The average wealth of White households in 2011 ($110,500) was 14 times that of Hispanic households
($7,683), and 17 times that of Black households ($6,314).
http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/state-of-americas-children/index.html
Overview of The State of America’s Children 2014
The U.S. is reaching a tipping point in racial and ethnic diversity.
• For the first time the majority of children in America under age 2 were children of color in 2012 as were
the majority of all children in 10 states — Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland,
Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas — and the District of Columbia. By 2019, the majority
of all children nationwide are expected to be children of color.
• Over one-third of children of color under 2 were poor in 2012 during years of rapid brain development.
Child poverty has reached record levels.
• One in 5 children — 16.1 million — was poor in 2012.
• More than 7.1 million children — over 40 percent of poor children — lived in extreme poverty at less than
half the poverty level. For a family of four this means $11,746 a year, $979 a month, $226 a week and
$32 a day or $8 a person.
• The youngest most vulnerable children were the poorest age group. Over 1 in 4 children under age 5 —
nearly 5 million — were poor. Almost half of them — 2.4 million — were extremely poor.
Children of color are disproportionately poor.
• Nearly 1 in 3 children of color — 11.2 million children — was poor and more than 1 in 3 children of
color under age 5 — 3.5 million — were poor.
• Black children were the poorest (39.6 percent) followed by American Indian/Native Alaskan children
(36.8 percent) and Hispanic children (33.7 percent).
• In six states — Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Oregon, and Wisconsin — half or more Black
children were poor and nearly half the states had Black child poverty rates of 40 percent or more.
• The largest group of poor children was Hispanic children (5.8 million) followed by White children
(5.2 million) and Black children (4.1 million).
Children in single-parent families and Southern families are at greatest risk of poverty.
• Children in single-parent families were nearly four times more likely to be poor than children in married couple families in 2012. Although almost 70 percent of all children lived with two parents in 2013,
more than half of Black children and nearly 1 in 3 Hispanic children lived with only one parent compared
to 1 in 5 White children.
• The South had the highest child poverty rate with 1 in 4 Southern children poor compared to 1 in 5 in
the rest of the country.
• Child poverty rates were highest in cities (29.1 percent) followed by rural areas and small towns
(26.7 percent) but nearly 2 in 5 poor children lived in suburbs.
Child poverty creates unacceptable child homelessness and hunger.
• Nearly 1.2 million public school students were homeless in 2011-2012, 73 percent more than before
the recession.
• More than 1 in 9 children lacked access to adequate food in 2012, a rate 23 percent higher than before
the recession.
• In an average month in FY2011, 1.2 million households with children had no cash income and depended
only on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to stave off hunger.
The State of America’s Children® 2014 • 5
O v e r v i e w
• Black and Hispanic households with children were more than twice as likely as White households to lack
access to adequate food in 2012.
• Eighty-nine percent of children who relied on free or reduced-price lunch during the school year did not
receive meals through the Summer Food Service Program in 2012.
Government safety nets lifted millions of children out of poverty.
• Government safety net programs lifted 9 million children from poverty in 2012 including 5.3 million
children through the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit and 2.2 million
through SNAP.
• Child poverty would have been 57 percent higher in 2012 without government tax credits and food,
housing, and energy benefits. Extreme child poverty would have been 240 percent higher.
Income and wealth inequalities are shockingly high.
• The top 1 percent of earners received 22.5 percent of the nation’s income in 2012, more than double
their share in 1964 and equal to levels last seen in the 1920s.
• The average wealth of White households in 2011 ($110,500) was 14 times that of Hispanic households
($7,683), and 17 times that of Black households ($6,314).
Working families are struggling.
• Employment does not guarantee an above-poverty income: more than two-thirds of poor children lived
in families where one or more family member worked.
• In no state could an individual working full-time at the minimum wage afford the fair market rent
for a two-bedroom rental unit and have had enough for food, utilities and other necessities in 2013.
A person would have needed to work more than two-and-a-half full-time minimum-wage jobs to afford
a two-bedroom fair market rental.
Lack of investments deprives children of critical supports in the early years.
• Less than half of 3- and 4-year olds were enrolled in preschool in 2009-2011.
• Early Head Start funding served only 4 percent of the 2.9 million eligible poor infants and toddlers
on any given day in FY2012 and Head Start funding served only 41 percent of the 2 million eligible
poor 3- and 4-year olds.
The nation’s schools fail to prepare millions of children in greatest need.
• Nearly 60 percent of all fourth and eighth grade public school students and more than 80 percent of
Black and almost 75 percent of Hispanic children in these grades could not read or compute at grade
level in 2013.
• Only 78 percent of students graduated from public high school in four years in 2010. That rate was 66
percent for Black students, 69 percent for American Indian/Alaska Native students and 71 percent for
Hispanic students.
• Over half a million public school students dropped out of grades 9-12 during the 2009-2010 school year.
