31 de outubro de 2012

Mapa da Violência 2012 - Atualização: Homicídio de Mulheres no Brasil


Governo do Estado de Paraná, Secretaria de Educação

30/10/2012

Mapa da Violência 2012 - Atualização: Homicídio de Mulheres no Brasil

Entrando no sexto ano de vigência da lei 11.340, conhecida como Lei Maria da Penha, o governo federal e o sistema de justiça do país unem esforços para aprofundar o enfrentamento da violência contra a mulher. Dia 7 de Agosto de 2012, lembrando a data, é lançado em Brasília um Compromisso Nacional visando combater a tolerância e impunidade diante do crescimento das violências contra a mulher.

Para colaborar com esse compromisso CEBELA e FLACSO divulgam uma atualização do Mapa da Violência 2012: Homicídio de Mulheres no Brasil, incorporando os novos dados - de homicídios e de atendimentos via SUS, que no relatório anterior eram ainda preliminares - recentemente liberados pelo Ministério da Saúde.

ícone PDF
Mapa da Violências -
Atualização: Homicídio de
Mulheres no Brasil 



Nas duas planilhas abaixo, são apresentados dados correspondentes aos 5.565 municípios brasileiros.
ícone de planilha
Tabela com
dados de homicídio
de mulheres 2008/2010
ícone planilha
Tabela com dados de
atendimento de mulheres
por violências no SUS: 2011


Esta reportagem foi publicada no site http://www.mapadaviolencia.org.br/. Todas as informações nela contidas são de responsabilidade do auto.

imagens do ecossistema global


No link abaixo,
     14 minutos de maravilhosas imagens do ecossistema global: 
 


Science On a Sphere Earth System Overview


Dr. Sandy MacDonald, the inventor of NOAA's Science On a Sphere, gives a Science On a Sphere Earth system overview in Planet Theater at the Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, CO. 




enviado por José Eli da Veiga

A santidade do aprendizado , Moza Bint Nasser


31 de outubro de 2012
 O Estado de S. Paulo | Espaço Aberto | BR
Em Tal Rifat, nas cercanias da cidade síria de Alepo, as crianças não têm escola para frequentar. O edifício, atingido duas vezes por ataques aéreos nas últimas semanas, está completamente arruinado. Os alunos de Azaz, outra cidade próxima, não estão em melhor situação: há uma base militar onde costumava ficar a escola. Fora dos limites do país de mais de 23 milhões de pessoas, nos acampamentos superlotados da Jordânia (outro país do Oriente Médio) as crianças refugiadas turcas ou libanesas têm sorte se conseguirem encontrar um professor para continuarem a ter aulas.
A educação está sendo atacada, e não só na Síria, mas em várias regiões do mundo. Do Afeganistão à Costa do Marfim, de Gaza ao Sudãodo Sul, a história é a mesma. Há 28 milhões de crianças vivendo em zonas de conflito sem receber nenhuma educação e o número de ataques contra os estabelecimentos de ensino está aumentando. Apesar da proibição explícita por parte das leis internacionais, a santidade do aprendizado é violada diariamente das maneiras mais absurdas possíveis. A guerra civil deixa inúmeras crianças fora da escola. Há alguns motivos para isso. Um é que unidades estão ocupadas por refugiados. Outro é que muitos pais têm medo da violência.
Felizmente, a comunidade global está começando a notar esse problema pernicioso e, nas próximas semanas e nos próximos meses, uma série de iniciativas importantes vai falar sobre isso.
Primeiramente, precisamos amplificar as vozes das vítimas e de ter a corrupção moral com a perspectiva real de punição. O Education Above All, um grupo do qual tenho a honra de ser presidente, publicou um item importante esta semana: Protecting Education in Insecurity and Armed Conflict (Como proteger a educação em tempos de insegurança e conflitos armados), um manual que reúne as leis internacionais existentes sobre a proteção da educação em zonas de conflito. Pela primeira vez os investigadores, advogados e juízes têm um livro em que basear o comportamento dos violadores da educação. É um novo e poderoso instrumento de justiça.
E enquanto os líderes mundiais se reúnem para a Assembleia-Geral da ONU, em Nova York, eu me juntarei ao secretário-geral Ban Ki-moon e outras pessoas para lançar uma grande campanha que lidará com o fato vergonhoso de que 61 milhões de crianças no mundo inteiro não podem ir à escola.
Por maiores que sejam os desafios, é possível, até mesmo nas piores circunstâncias de pobreza e conflito, oferecer às crianças uma educação significativa. Durante o meu trabalho como enviada especial da Organização das Nações Unidas para a Educação, a Ciência e a Cultura (Unesco) e por meio dos meus projetos no Iraque, em Gaza, na Indonésia e em outros lugares, tive o privilégio de testemunhar a eficácia de intervenções relativamente simples, mas inovadoras.
Meus mandatos na Unesco e na ONU são globais e existem crianças que precisam desesperadamente da nossa proteção em todas as regiões, mas há lições importantes a serem aprendidas com a minha região natal no Oriente Médio, onde pudemos presenciar avanços importantes. As matrículas no ensino fundamental aumentaram em mais de 10% na última década, as diferenças entre os sexos diminuiu e mais crianças estão passando do ensino fundamental para o médio. Apesar disso, mais de 6 milhões de crianças ainda não vão à escola e mais de um quarto dos adultos são analfabetos. Com dois terços da população árabe com menos de 25 anos de idade (o chamado youthbulge, ou "explosão juvenil"), a maneira como os jovens enfrentarão os anos que estão por vir determinará, em grande parte, o futuro da nossa região e das nossas perspectivas comuns de paz e segurança globais.
O Iraque é um exemplo. Ele já foi um país líder em educação no mundo árabe, mas sofreu muito como resultado das três décadas de conflito. Enquanto na década de 1980 as taxas de alfabetização eram altas, hoje quase um quarto dos iraquianos é analfabeto e a taxa é ainda maior em algumas áreas rurais e entre as mulheres. Ao ver o trabalho que lá está sendo feito para incentivar a educação formal e informal, treinar professores e promover a alfabetização, fiquei convencida de que a educação é a chave para ajudar o berço da civilização a curar suas feridas e se reerguer.
Temos muito a ganhar. Sabemos que uma criança que nasce de uma mãe que sabe ler tem 50% mais chances de viver além dos 5 anos de idade. Nos países em desenvolvimento, cada ano extra de ensino fundamental pode acrescentar, no mínimo, 10% aos ganhos futuros da criança. Essa pode ser a saída do círculo vicioso e a entrada para o virtuoso. Os adultos com um grau de segurança financeira têm muito mais chances de investir na educação dos filhos.
É por isso que, apesar da quantidade e da escala dos desafios que enfrentamentos, nunca me senti tão empolgada e cheia de esperança pelas crianças esquecidas quanto me sinto hoje. O Qatar vai fazer a sua parte. Em novembro a comunidade global de educação se reunirá em Doha para o World Innovation Summit for Education (Wise) anual, que terá como tema Transformando a Educação. Um dos prêmios Wise 2012 será destinado a reconhecer o projeto que forneceu melhor financiamento inovador para a educação primária. Isso reflete o meu apoio aos Objetivos do Milênio traçados pela ONU, que inclui, entre outras metas, ter um ensino básico universal.
Este ano convidarei outras pessoas para se juntarem a mim numa nova iniciativa que oferecer á educação de qualidade e resultados verdadeiramente mensuráveis em benefício das crianças ao redor do mundo.
A educação é uma bênção. Ela nos dá oportunidades, influência e uma obrigação moral clara de usar esses dons para proteger esse direito para outras pessoas.
SHEIKA DO QATAR, É A ENVIADA ESPECIAL DE EDUCAÇÃO BÁSICA E SUPERIOR DA UNESCO

