Sunday, October 23, 2005
Joplin Globe article features South teacher
The creator of this blog, plus The Turner Report, South Middle School eighth grade communication arts teacher Randy Turner, is featured in an article in today's Joplin Globe.
Does Internet usage interfere with growing up?
Today's New York Times features a fascinating article about whether teens are spending too much time online and are not becoming involved in other activities.
Parents Fret That Dialing Up Interferes With Growing Up
By MIREYA NAVARRO
KATHERINE KELIHER, 9, of Lakeville, Minn., could sleep an extra hour every weekday morning if she wanted to. But she would rather get up early, sit down at her computer and spend that time trading instant messages with her best friends, five girls she will soon see at school.
"We just talk about, like, 'What are you going to do today?' and stuff like that," Katherine said.
Her mother, Judy Keliher, says she isn't looking to deprive Katherine of her messaging access. "For fourth graders this is critical," she said, understanding that video games, cellphones, iPods and other high-tech gear are just part of growing up in a digital world. But Ms. Keliher is concerned about the amount of time her children, including a son, Matthew, 14, spend there.
So she is asserting some control. She says she will allow only one computer in the house and limits Matthew's and Katherine's screen time each night. "I don't like them to be home and be lazy, not at the expense of doing other things that need to get done," said Ms. Keliher, 43, who is divorced and works full time as the manager of a hardware store. "I just put it into the whole scope of a healthy lifestyle."
In interviews and surveys many parents say that their children spend too much time in front of computers and on cellphones. Some parents worry that long, sedentary hours spent at a computer may lead to weight gain, or that an excess of instant and text messaging comes at the expense of learning face-to-face social skills. Some complain of having to compete for their childrens' attention more than ever.
A report on teenagers and technology released this summer by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that teenagers' use of computers has increased significantly. More than half of teenage Internet users go online daily, up from 42 percent in 2000, the report said; 81 percent of those users play video games, up from 52 percent.
Instant messaging has become "the digital communication backbone of teens' daily lives," used by 75 percent of online teenagers, according to the Pew report. "Parents are really struggling with this," said David Walsh, the president of the National Institute on Media and the Family, a nonprofit educational organization in Minneapolis that began a program this year to help families reduce screen time and increase physical activity. "As the gadgets keep evolving, they keep consuming more and more of our kids' time. Our kids need a balanced diet of activity, and the problem is that it's getting out of balance. I don't think as a society we're dealing with it yet."
Technological advances have produced generational conflicts before, of course, whether the gadget was a rabbit-ear television set, a transistor radio or a personal computer. The young would find the latest thing exciting and freeing. Parents would worry that it was distracting and cramping academic and social development. So it goes today. Only now it is not a single high-tech wonder that concerns parents but a seemingly constant and ever-more-sophisticated tide of them.
As new technological devices beckon - Apple recently rolled out an iPod that can play video - young people are not necessarily shedding old media. A survey of 8- to 18-year-olds by the Kaiser Family Foundation this year found that the total amount of media content young people are exposed to each day has gone up by more than one hour over the past five years, to eight and a half hours.
But because they are multitasking, young people are packing that content into an average of six and a half hours a day, including three hours watching television, nearly two hours listening to music, more than an hour on the computer outside of homework (more than double the average of 27 minutes in 1999) and just under an hour playing video games.
Neither the Kaiser nor the Pew report found evidence of impending doom in all that exposure. The Pew report noted, for example, that despite their great affection for technology, teenagers still spent somewhat more time socializing with friends in person than on the telephone or through e-mail or instant and text messaging. And as teenagers get older, the report found, they tend to be less interested in diversions like online games and more inclined to use the Web for information.
"It's not something I think is a crisis," said Elizabeth Hartigan, the managing editor of L.A. Youth, a newspaper and Web site for high school students in Los Angeles. "Teen pregnancy is a crisis."
For a great number of young people, Ms. Hartigan said, high-tech gear was not an issue because their families can't afford much beyond a television set. Others are just not that interested. "Some kids get really into it, but some kids are obsessed with fashions or boyfriends or cars," she said.
Ariel Edwards-Levy, 16, a staff writer with L.A. Youth, agreed that computer use is "a sedentary activity, and if you let yourself be obsessive, it's an issue."