This will cost taxpayers in the future billions of dollars a year in added benefits and services and foregone
income tax revenue.
• In only 11 states and the District of Columbia are school districts required by law to offer full-day
kindergarten to all eligible students, although 45 states and the District of Columbia have adopted
Common Core State Standards that assume districts are offering a full day of kindergarten.
• Alaska was the only state in the nation to equitably fund education by spending 40 percent more for
each student in its poorest school districts than its richest in 2007-2008, the most recent year of data.
Thirteen states spent more on students in their richest districts than their poorest districts.
Ninety-five percent of all children now have access to health coverage although access does
not ensure they will be enrolled.
• The percent of uninsured children in America has decreased 40 percent since 1997 thanks to Medicaid
and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) which provided health coverage to 44 million
children under 19 (57 percent of all children) in FY2012.
• The unjust lottery of geography left more than 7.2 million children under 19 uninsured in 2012: 1 in 7
Hispanic children, 1 in 11 Black children and 1 in 15 White children. Nearly 70 percent of them were
eligible for Medicaid or CHIP but not enrolled.
• Forty percent of children who needed mental health services did not receive them in 2011-2012.
• Family health care costs pushed more than 2 million children into poverty in 2012.
Many vulnerable children need treatment, services and permanent families.
• A child is abused or neglected every 47 seconds. Infants and toddlers are most likely to be victims of
abuse and neglect.
• Nearly 40 percent of children who are abused or neglected receive no post-investigation services and many
more receive far fewer services than they need.
• In 2012, 101,719 children in foster care were waiting to be adopted. More than 23,000 youth aged
out of foster care at 18 or older without being returned home, adopted or placed with a permanent
legal guardian.
• 4,028 children are arrested each day — one every 21 seconds and 1,790 children are serving sentences
in adult prisons.
Guns kill or injure a child or teen every half hour.
• In 2010, 2,694 children and teens were killed by guns and 15,576 were injured by guns. Guns killed
more infants, toddlers and preschoolers than law enforcement officers in the line of duty.
• U.S. children and teens are 17 times more likely to die from gun violence than their peers in 25 other
high-income countries.
• Since 1963, three times as many children and teens have died from guns on American soil than U.S.
soldiers killed in action in the Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
• Gun violence disproportionately affects children of color. In 2010, Black children and teens were nearly
five times and Hispanic children and teens were more than three times more likely to be killed by guns
than White children and teens.
• United States military and law enforcement agencies possess 4 million guns. U.S. civilians have 310 million.
Every year American companies manufacture enough bullets to fire 31 rounds into every one of our
citizens.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Backlash against Common Core continues
The Common Core State Standards don’t amount to a “federal power grab,”
according to a January report
released by a Mississippi state watchdog committee.
Mississippi’s Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review took a comprehensive look at the standards, adopted by the state in 2010. In a 94-page report, the PEER committee addresses whether the state should be concerned about warnings over the standards often echoed by conservative critics.
“PEER did not find credible evidence that the Common Core State Standards initiative is a federal ‘power grab’ or an effort to usurp the authority of states and local school districts in setting curricula for the purpose of social or political change,” the report says. “Based on an analysis of the history and development of CCSS, its primary focus has been on developing internationally competitive content statements that clearly specify what students should be able to understand and be able to do at a particular grade level.”
The report also emphasizes that the standards weren’t developed under the influence of special interests. The standards were developed by the National Governors Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers and others, and funded through fees, contracts, federal grants and contributions from foundations and corporations.
The state board of education is likely to approve the new high school course descriptions, a transition plan for new assessments and new textbooks aligned to the standards, The Associated Press reports.
— Caitlin Emma
POLITICO
Mississippi’s Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review took a comprehensive look at the standards, adopted by the state in 2010. In a 94-page report, the PEER committee addresses whether the state should be concerned about warnings over the standards often echoed by conservative critics.
“PEER did not find credible evidence that the Common Core State Standards initiative is a federal ‘power grab’ or an effort to usurp the authority of states and local school districts in setting curricula for the purpose of social or political change,” the report says. “Based on an analysis of the history and development of CCSS, its primary focus has been on developing internationally competitive content statements that clearly specify what students should be able to understand and be able to do at a particular grade level.”
The report also emphasizes that the standards weren’t developed under the influence of special interests. The standards were developed by the National Governors Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers and others, and funded through fees, contracts, federal grants and contributions from foundations and corporations.
The state board of education is likely to approve the new high school course descriptions, a transition plan for new assessments and new textbooks aligned to the standards, The Associated Press reports.
— Caitlin Emma
POLITICO
Harvard and MIT reports on MOOC
A new report from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
finds that some of the most widely cited critiques doubting the impact and
effectiveness of massive open online courses might be misleading.
