NSFGRANT2004
Folks:
From the states to an International (Global) perspective. Think International Academy.
Published: November 24, 2004
International Education Inching Forward in U.S. Classrooms
By Sean Cavanagh
Washington
Having heard plenty of well-meaning but uninspiring proposals from all kinds of interest groups over the years, one longtime elected official last week offered fellow supporters of international education advice on how to make a successful pitch: Be able to explain why it’s necessary.
“Not ‘nice.’ But necessary,” former Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. of North Carolina emphasized here before an audience of business, education, and nonprofit leaders who gathered to promote international education in U.S. schools.
They believe recognition is growing among public officials of the urgency of their mission from both an economic and a national-security standpoint. Yet several of those proponents, who met for the third annual States Institute on International Education in the Schools, acknowledge that so far, progress has been modest at best.
Since the institute staged it first conference, eight states have formed task forces to address ways to improve the teaching of international education, Mr. Hunt told attendees at the Nov. 13-14 conference. And at least eight states have staged statewide summits aimed at building support for such studies, he said.
See Also
See the accompanying stories:
“Awards Bestowed for Global Education.”
“Developing Countries Lag Behind School Goals.”
Seven states have launched professional-development ventures to help teachers become more familiar with international issues and curricula, and at least four have set up Web sites to help students and school officials become more aware of other nations, cultures, and languages.
“A lot of things are happening, but we all know there is so much more to be done,” Mr. Hunt said. “We want to find out how to take these efforts to a broader scale.”
Along with the projects listed by Mr. Hunt, other scattered efforts to promote international studies are being tried around the country, according to Michael Levine, the executive director of education for the Asia Society, the New York City-based education and cultural organization that helped organize the event.
“They’re notable early wins, but there’s a great distance to go,” Mr. Levine said.
Impetus for Learning
The institute was first convened in 2002, when members of several nonprofit groups and government-leadership organizations attempted to assess the status of international education around the country. Today, the institute has support from numerous research and policy organizations, including the Council of Chief State School Officers, the Education Commission of the States, and the National Governors Association.
By most accounts, the overall demand for improved international education is rising, according to those gathered at the conference, who included state and local superintendents, curriculum experts, and federal officials. The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and the U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan have helped convince Washington officials of the need to increase American students’ understanding of foreign cultures. Those events have highlighted as well a need to foster young people’s fluency in languages rarely taught in schools, such as Arabic, Hindi, and Farsi.
Improving students’ understanding of other countries is a matter of economic and national security alike because of increased competition abroad for jobs and industry, several state officials said.
Idaho schools Superintendent Marilyn Howard noted her state’s boom in international trade in recent years. Andrew Tompkins, the education commissioner in Kansas, said that even in his largely rural state, world markets have the power to affect vital areas of business, such as livestock sales. Too many students know little about the forces at work on the economic health of their communities, those officials said.
“We haven’t figured out what foreign countries need that we can manufacture for them,” said Jane Oates, a senior education adviser to U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. “It’s lack of understanding of the marketplace.”
In Need of a Champion (International Academy / Burt Okma)
But state and local officials here also spoke of common barriers in trying to secure a place for international education in their schools—either as individual courses or sub-topics within various classes. State and district leaders, they pointed out, face what they view as more urgent concerns, namely the pressure to devote time and money to helping students achieve proficiency in core subjects such as mathematics and reading to satisfy the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
“It’s been very hard for them to think outside the clear boxes in front of them and think about international education,” said Julie Bell, the education program director at the National Conference of State Legislatures, a research and policy organization in Denver.
Partly because of those demands, supporters of international education need to build alliances with state legislators and federal officials who could give international education the political and financial backing it needs, Mr. Hunt and other conference-goers said.
“You will go nowhere without a champion,” said Thomas Houlihan, the executive director of the schools chiefs’ council, which is based here. “Somebody has to be really passionately behind this. . . . Without that champion, it [is] very hard to get the enthusiasm and momentum that it takes.”
A major goal among the backers of international education is the incorporation of such education into state academic standards and school curricula. Some states have already moved in that direction. Delaware is considering including the understanding of foreign cultures as an overall principle across all content areas as it revises its curriculum.
But while many states have included the general objective of improving understanding of foreign nations and cultures in their standards, Mr. Levine of the Asia Society said the goal was to make those standards more precise so they address specific knowledge and skills on which students might be tested.
“A lot of those standards are so broad,” he said, “you could drive a truck through them.”
