A new study about increasing classroom performance caught the eyes of staff at ACET and we wanted it to share it with you. The study linked regular recess and play opportunities to better classroom performance and a decrease in bullying and student conflict, and was conducted by Mathematica Policy Research and the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities at Stanford University.
In the study, 14 schools across the United States partnered with Playworks, an Oakland, California non-profit devoted to providing low-income schools with physical activity options and other play events such as game times. Playworks provided schools with trained coaches and, in some cases, junior coach programs where students were recruited to monitor recess times alongside adults. Students, teachers, principals, and coaches were interviewed and surveyed about their experiences with the program and what changes, positive and negative, they saw in student relationships, academic outcomes, and classroom behaviors. Students and teachers reported feeling engaged by Playworks’ coaches’ programs and their use of positive messaging and conflict resolution strategies (for example, using a game of rock-paper-scissors to solve a dispute) as they pertained to playground interactions, though students did not report a decrease in student aggression or perception of aggression. Teachers with Playworks programs in their schools reported faster transition times between recess and learning than schools that did not have Playworks programs. Principals from all schools that received Playworks services reported a need for the organization’s presence in their schools for the coming year.
According to an advisor from the study’s sponsor, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, “These new findings… tell us that kids better relate with one another, resolve conflicts constructively, get plenty of physical activity on the playground, and return to class focused and ready to learn. Increasingly, health and education leaders are recognizing that recess and play are effective ways to strengthen schools and foster children’s social, emotional, and physical development.”
You can read more from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation press release here or view the report here [opens as PDF].
Over the last few weeks, many of our clients have inquired about the availability of their test data from the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) to meet reporting requirements. Here’s the most recent update from MDE’s Research and Assessment division:
“MDE is still evaluating the specific timelines for the release of the Reading and Mathematics MCA, MCA-Modified, and MTAS results, and we will provide one week’s notice before the results will be released. While we understand that not having a specific date makes it difficult for your planning purposes, we are holding some flexibility in the event we are able to complete our work and release results earlier than late September. Once a final determination is made, we will provide one week’s notice before results are released. We thank you for your patience as we continue work through the challenges created by the government shutdown.”(http://www.education.state.mn.us/MDE/Accountability_Programs/Assessment_and_Testing/index.html)]
We will keep you updated on projected timeline and new information when they become available.
Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton recently released his “7-Point Plan for Achieving Excellence” in education. The seven points in the plan focuses on three main areas: improve state education funding; focus more resources and raise the profile of Early Childhood Education; and narrow the achievement gap.
Dayton spoke about the plan on his website, stating, “Education was key to our State’s past prosperity, and it will be key to our future prosperity. An excellent public education system will be the driving force behind job creation in Minnesota. We must prepare today’s students for the jobs and the industries of the future, and thus we must make important innovations in our public school system. With this plan, we will take what is good with Minnesota’s K-12 education and make it even better, to ensure every student full opportunity to succeed in this ever more competitive global economy.” (http://mn.gov/governor/newsroom/pressreleasedetail.jsp?id=9625)
Specifically, the seven points are as follows:
1. Funding education for the future – including investing in early childhood and kindergarten and maintaining efforts to close the achievement gap. Part of this mandate calls for establishing a Governor’s Commission on Better School Funding.
2. Better early childhood education – by targeting all-day kindergarten, expanding the K-12 system to a pre-K-12 system, and implementing school readiness standards.
3. Close the gap – through setting accountability targets to close achievement gaps and establishing a Governor’s Award for Excellence in Education and Governor’s Achievement Gap Innovation Fund.
4. Reading well by third grade – by launching a statewide literacy campaign, molding accountability standards to meet this goal, and adopting literacy standards for pre-K-3.
5. Support teaching for better schools – setting alternative pathways to teacher licensure, establishing a statewide teacher performance evaluation, development system, and support networks, and supporting early childhood teacher observation and development.
6. Better testing for better results – including developing assessments for learning (i.e., formative assessments: see our former post on formative assessment), establishing a Test Reduction Task Force, and including growth as an accountability measure.
7. A department of education that provides educational leadership and support – by repositioning the Minnesota Department of Education to support teachers, schools, and districts; reauthorizing the Statewide Early Childhood Advisory Council and reestablishing the Children’s Cabinet; and charging the Commissioner of Education with leadership of early childhood initiatives.
The Graduate Record Examination (GRE), owned and implemented by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), is the most commonly used standardized test when applying to graduate school. Made up of sections for quantitative reasoning, verbal reasoning, and writing, the test covers a variety of questions meant to show an individual’s knowledge on specific subjects in preparation for graduate school.
ETS has revised the GRE General Test to better capture student readiness for graduate level course work. The revised GRE also resulted in changes in the scoring system. Originally, an individual score would fall between 200 and 800 points in 10-point increments; however, starting in November of 2011, scores will fall between 130 and 170 in 1-point increments. The adjusted score scale allows reviewers to compare candidates more simply; 1-point increments may more accurately represent how far apart candidates are on the score scale. The new score scale should also allow for a better distribution of scores and more aptly show candidate abilities. Percentile scores, which have always reflected where an individual tested in comparison with other test takers over the previous three years, will remain on the scorecard.