EDUARDO MATARAZZO SUPLICY A perspectiva da Renda Básica de Cidadania


Folha de S.Paulo,31-10-2012

Ainda há famílias pobres sem o Bolsa Família, muitas em SP. No futuro, o ideal é todo brasileiro ter direito à renda mínima, sem o estigma de se declarar pobre
De maneira consistente com o seu objetivo maior de erradicar a pobreza extrema no Brasil, a presidenta Dilma Rousseff lançou, em junho de 2011, a Busca Ativa.
Ela conclamou governos estaduais, municipais, entidades de trabalhadores e empresários à ampliação do cadastramento das famílias extremamente pobres, com renda familiar mensal per capita de até R$ 140,00, para efetivamente se inscreverem e receberem o Bolsa Família.
Em agosto daquele ano, no Palácio dos Bandeirantes, a presidenta e o governador Geraldo Alckmin reforçaram a meta da Busca Ativa, uma vez que o governo do Estado se comprometeu a complementar a renda das famílias beneficiárias do Bolsa Família, de maneira a garantir que todas tivessem uma renda mensal per capita de pelo menos R$ 70,00.
A Busca Ativa foi um passo positivo em todo o Brasil. Segundo dados do Ministério do Desenvolvimento Social e Combate à Fome, em dezembro de 2010 existiam 17.204.256 famílias com renda mensal per capita até R$ 140,00. Dessas, 12.778.220 famílias eram beneficiárias do Bolsa Família, 74,3% do total.
Em setembro de 2012, registrou-se 17.980.388 famílias com renda per capita mensal até R$ 140,00, das quais 13.724.590, ou 76,3%, eram beneficiárias do Bolsa Família.
No Estado de São Paulo, entretanto, não se constatou a mesma evolução. De dezembro de 2010 a setembro de 2012, o número de famílias com renda mensal per capita de até R$ 140,00 passou de 1.776.703 para 1.862.541. Já o número de famílias beneficiárias do Bolsa Família passaram de 1.174.844 para 1.229.870 -de 66,1% para 66% do respectivo total.
Se considerado apenas o município de São Paulo, no mesmo intervalo temporal o número total de famílias nessa situação passou de 345.176 para 388.853, enquanto que as beneficiárias do Bolsa Família passou de 166.137 para 222.491, ou de 48,1% para 57,2%.
Mas o resultado em São Paulo está bem aquém do obtido em diversos outros municípios. Em setembro de 2012, a cobertura do programa atingiu, por exemplo, em Osasco, 80,38%; em Santo Antônio do Pinhal, 78,6%; em São José dos Campos, 74,12%; em Guarulhos 73,61%; Recife, 76,4%; e em Salvador, 68,7%.
Diante disso, importante é saber o que a cidade de São Paulo fará para elevar a proporção das famílias beneficiadas, até atingir 100%.
Uma forma eficiente de alcançarmos essa meta é de avançar na direção do disposto na lei 10.835/2004, que institui a Renda Básica de Cidadania, ainda que por etapas.
Os governos municipal, estadual e federal se uniriam para beneficiar igualmente a todos os habitantes, não importando a sua origem, raça, idade, condição civil ou socioeconômica, conforme registra o programa de Fernando Haddad.
Para isso, será necessário gerar os recursos suficientes. É natural que os que têm mais recursos colaborem para que todos venham a receber.
Ao retirar qualquer burocracia envolvida em saber quanto cada um ganha no mercado formal ou informal de trabalho, elimina-se o estigma de a pessoa declarar quanto ganha para poder receber o benefício. Acaba o fenômeno da dependência, que resulta nas armadilhas da pobreza ou do desemprego.
Do ponto de vista da dignidade e da liberdade humana, será muito melhor para cada pessoa saber que poderá recusar uma oferta de trabalho que fira sua dignidade ou coloque a sua saúde e vida em risco.