"But some parents don't understand that it's a different medium," she said. "It's mostly just a tool, and it can be used very well. The resources online are amazing. You can meet people and reconnect with people."
Many parents say they are limiting screen time, checking their children's Web-surfing histories and using filters to block objectionable material. Another strategy is to keep only one computer in the house and to place it in a common area, like the family room, better to monitor children's online habits.
Paula Hagan Bennett, a lawyer from the San Francisco Bay area, says she uses a variety of methods to manage how and when her four boys - ages 16, 14, 12 and 5 - are connected. For the two older boys that means controlling the use of their cellphones. "It's not for them to be chattering," said Ms. Bennett, 48, who insists that calls are for contacting parents, not friends, and should last no longer than three minutes.
For the 12-year-old it means limiting computer screen time and disabling the instant messaging function. He was unhappy about it, she said, and had no trouble reinstalling it when she wasn't looking. (Ms. Bennett prevailed.) But she said she views instant messaging as she does most cellphone conversations among young people.
"It's a waste of time," she said, "because most of the time they're talking about nothing." As for her 5-year-old, technology is not yet an issue, but Ms. Bennett said that in affluent Marin County, where she lives, she has seen young children watching "Barney and Friends" on portable DVD players in the backs of cars.
Linda Folsom, a media producer for the Walt Disney Company theme parks, decided to stick to a "motherly nag mode" rather than impose restrictions on her 14-year-old daughter, Alana, who "tends to be constantly on the I.M.," Ms. Folsom said.
While doing homework Alana will write a paragraph, respond to an instant message, then go back to her schoolwork, her mother said. "She says the I.M. is related to the project she's working on," Ms. Folsom said. "But if I hear giggling, I put in a comment: 'It doesn't sound like homework to me.' "
But Ms. Folsom, 46, and her husband, Scott, 57, a PTA leader in Los Angeles, said they had no reason to crack down on Alana because she earned good grades and behaved well. But they have insisted that she eat dinner with them and that she practice her clarinet and play soccer.
Alana sees her instant chatting as harmless. "It's just rambling," she said. And it is fun to be able to have a five-way chat with friends, she said. But she said she knows when it's time to type the message: "I'm doing homework. Leave me alone."
"If it starts controlling you rather than you controlling it, that's when you stop," Alana said.
Ms. Folsom said she felt that the technology was robbing her of her daughter's company more and more. There was a time, she said, when father, mother and child would listen to the same music in the car. "Now she plays the iPod, and she's in her own music world," Ms. Folsom said.
David Levy, a University of Washington professor who studies high-tech communications and quality of life, acknowledges that the young have become adept at managing multiple sources of information at once, but he questions whether the ability to multitask has curbed their "ability to focus on a single thing, the ability to be silent and still inside, basically the ability to be unplugged and content."
"That's true for the whole culture," he said. "Most adults have a hard time doing that, too. What we're losing is the contemplative dimension of life. For our sanity, we need to cultivate that."
Some parents seem to be getting that message. When the National Institute on Media and the Family went looking for a few hundred families in Minnesota and Iowa to participate in a research project this year that calls for reducing the amount of time third to fifth graders spend in front of a computer or television screen, 1,300 families signed up.
Ms. Keliher, a Lakeville school board member, is one of the participants. She thought the project would help 9-year-old Katherine "acknowledge the amount of time she spends on the screen."
But as parents try to monitor their children's habits, some said there is also a need to be realistic. "We as parents tend to overreact a little bit to this," Mr. Folsom said. "This is the virtual playground. It's part of growing up."
Parents Fret That Dialing Up Interferes With Growing Up
By MIREYA NAVARRO
KATHERINE KELIHER, 9, of Lakeville, Minn., could sleep an extra hour every weekday morning if she wanted to. But she would rather get up early, sit down at her computer and spend that time trading instant messages with her best friends, five girls she will soon see at school.
"We just talk about, like, 'What are you going to do today?' and stuff like that," Katherine said.
Her mother, Judy Keliher, says she isn't looking to deprive Katherine of her messaging access. "For fourth graders this is critical," she said, understanding that video games, cellphones, iPods and other high-tech gear are just part of growing up in a digital world. But Ms. Keliher is concerned about the amount of time her children, including a son, Matthew, 14, spend there.
