September 17, 2009 – 8:28 am
Yesterday Secretary Arne Duncan announced 314 schools as 2009 National Blue Ribbon Schools. He made the announcement at Highland Elementary School, a 2009 Blue Ribbon School in Silver Spring, Maryland. The schools—264 public and 50 private—will be honored at an awards ceremony on November 3 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC.
“These Blue Ribbon Schools have shown that all children can learn with appropriate supports,” Duncan said. “They are producing outstanding results for their students. Some have shown dramatic improvements in places where students are overcoming the challenges of poverty, and others serve as examples of consistent excellence that can be a resource for other schools. They are places where improved teaching and learning benefits every student, and where students are challenged to meet high expectations with the active support of teachers, parents and the community.”
More than 6,150 of America’s schools have received this coveted award over the past 27 years.
ED Staff
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September 16, 2009 – 4:54 pm
Last night Secretary Arne Duncan hosted a virtual national “listening and learning” event before a live studio audience of 60 parents and educators at the WETA television studio in Arlington, VA.
Watch the town hall meeting now.
In addition to hearing from the audience, Secretary Duncan responded to phone calls, emails, and video submissions from across the nation. (See photos.) Dave from Iowa asked about standards. A mother in California asked how to improve teaching for children with disabilities. A caller from Nevada questioned whether teachers should be evaluated based on student test scores. A parent from Tennessee asked how to gain buy-in from teachers for a longer school year.
The town hall-style meeting was broadcast live on many of the approximately 800 public access, PBS, and Dish Network stations that are registered broadcast partners.
Secretary Duncan and his leadership team will visit all 50 states this year to listen and learn from students, teachers, and communities in preparation for working with Congress on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
John White
Press Secretary
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September 10, 2009 – 8:50 am
Secretary Arne Duncan will discuss education issues with parents, educators, and students across the country in a televised town hall on September 15 from 8-9 pm ET. You are invited to participate. Watch the broadcast. Ask questions by phone and email during the show. You can also post a comment right now (below).
This is the first broadcast of the new season for ED’s monthly TV show, “Education News Parents Can Use.” It is also part of the “Listening and Learning Tour,” which has taken Secretary Duncan across the country to engage Americans in a conversation about education and federal policy. Tuesday’s broadcast will include a discussion about the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
Education News Parents Can Use airs live via satellite on the third Tuesday of each month during the school year, offering parents and others vital information about getting involved in children’s learning. The program will be carried live on the Dish Network, dozens of PBS stations, and hundreds of public access and education channels. Other broadcast and cable outlets will air the show on a tape-delayed basis. A list of viewing options is available at www.ed.gov/edtv. In addition, the program will be available as an archived webcast at www.connectlive.com/events/ednews.
ED Staff
September 9, 2009 – 3:55 pm
On September 8, Deputy Secretary of Education Tony Miller visited Commonwealth Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles to watch with a class of 5th-graders as President Obama spoke to America’s students. Miller also represented the Obama Administration at the “Get Schooled” conference and video screening of a documentary video, “Get Schooled: You Have the Right.”
“As we start the new school year,” Miller said, “America needs all students performing up to the best of their abilities. We need every child to graduate from high school ready to succeed in college and to compete in the global economy. As President Obama has said, if you drop out of school, you’re not quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country,” Miller said. “The Administration’s participation in Get Schooled is an example of creative public-private partnerships that are critical to addressing the crisis in our schools and supporting young people in their education.”
See photos of Deputy Secretary Miller’s visit. See the video and text of President Obama’s speech in which he challenged students to work hard, set education goals, and take responsibility for learning.
ED Staff
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September 9, 2009 – 3:44 pm
President Obama and Secretary Duncan visited Wakefield High School this week. It was from this school in Arlington, Virginia, that the President spoke to students across America about the importance of working hard, setting education goals, and taking responsibility for learning.
See photos from the speech and the discussion before the speech that the President and Secretary Duncan held with Wakefield students. See the speech text and video.
ED Staff
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September 4, 2009 – 7:08 pm
ED is seeking recommendations for reviewers for Race to the Top, the $4.35 billion competition for states to lead the way in school reforms.
“We hope to assemble panels of our nation’s most distinguished educators, policymakers, and scholars to participate in the review process for this ambitious reform initiative,” Secretary Arne Duncan said in a letter this week. “I am writing to ask for your help in identifying candidates for consideration.”
“I encourage you to share this letter with anyone you feel is qualified,” he said. He asked for recommendations as soon as possible and no later than September 30, 2009.
For more information about the review process or about applying to be on a panel, please see the letter.