Folks:
This information could serve to bring the Governor's office and the Oakland County Exectuive and Atuomation Alley organizations to our initiative.
Published: November 24, 2004
Governors Urge High School Reform as a Top Priority
Worries Over Dropouts, Workforce Readiness Help Fuel Momentum
By Alan Richard
Cleveland
The nation’s governors are pushing high school reform as a way to build up the workforce in their states—and to score major political points in the process.
Governors’ interest in improving high schools was on full display here earlier this month in a WVIZ television studio. A studio audience joined Cleveland-area public-TV viewers in watching a bipartisan duo, Gov. Bob Taft of Ohio and Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia, discuss ways to improve high schools. The town hall-style meeting aired live.
“Clearly, we’ve got some ideas about how we can make high schools better, but you guys know better than us,” Gov. Warner told the crowd. The Democrat has made high schools the focus of his work as this year’s chairman of the National Governors Association.
This is not the first time that governors have talked about the need to improve America’s high schools, though the NGA’s current effort is a powerful force in what has become a groundswell of interest by the private and public sectors over issues such as dropout rates, college readiness, and workforce training.
President Bush, too, has talked about high school policy, pledging in his post-election comments this month to raise the profile of high school issues in his second term. In his re-election campaign, he said he would seek more accountability and more testing in grades 9-12. (
"Bush Test Proposal for High Schoolers Joins Wider Trend," Sept. 15, 2004.)
Gov. Warner plans to hold similar meetings on high schools over the coming months in Arkansas, Maine, and New Mexico, with the help of governors in those states. What’s more, the NGA will convene many of the nation’s governors in Washington for what’s being billed as a national high school summit in February.
“Think about your own experiences, think about others’ experiences … and think about what it takes to help every student,” Gov. Taft, a Republican, told the audience before the Cleveland broadcast.
With many of the state and federal efforts to improve education beginning to show incremental gains in the early grades, it’s only natural that policymakers would turn their attention to high school, some say.
‘Pocketbook’ Issue
“The whole country is really beginning to understand we’ve had decades of policy neglect on high schools,” said Hilary Pennington, a co-founder and the vice chairwoman of Jobs for the Future, a Boston-based nonprofit organization that works with policymakers on education and workforce issues.
Better data on education, more study of the high school dropout problem, and worries about losing jobs to other countries are forming a “triple whammy” that is leading policymakers to take a closer look at high school policies, she added.
Just as important, others say, is that the timing might be right for lawmakers to overcome competing concerns—such as whether to focus on college preparation or employment training—to approve new policies for high schools. Observers also point to the added pressure to raise student achievement under the many mandates of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the showcase initiative in education from President Bush’s first term.
“Governors are beginning to understand this in their pocketbooks,” Ms. Pennington said. “If states have large numbers of dropouts, it makes a huge difference in a state’s economic-development potential, in their tax revenues, and their states’ earning potential among their population.”
Betsy Brand, the director of the Washington-based American Youth Policy Forum, said the governors’ interest in high schools likely will translate into legislation and policy changes in the coming months and years.
“The states are going to be picking up on this, and they’ll be doing most of the work,” she said, “to the extent that other legislation can be brought into alignment with some of the goals in No Child Left Behind to support increased accountability at the high school level.”
Ms. Pennington added that public high schools might benefit from competition from community colleges or other organizations that could offer high school diplomas. Higher standards for alternative educational settings will need to be developed, Ms. Pennington said. Right now, the nation has a “very second-class, second-chance system” for those students, she said.
During the television broadcast, the governors heard Cleveland-area students, educators, parents, and others voice their thoughts on high schools.
Good Ideas?
Students in the audience—and TV viewers by e-mail—complained about the emphasis on standardized tests, inadequate K-12 funding, rising college costs, and insufficient teacher quality.
Ohio’s Mr. Taft, one of two chairmen of Achieve, a Washington organization founded by governors and business leaders that pushes for higher student achievement, talked up the need for more-demanding high school courses.
He cited data suggesting that few unskilled jobs will remain in the United States past this decade, and that everyone will need at least a strong high school education.
“I sometimes like to say I have the last unskilled job in the state of Ohio,” he quipped.
Virginia’s Mr. Warner told students that they can’t expect most states to get rid of high school exit exams, but that they should expect more chances to take college and career courses in high school.
“We need to realize high schools need reforms,” he said.
In interviews before the broadcast, audience members shared other ideas for fixing the nation’s high schools.
