Category Archives: art education

Low Performing Schools – SIG School Series, Part I

Something important is happening in education and you’re paying a lot of for it. A brand new school reform program is about to commence and $416 million of your tax money is footing the bill in California alone.

This new Educational Reform Effort is entitled the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program authorized under Section 1003(g)  of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and the money is allocated from the United States Department of Education to state departments of education throughout the country. Because most of our work is in California, we’ll be talking about how it plays out in California. The California Department of Education (CDE) administers the grant competition in California and makes a final allocation of the funding.

On June 24, 2010, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell  announced in a news release  that the Federal Government had approved California’s application for SIG funding to reform 188 of the persistently lowest achieving schools in the state. These schools are to be reformed using one of four models:

  • Turnaround Model: The LEA undertakes a series of major school improvement actions, including replacing the principal and rehiring no more than 50 percent of the school’s staff; adopting a new governance structure; and implementing an instructional program that is research-based and vertically aligned from one grade to the next, as well as aligned with California’s adopted content standards.
  • Restart Model: The LEA converts a school or closes and reopens a school under a charter school operator; a charter management organization; or an education management organization that has been selected through a locally determined, rigorous review process, using state educational agency provided guidance. A restart model school must enroll, within the grades it serves, any former student who wishes to attend the school.
  • School Closure Model: The LEA closes a school and enrolls the students who attended that school in other schools in the LEA that are higher achieving. These other schools should be within reasonable proximity to the closed school and may include charter schools or new schools for which achievement data are not yet available.
  • Transformation Model: The LEA implements a series of required school improvement strategies, including replacing the principal who led the school prior to implementation of the transformation model, and increasing instructional time.

(Source – California Department of Education: News Release, “State Schools Chief Jack O’Connell Announces California Wins Federal Funding to Turn Around Persistently Lowest-Achieving Schools”, 6/24/10)

In the interest of full disclosure, we at Creative Resources and Research worked with one school district to develop its grant application and we helped another school district by reviewing its application for them to fine-tune it.

Over the years, after working with hundreds of schools attempting to complete school improvement and reform processes, we have been fascinated (and often frustrated) at the frightening level of dysfunction within low performing schools and districts. Working closely with a couple of districts applying for SIG funds, we started wondering about the other eligible schools.

Where are these schools? Do all of the schools share common characteristics? These questions led to more interesting questions such as, are there factors revealed in non-academic data that might have important implications for school reform? How do these lowest performing schools compare with schools at the other end of the performance spectrum? How different are the lowest performing schools from those 450 or so “Distinguished”  schools? What are the similarities and differences between these two groups and what might those differences tell us is important in terms of reforming California schools? What needs to change at the lowest performing schools to turn the Persistently Lowest Performing Schools into “Distinguished” schools?

This series of posts about SIG will seek answers to some of these questions or at least to pose new questions that require further research and examination. Our next post in the series will be “Who Are the Lowest Performing Schools?”

———————————-

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Low Performing Schools – SIG School Series, Part I

Something important is happening in education and you’re paying a lot of for it. A brand new school reform program is about to commence and $416 million of your tax money is footing the bill in California alone.

This new Educational Reform Effort is entitled the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program authorized under Section 1003(g)  of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and the money is allocated from the United States Department of Education to state departments of education throughout the country. Because most of our work is in California, we’ll be talking about how it plays out in California. The California Department of Education (CDE) administers the grant competition in California and makes a final allocation of the funding.

On June 24, 2010, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell  announced in a news release  that the Federal Government had approved California’s application for SIG funding to reform 188 of the persistently lowest achieving schools in the state. These schools are to be reformed using one of four models:

  • Turnaround Model: The LEA undertakes a series of major school improvement actions, including replacing the principal and rehiring no more than 50 percent of the school’s staff; adopting a new governance structure; and implementing an instructional program that is research-based and vertically aligned from one grade to the next, as well as aligned with California’s adopted content standards.
  • Restart Model: The LEA converts a school or closes and reopens a school under a charter school operator; a charter management organization; or an education management organization that has been selected through a locally determined, rigorous review process, using state educational agency provided guidance. A restart model school must enroll, within the grades it serves, any former student who wishes to attend the school.
  • School Closure Model: The LEA closes a school and enrolls the students who attended that school in other schools in the LEA that are higher achieving. These other schools should be within reasonable proximity to the closed school and may include charter schools or new schools for which achievement data are not yet available.
  • Transformation Model: The LEA implements a series of required school improvement strategies, including replacing the principal who led the school prior to implementation of the transformation model, and increasing instructional time.

(Source – California Department of Education: News Release, “State Schools Chief Jack O’Connell Announces California Wins Federal Funding to Turn Around Persistently Lowest-Achieving Schools”, 6/24/10)

In the interest of full disclosure, we at Creative Resources and Research worked with one school district to develop its grant application and we helped another school district by reviewing its application for them to fine-tune it.

Over the years, after working with hundreds of schools attempting to complete school improvement and reform processes, we have been fascinated (and often frustrated) at the frightening level of dysfunction within low performing schools and districts. Working closely with a couple of districts applying for SIG funds, we started wondering about the other eligible schools.