So she is asserting some control. She says she will allow only one computer in the house and limits Matthew's and Katherine's screen time each night. "I don't like them to be home and be lazy, not at the expense of doing other things that need to get done," said Ms. Keliher, 43, who is divorced and works full time as the manager of a hardware store. "I just put it into the whole scope of a healthy lifestyle."
In interviews and surveys many parents say that their children spend too much time in front of computers and on cellphones. Some parents worry that long, sedentary hours spent at a computer may lead to weight gain, or that an excess of instant and text messaging comes at the expense of learning face-to-face social skills. Some complain of having to compete for their childrens' attention more than ever.
A report on teenagers and technology released this summer by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that teenagers' use of computers has increased significantly. More than half of teenage Internet users go online daily, up from 42 percent in 2000, the report said; 81 percent of those users play video games, up from 52 percent.
Instant messaging has become "the digital communication backbone of teens' daily lives," used by 75 percent of online teenagers, according to the Pew report. "Parents are really struggling with this," said David Walsh, the president of the National Institute on Media and the Family, a nonprofit educational organization in Minneapolis that began a program this year to help families reduce screen time and increase physical activity. "As the gadgets keep evolving, they keep consuming more and more of our kids' time. Our kids need a balanced diet of activity, and the problem is that it's getting out of balance. I don't think as a society we're dealing with it yet."
Technological advances have produced generational conflicts before, of course, whether the gadget was a rabbit-ear television set, a transistor radio or a personal computer. The young would find the latest thing exciting and freeing. Parents would worry that it was distracting and cramping academic and social development. So it goes today. Only now it is not a single high-tech wonder that concerns parents but a seemingly constant and ever-more-sophisticated tide of them.
As new technological devices beckon - Apple recently rolled out an iPod that can play video - young people are not necessarily shedding old media. A survey of 8- to 18-year-olds by the Kaiser Family Foundation this year found that the total amount of media content young people are exposed to each day has gone up by more than one hour over the past five years, to eight and a half hours.
But because they are multitasking, young people are packing that content into an average of six and a half hours a day, including three hours watching television, nearly two hours listening to music, more than an hour on the computer outside of homework (more than double the average of 27 minutes in 1999) and just under an hour playing video games.
Neither the Kaiser nor the Pew report found evidence of impending doom in all that exposure. The Pew report noted, for example, that despite their great affection for technology, teenagers still spent somewhat more time socializing with friends in person than on the telephone or through e-mail or instant and text messaging. And as teenagers get older, the report found, they tend to be less interested in diversions like online games and more inclined to use the Web for information.
"It's not something I think is a crisis," said Elizabeth Hartigan, the managing editor of L.A. Youth, a newspaper and Web site for high school students in Los Angeles. "Teen pregnancy is a crisis."
For a great number of young people, Ms. Hartigan said, high-tech gear was not an issue because their families can't afford much beyond a television set. Others are just not that interested. "Some kids get really into it, but some kids are obsessed with fashions or boyfriends or cars," she said.
Ariel Edwards-Levy, 16, a staff writer with L.A. Youth, agreed that computer use is "a sedentary activity, and if you let yourself be obsessive, it's an issue."
"But some parents don't understand that it's a different medium," she said. "It's mostly just a tool, and it can be used very well. The resources online are amazing. You can meet people and reconnect with people."
Many parents say they are limiting screen time, checking their children's Web-surfing histories and using filters to block objectionable material. Another strategy is to keep only one computer in the house and to place it in a common area, like the family room, better to monitor children's online habits.
Paula Hagan Bennett, a lawyer from the San Francisco Bay area, says she uses a variety of methods to manage how and when her four boys - ages 16, 14, 12 and 5 - are connected. For the two older boys that means controlling the use of their cellphones. "It's not for them to be chattering," said Ms. Bennett, 48, who insists that calls are for contacting parents, not friends, and should last no longer than three minutes.
For the 12-year-old it means limiting computer screen time and disabling the instant messaging function. He was unhappy about it, she said, and had no trouble reinstalling it when she wasn't looking. (Ms. Bennett prevailed.) But she said she views instant messaging as she does most cellphone conversations among young people.
"It's a waste of time," she said, "because most of the time they're talking about nothing." As for her 5-year-old, technology is not yet an issue, but Ms. Bennett said that in affluent Marin County, where she lives, she has seen young children watching "Barney and Friends" on portable DVD players in the backs of cars.
