Universal Preschool – Some History!

Preschooler

Dear Commons Community,

President Obama’s call in his State of the Union address to “make high-quality preschool available to every single child in America” rallied advocates across the country who have long argued that inequity in education begins at a very young age.

Details of the president’s proposal are expected to be unveiled today when Mr. Obama visits a Head Start program in Decatur, Ga., but he indicated in his speech that the federal government would work with states to supplement preschool efforts.

While supporters herald the plan as a way to help level the playing field for children who do not have the advantages of daily bedtime stories, music lessons and counting games at home, critics argue that providing universal preschool could result in federal money being squandered on ineffective programs.

In the 2010-11 school year, the latest year for which data is available, 28 percent of all 4-year-olds in the United States were enrolled in state-financed preschool programs, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research. According to W. Steven Barnett, director of the institute, which is based at Rutgers University, only five states, including Oklahoma and Georgia, have a stated objective of offering preschool slots to all 4-year-olds. While about 1.1 million students across the country are enrolled in federally financed Head Start programs and others attend private preschools, that still leaves millions of children on the sidelines.

The president’s plan comes at a time when a handful of states are more aggressively pushing taxpayer-financed preschool.

Gail Collins in her column today in the New York Times, reminds us that universal preschool has been discussed and debated since at least 1971.

“Nobody was happier at the idea than Walter Mondale, the former vice president. “This is going to be wonderful,” he said in a phone conversation. His delight was sort of inspiring. If I had been down the road Mondale has traveled, my mood would have been a little darker.

In 1971, when he was a senator, Mondale led the Congressional drive to make quality preschool education available to every family in the United States that wanted it. Everybody. The federal government would set standards and provide backup services like meals and medical and dental checkups. Tuition would depend on the family’s ability to pay.

And it passed! Then Richard Nixon vetoed it, claiming Congress was proposing “communal approaches to child rearing.” Now, 42 years later, working parents of every economic level scramble madly to find quality programs for their preschoolers, while the waiting lines for poor families looking for subsidized programs stretch on into infinity.”

The issue keeps coming up and it remains to be seen whether or not President Obama has the wherewithal and can get the cooperation necessary to move this much needed program forward.

Tony

 

President Obama’s State of the Union Speech!

Dear Commons Community,

Last night, President Obama delivered his State of the Union Address to the nation.  There were no surprises as he spoke about a lot of the issues that he has discussed in the past – the economy, tax reform, infrastructure, clean energy, education, immigration, etc.   The speech was approximately one hour and he received 78 rounds of applause from mostly the Democrats in the chamber.  Some of the highlights were as follows:

On social security:  “we must keep the promises we have already made”

On the stagnation in Washington:  “the greatest nation on Earth cannot keep drifting from one manufactured crisis to another “

On government: “we don’t need bigger government – we need smarter government”

On infrastructure:  “ we need to repair the 70,000 bridges in this country that have been found to be structurally deficient”

On gun control:  “the victims of Sandy Hook deserve a vote”

On pre-schooling:  “we need to give our kids a chance”

On high schools:  “At schools like P-Tech in Brooklyn, a collaboration between the New York Public Schools, the City University of New York, and IBM, students will graduate with a high school diploma and an associate degree in computers or engineering.”  Those of us here at CUNY can be especially proud of the mention of our university.

One of the most touching moments was when he singled out Desiline Victor, a 102-year old woman who waited six hours to vote in Florida.  She was in the audience and received a standing ovation.

Click here to access a video and full text of the President’s Address.

Tony

Pope Benedict Resigns!!!

Pope Benedict

Dear Commons Community,

The news heard around the world yesterday was the resignation of Pope Benedict.  It is truly a rare event (the last pope to resign was Pope Gergory XII in 1475) when someone is willing to give up supreme power over the beliefs of 1 billion people.   The news media is awash with analyses of his decision and his legacy.  The New York Times, for instance, has four op-ed pieces today:

The Change Upon Christ’s Rock  By JAMES MARTIN

The Pope Could Still Right the Wrongs By JASON BERRY

Farewell to an Uninspiring Pope By JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY

The Humble Pope By CAROL ZALESKI

Among them you will find the compliments as well as the criticisms.  Some found him a profound scholar and staunch defender of traditional Catholic teachings. Others found him to be too conservative having not moved on such issues as the role of women in the church.    As a Catholic, I have mixed feelings but lean with the latter.

The world will watch as Pope Benedict leaves office and wait for the decision of the Conclave of Cardinals and for the white smoke to appear over St. Peters.

Tony

Turnaround in Union City, New Jersey: The Secret to Fixing Schools!

Dear Commons Community,

David L. Kirp, professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, had an op-ed piece in yesterday’s New York Times, on what it takes to give students a first-rate education in inner-city urban schools.   He provides Union City, New Jersey, as his model:

“Union City makes an unlikely poster child for education reform. It’s a poor community with an unemployment rate 60 percent higher than the national average. Three-quarters of the students live in homes where only Spanish is spoken. A quarter are thought to be undocumented, living in fear of deportation.

Public schools in such communities have often operated as factories for failure. This used to be true in Union City, where the schools were once so wretched that state officials almost seized control of them. How things have changed. From third grade through high school, students’ achievement scores now approximate the statewide average. What’s more, in 2011, Union City boasted a high school graduation rate of 89.5 percent — roughly 10 percentage points higher than the national average. Last year, 75 percent of Union City graduates enrolled in college, with top students winning scholarships to the Ivies.

As someone who has worked on education policy for four decades, I’ve never seen the likes of this. After spending a year in Union City working on a book, I believe its transformation offers a nationwide strategy.”

Kirp describes successes at several  levels.  For example:

“Union City High School bore the scarlet-letter label, “school in need of improvement.” It has taken strong leadership from its principal, John Bennetti, to turn things around — to instill the belief that education can be a ticket out of poverty.

On Day 1, the principal lays out the house rules. Everything is tied to a single theme — pride and respect in “our house” — that resonates with the community culture of family, unity and respect. “Cursing doesn’t showcase our talents. Breaking the dress code means we’re setting a tone that unity isn’t important, coming in late means missing opportunities to learn.” Bullying is high on his list of nonnegotiables: “We are about caring and supporting.”

And the principal is persuading teachers to raise their expectations. “There should be more courses that prepare students for college, not simply more work but higher-quality work,” he tells me. This approach is paying off big time: Last year, in a study of 22,000 American high schools, U.S. News & World Report and the American Institutes for Research ranked Union City High in the top 22 percent.”

Kirp’s conclusion of what makes Union City remarkable:

“the absence of pizazz. It hasn’t followed the herd by closing “underperforming” schools or giving the boot to hordes of teachers. No Teach for America recruits toil in its classrooms, and there are no charter schools.”

This is the exact opposite of the models that permeate as school reform in many of our urban areas where students receive drill and kill instruction to pass standardized tests, where teachers are bashed, where schools are closed without community or parental concerns, and replaced by charter schools run by corporations and politically-connected individuals.

Tony

 

The Federal Government Should Not be Dictating Education Policy!

Dear Commons Community,

Despite repeated efforts over the last five years, Congress has failed to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Act, the law that governs all public schools that receive federal financing. The No Child version, passed in 2001, provoked controversy by holding schools responsible for student performance on standardized tests, dubbing schools that do not meet targets failures and requiring strict interventions like the replacement of a school’s entire teaching staff.

Since early last year, the Obama administration has granted waivers to 34 states and the District of Columbia, relieving them from what many argued was the law’s most unrealistic goal: making all students proficient in math and reading by 2014. In exchange, the administration has demanded that the states raise curriculum standards and develop rigorous teacher evaluations tied in part to student performance on standardized tests.

Critics have argued that the Obama administration has been too prescriptive in these waiver requirements, and that a new education law should leave most decisions about schooling up to states and districts.

The New York Times reported:

“At a Senate education committee hearing on Thursday to discuss waivers to states on some provisions of the law, Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, forcefully urged the federal government to get out of the way.

“We only give you 10 percent of your money,” said Mr. Alexander, pressing John B. King Jr., the education commissioner for New York State. “Why do I have to come from the mountains of Tennessee to tell New York that’s good for you?”