September 2, 2009 – 6:58 am
Last week, The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University released its 2009 National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse: Teens and Parents. For me, the headline was clear: Parents, Be Responsible.
I know from the many parent-teacher conferences I conducted when I was a high school history teacher that many parents despair that their children aren’t listening to them. The CASA study indicates that—at least on the issue of substance abuse—children aren’t just listening; they’re paying attention to their parents attitudes and behavior. Teens who say their parents believe that marijuana use is “not a big deal” are twice as likely to use the drug as those whose parents do believe it is a big deal. Teens that have seen their own parents get drunk are twice as likely to have gotten drunk themselves in a typical month than those who have not. And compared to teens who have never tried alcohol, teens who get drunk monthly are an astounding 18 times more likely to have tried marijuana.
Perhaps the most startling finding in the study was the impact of fathers on their children’s choices around substance use. Consider these stats: 65 percent of teens who say their father is OK with teen drinking have tried alcohol, while only 25 percent of those with a father who does not approve of teen drinking have. They are not only more likely to try alcohol but also to abuse it: 34 percent of teens who say their father is OK with teen drinking get drunk monthly as opposed to only 14 percent of those whose fathers disapprove. In fact, bad Dads seem to be worse than no Dads at all: only 41 percent of teens with no father in the home at all have tried alcohol as opposed to 65 percent of those with fathers who approve of teen drinking. Like Father, like son or daughter.
The message is clear: if teens think their parents think substance use is OK, or witness actions that speak louder than words when it comes to substance use, they’re likely to follow suit. If we’re going to get a grip on teen substance abuse, responsibility will indeed have to begin at home. As students return to school, it is important to remember the example that parents set may trump peer pressure.
There are numerous federal resources to assist parents on this critical issue. Check out Parents. The Anti-Drug and Web sites sponsored by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
Kevin Jennings
Assistant Deputy Secretary, Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools
August 28, 2009 – 6:50 pm
Lisa Jackson, Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, reads "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss to children at Mt. Vernon Community School in Alexandria, Va.
U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson joined Secretary Arne Duncan for a bilingual reading event that marked the culmination of ED’s summer literacy initiative, “Read to the Top!”
At the event, held at Mount Vernon Community School in Alexandria, Virginia, Secretary Solis read the Spanish version of “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein. Administrator Jackson read “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss. Secretary Duncan read “Listen to the Wind: The Story of Dr. Greg and Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson and Susan L. Roth.
Today’s event was the culmination of two months of weekly summer reading events hosted by ED. The Department held 12 reading events with 15 Cabinet members and senior administration officials. More than 1,200 children from over 30 private, traditional public, and charter schools attended the reading events and received more than 2,000 books donated by Scholastic Inc.
Throughout the summer, ED has partnered with community organizations nationwide to combat summer learning loss in response to President Obama’s national volunteer campaign, “United We Serve,” which challenges all Americans to engage in sustained, meaningful service to meet growing social needs resulting from the economic downturn.
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August 28, 2009 – 9:27 am
U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke joined Secretary Arne Duncan for an afternoon of reading and learning this week as part of the Department of Education’s summer literacy series, “Read to the Top!”
Donovan read “The Curious Garden” by Peter Brown and Locke read “Those Shoes” by Maribeth Boeltz to a group of children from the Georgetown Hill HHS/ED Children’s Center, the Dorothy I. Height Community Academy Public Charter School, and Amidon-Bowen Elementary School.
As part of the event, the National Center for Summer Learning presented Secretary Duncan with a 2009 Champion of Summer Learning award for supporting summer learning and encouraging school districts and states to use American Recovery and Reinvestment Act dollars to educate children over the summer.
Tuesday’s session marked the final event held at the Department of Education. Since late June, weekly “Read to the Top!” events have enabled children from across the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area to enjoy books in a unique outdoor setting on the department’s plaza.
Later this week, “Read to the Top!” will go on the road, heading to Mount Vernon Community School in Alexandria, Va., which will culminate the summer series. There, Secretary Duncan will read to elementary-school-aged children, along with U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Lisa Jackson.
ED Staff
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August 25, 2009 – 12:17 pm
Secretary Arne Duncan joined Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, and D.C. Chancellor of Public Schools Michelle Rhee to welcome students back to school at D.C.’s newly renovated H.D. Cooke Elementary School, where they announced recommendations for educators on how learning can continue in the event of student absences due to seasonal and novel H1N1 Flu.
The recommendations, developed by ED, are designed to help education stakeholders start planning and acting now for the impact that seasonal and 2009 H1N1 influenza could have this fall and winter on schools and the learning process.
Find the recommendations, Q&A for schools, and additional flu information by going to the press release or the ED flu page.
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