SOE News

We had a good discussion at a full faculty meeting yesterday, November 19, 2009, about a vision and set of goals to serve as a framework to which we will orient the strategic assessment that we are beginning. The assessment will provide an opportunity to clarify these goals in the coming year, to deliberate about our mission and specify the ways in which we, as professional school of education, can best contribute to the improvement of public education.  The assessment will provide an opportunity for us to examine our current practice and performance relative to those goals, and to design concrete strategy for the plans we make for our development. Underlying the ambition that the Executive Committee and I hold for the School of Education is the conviction that we are capable of demonstrating what is to be a school that breaks out of the historic isolation that schools of education have suffered. This isolation has left ed schools disconnected from the worlds of education policy and practice, on one hand, and the world of the academy––both the disciplines and other professions, on the other. The skepticism about ed schools is an important contemporary problem, but it is one that many colleges of education either ignore or regard as an attack that requires a defense. We believe that to do either is perilous. At U-M, we want to lead the way in taking on the challenge of showing the worth of schools of education. Through the focus of our programs and scholarship, we would contribute to redefining the role of a school of education, embracing our status as a professional school, and combining a focus on practice with the assets of being part of a great research university. There will be opportunities throughout the coming months to participate in discussions about the mission and about our programs and goals and I look forward to working with the School of Education faculty, as well as our students and staff, on this agenda.

During the upcoming holiday season, when thoughts often turn to helping those in need, our SOE community will be supporting our own faculty and staff who are facing particularly challenging times. The School of Education Staff Development Committee is coordinating two main initiatives and is seeking your help and contributions.

The first initiative will support family members of our faculty and staff who are serving in the military. The committee will be collecting gifts (or monetary donations toward the purchase of those gifts) to send in care packages to these enlisted men and women. We have already identified two SOE staff members who have loved ones serving overseas and will be sending packages to their platoons. Please contact Gretchen Ewart if you have or know of other SOE community members who have family members serving in the military.

The second initiative will support members of SOE staff and faculty who are in special need this year due to particularly difficult circumstances.  We will be collecting donations to provide a range of items to these individuals.  We have identified three possible families in need, but again, if you know of other SOE community members who are in need, please contact Gretchen Ewart with details.

If you would like to participate, please see Gretchen Ewart in the Dean’s Office (suite 1110) to receive the list of needed items for the family members. You may also make a cash donation and members of the Staff Development Committee will purchase items on the list. All purchased items and cash donations need to be dropped off to Gretchen Ewart or Jeanie Laubenthal (room 2014) no later than Monday, November 30th, 2009. The Staff Development Committee will  package all items for the military during the first week of December and ship them by the military mail’s established dates of December 1 and 4.

I am so impressed with the different ways in which our community is generous with others. I do appreciate that SOE members also have pressures on them in these difficult economic times and I trust that you will choose ways to contribute that make the best sense for you.

Staff Development Committee members:

Gretchen Ewart
Alfreda Fleming
Nancy Fleming
Lori Helvey
Jeanie Laubenthal
Terri Ridenour
Kathryn Taylor

Dean-made baked goods are back!  I hope that you can take a break from your studies or work and join your colleagues, classmates, and friends for a coffee break on Monday, November 30, 2009, from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. in the south hallway (outside of Whitney—room 1309). This is the third in a series of informal coffee hours cosponsored by the Office of Student Affairs and the Office of Development and Alumni Relations. Feel free to drop by for a quick snack or linger for a longer conversation. Of course coffee and a dean-made baked treat will be provided. I hope to see you there.

Have a safe and restful Thanksgiving break. I am grateful to this community for your support, hard work, commitment, and caring.  We have had our challenges and sad times and losses over the last year, but I am continually moved and impressed by the care and concern that people in our community show to one another.  Thank you.

Thanksgiving break arrives on Thursday, November 26, 2009. These are the SOE building hours:

• Wednesday, November 25, the building will be open from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
• Thursday, November 26, through Sunday, November 29, the building is closed.
• Monday, November 30,  normal building hours of 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. resume.

Facilities Manager Mike Napolitan said “Please remember to close and lock your office doors, both interior and exterior. Please close and lock any windows, secure laptops and personal items, turn off lights, coffee pots, printers, and water plants if needed.”

