Education Week - November 13, 2013 - 1

EDUCATIONWEEK
VOL. 33, NO. 12 * NOVEMBER 13, 2013
AMERICAN EDUCATION'S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD * © 2013 Editorial Projects in Education * $4
DIGITAL DIRECTIONS
By Stephen Sawchuk
The transfer of top elementary
teachers to low-achieving schools can
help boost students' performance, but
there's a catch: getting them to agree
to move.
A new study, seven years in the
making, finds that elementary teachers
identified as effective who transferred
to low-achieving schools under
a bonus-pay program helped their
new students learn more, on average,
than teachers in a control group
did. They also stayed in the schools at
least as long as other new hires.
But despite a large financial reward,
only 5 percent of eligible teachers made
the shift, the report concludes.
"It's a hard sell, even with $20,000
Kim Rogusky, right, the coordinator of college and career counseling for Commonwealth Connections Academy, the third-largest full-time online
school in Pennsylvania, confers with co-worker Mary Cote, an advisory assistant, at the school's counseling offices in Harrisburg. Amid struggles
with academic performance and student retention, online schools are striving to more holistically support students they rarely see in person.
Counseling Is Virtual Experience at E-Schools
By Benjamin Herold
Kim Rogusky spends her days helping high
school seniors plan for life after graduation, responding
to teens' occasional crises, and plowing
through endless administrative tasks-the
typical work of a school guidance counselor.
But Ms. Rogusky, who works for the
8,000-student Commonwealth Connections
Academy, the third-largest full-time online
school in Pennsylvania, does nearly all of her
work in cyberspace, interacting with students
across the state primarily from her small cubicle
in an office building in Harrisburg.
"It's definitely a challenge to my counseling
skills," Ms. Rogusky said. "It's hard when [students]
can't see that I'm smiling at them."
Nationwide, an estimated 310,000 students in
30 states now attend "multi-district, fully online"
schools such as Commonwealth Connections, according
to the Evergreen Education Group, a consulting
firm based in Durango, Colo. As the sector
grows, those running the schools-usually states
or charter school boards, both of which often contract
with private companies for management
services-are wrestling with how to better support
the academic, social, and emotional needs of
students they rarely see in person.
"The challenge is to make sure [full-time
online schools] are really providing a comprehensive
school counseling program to
students," said H. Eric Sparks, the assistant
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on the table," said Steven M. Glazerman,
a senior fellow at the Princeton,
N.J.-based Mathematica Policy Research,
the evaluation firm that conducted
the study.
Education advocates have long deplored
inequitable access by disadvantaged
students to high-quality
teaching. The federally financed study
suggests there is promise in incentive
programs, but highlights the logistical
complexities in carrying them out, said
Sarah Almy, the director of teacher
quality for the Education Trust, a
Washington-based group that advocates
for poor and minority students.
"I think it's a reminder of how much
we still have to understand about this
issue, and that it is challenging," she
said.
Called the Talent Transfer InitiaPAGE
13 >
edweek.org: BREAKING NEWS DAILY
Transferring
Top Teachers
Has Benefits
Study Probes Moving Talent
To Low-Performing Schools
INDUSTRY & INNOVATION
School Data Add
Economic Value,
Report Projects
By Sean Cavanagh
& Michele Molnar
The increasingly ubiquitous flow of
data across education has caused anxiety
among parents and privacy advocates,
who fear that information about
students will be released or shared with
outside entities without permission. Yet
a new report, while acknowledging those
concerns, focuses on a potential payoff in
expanding the openness of data across
K-12: robust economic growth.
That analysis, released by the global
consulting business McKinsey & Co.,
concludes that creating more open and
transparent data in education from both
public and private sources could "unlock"
between $900 billion and $1.2 trillion in
annual economic value worldwide, about
a third of it in the United States.
The report says that added economic
value in education would be derived from
the higher future earnings of students,
resulting from the use of technology
and data to tailor academic approaches
to individual students' needs, as well
as through financial savings for school
districts realized through improved procurement
processes and other means.
"An increasing amount of data is being
made more 'liquid,' " Michael Chui, a
principal at the McKinsey Global InstiPAGE
16 >
NAEP Scores Inch Up in Math, Reading
Tennessee, D.C., Defense Schools Show Most Improvement
By Catherine Gewertz
The reading and mathematics achievement of
the country's 8th grade students improved in the
last two years, but the performance of 4th graders
remains stubbornly mixed, with progress in math,
but not in reading, according to national test data
released last week.
The results of the 2013 National Assessment of
Educational Progress, known as "the nation's report
card," show that 8th graders' average scores in math
rose 1 point since 2011, the last time the test was
given, and 3 points in reading on NAEP's 500-point
scale. Fourth graders gained 1 point in math; there
was no statistically significant gain in reading.
Larger shares of students reached the "proficient"
level in 2013 than did so in 2011, and achievement
was far higher than when the tests were first given
in the early 1990s. But the numbers still paint a lessthan-rosy
picture of American academic strength: In
grade 4, only 42 percent of students are proficient
in math, and 35 percent are proficient in reading.
In grade 8, 36 percent are proficient in reading and
math.
NAEP scores fall into three categories on a 500point
scale: basic, proficient, and advanced.
Jack Buckley, the commissioner of the National
Center for Education Statistics, which administers
NAEP, said during a call with reporters that while
he was "heartened" to see some positive results,
such as the gains in 8th grade reading, he was disappointed
not to see more improvement. He singled
out, in particular, the lack of progress closing racial
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Jessica Kourkounis for Education Week

http://www.edweek.org

Education Week - November 13, 2013

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