Highlights of the 40th PDK/Gallup Poll

The highlights of the poll are found here.

Digest of Education Statistics, 2009

"The Digest contains data on a variety of topics, including the number of schools and colleges, teachers, enrollments, and graduates, in addition to educational attainment, finances, and federal funds for education, libraries, and international comparisons."

Trends in the Use of School Choice: 1993-2007

"This report uses data from the National Household Surveys Program (NHES) to present trends that focus on the use of and users of public schools (assigned and chosen), private schools (church- and non church-related), charter schools, and homeschoolers between 1993 and 2007."

A Classroom Revolution Proposed in Britain

"Turning schools around matters both for economic growth and for social justice. Britain is an unequal place, with income disparities higher than in most rich countries (see chart 1). It is a rich country where 4.8m adults and 1.9m children under 16—a sixth of all of children—live in workless households; where four in every 100 girls under 18 get pregnant each year; where even during steady economic growth a tenth of 16-18-year-olds were neither studying nor working. And a child’s chances are strongly shaped by the prosperity of the family into which he is born."

Study: Better Teachers Help Children Read Faster

"Genetics play the biggest role in determining how fast a child learns to read, but a good teacher can make a measurable difference as well, according to a study released Thursday."

Merit Pay for Students Fails to Raise Scores, Study Finds

"A multicity experiment to test the effect of paying students for performance succeeded in increasing achievement when the payments were tied to specific behaviors related to learning, such as reading books, but not when the awards depended directly on test scores, new findings show."

International Study - Problems With U.S. Math Textbooks

"Constant changes to the national curriculum have left school textbooks floundering in their wake, according to a major international study of maths performance published today."

U.S. Falls Short in Measure of Future Math Teachers

"America’s future math teachers, on average, earned a C on a new test comparing their skills with their counterparts in 15 other countries, significantly outscoring college students in the Philippines and Chile but placing far below those in educationally advanced nations like Singapore and Taiwan."

Play Creatively as a Kid, Be a Healthier Adult

"Children who engage in creative and active play may grow up to be healthier adults, suggests a British study."

Analysis: Pension Funds for Teachers are Short Billions

"The multibillion-dollar pension funds that promise to pay lifetime benefits to millions of the USA's retired teachers are more than $900 billion in the red, a new analysis shows."

Study: Physical Activity Can Boost Student Performance

"And now a government review of research shows that kids who take breaks from their class work to be physically active during the school day are often better able to concentrate on their school work and may do better on standardized tests."

Should Kids Be Bribed to Do Well in School?

Based on studies, "if incentives are designed wisely, it appears, payments can indeed boost kids' performance as much as or more than many other reforms you've heard about before — and for a fraction of the cost."

Issue of Paying Teachers Based on Performance

"In a massive survey of the nation's teachers released in March, most said they value non-monetary rewards, such as time to collaborate with other teachers and a supportive school leadership, over higher salaries. Only 28 percent felt performance pay would have a strong impact and 30 percent felt performance pay would have no impact at all." The survey was conducted by Harris Interactive and paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Scholastic Inc."

U.S, India Parents Seen as Worst Behaved at Kids' Sports

"The survey of 23,000 adults in 22 countries by market research company Ipsos showed that irate, screaming, over-enthusiastic parents are not only found in Hollywood films and on television. People living in the United States (60 percent) were most likely to witness unsavory behavior by a parent followed closely by residents of India (59 percent), Italy (55 percent), Argentina (54 percent), Canada (53 percent) and Australia (50 percent)."

Report: English Language Learners Making Gains

"Schoolchildren who are still learning English made progress on state tests over the last three years, according to a report that may indicate tougher accountability standards have resulted in positive gains among a growing segment of the U.S. public school population."

Schools Tackle Teacher-on-Teacher Bullying

"Most schools have policies that target bullying, but they are usually aimed at students. Now, school districts in Iowa and California are developing rules to prevent teachers from bullying teachers."

A 'Watershed' Case in School Bullying?

"Educational psychologists describe a new kind of bullying. The perpetrators are attractive, athletic and academically accomplished — and comfortable enough around adults to know what they can and can't get away with, in school and online."