Where are these schools? Do all of the schools share common characteristics? These questions led to more interesting questions such as, are there factors revealed in non-academic data that might have important implications for school reform? How do these lowest performing schools compare with schools at the other end of the performance spectrum? How different are the lowest performing schools from those 450 or so “Distinguished”  schools? What are the similarities and differences between these two groups and what might those differences tell us is important in terms of reforming California schools? What needs to change at the lowest performing schools to turn the Persistently Lowest Performing Schools into “Distinguished” schools?

This series of posts about SIG will seek answers to some of these questions or at least to pose new questions that require further research and examination. Our next post in the series will be “Who Are the Lowest Performing Schools?”

———————————-

Improve your grant writing skills.  Become a member of GrantGoddess.com!

Published by Creative Resources & Research http://grantgoddess.com

The Arts – A Vehicle to Improve Student Achievement

Our Grant Coach and resident Art Expert, Mary Ellen Bergh, explores the question, “Can we afford to sacrifice arts education in our schools?”

At the beginning of this decade, for the first time in the history of public education in the United States, the arts have been officially recognized as one of the subject areas necessary for all children’s basic education. However, administrators, under pressure to improve test scores, have reduced arts education and arts programming in favor of increasing instructional time in language arts and math. In doing this, they may actually be eliminating critical links to academic success for many students. How does the study of the arts contribute to student achievement and success? And, why is it important to keep the study of the arts strong in our schools?

Brain research and multiple intelligences theories are providing evidence to support including the arts in a balanced curriculum. For example, brain research indicates that studying the arts may lay critical neural pathways important for later development. According to Eric Jensen (neuroscientist and author of many books on brain-based learning), when children learn to play the violin, the drums, or other musical instruments, “they seem to develop strong pattern extraction and develop abilities that are essential to higher brain functions in logic, math, and problem-solving.” Arts education can also offer teachers additional ways to reach all students in a manner that other instruction doesn’t.

A significant body of research provides evidence connecting student learning in the arts to a wide array of academic and social benefits, particularly for young children, students from economically disadvantaged circumstances, and students struggling to achieve standards. Arts activities have been shown to improve reading and language development, math, and cognitive skills (spatial reasoning, problem-solving and creative thinking). Research also shows that learning in the arts provides motivation to learn, positive attitudes toward learning and helps to create a learning environment that is conducive to teacher and student success.

If a broad education that includes the arts can provide students with the skills that positively impact academic success, schools must be given the opportunity to offer these programs. Good arts education programs require ongoing support from administrators, teachers and parents. Ensuring that the arts are part of a school’s culture requires effort, advocacy, and a persistent voice for the importance of arts education. Become an advocate for the arts in education! Contact your local arts organizations to develop partnerships to bring art and artists into your schools and work together to secure funding (grants, fund-raising, etc) to provide arts programs and professional development for teachers.

The Arts – A Vehicle to Improve Student Achievement

Our Grant Coach and resident Art Expert, Mary Ellen Bergh, explores the question, “Can we afford to sacrifice arts education in our schools?”

At the beginning of this decade, for the first time in the history of public education in the United States, the arts have been officially recognized as one of the subject areas necessary for all children’s basic education. However, administrators, under pressure to improve test scores, have reduced arts education and arts programming in favor of increasing instructional time in language arts and math. In doing this, they may actually be eliminating critical links to academic success for many students. How does the study of the arts contribute to student achievement and success? And, why is it important to keep the study of the arts strong in our schools?

Brain research and multiple intelligences theories are providing evidence to support including the arts in a balanced curriculum. For example, brain research indicates that studying the arts may lay critical neural pathways important for later development. According to Eric Jensen (neuroscientist and author of many books on brain-based learning), when children learn to play the violin, the drums, or other musical instruments, “they seem to develop strong pattern extraction and develop abilities that are essential to higher brain functions in logic, math, and problem-solving.” Arts education can also offer teachers additional ways to reach all students in a manner that other instruction doesn’t.

A significant body of research provides evidence connecting student learning in the arts to a wide array of academic and social benefits, particularly for young children, students from economically disadvantaged circumstances, and students struggling to achieve standards. Arts activities have been shown to improve reading and language development, math, and cognitive skills (spatial reasoning, problem-solving and creative thinking). Research also shows that learning in the arts provides motivation to learn, positive attitudes toward learning and helps to create a learning environment that is conducive to teacher and student success.

If a broad education that includes the arts can provide students with the skills that positively impact academic success, schools must be given the opportunity to offer these programs. Good arts education programs require ongoing support from administrators, teachers and parents. Ensuring that the arts are part of a school’s culture requires effort, advocacy, and a persistent voice for the importance of arts education. Become an advocate for the arts in education! Contact your local arts organizations to develop partnerships to bring art and artists into your schools and work together to secure funding (grants, fund-raising, etc) to provide arts programs and professional development for teachers.

Published by Creative Resources & Research http://grantgoddess.com