Some are mathematicians, some are carpenter's wives...

CAREER DAY AT HOBOKEN HIGH SCHOOL

Wednesday morning was Career Day at Hoboken High School. In total, 27 professionals from Hoboken and the surrounding community shared their expertise and professional life stories with Hoboken High students for a 1 hour class period. Many professions were represented including medical doctor, lawyer, designer, National Guard, psychologist, international banking, performer, librarian, journalist, police, divorce mediator, banking, firefighter, acupuncturist, mathematician, entrepreneur, hair stylist, director/teacher, writer, property management, engineering, fundraiser, accountant, architect, merchandising, and interior design. Special thanks to Principal Lorraine Cella and Ms. Marie McCabe along with dozens of others who made this event today a wonderful learning experience for our students.

The format was different from the past. Previously, the event took place in the school gym and students moved from booth to booth meeting various professionals. This year, it was decided to use a "class period" format where students attended a session run by the professional with a district teacher in attendance in specific classrooms. Discussion already centered on expanding the format to multiple periods for next year.

Career Day was initiated at Hoboken High School by current Board of Education member Theresa Minutillo.

Picture: Principal Lorraine Cella (far left), Marie McCabe (front row center with white jacket) and some of the HHS staff and community professionals who participated in Career Day at Hoboken High School.

March 2008 HSPA Scores for Hoboken High School

At last night's Board of Education Meeting (3/31/09) there were numerous factually incorrect statements made concerning accountability test scores at Hoboken High School. Whether these statements were purposely misleading or simply ill informed will be left for others to decide. What is clear is that the statements were factually incorrect. Misleading public discourse and doing so for political or personal gain (i.e. for a particular candidate, ticket, referendum, or economic, ideological gain) at the expense of students, teachers and/or administration of a school is a price we pay for open government- A price well worth paying but no less unfortunate. Here is a quick summary of the latest State of New Jersey accountability tests for Hoboken High School. -Dr. Petrosino

March 2008 HSPA (High School Statewide Assessment) scores for Hoboken High School:

General Education 88% passing in Language Arts Literacy (students who did not pass completed the SRA (Special Review Assessment) in Language Arts Literacy, therefore Hoboken High School has a 100% passing rate in Language Arts Literacy)

General Education 71% passing in Math (students who did not pass completed the SRA in math and all passed, thus Hoboken High School has a 100% passing rate in Mathematics)

Both percentages were above AYP (Adaquate Yearly Progress) expectations hence HHS made Annual Yearly Progress by NCLB standards.

As Superintendent Raslowsky pointed out at the Board of Education meeting, there are certainly improvements that can be made to test scores and no one is 100% satisfied with any particular school but the performance of Hoboken High School on State accountability tests meets or exceeds what the US Department of Education and the State of New Jersey's Education Department defines as adequate yearly progress.

Recall also that Hoboken High School was names the 2nd most improved High School in the State of New Jersey in August 2008 by NJ Monthly and received Bronze Award designation by US News and World Report this past Fall.

Students visit the U.S.S. New Jersey- Alternative Education

Mr. Munoz's and Mr. DeBenedetto's U.S. History II classes attended the U.S.S. New Jersey Battleship Naval Musuem in Camden, NJ on March 13, 2009. The classes really enjoyed the experience of actually seeing a battleship in person. "This Iowa class battleship's size is amazing," said Jorge Rodriguez, a junior at Demarest. This is just one example of the educational field experiences that DHS (Demarest High School) offers it's student body.

Alternative education- a foundation of the educational philosophy of Demarest High School, is also known as non-traditional education and includes a number of approaches to teaching and learning other than mainstream or traditional education. While some aspects of alternative education have strong political, scholarly, or philosophical orientations, others are more informal associations of teachers and students dissatisfied with some aspect of mainstream or traditional education. These educational alternatives, which include charter schools, alternative schools, independent schools, and home-based learning vary widely, but often emphasize the following components:

Maximum teacher/student ratio of 1:15
Small student base
Clearly stated mission and discipline code
Caring faculty with continual staff development
School staff having high expectations for student achievement
Learning program specific to the student's expectations and learning style
Flexible school schedule with community involvement and support
Total commitment to have each student be a success

Demarest HS is designed to meet the needs of students who are not succeeding in a traditional setting for any number of reasons. Students are provided with a variety of options that can lead to graduation and are supported by services for the student and their immediate family that are essential to success.

Background on the USS New Jersey
BB62 (U.S.S. New Jersey) was built at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, and launched December 7, 1942- just a year after the Pearl Harbor Attack brought America into WWII.

The USS NEW JERSEY (BB62) was actually the second ship to be called “NEW JERSEY”, the first being BB16, a turn of the century (19th century) battleship. The first Battleship New Jersey (BB-16) was a Virginia class pre-dreadnought that served from 1906 until she was sunk as a bombing target in 1922. She sailed with the Great White Fleet and served her country in World War I as a training vessel.

NEW JERSEY was decommissioned for the last time on February 8,1991 at Bremerton, Washington where she resided until heading home to New Jersey. She was officially stricken from the Navy list on February 12,1995 but was then ordered reinstated by an order of congress as a mobilization asset under Bill 1024 section 1011. On January 4, 1999 NEW JERSEY was again stricken from the Navy list and IOWA replaced her as a mobilization asset.

Mr. Munoz and Mr. DeBenedetto are both members of the Hoboken Curriculum Committee and have done outstanding work in articulating the revised Social Studies curriculum for the Hoboken School District.

