Back to School

Some 45 per cent of schools inspected by Ofsted in the last eight months were ranked no better than “satisfactory”, it was disclosed.

More than one-in-20 primary or secondary schools were declared inadequate – the watchdog’s lowest possible rating.

Ofsted insisted the figures were skewed by a new hard-line inspection regime – implemented for the first time in 2009 – which focuses more attention on weak schools and places a greater emphasis on classroom teaching and pupils’ results.

But the disclosure will fuel fresh fears that school standards are still not good enough after 13 years of a Labour government.

It cames as Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, was due to use a speech in Birmingham on Thursday to criticise the “low expectations culture” in some schools.

He will say that Britain risks losing ground to rapidly-developing economies in Asia unless the pace of improvement in the education system is accelerated.

In an attempt to wipe out failing schools, the Coalition will set a tough new exam target for every state secondary to meet by 2015. Within four years, all schools should ensure at least half of pupils finish compulsory education with five A* to C grade GCSEs, including the key subjects of English and maths.

Currently, almost a third of England 3,100 secondary schools fall below the benchmark. They could be closed or turned into independent academies under the leadership of a third-party sponsor if they fail to improve.

But Christine Gilbert, Ofsted’s chief inspector, suggested many were making good progress.

“Ofsted’s current school inspection arrangements set out to be more challenging to schools, so it is encouraging to see 54 per cent were judged good or outstanding,” she said. “Greater involvement of head teachers and senior staff in the inspection process is helping schools better understand areas for development and action.”

Ofsted’s latest figures chart standards at schools inspected between September 2010 and April this year – the autumn and spring terms.

According to figures, 39 per cent of schools were satisfactory and six per cent were inadequate – the bottom two rankings on a four-point scale.

Some 44 per cent of schools were good and 10 per cent were outstanding.

Comparable figures from last year showed 13 per cent of schools were outstanding, 43 per cent were good, 37 per cent were satisfactory and eight per cent were inadequate.

In 2008/9 – before Ofsted’s tough inspection regime was introduced – just 32 per cent of schools were placed in the bottom two categories compared with 45 per cent currently.

The District issued a press release this afternoon saying that as a result of “positive conversations” with unions, “the District will not be making a recommendation to the SRC to cancel any union contracts on July 1.” The SRC meets Friday at 11 a.m.

UPDATE: But Kristen Graham at the Inquirer reports that Nadine Bonner, a Philadelphia Federation of Teachers’ spokesperson, said, “We are not aware of negotiations.”

UPDATE: Graham also reports that Michael Lodise of the school police officers union says he is not in negotiations with the District.

UPDATE: “>Graham reports that Local 1201 says they are having “continuing discussions” with the District. Local 1201 represents bus drivers, building engineers, and cleaners.

The District is counting on saving $75 million from concessions from its five unions.  Yesterday District Chief Financial Officer Michael Masch said that if the District needs to cut that $75 million from elsewhere in the budget, it could involve 800 more layoffs. The state takeover law gives the SRC the power to cancel collective bargaining agreements, but that power has never been exercised.

SALEM — Dena Hellums didn’t teach for more than 15 days last year even though she was with her students in the classroom. Instead she watched the middle schoolers take state standardized tests for a second time — and for some a third — even though many of her students had already passed the exams.

It’s lost instructional time that Hellums wishes she had back.

That may be less of a problem in the future. Senate Bill 801, which passed the state Legislature Thursday and awaits the governor’s approval, directs the Department of Education to adopt guidelines for administering statewide tests, including recommendations to avoid losing instructional time to over-testing. The changes are part of an effort to ensure standardized testing doesn’t deteriorate curriculum and dominate time as well as ensuring educators effectively use the tests as tools.

“Considering Oregon already has one of the shortest school years in the country — and that’s before furloughs — it’s really tough to lose that much time,” said Hellums, who teaches seventh grade language arts at Reynolds Middle School.

Oregon requires students to take computerized tests in math, reading, science and writing. Generally, two tests are given at least once a year and up to three times. District-level policies direct how often students take the tests.

Because students who “exceed” state standards are given extra weight in the formula for a school’s report card, many schools test multiple times a year, hoping to increase their ratings. It’s a policy the Department of Education is reconsidering, said spokeswoman Crystal Greene.