The two institutions, which founded major MOOC provider edX, are releasing a series of working papers examining 17 courses hosted by the edX platform. Among their major takeaways: Course completion rates might not be the best measure of a MOOC’s impact or potential for teaching and learning. While course completion rates have historically been low, tens of thousands of students are still accessing and learning from content.
“We found students in the courses who engaged with every single piece of the courseware, students who only read text or viewed videos, students who only took assessments or completed problem sets and students representing nearly every possible combination of these behaviors,” said Isaac Chuang, co-author of the papers and a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. “Experimentation is part of the learning process.”
And while 50 percent of students drop the course within the first two weeks of enrolling, the likelihood that a student will stop engaging in the course drops to 16 percent after that window of time passes.
The report also says MOOC demographic information can be misleading. The most common course taker is a male with a bachelor’s degree, age 26 or older. But that describes fewer than one in three course takers, the report says. Thirty-three percent out of a total 234,463 students said they had a high school education or less. About 6.3 percent said they were 50 years old or older and and 2.7 percent had IP or mailing addresses from underdeveloped countries.
“While typical MOOC registrants have a college degree already, hundreds of thousands of our registrants do not,” Chuang said. “Many of our MOOC registrants are from the United States, but 72 percent are from abroad. These MOOCs are reaching many nontraditional and underserved communities of students, very different from typical students on campuses at traditional universities.”
The MIT working papers: http://bit.ly/1eahMo9 and the Harvard working papers: http://bit.ly/1eQ3nPs
— Caitlin Emma
POLITICO
The two institutions, which founded major MOOC provider edX, are releasing a series of working papers examining 17 courses hosted by the edX platform. Among their major takeaways: Course completion rates might not be the best measure of a MOOC’s impact or potential for teaching and learning. While course completion rates have historically been low, tens of thousands of students are still accessing and learning from content.
“We found students in the courses who engaged with every single piece of the courseware, students who only read text or viewed videos, students who only took assessments or completed problem sets and students representing nearly every possible combination of these behaviors,” said Isaac Chuang, co-author of the papers and a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. “Experimentation is part of the learning process.”
And while 50 percent of students drop the course within the first two weeks of enrolling, the likelihood that a student will stop engaging in the course drops to 16 percent after that window of time passes.
The report also says MOOC demographic information can be misleading. The most common course taker is a male with a bachelor’s degree, age 26 or older. But that describes fewer than one in three course takers, the report says. Thirty-three percent out of a total 234,463 students said they had a high school education or less. About 6.3 percent said they were 50 years old or older and and 2.7 percent had IP or mailing addresses from underdeveloped countries.
“While typical MOOC registrants have a college degree already, hundreds of thousands of our registrants do not,” Chuang said. “Many of our MOOC registrants are from the United States, but 72 percent are from abroad. These MOOCs are reaching many nontraditional and underserved communities of students, very different from typical students on campuses at traditional universities.”
The MIT working papers: http://bit.ly/1eahMo9 and the Harvard working papers: http://bit.ly/1eQ3nPs
— Caitlin Emma
POLITICO
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Monday, January 20, 2014
What can Feds do to accelerate Ed Tech market?
To stimulate a national conversation on whether and how pull mechanisms might be used to accelerate the development of high-impact learning technologies, OSTP seeks public comment on the questions listed below:
(1) What learning outcomes would be good candidates for the
focus of a pull mechanism to catalyze the creation and use of new learning
technology? These outcomes could be relevant to early childhood education,
K-20, life-long learning, workforce readiness and skills, etc.
(2) How are these learning outcomes currently measured and
assessed?
(3) What information exists about current U.S. performance
relative to this learning outcome? What information exists about the presence
(currently available or potential given current trends or breakthroughs) or
absence of effective interventions (technology-based, offline, or hybrid) to
improve this learning outcome?
(4) Why would a pull mechanism in this area accelerate
innovation in learning technology?
(5) What role might different stakeholders (e.g. Federal
agencies, state and local educational agencies, foundations, researchers,
practitioners, companies, investors, or non-profit organizations) play in
designing, funding, and implementing a pull mechanism for learning technology?
What role would your organization be willing to play?
(6) What changes in public policy would facilitate
experimentation with pull mechanisms at different levels of government?
A Notice by the Science and Technology Policy Office on
01/13/2014
Summary
The Office of Science and Technology Policy requests public
comments to inform its policy development related to high-impact learning
technologies. This Request for Information offers the opportunity for
interested individuals and organizations to identify public and private actions
that have the potential to accelerate the development, rigorous evaluation, and
widespread adoption of high-impact learning technologies. The focus of this RFI
is on the design and implementation of “pull mechanisms” for technologies that
significantly improve a given learning outcome. Comments must be received by
11:59 p.m. on March 7, 2014, to be considered. In your comments, please
reference the question to which you are responding.
Respondents are encouraged to submit their comments through
one of the following methods. Email is the preferred method of submission.
