Race to Nowhere

The following text is a description of the 'Race to Nowhere' documentary from the film's website.

"Featuring the heartbreaking stories of young people across the country who have been pushed to the brink, educators who are burned out and worried that students aren’t developing the skills they need, and parents who are trying to do what’s best for their kids, Race to Nowhere points to the silent epidemic in our schools: cheating has become commonplace, students have become disengaged, stress-related illness, depression and burnout are rampant, and young people arrive at college and the workplace unprepared and uninspired.

Race to Nowhere is a call to mobilize families, educators, and policy makers to challenge current assumptions on how to best prepare the youth of America to become healthy, bright, contributing and leading citizens.

Featured in the film:

• Dr. Madeline Levine, Clinical Psychologist and author of the best-seller, The Price of Privilege
• Dr. Wendy Mogel, Clinical Psychologist and author of The Blessing of a Skinned Knee
• Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, Adolescent Medicine Specialist, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
• Dr. Deborah Stipek, Dean of the School of Education at Stanford University
• Dr. Denise Pope, Co-Founder, Challenge Success, Stanford University
• Sara Bennett, Founder, Stop Homework

In a grassroots sensation already feeding a groundswell for change, hundreds of theaters, schools and organizations nationwide are hosting community screenings during a six month campaign to screen the film nationwide. Tens of thousands of people are coming together, using the film as the centerpiece for raising awareness, radically changing the national dialogue on education and galvanizing change."

Source: http://www.racetonowhere.com/about-film

Homework Flipping & Blended Learning

What if out-of-school homework was the direct instruction from the teacher and the usual homework practice happened in the classroom as the teacher provided feedback?  This idea is called 'flipping' and it is catching on.

• Traditionally direct instruction occurs in the classroom and practice consists of homework assignments.

• But the practice of 'homework flipping' alters the sequence of instruction and homework practice as students receive direct instruction via internet podcasts and then the practice occurs in the classroom with the teacher providing ongoing feedback.

• The You Tube video clip below features Mr. Dale Eizenga, a chemistry teacher, as he describes how the implementation of educational technology using video podcasts or screencasts for homework as flipped his teaching methodology.  This has allowed him to alter the usual relationship between direct instruction and homework.

• It seems that across the pond a parallel idea for flipping was recently outlined in an article titled, "Think Thank: Flip-thinking - the new buzz word sweeping the US" published in The Telegraph on Saturday, January 22, 2011.  This article focused upon another teacher, Mr. Karl Fisch, who uses a similar methodology for instruction.

Common Core Standards: Progress & Challenges

Momentum is clearly building as 60% of the country has signed onto K-12 common core standards in English and Math.  The Center on Education Policy recently published a study authored by Nancy Kober and Diane Stark Rentner titled, States' Progress and Challenges in Implementing Common Core Standards.  This report is based upon survey data from state education offices across the country and stated that, "State decisions to adopt common core standards have been positively influenced by federal encouragement, such as Race to the Top grants."


Currently 32 States have adopted the standards, yet total implementation is down the road.  The research has shown that states have cited the following necessary steps for full implementation of common core standards:

• Changes in professional development are required
• Major changes and revision of state wide assessments
• Realigning curriculum
• Teacher evaluation and certification

The research stated that many states expressed the need for more time to implement the common core standards and that full adoption and implementation was most likely to occur after 2013.

The entire research article can be found online here.

Bullying Prevention Program

Bullying comes in many sizes, shapes and forms.  Cyber Bullying is defined as bullying through email, instant messaging, chat room exchanges, Web site posts, or digital messages or images sent to a cellular phone or personal digital assistant by the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP).  This program uses a school wide system to change student behavior and reduces the incidents of bullying.


"This definition includes three important components:

1. Bullying is aggressive behavior that involves unwanted, negative actions.
2. Bullying involves a pattern of behavior repeated over time.
3. Bullying involves an imbalance of power or strength."

(Source: Dr. Dan Olweus)

The program describes students involved or witnessing bullying as having roles contributing in the bullying cycle.  The below image outlines the bullying cycle and was created by the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program.

More information can be found online at http://www.olweus.org
Additionally, several research articles describing the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program can be found here.

The Widget Effect

The New Teacher Project poses the following question, "If teachers are so important, why do we treat them like widgets?" This issue is addressed is a large scale study of twelve public school districts across four states which gathered data involving teacher performance appraisal.

It is important to note that this study included teachers' union representation on the advisory panel which analyzed written feedback from survey responses from over 15,000 teachers, 1,300 principals and data from more than 40,000 teacher evaluation records. This research study produced some very interesting findings about the existing

teacher evaluation system:

1. All teachers are rated good or great: Less than 1% of teachers evaluated received unsatisfactory ratings.

2. Excellence goes unrecognized: When 99% of teachers evaluated are satisfactory or greater it creates methodological evaluative challenges to identify the truly exceptional teachers

3. Professional development is inadequate: Almost 75% of teachers did not receive specific feedback targeted towards instructional improvement from the evaluation process.

4. Novice teachers are neglected: Many districts had low expectations for beginning teachers

5. Poor performance is not addressed: 50% of the districts examined in this research study did not dismiss a tenured teacher for poor performance over a five year period.

You can download the executive summary of the Widget Effect in a 1.5 MB PDF here.

Source: The Widget Effect (edited)