12/14/04 — U.S. near bottom on global assessment
• Fifteen-year olds in the United States performed below the national average in mathematics literacy and problem-solving, according to the latest results from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), released Dec. 6.
The United States ranked 24th out of 29 countries on the assessment, which is conducted by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
U.S. students outperformed students in Portugal, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Mexico. The top-scoring countries are Finland, South Korea, and the Netherlands. For more information, see http://nces.ed.gov.
Abstinence programs said to be misleading
• Many federally funded abstinence-only programs teach youths “false and misleading information about reproductive health,” charges Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the top-ranking Democrat on the Government Reform Committee.
A report released by Waxman Dec. 1 says more than 80 percent of the most popular abstinence-only programs rely on curricula that distort information about the effectiveness of contraceptives, misrepresent the risks of abortion, blur religion and science, treat stereotypes about girls and boys as scientific fact, or contain basic scientific errors.
For example, many of the curricula say condoms are not effective in preventing sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy, despite scientific evidence to the contrary. Some of the curricula overstate the risks of abortion, and one program calls a 43-day-old fetus a “thinking person.”
“It is absolutely vital that the health education provided to America’s youth be scientifically and medically accurate,” Waxman says. “Something is seriously wrong when federal tax dollars are being used to mislead kids about basic health facts.”
The omnibus appropriations bill approved by Congress in November increases funding for abstinence programs by more than $30 million for 2005. Waxman says the federal government will spend $170 million on such programs this year, more than twice the amount spent in 2001.
Hickok announces resignation
• Deputy Secretary of Education Gene Hickok announced his resignation from the U.S. Education Department Dec. 2, to take effect the end of January. Hickok has been at the Education Department for four years, first serving as under secretary.
Before joining the Bush Administration, Hickok served six years as secretary of education for the state of Pennsylvania under then-Gov. Tom Ridge.
Also on Dec. 2, Barbara R. Foorman, an authority on language and reading development, was named the first head of the National Center for Education Research, a key office in the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education.
Foorman is a professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas-Houston Medical School and director of the Center for Academic and Reading Skills.
More teachers attain national certification
• The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) announced Nov. 30 that 8,056 teachers earned “National Board Certification” this year. That puts the total number of teachers achieving that distinction at 40,200.
States with the highest number of national board certified teachers (NBCTs) this year are North Carolina (1,675), Florida (1,472), South Carolina (637), Georgia (450), and California (443).
National board certification is a voluntary performance-based assessment process that takes between one and three years to complete. It measures what accomplished teachers should know and be able to do.
NBPTS Chair Roy E. Barnes, the former governor of Georgia, says research has confirmed that “teachers who earn this distinction represent the gold standard in teaching and are among the most effective teachers in our classrooms today.”
A study released in November by the CNA Corp. found students of NBCTs did a measurably better job than other ninth and 10th graders on year-end math tests in Miami-Dade County (Fla.) public schools.
And in September, researchers at Arizona State University found that students of NBCTs outperformed students of non-NBCTs on the Stanford 9 achievement test.
School violent crime rates drop
• The rate of violent crimes in school settings against students ages 12 to 18 declined by half between 1992 and 2002, states a report released Nov. 29 by the U.S. departments of Education and Justice.
Among the key findings in Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2004 are the following:
• Between 1993 and 2003, the percentage of students in grades 9-12 who reported being in a fight on school property declined from 16 percent to 13 percent.
• Between 1993 and 2003, the percentage of students in grades 9-12 who reported carrying a weapon such as a gun, knife, or club on school property within the previous 30 days dropped by half, from 12 percent to 6 percent.
• In 2003, 7 percent of students ages 12 to 18 reported that they had been bullied at school, compared to 5 percent in 1999.
• Twenty-one percent of students ages 12-18 reported that street gangs were present at their schools in 2003.