New Research Provides The First Solid Evidence That The Study Of Music Promotes Intellectual Development

Source: American Psychological Society
Date: 2004-08-20
The idea that studying music improves the intellect is not a new one, but at last there is incontrovertible evidence from a study conducted out of the University of Toronto.
The study, led by Dr. E. Glenn Schellenberg, examined the effect of extra-curricular activities on the intellectual and social development of six-year-old children. A group of 144 children were recruited through an ad in a local newspaper and assigned randomly to one of four activities: keyboard lessons, voice lessons, drama lessons, or no lessons. Two types of music lessons were offered in order to be able to generalize the results, while the groups receiving drama lessons or no lessons were considered control groups in order to test the effect of music lessons over other art lessons requiring similar skill sets and nothing at all. The activities were provided for one year.
The participating children were given IQ tests before and after the lessons. The results of this study revealed that increases in IQ from pre- to post-test were larger in the music groups than in the two others. Generally these increases occurred across IQ subtests, index scores, and academic achievement. Children in the drama group also exhibited improvements pre- to post-test, but in the area of adaptive social behavior, an area that did not change among children who received music lessons.
This study is published in the August issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the American Psychological Society. View a PDF (78k) of the full article.
E. Glenn Schellenberg is currently with the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto at Mississauga. He can be reached via e-mail at g.schellenberg@utoronto.ca.
Psychological Science is ranked among the top 10 general psychology journals for impact by the Institute for Scientific Information. The American Psychological Society represents psychologists advocating science-based research in the public’s interest.

ACE White Paper: Fund 80 & After School

Don Severson forwarded this Active Citizens for Education white paper on Fund 80 [272K PDF] and related after school changes.
This site has a number of posts on the after school changes (essentially: replacing community after school partnerships with taxpayer funded MSCR programs via Fund 80. Fund 80, unlike other school expenditures is not limited by state spending caps).
The school board meets tonight (8.30.2004; 7:15p.m. in room 103) to discuss the controversy.
Send your views to: comments@madison.k12.wi.us

Diary of an Advisory Committee: Madison Board of Education Selects Citizen Advisors

On August 13, Madison Board President Bill Keys and I agreed to recommend nine citizens plus the two student School Board members to the 2004-05 Advisory Committee to the Long Range Planning Committee.
On August 30, the Board will vote on the nominations:
Hardin Coleman (nominated by Johnny Winston, Jr.)
Dawn Crim (nominated by Johnny Winston, Jr.)
Joan Eggert (nominated by Bill Keys)
Jill Jokela (nominated by Carol Carstensen)
Lucy Mathiak (nominated by Ruth Robarts)
Patrick Mooney (nominated by Bill Clingan)
Jan Sternbach (nominated by Juan Lopez)
Teresa Tellez-Giron (nominated by Juan Lopez) and
Xa Xiong (nominated by Shwaw Vang).
The student members are the students elected to serve on the Board for 2004-05: Oliver Kiefer and Lena Song (alternate).

Continue reading Diary of an Advisory Committee: Madison Board of Education Selects Citizen Advisors

Taxpayer advocates seek School Fund 80 Audit

Don Severson forwarded this message recently

Taxpayer advocates will hold a news conference Friday, August 27th at 1:00 p.m. at the Sequoia Library, 513 South Midvale Boulevard (Midvale Plaza) to call for an audit of �Community Services Fund 80� of the Madison School District. Don Severson, president of the Active Citizens for Education (ACE), will ask for an independent audit of �Fund 80� which is used by school district officials to fund �community service programs�. The fund has come under recent scrutiny because of its growth � over 200% in four years � and its use in pushingYMCA after-school programs out of certain Madison schools. Parents of children in the after school program held a news conference this past Monday to highlight the issue. Severson will also preview a radio ad, which begins airing Friday, August 27 and is sponsored byACE, appealing to taxpayers to contact Madison school board members and district officials. The Madison School Board is holding a special meeting Monday night at 7:00 p.m. at the DoyleAdministration Building to hear concerns of parents of children in the after-school program.