Linda Folsom, a media producer for the Walt Disney Company theme parks, decided to stick to a "motherly nag mode" rather than impose restrictions on her 14-year-old daughter, Alana, who "tends to be constantly on the I.M.," Ms. Folsom said.
While doing homework Alana will write a paragraph, respond to an instant message, then go back to her schoolwork, her mother said. "She says the I.M. is related to the project she's working on," Ms. Folsom said. "But if I hear giggling, I put in a comment: 'It doesn't sound like homework to me.' "
But Ms. Folsom, 46, and her husband, Scott, 57, a PTA leader in Los Angeles, said they had no reason to crack down on Alana because she earned good grades and behaved well. But they have insisted that she eat dinner with them and that she practice her clarinet and play soccer.
Alana sees her instant chatting as harmless. "It's just rambling," she said. And it is fun to be able to have a five-way chat with friends, she said. But she said she knows when it's time to type the message: "I'm doing homework. Leave me alone."
"If it starts controlling you rather than you controlling it, that's when you stop," Alana said.
Ms. Folsom said she felt that the technology was robbing her of her daughter's company more and more. There was a time, she said, when father, mother and child would listen to the same music in the car. "Now she plays the iPod, and she's in her own music world," Ms. Folsom said.
David Levy, a University of Washington professor who studies high-tech communications and quality of life, acknowledges that the young have become adept at managing multiple sources of information at once, but he questions whether the ability to multitask has curbed their "ability to focus on a single thing, the ability to be silent and still inside, basically the ability to be unplugged and content."
"That's true for the whole culture," he said. "Most adults have a hard time doing that, too. What we're losing is the contemplative dimension of life. For our sanity, we need to cultivate that."
Some parents seem to be getting that message. When the National Institute on Media and the Family went looking for a few hundred families in Minnesota and Iowa to participate in a research project this year that calls for reducing the amount of time third to fifth graders spend in front of a computer or television screen, 1,300 families signed up.
Ms. Keliher, a Lakeville school board member, is one of the participants. She thought the project would help 9-year-old Katherine "acknowledge the amount of time she spends on the screen."
But as parents try to monitor their children's habits, some said there is also a need to be realistic. "We as parents tend to overreact a little bit to this," Mr. Folsom said. "This is the virtual playground. It's part of growing up."
Teen sex attitudes explored in Boston Globe column
Some disturbing attitudes about teen sex are explored in Jeff Jacoby's column in today's Boston Globe.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
The pressure to sell
One of the most common problems at schools across the United States is the incredible amount of fund raisers that are held. The subject was addressed in a recent Detroit Free Press article.
'Small Town News' available at two Joplin stores
My novel, "Small Town News," the story of a high school junior whose internship with a local TV station enables her to see the dark side of the media, will be available at two Joplin stores. It is already for sale at the Changing Hands Book Shoppe at 528 S. Virginia Avenue, and as of Monday, Oct. 24, it will be on sale at Hastings. I am reprinting The Turner Report posts below:
HASTINGS
Hastings in Joplin will carry my novel, "Small Town News" beginning Monday. A signing at the store will be held on a Saturday in November. A specific date will be announced early next week.
As of Monday, the book will be available locally at Hastings and the Changing Hands Book Shoppe. It is available online through Amazon.com, Books-A-Million, and IUniverse.
Changing Hands Book Shoppe
As of this afternoon, "Small Town News" is available at the Changing Hands Book Shoppe, 528 S. Virginia Avenue, Joplin (for those of you unfamiliar with Joplin, Virginia is one block east of Main).
I am particularly pleased that Changing Hands is the first retail outlet for the book since the owners are John and Susie Davidson, and John is a graduate of my alma mater East Newton High School
The store is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The phone number is 417-623-6699. The photo that accompanies this post comes from the book's first signing, which took place Thursday, Oct. 20, at the Neosho/Newton County Library.
HASTINGS
Hastings in Joplin will carry my novel, "Small Town News" beginning Monday. A signing at the store will be held on a Saturday in November. A specific date will be announced early next week.
As of Monday, the book will be available locally at Hastings and the Changing Hands Book Shoppe. It is available online through Amazon.com, Books-A-Million, and IUniverse.
