Many Israeli parents of children with special needs, who have passed through nine circles of bureaucratic hell in an attempt to keep their offspring in the education system, would prefer to live in Europe or North America. Now, parents like Ilil Leder, whose daughter has Down's Syndrome and attends a regular school, know exactly where they stand in the world.
A comprehensive, comparative report produced by the Yated Down's Syndrome Association in Israel and Alut, the Israel Society for Autistic Children - at Leder's behest - reveals that many developed nations lead Israel in mainstreaming children with special needs and provide funding and special services that Israeli parents may merely envy. Public discourse on the status of these children in society and legislation determining this also lags behind that of leading developed nations.
The report prepared by economist Dr. Nahum Balas, who investigates different approaches to special education around the world, also includes a concrete proposal for a fairer system of funding. This system would provide children with special needs with the assistance and service they require in the educational setting of their choice. Ruth Pan, director of the special education department at the Education Ministry, says that the ministry is discussing setting up personalized services for each child in need, but this has not yet materialized.
The Netherlands is described in the report as one of the most progressive nations in terms of placing children with special needs in regular schools. About 10 years ago, that nation witnessed a revolution in its education system: Most of the schools in the highly developed, Dutch special education system became assistance centers that provide regular schools with the information and expert personnel required to care for children with special needs. Funds previously allocated to special education schools were distributed to these new centers, and regular schools enjoyed a significant hike in their budgets.
Personal allowances for children with "pronounced disabilities" blindness, deafness, mental retardation and autism were allocated to the educational institution chosen by the children's parents. In the Netherlands, parents play a significant role in choosing their children?s schools, and this policy has made it possible for 400 children with Down's Syndrome to attend regular schools in the past decade.
Poor in comparison
Israel's ranking in financial allocations to children with special needs is also pitiable. In 2005, Israel earmarked only 9 percent of its educational funding for special education. According to Balas' report, this figure is 12 percent in the United States. There, a child with special needs receives an average of $12,500 per year. In Britain, funding for children with special needs ranges from $4,000 to $29,000. In Ontario, Canada, like the Netherlands, funding per child goes to any institution the child attends. In Australia's four-semester school system, funding follows a child to a new school even if the child attended his previous school for only one semester.
A special education pupil in Israel receives an average of NIS 22,000 per year in public funds. (This figure was grossly calculated by dividing the funds for special education by the number of pupils defined as disabled.) The type of framework provided, be it in a special education school or a regular school, significantly impacts the cost of the education. For example, the report indicates that a child with moderate mental retardation in a regular classroom receives a package of integrative services that costs about NIS 34,000. If the same child attends a special education school, the cost is about NIS 73,000 more than twice that of mainstreaming.
Organizations that assist children with special needs have fought for years to promote allocations tailored to the child rather than the educational institution. But a protracted battle, including three appeals accepted by the High Court, produced little real change in this arena.
A significant portion of the report is devoted to describing funding systems for children with special needs in different countries and the dilemmas those countries face. One accepted system is allocating funds per pupil: All children with special educational needs are evaluated and counted, and local authorities or schools receive a budget based on the number of children they serve and the extent of their disabilities. This system is used in 19 states in the United States, and in Britain. However, the mandatory evaluation of all pupils has produced an exaggerated number of personnel who work only in special education in some parts of the world.
Another disadvantage of this system is that states incur increased legal costs when parents challenge their children?s diagnoses. In 2002, local school boards in the U.S. spent $150 million on legal fees associated with special education. An additional downfall is that the system produces an unstable job market: Children who move may cause a sudden drop in the number of teachers required.
The alternative to this system is based on funding the educational framework rather than the child. According to this system, the cost of the setting, the number of teachers and the hours of instruction determine the budget. Part of this budget is static and is not affected by the number of children and the services they require. This system is in effect in Austria, Germany and 10 states in the U.S.
Israel has also adopted this system to fund its special education. According to the report, the main disadvantage of this system is that it does not encourage identifying and promoting children who could potentially be mainstreamed because every child who leaves an institution takes away from that institution's budget.
A third system is based on statistics: The prevalence of children with disabilities may be predicted in any given area and the budget may be allocated for that area without actually counting heads. Thus, Israel uses a formula to estimate the number of children with disabilities in regular schools. However, under this system a school with five children with Down?s Syndrome and an autistic child may receive the same funding as a school with only one mainstreamed pupil. This system can be problematic, particularly in the case of children with severe and costly disabilities.
A blend of methods
In the report, Balas proposes that Israel adopt aspects of a variety of systems used around the world. According to his proposal, children with severe and complex disabilities would be evaluated, and funding for them would be allocated based on the number of cases and individual diagnoses. Funding for the majority of children with less pronounced disabilities, like learning disabilities, would be based on statistical analysis using formulas provided by this research. He notes that Israel has yet to gather complete and comprehensive statistics regarding the number of disabled children and the prevalence of different types of disabilities. Discrepancies in data gathered by the Education Ministry, the National Insurance Institute and the Central Bureau of Statistics indicate that at least some of the children are not receiving the services and budget that they require.
The report also recommends a budget hike in regular schools. The larger the basic investment in education, the report concludes, the more it will be possible to get by on less funding for pupils with special needs.
Israel also lags behind many countries in legislation regarding children with special needs. Unlike Israel, many of these nations enacted detailed laws to mainstream these children in the 1970s and 1980s. A report by the European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education divides European nations into those where nearly every disabled pupil is mainstreamed (Spain, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Iceland and Norway), nations that have two completely separate systems of regular and special education (Switzerland and Belgium), and nations that combine regular and special education in a variety of ways (Denmark, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Austria, Finland, Britain, the Netherlands and Germany).
Reexamining the system
According to Pan, 10 years ago the special education department of the Education Ministry began work on a master plan to implement a special education law that would guarantee each child with special needs an appropriate educational framework. However, the budget earmarked for the program was half what her department requested, she says.
Pan says that intense deliberations are now underway in the ministry to reexamine the funding system used in special education.
Now, values are changing there is greater emphasis on the dignity of man and his freedom, she says. Thus, the trend is to create a personal package, like the health basket model, that every child with special needs would be entitled to receive. However, this planning is in its earliest stages.
According to Pan, Israel's position in the world regarding special education is excellent and Israel could serve as a model for nations like Greece, where the special education system is less developed. One must not forget, she says, that there are parents who beg us to open special education classes where there are none.
Yulie Khromchenko
January 26, 2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=schools&itemNo=674922
Inclusion debate treads new ground
Are ministers pulling back from their resolve to educate all pupils in the mainstream?