Joffrey Jones, the superintendent of the 6,500-student Euclid, Ohio, schools, said his district is trying to build smaller environments within a large high school through a grant from Ohio’s Transforming High Schools Initiative. The state initiative is financed by the Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “We’re trying to personalize the schools,” he said.
Parents need easy access to school leaders and teachers, added Carol Beasley, the districtwide PTA president for the Euclid public schools. “There’s so many parents who don’t have that opportunity.”
Dean Bryson, a junior at Euclid High School, said schools need more teachers who are engaging and caring. “If I respect the teacher more, I’ll do better in her class,” he said.
A senior at Cleveland Heights High School, Bruce Hampton, said he doesn’t like Ohio’s emphasis on standardized tests. Teachers spend too much time prepping students for the exams “instead of just education that’s going to help you in life,” he said.
Kevin N. Golden, a senior at Cleveland Heights High, complimented his school’s array of vocational courses in health and other fields, but said many other schools in Ohio do not have such offerings.
The governors said they plan to act.
State Action
Gov. Taft, often aligned with business leaders in his state, said that high school reform is an issue of economics in Ohio. “The preparation of our workforce is probably the number-one issue in Ohio,” he said in an interview here.
“I hope the whole country’s coming together and focusing on this.”
Last week, the Ohio state board of education’s task force on high schools recommended more academic rigor, relevance for students, and stronger relationships between educators and their students.
He said that he may advocate more high school tests—rather than graduation tests only—to help educators assess the skills that young people bring to 9th grade. The goal, he said, would be to provide students help earlier and eliminate the need for remedial courses in college.
Gov. Warner said he and other state-level leaders are looking for systemic changes in high schools that will have long-term benefits for their states—but also prove politically smart for governors.
He has begun several programs in Virginia aimed at improving vocational courses and giving high school students more consistent college credit for Advanced Placement courses. States also must take seriously the need for better remediation for students who are struggling academically. “Those are some of the things that can be done quickly and cheaply,” Mr. Warner said.
Both governors pointed to recent data showing that high school dropouts are more prevalent in the United States than many leaders had believed. Eleven states have high school completion rates of lower than 67 percent, according to Jobs for the Future.
“We can’t afford to lose that human talent anymore,” Gov. Taft said.
Folks:
I believe this "is off to the wizard" by now. We will keep everyone "posted" as developments warant.
Sincere THANKS to Sherry Kuchon.
Best,
Jim
Letter of Intent to apply for Informal Science Education (ISE) grant
Program Solicitation NSF 04-579
Title of Project: Creating Sustainable Communities through Informal Science Education (CSC thru ISE)
Submitting Institution: Oakland Schools
Names and affiliations of Principal Investigators and Co-Principal Investigators; email and phone number of PI:
Principal Investigator: LaMoine Motz, Ph.D.Director, Oakland Schools Math, Science and Technology CenterPhone: 248.209.2399Email: lamoine.motz@oakland.k12.mi.us
Co-Principal Investigators: Dwight SieggreeenScience InstructorIda B. Cooke Middle SchoolPhone: 248.344.8493Email:
sieggreed@cooke.northville.k12.mi.us
Impact
Every human being is innately drawn to his or her environment. Yet through the process of socio-economic growth and development communities grow further and further away from their connection to the environment. Community members are isolated from baseline understanding of science, embroiled in a culture unaware of larger sustainability issues.
Through intention and inquiry, the Creating Sustainable Communities through ISE (CSC thru ISE) project will align principles of science and personal relevancy, leading to self-discovery and the natural order of science that brings about clarity of thought and purpose in every day life.
The disconnect from nature caused by the fragmentation and isolation that exists in every community puts the community in direct opposition to transformational change. Using the environment as a teacher, the CSC thru ISE project will reconnect the general population to nature. Bridging fundamental principles of science to the relevancy of every day life will deepen appreciation of natural and historical assets and promote community stewardship toward the protection of those assets.
The clarity of thought and understanding that is generated through correlates of the basic laws of nature will enable transformational change in local communities and ultimately advance global sustainability.
Evaluation of impact will be measured through the use of electronic surveys, personal interviews, participation in informal learning experiences, and findings generated by the informal learning activities; with support from the Society for Organizational Learning as an outside evaluator
Collaboration
The McMath-Hulbert Observatory and it’s consortium partners have been deeply engaged in the research and development of technological and telecommunication innovations for K-12 education for the past decade. The CSC thru ISE project in partnership with the National Science Foundation will enable the rigorous review, practical application and dissemination of our collective findings on an informal population of learners. The data generated from the CSC through ISE project will add to the fundamental principles of science and will move the field of informal science education forward by bridging fundamental principles of science to the relevancy of peoples’ lives.
