Below are two featured articles from the most recent editions of the NSTA Express. To sign up for this e-newsletter and view the archive, please click here.
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 101
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and NSTA have partnered to present a web seminar on Tuesday, January 25, 2011, to review the NAEP 2009 Science Results. Arnold Goldstein, Program Director for Design, Analysis, and Reporting in the Assessment Division, will lead participants through the fundamentals of NAEP and highlight differences in students’ performance based on demographic characteristics and how participating states compare to the national average. Participants will be able to ask questions and learn about tools they can use for further analyses. Registration is free. To learn more and to register go to the NSTA Learning Center.
America's Public Schools and the Recession
A recently released survey of school administrators nationwide conducted by the American Association of School Administrators provides a sobering picture of the economic impact the recession has had on schools in the 2010–11 school year, and offers little hope of improvement for next year.
Key points from Surviving A Thousand Cuts: America’s Public Schools and the Recession:
- Across the nation, school districts report a breadth and depth of budget cuts for both the 2010–11 and 2011–12 school years.
- Stop-gap efforts to avoid job cuts were short-lived, and this reduction in force will continue to be a reality over the next few school years.
- More than half of the 692 administrators surveyed increased class size, and 65 percent anticipate doing so in 2011–12.
- More than 1/3 eliminated/delayed instructional improvement initiatives for the 2010–11 school year, and nearly half anticipate doing so next year.
- Six percent reduced operations to a four-day week this year, and 17 percent anticipate doing so next year. Twenty-seven percent eliminated summer school programs for 2020–11, and more than 40 percent anticipate eliminating summer school next year.
The report notes that the cessation of ARRA (stimulus) and EduJobs funding and continued budget strains at the state and local levels represent a one-two punch to education funding, further insulating schools from economic recovery and translating into more budget cuts, more job cuts, and fewer resources for programs and personnel.