The New Rush Hall special school for children with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties in Hainault, Essex, is at the cutting edge of the revived debate about inclusion. Every day it copes with 60 children with behavioural difficulties that have led to them being excluded from the mainstream. Children come from the other side of London because the care it offers is no longer available in other boroughs, which have closed their specialist provision.
"We had a child come in last week. He's only seven. The first thing he said to me was 'Fuck off' and I knew he was for us," says Maureen Smyth, head of the school. "He kicked his parents, but I told him not to kick me and he didn't. We knew we could work with him."
I meet the same boy in the corridor. He's just been swimming and his teacher is very proud of his good behaviour. After a moment he even shakes my hand and calls Smyth "Miss" - this from a boy whose behaviour is so bad his parents dare not take him to Pizza Hut. "The kids we meet here have shown very violent behaviour in their mainstream schools," says Smyth. "They have hit other children, bitten other children, hit teachers, run out of school. These children pay no regard to others." Smyth sees the children as a challenge, not as a problem.
"It's not just about getting them back into mainstream. Our children aren't failures because they end up here. For some children we are their best chance of getting on in life. Inclusion is about meeting a child's needs, not about where it is done.
"Our job is to prepare children for life, not mainstream education. We will return children to the mainstream wherever possible, but inclusion fails some children."
A few miles west, in the London borough of Newham, Jane Johnson, headteacher of a mainstream primary school, St Stephen's, disagrees. Newham is also a trendsetter in the inclusion debate, in another way, boasting that it is England's most inclusive authority, with the fewest children with special educational needs "segregated" - as the borough calls it. It has closed all its special schools except one and integrated children with a vast spectrum of disabilities in mainstream settings. Johnson, who has been head of the school for 16 years, is proud of their inclusion policy, which has resulted in one-quarter of all the intake having SEN.
"It's possible that these children have a bright future and we will do everything in our power to give them that. Their expectations are raised by being here with other pupils who act as role models for them." She, too, has success stories, such as 10-year-old Dillan, who is on the high end of the autistic spectrum. Johnson says: "When Dillan arrived in reception he was very troubled, he couldn't communicate, he was very vocal, very physical with the other children." But when I visit Dillan, now in year 6, he is doing numbers on his own table with Bindhu Mehta, his full-time education assistant. Dillan is writing numbers in sequential order while the rest of the class are working on multiplication and subtraction. Mehta keeps Dillan on-task by stroking his face gently to relax him and encouraging him to concentrate. At playtime, he puts his work in his folder and goes out to sing songs with Mehta - and chat to his friend, Gemma, who is starting to do partner work with him to encourage his social skills. Dillan does not concentrate well during partner work, but Gemma shows a maturity beyond her years, coaxing him to throw dice and name the numbers so she can multiply them. "It's amazing to see other children manage him," says Johnson. "It builds Gemma's confidence too."
Government shift
Smyth and Johnson contend with the consequences of the inclusion debate every day. And lately it has been revived as a major political issue - one that the government appears to be shifting on. The Conservative party has criticised the government for closing special schools and, in its opinion, reducing parental choice. The party's leader, David Cameron has a three-year-old son, Ivan, with cerebral palsy, who attends a special school. Campaigners for special schools say admiringly that "he has walked the walk" and understands why special schools are so important. One of Cameron's first initiatives in his old role of shadow education secretary was to launch a commission into special educational needs, headed by the Conservative education guru, Sir Robert Balchin, once the architect of the grant-maintained schools programme. His interim report recommends a moratorium on closing special schools until there has been a full review of provision. Ninety-one of the country's 1,148 special schools have been closed or amalgamated in England since 1997.
"A lot of parents who have contacted us feel that their children are distressed in the mainstream and would be better supported in special schools," Balchin says. "We want to give parents choice. The disciples of inclusion are being dogmatic. We would not wish to be the same."
The supporters of special schools also received a major boost last summer when Baroness Mary Warnock revised her view. In 1978, Warnock was responsible for a major report that kick-started inclusion of children with special needs in mainstream education. Now she claims that inclusion "fails many children" and that the policy needs an extensive review. "This ideal of inclusiveness springs from hearts in the right place," she wrote in a pamphlet for the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain. But the implementation of her own ideas had been a "disastrous legacy". She wrote: "Governments must come to recognise that even if inclusion is an ideal for society in general, it may not always be an ideal for school."
Her views incensed disability rights campaigners. But Warnock remains unbowed. "One of the major disasters of the original report was that we introduced the concept of special educational needs to try and show that disabled children were not a race apart and many of them should be educated in the mainstream," she told Education Guardian. "But the unforeseen consequence is that SEN has come to be the name of a single category, and the government uses it as if it is the same problem to include a child in a wheelchair and a child with Aspergers, and that is conspicuously untrue."
The education select committee is taking evidence on special educational needs and is expected to report in early spring. "Mary Warnock has done us a service in opening up the debate on inclusion," says David Chaytor, Labour MP for Bury North and a key figure on the select committee. "There is now a consensus that to suggest all children with SEN should either be in the mainstream or in special schools is ludicrous. We need flexible arrangements."
The final report is likely to mirror this view. This would work for New Labour, as it tiptoes away from the promise in the SEN code of practice in 2002, that "the special needs of children will normally be met in special schools". Lord Adonis, the schools minister, is now responsible for SEN and there are hints that the government may be trying to find some kind of "third way" on inclusion.
"As soon as Andrew Adonis was appointed, he asked to meet so he could hear my views," says Warnock. "I find it interesting, the subterranean way in which Labour is coming round to special schools." She suspects that the government will let Cameron do the running and will then flourish a new beefed-up system in which special schools are reinvented under different names.
Lobbying to blame
Richard Rieser, the guru of the disability rights movement and director of the charity Disability Equality in Education is aghast at the government's change in tone. "Up until 2001 the government was clear that all children with disabilities should be included. That movement towards inclusion has stopped."
Rieser blames the lobbying of teaching unions and charities such as the National Autistic Society, the Royal National Institute for the Deaf, and the Royal National Institute for the Blind. Last year, Rieser was instrumental in launching Campaign 2020, which aims to close all special schools by 2020. "If a child with autism or ADHD can be accommodated in one school, why not in another?" he says. He points out that inclusion rates vary enormously across authorities - with children 24 times more likely to be included in the mainstream in Newham than in South Tyneside. "The reason inclusion is seen as not working is because local education authorities are trying to fund mainstream education for special educational needs, but are not closing their special schools."
Other disability campaigners take a different line. And here, too, there are signs of third way thinking. While in the past, most of the leading charities have supported inclusion, their support recently has become muted. "A very large group of children are being successfully included but we have to be realistic," says Lesley Campbell, national children's officer for Mencap. "Some are not included well and they end up as refugees from the mainstream, in special schools, at secondary level."
