From the Editor RSS Feed
News Round Up
Anne Wujcik — Friday, April 30, 2010
There were a lot of interesting announcements over the last few weeks. One small news item that made me smile was the announcement of the Grand National Champions in the nineteenth annual Zaner-Bloser National Handwriting Contest. I know I’m betraying my age, but it’s nice to see that some students are actually learning handwriting skills. I’m always surprised when I see the young people in my family rely largely on printing when they actually turn away from a keyboard, which seems such an inefficient way to dash off a quick note. Zaner-Bloser received nearly 300,000 entries, which were judged according to the Zaner-Bloser Keys to Legibility: size, shape, slant, and spacing. Read More »
2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition
Anne Wujcik — Friday, April 23, 2010
If you’d like to double check the reliability of your crystal ball, read the 2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition. The Consortium on School Networking (CoSN) collaborated with the New Media Consortium to produce the report, with the support of HP. Like its higher ed counterpart, the K-12 edition identifies six emerging technologies likely to have a significant impact on K-12 education over a five year timeline. CoSN also released a companion Toolkit to help schools and districts explore how emerging technologies, like those highlighted in the report, can improve teaching and learning in K-12 education. Read More »
Legislating Your Way into Race to the Top
Anne Wujcik — Friday, April 16, 2010
If the purpose behind selecting just two states as winners in the first round of Race To the Top was to send a message, it seems that message has been received. Over the last few weeks, states have scrambled to be sure their applications address what the judges rated very highly the first time around – broad support from school districts, the teachers unions and other stakeholders; and a combination of efforts designed to ensure teacher and principal effectiveness, including the use of student-achievement scores in teacher evaluation. The other challenge that states face is scaling back their budget requests. Florida, for example, asked for $1.1 billion in its round one application, but will have to adjust its plans to work within the $700 million it is allowed to ask for in round two. Read More »
Race to the Top Assessment Program
Anne Wujcik — Friday, April 09, 2010
The Department of Education announced the final component in its push to assure that all American students graduate college- and career-ready, releasing the final regulations and application package for the $350 million competition to develop new assessment systems. To me, this is the most exciting of the spate of recent announcements. Though I still worry that we are placing too much emphasis on testing, using new and more open-ended assessments should help address at least some of that concern. And if the architecture that the administration has set out and that the states appear to have bought into is to be realized, strong assessment systems are essential. Read More »
Race to the Top Winners
Anne Wujcik — Sunday, April 04, 2010
Last week saw the announcement of the first two winners in the Race to the Top grant competition. The real surprise for most observers was that just two grant awards were made. Remember 41 applications were submitted and 16 states were named to the finalist list. Delaware and Tennessee emerged as the clear winners as the judges evaluated the face-to-face presentations and the states’ ability to answer specific questions about implementation. Awarding only two grants signals some political will on the part of the administration, opting, at least during this first round, to limit the field of winners. There’s a lot of speculation about the administrations motives here; feel free to pick your favorite. Read More »
NAEP, CGCS, Insiders' Perspectives
Anne Wujcik — Friday, March 26, 2010
This week saw the release of the results from the 2009 NAEP Reading Assessment. I guess the good news is that there really wasn’t any bad news (though that does depend on one’s perspective) .The bad news is that there really wasn’t any good news. Essentially 8th graders scored a small increase and 4th graders held steady. But it’s the first time that we’ve not seen growth in the 4th grade scores, maybe indicating that all the easy gains have been achieved and new growth will require even more effort than we’ve put in over the last 10 years. The assessment shows that 75% of 8th-graders performed at or above the Basic level, and 32 percent performed at or above Proficient. Both percentages were higher than in 2007 and 1992, the year the reading trend for this assessment began. The percentages of 4th graders performing at or above each of three achievement levels were the same in 2009 as in 2007 and higher than in 1992. Read More »
Blueprints and Broadband
Anne Wujcik — Friday, March 19, 2010
Over the weekend the Obama Administration released its blueprint to overhaul the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), to mixed reviews. “A Blueprint for Reform” sets out the administration’s K-12 priorities and provides a bit more detail about how the various programs will operate. Secretary Duncan was back on the Hill, appearing first before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and following up in the afternoon with the House Education and Labor Committee, testifying on the Obama Administration’s blueprint. (The Secretary has previously testified before the House Education and Labor Committee on March 3.) And Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission released the National Broadband Plan. The plan sets out six long term goals for the next decade, including calling for every American community to have affordable access to at least 1 gigabit per second broadband service to anchor institutions such as schools, hospitals and government buildings and at least 100 million U.S. homes to have affordable access to actual download speeds of at least 100 megabits per second and actual upload speeds of at least 50 megabits per second. Read More »
i3 Regs and the Draft Core Standards Released
Anne Wujcik — Friday, March 12, 2010
Trying to keep up with funding and policy announcements these past two weeks has been like trying to drink from a fire hose. This week saw the release of the final regulations and the application package for Investing in Innovation and the draft K-12 Common Core State Standards are now available for comment. Last week we had the announcement of the finalists for the first phase of the Race to the Top competition and the release of the National Education Technology Plan. And on Thursday, MDR was privileged to host a free webinar that featured Karen Cator, Director of Education Technology at the Department of Education, who gave us an insider’s overview of the plan. Why bother to keep up with all of this? Many people believe that i3 will foster a flood of proposals to support and extend really innovative approaches to teaching and learning. The draft standards have the potential of affecting the business of anyone who provides instructional materials for the K-12 market. And the Ed Tech plan puts technology at the core of efforts to transform education. It won’t all happen tomorrow and much of this is still in draft and planning stages. But together all these announcements and releases point to the future. Not everything will “take.” But we’re better off planning for the future than looking back to the past. Read More »
Washington Update
Anne Wujcik — Friday, March 05, 2010
Welcome to the first issue of the new EdNET News Alert. We look forward to your comments and suggestions on the refreshed format. There's so much going on this week, it's hard to know where to start. First I'd like to point you to the Featured News section and the headline about EdNET Insight, a new information service from MDR. Offered as a subscription service, EdNET Insight will combine a variety of products and services into a unique offering designed to help our customers stay informed of market trends and opportunities in the K-12 education market. Most of all, we want to build the EdNET community and extend the EdNET Conference experience throughout the year. EdNET Insight subscribers will receive regularly delivered industry reports, dedicated briefings, regular access to the EdNET Insight team of analysts, virtual roundtables on strategic issues, and custom research and consulting services. Read More »
Changes for B2E; Industry News
Anne Wujcik — Friday, February 26, 2010
You’ll notice some changes in our weekly newsletter next week. Starting March 5, we’re giving the B2E a facelift and adding it to the EdNET family. It will now be called the “EdNET News Alert,” so look for it in your email next week! In addition to a new name, we’re making some layout and design changes, better incorporating the newsletter and news site into the MDR/EdNET design family, while also building on reader behavior to highlight original content – my Editor’s Note, Vicki’s “Snoops” and a new rotating series of articles offering 1) ideas for marketing, 2) comments from educators, 3) advice from industry professionals, and 4) a monthly offering from Nelson aptly dubbed “the Heller Report.” We’ll continue to provide press releases and featured industry stories both in the emailed news and on the site. I know I can count on you to provide feedback, so let us know what you think at: mdrinfo@dnb.com. Or drop me personal note at : WujcikA@dnb.com. Read More »
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