RUY CASTRO Santo forte


Folha de S.Paulo, 31-10-2012

RIO DE JANEIRO - Nos 16 anos em que morei e trabalhei em São Paulo, de 1979 a 1995, fui ao Rio, a trabalho ou sem motivo, duas vezes por mês em média. Isso significou 24 viagens por ano. Multiplicando por 16, temos que, naquele período, fiz 384 viagens ao Rio. Não admira que, quando anunciei aos amigos que iria voltar, muitos perguntassem: "Voltar como, se você nunca saiu daqui?".
Mas é claro que saí. Em 16 anos de São Paulo, tive sete empregos, morei em seis endereços, um deles próprio, comi da baixa à alta gastronomia, conquistei grandes amigos e fui casado com uma paulistana. Talvez por isso, sempre que dizia que ia ao Rio, as pessoas se preocupassem: "Mas, de novo? Você não tem medo da violência, das balas perdidas? E os arrastões na praia?".
Pelo que a TV martelava, de fato era difícil explicar que, se você não se visse num fogo cruzado entre polícia e bandidos perto de algum morro na Linha Vermelha, podia andar sem susto pela cidade -o que eu fazia dia e noite. A possibilidade de levar uma bala perdida era remota. Quanto a arrastões, só houvera um grave, em 1992, e, por acaso, num momento em que as câmeras estavam a postos na praia. Um acaso que marcou a cidade por anos.
De volta ao Rio, também há 16 anos, continuo na ponte aérea, só que ao contrário -raro não ir uma ou duas vezes por mês a São Paulo, e sempre com prazer. Mas, agora, com o Rio pacificado, a apreensão dos amigos se inverteu: "Você vai a São Paulo? E a violência? Os assassinatos, as execuções, os arrastões em restaurantes? Os sequestros-relâmpago? E se você for tirar dinheiro no caixa eletrônico e eles botarem uma bomba?".
Tento explicar que, assim como a violência no Rio era localizada, não há esse medo geral em São Paulo, as pessoas continuam levando a vida. Ou então eu é que, há séculos, abuso do santo forte.

    HÉLIO SCHWARTSMAN Gol de mão



    SÃO PAULO - Ao entrar com o pedido de anulação do jogo contra o Internacional, o Palmeiras estará na prática reivindicando o direito de fazer gols com a mão, o que não pega bem para um clube de futebol.
    Antes que rábulas ludopédicos e palmeirenses em geral me venham corrigir, sei que a ideia é questionar uma suposta interferência externa na decisão do árbitro, o que é vedado pelas regras. Pior, a pessoa que teria influenciado o juiz lhe teria passado informações obtidas através de imagens de TV, o que também é proibido.
    A analogia cabível, sustentam os "filopalmeirenses", seria com provas judiciais colhidas de forma ilegal, as quais, segundo a melhor doutrina do Direito, devem ser peremptoriamente excluídas do processo. "Mutatis mutandis", a informação de que o gol de Barcos foi feito com a mão não poderia ter chegado licitamente ao conhecimento do árbitro.
    A tentativa é boa, mas não me convence. A razão para não tolerarmos provas ilegais na vida real não se aplica ao esporte bretão. Trata-se de uma proteção conferida ao indivíduo para protegê-lo do poder do Estado. Recusamos a busca sem mandado para preservar a privacidade do cidadão. Abominamos a confissão sob tortura para garantir-lhe a integridade física.
    Obviamente, um jogador que se exibe diante de um público de dezenas de milhares de pessoas (sem contar a TV) não pode legitimamente invocar o direito de privacidade. Por mais que tente, não consigo ver, no contexto do futebol, nenhum interesse que possa competir com o de apurar o que de fato ocorreu na jogada.
    É por essas e outras que me parece absurda a insistência da Fifa em banir ferramentas tecnológicas que possam melhorar a qualidade da arbitragem. Os esforços da entidade me lembram o rival de Galileu que se recusou a pôr o olho no telescópio para ver as evidências, alegando que tudo o que havia para saber sobre os astros já estava descrito na doutrina aristotélica sobre os céus.