Carol Boys, chief executive of the Down's Syndrome Association (DSA), acknowledges there are real problems. "We still believe in inclusion for children with Down's syndrome, but it is really difficult. When children get to secondary level it starts to fall apart, the schools are so much bigger, the children are changing location all the time, changing personnel, it goes horribly wrong."
The DSA is now considering what Boys describes as "a sharpening of our policy". "We are coming round to the idea that specialist units on the campus of mainstream secondary schools might be better than children with Down's syndrome being in mainstream all the time and constantly feeling at the bottom of the pile."
The charity Scope, which runs some special schools but has championed inclusion, seems also to be changing tack. Andy Luck, its director of education, says: "I don't come at it from a rights-based but a service-delivery point of view. The universal inclusion position rests upon a moral presumption that this is a homogenous problem." Scope is not giving up on inclusion and is in detailed discussions with Adonis on whether mainstream schools should get specialist status for their inclusion work.
But Luck adds: "Inclusion is the key, but we can't have a situation in which a disabled child disrupts the learning of other children."
Katharine Quarmby, The Guardian
January 31, 2006
http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,1698087,00.html
Bush says math, science economic tools
WASHINGTON --Leaders in science and innovation have been clamoring for a breakthrough -- a political one. They now seem to have won a spot on the agenda of President Bush and Congress.
In his State of the Union speech, Bush said he wants to boost spending on science research, rigorous math and science teaching in high school, and help for young, struggling math students.
It was just the kind of support that a broad range of educators, researchers and business leaders in the United States has been seeking. Math and science, fields considered the backbone of a skilled workforce and an innovative economy, have become U.S. vulnerabilities recently.
As the U.S. compares itself to peers in a variety of ways -- such as test scores by high school students, bachelor's degrees in science and engineering, exports of high-tech products -- the nation is being outperformed by China, India and others.
"Our greatest advantage in the world has always been our educated, hardworking, ambitious people, and we are going to keep that edge," Bush said in unveiling his math and science agenda.
Bush framed the issue on Tuesday as a matter of economic urgency, along side immigration, health care, energy and open trade markets.
Yet big questions remain about where Congress would find money to support Bush's plans, which would cost tens of billions of dollars, and whether other education spending would be cut.
In the meantime, advocates for science, math and engineering celebrated the attention.
Gerald Wheeler, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, thanked Bush for underscoring the importance of science and math in front of a national audience.
Wheeler said federal support will help a new generation of scientists, engineers, and workers "find new ways to defend our country, create new technologies, and cure diseases."
Nils Hasselmo, President of the Association of American Universities, a coalition of leading research schools, said government spending in basic research will pay real-life dividends.
Past federal investments, he said, "have led to significant improvements in the health, wealth, and security of this country -- including a host of high-tech advances such as the Internet, the MRI, and the global positioning system that we now take for granted."
Bush called for doubling federal spending on critical research programs in the physical sciences over 10 years, a proposed increase of $50 billion.
He asked for training an additional 70,000 teachers over five years to teach advanced math and science courses in high school, where demand for such classes has soared nationwide. He also proposed new math programs for elementary and middle school students, and reiterated his goal to lure thousands of mathematicians and scientists to become adjunct high school teachers.
Ben Feller, AP Education Writer
February 1, 2006
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2006/02/01/
bush_says_math_science_economic_tools/
A truce of sorts in WASL battle
Polarized groups agree to two-year study of assessment test
The WASL debate has taken a major turn, with key education players agreeing to a two-year study that would look at why students fail the test and make recommendations on other ways to demonstrate academic progress.
Under a measure passed unanimously Monday by the Senate Education Committee, the Washington State Institute for Public Policy would conduct the study and deliver an interim report and recommendations by Dec. 1, 2006, with the final report due a year later.
(Note: An incorrect date was given in the original version of this article.)
The bill, SB6618, was amended from an original version developed by former Gov. Booth Gardner, which would have allowed students to choose from a range of assessments and removed the requirement that they fail the Washington Assessment of Student Learning twice to be eligible for alternate assessments.
This year's sophomores become the first class required to pass the 10th grade WASL in order to graduate. The requirement has prompted impassioned debate in the legislative session, with some pressing for greater flexibility and others urging lawmakers to maintain the requirement as is.
Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe, D-Bothell, who proposed the amendment, said it was clear after hearings on several WASL-related bills that a compromise was needed to draw together increasingly polarized parties.
The Senate met with the various groups involved last week, she said, and asked them to join forces in support of the bill.
"We had to get every group on board, and we're very fortunate," she said. "This bill really is a combination of everyone who was involved. All of the education stakeholders have got their words in here."
Calling the bill "a great compromise," Gardner said: "This is going to happen. We're going to get the right kind of test approved for the kids who are passing, then we can concentrate on those who might not pass."
The $400,000 study will look at the characteristics of students who fail any portion of the test at any grade level. It will examine possible barriers to academic progress, such as poverty, language challenges and learning disabilities, and address charges from some that the test is culturally biased and not relevant to children from diverse backgrounds.
It is also expected to review assessments used by other states, national tests, career skill certification courses and alternate tests proposed by the state's Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, which are expected to be in place by October, pending legislative approval. The institute will look into the cost of implementing additional assessments and report back to lawmakers with recommendations on the best options.
But legislators stressed that the initiative does not remove the WASL graduation requirement and is not intended to lessen standards students are required to meet.
"This bill supports the WASL being in place as a graduation requirement," McAuliffe said. "If I had a message to tell parents and students at this point, I'd say do your very best on the WASL. Try really hard to pass it.
"If you pass the WASL this time, you're done. You can go on to challenging classes. You can take college readiness courses. You have 11th and 12th grade to do great things."
Rep. Dave Quall, D-Mount Vernon, said the House Education Committee would vote soon on a companion bill mirroring the one passed by the Senate committee. He said he supports the amendment.
"This is saying keep the WASL, but we're looking for other assessment tools," he said. "Many (people) are saying we need more than just one test and that there are going to be a lot of bright kids that aren't going to be able to demonstrate that they met the standards on just the WASL only."
Quall said the revised bill quells the "WASL war" that was waging between groups with divergent perspectives.
"Support for this study is bringing people back together again. They feel like they're being heard."
The Washington State PTA and the Washington Education Association, which represents the state's teachers, were supporting a bill that would have created a weighted graduation model allowing higher achievement in one area to offset lower progress in another, and would have included other requirements besides the WASL as graduation determinants.