Discovery Learning Thread

Interesting thread on discovery learning, with notes from Alan Siegel’s study of videotaped Japanese Math lessons:

Discovery learning is fashionable in math reform circles, writes Seebach. The Japanese are supposed to be the models. But the Japanese teach traditionally — with “beautifully designed and superbly executed” lessons.
The videotape shows, Siegel says, that “a master teacher can present every step of a solution without divulging the answer, and can, by so doing, help students learn to think deeply. In such circumstances, the notion that students might have discovered the ideas on their own becomes an enticing mix of illusion intertwined with threads of truth.”

Early Kindergarden Admission

Amy Hetzner on Waukesha’s decision to halt early kinderdarten admissions:

The Waukesha School Board decided earlier this year to eliminate early admission for children who have not celebrated their fifth birthday by Sept. 1, arguing that the expense of testing the children outweighed the benefit for the few who got in to kindergarten.
The move puts the district at the center of a national trend that observers say is resulting in an older crop of kindergartners

Transfer rejected, then approved – San Jose High School

Jon Fortt:

The incident reveals one of the challenges inherent in the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001: How do you rescue a struggling school when so many students, often the more ambitious, want out?
“That’s the youngster that’s going to raise my test scores,” said Esparza, part of a turnaround team that arrived six months ago hoping to lift James Lick from the lowest levels of test performance. James Lick is one of 18 schools in Santa Clara County where test scores have remained so low that students are allowed to transfer. “It’s hard to take, that there’s a law that says your child has a right to move on.”

via Joanne Jacobs.

Diary of an Advisory Committee: the Long Range Planning Committee of the Madison School Board Reaches Out to Citizens

In the late spring of 2004, I had the idea that inviting a group of citizens to work with the Long Range Planning Committee of the Madison School Board might help the Committee ask better questions of the administration and explore more options during the next year. In 2004-05, the Committee will consider the possibility of another referendum to fund maintenance of the district’s buildings and try to solve overcrowding problems at Leopold Elementary School. It will also develope a 3-5 year long range plan for presentation to the Board by the end of the spring semester
In this log, I will relate our progress toward this goal.

Continue reading Diary of an Advisory Committee: the Long Range Planning Committee of the Madison School Board Reaches Out to Citizens

Profits & Poverty


Ruth’s informative diary on the Long Range Planning Committee’s inclusiveness goals provides context for C.K. Prahalad’s interesting new book: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. Eradicating Poverty Through Profits

He is a fierce critic of traditional top-down thinking on aid, by governments and non-governmental organisations alike. They tend to see the poor as victims to be helped, he says, not as people who can be part of the solution�and so their help often creates dependency. Nor does he pin much hope on the �corporate social responsibility� (CSR) programmes of many large companies. If you want serious commitment from a firm, he says, its involvement with the poor �can’t be based on philanthropy or CSR�. The involvement of big business is crucial to eradicating poverty, he believes, but BOP markets must �become integral to the success of the firm in order to command senior management attention and sustained resource allocation.�

Learn more about the book here.

Immersion better for kids than bilingual classes, study says

Louie Villalobos summarizes a recent study by the Arizona Department of Education:

The Arizona results showed students in immersion classes outperformed bilingual education students in every grade level between second and eighth grade in reading, language and math, based on Stanford 9 scores.
There starts to be a significant difference at the sixth-grade level, at which immersion students were more than one year ahead of the bilingual students in math.
By the eighth grade, there was at least a one-year difference in all three subjects.
“There is not a single exception,” Horne said. “It tells us that the students in English immersion do substantially better.”