Changing Hands Book Shoppe
As of this afternoon, "Small Town News" is available at the Changing Hands Book Shoppe, 528 S. Virginia Avenue, Joplin (for those of you unfamiliar with Joplin, Virginia is one block east of Main).
I am particularly pleased that Changing Hands is the first retail outlet for the book since the owners are John and Susie Davidson, and John is a graduate of my alma mater East Newton High School
The store is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The phone number is 417-623-6699. The photo that accompanies this post comes from the book's first signing, which took place Thursday, Oct. 20, at the Neosho/Newton County Library.
No Child Left Behind fails first test
The following article on the first national tests which offer any evidence of the success or failure of "No Child Left Behind" ran Friday in The New York Times:
Bush Education Law Shows Mixed Results in First Test
By SAM DILLON
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 - The first nationwide test to permit an appraisal of President Bush's signature education law rendered mixed results on Wednesday, with even some supporters of the law expressing disappointment.
Math scores were up slightly but eighth-grade reading showed a decline, and there was only modest progress toward closing the achievement gap between white and minority students, which is one of the Bush administration's primary goals. In many categories, the results indicated, the gap remains as wide as it was in the early 1990's.
By some measures, students were making greater gains before the law was put into effect.
"The absence of really bad news isn't the same as good news, and if you're concerned about education and closing achievement gaps, there's simply not enough good news in these national results," said Ross Wiener, policy director of the Education Trust, a group that seeks to bring attention to the needs of poor and minority students and has consistently supported the federal law.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress, a comprehensive reading and math examination given to hundreds of thousands of students periodically since 1990, including in 2003 and last spring, was the first nationwide exam to allow a direct comparison between two successive test administrations since Mr. Bush signed the law in January 2002.
Mr. Bush, meeting with Education Secretary Margaret Spellings at the White House, said he was pleased with the test. "It shows there's an achievement gap in America that is closing," Mr. Bush said.
In an interview, Ms. Spellings called attention to the improvement in math by fourth graders. She said the less robust increases and outright declines in some reading scores were understandable in part, because the nations schools are assimilating huge numbers of immigrants.
"We have more non-native speakers, there are lots of so-called at-risk, hard-to-educate students, and in spite of that, steady progress is being made," she said. "We're on the right track with No Child Left Behind."
Department of Education officials administered the test to 660,000 students in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, and on military bases around the world from January to March. It uses a 500-point scale, with scores assigned to achievement levels: below basic; basic, which denotes partial mastery of grade-level knowledge and skills; proficient, which represents solid performance and competency, and advanced, signifying superior performance.
This year's fourth-grade reading scores were almost flat, with the average score rising one point, but with 31 percent of students scoring proficient this year, the same percentage as in 2003. The decline in eighth-grade reading came as 31 percent of students scored as proficient, compared with 32 percent in 2003.
Fourth-grade students improved in math, with 36 percent scoring proficient, compared with 32 percent in 2003. Among the fourth-grade math scores there was another important gain, with the proportion of black students performing below basic declining to 40 percent from 46 percent.
Eighth-grade math scores also rose, with 30 percent of students proficient in math this year, compared with 29 percent in 2003.
But even the math improvements at both grade levels compared unfavorably with progress made from 2000 to 2003, said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a nonprofit group that has mixed criticism of the law with praise for its accomplishments.
From 2000 to 2003, before the federal law took full effect in classrooms, the percentage of fourth graders scoring proficient in math rose eight percentage points, compared with four points this year, Mr. Jennings said, and the percentage of eighth graders proficient in math rose three points before the law, compared with the one-point rise this year.
"The rate of improvement was faster before the law," Mr. Jennings said. "There's a question as to whether No Child is slowing down our progress nationwide."
Gage Kingsbury, director of research at the Northwest Educational Evaluation Association, a nonprofit group based in Oregon that carries out testing in 1,500 school districts, said the results raised new concerns about the feasibility of reaching the law's goal of full proficiency for all students by 2014.
Fourth-grade math students showed some of the most rapid progress in closing the achievement gap between black and white students, Mr. Kingsbury said. Extrapolating from those results, he said, black and white students would probably be performing at equal proficiency levels by 2034. Other results, like eighth-grade reading, suggest it will take 200 years or more for the gap to close, he said.
"The change is moving too slowly," Mr. Kingsbury said.
