Mike Falick's Blog

The Spring Branch Website has Great Back-to-School Information

The Spring Branch website has recently been updated with a page dedicated to back-to-school information.  This informative site, which will prove valuable well beond just back-to-school planning, contains the following links:

• Back to School 2008: What families need to know
• Información del regreso a clases: Lo que los padres necesitan saber
• Back to School Forms
• Registration starts Aug. 14
• Instructional hours
• Back to School & College Nights
• Health Fairs offer free immunizations
• Meal prices
• SBISD Board of Trustees plans 2008-2009 meetings
• Math and science requirements for ninth-graders
• Four-year-olds served by Schools for Early Learning
• Donations needed for School Supply Project
• Memorial Assistance Ministries:
  Our students need your help
• School Supplies Project: donations
• Administration Department
• Health Services information
• Parent Center helps Spring Branch families achieve
• Parent Portal internet access
• School search by address
• School supplies - Elementary
• School Visitor Screening System
• Student directory information
• Transportation information
• Options and requirements for providing assistance to students who have learning difficulties or who need or may need Special Education
• Pest Management Policy

Strong American Schools: A Nonpartisan Group Highlights the Crucial Need for Education Reform

Regular readers of this blog know that I have been talking about the issues of the flattening earth since the inception of this blog.  Over the weekend, I came across the Strong American Schools website and the new public awareness campaign it is sponsoring to highlight the critical condition of American schools when compared to the rest of the industrialized world.  You can view the television ad that is running in a number of states (but not in Texas) by clicking here.  (The screen capture above is from the ad).

The Strong American Schools' fact sheet for the ad contains the following statistics that vividly demonstrate the need for reform:

• Out of 30 industrialized countries, America’s 15-year-olds rank 25th in math and 21st in science. SOURCE: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. (2007). PISA 2006: Science Competencies for Tomorrow’s World, Executive Summary. Table 2 and 5. Paris, France: OECD Publications. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/15/13/39725224.pdf 
• Rank of countries on the science scale: Finland, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Netherlands, Korea, Germany, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Hungary, Sweden, Poland, Denmark, France, Iceland, United States. SOURCE: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. (2007). PISA 2006: Science Competencies for Tomorrow’s World, Executive Summary. Table 2. Paris, France: OECD Publications.  Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/15/13/39725224.pdf 
• 93% of American science teachers have little or no training in science. SOURCE: National Academy of Sciences. (2007). Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. (p. 114). 
• By eighth grade, nearly 70% of students are below proficient in reading. SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2007. Accessed at http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/ 
• America’s graduation rate is ranked 21st out of 27 industrialized countries. SOURCE: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. (2007, December). PISA 2006: Science Competencies for Tomorrow’s World, Briefing Note for the United States. Paris, France: Author. 
• Between 2000 and 2005, out of 23 countries, the U.S. was the only country that showed no increase in its postsecondary graduation rate.  SOURCE: Postsecondary Education Opportunity. (2007, November). Upper Secondary and Tertiary Graduation and Attainment in OECD and Partner Countries: 1996 to 2005. Oskaloosa, IA: Author.

Strong American Schools has recommended three policy changes that I believe would improve the quality of our schools and return the United States to a position among the top countries in the world rather than among the bottom.  The three recommendations, which are fully discussed in the Strong American Schools' Policy Primer are as follows:

• American education standards. Regardless of where they live, all students need to acquire knowledge and skills that prepare them for college, for the workplace, and for life. From New Hampshire to Nevada, every student deserves a strong curriculum in subjects like math and English.
• Effective teachers in every classroom. We need to enable teachers to improve their skills, measure teachers’ performance in the classroom, and pay them more if they produce superior results or take on challenging assignments. 
• More time and support for learning. We need to provide successful and struggling students alike more time for in-depth learning and greater personal attention.

Each of these reforms is discussed in the and in even greater detail in the Strong American Schools' Policy Toolkit.

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About Strong American Schools (from its website): Strong American Schools is a nonpartisan public awareness and advocacy effort aimed at elevating discussion amongst America's leaders about the need for education reform. The organization seeks to unite all Americans around the crucial mission of improving our public schools by elevating the discussion to a national stage. For more information and to view the new campaign, please visit www.strongamericanschools.org.

Strong American Schools, a project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, is a nonpartisan campaign supported by The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Gates Foundation promoting sound education policies for all Americans. SAS does not support or oppose any candidate for public office and does not take positions on legislation.

The "Google Generation" Thinks Differently: Multi-Tasking as a Way of Life

A recent article that appeared in the London Times accurately describes the "Google Generation," identified as today's students.  The Times discusses what many people have noticed (and particularly those of us whose children seem to be connected to a laptop/cell phone continuously):

According to researchers we are in the midst of a sea change in the way that we read and think. Our digitally native children have wonderfully flexible minds. They absorb information quickly, adapt to changes and are adept at culling from multiple sources. But they are also suffering from internet-induced attention deficit disorder.

Children do have the capacity to assimilate learning faster and simultaneously from multiple sources, says Clark. “The downside is that they expect more variety, so their boredom threshold is falling. Some teaching is adapting to that and becoming more dynamic, some is not.”

The article shows why engaging students with "old world" media will be increasingly difficult for these digital natives.
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How the Google generation thinks differently

Digital-age kids process information differently from parents. Our writer admits misjudging how her son was learning

My elder son Oli is almost 15 and way beyond the stage where I might usefully help with his homework. But in the run-up to his recent end-of-year exams, I felt compelled to take a hovering interest in his revision. This chiefly involved loitering on the landing and popping into his room at frequent intervals laden with the laundered contents of his sock drawer.

Every time I crossed the threshold, the scene was the same: textbooks remained firmly closed in his bag while the laptop was open on his desk.

On the screen was some history/ physics/English document, but also his Facebook and iTunes pages. In his ears were the iPod plugs, playing back a podcast. And sometimes, just to fracture his concentration even further, he might have had a half-played video running on YouTube as well.

Can You Pass the New U.S. Citizenship Test?

The MSNBC website has posted twenty questions from the recently updated United States Citizenship Test.  From the MSNBC website:

In October 2008 a new version of the U.S. citizenship test will be taken by all applicants. Could you pass it? The questions are usually selected from a list of 100 samples that prospective citizens can look at ahead of the interview. Some are easy, some are not. We have picked some of the more difficult ones.

While candidates for U.S. Citizenship only get the question, MSNBC provides four possible responses for each question. 

My results are below.