WEA President Charles Hasse said that although he hoped for substantial WASL reform this session, the study will effectively lay the groundwork for future changes.
Hasse said he's optimistic the interim report a year from now would still allow enough time to implement changes that may help mitigate a spike in dropout rates some are predicting for the class of 2008.
The amendment represents a substantial move forward from a year ago, Hasse said, when a "tremendous uproar" arose over a proposal to consider technical and vocational tests as possible WASL alternatives.
"It was heresy to suggest even studying a change," he said. "The fact that this study bill has gotten this far and has support from people who last year were opposing more limited study is significant."
P-I reporter Deborah Bach can be reached at 206-448-8197 or deborahbach@seattlepi.com.
Deborah Bach, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Reporter
February 1, 2006
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/257809_wasl01.html
Device brings high-tech to disabled students
EagleEyes: The system translates subtle head and eye movements into mouse-style commands
SPRINGVILLE - Britt Allen is an ace when it comes to zapping aliens - with his eyes.
He may not have laser-beam sight like Superman, but just one glance sends the intruders to oblivion.
On Monday, the 24-year-old - whose cerebral palsy has him in a wheelchair and inhibits his speech - shot down video-game aliens with perfection as he demonstrated a new eye-based technology to faculty at Oakridge School.
The EagleEyes technology enables nonverbal and paralyzed students to play games, type words and even express feelings simply by moving their eyes.
Boston College and the Salt Lake City-based Opportunity Foundation of America teamed up to donate two of the $1,200 devices to Oakridge on Monday, making the Springville school for severely disabled students the second statewide with the tool.
Last June, Jordan District's Jordan Valley School in Midvale became the first school in the nation to receive the groundbreaking EagleEyes devices.
"We were so enamored with what this technology could do," said Debbie Inkley, founder and executive director of The Opportunity Foundation of America. "It is not a magic answer, but it is a means to help young people move on with their life."
EagleEyes fosters communication and independent activity through a computer by translating eye movement into mouse movement.
Several electrodes attached to a student's head detect movement, then send the signal to a small box apparatus, which then relays it to the computer.
Just like that, a paralyzed child can play video games, type out sentences or study on the computer with a flash of the eye.
"It takes a lot of practice and patience," said Rick Olivares, whose 12-year-old son Cameron has cerebral palsy and attends Jordan Valley. "Hopefully. it will open up new windows of communication."
Oakridge landed two of the devices by promising to act as a trainer location for other schools and individuals looking to use the technology.
Boston College recently signed a licensing agreement with The Opportunity Foundation to distribute the devices for free, and five more special-needs schools in Utah are slated to receive the gear this year.
Oakridge Principal Richard Kay believes the device can be used as a tool for autistic children and students with communicative disabilities. He plans to give every one of his 34 students a chance to use it.
"If we can help them with those communication skills, all sorts of other things will open up," Kay said. "I see EagleEyes as a way for students to access themselves and the outer world."
Students at Jordan Valley have made great advances, said teacher Linda Eller. "It has empowered them to be in control."
Todd Hollingshead, The Salt Lake Tribune
thollingshead@sltrib.com
http://www.sltrib.com/search/ci_3459819
Link:
EagleEyes http://www.bc.edu/schools/csom/eagleeyes/eagleeyes/about/
Study: 'Power Users' drive pedagogy Research suggests tech-savvy students are having an impact in the classroom
A new survey of teachers and instructors at the high school and post-secondary levels has found that students who excel in the use of information and communications technology (ICT) are driving change in classroom instruction.
Dubbed "Power Users," this "emerging group of youth distinguished by their self-directed, long-term, extensive experiences with technology" influence what and how teachers teach, have positively affected the way instructors learn about and use technology, and are generally helpful toward their classmates, the survey said.
The study was carried out by Certiport Inc., a provider of technology training, certification, and assessment solutions, and the Education Development Center Inc. (EDC), an international nonprofit organization that researches and implements best practices in health and learning in 50 countries. The survey of 444 teachers and instructors was conducted in 382 Certiport testing centers over a seven-day period.
The survey is a part of a larger, four-year EDC study being carried out in cooperation with Certiport. The research is designed to help educators better understand the strengths of these tech-savvy students and the implications of their presence in education and the workforce.
"The economic health of all nations depends on healthier educational systems," said David Saedi, president and CEO of Certiport. "We are working to identify the critical nature of [Power Users'] contribution to education and the economy at large."
Power Users, as defined by EDC, are the savviest of the "digital natives," a demographic of 10- to 15-year-old students who have grown up with digital technology as a part of their everyday lives. According to EDC, these students have technical acumen beyond any previous generation. They are characterized by their ability to "leverage the internet to the highest degree conceivable" and are energized by technology well past the point of most digital "immigrants"--that is, older learners forced to adapt from the analog age.
"The Certiport survey validated many of our observations that, among digital natives, there is a group of 'Power Users' of ICT," said Joyce Malyn-Smith, director of strategic initiatives for education, employment, and community programs for EDC. "This group [is] in tune with what is needed for success in the 21st century, exhibiting many of the collaborative learning, analytical thinking, and problem-solving interests that are sought by today's employers."
Malyn-Smith said those who operate as Power Users exhibit "engineer-level thinking that we don't normally expect [students] to have until they enter post-secondary engineering programs."
As part of the survey, respondents were asked to read the definition of a Power User and then were told to complete the survey. Researchers aimed to establish the learning style preferences of Power Users, the influence of Power Users on their peers, and their influence on their teachers.
Among the survey's findings: 69 percent of respondents believe Power Users influence what is being taught in the classroom, and 66 percent said they influence teaching methods.
Looking to tap into the technology know-how of their students, an increasing number of classroom teachers are forming partnerships with these students, turning to Power Users for research and to help better integrate technology into their lessons, the survey indicates.
"Once these students discover how innovative they can be, they will help to redesign the learning ecosystem to embrace their skills and abilities," Malyn-Smith said. "They are revolutionizing education."
According to the survey, 48 percent of respondents said Power Users exhibit helpful behavior, and 55 percent said these students facilitate the learning of other students.
Teachers, meanwhile, are pairing these students with other, less technically advanced classmates in hopes that they will assume more of a leadership role and are encouraging them to share their breadth of knowledge with their peers.
The study also found that more than four in five teachers (84 percent) believe Power Users have positively influenced their own learning and knowledge of ICT.
Certiport and EDC say they will expand on the original key areas of study to examine the human-behavior impact of Power Users, their performance and roles in the workplace, ideal learning environments and solutions, the sustainability of Power Users' characteristics through life changes, and their impact on learning outcomes across the core curriculum.