When results of a smaller, long-term trend version of the National Assessment were released in July, Darvin M. Winick, the chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the test, warned against attributing the solid gains it showed among elementary students to No Child Left Behind. Mr. Winick pointed out that when that test was administered in late 2003 and early 2004, the law had been in effect for only about a year.
Administration officials, however, credited the law for the positive results, even though a proliferation of early childhood and kindergarten programs and efforts by states to impose curriculum standards, increase testing and reduce class sizes, begun during the Clinton administration, may have contributed.
The test results pointed to some clear standouts. Massachusetts students outperformed those of every other state in both reading and math at the two levels tested. District of Columbia students scored lowest, by far, in both subjects at both grade levels. California, where tax-cutting initiatives have driven down per-pupil spending and schools are crowded with immigrants, registered the nation's second-lowest reading scores.
Calculations made by New York officials showed the state's black and Hispanic students had made gains exceeding national averages.
But New York was also among a group of states singled out for criticism on Wednesday by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a group that supports charter schools.
Foundation analysts used the federal test scores to evaluate assertions by many states that their students had made impressive gains from 2003 to 2005. States set proficiency levels for their own tests at widely varying levels.
Comparing the scores released Wednesday with previously released state scores, the foundation found that the gains trumpeted by more than 15 states were not confirmed by the federal results.
In New York, the percentage of students scoring proficient in eighth grade reading on the state's own tests rose by three points from 2003 to 2005, while the percentage scoring proficient dropped two points during the same period on the federal tests, the Fordham study showed.
But New York was not among the worst offenders, the foundation said. They were Alabama, California, Idaho, Arizona, Maryland, Virginia and Kentucky, it said.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times
Bush Education Law Shows Mixed Results in First Test
By SAM DILLON
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 - The first nationwide test to permit an appraisal of President Bush's signature education law rendered mixed results on Wednesday, with even some supporters of the law expressing disappointment.
Math scores were up slightly but eighth-grade reading showed a decline, and there was only modest progress toward closing the achievement gap between white and minority students, which is one of the Bush administration's primary goals. In many categories, the results indicated, the gap remains as wide as it was in the early 1990's.
By some measures, students were making greater gains before the law was put into effect.
"The absence of really bad news isn't the same as good news, and if you're concerned about education and closing achievement gaps, there's simply not enough good news in these national results," said Ross Wiener, policy director of the Education Trust, a group that seeks to bring attention to the needs of poor and minority students and has consistently supported the federal law.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress, a comprehensive reading and math examination given to hundreds of thousands of students periodically since 1990, including in 2003 and last spring, was the first nationwide exam to allow a direct comparison between two successive test administrations since Mr. Bush signed the law in January 2002.
Mr. Bush, meeting with Education Secretary Margaret Spellings at the White House, said he was pleased with the test. "It shows there's an achievement gap in America that is closing," Mr. Bush said.
In an interview, Ms. Spellings called attention to the improvement in math by fourth graders. She said the less robust increases and outright declines in some reading scores were understandable in part, because the nations schools are assimilating huge numbers of immigrants.
"We have more non-native speakers, there are lots of so-called at-risk, hard-to-educate students, and in spite of that, steady progress is being made," she said. "We're on the right track with No Child Left Behind."
Department of Education officials administered the test to 660,000 students in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, and on military bases around the world from January to March. It uses a 500-point scale, with scores assigned to achievement levels: below basic; basic, which denotes partial mastery of grade-level knowledge and skills; proficient, which represents solid performance and competency, and advanced, signifying superior performance.
This year's fourth-grade reading scores were almost flat, with the average score rising one point, but with 31 percent of students scoring proficient this year, the same percentage as in 2003. The decline in eighth-grade reading came as 31 percent of students scored as proficient, compared with 32 percent in 2003.
Fourth-grade students improved in math, with 36 percent scoring proficient, compared with 32 percent in 2003. Among the fourth-grade math scores there was another important gain, with the proportion of black students performing below basic declining to 40 percent from 46 percent.
Eighth-grade math scores also rose, with 30 percent of students proficient in math this year, compared with 29 percent in 2003.
But even the math improvements at both grade levels compared unfavorably with progress made from 2000 to 2003, said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a nonprofit group that has mixed criticism of the law with praise for its accomplishments.