Please do not include in your comments information of a confidential nature,
such as sensitive personal information or proprietary information. Responses to
this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Federal Government to
form a binding contract or issue a grant. Information obtained as a result of
this notice may be used by the Federal Government for program planning on a
non-attribution basis. Please be aware that your comments may be posted online.
Email:
learning@ostp.gov. Email submissions will receive an electronic confirmation
acknowledging receipt of your response, but will not receive individualized feedback
on any suggestions.
Postal Mail: Office
of Science and Technology Policy, Attn: Cristin Dorgelo, 1650 Pennsylvania
Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20504. Submissions by postal mail must be received
by the deadline, and should allow sufficient time for security processing.
This Request for Information (RFI) offers the oppm1unity for
interested individuals and organizations to identify public and private actions
that have the potential to accelerate the development, rigorous evaluation, and
widespread adoption of high-impact learning technologies. The focus of this RFI
is on the design and implementation of “pull mechanisms” for technologies that
significantly improve a given learning outcome. Pull mechanisms increase the
incentives to develop specific products or services by committing to reward
success. Examples of pull mechanisms include incentive prizes, Advance Market
Commitments, milestone payments, “pay for success” bonds, and purchasing consm1ia.
The public input provided through this notice will inform the deliberations of
the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).
OSTP is interested in identifying policies and serving as a
catalyst for public-private pat1nerships that have the potential to accelerate
the development, rigorous evaluation, and widespread adoption of high-impact
learning technologies. For example, imagine if learners in the United States
had access to technologies that:
Dramatically reduced
the large and persistent gap in vocabulary size between children from wealthy
and poor households.
Allowed middle and
high school students to outperform their international peers in math and
science.
Enabled
English-language learners that are reading at several grade levels below
average to catch up after only a year.
Gave non-college
bound students an industry skills ce1tification or set of cognitive skills
(e.g. literacy, numeracy, ability to understand and apply chmis, graphs and
diagrams) that are a ticket to a middle-class job, increasing their
employability and their incomes by $10,000-$20,000 or more in less than a year.
Doubled the
percentage of community college students that pass remedial math, which is
currently only 30 percent.
Successfully delivered a “growth mindset” intervention to
teachers and students.
Were as effective as a personal tutor, were as engaging as
the best video game, and improved the more students used them.
Currently, there is a
large gap between the relatively modest impact that technology has had on
education, particularly in K-12, and the transformative impact that it has had
in many aspects of our economic and social life. For example, businesses are using
information and communications technologies to dramatically increase
productivity, tap the expe1iise of their employees, slash the time needed to
develop new products, tailor products and services to meet the needs of
individual consumers, orchestrate global networks of suppliers, derive insights
from huge volumes of transactional data, and improve their products and
services by conducting rapid, low-cost experiments.
Education, particularly K-12 education, remains relatively
untouched by advances in our understanding of how people learn, how to design
instruction that incorporates those insights, and the explosion in information
technologies such as low-cost smartphones and tablets, cloud computing,
broadband networks, speech recognition and speech synthesis, predictive
analytics, data mining, machine learning, intelligent tutors, simulations,
games, computer-suppmied collaborative work, and many other technologies. That
is why President Obama has proposed ConnectED, a new initiative to connect 99
percent of America's students to the Internet through high-speed broadband and
high-speed wireless within 5 years.
Learning technologies will be much more effective if they
informed by “learning science”—advances in disciplines in fields such as
neuroscience, cognitive science, educational psychology, and discipline-based
education research that shed light on how people learn. This research can
provide actionable insights on issues such as student motivation, the
circumstances under which prior knowledge helps or hmis learning, how students
can organize knowledge in rich and meaningful ways, and the ways in which
students can progress from novice to expeti in a given domain.
There are a number of reasons for the gap between the
potential of learning science and technology and the cunent
state-of-the-practice:
The United States is
investing 0.1 percent of K-12 expenditures on R&D, compared to 2 percent in
mature industries and 18.7 percent in the pharmaceutical industry. This
extremely low level of investment in educational R&D has clearly limited
the pace of innovation.
Entrepreneurs seeking
to develop and market new products to the K-12 market face a number of
challenges, including low per-pupil expenditures on software, lengthy adoption
cycles, and a highly fragmented market. This in turn limits the amount that
companies can spend on research and product development.
It is difficult for
companies to make authoritative claims about the impact of their products on
learning outcomes assessed through rigorous third-party validation, which
limits the premium that school districts and other consumers of learning
technology are willing to pay for high-quality, effective products.
This suggests that an effective national strategy for
increasing the impact of learning science and technology should address both
the “supply” and “demand” for advanced learning technologies.
To increase the “supply” of learning technology, the Federal
government and philanthropists could increase funding for research and
development and support training grants and scholarships in relevant
disciplines such as educational psychology, cognitive science, instructional
design, artificial intelligence, etc. The National Science Foundation is
funding a program called “Cyberlearning Transforming Education” and the
Depmiment of Defense is supporting research in advanced training technologies.