Primary Organizational partners:
McMath-Hulbert Observatory
Oakland Schools
Oakland County Trails Advisory Council
Pontiac Schools
Senior staff of the Creating Sustainable Communities through ISE include:
James Ross, Director, McMath-Hulbert Observatory
Edgar Hendry, Chief Telecommunications Engineer, General Motors
John Iras, K-12 Education Consultant
Paul Briercheck, K-12 Education Consultant
James Bhan, Information Technology Consultant, McMath-Hulbert Observatory
Kevin Grazier, Senior Imaging Specialist, Cassini Mission, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
James Fitzgeral, Aerospace Education Specialist, NASA Glen Research Center
B.C. Cotter, Advance Biology Instructor, School District of the City of Pontiac
Mozell Lang, Science Consultant, School District of the City of Pontiac
Kyle Hughes, Instructor, Oakland Schools Math, Science and Technology Center
Linda Torony, Agriscience Instructor, Oakland Schools Technology Center – NW Campus
Donald Carli, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Sustainable Communications, New York
Oya Demirli, Executive Director, Institute for Sustainable Communications, New York
Mel Drumm, Director, Ann Arbor Hands-on Learning Center
Consultants include:
Pat O-Connor, Field Biologist, US Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District
Kent Roberts, Executive Director, the National Civility Center
Joyce Hess, Education Outreach Coordinator, US Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District
Luke Clyburn, Executive Officer, US Sea Cadets
Innovation
The Creating Sustainable Communities through ISE project will develop and implement informal learning experiences for individuals of all ages and backgrounds by:
1) Engaging families of K-12 children in informal learning experiences both physically and virtually by creating opportunities for learning after school and on weekends. Informal learning experiences in earth and life sciences will include hands-on, self-directed learning in a cross-cultural community. Staging sites will include:
McMath-Hulbert Observatory: current operational solar observatory instruments along with their digital upgrades will be utilized to explore the Sun, Moon, and Planets (Solar System) via various telecommunication vehicles (internet web-based, videoconferencing, T-1 connections, fiber-optic network connections) to disseminate real time viewing opportunities to homes and classrooms.
Pontiac Nature Center & Trailway: An urban ecosystem that provides an environmental, hands-on, educational laboratory for young people and their families.
ONE Network (Oakland Network for Education): A county-wide fiber optic network that connects 28 local public school districts.
2) Empowering young people to take ownership of their own urban environment by becoming stewards of an urban ecosystem. Young learners will lead and monitor all experiments including:
· Water quality testing
· Flora and fauna identification
· Biological observations and study
· Reptilian and amphibian identification
· Ornithology
· Long-range experiment applying basic scientific principles to a long range study such as a watershed study, rivers study, lake study.
· Introduction to EPA and DNR
3) Providing opportunities for student led mentoring and student designed science curriculum as a vehicle to satisfy a state requirement for 40 hours of community service to receive Michigan Education Assessment Program scholarship funds.Students from the Oakland Schools Technology Centers, OSMTech, and Pontiac Schools will be presented opportunity to volunteer. The students will lead in person or virtually.
4) Expanding the outreach of “Super Saturdays” via the ONE Network
8-13 young people from the tri-county area of southeastern MI meet on Saturday at the McMath-Hulbert Observatory to brainstorm on cognitive thinking, development a collective plan with science components, then execute the plan. Participants are recruited by their peers and parents are active participants. The CSC thru ISE project will increase the numbers of informal learners by utilizing the countywide fiber network as a dissemination vehicle.
5) Effective application of existing technology to support content deliverables in a transparent fashion.
· Digital newsletter generated monthly by young learners
· Blog site development
· Shared learning experiences through video conferencing
· Broadcasting informal science learning experiences in HDTV
· Creating 3-D real time interaction for informal learners
· Distribution of information to 28 districts via fiber optic network
· Dynamic, interactive compelling programming
· On demand
6) Hosting an annual Science Festival at the urban wetlands
· Celebrate learners’ successes and discoveries
· Expand involvement to family, friends, and neighboring communities
· Engage outreach and replication opportunity
· Promote the mission of the National Science Foundation
· Heighten awareness and create relevancy