Malyn-Smith said the survey's results offer many leads in the study of digital natives. "More investigation is needed to help develop recommendations that will help nurture the talents of all youth who have access to technology in schools and community settings," she said.
"As observers, and as trainers, [Certiport is] in a good position to look at the sea change that could happen [in education as a result of the influence of Power Users]," Certiport's Saedi said. "We can determine what practices should be preserved and predict the outcome of their influence on the academic system."
A synopsis of the report is available at the EDC web site, along with other materials related to the four-year Power User study. To get a copy of the full report, readers should contact EDC.
Robert Brumfield, Assistant Editor, eSchool News
January 31, 2006
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryts.cfm?ArticleID=6087
Links:
Certiport Inc. http://www.certiport.com
Education Development Center Inc. http://www.edc.org
Class division
A plan to help poor achievers has gifted students worried
Worried that too many of Roosevelt High School's students were "slipping through the cracks" academically, Principal Dennis Hokama decided he needed to make a big change.
So he went small.
Beginning this fall, each of Roosevelt's four grade levels will be carved up into self-contained "small learning communities."
Part of a federal grant in which 13 other Hawaii high schools are participating, the goal is to create a more intimate setting for students to combat the anonymity and alienation often blamed for the poor performance of U.S. high schools.
With increasing federal pressure on schools to perform, Hokama decided that past measures to raise reading and math skills could only take the school so far, and more drastic steps were needed.
"Our gains had pretty much plateaued , and we realized that unless something more dramatic took place, we couldn't expect to keep moving forward long-term," he said.
But not everyone is sold on the concept.
Some higher-achieving students and their parents are taking exception to a key condition of the Small Learning Communities grant: that schools not put students on separate tracks based on their ability.
At Roosevelt, for example, academically gifted ninth- and 10th-graders will sit alongside their lower-achieving classmates for English, social studies and science, without the option of separate honors-level classes for those subjects.
The belief is that such "heterogeneous" groupings will lift up those on the lower end -- the key objective of the federal No Child Left Behind Act -- but there is concern at Roosevelt and other participating schools that the academically gifted will suffer.
Inga Park Okuna, whose eighth-grade son Keith is set to advance from Kawananakoa Middle School to Roosevelt in the fall, said her now-adult daughter had a "terrible" past experience with heterogeneous groups.
"It's really risky with gifted students. Since everything comes so easily for them, they get lazy and lose interest if they're not challenged," she said. "But the class will inevitably move at the pace of the slowest students."
Park Okuna, a counselor and teacher for deaf students in the DOE who graduated from Roosevelt herself and passionately supports public schools, is now contemplating the previously unthinkable: applying for Keith's admission to private school.
"I never thought we'd even consider that, but this has made us really nervous," she said.
The SLC concept has been around for years, but is gaining traction across the country as No Child Left Behind has highlighted the need for greater intervention to boost American schools, especially high schools.
Bill Gates has made SLCs his pet project, offering $1 billion in his own grant money.
Few dispute the benefits for low achievers: A less intimidating school environment is thought to keep students engaged; greater cooperation between teachers of different subjects within an SLC allows them to integrate lessons and intervene to help struggling students.
Proponents point to research showing SLCs lead to greater attendance and reduced school violence.
Some results are already being seen in Hawaii.
Several high schools that are further along than Roosevelt saw their retention rate -- the percentage of students held back a year -- drop between 2 and 4.5 percentage points in 2004-05, said Aileen Ah Yat, the grant's statewide coordinator.
Hokama said that Roosevelt's teachers will push more advanced students to do more, while providing more support to those who are struggling.
The ultimate goal is to lift the level of all students in the ninth and 10th grades so that eventually more will be able to take Advanced Placement courses, which will still be offered to upperclassmen.
Currently, out of 280 honors-level students at Roosevelt, only one is of native Hawaiian ancestry, and "that's not acceptable," Hokama said.
"Some parents are concerned that their student will get less. But this gives us the best chance to do the most we can for the most kids," he said.
But some say it worsens a trend in which the needs of gifted and talented kids are increasingly ignored as schools focus attention and resources on low achievers to avoid No Child Left Behind's sanctions.
Past court orders have caused spending on special-education students to balloon to over $300 million a year, compared with just $4.7 million for a roughly equal number of students -- over 17,000 -- in the DOE's gifted and talented program.
Meanwhile, a new system of dividing overall school funding will be introduced in the fall, cutting the budgets of even some of the poorest-performing schools, raising fears that the gifted will get even less attention.
"(Schools) are absolutely trying to bring up the bottom by sacrificing the top," said Janet Shores, president of the Hawaii Gifted Association, which advocates for gifted students.
Kalani High School, one of the first to implement SLCs more than a year ago, offers students the opportunity to take additional honors-level courses outside of the SLC.
But students must do so on their own time.
Sophomore Bryan Lum said his extracurricular activities left no time for those courses, so he didn't sign up, upsetting his plans to amass credits in rigorous courses so that he can dazzle college admissions officers two years from now.
Moreover, the rigor within his SLC is no better than what he experienced in middle school, he says.
"I'm going to be dying in my AP English class next year," he said.
Shores says that gifted students are being used in SLCs as "tutors" for their struggling peers,* something that SLC proponents don't dispute.
"The highest level of learning is when a student has the ability to instruct others," said Principal Dennis Manalili of Kaimuki High School, which also is part of the grant.
Much of the grant money -- which ranges from around $300,000 to $800,000 per school -- will go toward training teachers in the difficult art of shifting gears between students to provide a level of rigor appropriate to each one's abilities. There is general agreement that SLC success depends on that.
"It can be a disaster if you don't achieve that," said Gary Griffiths, project coordinator with the Office of School Redesign in the University of Hawaii's College of Education.
"But if done right, all of the research and the experiences of many mainland schools show that this can be wildly successful," he said.
That's not how Kalani High senior Henry Cheng would describe the SLCs at his school.
Cheng, who spearheaded a drive to bring student concerns to the school's attention, credits Kalani with being "responsive" to student concerns.
But he feels teachers have been unable to juggle the classroom challenge of heterogeneity, "greatly affecting" gifted students.
"SLCs can make or break a school. Unfortunately, it's breaking ours," he said.
Dan Martin dmartin@starbulletin.com
http://starbulletin.com/2006/01/29/news/story03.html
Schools forced to focus on ADHD
Parents and educators are debating the best way to teach a growing number of children who have been diagnosed with an elusive brain disorder.
Andrew is in trouble again, this time for throwing a book at a classmate.
Last time he missed the bus, and then made a wisecrack about it when he showed up late for school.
The eighth-grader at Nolan Middle School in Manatee County has been in trouble dozens of times this year, typically for not sitting still, acting up in class or talking out of turn.