    30 de outubro de 2012

    La realidad como la conocemos Umberto Eco


     


    Sin duda que ya lo dije antes, pero lo volveré a decir: uno de mis deseos es ponerle fin a esta columna, al menos en su actual encarnación. Cada tantas semanas tengo que conjurar un tema que aparente ser de actualidad, aun si lo que realmente quisiera hacer es volver a leer la obra de Píndaro y escribir (con bastante retraso) una reseña de sus poemas. En otras palabras, me gustaría hablar de libros que quizá se hayan olvidado, pero que pienso que sería “de actualidad” volver a leerlos. Podrían ser libros de hace siglos, aunque también me gustaría tratar obras contemporáneas que me he tardado en leer. Después de todo, no siempre se puede estar al día.
    Hace poco leí L’Imaginaire, por Jean Jacques Wunenburger, que se publicó en Francia en 2003, y explora la idea de la imaginación individual y colectiva. Es difícil decir lo que la imaginación colectiva es, pero, con base en este libro, podemos al menos tratar de bosquejar una posible teoría. La imaginación colectiva no pertenece a construcciones de la razón, como la lógica, las matemáticas o las ciencias naturales, sino, más bien, a una serie de representaciones “imaginarias” que pueden oscilar entre los mitos antiguos y las ideas contemporáneas que circulan en cada cultura, y a las cuales todos nos ajustamos, aun si son fantásticas, erróneas o indemostrables científicamente.
    Si hemos de hablar de una imaginación colectiva para los mitos, sin duda que elUlises de James Joyce es un ejemplo que domina nuestra forma de pensar. Luego, están esa visiones sagradas, los discursos que se filtran a nuestra experiencia individual: es bajo esta lógica que Pinocho se nos vuelve más real que, por decir, el príncipe Klemens von Metternich de Austria u otros titanes de la historia. Y en nuestra experiencia cotidiana, es posible que, preferiblemente, sigamos las lecciones de la vida ficticia de Pinocho que de la vida real de Charles Darwin.
    En alguna parte de nuestra imaginación colectiva están los personajes de Lemuel Gulliver y Ema Bovary. Está el joven Werther, cuyo suicidio ficticio supuestamente inspiró a muchos jóvenes lectores a quitarse la propia vida. Sin embargo, según Wunenburger también existe una imaginación gnóstica, alquímica u oculta. Hay “discursos” que moldean y dirigen nuestra forma de vivir, aun cuando no se los puede sustentar racionalmente.
    La parte más interesante de este libro es el intento por explicar la construcción fundamental de la imaginación colectiva televisual. La televisión nos fascina con sus imágenes del mundo, algunas de las cuales son, presumiblemente, reales, como, por ejemplo, las coberturas informativas; podremos reconocer otras imágenes como ficticias, pero de todas formas las recibimos en nuestros mundos individuales. Hay cierta religiosidad en ello: Wunenburger escribe sobre un tipo de representación que experimentamos como una manifestación desacralizada de lo sagrado, en la cual “ya no es necesario creer en la presencia de lo que está más allá de la representación, debido a que la representación en sí misma es ya un simulacro de la presencia”.
    En otras palabras (y esta es mi interpretación), hasta donde saben los telespectadores, ¿el pietaje del colapso de las torres gemelas es más real que la vista de un tsunami cósmico en una película sobre desastres?
    “Mientras que la función de la imagen religiosa consiste en establecer contacto con un dios ausente, la imagen televisual se establece como una manifestación primordial”, escribe Wunenburger. Los héroes de la televisión y sus hazañas se transforman en una especie de mundo común dentro de la imaginación colectiva. Hay que recordar que hace cuatro años, un estudio reveló que un quinto de los adolescentes británicos creía que Winston Churchill era un personaje ficticio y más de la mitad pensaba que Sherlock Holmes era una figura histórica real.
    O, para analizar el problema desde un ángulo totalmente secundario, se puede considerar esto: hubo una época en la que los sacerdotes italianos se negaban a bautizar a cualquiera al que no le pusieran el nombre de un santo del calendario. Si a una hija se le ponía Liberta o Lenino a un hijo, como sucedía en la región de Romaña, había que prescindir del bautizo.
    Ya van décadas en las que hemos visto niñas a las que les ponen nombres como Jessica o Gessica, Samantha o Samanta, Rebecca o, incluso, Sue Ellen – al que he visto destrozado como “Sciuellen”. Esto no tiene nada que ver con ponerle a los hijos nombres refinados –Selvaggia, Azzurra, Oceano–, algo típico de los aristócratas, esnobs y acomodados. La clase media nunca se atrevería a adoptar nombres tan excepcionales. Jessica, Sue Ellen y Samantha, por otra parte, son nombres “reales”, sugeridos por la imaginación colectiva televisual. Son más reales que los nombres de los santos, que hoy parecen tan distantes de nosotros; son los nombres de los mitos que componen a la imaginación colectiva.