Each year the American Evaluation Association (AEA) holds an annual conference at which evaluators from around the country gather to discuss and reflect on evaluations. A large portion of the conference is devoted to evaluators sharing their knowledge with others through poster presentations, round-tables, and paper presentations. And being a presenter at AEA’s conference is a competitive process: Evaluators submit short briefs of their proposed topic which are reviewed and rated by AEA members.
Recently ACET staff learned that two of their proposals were accepted for the November, 2010 conference in San Antonio. Kirsten will be presenting a paper on the evaluation of a Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) grant currently implemented by the Minnesota Office of Higher Education. The presentation will emphasize the initial findings of the impact of GEAR UP on student academic success, review evaluation successes and challenges, and describe lessons learned. Stella will also co-present a paper on Incarnation Family Connections, a child welfare demonstration program implemented by The Wayside House. This presentation will summarize findings from the first six months of the program, the evolution of the evaluation design, considerations made in selecting the final design, and lessons learned.
Recently, I attended the Combined Discretionary Grantee Meeting in Washington D.C. with The Wayside House, Inc., a chemical health organization dedicated to providing treatment for chemical abuse exclusively to women. They received a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children & Families Children’s Bureau, to create a residential family treatment program. The program, Incarnation Family Connections (IFC), is a family treatment program with housing options. IFC enables parents and their children to live in a safe environment for a period of not less than six months. IFC provides onsite substance abuse treatment services and children’s early intervention services that are designed to provide comprehensive treatment that supports the whole family unit. ACET was contracted to evaluate the IFC program, implement a quasi-experimental design to measure impact, and contribute to cross-site evaluation efforts.
This video, which describes Wayside House and its programs in detail, was played for a national audience at the Grantee Meeting:
National Foster Care Month is a time to acknowledge the 463,000 American children and youth in foster care and the family members, foster parents, volunteers, mentors, child welfare professionals, and policymakers who help them find permanent homes and connections. This year, the Children’s Bureau and Child Welfare Information Gateway are supporting National Foster Care Month through a special website for child welfare professionals with the theme, “Partnering with Families and Youth to Achieve Permanency.” The website features information and resources that help caseworkers, administrators, managers, and policymakers improve permanency services and outcomes for children, youth, and families involved with the child welfare system. You can access the website here: http://www.childwelfare.gov/fostercaremonth/
The National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections has also prepared fact sheets about foster care. For each state, the following information is available:
Number of children in foster care;
Average age and number of children in care by age range;
Gender;
Race/ethnicity of children in out-of-home care and of the general population in the state;
Average length of stay in care;
Percentage of children reunified with parents or primary caretakers;
Number of licensed foster homes;
Percent of youth living with relatives;
Percent of children adopted by foster parents and by relatives; and
Contact information to find out how to become a foster parent in that state.
In lieu of the economic recession, more and more nonprofits are having to make cutbacks in areas deemed “less necessary,” (i.e., executive photographs for newsletters). Some nonprofits are finding other ways to fulfill their needs.
The Star Tribune recently reported that Dakota County Technical College (DCTC) has been partnering with local nonprofits to provide services. According to the article, “It’s part of Dakota County Technical College’s mission to incorporate “service learning” into every course, from the auto tech students who repair cars for low-income people to DCTC’s interior design students who have designed apartments for formerly homeless vets.”
The example highlighted in the article was the offer of photography sessions to nonprofit organizations. Students conduct a photo session for the staff, develop the products, and give fresh material to the nonprofit for publication. Peter Latner, a former photojournalist who teaches several photography courses, states that “it’s good for the community, but it’s really good for the students.” He goes on to explain that photographing professionals provides the students with valuable, hands-on experience that helps prepare them for working in the field after college.
By connecting with local colleges or other agencies, nonprofits and others can keep ever-growing costs down while engaging in a mutually-beneficial partnership. Do you have any thoughts on how nonprofits or other enterprises could benefit from creating local partnerships?
Words Work!™ is an early literacy program developed by The Saint Paul Foundation to increase children’s literacy skills and improve family involvement. ACET has provided evaluation services to Words Work! since 1999, which included multi-site analyses and a longitudinal quasi-experimental research project whose positive results were recently published in a peer-reviewed journal. Today, we are very pleased to see such a successful project highlighted in the Star Tribune.
The April 20th edition of the Star Tribune featured a letter to the editor written by Carleen Rhodes, President and CEO of The Saint Paul Foundation. The letter attests to the “results of positive early intervention via our Words Work! program.” She encourages “legislators and other Minnesota leaders to continue to invest in early childhood programs.”
For more information on the Words Works! program, see The Saint Paul Foundation’s website: (http://www.saintpaulfoundation.org) or watch the video below: