Early Childhood Part 2

Last night, I blogged about Secretary Duncan's statement on the new bill that will provide over $8 billion over eight years into states to improve the quality of early-childhood education. This morning, I saw that Education Week had covered it in today's online edition. So for those of you who are interested, here it is.

Early Childhood Part 2

Early Childhood Education

Secretary of Education, Arnie Duncan, released a statement about the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act that the House has passed recently. This would reallocate money into several initiatives, including the Early Learning Challenge Fund. Duncan stated:

Education and, in many ways, success in life begins with high-quality early learning experiences. We know that increasing the number of high-quality early learning opportunities, especially for low-income families, improves child outcomes. Research shows children who receive such services are less likely to be referred to special education and more likely to graduate and be successful adults. All children deserve these early opportunities to reach their full potential.

I could not agree more with Secretary Duncan. The foundation for education begins at a young age. Oftentimes, students in low-income areas are not afforded the same opportunities prior to formal education and therefore begin school at a disadvantage. I am eager to see what will come out of this.

Early Childhood Education

Aligning Curricula

Is it just me, or is this something that all states should be doing? Shouldn't high school prepare you for college? Especially this day in age, where college is really necessary for many professions. I'm glad that Texas is finally tackling this issue, but I am not sure if aligning the curricula of their high schools and colleges is the best way to lower their remediation rate.It might address the low college-going rates, but I wonder if there are other factors behind the low college-going rates in Texas.

I think that aligning the curricula may increase the retention rate of Texas high school students in college, but I am not sure how it would increase remediation or college-going rates. I believe that there may be other factors that could be attributed to the high remediation rate in Texas. For instance, teacher quality is not mentioned in this article, but may have a big effect on remediation rates. Furthermore, low college-going rates could be attributed to students not applying to colleges, or to inadequate school counselors.

While curriculum alignment is definitely a step in the right direction, I hope that Texas continues to evaluate their education system. I also hope that other states take the same steps in aligning their high school curriculum to college preparedness.

Aligning Curricula

Educating English Language Learners

Considering that English Language Learners (ELLs) are one of the fastest growing groups of students in the United States, I found this article very concerning. According to this, many states are not keeping track of the graduation rates for ELLs. Even though NCLB requires that this data is reported by different subgroups, including ELL status, 13 states still do not report the information to the public or the U.S. Department of Education. Some states don't even report the numbers accurately.

While I believe that graduation rates for ELLs is an important data point, I think it is also important to keep track of other areas of student achievement for ELLs. Achievement data has shown that ELL students lag behind their peers. Comparing achievement by the different methods of language instruction would shed some light on which methods are working the best and for whom.

In 2001, NCLB requires that states have English-language-proficiency standards that are linked to state academic standards to ensure that student improvement in English-language proficiency also results in a better understanding of the academic content. Furthermore, NCLB mandates that states must implement English-language-proficiency tests to ensure that their is progress for ELLs.

At the moment, there are four commonly used teaching methods for ELLs:

• English immersion - instruction is in English


• English as a second language - may be similar to immersion, but also may include some support to the students' native languages (classes can consist of students with different native languages)


• Transitional bilingual education - some subjects are taught in the students' native language for part of the day and the rest of the day is spent on developing English skills (classes consist of students who share the same native language)


• Two-way bilingual education - instruction is in two languages

With the ELL population becoming a higher proportion of the student poplation in the United States, I think it would be beneficial to have a study on which programs have the best student achievement and the highest graduation rates for ELLs. Obviously for this study to occur, we need clearer data. This would especially help the states with little previous experience with immigrants, but now have an increased number of ELL students, such as Arkansas, Georgia and North Carolina.

Educating English Language Learners

Sotomayor on Education

I'm not sure if everyone has been following the confirmation hearing for Judge Sonia Sotomayor.  If you haven't heard about it, she is President Obama's pick to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter.  Sotomayor is a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. If she is confirmed, she would the first Latino justice and the third female justice. She is Puerto Rican from the Bronx, graduated summa cum laude from Princeton for her A.B. and received her J.D. from Yale Yale School. She was the ADA in New York, and entered private practice five years later.  She served on the board of directors for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (now called LatinoJustice), the State of NEw York Mortgage Agency, and the NYC Campaign Finance Board. In 1991 is was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by President George H. W. Bush, and was confirmed in 1992. In 1997, she was nominated by President Bill Clinton to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and was confirmed in 1998. Sotomayor has ruled on several high-profile cases.

However, she has handled only a small number of K-12 education cases during her 17 years as a federal judge. These cases focused on issues such as special education, racial discrimination, and student freedom of expression.
There are three prominent K-12 education cases from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit which could show what position she would take on education issues is she is confirmed into the Supreme Court.

In 1999, Sotomayor dissented in part from the majority decision of Gant v. Wallingford Board of Education. In this case, the student's family claimed that their son, the only black student in his first-grade class at a Connecticut elemenary school, was subjected to racial slurs by other children and that he was transferred to a kindergarten class to alleviate the racial tension without the family's consent.  Sotomayor agreed with the panel's rejection of the claim that the school reacted with "deliberate indifference" to the alleged racial hostility, but she also argued that the student's race stood out as the "likely reason" for his demotion from first grade to kindergarten.

In 2006, Sotomayor joined a unanimous ruling in Frank G. v. Board of Education of Hyde Park. This was a special education case that resembles the Forest Grove School District v. T.A. (2009) case that the Supreme Court just ruled on. Sotomayor joined the unanimous ruling that found that a family could be reimbursed for private school tuition for a child with a learning disability even if the child never received such services from the public district. In Forest Grove School District v. T.A., the Supreme Court made it easier for parents of students with disabilities to get reimbursed for private school tuition, which is aligned with Sotomayor's decision in the Frank G. v. Board of Education of Hyde Park.

In 2008, Sotomayor signed on to the decision which found that a Connecticut student's off-campus blog remarks, described in the ruling as "vulgar," had created a "foreseeable risk of substanital disruption" at the student's high school. In Doninger v. Niehoff, the panel did not grant the teenager a preliminary injunction to reverse the school's disciplinary action against her.

Of the 3,000 or so cases that have come before Sotomayor as an appeals court judge, less than 1% have been on schools.  However, some education law experts say the available evidence suggests that she's a moderate on education issues. But at the same time, conservative groups view Sotomayor as a left-leaning activist seeking to use personal viewpoints to create legislation. Others desribe her case record as middle-of-the-road application of legal principles.

While this is similar to what many people are saying about her overall decisions, it seems to me that her decisions do follow a moderate viewpoint. Many are using her speeches to say that she is liberal because of her "wise latina" comment and other such comments made in six of her many speeches. I think it is important to look at her case rulings over her speeches and looking at that, it would appear as though Sotomayor is conservative on education issues. An analysis conducted by Zirkel found that of 26 decisions on "regular education," Sotomayor ruled in favor of school districts 83 percent of the time and ruled in favor of districts 58 percent of the time on her 13 special-education cases.

n Monday that makes it easier for parents of students with disabilities to get reimbursed for private school tuition.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/06/23/2009-06-23_specialed_activists_hail_supreme_ruling.html#ixzz0LQynMYWP

Sotomayor on Education