Have you seen: Curriki

Developed by the founder of Sun Microsystems, Curriki provides access to free online textbooks and curriculum support materials.  Use the Browse by Topic under Find Resources to target specific curricular areas.

Rebuilding Detroit Public Schools: A Documentary

Michigan Radio looks at school reform in Detroit and New Orleans in its 2 week series Rebuilding Detroit Schools: A Documentary.
Their stories include interviews with students and transcript from a special call-in show hosted by Charity Nebbe called “A Tale of Two Cities: Lessons the Motor City Can Learn From the Crescent City,", which aired on both Michigan Radio and WWNO New Orleans.

Graduation and Dropout Rates 2007-08 from NCES

"Nationwide, 75 percent of public high school students who started as freshmen in the fall of 2004 graduated high school in 2008—up from 74 percent who graduated on time in the spring of 2007.

Other findings include:

• The Average Freshmen Graduation Rate increased by at least 1 percentage point in 16 states and the District of Columbia.
• Four percent of high school students dropped out of school during the 2007–08 school year. This marks a decrease of at least half a percentage point for 14 states and the District of Columbia from 2006-07."

To view the full report please visit
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2010341
Source: NCES Newsflash

Condition of Education 2000-2010 released

NCES announces the release of the Condition of Education 2000-2010

Check out the site map to find a visual overview of special analysis topics such as High Poverty Public Schools.

"Report findings include:

• In 2007-2008, about 20 percent of all elementary students and 9 percent of secondary school students attended high-poverty schools, compared with 15 percent and 5 percent respectively in 1999-2000.
• The reading achievement gap between low- and high-poverty 8th-grade students was 34 points in 2009 and the mathematics achievement gap was 38 points.
• In 2007-08, about 28 percent of high school graduates from high-poverty schools attended 4-year institutions after graduation, compared with 52 percent of high school graduates from low-poverty schools, based on reports from school administrators.
• Between 1971 and 2009, the percentage of White, Black and Hispanic 25- to 29-year-olds who had a bachelor’s degree increased. But, during this period, the gap in bachelor’s degree attainment between Blacks and Whites increased from 12 to 18 percentage points and the gap between Hispanics and Whites increased from 14 to 25 percentage points."

Reported in NCES (IES) Newsflash

Nation's Report Card releases 2007 scores

Michigan 4th Graders dip slightly. Story reported on M-Live

See 4th and 8th grade Reading results for Michigan and more on the Nation's Report Card

Nation's Report Card releases 2007 scores

Michigan 4th Graders dip slightly. Story reported on M-Live

See 4th and 8th grade Reading results for Michigan and more on the Nation's Report Card

New Report from NCES: Teacher's Use of Educational Technology in U.S. Public Schools 2009

The Teacher's Use of Educational Technology in U.S. Public Schools 2009 presents data from a spring 2009 Fast Response Survey System (FRSS) survey on the availability and use of educational technology by public elementary/secondary school teachers.

Fast Facts:

• Ninety-seven percent of teachers had one or more computers located in the classroom every day. Internet access was available for 93 percent of the computers located in the classroom every day. The ratio of students to computers in the classroom every day was 5.3 to 1.
• Teachers indicated that a system on their school or district network was available for entering or viewing the following: grades (94 percent), attendance records (93 percent), and results of student assessments (90 percent). Of the teachers with one of these systems available, the percent using it sometimes or often was 92 percent (grades), 90 percent (attendance records), and 75 percent (student assessments).
• A higher percentage of teachers in low poverty schools than in high poverty schools used email or list-serve to send out group updates or information to parents (69 percent compared to 39 percent) or to students (30 percent compared to 17 percent), used email to address individual concerns with parents (92 percent compared to 48 percent) or with students (38 percent compared to 19 percent), and used a course or teacher web page to communicate with parents (47 percent compared to 30 percent) or with students (36 percent compared to 18 percent).(low and high poverty schools are based on the percent of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch of less than 35 percent and 75 percent or more, respectively).

Text drawn from IES Newsflash Subscription Service notice of 5/5/2010

U.S. Falls Short in Measure of Future Math Teachers (New York Times)

On April 14, the New York Times published the story U.S. Falls Short in Measure of Future Math Teachers which discussed a recently published study by lead author William H. Schmidt, MSU professor, which showed that "American college students earned a C on a new test comparing their skills with their counterparts in 15 other countries...(t)he 52-page report provides the first international comparison of teacher preparation based on a test given to college students in a significant number of countries."