    Reform ‘insanity’ in a single chart



    Insanity is sometimes defined as doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. Below is what Paul Thomas, an associate professor of education at Furman University in South Carolina, calls his “insanity chart” that starkly shows the problems facing public schools and the (same) approach taken to fix it by the “no excuses” brand of school reform espoused by Michelle Rhee and her supporters. This was first published on the Schools Matter blog. Thomas writes his own blog addressing the role of poverty in education.
    Public School Problem
    “No Excuses” Reform
    Poor, Latino/Black, special needs, and ELL students assigned disproportionately inexperienced and un-/under-certified teachers
    Assign poor, Latino/Black, special needs, and ELL students Teach for America recruits (inexperienced and uncertified)
    Public schools increasingly segregated by race and socioeconomic status
    Charter schools, segregated by race and socioeconomic status
    Three decades of standards-based testing and accountability to close the test-based achievement gap
    Common Core State Standards linked to new tests to create a standards-based testing and accountability system
    Inequitable school funding that rewards affluent and middle-class schools in affluent and middle-class neighborhoods and ignores or punishes schools in impoverished schools/neighborhood
    Drain public school funding for parental choice policies that reinforce stratification found in those parental choices
    State government top-down and bureaucratic reform policies that ignore teacher professionalism
    Federal government top-down and bureaucratic reform policies that ignore teacher professionalism
    Rename high-poverty schools “academy” or “magnet” schools
    Close high-poverty public schools and open “no excuses” charters named “hope” or “promise” [see above]
    Ignore and trivialize teacher professionalism and autonomy
    Erase experienced teachers and replace with inexperienced and uncertified TFA recruits [see above]
    Poor, Latino/Black, special needs, and ELL students assigned disproportionately to overcrowded classrooms
    Poor, Latino/Black, special needs, and ELL students assigned to teachers rewarded for teaching 40-1 student-teacher ratio classrooms
    Poor, Latino/Black, special needs, and ELL students tracked into test-prep classrooms
    Poor and Latino/Black students segregated into test-prep charter schools; special needs and ELL students disregarded [left for public schools to address—see column to the left]
    Teacher preparation buried under bureaucracy at the expense of content and pedagogy
    Teacher preparation rejected at the expense of content and pedagogy
    Presidents, secretaries of education, governors, and state superintendents of education misinform and mishandle education
    Presidents, secretaries of education, governors, and state superintendents of education [most of whom have no experience as educators] misinform and mishandle education
    Fail to acknowledge the status quo of public education (see above): Public schools reflect and perpetuate the inequities of U.S. society
    Fail to acknowledge the status quo of public education [see above and the column to the left]: NER reflect and perpetuate the inequities of U.S. society

    Which state has the best public schools?




    Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has boasted repeatedly that the public schools of Massachusetts, the state where he was once governor, are “ranked number one of all 50 states.” Yet an annual state ranking by Education Week has given the top spot to Maryland for four straight years. So which state has the best schools? Matthew Di Carlo, senior fellow at the non-profit Albert Shanker Institute in Washington, D.C., takes a look at this question. A version of this post originally appeared on the institute’s blog.
    By Matthew Di Carlo
    I’ve written many times about how absolute performance levels – how highly students score – are not by themselves valid indicators of school quality, since, most basically, they don’t account for the fact that students enter the schooling system at different levels. One of the most blatant (and common) manifestations of this mistake is when people use NAEP results to determine the quality of a state’s schools.
     For instance, you’ll often hear that Massachusetts has the “best” schools in the U.S. and Mississippi the “worst,” with both claims based solely on average scores on the NAEP (though, technically, Massachusetts public school students’ scores are statistically tied with at least one other state on two of the four main NAEP exams, while Mississippi’s rankings vary a bit by grade/subject, and its scores are also not statistically different from several other states’).
     But we all know that these two states are very different in terms of basic characteristics such as income, parental education, etc. Any assessment of educational quality, whether at the state or local level, is necessarily complicated, and ignoring differences between studentsprecludes any meaningful comparisons of school effectiveness. Schooling quality is important, but it cannot be assessed by sorting and ranking raw test scores in a spreadsheet.
     Income is one of the most common variables used to illustrate the interconnectedness of student background and educational outcomes such as test scores (even though it is the conditions often associated with income that exert influence, rather than income itself). And, indeed, the proportion of Mississippi’s public school students eligible for federal lunch subsidies, an income/poverty proxy, is roughly twice as high as that of Massachusetts (63 versus 29 statewide, and 67 versus 32 in the NAEP reading results below).
     Let’s see how this simple bivariate relationship looks across all states. The scatterplot below presents free/reduced-price lunch (FRL) eligibility rates of test takers by average NAEP reading scores from 2011. We’ll use eighth rather than fourth grade scores, since the latter only reflect 3-4 years of schooling; the sample is also limited to public school students only.
     
