New Report from IES: Trends in High School Dropout and Completion Rates in the United States: 1972–2008

"This report builds upon a series of National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports on high school dropout, completion, and graduation rates that began in 1988. The report includes discussions of many rates used to study how students complete or fail to complete high school. It presents estimates of rates for 2008 and provides data about trends in dropout and completion rates over the last three and a half decades (1972-2008) along with more recent estimates of on-time graduation from public high schools. Among findings in the report was that in October 2008, approximately 3 million civilian noninstitutionalized 16- through 24-year-olds were not enrolled in high school and had not earned a high school diploma or alternative credential. These dropouts represented 8 percent of the 38 million non-institutionalized, civilian individuals in this age group living in the United States." From IES Newsflash 12/8/2010

Thirty Sources Added to ERIC

The ERIC digital library recently added thirty sources to the collection. Content will become available as it is received from the publishers.

Journals:
• American Educator
• Australian Journal of Indigenous Education
• Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood
• Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education (CITE Journal)
• Current Research in Social Psychology
• Education in Rural Australia
• IEEE Transactions on Education
• International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership
• International Journal of Learning and Change
• Journal of Adult Education
• Journal of Applied Psychology
• Journal of Creative Behavior
• Journal of Ethnographic & Qualitative Research
• Journal of Research in Character Education
• Journal of Technology Education
• Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication
• Pedagogy, Culture & Society
• Personnel Psychology
• Research in Comparative and International Education
• School Social Work Journal
• Science Education International
• TESL-EJ

Grey Literature Sources:
• Horizon Research, Inc.
• Math Solutions
• New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER)
• NZCER Press
• Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness
• Teaching and Learning Research Initiative
• Tennessee Higher Education Commission
• Washington State School Directors' Association

From ERIC News. To subscribe, go to http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/resources/html/news/index.html and follow the directions under @ERIC Update

Google Science Fair opens January 11

The inaurual Google Science Fair will be launched January 11, 2011. Google has partnered with NASA, CERN, National Geographic, Scientific American and the LEGO Group to create a new open, accessible and global STEM competition. The Google Science Fair is a global competition that any student aged 13 - 18 from around the world is eligible to enter. Students can enter as individuals or as teams of up to three.

To sign up for fun and free resource kits for your classroom or school (with bookmarks, stickers, posters and more!) and a reminder notification when GSF registration opens, please visit the Google Science Fair at: http://www.google.com/sciencefair

NCES Report Released: Indicators of School Crime and Safety 2010

The Indicators of School Crime and Safety 2010 "report covers topics such as victimization, teacher injury, bullying, school conditions, fights, weapons, availability and student use of drugs and alcohol, and student perceptions of personal safety at school. Indicators of crime and safety are compared across different population subgroups and over time. Data on crimes that occur away from school are offered as a point of comparison where available." IES Newsflash

Education Week reports on federal research study of early-grade math programs; some programs show more improvement

"Two years into the nation's largest experimental evaluation of commercial mathematics programs for early elementary school, the Institute of Education Sciences has found some curricula have an advantage over others, but so far there has been no decisive win in the ongoing battle over the best way to teach math." Education Week, S. Sparks, November 10, 2010.
WSU affiliates: Click here to read the whole story

Education Week reports on federal research study of early-grade math programs; some programs show more improvement

"Two years into the nation's largest experimental evaluation of commercial mathematics programs for early elementary school, the Institute of Education Sciences has found some curricula have an advantage over others, but so far there has been no decisive win in the ongoing battle over the best way to teach math." Education Week, S. Sparks, November 10, 2010.
WSU affiliates: Click here to read the whole story

Characteristics of the 100 Largest Public Elementary and Secondary School Districts in the US

"The Characteristics of the 100 Largest Public Elementary and Secondary School Districts report provides basic information from the Common Core of Data about the nation's largest public school districts in the 2008-09 school year. The data include such characteristics as the number of students and teachers, number of high school completers and the averaged freshman graduation rate, and revenues and expenditures." Data from Detroit Public Schools (listed in the report as Detroit City School District) is included in this report. As reported in IES Newsflash

New Education Publications available online through library databases

New full-text titles available through the Academic OneFile database.

Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue (from Information Age Publishing, Inc.)
Distance Learning (from Information Age Publishing, Inc.)
English Language Teaching (from Canadian Center of Science and Education)
International Education Studies (from Canadian Center of Science and Education)
Journal of Research in Character Education (from Information Age Publishing)
Middle Grades Research Journal (from Information Age Publishing, Inc.)
New Teacher Advocate (from Kappa Delta Pi)
Ovidius University Annals, Series Physical Education and Sport/Science, Movement and Health (from Ovidius University of Constanta)
Quarterly Review of Distance Education (from Information Age Publishing, Inc.)

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.