focus has been on emails between Bennett and staff which revealed Bennett’s concern that a prominent charter school had failed to earn an A grade.

But StateImpact Indiana’s Kyle Stokes found the changes Bennett sought had a much broader effect:

After studying last year’s A-F rating data, a StateImpact analysis has identified 165 schools across the state — including Christel House — that saw higher final grades than they would have if Bennett’s staff hadn’t tweaked the formula roughly six weeks before releasing 2012′s results.

But it’s unclear whether what the finding could mean for Bennett’s legacy in Indiana or for the future of the state’s system for issuing performance ratings to schools — a system now undergoing its second re-write in as many years.

Does the finding support the case against Bennett, suggesting he manipulated the grading system to make these changes? Or does it bolster his defense, showing Bennett’s staff made a sincere effort to fix problems with the system that extend beyond Christel House’s grade?

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What A School Grade Means To Parents

Florida’s system of giving schools grades from A-to-F has been in the spotlight this summer.

First, state officials made last-minute changes to the A-to-F formula, preventing more than 150 schools from dropping to F grades.

What's in a school grade? We asked parents.

Sammy Mack / StateImpact Florida

What's in a school grade? We asked parents.

Then, Florida’s education commissioner Tony Bennett resigned over reports that he manipulated school grades in Indiana when he was in charge of schools there.

Florida pioneered the A thru F school grade system in 1999. But now, even supporters are saying it’s time to revisit the formula.

With school about to start back up, we reached out to parents through the Public Insight Network and asked: What does a school’s grade even mean to you?

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