Time magazine released an article regarding the condition of boys in America, as recent editorials such as “Boy Trouble” and “The Boys Crisis” has put the state of boys, particularly in education, to the forefront. The article states boys are less likely than girls to take the S.A.T., go to college and obtain degrees and also trail on NAEP assessments by nearly 20 points. The author points to several factors that observers believe have contributed to the underperformance of boys including families, schools and popular culture. However, the article also shows boys are improving at the fourth- and eighth-grade levels in reading and on standardized tests.
On July 23rd, the Washington Post ran an editorial regarding Senator John Edwards’s endorsement of a plan to integrate schools by income rather than race after the Supreme Court ruled against the use of race as factor in school choice. The article states “the evidence is strong that low-income students thrive in higher-income schools – in fact, after socioeconomic level status of a student’s family, the biggest predictor of academic success is the socioeconomic level of the school.” It goes on to state that the NAEP 2005 Mathematics Report showed fourth-grade low-income students “attending more affluent schools scored 20 points higher – the equivalent of almost two years’ learning – than low-income students in high-poverty schools.” The blog post from D-ED Reckoning titled “The WaPo Editors are Idiots”, which follows the Washington Post editorial in the document, challenges three points made in the editorial. 1) According to the income levels that classify students as low-income under NAEP, the poorer students in affluent schools are not as poor as the students in the lower-income schools. 2) Low-income students do not perform well in either setting. 3) The number of higher-income schools could not accommodate the larger number of low-income students and
The Center on Education Policy released a study this week based on a survey of 349 school districts reporting a decrease in the amount of instruction time on social studies, science and art lessons in favor of increased focus on reading and mathematics. Secretary Spellings released statement saying the report was too narrow and “there is much evidence that shows schools are adding time to the school day in order to focus on reading and math, not cutting time from other subjects.”
There are also articles with various proposed initiatives for No Child Left Behind. One of those includes several bills to create different consequences for schools that continuously miss NCLB goals and those who miss marks for only a few student groups. There is also movement to push forward with the Achievement Through Technology and Innovation Act introduced earlier this year by Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard to provide direct funds to disadvantaged schools that would be used to supply computers, video equipment, and other technological tools. Provisions in the Act would include professional development for teachers on the use of the equipment in the classroom and a requirement for students to be technologically literate by the eighth-grade.
These can be viewed in Task 1\Article Compliation\Weekly Clips 7.27.07
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