ETS Poll: Americans See Math and Science as Key to U.S. Competitiveness

"In a major new opinion survey on education reform, a majority of adults, parents, high school teachers, administrators and college faculty believe that our nation's schools are coming up short in putting students on the path to compete for highly technical scientific and engineering jobs with young people from other countries and are going to have to challenge students more if America is to maintain its global economic edge."

"The results are from Keeping Our Edge: Americans Speak on Education and Competitiveness, ETS's sixth annual "Americans Speak" public opinion poll. The poll was conducted for ETS by Democratic pollster Peter Hart and Republican pollster David Winston." ETS Press Release

Teaching students about plagiarism: An internet solution to an internet problem

In this article from the latest issue of the online journal Innovate, Eleanour Snow from Univ. of South Florida generally discussed the problem of plagiarism in higher education, and describes how she developed and used an online tutorial as a proactive approach to the problem of plagiarism in her own classroom.

The Condition of Education 2006

"Today, the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released The Condition of Education 2006. This annual report summarizes important developments and trends in education using the latest available data. The 2006 report presents 50 indicators on the status and condition of education and a special analysis on international assessments. The indicators represent a consensus of professional judgment on the most significant national measures of the condition and progress of education for which accurate data are available." NCES Newsflash Service

2005 science assessment National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)

Results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2005 science assessment were just released, detailing national performance at grades 4, 8, and 12 and state performance for most states at grades 4 and 8.

National findings since the previous assessments in 1996 and 2000 show:

• 4th grade students scored higher than either previous year, and lower-performing students made the largest gains since 2000.
• 8th graders’ overall performance remained unchanged compared with either previous year; gains by lower-income students narrowed the gap since 2000.
• Scores for 12th graders remain unchanged since the last assessment, but are lower than in 1996. However, the White-Black gap has widened since 2000.

(NCES Newsflash Service)

What predicts achievement? Self-discipline or IQ?

An article published in the December 2005 issue of Psychological Science reports on a study of 140 8th grade students and predictors of final grades. The authors, from the Positive Psychology Center at U Penn, discuss their findings from the study that suggest that the "degree to which students practiced self-discipline" was twice as likely as IQ to predict final grades. The article, titled Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance of Adolescents, by Angela L. Duckworth and Martin E.P. Seligman, is available online thorough WSU in Psychological Science, v. 26, issue 12, page 939.
(Reported in AFT On Campus, May/June 2006.)

Michigan Online Learning Requirement from ESchool News Online

Read this article about Michigan's Online Learning Requirement, and check out eSchool News Online, a commercial publication that focuses on disseminating current news on education technology in all its aspects--from legislation and litigation, to case studies, to purchasing practices and new products.

New Access to Your WSU Library Account

Beginning today, you will be able to use your WSU Access ID and Password (same as Pipeline, Blackboard and WSU e-mail) to access your WSU "My Library" account. Once you log in to your library account, you can renew books, save searches, or check on holds.

Try it for yourself. Log in to your library account

Calories In, Calories Out: Food and Exercise in Public Elementary Schools 2005

"This study, prompted by concern over the rate of obesity among school-age children, was designed to obtain current national information on availability of foods and opportunities for physical activity in public elementary schools. The report includes findings on the types of food sold at one or more locations in schools and in their cafeterias or lunchrooms; the types of food sold at vending machines and school stores or snack bars, and times when foods were available at those locations; food service operations and contracts with companies to sell foods at schools; scheduled recess, including the days per week, times per day, and minutes per day of recess; scheduled physical education, including the days per week, class length, and average minutes per week of physical education; activities to encourage physical activity among elementary students; and the physical assessment of students." From NCES Newsflash Service

James Manning named as Acting Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education

James Manning, of Virginia, was appointed by President Bush today to be Acting Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education at the Department of Education. Manning replaces Sally L. Stroup as the department’s top higher-education official.

Mr. Manning was formerly the Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary of Education, and also served as Acting Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Federal Student Aid.

Some biographical information is available from this press release from 2003, when Manning was named Chief Operating Officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Additionally, Manning was appointed in 2002 as acting Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the Department's Federal Student Aid office. The posting of that announcement from the Dept. of Education reads: "Manning is a veteran of the Reagan and prior Bush administrations, having worked from 1989 to 1993 in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education as chief of staff and deputy assistant secretary. Since June 2001, he has served as the Deputy Secretary's chief of staff, advising him on major budget and policy decisions and day-to-day operations. In between, Manning was chief executive officer of the Congressional Award Foundation."

Manning is also a former Director of International Events for the National Basketball Association.