     Each red dot is a single state (D.C. is excluded), while the line in the middle of the plot represents the average relationship between students’ FRL rates and their NAEP reading scores. Predictably, this is a strong association (the correlation coefficient is -0.83 [and -0.79 in math]). There is some deviation of dots (states) from the line, but, on the whole, scores tend to be lower in states with higher poverty.
     And income is of course not the only relevant observable student characteristic. Although one must be very careful about interpreting models that use state-level data (i.e., this ispurely illustrative), a simple regression that includes FRL, as well as the percent of students who are minorities, special education, and limited English proficient (LEP) explains about three-quarters of the variation in NAEP reading scores.
     These crude results are indicative of what we know from other, more rigorous research:How highly students score on tests is mostly a function of their backgrounds, rather than where they attend school.
     That is precisely why most value-added models, which are specifically designed to isolate (albeit imperfectly) schools’ effects on the test performance of their students, focus ongrowth – how quickly students improve – and they actually posit absolute performance level as a control variable.
     Even using this growth-oriented perspective, however, any attempt to determine which state has the “best schools” would be rife with complications (the models are really most useful for analyses within states and districts). Most basically, NAEP is really the only test administered to a representative sample of students in all states at regular intervals, but the data are cross-sectional, which means that changes over time may reflect differences between cohorts (see here). Also, school effectiveness, like education policy in general, likely varies more within than between states.
     What we can use NAEP for is to determine – with a reasonable degree of confidence – which states have the highest performing students (at least to the extent tests can measure this). Yet this valuable information is frequently lost in a barrage of misinterpretation on the part of adults, sometimes trying to advocate on behalf of their policy preferences or their personal reputations.
    On the whole, interpreting testing and other outcome data requires a humble, nuanced approach. The choice of measures must be guided by what one is trying to assess. This is not easily compatible with the highly-charged political environment surrounding today’s education policy debates. But we’ll know we’ve made progress when we stop hearing statements such as those positing the “best” and “worst schools” based solely on absolute scores.

    Challenging Assumptions About Educating 'Those Children' de Pedro Noguera



    Dear Deborah,
    Thanks for the updates from Belgium. I knew things must be hard there given the prolonged recession, but I am glad to hear that people are thinking broadly about how to address the roots of the economic crisis which lie in the unsustainable development path we are presently on, a path premised on an insatiable consumption of our natural resources and control of the world's wealth by the 1 percent.
    I'm actually on my way to Barbados this weekend for a conference on youth development. Barbados is an interesting place to study education and youth development because many of its social indicators—adult literacy, life expectancy, health, etc.—rival those of wealthy nations. This is quite significant because Barbados is a relatively poor nation, largely dependent on tourism for its economic survival. In many ways, Barbados has made a greater commitment to social equity than the United States even though it does not have the resources to support a social-welfare system for its people. I also like to point out to people that Barbados is also a place where children don't believe that race determines academic ability or that because many children are poor they can't learn. That's probably because their teachers don't accept such ideas.
    Unlike the United States, black children in Barbados (and more than 95 percent of the people there are black) are not bombarded by stereotypes that lead them to believe the only chance they have of succeeding in life is as an athlete or rap star. Race is not an obstacle to their aspirations, and the children literally think they can be anything they want.
    Traveling outside of the United States has provided me with a good vantage point to reflect on what we're doing wrong in American schools. In this country, we increasingly rely upon fear as a motivator. We use it to threaten children by telling them that if they don't pass an exam, don't have high enough grades, and don't join a wide variety of clubs (even if they have no real interest in them), they won't get into the best colleges. There are also many urban schools—traditional public schools, charter schools, and some private schools—that believe the only way to achieve academic success is to impose white middle-class values on their children and mold them so that they are compliant and obedient to authority figures. David Whitman calls this strategy the "new paternalism" and some advocates of the "no excuses" approach claim that it is the only way to teach "urban" children.
    I think they are wrong, though I don't necessarily object to all no-excuses schools. Given the chaos and dysfunction that reigns in many urban public schools, it's hard to argue against schools where children are at least learning in a safe and orderly environment. However, I reject the notion that fear and pressure are the most effective ways to motivate children to achieve.
    I also oppose the notion that children should be made to choose between individual success or maintaining ties to the communities and people who have shaped their lives and identities. I think schools should serve as assets to communities and that families can provide what Luis Moll calls the "funds of knowledge" to reinforce the importance of learning. Without this kind of support and engagement from communities and families, many children will reject schooling because they reject the choice that has been forced upon them.