From 2000 to 2003, before the federal law took full effect in classrooms, the percentage of fourth graders scoring proficient in math rose eight percentage points, compared with four points this year, Mr. Jennings said, and the percentage of eighth graders proficient in math rose three points before the law, compared with the one-point rise this year.
"The rate of improvement was faster before the law," Mr. Jennings said. "There's a question as to whether No Child is slowing down our progress nationwide."
Gage Kingsbury, director of research at the Northwest Educational Evaluation Association, a nonprofit group based in Oregon that carries out testing in 1,500 school districts, said the results raised new concerns about the feasibility of reaching the law's goal of full proficiency for all students by 2014.
Fourth-grade math students showed some of the most rapid progress in closing the achievement gap between black and white students, Mr. Kingsbury said. Extrapolating from those results, he said, black and white students would probably be performing at equal proficiency levels by 2034. Other results, like eighth-grade reading, suggest it will take 200 years or more for the gap to close, he said.
"The change is moving too slowly," Mr. Kingsbury said.
When results of a smaller, long-term trend version of the National Assessment were released in July, Darvin M. Winick, the chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the test, warned against attributing the solid gains it showed among elementary students to No Child Left Behind. Mr. Winick pointed out that when that test was administered in late 2003 and early 2004, the law had been in effect for only about a year.
Administration officials, however, credited the law for the positive results, even though a proliferation of early childhood and kindergarten programs and efforts by states to impose curriculum standards, increase testing and reduce class sizes, begun during the Clinton administration, may have contributed.
The test results pointed to some clear standouts. Massachusetts students outperformed those of every other state in both reading and math at the two levels tested. District of Columbia students scored lowest, by far, in both subjects at both grade levels. California, where tax-cutting initiatives have driven down per-pupil spending and schools are crowded with immigrants, registered the nation's second-lowest reading scores.
Calculations made by New York officials showed the state's black and Hispanic students had made gains exceeding national averages.
But New York was also among a group of states singled out for criticism on Wednesday by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a group that supports charter schools.
Foundation analysts used the federal test scores to evaluate assertions by many states that their students had made impressive gains from 2003 to 2005. States set proficiency levels for their own tests at widely varying levels.
Comparing the scores released Wednesday with previously released state scores, the foundation found that the gains trumpeted by more than 15 states were not confirmed by the federal results.
In New York, the percentage of students scoring proficient in eighth grade reading on the state's own tests rose by three points from 2003 to 2005, while the percentage scoring proficient dropped two points during the same period on the federal tests, the Fordham study showed.
But New York was not among the worst offenders, the foundation said. They were Alabama, California, Idaho, Arizona, Maryland, Virginia and Kentucky, it said.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times
Thursday, October 13, 2005
'Small Town News' story runs in Carthage, Neosho papers
A story on my book, "Small Town News was featured in today's editions of The Carthage Press and the Neosho Daily News. It is reprinted below. The photo ran with the story in The Press.
Former Press editor releases book, ‘Small Town News’
By Ron Graber Of The Press Staff
Randy Turner just might get a little more respect from the eighth graders he instructs in his Communication Arts class at Joplin South.
The former Carthage Press editor knows words - he estimates he has written 20,000 newspaper articles in his career.
But he has now added a new accomplishment to his resume - published author.
“Small Town News” a book about journalists but inspired by the events in Diamond, Mo. that took place on Oct. 31, 2001 when the school’s superintendent committed suicide and the Diamond Community Bank and Trust were robbed.
The book, Turner emphasizes, is fiction. “Like Law and Order, ripped from old headlines,” he said.
“I didn’t want to tell the story of what happened to Dr. Smith,” said Turner, who was a teacher in Diamond at the time of the incident. “I wanted to tell the story of how the media reacts to events in a small town and how people react.”
The book’s plot focuses on a high school journalist named Tiffany Everett, who is taking part in a one-week internship at an area television station, and watches a week of turmoil surrounding the community’s crisis.
“During seven exciting days, Tiffany Everett sees the permanent damage that can be done when the media circus hits a small town...and if she’s lucky, she may live to see football homecoming,” says the synopsis on the back cover of Turner’s book.
While the novel may not be a thesis on the role of journalists in society, it may get readers thinking, said Turner.
“It poses some questions about journalism ethics,” said Turner. “It may get people to think about just why do journalists do things that way.”
Although “Small Town News” is not the first fictional story Turner has written, it is the first he has had published, something he credits to his maturity and the current availability of “print on demand” publishers.
