Monthly Archives: December 2011

Local, Research

Book Review: Why Our High Schools Need the Arts

Huff Post
December 30, 2011
Written By Kristen Pagalia
According to Department of Education data, about 1 in 5 students in California dropped out of high school in 1986 when the blockbuster was released, and that statistic has not improved. In recent years, the drop out rate in the Los Angeles Unified School District has climbed as high as 1 in 3. Further, a University of California, Santa Barbara study found it costs California over $46 billion for each year’s cohort of dropouts over their lifetimes. Still, year after year, district leadership and educational policy makers cite reducing attrition as a top priority while continuing to cut resources to the curricular activities proven to keep kids in school and doing well — namely the arts. In her new book, Why Our High Schools Need the Arts — Fighting Attrition with Interest and Relevance, Dr. Jessica Hoffmann Davis weaves a masterful case for arts education as an antidote to academic disengagement, as well as a uniquely affective method of teaching the character and intellectual traits associated with scholastic, social, and professional success.

For more about this article go to: Schools Need the Arts

Local, Research

Video: In San Francisco Bay Area, New Ideas on Innovating Out of Dropout Crisis

PBS News Hour
December 29, 2011
Written by Spencer Michels
One of the toughest jobs in modern America has got to be running an urban school district. Superintendents of schools in big cities like Washington, D.C, Los Angeles and Oakland, Calif., don’t have very good job security because if they are taking any risks, and messing with the status quo, it provokes controversy and opposition.

National, Research, Youth Media

Celebrity Calls Urge Students To Get Up, 'Get Schooled'

PBS News Hour
December 14, 2011
Written By Veronica Devore
A teenager punches the snooze button again and is contemplating skipping class to stay in bed when her cell phone rings. Tyra Banks is on the line telling her to get up, go to school and do what she has to do to graduate.
Pre-recorded robocalls from the likes of Banks, rappers Nicki Minaj and Wiz Khalifa plus many other celebrities are behind an initiative from the Get Schooled Foundation — in partnership with The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation*, Viacom and other major sponsors — to increase attendance in American high schools. Students and parents can sign up for the twice-weekly wake up calls that, in combination with school-wide attendance challenges and activities rolled out in 90 schools across the nation, encourage teens to get up and get to school.
Listen to celebrity wake up calls.

National, Research

Behind the Numbers: Why Dropouts Have it Worse Than Ever Before

A new dropout crisis study reveals staggering statistics on economic gaps between those in Chicago and around state of Illinois with and without high school diplomas.
Earlier this week, our friends over at WTTW Chicago Tonight interviewed economist Andrew Sum about the study, released by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University. As Sum highlights, these numbers add up to a long-term effect not only for American society, but also for dropouts for most of their lives.
Watch below for Chicago Tonight’s interview with Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies:

Watch December 8, 2011 – High School Dropout Rates on PBS. See more from Chicago Tonight.

Local, Research

Group aims to recall five OUSD board members

The Education Blog
Wednesday, December 14th, 2011
Written by Katy Murphy

In Oakland, recall is in the air.
As some citizens collect signatures to recall Mayor Jean Quan, another group named Concerned Parents and Community Coalition is trying to oust five of the seven Oakland school board directors. It’s targeting those who voted `yes’ on the proposal this fall to close elementary schools: Jody London, David Kakishiba, Jumoke Hinton Hodge, Gary Yee, and Chris Dobbins.
To read more about the board meeting go to OUSD five.

Local

YouTube Offers All Schools Education-Only Link, Beefs Up K-12 Content

MindShift Blog
December 12, 2011
Written By

All schools can now use the YouTube educational video site, youtube.com/education, without having to jump over Internet filtering hurdles.
For schools that choose to opt in to the YouTube for Schools Program, YouTube will redirect Web users who go to the site straight over to youtube.com/education. On this portion of the site, all comments are disabled and the only related videos are those that can be found in the Education portal of the site. The option has been created for parents, teachers, and administrators who fear children will be exposed to inappropriate materials on the site.
Continue reading the article on YouTube/education on the MindShift blog.

Local, Youth Media

Progress At Media Academy In East Oakland

Media Academy
12.4.2011

Oakland high school students drop out for many reasons: drugs, pregnancy, problems at home, lack of support, etc. But who better to investigate the contributing factors than Oakland teenagers?

At Media Academy in East Oakland, high school students are  reporting and producing short videos as part of the PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs project. KQED’s Caitlin Esch is mentoring students as they report intimate stories that really dig in to factors that lead so many teens to leave high school before graduating.

Last week, students interviewed teen drop-outs about their experiences in and out of high school. In these photos, Ricky Vargas (grey hoodie sweatshirt) interviews Brandan Lem (red sweatshirt and hat) and Ken Perry (blue Abercrombie sweatshirt and black glasses) about their decisions to leave school at 15 and 16, respectively. Lem eventually returned to high school, while Perry did not. Tony Srimoukda was working the camera.

National, Research

How to Identify a High School Dropout Factory

U.S. News and World Reports
November 30, 2011
Written by Jason Koebler
Many of America’s high school dropouts attend schools that graduate fewer than 60 percent of their students. Although the number of these “dropout factories” has decreased from 2,007 in 2002 to 1,634 in 2009, according to a March 2011 report by America’s Promise Alliance, thousands of students still fail to graduate from these high schools.

Follow the rest of this story at: Dropout factories