Education Week - January 16, 2013 - (Page 6)

6 EDUCATION WEEK n JANUARY 16, 2013 n www.edweek.org Fla. Data Link Suspension to Lower Graduation Rates Just one removal raises academic risk By Nirvi Shah Washington About three-fourths of Florida 9th graders who were never suspended out of school as freshmen graduated from high school, compared with a 52 percent graduation rate for those suspended once and a 38 percent rate for those suspended twice in their first high school year, an analysis has found. Often, researchers at Johns Hopkins University found, students suspended also were failing courses and absent for other reasons. While there has been a push, especially in recent years, to cut outof-school suspensions, the findings suggest that changing discipline policies to curb suspensions alone isn’t a sure way to improve student achievement or graduation rates, said Robert Balfanz, the co-director of the university’s Everyone Graduates Center in Baltimore and the study’s lead author. Schools must find ways to motivate students who aren’t engaged in their learning, he said, and intervene when students miss a lot of school, misbehave, and perform poorly in class—all of which are early warning signs that a student may drop out. “We need a more holistic answer to this problem than ‘suspend fewer kids,’” Mr. Balfanz said. The study, discussed last week at a national conference about the effects of disciplinary policies that remove students from school, looked at nearly 182,000 Florida students who were 9th graders during the 2000-01 school year and followed their educational trajectories through 2008-09. “We knew from a lot of the other work that’s been done recently that lots of kids get suspended,” Mr. Balfanz said. Of the Florida students, 27 percent were suspended at least once in 9th grade. And the study, like many others on the issue of outof-school suspension, found that black students, special education students, and low-income students were disproportionately affected by the disciplinary measure. “We wanted to figure out what are the consequences of that common occurrence,” Mr. Balfanz added. “What we found that did surprise us a little bit: Even one suspension matters.” And the effects appear to be A Fast Track Traditional Ed.D. Why more administrators have chosen Seton Hall University’s Executive Ed.D. Program: For more information, call 1-800-313-9833, email execedd@shu.edu, or go to www.shu.edu/go/execedd. 400 South Orange Ave. • South Orange, NJ 07079 CD Included NEW BOOK FROM EDUCATION WEEK PRESS & JOSSEY-BASS Robert S. Peterkin | Deborah Jewell-Sherman -Sherman Laura Kelley | Leslie Boozer | EDITORS RS difference in the lives of each child, Every Child Every Classroom Every Day every day, by being knowledgeable h about and driven by what happens in SCHOOL LEADERS WHO ARE MAKING EQUITY A REALITY Edited by the co-directors of the Harvard Urban Superintendents Program, this book explores the ways in which superintendents can make a the classroom. ORDER TODAY! www.edweek.org/go/books JOSSEY-BASS I N PA RT N E R S H I P W I T H Although the research focused on students in Florida, Mr. Balfanz said he believes the results are representative of the entire nation. Jadine Johnson, a staff lawyer for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is based in Montgomery, Ala., agreed. A 2009 study by the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama found that one out-of-school suspension for a 9th grader in the Mobile, Ala., public schools was also an indication that a student might drop out of school. “It is happening all across the country. [Mr. Balfanz’s] research just reflects that,” Ms. Johnson said. T h e l aw c e n t e r s u e d t h e 63,000-student Mobile district in 2011 over long-term suspensions of students that the organization says were handed down without following due process. A trial is scheduled to begin in federal court in August. The new research, she said, shows that “the impacts of suspension, particularly for 9th grade students, cannot be overstated.” “As districts continue to work on graduation rates, they have to look at suspension rates,” Ms. Johnson added, as well as why students are being suspended and how they are being suspended. The Jan. 10 conference included Anti-Poverty Program Found to Fall Short San Diego Now Accepting Applications for Cohort XVII Jason E. Glass, Ed.D. ’11 Iowa’s State Director (Commissioner) of Education Findings Echoed By Sarah D. Sparks • National/International Reputation • Dissertation Starts on Day One • Cohort Model of 30 Students • Intensive 2-year program: 10 Weekends, Two 4 week Summer sessions. • Personal Care and Support “The knowledge