    What would happen if instead of relying upon fear and stripping children of their culture we utilized hope and community as resources for learning? I saw this taking place at a school I visited in a township on the Eastern Cape in South Africa last year. The school is called Sapphire Rhodes, and although the pedagogical approach I observed was fairly didactic and old fashioned (teacher talks in front, students lined up in rows passively listening), in the classroom I visited with 48 children, I saw students who were busy writing a letter to South African President Jacob Zuma, asking for help in dealing with the AIDS crisis in their community.
    As the students wrote they talked loudly among themselves about what kind of help was most needed. Some said that home visits by nurses would help because many of those afflicted were too sick to walk to the hospital for treatment. A girl proclaimed quite passionately that what people needed was good food so that they would have the strength to benefit from the medicines being made available. Two boys argued with great conviction that new hospitals should be built because the one they relied upon was over an hour a way and too difficult for families to visit their loved ones. One boy suggested that it was important for televisions to be installed in every room so that people wouldn't be bored. As the students worked, the teacher and two parent volunteers moved among the children looking at their papers, pointing out their errors in grammar and spelling, and answering questions that were posed to them.
    While none of what I've described in this classroom may seem remarkable, as I tell you more about the context and the challenges facing this community I think you will appreciate why what they are doing is in fact extraordinary. Not only is the community surrounding Sapphire Rhodes extremely poor (it has an unemployment rate of over 80 percent), it is also sick; approximately 40 percent of the adults in it are HIV-positive. Despite these conditions more than 80 parents volunteer at the school each day in roles as classroom aides, health workers, carpenters, gardeners, custodians, and cooks. Remarkably, no one gets paid to do this work, not even the parents who volunteer to clean the homes and cook for other parents who are too sick from HIV to take care of themselves.
    Over and over when I asked the parents why they volunteer, they said: "Because this is our school. Our children are here." When I asked Bruce Damons, the principal, how he managed to recruit so many parents to help him, he said: "I work for them, and I told them I can't make this school work without their support."
    This is a school that thrives on hope, a school where children seemed happy, rambunctious, and playful. A school that uses hope to motivate children. What I witnessed at this school was not naive optimism. Remember, the children were writing about how to address AIDS in their community. Hope and compassion are being used to combat the formidable problems they face, and it seems to be working.
    Deborah, these are the critical ingredients I see lacking in so many of the urban schools (as well as many rural and suburban schools) I visit today. How do we get more people to recognize that we can't wait for the politicians to save us or policy to allow us to do what needs to be done? The people at Sapphire Rhodes primary school are saving themselves. I think we must find ways to do the same sort of thing here.
    Warmly,
    Pedro
    - Pedro Noguera

    WHAT's on at WISE 2012


    Nov 13 - 15 Doha 12
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    What’s on at WISE 2012!


     
    The WISE Summit will explore how collaboration can become the driving force behind efforts to inspire innovation in education and to design long-term strategies for its renewal.
    Over 1,000 practitioners, decision makers and thought leaders from multiple sectors and more than 100 countries will come together, November 13 - 15, in Doha, Qatar, to share ideas under the theme “Collaborating for Change”.
    Attendees will participate in thematic plenary sessions, debates, collaborative workshops and focus sessions.Speakers from a wide variety of backgrounds will chair and moderate sessions exploring current educational challenges and highlighting innovative solutions.
     
    The best ideas are often the product of collaboration, and WISE 2012 will facilitate exchanges among diverse partners, including winners of the 2012 WISE Awards.
    Find out more about WISE 2012 here.
     
     

    WISE 2012: Major Initiative to be Announced


     
    Qatar Foundation Chairperson Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser has said she will launch a significant new education initiative at the WISE Summit: “In Doha in November we will be hosting the fourth annual World Innovation Summit for Education. There I will launch a significant new initiative that will be a practical and powerful step towards getting 61 million children into school. I urge you to join us there,” Her Highness Sheikha Moza said. She was speaking at the United Nations in New York at the launch of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Education First Initiative on September 26.
      
     
     

    A New Group of Learners


     
    WISE is pleased to announce that a further 30 outstanding young people (aged 18 to 25) have been selected to join the WISE Learners’ Voice program.
    WISE Learners’ Voice brings the views of students to the issue of rethinking education. The program builds their advocacy skills to ensure that leaders and decision-makers hear their all-important voice, and it supports their growth as change-makers in education.
    The 2012 WISE Learners, from 24 countries, were selected from hundreds of applications and nominations that were submitted in June from around the world.
    This third group of Learners will also be present at WISE 2012 where they will join forces with the 2011 group to report from the Summit through video interviews and blogs, and to take part in debates, workshops and a forum session.
    The WISE Learners who were selected in 2011 have been working on the theme Increasing Access to Relevant, Quality Education for All Learners through Innovation. The 2011 Learners will present the results of their year-long project at WISE 2012.
     
    Follow the activities of the WISE Learners via Twitter (#WISELearners) and on the Learners’ blog.
     
     

    Three Questions for...