Dr. King argued that the federal government needed to set “a few clear, bright-line parameters” to protect students, especially vulnerable groups among the poor, minorities and the disabled.

“It’s important to set the right floor around accountability,” Dr. King said.”

I fully support Senator Alexander’s position.  One size does not fit all and I would trust those closest to our schools and education systems to make the right decisions.  The federal government including the US Department of Education is driven strictly by politics and has done more harm than good regarding education policy and practice.

Tony

 

 

Nemo Cometh!

Nemo

Dear Commons Community,

All the talk today will be on Storm Nemo.  How many inches of snow?  How fierce will be the winds?  Will there be power outages?  Here is a statement from The National Weather Service which has issued a blizzard warning in New York City, in effect from 6 a.m. Friday to 1 p.m. Saturday.

New Yorkers can expect anywhere from 10 to 14 inches of snow, and strong winds with gusts up to 45 miles per hour.

According to the NWS, the strongest winds and snows will occur Friday evening into Saturday evening.

People are encouraged to stay off the road as visibility could reach near zero with white-out conditions.

Downed limbs could also cause some power outages across the city.

“We are taking this storm seriously,” said Jerome Hauer, of Commmunity Homeland Security and Emergency Services. “You should take this storm seriously. This is a very dangerous storm that will make travel from Friday night until Saturday morning almost impossible,”

Stay dry!  Stay Warm! Stay Safe!

Tony

 

Granting Credit for MOOCs: ACE Weighs in and Endorses Five Coursera Courses!

Dear Commons Community,

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article in its online edition reporting that the American Council on Education yesterday endorsed five MOOCs for credit.  The article states:

“Two of the approved courses, “Introduction to Genetics and Evolution” and “Bioelectricity: A Quantitative Approach,” come from Duke University. Two others, “Pre-Calculus” and “Algebra,” come from the University of California at Irvine. The last, “Calculus: Single-Variable,” comes from the University of Pennsylvania. All five are offered through Coursera.

The council, an association that advises college presidents, operates a credit-recommendation service that evaluates individual courses. If a course passes muster, ACE advises its 1,800 member colleges that they can be comfortable conferring credit on students who have passed that course.

Whether colleges take the council’s advice, however, is an open question. “Ultimately, the degree-granting institution decides what credits to accept,” said Cathy A. Sandeen, the council’s vice president for education attainment and innovation.

The article also cites:

“John Ebersole, president of Excelsior College, who said his institution would not accept transfer credits from a Coursera MOOC, notwithstanding the council’s recommendation.

Excelsior, a pioneer of “competency-based” learning, is sympathetic to the notion of granting credit for learning that occurs outside the traditional classroom. But Mr. Ebersole said he was not impressed by Coursera’s assessment methods.

“We would hope that ACE would support a more rigorous process, as is the case with other forms of noncredit instruction, whereby those seeking credit would complete a psychometrically valid assessment in a secure testing facility,” Mr. Ebersole said.

The discussion of MOOcs goes on!

Tony

 

Fox News Credibility at an All-Time Low: New Public Policy Poll!

Dear Commons Community,

Fox News’ credibility has fallen 9 percent since three years ago, according to new Public Policy Polling (PPP) results released yesterday.

The annual poll asks participants to rate their trust in multiple networks including Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, PBS, Comedy Central, ABC News, CBS News and NBC News. According to PPP’s press release:

“Just like its actual ratings, Fox News has hit a record low in the four years that we’ve been doing this poll. 41% of voters trust it to 46% who do not. To put those numbers into some perspective the first time we did this poll, in 2010, 49% of voters trusted it to 37% who did not.

… researchers also found that Fox News is both the least trusted and most trusted network when compared to the other networks in the survey. Thirty-four percent said they trust Fox News the most, while 39 percent said they trust it the least.

Other news outlets are not entirely better off. Thirty-five percent of respondents said they trust MSNBC, while 44 percent said they do not. When it comes to CNN, 38 percent of voters said they trust the network, but 43 percent said they trust the cable network the least.

PBS is the only outlet that respondents trust more than distrust, with 52 percent of voters saying they trust the network, and 29 percent saying they do not.”

Tony