One of Four New D.C. Charter Schools to Open in 2013 Will Serve Adults

/ The Old Crank

According to The Washington Post, four new charter schools have received tentative approval from the D.C. Public Charter School Board to open for the 2013-14 school year. One of them, the Community College Preparatory Academy, will offer “an educational second chance” to unemployed and under-skilled adults. According to the Post, the school will hold classes at the Backus Campus of the University of the District of Columbia Community College, the Shadd School and the P.R. Harris Educational Center.

h/t @PostSchools

Faith-Based Policymaking in West Virginia

/ The Old Crank

From an article published today in the Charleston Gazette on West Virginia Governor Tomblin’s executive order requiring drug testing for anyone participating in training programs funded under the federal Workforce Investment Act:

Labor union leaders and other worker advocates have questioned the push for workforce-related drug screenings. West Virginia AFL-CIO President Kenny Perdue called on the state’s major industries to provide more information amid concerns that the drug issue has become an excuse to hire out-of-state.

“I do believe that the over-abuse of drugs in this state is not as bad as everybody makes it to be,” Perdue said Tuesday. “I’ve talked to too many people and learned of too many cases that show that it’s not as serious as they say.”

Steve Roberts, president of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, said his group has no hard data but that he encounters businesses with this concern in all parts of the state.

“Many employers really do have trouble finding people to hire who are eligible to work, who have the skills the employer requires and who can pass a drug test,” Roberts said Tuesday. “I have to believe that the problem is significant, or I wouldn’t be hearing it every place I go.”

David Archer: “The Biggest Determinant of Success in Any School is the Home Environment”

/ The Old Crank / 1 Comment

David Archer, head of programme development at ActionAid, in a post yesterday to the Guardians’ Poverty Matters Blog, argues that policymakers make “at least four fundamental mistakes” when addressing children’s literacy around the world. According to Archer, one of those mistakes is “to think schools will do everything alone.” He writes:

…The biggest determinant of success in any school is the home environment. When children come from homes where both parents are illiterate, and there is nothing to read or reinforce their learning, they are likely to fail. If the school is an oasis of literacy in a village community, it is hard for children to develop literate habits or to value literacy practices.

Officially, there are more than 750 million illiterate adults in the world; in reality, that number should be doubled. Yet almost nowhere are governments investing in adult literacy programmes. There is compelling evidence on the particular importance of female literacy for transforming the chances of girls, and there is clear evidence about what works in running effective adult literacy programmes. A set of 12 core international benchmarks developed by ActionAid and the Global Campaign for Education have been widely agreed. Until we see new energy being invested in female literacy, we cannot be surprised that children struggle to learn. (my emphasis)

Half of the Students Seeking an Associates Degree Require “Remedial Training”

/ The Old Crank

From an article in the National Journal published last Friday:

To achieve the high-tech manufacturing base that Obama envisions, it will be necessary to train hundreds of thousands of workers for skilled jobs that will require technical training and some college-level coursework. That’s a heavy lift in the current climate, in which about half of the students seeking an associates degree require remedial training that they should have gotten in high school, according to Complete College America. (my emphasis)

The article then goes on to argue that there is a lack of coordination between the White House and Congress on career and technical education legislation, citing the career and technical education “blueprint” released by the White House last week and the dueling Workforce Investment Act (WIA) bills in the House as examples. But the specific problem highlighted in the passage above is never mentioned again. According to the article, the WIA legislation would “rejigger job-training programs and help colleges tailor their curriculum to workforce needs,” but no mention is made of whether this or any of the other legislative proposals would address the problem that half the people who want to go to college can’t read or write or perform basic math well enough to be successful at the postsecondary level to begin with (which is what the somewhat cryptic phrase “requires remedial training” means). Nor does the author explore the degree to which those students’ basic skills fall short.

Which was not the point of the article, I realize. I just thought it was interesting that the author made this weirdly-phrased reference to the issue—and then dropped it.