California State Test Scores Released

Nanette Asimov, Tanya Schevitz and Carrie Sturrock summarize the Golden State’s latest 4th and 10th grade results:

Last spring, nearly 4.8 million students in grades 2 through 11 took the exam, which is considered tough because it measures the students’ knowledge of what the state says they need to know about English, math, science and history.
Statewide, 36 percent of students scored “proficient” or “advanced” on the English portion, up from 35 percent last year. The remaining students scored below par, at “basic,” “below basic” or “far below basic.”
In math, proficiency inched up from 40.5 to 41.6 percent of students in grades 2 through 7 since last year. Older students, tested in a variety of math subjects, slipped in algebra and geometry.
Only 20 percent of low-income students were proficient in English, while among wealthier students, 50 percent were proficient. The rates were identical last year.

Charter Schools Test Scores/Commentary

Barb Williams forwarded this article by Diana Jean Schemo:

The data shows fourth graders attending charter schools performing about half a year behind students in other public schools in both reading and math. Put another way, only 25 percent of the fourth graders attending charters were proficient in reading and math, against 30 percent who were proficient in reading, and 32 percent in math, at traditional public schools.
Because charter schools are concentrated in cities, often in poor neighborhoods, the researchers also compared urban charters to traditional schools in cities. They looked at low-income children in both settings, and broke down the results by race and ethnicity as well. In virtually all instances, the charter students did worse than their counterparts in regular public schools.

Additional Coverage:

Milwaukee: few transfer out of low scoring schools

Sarah Carr:

Fewer than 2% of students eligible to transfer out of low-performing Milwaukee schools under the federal No Child Left Behind Act will do so this fall.
Of about 19,000 students eligible for transfers, 410 submitted valid requests. Milwaukee Public Schools officials said they will give 280 of those students their first or second choices, but will probably not be able to accommodate the rest primarily because of space limitations at some schools.
“For the 280 students, this is an advantage,” said MPS Superintendent William Andrekopoulos. “But overall is this something that is going to improve the quality of teaching and learning in the city? No, I don’t think so.”

Madison Schools Need Strong Community Partners to Provide High Quality After School Care to All Children

This article is a Letter to the Editor submitted to the Wisconsin State Journal.
Thanks for the editorial, ?What?s going on after school?? Questioning the Madison School Board?s rush to replace private, non-profit after school day care providers with tax-supported Safe Haven programs operated through the Madison School Community Recreation program is a public service.
Last year we had 4,437 low-income children in our elementary schools. As a community, we should support all of them with high quality after school care. However, the district must continue to work with community providers to reach this goal. The scope of the problem is far beyond the district?s capacity.

Continue reading Madison Schools Need Strong Community Partners to Provide High Quality After School Care to All Children

Parent Responds to MSCR Editorial About Safe Haven Programs

Judy Sekulski is a parent at Midvale-Lincoln School in Madison. In this article she responds to the Madison district administration’s recent public statements about Safe Haven programs.
I am writing in response to Lucy Chaffin’s column on
July 12, 2004, (“Schools Offer Quality Childcare”),
about the Safe Haven after-school programs run by
MSCR. She states that, “The district doesn’t support
separate programs running side-by-side in elementary
schools (as was the case last year at Midvale) because
this results in segregation by income and race.”

Continue reading Parent Responds to MSCR Editorial About Safe Haven Programs

After School Child Care in Madison: Why the Madison Schools Should Continue Community Partnerships

On July 12, the Madison Board of Education will review proposals from Superintendent Rainwater that may mean the end of a long and successful collaboration between the district, the City of Madison and private child care providers to ensure quality after-school child care for elementary students. Apparently the superintendent plans to argue that MMSD can do a better job and can afford to expand into the after-school care business.

Continue reading After School Child Care in Madison: Why the Madison Schools Should Continue Community Partnerships

California Plans to Restructure Education System

Nanette Asimov:

The California Performance Review team that drafted the efficiency plan is recommending a constitutional amendment to abolish all 58 county Boards of Education, the 53 elected county superintendents and the five who are appointed. School districts, with their school boards and superintendents, would remain intact.
In place of the county offices of education would be 11 super centers doing the same work — running programs for severely disabled students and kids in trouble with the law, helping teachers improve their skills, acting as fiscal watchdogs over school districts and more.