Here is a the study, published in 2007.
Here is the MSU press release

Here are books in the WSU libraries on math teacher preparation

Reauthorization of Elementary & Secondary Education Act Report Released: A Blueprint for Reform

The Blueprint for Reform provides the Obama Administration's vision for the federal role in elementary and secondary education. It focuses on teacher effectiveness, college and career readiness, support of school choice.

President Obama unveils Educational Technology plan

On March 5, the Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology plan was unveiled issued by the Obama Administration. It provides a blueprint for individualized, digital learning approaches to enhance education, with a focus on STEM education for students and enhancing online teaching skills in Teacher Education. It touches on Information Literacy skills in the President's Grand Challenge Problem 2.0: Design and validate an integrated system for designing and implementing valid, reliable, and cost-effective assessments of complex aspects of 21st century expertise and competencies across academic disciplines. Those 21st century competencies include student's abilities to access, retrieve, evaluate and ethically use information.

Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier

"In Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier, FRONTLINE presents an in-depth exploration of what it means to be human in a 21st-century digital world." [from Frontline description]

Watch the documentaries, interviews and participate in discussions on the impact of technology on education, relationships and communities.

Building a Better Teacher

From Sunday March 8 New York Times Magazine, Doug Lemov a former teacher, a principal, charter-school founder, and now educational consultant, discusses the qualities of effective teachers.

New Yorker profiles Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education

The February 1 issue of the New Yorker offers a profile of Arne Duncan, the current US Secretary of Education under the Obama administration. Wayne State affiliates can access the full article through our ProQuest Research Library database subscription here:

Class Warrior: Arne Duncan's bid to shake up schools

Fixing Michigan's schools: A five-part report

From the Sunday, Feburary 7 Detroit News and Free Press, a five-part report on Michigan Schools, Fixing Michigan's Schools, discusses the state of education and college (and workplace) preparation. Includes an Education Scorecard and sample questions from the NAEP and the MEAP.

WGVU Interview with MORE

Listen to an interview on WGVU with Deb Biggs-Thomas, director of the MORE--Michigan Online Resources for Educators initiative.

Edublog Awards 2009

Check out the 2009 winners of the Elluminate sponsored Edublog awards.

Current Article Abstracts available in JSTOR

You can now search for current articles in the following education publications in JSTOR

Child Development
Educational Researcher
Review of Research in Education

You will need to use the SEARCH FOR ARTICLE article linker button to link to the full-text of articles from these publications from the past 5 years.

Educational Technology in Public School Districts

From IES, this Educational Technology in Public School Districts First Look report presents data from a Fall 2008 survey on the availbility and use of educational technology, including student acceptable use policies for social networking applications and institutional access to online resources.

Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2009

Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2009 provides the most current detailed statistical information on crimes occurring in school as well as on the way to and from school. 

Other findings include:

• Students age 12-18 were victims of about 1.5 million crimes at school in 2007, with about 45 percent of these crimes reported as violent crimes ranging from simple assault and serious violence.
• Preliminary data show that among youth ages 5 to 18, there were 43 school-associated violent deaths from July 1, 2007, through June 30, 2008.
• There was an overall decline in the victimization rates for students ages 12 to 18 at school between 1992 and 2007, however there was no measurable difference in the rate of crime at school between 2004 and 2007.
• During the 2007–08 school year, 85 percent of public schools recorded that at least one violent crime, theft, or other crime occurred at their school.
• During the 2007–08 school year, a greater percentage of teachers in city schools (10 percent) reported being threatened with injury than teachers in town schools (7 percent) and suburban or rural schools (6 percent each).

(Source: IES Newsflash Service)

ERIC Grey Literature and Book Source List

ERIC has released a list of organizations that contribute grey literature, published reports and books to ERIC. This new source list  can be found in the “Our Collection” area of the Web site at www.eric.ed.gov/nonjournals.

The list was created with the encouragement of the library community to highlight the depth and breadth of the ERIC Collection, particularly in the grey literature area. Among the hundreds of sources listed are professional associations, research foundations, federal and state agencies, policy organizations, university affiliates, and commercial publishers, along with links to their sites.
(Source: Posting to [sla-dedu] ERIC Adds New Source List to Web Site by Jane Atwell, Sr. Communications Specialist, ERIC Project)