In 2009-10, 68 percent of students took the reading test a second time and 72 percent retook the math test — even though 28 percent of all Oregon students who took the tests a second time had already met or exceeded state standards, the Department of Education reported.

“That means less time for students to work on areas they need to improve on,” Hellums said. “The students get really burnt out on it, too.”

Based on state statistics, most of Hellums’ students should complete the test within 80 to 105 minutes — or about two days of a 48-minute class period — not 140 to 175 minutes over four or five days, said Tony Alpert, director of assessment and accountability for the Department of Education.

Hellums said her testing times are the norm for other teachers at her school.

“I’ve taught for 18 years and I can absolutely say with a high degree of certainty that very few finish the test in 80 minutes,” Hellums said, conceding that her school could be an anomaly.

It’s more likely that the difference is simply the time lost walking to computer labs, reading the testing rules, logging in, logging out and walking back to the classroom before the next class, said Dana Hepper, advocacy director for Stand for Children and a former third-grade teacher.

Even if a few students do finish in day two, it’s difficult to write lesson plans for just a handful of students, Hellums said.”I will have assignments they can work on, but they are not usually part of the greater scheme.”

Hellums said the school does so much testing that 30 of 60 computers are reserved for testing nearly year round, making it difficult for teachers to schedule them for other instruction.

Lost computer labs and instructional time are part of a larger concern about standardized testing, said Yong Zhao, associate dean for global education at the University of Oregon. High scores aren’t always an indicator of future success.

He said America is a country of bad test takers — that’s why the U.S. commonly ranks poorly worldwide — yet educators everywhere flock to America, Zhao said at an April legislative hearing. They want to know how bad test takers become such great innovators and leaders on the global scale.

“‘I go to schools and ask ‘Where’s the creativity unit?’ and no one has it,” he said. “Creativity is much more than a cognitive skill. Creativity is being able to express yourself and take leadership. It cannot be taught. But it can be killed.

“U.S. schools don’t teach creativity, but we kill it less well.”

Oregon began using standardized tests in the 1980s, Alpert said, but the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, which ties funding to students’ scores, increased the stakes for schools.

“When test scores go up, we should all worry,” Zhao said. “We should ask what we have sacrificed to raise test scores.”

Fair warning: Some gross generalizations and exaggeration for emphasis follow. But some valid points I think.

I wrote my first computer program over 35 years ago. There were more women in the field back then. Not as many as their were earlier in the history of computers though. Programming was a woman’s job. The excitement, the glory, the theoretically “hard part” was in the hardware. So was the money. Computer hardware cost a lot more than computer software. Even in the 1970s when one of my professors told me that one day people would spend more money on software than hardware I was not so sure he was right. But of course he was. Good thing for me and my career. But as the money moved into software women were pushed out of the field. This was not a good thing on many levels.

When I was a student I went to a really conservative university – girls had curfews but boys didn’t. It was a long time ago. The boys tended to spend a lot of time “after hours” in the computer center working on their projects. And during hours as well. The girls not so much. They spent less time in the lab and somehow seemed to always get their projects in on time and to get good grades. In fact they got as good grades as the boys who seemed to live in the computer lab. Weird no? Perhaps not. Also in my first job out of college, mid-1970s, there were a lot of women writing code. Not quite as many as there were men but close. And the women were older, mostly married with kids and at the end of the day they easily left their work behind. And they met all their deadlines with a seaming ease that I sat in wonderment of. What was up with that? I have a theory of course. We, in the west at least, socialize women to plan and men to, well, not plan as much. Think about a high school prom. Planning for the boy means remembering to buy a ticket, perhaps organizing a Tux and showing up on time. For a girl, a whole lot more. Just the day of the prom there is scheduling when the hair is done, the nails, perhaps the makeup, where in the mix does one actually get dressed. And oh by the way she probably made sure the boy got the tickets and his tux.

This post was inspired in part by an article from Stanford (Researcher reveals how “Computer Geeks” replaced “Computer Girls”) and there is a quote from Grace Hopper that I find most interesting

As computer scientist Dr. Grace Hopper told a reporter, programming was “just like planning a dinner. You have to plan ahead and schedule everything so that it’s ready when you need it…. Women are ‘naturals’ at computer programming.”