His mother, Cindy Adamson, says he can't help himself. Andrew, 14, has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
With a little help, Adamson says, her son can succeed in school. She has spent years fighting the school system to get him special education services, but has had little luck. At the end of last semester Andrew was failing most of his classes.
"This child is not doing it on purpose," Adamson said. "This is his life.
"Students like Andrew are at the center of a national debate over how to best educate children with ADHD, a disorder that makes it difficult for kids to sit still, pay attention and control their behavior.
More than 4 million children in the United States have been diagnosed with ADHD, and they qualify for special education under federal law if the condition affects their ability to learn.
But ADHD isn't like other disabilities that can be confirmed through medical tests. Doctors base their diagnosis on symptoms -- like hyperactivity or an inability to sit still -- and in some cases it becomes a judgment call.
There are also no clear guidelines to determine whether the disorder is affecting a child's ability to learn, and if it does what the special education should entail.
The issue is pitting parents against schools in a battle that is shaping how educators teach students with ADHD.
In Manatee County, one parent took the issue to court in a lawsuit the school district settled in November.
"You're starting to see a groundswell of this movement," said Robert Reid, an ADHD researcher at the University of Nebraska. "In a few years you're going to see people who specialize in teaching kids with ADHD in the schools."
But that is a ways off, say school administrators already scrambling to keep up with students' needs.
"There's only so much money and a whole lot of kids," said Robert Todisco, a special education attorney in New York and board member of the national advocacy group Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Besides, some people question whether ADHD exists at all.
"She was just scattered"ADHD has evolved from a little talked about medical condition to a cultural phenomenon, popping up everywhere from television sitcoms to water cooler conversations.
It is so prevalent that people today joke that any child -- or adult -- who can't sit still must have ADHD.
In the past decade the number of children diagnosed with the condition increased 40 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Adults can also have ADHD, but the condition is most prevalent in children.
Doctors aren't sure whether more children are developing the disorder today than years ago or if it is just more frequently diagnosed. Some say the increase is because people today know more about ADHD and its treatments.
Despite some skepticism, researchers are starting to find biological evidence that ADHD exists, including links to chemical imbalances in the brain and genes.
One study by the National Institutes of Mental Health found that part of the brain is smaller in children with ADHD.
Still, there is no test to check for the condition, so a pediatrician or psychiatrist makes the diagnosis based on symptoms, like hyperactivity or trouble sitting still.
That's part of the reason some critics discredit ADHD, saying it is hard to tell the difference between its symptoms and normal childhood behavior.
Instead, they blame the high number of diagnoses on today's fast-paced society, where kids are bombarded by constant noise and images from television and video games.
Public speaker and author Steven Plog travels the country trying to sell parents on the notion that the symptoms associated with ADHD are really caused by high-sugar diets and nutritional deficiencies.
"Most of these symptoms can be traced to something other than ADHD," Plog said at a recent seminar in Tampa.That can be a hard sell to parents who have seen the symptoms firsthand.
Denise DeMarchi said she was skeptical when a doctor first diagnosed her daughter with ADHD.
But the reality of her daughter's condition set in as she watched her struggle through classes at Harllee Middle School in Manatee County.
The girl had trouble keeping her work organized and misplaced homework assignments. Sometimes she would forget to do them at all.
"She was just scattered all over the place," DeMarchi said. "She was just lost."
For parents like DeMarchi, the research is irrelevant. Having a child with the disorder is evidence enough."
If you watch a child who has been struggling or talk to any parent who's gone through this, it starts to become very real," said Sarasota parent Susan Jennings, whose son has ADHD.
A growing challenge
Schools can't say if a child has ADHD, but must offer special education services if the condition affects the student's ability to learn.
After a doctor diagnoses a child with the condition, a committee of school district psychologists and educators test the student to see if he qualifies for special services.
In 2003, there were more than 450,000 children nationwide in the special education category that includes ADHD -- a 400 percent increase over the previous decade.
Because not all children with ADHD qualify for special education, schools can never know just how many with the condition are in their classrooms.
And some children with the disorder may qualify for special education because they have another disability, not because of the ADHD.
The rise in the number of children who qualify for services alone is pushing schools to stretch already thin resources to meet their needs. In a recent University of Florida study, teachers said they want to help children with ADHD in their classrooms but don't know how.
"All of us teachers are faced with so many different things in the classroom," said Shawn Griffon, a counselor at Prine Elementary School in Manatee. "But we're all advocates of the child. We're all cooperative in doing what we need to do."
Still, parents say that doesn't always seem to be the case.
When the district first tested Andrew for special education, it determined he did not qualify.
It did decide he needed some extra help in the classroom -- like longer time to complete tests -- but his teachers didn't always comply, his mother says.
Parent Joanie Derry had a similar experience at Stewart Elementary School in Manatee.
The school district refused to give her son special education because he got good grades and did well on standardized tests.
But teachers repeatedly punished the boy by making him stand against a wall during recess for behavior related to his ADHD.
Derry filed a discrimination lawsuit against the school district, which settled in November after a judge ruled in the mother's favor in a related case.
In his ruling, the judge wrote that school districts must consider a child's entire school experience, not just grades, when determining whether special education is required.
As part of the settlement, the district enrolled Derry's son in special education, paid her $110,000 attorneys fees and agreed to change its policies for handling special education complaints.
But in private meetings to discuss the case, school administrators questioned the legitimacy of the boy's condition.
"This kid is not disabled," said School Board attorney John Bowen, according to transcripts. "He's a great kid. And this kid sat in court all afternoon and sat there, and there was no sign of ADHD.
"Where is the ADHD?"
Not enough funding
Along with problems in the classroom, parents say the endless meetings with school administrators, lawyers and psychologists that are needed to apply for special education can be overwhelming.
"It takes a lot of work to get what you need," said Jennings, the Sarasota parent.
Jennings spent years fighting the Sarasota school district before it agreed to give her son special services.
That was only after she hired a psychologist and attorney to help negotiate her case.
Like Derry, Jennings' son earned good grades at Pine View School but had trouble paying attention in class. The boy was easily bored and got in trouble for talking and acting up.
"You never want to be in a position when you're in an adversarial relationship," Jennings said. "But it gets to that point with some schools until you draw a line in the sand."
School administrators say they want to do more for ADHD students, but don't get enough funding.
Florida gives school districts extra money to educate students with disabilities, but local administrators say it's not nearly enough. And if the state doesn't agree that a child with ADHD qualifies for special services, it won't give the district any extra money.
