A column by Miami Herald writer Leonard Pitts, Jr.

Jay Matthews:

Consider this high-minded conclusion in their report: A successful high school should show high levels of student achievement, graduate almost all of its students and not let any demographic subgroup suffer at the expense of others. In a perfect world, I would not dispute that. But in the real world that means C. Leon King High School in Tampa does not belong on the best schools list because of its high dropout rate and low average test scores, even though Newsweek ranked it 73rd in the country in AP and IB test participation last year.
Asked to comment on the notion that her school ought to be taken off the list, Susie L. Johnson, assistant principal for the school’s IB magnet curriculum, said: “Honestly, that is ridiculous.”
Whoops. Did I say she runs the magnet curriculum? The Education Sector report dismissed magnets, special programs that draw students from outside school boundaries, as a sneaky way for schools like King to look good on the Newsweek list. In fact, it said, a school with a small number of students taking many tests will receive a high Challenge Index score even if it is providing a lousy education to the rest of it students.

More from Sara.

Sarah Carr:

But in choosing to send her children to a middle school, Allen is part of a declining breed of parents in the city.
Next year, Milwaukee Public Schools officials expect about 8,750 middle school students, down about 10% from this school year and nearly 35% from four years ago.
The School District has long planned to put more children of middle school age in kindergarten-through-eighth-grade schools. Over the last few years, the number of K-8 schools has grown from about a dozen to about 60. But recent developments raise the question of whether your run-of-the-mill middle school will survive, particularly in some urban areas.
Milwaukee, Boston, Baltimore, Cleveland and Cincinnati are only a few of the cities that have shifted heavily to K-8s in recent years. In Philadelphia, district leaders have said they plan to phase out middle schools entirely, replacing them with K-8s. Many parents and school officials consider that grade configuration to be safer and more nurturing, particularly in city schools. The trend is more of an urban than a suburban one, and nationally there are still more middle schools than K-8s.

The Nation’s Report Card via Ed Week:

The proportion of high school students completing a solid core curriculum has nearly doubled since 1990, and students are doing better in their classes than their predecessors did.
But that good news is tempered by other findings in two federal reports released here today. The performance of the nation’s high school seniors on national tests has declined in reading over the past decade, and students are lackluster in mathematics. A third of high school graduates in 2005 did not complete a standard curriculum, which includes four credits of English and three credits each of social studies, math, and science.
The 12th grade reading and math results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress are based on a nationally representative sample of 21,000 seniors at 900 public and private schools who took the tests between January and March of 2005. The report on their performance was accompanied by the latest NAEP transcript study, which analyzes the coursetaking patterns and achievement of high school graduates.
Two-thirds of the 26,000 graduates who were followed for the transcript study also participated in the 2005 NAEP math and science assessments.
No Improvement in Reading
On the reading test, 12th graders’ average score has declined significantly since the first time the test was given in 1992. The test-takers averaged 286 points on a 500-point scale, a 6-point decline over 13 years, but statistically the same score as in 2002. Achievement levels in reading have also declined since 1992; 80 percent of the students tested that year scored at the “basic” level or better, but only 73 percent did so on the 2005 test, the same proportion as in 2002. In addition, the gap in scores between members of minority groups and higher-scoring white students has not narrowed significantly.
In math, the scores are not comparable with those from previous tests since the 2005 test was based on a new framework. Students scored, on average, 150 points on a 300-point scale. Just 61 percent of the 12th graders demonstrated at least basic command of the subject, with 23 percent considered “proficient” and 2 percent “advanced.”
Among 2005 high school graduates, 68 percent completed at least a standard curriculum, while 41 percent took a more challenging course load, and 10 percent took more-rigorous classes. In 1990, just 40 percent of graduates completed at least a standard curriculum, and 36 percent took additional courses, while 5 percent took what was deemed a rigorous course load.

Nichole Schweitzer:

As principal of Wisconsin Connections Academy (WCA), the state’s first virtual K-8 school, I see on a daily basis the benefits a standards-based virtual education provides for students from around the state.
Every student has unique learning needs. Some students learn best by reading, others by listening and still others by doing. In the same manner, a traditional school is best for some students and a virtual school is best for others. Wisconsin has been an educational leader for many years, and virtual schools are just one of the ways in which Wisconsin is staying at the forefront of education.
Virtual school teachers work with each student to modify lessons, and generally meet the student’s unique needs and learning style. This personalized approach to education is a good option for students who may be far ahead of or behind their peers, for students who need a more flexible schedule, or for students who learn best outside the walls of a traditional school, such as Jacob Martin.
Jacob is an 8th grade student at WCA. Because of his autism, Jacob benefits from learning in a more personalized setting: his home. Jacob recently wrote an essay about why he likes attending a virtual school, and he explained in his own words why a virtual school works best for him.

Amy Hetzner:

The state Department of Public Instruction must write more specific rules for how Wisconsin school districts should identify gifted and talented students, a Dane County circuit judge ordered Friday.
The ruling by judge Michael Nowakowski gave a rare court win to advocates for gifted student education. Yet the judge rejected a request that the DPI create rules detailing what programs districts have to provide to gifted students and provide a more vigorous enforcement of its standards.
Todd Palmer, the New Glarus parent and attorney who filed the suit, called the judge’s ruling “a tremendous victory for gifted students in this state.”
It comes at a time when Palmer and others argue that services for gifted children are in danger because of the twin pressures of school budget constraints and efforts to raise proficiency levels among low-performing students.
Currently, DPI’s rules on identifying students in need of gifted and talented services require only that school districts use “multiple criteria that are appropriate for the category of gifted including intelligence, achievement, leadership, creativity, product evaluations, and nominations.”

Kate Zernike:

First, educators created junior high schools, believing preteens needed to be treated like adults. But those students weren’t ready to be treated as high school students, either. So reformers created the concept of middle schools, which were supposed to be a warm bath to ease the transition. Now, an increasing number of schools across the country, including in Baltimore and Philadelphia, are shifting the middle grades back to elementary school.
But some research suggests that may not be the solution, either. So the age-old issues persist, with some variation from decade to decade: surging hormones make students irritable and sleepy. They struggle to relate to their peers and gain independence from their parents. To hear some parents tell it, one day their babies are innocent elementary schoolers in overalls, the next they’re dressing like Paris Hilton and simulating sex on the middle-school dance floor. How do you solve a problem like adolescence? Is there anything schools can do?
The move toward middle schools, after the push for junior high that started in the late 19th century, was supposed to create environments that were more serious than the story-hour life of elementary schools, though less impersonal and confidence-zapping than the controlled chaos of high schools.

Web-Based Education for School & Home:

edu 2.0 is an important concept and the next step in the evolution of education technology. Read more….

Joel Rubin:

Most frustrating, Chavez-Palmer said, is the difficulty in getting students and parents to follow through on her recommendations for tutoring and other services. At a recent meeting, only 20 parents showed up.
There is little Chavez-Palmer and the other counselors can do to compel middle school students to work harder. A district policy requiring principals to hold back eighth-grade students who fail to meet minimal standards in English and math is largely ignored, said Collins, the chief instructional officer.
The small piece of leverage counselors do have over failing students — threatening to ban them from informal graduation ceremonies schools hold for eighth-graders — often does little to sway students.
“As long as I go on to the ninth grade,” a 14-year-old boy shrugged when Diane-Chavez raised the prospect.
“You didn’t pass the majority of your classes in seventh grade and went on to eighth. The same will happen this year,” the blunt-talking counselor replied. “But what’s going to happen next year? How many times do you think Huntington Park High School is going to allow you to do this?”