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Welcome!
What is
Urban Edge?
Urban Edge is a service that provides CUBE districts
with relevant information to help your awareness of education issues around the
country. We will glean news sources, blogs, research studies, and NSBA's wide range of expertise for timely information that guides CUBE districts in making sound decisions. Around
the nation
Kansas City scraps grade levels
Many districts across the country have done
away with grade levels, and focused more on mastery
of the curriculum to advance students. This
practice has been more common in smaller districts
where the teachers can be more flexible and policies
can be adapted for a school or other learning
environment. But Kansas City, Missouri is
continuing their trend-setting ways with this recent
announcement (Edge readers may recall earlier
stories about closing 40% of their schools next
year). The superintendent is working hard to
re-invent the district's schools in a 21st century
style of learning. He said, "It's
[current U.S. education system] an outdated,
industrial, agrarian kind of model that lends itself
to still allowing students to progress through
school based on the amount of time they sit in a
chair rather than whether or not they have truly
mastered the competencies and skills."
The plan will be in five elementary schools this
fall, with hopes to expand to the higher grades in
upcoming years.
Link
to AP/Google News
7/3/10
Tulsa looks to local universities for urban teacher
training
Like many CUBE districts, school districts in
urban areas often tap into local universities as a
resource. Universities in the Tulsa area are
creating a program where teachers will specialize in
urban education. The new program will likely
work with Tulsa Public Schools as the school board
creates a policy to put prospective teachers
in urban schools where principals are proving to be
strong leaders. Students are already
interested at the universities involved, mostly
because many of them came from urban schools themselves,
and they hope to serve the communities they seek to
improve.
Link to Tulsa World 7/3/10
New
report breaks down ethnic and racial education
trends
The National Center for Education Statistics has
released a new report titled, "Status and
Trends in the Education of Racial and Ethnic Groups."
The report goes into detail about student achievement
broken down by ethnic group, and includes a wide
range of demographic information and how it impacts
students. While it is not specifically
targeted for urban districts, the report is a good
source for urban school board members to use as a
measuring stick for national statistics.
Link
to National Center for Educational Statistics 7/14/10 Graduation
rates and the economic impact
Graduation rates are among the biggest challenges
urban school districts face. With sometimes
grim statistics, especially for students of color,
the graduation rate may be the single most reported
educational statistic for urban districts. The
Alliance for Excellent Education has broken down the
numbers by city, including many CUBE
districts, and released a new report that focuses on
the economic impact of a low graduation rate on a
city. They also conducted a webinar (archived here)
earlier this month to discuss the issue. The
link below has FAQs, notes, and a link to the
research conducted earlier in 2010. The data
is great information to share with your district's
business and philanthropic community.
Link
to Alliance for Excellent Education page Academic
Journal Update
CUBE
districts are familiar with the struggles of boys
and their education. At NSBA's Annual Conference
this spring in Chicago, one of the most popular CUBE
sessions was about educating
black male students, and there is no shortage of
books and articles on boys struggling in schools,
from elementary school to college. Harvard
University's Graduate School of Education looked at
the problem and recently released their view on the
topic. In the Harvard Education Letter, the
authors review the "crisis" and consider
the sources ranging from socioeconomic factors to
governmental data to try and come up with conclusions
on how to help boys in schools. If your
district has struggled with this issue, this article
is a worthwhile read.
Link
to Harvard Education Letter July/August
2010 edition
CUBE
News
CUBE's
Annual Conference is coming to Baltimore,
Maryland, September 30- October 2. Registrations
are now being accepted and the full brochure can be
found below. We have an exciting lineup of
speakers, sessions, and the CUBE Annual Award for
Urban School Board Excellence, will be awarded to a
winning district The Benjamin Elijah Mays
Lifetime Achievement Award will also be given to a
deserving individual. Click here
(.pdf file, may take a few moments to download) for
more information. Nominations
for the 2010 Benjamin Elijah Mays Lifetime
Achievement Award are being accepted now
through July
20. If you have had the benefit of working
with a dedicated individual who has been committed
to urban schoolchildren as a school board member,
consider nominating them for this prestigious
award. More details can be found on CUBE's
web site.
CUBE
is on Twitter-Follow CUBE_Edge (CUBE_Edge)
for daily updates on what's happening in urban
education around the country.
NSBA
News
Registration
and housing are now open for NSBA’s annual T+L
Conference, the premier technology and learning
conference for school leaders. This year’s event,
to be held Oct. 19 to 21 in Phoenix, will focus on
change and the tools and programming you need. Go here
for more information, or here
to register.
Program
Note
Did
you know that all previous editions of the Urban
Edge are available on CUBE's web site? If
you missed an issue, wanted to go back to find a
link to a research study we referenced, or need some
information about what other districts are doing,
click here.
Disclaimer
Links
on the Urban Edge are subject to change or
become inactive after a period of time. Please
be aware that CUBE has no control over links to
other organizations or entities.
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