He said he knew his writing had improved when the rejection letters he received were handwritten notes of encouragement. Not just standard form letters.
Another thing Turner has going for him is his blog, “The Turner Report,” a running analysis of news, politics and the media that can be found at http://www.rturner229.blogspot.com
“I told my kids that if I am going to make you write everyday, I am going to write everyday,” said Turner of the origin of his blog.
His job as a teacher makes a national book tour impossible, but Turner’s web site allows him to market his book from home, he said.
“It’s a different way of doing things that didn’t exist just a few years ago,” said Turner.
“Small Town News” can be found through Turner’s web site as well as via Amazon.com, Books-A-Million (web site and store) and IUniverse.
Turner will hold a book signing at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 20 at the Neosho Library.
Saturday, October 08, 2005
Dirty dancing banned
Perhaps the day of the Joplin High School Football Homecoming Dance is not the day to post this article, but school officials in Spokane, Wash., have banned school dances because of a sexually explicit type of dancing known as freaking. Read the article from the Associated Press.
More information on 'Small Town News'
Everything is moving rapidly on the "Small Town News" front.
My first signing has definitely been set for 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 20, at the Neosho Library. I will have 40 copies of the novel available and I will definitely be happy to order more if there are not enough copies to accommodate the audience (and, of course, I am hoping that turns out to be the case).
***
As of yesterday, "Small Town News" can be ordered through Amazon.com as well as Books-A-Million and IUniverse. It can also be ordered at any Books-A-Million store, which will save you shipping costs. I plan on having some outlets set up in the Joplin area sometime in the next few weeks.
***
I was interviewed yesterday by Carthage Press Managing Editor Ron Graber for a feature that will run sometime next week.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Graduation requirements increased
Missouri's State Board of Education voted this week to increase graduation requirements beginning with students who are in eighth grade this year. Read about the decision in this Department of Elementary and Secondary Education news release.
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
'Small Town News' now available through Books-A-Million
Today was a pretty exciting day for me. After my seventh hour class ended at 3 p.m., I went downstairs to check the mail slots in the counselor's office. I noticed a UPS box and it contained my 10 free copies of "Small Town News."
It is hard to describe the feeling; after 35 years of just dreaming of being in print, I can now hold a book with my name on the cover and (unfortunately) my picture on the back cover.
Things have been moving rapidly on the promotional end. One of my former students, Ashley Nickolaisen, a freshman at Diamond High School, e-mailed me earlier this week and asked if I would be interested in speaking at an event being set up by a teen group which was recently formed to draw young people to the Neosho Library. Students from Diamond, East Newton, Neosho, and Seneca are involved. I will have my first book signing there sometime the week of Oct. 16-22 (the date will be set sometime in the next couple of days).
Any of you who think you might be there and be interested in buying a book, let me know so I will know how many to have available that night. If I understand it right, people will also be listening to me speak and the public at large is going to be invited. (Obviously, we will have to check for weapons at the door.)
I also discovered today that, for the first time, "Small Town News' is listed on the Books-A-Million website. So you can order it over the Internet or ask the people at Books-A-Million to order it for you. It will soon be available through the Hastings, Amazon.com, Borders, and WaldenBooks sites, among others. I will update you as I find out more.
I have also been contacted by two area newspapers already for interviews (I will tell you who they are, once the interviews have taken place.) Last weekend, I was interviewed by a reporter for Missouri Southern State University's magazine, "Crossroads."
I will be honest with you, I have been stunned, but deeply gratified, by the high level of interest in this book.
Monday, October 03, 2005
New page added to 'Small Town News' site
As readers of this blog are aware, my novel, "Small Town News," which is based on the events of Oct. 31, 2001, when the Diamond bank was robbed and Diamond school superintendent Dr. Greg Smith disappeared, was made available for order from the publisher last week, and will soon be available for order through local outlets.
Links to the Joplin Globe's articles about Dr. Smith's disappearance are featured on a new page "Events of Oct. 31, 2001," at the Small Town News website if you would like to acquaint yourself with the real-life events before you read the novel.
Links to the Joplin Globe's articles about Dr. Smith's disappearance are featured on a new page "Events of Oct. 31, 2001," at the Small Town News website if you would like to acquaint yourself with the real-life events before you read the novel.
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