The President FY14 Budget request includes funding for a “DARPA for Education”
(ARPA-ED).
However, there has been little discussion of the potential
of what economists call “pull mechanisms” to accelerate the development,
evaluation, and adoption of high-impact learning technologies.
As economists have recently noted, governments and other
funders can suppmt innovation using “push” programs (e.g. funding grants and
contracts to universities and companies, providing tax incentives for R&D,
or supporting government laboratories) and “pull” mechanisms that “increase the
rewards for developing specific products by committing to reward success.” Push
programs pay for research inputs; pull mechanisms pay for research outcomes.
“Pull mechanisms” have been used successfully in the field
of global health. In December 2010, children in developing countries began
receiving a vaccine that will prevent deaths from “pneumococcal” diseases
including pneumonia, meningitis, and sepsis. Nearly one million young children
die every year from pneumococcal infections, with 90 percent of these deaths
occurring in developing countries.
The development of this vaccine was accelerated by a $1.5
billion “Advance Market Commitment” backed by five governments and a private
foundation. Pharmaceutical companies that have agreed to provide the vaccine at
$3.50 per dose to low-income countries for the next 10 years will receive
additional payments from the $1.5 billion in donor commitments. The AMC
increased the size and predictability of the market for pneumococcal vaccines,
which increased the willingness of companies to invest in high-volume
production of these vaccines for developing country markets. Expe1ts predict
that this AMC will save 7 million lives over the next twenty years.
Non-binding commitments to purchase products can also
provide market pull, if there is both a clearly defined performance
specification and a strong expression of interest from potential buyers. For
example, in June 2013, the U.S. Department of Energy put together a coalition
of the Federal government and over 200 major commercial building pmtners that
issued a challenge to U.S. manufacturers: “If you can build wireless sub-meters
that cost less than $100 apiece and enable us to identify opportunities to save
money by saving energy, we will buy them.” At least 18 manufacturers agreed to
take up the challenge. In 2011, the Department of Energy put together a similar
and successful challenge for energy-efficient and cost-effective commercial air
conditioners, with the first manufacturer meeting the challenge in May 2012.
In addition, Federal agencies have offered almost 300
incentive prizes on Challenge.gov, providing opportunities for citizen solvers
to offer novel solutions to tough problems, while minimizing risk to Federal
agencies by only paying for success. More information about pull mechanisms can
be found in this supplemental information document.
OSTP is interested in stimulating a conversation about how
pull mechanisms could be used to accelerate the development, evaluation, and
adoption of learning technologies. Some of the advantages of pull mechanisms
are that a funder can (a) pay only for success; (b) set a goal without having
to choose in advance which team or approach is most likely to be successful;
and (c) increase the number and intellectual diversity of the teams that are
working to solve a particular problem. Although there a variety of different
types of pull mechanisms, they generally require establishing a clear goal and
an agreed-upon set of metrics for evaluating progress towards that goal. If
education is going to benefit from increased use of pull mechanisms,
policy-makers and stakeholders have to identify some specific challenges that
are important and measurable, and where it is plausible that learning
technology can help improve student outcomes.
Using Pull Mechanisms for Learning Technologies
Pull mechanisms can be used for social interventions that do
not use technology. For example, the first “social impact bond” is being used
by the United Kingdom to reduce recidivism among 3,000 prisoners. The United
Kingdom's Depa11ment for International Development (DfiD) is supporting a
“Results-Based Aid” approach to improving education in Ethiopia. Under this
pilot, DfiD will make grant payments to the education ministry for the increase
in the number of students above a baseline that sits for or passes the national
grade 10 exam. There will be additional payments for students in the poorest
regions, and for girls compared to boys.
It may also make sense to experiment with pull mechanisms to
accelerate the development and rigorous evaluation of learning technologies.
Some of the potential advantages of learning technologies include:
Low marginal cost:
The marginal cost of making software or digital content and services available
to more students is very low, although the fixed cost of R&D and rigorous
evaluation may be high. This is why IT stmtups are able to grow rapidly—the
cost of serving tens or hundreds of millions of customers does not increase
arithmetically with the number of customers.
Ability to maintain
high levels of “time on task”: For example, good game developers can keep users
riveted for hours at a time. They can create experiences that are intrinsically
motivating, and that offer an increasingly difficult set of challenges that
keep users in the “sweet spot” between being bored and frustrated.
Continuous
improvement: The productivity of most public sector services is flat or
negative. Researchers and entrepreneurs have ideas for developing online
services that get better the more people use them by (a) conducting many
low-cost experiments to discover what works; and (b) collect, analyze and act
on the data that can be generated online.
Learning anytime, anywhere:
Mobile devices allow individuals to access digital content at a time, place,
and pace that is convenient for them. This might be particularly impmiant for
an adult who is trying to upgrade their skills while balancing the competing
demands of work and family.