From the Capital to the Classroom: Year 4 of the No Child Left Behind Act

"On March 28, 2006, the Center for Educational Policy released its fourth annual report on the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act. The report is a comprehensive analysis of how the law is being implemented at the state, district and local levels. Based on a survey of 50 states, 299 school districts and 38 case studies of school districts, the report provides the most up-to-date information about the law's implementation and shares the opportunities and challenges that it has presented for states and districts" (From the CEP Website)

The Center for Educational Policy describes itself as a national, independent advocate for public education and for more effective public schools. Funders include The George Gund Foundation, The Gates Foundation and Phi Delta Kappa International.

EBSCO Offers Free Access to Teacher Reference Center

EBSCO Publishing (http://www.epnet.com/) is offering free access to the new Teacher Reference Center, a bibliographic index of more than 260 titles from teacher and administration trade journals, periodicals, and books. The database, delivered via the EBSCOhost platform, is available as a free resource to anyone interested in teaching and education.

Teacher Reference Center is currently available at http://www.libraryresearch.com/, along with EBSCO Publishing’s free Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA) database. In the coming weeks it will move to http://www.teacherreference.com. Existing EBSCOhost customers may request to have Teacher Reference Center added to their existing EBSCOhost profiles at no additional charge. http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/wnd060410.shtml#3[ITI NewsLink NewsBreaks]

Windows Live Academic Released in Beta

A beta version of Windows Live Academic was released this past week. If you are familiar with Google Scholar, you will see many similarities with Windows Live Adademic. It currently claims to index content related to computer science, physics, electrical engineering, and related subject areas, and limit to peer reviewed materials.

School Libraries and Student Achievement

"A study funded by the Ontario Library Association offers the first Canadian finding that shows a positive correlation between student achievement and library resources and staff. Released April 6, School Libraries and Student Achievement in Ontario includes assessment data from more than 50,000 students and over 800 of the province’s publicly funded elementary schools.

Among the findings were:

• Grade 3 and 6 students in schools with teacher-librarians are more likely to report that they enjoy reading.
• Schools with trained library staff are more likely to have a higher proportion of grade 6 students who meet Ontario standards on reading test scores.
• Schools without trained library staff tend to have lower achievement on the grade 3 and 6 reading tests."

From American Libraries Online.

WSU COE Library and Research News Friday Roundup

Paying Back, Not Giving Back: Student Debt's Negative Impact on Public Service Career Opportunities

PIRG has issued a new report which looks at the issue of unmanageable debt as it pertains to college graduates entering two critical public service careers: teaching and social work.

The state Public Interest Research Groups are a network of independent, state-based, citizen-funded organizations that advocate for the public interest. Each state Public Interest Research Group is independent and locally based. The state PIRGs work together nationally to share ideas and resources and cooperate on regional and national issues. The Michigan PIRG is PIRGIM (Public Interest Research Group in Michigan).

ERIC's Structured Abstracts Initiative

ERIC acknowledges the recent focus on evidence-based decision-making in the Educational Community, and has begun a structured abstract initiative for research submitted directly to ERIC through its Online Submission System. (These are the types of reports formerly submitted through the Clearinghouses as ERIC Documents).

ERIC wants to make it simpler for decision-makers and researchers to see at a glance such key elements in the abstracts as Background, Purpose, Research design and Findings.

Contributors of research through ERIC's Online Submission System located in the My ERIC section of the ERIC Web site are asked to provide this information when submitting research report for review and inclusion in the ERIC database.

Guys Read--literacy for boys

Jon Scieszka is a former elementary school teacher, and children's book author. His innovative program GUYS READ, was established to help boys read. Take a look at his innovative website for inspiration on encouraging guys of all ages to read.

Claiming Common Ground: State Policymaking for Improving College Readiness and Success

A new report out today from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education says that states can improve their students’ readiness for college and the workplace by: (1) better aligning high-school curricula and college admissions standards; (2) providing more state funds for elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education; (3) creating information systems to track students’ progress from high school through college; and (4) holding all educational institutions accountable for the outcomes of their students. Those recommendations have been previously made by other policy experts, and described in depth in a special report, “School & College,” published this month by The Chronicle. (From the Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog)

School & College

This special website from the Chronicle of Higher Education accompanies their upcoming publication SCHOOL & COLLEGE, which will report on how well (or not so well) America is preparing its young people to make the most of a college education. SCHOOL & COLLEGE will look into the ways in which society is dealing with the issues that will determine the future of education — day to day, year to year, kindergarten through college.

The website has links to articles, discussions, other resources and an order form for the print or digital version of the published report SCHOOL & COLLEGE.

Early Childhood and Child Care free online database

Research Connections provides researchers, policymakers, policy influencers, and practitioners with one-stop access to a continually updated, comprehensive, and searchable collection of Original Research and related resources including Syntheses, Datasets, Statistics, Instruments and Measures, and comparative State Data Tools. Research Connections' goal is to promote high quality research and the use of that research in policymaking. (description from the website)