Category Archives: Education

Lincoln High: What schools may look like someday

Education

At Lincoln High School near Fayetteville, students learn not so much by listening to lectures but by working in self-directed group projects using laptops they can take home.

Could this be what schools will look like in the future? Maybe. This year, Lincoln is one of two New Tech schools – the other being Cross County High – using the New Tech model.

Begun 15 years ago in Napa Valley, New Tech schools give teachers and students more flexibility to decide how they will learn. Students are given a set of standards and then a project that they use MacBook laptops to design – in groups. They are graded not just on content mastery but also on their work ethic, communication skills and ability to collaborate with others.

Expect more Arkansas schools to adopt the New Tech model. Gov. Beebe’s STEM Works initiative encourages them to do so. Schools like Manor New Tech near Austin, Tex., have seen great success using the model. In the past month-and-a-half, at least 17 Arkansas schools have visited Manor.

Here’s more in my Sunday column.

An adult Arkansan learns to read

Education, State government

Dewitt’s Toby Allen Lane is 31 years old. He is married. He works at Dean Robinson Seeds, and his boss considers him management material. He is a responsible, upstanding citizen. And as of last November, he couldn’t read.

As of today, he can thanks to a decision he made to seek help from the Literacy Council of Arkansas County. His tutor, Terri Cooper, says he is a motivated, goal-oriented student, which explains why he now is reading at a high middle school level.

Lane is not alone. No one knows how many adult Arkansans can’t read, but the Arkansas Literacy Councils, the state’s umbrella organization, is working to reduce the number. For two years, I was president of the board of directors, so I know a lot about its work.

It would be hard to find a more efficient organization offering more bang for the buck. Thanks to an army of 6,000 volunteer tutors, last year it helped 12,063 adults improve their reading, writing, and/or English language skills at a cost of $675,000 in state funds, plus other sources of funding. That’s $56 per student.

But it could do more. That $675,000 hasn’t been increased for decades. According to Executive Director Jennifer Holman, there are 628 adults on waiting lists. There would be more if local councils had the money to better market their services.

Arkansas has made tremendous investments in K-12 and higher education – in other words, services for people under 25. Couldn’t it do more – either publicly or privately – for the Toby Lanes of the world?

That’s the subject of my column this week for the Arkansas News Bureau.

Washington’s failure: It’s not just the debt ceiling

Education, Politics, U.S. Congress

The debt ceiling debacle received most of the attention this past few months, but Congress and the president have failed to do their jobs in two other critical areas: highways and education.

Washington is two years late reauthorizing the surface transportation law and four years late reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which created No Child Left Behind.

With highways, Congress and the president have just been tacking another year on the previous law each year. That’s bad because it makes it impossible to plan for the future.

No Child Left Behind has been a problem because the law holds schools to rising standards of accountability until 2014, when every student in every school in America will be expected to be proficient in math and science. Few schools will meet that impossible 100 percent standard then. More than 400 schools in Arkansas don’t meet it now, with students and taxpayers paying the consequences of the law’s excesses.

On Monday, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that states can apply for waivers from some of the law’s sanctions, as long as those states are enacting reforms the department considers worthy. It’s better than nothing, I guess, but a complete rewrite would be better.

Above is Dr. Tom Kimbrell, Arkansas education commissioner, discussing how the state has responded to the ESEA not being reauthorized.

More in my Arkansas News Bureau column this week.

State end-of-course scores rise – mostly

Education

The State Department of Education released scores from its end-of-course exams in literacy, geometry, Algebra I and biology. These are the tests given to high school students – the equivalent, in other words, of the benchmark exams given in grades 3 through 8.

The press release is pretty straightforward. Here it is.

LITTLE ROCK —The results of the Spring 2011 End-of-Course exams revealed increases in the percentage of students scoring proficient in Literacy, Geometry, Algebra I, and Biology.

The Arkansas Department of Education released the scores Thursday.

Algebra I proficient/advanced scores increased from 76 percent in 2010 to 78 percent in 2011. Geometry proficient/advanced scores increased from 69 percent to 73 percent. Biology proficient/advanced scores increased from 36 percent to 41 percent.

In Literacy, the percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced increased from 60 percent in 2010 to 65 percent in 2011. Notably, the percentage scoring in the advanced range increased from 2 percent to 16 percent.

“We’re pleased with the improvement Arkansas students have shown on these exams,” said Commissioner Tom Kimbrell. “The challenge will be sustaining that improvement over the long haul.”

Mid-year End of Course scores in Geometry, Algebra I, and Biology were lower in comparison to those of 2010.

Algebra I proficient/advanced scores dropped from 73 percent in 2010 to 57 percent in 2011. Geometry decreased from 76 percent to 60 percent. Biology dropped from 40 percent to 36 percent.

“The transition to the Common Core State Standards will allow teachers the time needed to teach core concepts well and students opportunity for mastery,” said Kimbrell.

Complete scores can be viewed at http://www.arkansased.org/testing/test_scores.html