Digital tutors:
Research suggests that the average student tutored one-on-one using “mastery
learning” techniques (students are helped to master each concept before
proceeding to a more advanced learning task) performed better than 98 percent of
the students that learn the same material using conventional instructional
methods. Projects funded by DARPA and the Office of Naval Research suggest that
it may be possible to develop “digital tutors” that model the one-on-one
interaction between a world-class subject matter expeti and a student. A pilot
suppmied by the Veteran's Administration is allowing unemployed veterans that
use the digital tutor for 6 months to get IT jobs that pay $40,000 to $80,000.
Personalization:
Researchers and firms are developing software and online services that are
personalized to the needs, background, interests and skill levels of
individuals.
Interactive
simulations that enable “learning by doing”: Researchers have developed
simulations in areas such as physics, chemistry, biology, emih science, and
math. For example, an “Energy Skate Park” simulation allows students to explore
energy conservation with multiple different variables (shape of the track,
starting height and speed of the skater, mass of the skater, and friction).
Students can quicldy repeat experiments and rapidly explore the effect of many
different parameters.
Embedded assessment:
Technology can help provide continuous assessment of a given set of knowledge,
skills and abilities if the designers know (a) what behaviors would constitute
evidence that a student has mastered a given competency; and (b) which tasks
can elicit those behaviors.
Questions
To stimulate a national conversation on whether and how pull
mechanisms might be used to accelerate the development of high-impact learning
technologies, OSTP seeks public comment on the questions listed below:
(1) What learning outcomes would be good candidates for the
focus of a pull mechanism to catalyze the creation and use of new learning
technology? These outcomes could be relevant to early childhood education,
K-20, life-long learning, workforce readiness and skills, etc.
(2) How are these learning outcomes currently measured and
assessed?
(3) What information exists about current U.S. performance
relative to this learning outcome? What information exists about the presence
(currently available or potential given current trends or breakthroughs) or
absence of effective interventions (technology-based, offline, or hybrid) to
improve this learning outcome?
(4) Why would a pull mechanism in this area accelerate
innovation in learning technology?
(5) What role might different stakeholders (e.g. Federal
agencies, state and local educational agencies, foundations, researchers,
practitioners, companies, investors, or non-profit organizations) play in
designing, funding, and implementing a pull mechanism for learning technology?
What role would your organization be willing to play?
(6) What changes in public policy would facilitate
experimentation with pull mechanisms at different levels of government?
Response to this RFI is voluntary. Responders are free to
address any or all the above items, as well as provide additional information
that they think is relevant to accelerating the development, rigorous
evaluation and widespread adoption of high-impact learning technologies. Please
note that the U.S. Government will not pay for response preparation or for the
use of any information contained in the response.
Ted Waelder,
Deputy Chief of Staff and Assistant Director.
Supplementary Information: Overview of Pull Mechanisms
Incentive prizes are one type of “pull
mechanism”—results-based market incentives designed to overcome market failures
and catalyze itmovation. Experts often make a distinction between “recognition”
prizes that honor past achievements and “inducement” or “incentive” prizes that
encourage participants in the competition to achieve a particular goal. In a
2009 repot1, McKinsey identified six prize archetypes that provide a useful
framework for identifying types of prizes that can best achieve different types
of goals:
Exemplar Prizes that define excellence within an area.
Point Solution Prizes
that aim to spur development of solutions for a pmiicular well-defined problem.
Solutions can include software applications, algorithms, predictive models,
ideas, business plans, policy proposals, designs, or prototypes.
Market Stimulation
Prizes that try to establish the viability of a market to address a potential
market failure, mobilize additional human talent and financial capital to
jumpstati the development of a new industry, or change public perceptions about
what is possible.
Exposition Prizes
that are designed to highlight a broad range of promising ideas and practices,
attract attention, and mobilize capital to further develop the winning
innovations.
Participation Prizes
that create value during and after the competition- not through conferral of
the prize award itself but through their role in encouraging contestants to
change their behavior or develop new skills that may have beneficial effects
during and beyond the competition.
Network Prizes that
build networks and strengthen communities by organizing winners into new
problem-solving communities that can deliver more impact than individual
effmis.
Other types of pull mechanisms include:
Advance Market
Commitments: Binding commitments to purchase, or to subsidize purchase, of a
ce1iain volume of a product at a fixed prize, if the product meets pre defined
performance characteristics (pneumococcal vaccine and Department of Energy
examples discussed above).
Buyer's Consortia:
Cooperative agreements between purchasers of products that leverage the
combined buying power of those purchasers to drive down the price of products,
such as a buyer's consmiium set up for Maine school districts to purchase
specialized software and specific assistive technology devices.