Brian Jacob

Brian Jacob, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Education Policy, professor of education, professor of public policy, and professor of economics, has co-authored a thorough evaluation of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, The Impact of No Child Left Behind on Student Achievement. With co-author Thomas Dee of Swarthmore College, Jacob’s research finds that NCLB reforms generated statistically significant increases in the average math performance of 4th graders as well as improvements at the lower and top achievement percentiles. There was also evidence of improvements in 8th grade math achievement, particularly among traditionally low-achieving groups and at the lower percentiles. However, the authors find no evidence that NCLB increased reading achievement in either 4th or 8th grade.

Jacob and Dee also looked at NCLB’s effects by race, gender, and free-lunch eligibility and found only modest impacts among disadvantaged subgroups in math, therefore making minimal progress towards closing achievement gaps.

“The prior evidence on the achievement effects is quite limited. Earlier studies have either focused on single districts or states, relied on state developed assessments that are subject to ’score inflation’, or used weak research designs that confound the impact of NCLB with other social, educational and economic factors, “said  Jacob. “We believe this new research sheds much-needed light on the results of what was arguably the most far-reaching education policy initiative of the last forty years.”

The reearch is published as a National Bureau of Economics Working Paper. The U-M Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy issued a press release and Education Week posted an article on its website.

A family is looking for a part time nanny to visit their South Lyon home and care for two children – a girl age 8 (3rd grade) and a boy age 6 (kindergarten).  The schedule for which they need care is:

Monday & Thursday after school only 3:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Tuesday & Friday all day for the boy  and after school for both kids 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Wednesday morning 8:00 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. for the boy, then after school for both kids 3:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Please email or call (248-330-6368) if you are interested in this position.

For MA and PhD students:

Opportunity to work on a project on reading and writing development for English Language Learners in Dearborn Schools (also a technology focus; see below). This is an unpaid research apprenticeship or internship opportunity.

Mary Schleppegrell, professor of linguistics, is about to begin a project with six elementary schools in Dearborn focused on writing development and building on functional grammar strategies that she’s been developing to support reading comprehension. She’s been collaborating with teachers and coaches at these schools over the past four years and will  work this year with grades 2-5 teachers in six schools.

The first project meeting will be next Monday, November 16, 2009, in Schleppegrell’s office, SEB 4109, from 10:30 a.m. to noon. Meetings will also occur the following two Mondays (Nov. 23 and Nov. 30) at the same time to prepare a workshop for coaches and resource teachers in Dearborn on the afternoon of December 4. At that workshop the group will also make plans for work with teachers during winter semester.

MA and PhD students interested in language and literacy are invited to participate, as are students interested in learning technology, as the classrooms have new smart boards and teachers are interested in developing more robust ways of using these.

The group will work together during the weekly meetings to review writing assessment and instruction for grades 2-5, and students will have the opportunity to visit the schools, interview the coaches about writing instruction, and observe writing teaching in the elementary school classrooms.

Please email Mary Schleppegrell or call (734-647-2449) if you are interested.

A woman is seeking a  tutor for a 9-year old girl.  The child’s mother is a producer on a movie currently filming in Ann Arbor.  They are seeking someone who has availability between November 14 and the 30, 2009.  Interested students whould contact  jessica@eclecticpictures.com.  Please include a resume and references.

Thanks to a grant from the European Commission, the European Union Center and the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies are offering students summer grants of $5,000 to work on issues of European integration, broadly defined. Student grantees will conduct research leading to the writing of a paper on a relevant topic of their choosing.

It is expected that during the spring and/or summer of 2010 the grantees, in consultation with faculty advisors of their choosing, will devote twelve weeks of full time work to their projects. This is not a travel grant.

Students will participate in a not-for-credit graduate seminar on EU Affairs held in winter semester 2010 and may be invited to contribute to selected outreach activities organized by the European Union Center at local high schools, colleges, and universities. They will also present the preliminary results of their research at a public event held in the fall of 2010.

Students in professional schools and graduate programs are eligible to apply. The fellowship is limited to returning students. Students in the last year of terminal degree programs are not eligible. Applicants should submit 2-3 page proposals describing the project they intend to carry out, including its topic, aims, method, and anticipated scholarly contribution. They should also indicate the period in which they will be conducting full time work on their project. A letter of recommendation from a University of Michigan faculty member (preferably the student’s advisor), most recent transcript, and current CV should accompany the proposal.

Application materials in electronic form are to be submitted by December 1, 2009, to Dario Gaggio, Director, CES-EUC, at dariog@umich.edu.  For further information please visit http://www.ii.umich.edu/ces-euc/resources/student or contact Julie Claus at jclaus@umich.edu or 734-936-1842.