This and That

A very wonderful letter from a mom with a special needs child after "social skills" training in her child's school that forgot that there are many types of people in the world that we should all be kind to and show respect for. 

In case you didn't know, as of Feb. 2, 2016, OSPI reports that there are 35, 511 homeless students in Washington State.  That's 3.3% of the P-12 population.  It's an over 9% increase from 2013-2014 and a 62.7% increase from 2009-2010. 

Washington state receives about $950,000 per year from the federal government to help homeless students. That money is given to districts in the form of competitive grants, with money going to districts with the greatest need.

The money can be used for a variety of activities for homeless students, including: helping to defray the excess cost of transportation; tutoring, instruction and enriched educational services; supplies and materials; and early childhood education programs. Districts that do not receive McKinney-Vento grant funding can use Title I or other state or federal funding sources to support the educational needs of homeless students.

 Interesting article from EdWeek on Common Core and teaching grammar.  

In an article published in the January/February issue of The Reading Teacher, the International Literacy Association's journal, two researchers from the University of Virginia make the case for preventing the pendulum from swinging too enthusiastically toward "prescriptive" grammar instruction. They argue that isolated lessons focused on drills and memorization—a relic of early American schooling—should be avoided, and instead, teachers should embed grammar instruction into other language arts work.

"Activities that don't link form and meaning aren't particularly helpful for anyone and may be harmful," Lauren B. Gartland, the lead researcher on the report, said in an interview.

To try to teach grammar solely through indirect methods, "I think that's hard on students," Pimentel said. "You have to do a ton of reading and a ton of writing to figure out what the rules are. So help along the way with practices seems to be the best way go."

Per our conversations on the make-up of the Highly Capable program, a study about race and assignment to gifted programs.

The white-Hispanic assignment gap was significantly decreased when the authors analyzed differences in prior achievement on math and reading scores. In fact, when controlling for math and reading assessments, the gap between white and Hispanic students was statistically indistinguishable 
 from zero, suggesting that differences in test scores can explain the entire white-Hispanic gifted gap.

However, controlling for math and reading scores did not have the same effect for black students. In fact, black students continued to be assigned to gifted programs half as often as their white peers with identical math and reading achievement.

“It is startling that two elementary school students, one black and the other white, with identical math and reading achievement, will have substantially different probabilities of assignment to gifted services,” said Grissom. “This is especially troubling since previous studies have linked participation in gifted programs to improved academic performance, improvements in student motivation and engagement, less overall stress, and other positive outcomes.”

In fact, all else being equal, black students are three times more likely to be assigned to gifted programs when taught by a black teacher than a nonblack teacher. Assignment rates for high-achieving black students with black teachers are similar to those of white students with similar characteristics.

Thoughtful paper on the PISA test and what it tells us (or not) about our students and their ability to compete globally.  Spoiler alert: not much.

Pundits and bureaucrats use the results from international tests, particularly the PISA, to make claims about the quality of the public education system in the United States and make policy recommendations. In this article I argue, with evidence, that the scores and rankings from PISA are not important and that they cannot give policy makers or educators meaningful insights into student preparedness for the global economy.