The extra costs are largely in salaries for teachers hired to teach special classes. Districts also have to pay to train teachers to accommodate these kids' needs in regular classrooms.
"We can identify as many kids as we want for special education, but the funding isn't going to follow," said Ron Russell, special education coordinator in Manatee. "It simply isn't enough to support the students' needs. It's frightening."
State education officials say the districts get plenty of money and just need to be smarter in their spending. They point out that the federal government also gives school districts money to educate students with disabilities.
But the federal government is now pushing school districts to use some of that money in the regular classroom.
The federal government is also prodding school districts to put fewer students in special education to avoid "labeling" children who may not really need it.
Prompted by the changes, Manatee is using $1 million of its federal special education funding to pay for reading coaches. Administrators say that will help all children improve, and may even keep some students from needing special services.
Critics acknowledge that there is some validity to those arguments, but say it all comes down to money -- no one wants to pay the cost of these children's classroom needs.
"You have a situation where there's an administrator sitting there looking at a kid and thinking about his budget line," said Todisco, the New York attorney.
Someone to advocate
Advocates of students with ADHD say helping these children in the classroom doesn't have to be costly. Some just need to take breaks or extra time on tests. Others need to squeeze a ball to help concentrate or use colored markers to stay organized.
Derry said her son behaved better when a teacher let him sit in the front of the classroom and used positive reinforcement to encourage good behavior.
While these are things any teacher could do in the classroom, many parents want special education because it is legally binding. And in Florida, special education students can qualify for vouchers to attend private schools.
Still, researchers say techniques that help children with ADHD -- like breaking lessons into shorter pieces and letting students work in small groups -- would benefit all students.
"If we run every class the way we run it for kids with ADHD we'd probably have a much stronger education system," said Reid, from the University of Nebraska.
And with the right support, ADHD can be turned into a positive attribute.
Many children with the disorder have extremely high IQs and lots of energy. When they figure out how to focus, that energy goes to completing the task.
At Nolan Middle, Andrew was recently enrolled in a learning strategies class as part of his special education plan. The class teaches students how to handle the symptoms of their disabilities and succeed in a regular classroom.
Teacher Pamela Rahn uses a tough love approach with her students, coupling her advice for coping with their disabilities with a dose of reality.
Rahn, who spent 12 years in the mental health field, says her understanding of her students' disabilities helps her deal with them.
She is also more tolerant of the behavior that sometimes gets them in trouble in other classes.
On a recent day, Andrew sat in her class drumming a pencil on his desk and tapping his feet on the floor.
Rahn ignored the slight fidgeting and continued to teach.
"It's a learning difference, and you have to learn how to compensate for it in the real world," Rahn tells Andrew. "Since you've been graced with my presence and I with yours, this is how it is."
ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER
Tiffany Lankes tiffany.lankes@heraldtribune.com
January 29, 2006
http://heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060129/NEWS/601290893
THE CRIES OF A CRISIS
If there is not major intervention in the next 25 years, 75 percent of urban young men will either be hopelessly hooked on drugs or alcohol, in prison or dead.
The data are clear.
Reports by the American Council on Education, the Education Trust and the Schott Foundation show that African-American boys spend more time in special education, spend less time in advanced placement or college prep courses and receive more disciplinary suspensions and expulsions than any other group in U.S. schools today. The Schott Foundation started the Black Boys Initiative in 2003, says President Rosa Smith, because “black boys represented the worst-case scenario for a group coming out of public education.”
The foundation’s 2004 state-by-state report on black male students found that, among other negative indicators, more black males receive a GED in prison than graduate from college.
In regard to last year’s local violent crime, Star columnist Steve Penn recently reported that a disproportionate number of the victims (86) and suspects (54) in the 127 homicides were African-American. And most of them were African-American males.
Why might the violent crime rate be so high among African-American youths? They make up a brotherhood of the broken, bruised and defeated. Their girls have their mothers, aunts, teachers, school administrators and social workers to daily advocate for them. These boys have few advocates who understand their pain and speak up for them. Their issues don’t reach the mainstream until white boys in the suburbs reach a similar set of circumstances.
What makes the plight of African-American boys so disturbing is that it appears as if few are concerned. The traditional social development institutions are failing them. Their family of origin, their schools, their churches, the youth-serving social service agencies, social workers — all are failing to reach this group of hardened boys.
Spencer Holland of Morgan State University cites the problem this way: Young African-American inner-city boys, coming from predominantly female-headed households with few, if any, adult male role models who value academic achievement, may come early to view school as no place for a boy. Performance-based instructional strategies in the primary grades that require children to copy and imitate behaviors demonstrated by primarily female teachers may lead boys to believe that school work and activities are “what girls do.” Thus, they begin to reject learning activities for those behaviors that appear masculine.
In many schools, African-American boys are removed from traditional education by disciplinary interventions or by being tracked into special education. Vernon C. Polite, professor at Bowie State University and co-editor of the book African American Males in School and Society, in an independent study found that suspensions may range from two to 22 days, leaving large numbers of African-American boys to wander the streets daily where they begin engaging in crime.
Of African-American boys who enter special education, only 10 percent return to the mainstream classroom and stay there, and only 27 percent graduate.
In addition to data on the challenges African-American boys face in public schools, researchers point to less quantifiable factors. Professor Melissa Roderick of the University of Chicago notes that black boys often do not feel cared for in their school or their communities. Polite also noted that the perceived lack of caring was the most devastating factor for African-American boys.
If African-American boys are not in school, they are not likely to be directed to youth-serving agencies like Boys and Girls Clubs, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Boy Scouts or YouthFriends, and these agencies are not really set up to support these tough boys. And many inner city churches don’t have the budgets or the full-time staff to devote to their deep needs.
Nell Noddings, a professor at Stanford University, a former K-12 math teacher and the author of several books on caring, observes that “young black men and boys growing up without male role models and in conditions of poverty probably do need, more than anyone else, that assurance that somebody really cares.
“Many studies show the single most important thing in turning lives around is the ongoing presence of a caring adult.”
The downward trend of Kansas City’s African-American boys in school and society will not end unless educators, clergy, and community and business leaders make African-American boys a high priority.
If you don’t believe me, wait 25 years from now and see what the results are. Or, do you really care?
E. Bernard Franklin is president of Metropolitan Community College-Penn Valley.
To reach Midwest Voices columnists, write to the author c/o the Editorial Page, The Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64108. Or send e-mail to oped@kcstar.com .
E. BERNARD FRANKLIN Midwest Voices
AFRICAN-AMERICAN BOYS January 28, 2006 http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/opinion/13731423.htm
Helping the new, poor and disabled in college
STEP gives 50 at S. Mtn. help with aid, tutoring, more
Ruben Saenz's parents didn't finish high school, but he was lucky enough to get into a circle of friends in which everyone was going to college.