Pay-for-Success
Bonds: Under a Pay for Success bond, also known as a social impact bond, the
financing organization and the Federal, state, or local government enter into a
contract that specifies the population to be served, the outcomes to be
achieved, the measurement methodology to be used, and the schedule of payments
to be made. The financing organization works with philanthropic and other
investors to invest in innovative, data-driven service providers that can
achieve results. One example of a pay for-success bond program is an initiative
in New York targeted at reducing recidivism in adult males.
Milestone-based
Payments: Payment terms in a standard grant or contract in which the payment
for each performance milestone established in the statement of work is not made
until the milestone is proven to have been achieved. One example of this
approach has been successfully demonstrated in NASA 's Commercial Orbital
Transportation Services (COTS) program.
Priority Review
Vouchers: An accelerated regulatory review offered to products that meet
certain performance or cost criteria, such as the FDA Innovation Pathway and
USPTO 's Patents for Humanity.
Patent Buyout: An
offer to buy out the patent rights to a product that meets specified
performance conditions at a set price (price for patent usually marked up over
market value; followed by placing of the patent into the public domain to
encourage competition for commercialization of the product). One example is the
purchase of the patent for the Daguerreotype process by the French government
in 1839.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Survey: Teachers Uncertain About Social Media
Link
PHOENIX--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A new national survey from University of Phoenix College of Education suggests K-12 teachers remain unclear and untrained about how to integrate social media into the classroom and whether to use it to engage with students and parents. In fact, a large majority (80 percent) of teachers worry about conflicts that can occur from using social media with their students and/or parents. Four-in-five teachers use social media for either personal or professional purposes; of those, more than one-third (34 percent) have encountered difficulties with students and/or parents attempting to connect with them via social media.
The online survey of more than 1,000 full-time K-12 teachers in the U.S. was conducted on behalf of University of Phoenix College of Education by Harris Interactive in October, 2013.
“Many professionals face challenges navigating how and when to use social media and whether they should merge their personal and professional lives,” said Kathy Cook, Director of Educational Technology for University of Phoenix College of Education. “Perhaps nowhere is the line more blurred than for teachers. On one hand, social media can be a valuable tool for learning and connecting with students and parents; on the other, it can invite inappropriate behavior and misuse.”
Social Media Use by Teachers
Eighty percent of K-12 teachers report that they use social media for either personal or professional use, but fewer than one-in-five (18 percent) have integrated social media into their own classrooms. A majority of K-12 teachers (55 percent) have not integrated social media into their classrooms and do not plan to do so. More than one-quarter (27 percent) have not integrated social media, but want to do so.
Teachers may also be hesitant to connect with parents via social media as 69 percent believe that parents sometimes use it to monitor teachers’ work and/or personal lives.
According to Cook, by avoiding the use of these ubiquitous communication tools, teachers may be missing opportunities to leverage social media for learning, teaching and connecting with others.
“Students are engaged daily in social media, so it presents a great way to connect with them,” said Cook. “Social media can also help tie classroom learning to real-world scenarios, which can enhance student learning. Many teachers see the value of using these tools in the classroom, but may be reluctant to engage without clear guidelines and training.”
According to the survey, less than one-third (29 percent) of K-12 teachers say they have received significant or adequate training about interacting with students and parents in social media.
Solutions
To help teachers navigate the often-complicated dynamics of today’s classrooms, University of Phoenix College of Education offers a course for teacher candidates that focuses on current issues in educational settings and encourages education students to think critically about these topics throughout their coursework.
“Throughout their education programs, teacher candidates are presented with many scenarios to help develop critical thinking and decision-making skills that can benefit them when they are managing their own classrooms,” said Cook. She offers the following tips for K-12 teachers about how to connect with parents and students via social media:
Survey Methodology
This survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive on behalf of University of Phoenix between October 7 and October 21, 2013. Respondents included 1,005 U.S. residents employed full-time as teachers in grades K-12 who have a college education or more. This online survey is not based on a probability sample, and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables, please contact Tanya Burden at Tanya.Burden@apollogrp
PHOENIX--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A new national survey from University of Phoenix College of Education suggests K-12 teachers remain unclear and untrained about how to integrate social media into the classroom and whether to use it to engage with students and parents. In fact, a large majority (80 percent) of teachers worry about conflicts that can occur from using social media with their students and/or parents. Four-in-five teachers use social media for either personal or professional purposes; of those, more than one-third (34 percent) have encountered difficulties with students and/or parents attempting to connect with them via social media.
The survey finds nearly half (47 percent) of all K-12 teachers and 58 percent of high school teachers believe that participation in social media with their teachers can enhance a student’s educational experience. Despite the perceived benefits, only 17 percent of K-12 teachers encourage their students to connect with them via social media and only 18 percent have integrated it into their classrooms. Adoption is only slightly greater for high school teachers, with 21 percent encouraging their students to connect with them via social media and 19 percent incorporating it into classroom learning.“I’m sorry, but I don’t connect with students and parents on Facebook—that is reserved for my private life. But you are welcome to reach me on Twitter.”