Naturals? Maybe or maybe not. But we do force women at an early age to plan. The women I went to college with and the women I have worked with in programming jobs were all planners. My wife was a professional programmer for a number of years. Her programs pretty much always worked the first time. She was not interested in debugging. She was interested in getting things to work the first time. And so it goes. When I was teaching I saw a lot of boys (not all but a lot) programming by the “ready, fire, aim” method. Start throwing code together, check it, fix it, check it, check what the result should be and fix some more. Bug? Throw in some code and see if it fixes the problem. Girls did not follow this pattern as often. Think things out, understand the problem, plan a solution, code. test, hand in and go on with their lives.

Some days when I listen to debates about computer science vs. computer engineering I wonder if the solution is just to get more women back in the field? We are seeing tools that are designed to teach and interest, interest perhaps being the more important thing, young women in programming. The man who got Kodu rolling has a daughter as do several of his team. It is no accident that the graphics are girl friendly (while not turning young boys off either). Alice has been used, especially story telling Alice, with good results with girls. Young girls seem to love building robots with Pico Crickets among other tools. I have heard about a lot of middle school girls getting into programming through FIRST Lego league as well. The thing may be to not scare them away later.

Either way I think we need them. I do not think our male dominated ‘throw a lot of code against the wall” sort of design works. It may get us there eventually but it is wasteful of time. money and energy. Oh girls are not the whole answer. There are girls who “program like boys” and boys who “program like girls” but are we getting the right mix? I don’t think so. And besides we clearly don’t have enough top programmers (Computer science grads fielding ‘multiple job offers’) and if as many girls as boys went into the field we’d be a lot closer to having what we need. Plus we know that mixed gender times are more creative, productive and (at least in my opinion) more fun to work in.

When the new school year starts Aug. 22, among the many marching orders officials face will be trying to remove as much of one thing as possible from their schools: cash.

The Palm Beach County School District wants to expand and promote the online cashless system it unveiled two years ago, district treasurer Leanne Evans said. The cashless system allows parents to pay for their child’s lunches and other items, such as yearbooks, online with a credit card.

It limits the amount of cash flowing through our schools. It adds a lot of transparency to our system, Evans said. Between August 2010 and the end of March, students and their parents used the cashless system to pay for $6.6 million in transactions .

In response to accounting issues discovered by district auditors, such as missing records of cash collected for school fund-raising events, school board members this year asked district officials to expand the capacity of the cashless system so district officials would be handling less cash and there would be less chance for thefts.

School police and auditors recently completed an investigation of more than $13,000 missing from the safe at Congress Middle School in Boynton Beach. A few months ago, they asked the state attorney’s office to seek theft charges against the former school treasurer.

Board Chairman Frank Barbieri has said he wants to see as many cash transactions removed from schools and put onto the cashless system as possible, including payments made by community groups to lease school facilities.

The cashless system is shutdown over the summer as district officials are working on upgrading it.

Right now the only people who can use the system to make purchases are parents who log in with an account number assigned to the student. But the district is adding a public access portion that will allow anyone to make purchases for tickets to school football games, concerts and other items.

Churches and other community groups spent more than $4 million leasing school facilities last year, according to district officials. Evans said the district is working on creating an online mechanism that would allow those leases to be paid for online with credit cards next year.

Meanwhile, Evans said, she is meeting with principals over the summer to try to develop ideas to better market the existing system so more parents and students use it.

While some schools had more than 40 percent of their students using the cashless system last year, according to a district report, seven schools had less than 1 percent of students use it.

Pleasant City Elementary School in West Palm Beach was the lowest with 0.25 percent of students using the system. Evans said some of the issues with utilization have to do with students and parents in poorer areas lacking access to computers and credit cards.

Don Estridge High Tech Middle School in Boca Raton had the highest utilization, with 60.5 percent, or 744 of the 1,229 students, using it.

We really encourage it, said Don Estridge Principal Karen Whetsell. It’s less work for bookkeepers and less people touching the money.

Palm Beach County School District Online Cashless System: palmbeach.schoolcashonline.com