     

     

    H.E. Sheikh Abdulla bin Ali Al-Thani, Ph.D., Chairman of WISE, Qatar Foundation

    What should we expect from the 2012 WISE Summit “Collaborating for Change”?
    Dr. Al-Thani: This year's Summit will examine the major challenges facing education and societies around the world today. These issues have implications for what we teach, and how we teach it, to learners of all ages. I believe that new kinds of education are needed to meet today’s demands in a complex and rapidly changing world. The education sector has been slow to adapt and this year’s Summit will tackle the problem from a number of angles.
    Participants in WISE 2012 will learn about the barriers to change and how they might be overcome. One of these barriers is that people in education often do not have the opportunity to collaborate with their peers or with people from other sectors. Discussions will deal with how to overcome this, and with what happens when we question conventional models.
    This year’s Summit will look at how collaboration at various levels can inspire innovation in education. Sessions will highlight best practices in order to inspire innovators in education around the world. There will be a particular focus on creative solutions to increasing access to education, on financing learning, and on teaching methods. WISE 2012 will help people from multiple sectors re-design education together to meet the needs of today and the future.
    In four years WISE has established a reputation as the premier forum for innovation in education, and I think we will see it being used more and more as a launch pad for new ideas and initiatives because of the attention it draws and the expectations it creates.
    How does WISE promote collaboration?
    Dr. Al-Thani: WISE has a growing number of programs that are a platform for working and taking action together.
    Let me give you a few examples. First, I would like to highlight the WISE Awards that recognize innovative education projects that have had a transformative impact on societies. These projects are an inspiring and diverse collection of best practices that are shared throughout the WISE community.
    Another example is the WISE Haiti Task Force that is helping rebuild that country’s education system following the devastating earthquake of 2010. The program supports successful local education initiatives through collaboration with its partner, FOKAL (Foundation for Knowledge and Liberty), empowering Haitian people to reconstruct their country. In 2012 the WISE Haiti Task Force granted funding to seven innovative initiatives to enable them to expand.
     
    The WISE Learners’ Voice program has gone from strength to strength. It was initiated because we felt we couldn’t hold a full debate about education without the input of those who are its consumers. Over the past year, the Learners have participated in other education-related events around the world and have visited WISE Awards winning projects in order to report to WISE 2012 on how to increase access to education through innovation. I am confident that their presentations will be a valuable contribution to building the future of education. I also believe their participation in WISE 2012 as speakers and delegates will once again be one of the most popular features of the program, and I look forward to meeting the next group of outstanding young Learners who will also be present.
    WISE Community, the new social networking feature of the WISE website, allows members to share their knowledge and experience. This web platform is both a source of information about the WISE initiative and an interactive education resource base of ideas and successful practices that may be adopted, adapted and replicated.
    This year’s Summit promises to be more interactive than ever, offering opportunities to participate from anywhere in the world. A range of tools will enable e-participants to put questions to speakers before and after sessions, watch sessions via live broadcasts, and connect with key personalities. There will also be collaborative workshops on specific issues.
    What are the evolving trends in education today?
    Dr. Al-Thani: I believe there are three major trends in education today. The first is the increasing use of technology. PSU Educarchile, a 2012 WISE Awards winning project, is a free online college preparation program in Chile, and RoboBraille, another 2012 WISE Award winner, uses technology to convert education texts into Braille and other formats such as mp3 or audio books for people with impaired vision and reading difficulties.
    The second trend is innovative financing of education. This year one of the WISE Awards is for a project that, in addition to “Transforming Education”, has best provided innovative financing of primary education. The winning project comes from Bangladesh, where solar-powered floating schools ensure year-round primary education to students in flood-prone areas, even during the height of the monsoon period.
    Increasing access to education is the third trend, and the following 2012 WISE Awards winning projects demonstrate achievements in this: The Satya Bharti School Program that provides high-quality education for underprivileged children in rural India, and the Cambodian Children’s Fund – Generational Change through Education - that provides education and care for children and families in a deprived district near Phnom Penh.
     
     

    Follow WISE 2012 from Anywhere in the World

    Once again this year, e-participants around the world are invited to take part in the WISE Summit through a range of web 2.0 tools:
     

     
    • State your position on topical issues through WISE Polls
    • Watch the sessions live through video streaming
    • Comment and participate in sessions through Twitter
      (#WISE2012) and WISE Community
    • Ask a question or comment during debates through theinteractive program
     
    • Follow the news and events at the Summit on the live blog
    • Talk to Summit speakers and participants via live chats
    • Sign up for the WISE Daily News for the latest from the Summit
     
     
    Find out more about how to take part here.
     
     

    Newsflash
    New WISE Community Boosts Networking Opportunities

    WISE Community, the new version of the social networking site formerly known as MyWISE, offers enhanced opportunities for friends of WISE to stay in touch. The site’s interactive layout allows users to quickly create their accounts, customize their profiles, find members with similar interests and share documents and materials.
    Connect with WISE Community to discover almost 100 discussion groups and communicate with more than 2,000 people, from multiple countries and sectors, who care about the same topics as you.
    Log on now to WISE Community!
     


         
     
     
        
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