The online survey of more than 1,000 full-time K-12 teachers in the U.S. was conducted on behalf of University of Phoenix College of Education by Harris Interactive in October, 2013.
“Many professionals face challenges navigating how and when to use social media and whether they should merge their personal and professional lives,” said Kathy Cook, Director of Educational Technology for University of Phoenix College of Education. “Perhaps nowhere is the line more blurred than for teachers. On one hand, social media can be a valuable tool for learning and connecting with students and parents; on the other, it can invite inappropriate behavior and misuse.”
Social Media Use by Teachers
Eighty percent of K-12 teachers report that they use social media for either personal or professional use, but fewer than one-in-five (18 percent) have integrated social media into their own classrooms. A majority of K-12 teachers (55 percent) have not integrated social media into their classrooms and do not plan to do so. More than one-quarter (27 percent) have not integrated social media, but want to do so.
Teachers may also be hesitant to connect with parents via social media as 69 percent believe that parents sometimes use it to monitor teachers’ work and/or personal lives.
According to Cook, by avoiding the use of these ubiquitous communication tools, teachers may be missing opportunities to leverage social media for learning, teaching and connecting with others.
“Students are engaged daily in social media, so it presents a great way to connect with them,” said Cook. “Social media can also help tie classroom learning to real-world scenarios, which can enhance student learning. Many teachers see the value of using these tools in the classroom, but may be reluctant to engage without clear guidelines and training.”
According to the survey, less than one-third (29 percent) of K-12 teachers say they have received significant or adequate training about interacting with students and parents in social media.
Solutions
To help teachers navigate the often-complicated dynamics of today’s classrooms, University of Phoenix College of Education offers a course for teacher candidates that focuses on current issues in educational settings and encourages education students to think critically about these topics throughout their coursework.
“Throughout their education programs, teacher candidates are presented with many scenarios to help develop critical thinking and decision-making skills that can benefit them when they are managing their own classrooms,” said Cook. She offers the following tips for K-12 teachers about how to connect with parents and students via social media:
- Choose the Right Tool for the Task: Many teachers choose to keep Facebook strictly personal, but there are other opportunities to engage with students, parents and other professionals online. Classroom-specific Twitter feeds can be a great way to connect with students and parents and provide regular classroom updates, facilitate conversations about current events, assist students with special projects and share ideas with parents. LinkedIn and Twitter can be effective tools for professional development and provide opportunities for teachers to share ideas with educators all over the world.
- Be Consistent: Have a specific policy, communicate it clearly to parents and students, and stick with it. It is always ok to create boundaries. Teachers can say, “I’m sorry, but I don’t connect with students and parents on Facebook—that is reserved for my private life. But you are welcome to reach me on Twitter.” This way, the rules are clearly set, and everyone will feel more comfortable to engage if there are clear guidelines.
- Be Social in the Classroom: Look beyond the common social media tools for those that specifically support the nature of a classroom environment. Online tools are available that are built specifically for education professionals and provide secure, closed platforms for students and teachers to interact. On these websites, teachers can build class groups, post announcements and assignments, and create interesting class projects.
Survey Methodology
This survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive on behalf of University of Phoenix between October 7 and October 21, 2013. Respondents included 1,005 U.S. residents employed full-time as teachers in grades K-12 who have a college education or more. This online survey is not based on a probability sample, and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables, please contact Tanya Burden at Tanya.Burden@apollogrp
Federal RFI for High Impact Learning
Notice of Request for Information (RFI)
The Office of
Science and Technology Policy requests public comments to inform its policy
development related to high-impact learning technologies. This Request for
Information offers the opportunity for interested individuals and organizations
to identify public and private actions that have the potential to accelerate
the development, rigorous evaluation, and widespread adoption of high-impact
learning technologies. The focus of this RFI is on the design and implementation
of “pull mechanisms” for technologies that significantly improve a given
learning outcome. Comments must be received by 11:59 p.m. on March 7, 2014, to
be considered. In your comments, please reference the question to which you are
responding.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
White House Higher Ed Datapalooza
DATA CRAZY: Nearly 50 different private,
nonprofit or academic entities presented new apps, services or tools Wednesday
at Datapalooza, hosted by the Education Department and the White House. Among
them: College Abacus [http://bit.ly/1ajhnPf],
which allows students to calculate and compare their projected financial aid
packages; Boundless [http://bit.ly/1m7BNmj],
an online alternative to textbooks; and Ranku [http://bit.ly/1m7DIY7],
aimed at helping students navigate the world of online colleges while competing
with the marketing of big for-profit colleges. All of the resources are
intended to help students evaluate and select colleges based on cost, financial
aid, student loan default rates and job outcomes — aligning with the
president's college affordability agenda.
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