"But I had absolutely no role models," he said. "I know firsthand how hard it can be to stay in school, to keep going."
As the director of the Students Transfer With Educational Preparation (STEP) program at South Mountain Community College in Phoenix, Saenz helps first-generation, low-income and disabled college students.
"I was one of these kids," Saenz said. "I know exactly how important programs like this can be."
Fifty South Mountain students this semester are among the first group to participate in STEP, although the program has room for up to 160 during this first year.
Saenz has been busy recruiting more students to participate in STEP."I've been doing presentations to the English and math classes and to faculty groups, too, since our professors can help to identify students," he said. "We're advertising on campus, and we're on the Web site, too. It's a real shotgun approach."
STEP provides students with financial aid assistance, tutoring, counseling, supplemental instruction, cultural programs, university tours, math enrichment, opportunities for community involvement and career and transfer workshops.
"Ideally, our students will move through in groups, so they can become mentors and role models for other students as they transfer to four-year colleges," Saenz said. "We're not looking for star students. Those students are already looking for help. We're looking for the average, middle-of-the-room kids, the ones with a 'C' average."
Saenz, who grew up in Tucson, began his job in November after four years as director of a similar program at Riverside Community College in California.
He has a bachelor of arts degree in psychology and a minor in Spanish from the University of Arizona and has a master's degree in social work from Arizona State University.
"The more education you have, the more opportunities are available, and eventually, more income," Saenz said. "More than this, though, we want to help students become well-rounded individuals.
Sianna Kent, STEP administrative assistant, is eager to work with the STEP students.
"I just got my degree in marketing, and I had so much support," she said. "I want to be able to work in any way I can to pass that on."
STEP is funded through a five-year, $1.1 million federal grant from the Department of Education. Students selected for the program must be committed to transferring to four-year colleges or universities.
About 45 percent of South Mountain's students are Latino, and the college is a federally designated Hispanic Serving and Minority Serving Institution.
More information about STEP is available at www.southmountaincc.edu/Services/STEP/ or by calling (602) 305-5677.
Patricia Bathurst Special for The Republic February 4, 2006
http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/0204phx-smtn0204Z3.html
Student demand for AP classes jumps Enrollment in Advanced Placement courses jumped in high schools this year, especially at low-performing schools.
Almost every high school in Miami-Dade County expanded its Advanced Placement programs this year, with enrollment in the challenging, college-level classes jumping 13 percent overall, according to school district data.
The most dramatic increases came at the two technical-education schools, Robert Morgan Educational Center and William H. Turner Technical Arts High School, as well as a number of chronically low-performing schools from Homestead to Liberty City.
''There are lots of children who have been sitting in those schools who have never been turned onto their own brain power,'' said Superintendent Rudy Crew. ``By offering a highly rigorous, extraordinarily engaging body of work, they are on fire, intellectually and psychologically.''
Advanced Placement classes are geared to mimic university courses, and culminate with challenging nationally standardized tests -- students who score 3 or higher on the 5-point scale can receive college credit at most schools.
In 2004, a Miami Herald investigation found that students at high-poverty schools had far less access to AP classes than their peers in upscale suburban neighborhoods. The School Board directed Crew to level the field, and he ordered expanded AP offerings for this school year.
The resulting increases were largest at those high-poverty high schools. AP enrollment leaped 48 percent at Northwestern Senior in Liberty City, 45 percent at Homestead Senior and 45 percent at Edison Senior in Little Haiti.
Some of those percentages mask the relatively small number of students -- Edison went from 42 students in AP classes to 61 -- but Crew said they are part of the process of infusing AP into the school's culture.
''There is beginning to be a sort of contagious environment of kids feeling like they are smart enough to take honor and AP high-level classes,'' Crew said. ``We want them to feel like they are in a groove, where they see themselves as being able to do this work but having to stretch to do it.''
Overall, nearly 12,692 students are taking AP classes this year, compared to 11,214 last year. Palmetto Senior High in Pinecrest heads the list -- nearly one third of its 3,500 students take at least one AP class.
But this year's largest increases came at the technical schools. They had 306 students in AP last year and leaped to 585 this year.
''We want to be a great school, so we set high goals,'' said Gregory Zawyer, principal at Robert Morgan, where AP enrollment jumped 66 percent over last year. ``We want these kids to go into college.''
The AP program has seen huge national expansion in recent years, but researchers are conflicted on its impact.
President Bush is among its supporters. In his State of the Union address, he asked Congress for money to train 70,000 teachers in math, science and ''critical languages'' such as Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Japanese.
''If you believe in high standards, and you want your kids to compete, a proven system is the AP programs,'' Bush said Thursday during a speech in Maplewood, Minn.
Numerous studies have connected rigorous high-school courses with college success. One recent study from the National Center for Educational Accountability found that students with similar backgrounds and test scores were more likely to graduate from college if they enrolled in AP classes -- even if they did not pass the exam.
Another study, conducted at Boston College, examined the Third International Math and Science Study, an international standardized test. American students ranked 15th out of 16 countries -- but the average score among students who took the AP Calculus was higher than France's, the top-ranked country.
But other researchers are skeptical of the studies. Students who take AP exams are normally high achievers, they point out, and would likely succeed in college regardless of the AP curriculum.
A study of Texas students, for example, found AP had little impact on whether students stayed in college and almost no impact on first-semester grades in college.
''On average, AP courses do no better than other challenging high school courses at preparing students for the academic demands of college,'' wrote the study's authors, Kristin Klopfenstein of Texas Christian University and Kathleen Thomas of Mississippi State University.
Moreover, some educators worry that AP courses are expanding too quickly and are being watered down, especially at low-performing schools that have fewer experienced teachers.
In suburban schools, one-sixth of AP students pass the exam, but in urban schools, only one-tenth pass, said Trevor Packer, executive director of AP for The College Board, which runs the program.
''Enrollment alone is not a measure of rigor,'' he said.
Crew said the College Board has provided technical assistance, and the district offers special AP training for teachers over the summer.
''One of the things I've always said is that we're going to offer authentic AP classes, that we need to give these students, who other people have said are just average, access to high-level courses,'' said Valmarie Rhoden, principal at Turner Tech, where AP enrollment increased 153 percent this year.
``Even if they make a C or score a 2 [on the exam], we want them to have access -- over time, we're going to get to the good passing rates, but we'll never get there if we don't give the student body access.''
MATTHEW I. PINZUR, The Miami Herald mpinzur@MiamiHerald.com
February 6, 2006 http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/education/13801056.htm
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