and skills acquired at Seton Hall and the network of cohort colleagues were essential elements to my career advancement.” long-lasting: A larger percentage of students who had never been suspended as freshmen enrolled in postsecondary coursework. And students who went to college who had never been suspended completed, on average, four terms in college, compared with slightly less than two college terms by students suspended once. Ten to 15 years after leaving neighborhoods of concentrated poverty, children of the Moving to Opportunity program are in most ways no better off than their peers who stayed put. But new findings from the ongoing study of their urban communities suggest more comprehensive schoolneighborhood improvement initiatives stand a better chance of breaking the cycle of poverty. The latest studies on the research project, which were presented at the annual conference of the American Economic Association here, find that removing children from concentrated poverty boosts their parents’ sense of well-being, but by itself doesn’t increase children’s reading or mathematics achievement or the likelihood that they will be on track to graduate from high school or be employed as adults. Even children who moved before age 6, considered a critical period for brain development, showed no academic benefits from moving to higher-income neighborhoods. “The federal government spends billions every year trying to mix people up” through housing vouchers and other programs, said Janet M. Currie, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University in New Jersey and the director of its Center for Health and Well-Being. Yet, she added, “there’s this incredibly persistent sense that there is still little opportunity for people in low-income neighborhoods, leading to the cycles of poverty.” Ms. Currie, who was not involved in Moving to Opportunity, commented on the studies presented at the conference, all of which drew on data from the long-running project. Lawrence F. Katz, an economics professor at Harvard University, and fellow Harvard economist Roland G. Fryer Jr. are just starting to use some of that data to separately explore how community and school improvements work together to support student achievement. Mr. Katz is analyzing how school and neighborhood interventions affect children’s ability to, in Mr. Katz’s words, “achieve escape velocity, breaking the persistence of intergenerational poverty and moving people from poor families and poor neighborhoods to better long-run outcomes.” For example, New York City’s Harlem Children’s Zone, which combines school improvement programs with neighborhood engagement, community health, and other supports, did improve students’ academic achievement. “We’re getting findings [from Moving to Opportunity] that show improving school quality for poor kids definitely affects their longrun outcomes,” Mr. Katz said. Adult Peace of Mind The Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing program provided vouchers for more than 4,600 low-income families in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York to move to wealthier neighborhoods between 1994 and 1998. The program did reduce the concentration of poverty for families, both in a seven-year follow-up study and in the latest report. After moving, the average family lived in a neighborhood with half the poverty rate of its previous neighborhood. Moreover, the families generally moved to neighborhoods with http://www.edweek.org http://www.shu.edu/go/execedd http://www.shu.edu/go/execedd http://www.edweek.org/go/books

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - January 16, 2013

Education Week - January 16, 2013
Is Education Facing a ‘Tech Bubble’?
Multiple Gauges Best for Teachers
Model Common-Core Unit Piloted for ELL Teachers
Gun Concerns Personal for Duncan
Contents
News in Brief
Report Roundup
Fla. Data Link Suspension To Lower Graduation Rates
Anti-Poverty Program Found To Fall Short In Studies
New Science-Standards Draft Incorporates Feedback
With Common Core in Mind, Schools Turn to E-Rate
Survey Tool Aims for Fresh Eye On Parents
Study Dissects Gender Effects In Math Teaching
Funders and N.C. District Team Up To Run Schools
Blogs of the Week
State of the States
N.Y.’s Cuomo Moves Ahead On K-12 Ideas
Crush of Ed. Laws Awaiting Renewal In Congress
Fiscal Realities Dog States
Policy Brief
R. BARKER BAUSELL: Putting Value-Added Evaluation To the (Scientific) Test
GARY HUGGINS: It’s Time for Summer Learning
JEFF CAMP: Let’s Remove Self-Righteousness From the K-12 Debate
Letters
TopSchoolJobs Recruitment Marketplace
MIKE ROSE: Giving Cognition a Bad Name

Education Week - January 16, 2013