Educational Effects of the Tools of the Mind curriculum

The following peer reviewed journal article was recently published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly (Barnett et al. 2008). Tools of the Mind is currently being implemented in the Abbott pre-K program and will be extended to the district Kindergarten classes starting in September as part of the new revised curriculum and instruction program. Currently the Tools of the Mind program is being implemented in Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington (see Picture).-Dr. Petrosino

The effectiveness of the Tools of the Mind (Tools) curriculum in improving the education of
3- and 4-year-old childrenwas evaluated by means of a randomized trial. The Tools curriculum,
based on the work of Vygotsky, focuses on the development of self-regulation at the
same time as teaching literacy and mathematics skills in a way that is sociallymediated by
peers and teachers and with a focus on play. The control group experienced an established
district-created model described as a “balanced literacy curriculum with themes.” Teachers
and students were randomly assigned to either treatment or control classrooms. Children
(88 Tools and 122 control) were compared on social behavior, language, and literacy growth.
The Tools curriculum was found to improve classroom quality and children’s executive function
as indicated by lower scores on a problem behavior scale. There were indications that
Tools also improved children’s language development, but these effects were smaller and
did not reach conventional levels of statistical significance in multi-level models or after
adjustments for multiple comparisons. Our findings indicate that a developmentally appropriate
curriculum with a strong emphasis on play can enhance learning and development
so as to improve both the social and academic success of young children. Moreover, it is
suggested that to the extent child care commonly increases behavior problems this outcome
may be reversed through the use of more appropriate curricula that actually enhance
self-regulation.

More Information: The Tools of the Mind program has been used in both full- or half-day programs in Head Start programs, public schools, and childcare centers. Tools classrooms are found in a variety of school settings from high-poverty schools in urban or rural areas to suburban areas that serve primarily middle-class children

In order to provide a seamless transition to elementary school, the ideal experience for students (especially those that are considered “at risk”) is to attend both a Tools preschool and kindergarten program. Although the Tools kindergarten program provides a seamless transition for children who attended a Tools preschool program, those children who have not been in a Tools preschool program have adjusted to the program easily and excel with the rest of their peers.

School Choice in Hoboken- A Statistical Analysis

This data was previously presented at a Board of Education meeting in the Fall. Due to a number of requests, I am publishing the statistical analysis here. To be clear, this analysis simply looks at whether there was any statistically significant differences between Choice children and Resident children on 3 different dimensions. All students were enrolled in Hoboken High School from 2004-2007 (latest data available at time of the analysis). -Dr. Petrosino

A quantitative analysis was conducted on existing student data to see whether there was any significant difference between two populations of students. Population One included 27 graduating seniors from Hoboken High School during academic years 2004-2005 (n=2); 2005-2006 (n=7); and 2006-2007 (n=18) who were designated SCHOOL CHOICE. Population Two consisted of a randomly chosen matching subset of students (matched on gender and graduation year) enrolled in Hoboken High School as city residents (HHS). Therefore, we essentially took our known high school universe of school choice students (SC) and matched them with a comparison group of non-school choice high school students from the same cohort (HHS).

These two groups were then compared across three dimensions. Dimension 1 consisted of Attendance/Behavioral measure (Absences and Lateness). Not only are these figures indicative of behavior but also collate well with behavioral data such as detention/suspension (which by law we do not have access to upon graduation). Dimension 2 consisted of class grades. We chose the last English and last Mathematics course taken by each student. Finally, Dimension 3 consisted of standardized test measures. In this case, we choose to look at the SAT Math, Writing, and Essay scores.

Results:
Dimension 1: School choice children were absent 2 less days a year (13.29 vs 15.4) and were late ½ day more (11.85 vs. 11.22). Absence was statistically significant (.05) indicating that SC children were absent less often but difference in lateness was not statistically significant.

Dimension 2: Class grades in English (82.7 vs 82.09) and Mathematics (78.5 vs 78.22) were not statistically different and indicate no difference between the two groups.

Dimension 3: Non School Choice (HHS) children scored higher in SAT Math (435 vs 409) and SAT Writing (404 vs. 379) by roughly 25 points while School Choice (SC) students outperform their non School Choice peers on the SAT Essay (6.38 vs 5.6). While some minor differences  exist, there is no clear pattern that seems to favor either group.

Conclusion: Based on the data to date, there appears to be little to no statistically significant difference between the two student populations on any of the three dimensions of Attendance/Late; Grades; Standardized Test Scores.

DATA

Abs Late EngGrade MathGrade SATMATH SATWRIT SATESSY
SC 13.29 11.85 82.7 78.5 409 379 6.38
NC 15.4 11.22 82.09 78.22 435 404 5.6

Picture: (L-R) "Sonny" Palmeri, Steve Cappiello, and Mayor Louis DePascale circa Fall 1968. Petrosino Club, Fourth and Monroe St. 

LitLife Walkthrough in Connors and Calabro

On Thursday, March 26th Dr. Petrosino and Jennifer Lopez toured Calabro and Connors Schoos with LitLife representatives as they conduced a semi-semester evaluation of the progress that LitLife has made to the life of the district in writing and literacy. LitLife was brought into the district late last year as a long term, systemic and residential approach to professional development. No longer satisfied with "one shot" professional development or short term professional opportunities, LitLife is consistent with what research tells us leads to sustained and improved professional development and most importantly to lasting results in classroom learning. LitLife consultants work in schools to implement innovative structures for teaching reading and writing. After a careful analysis of a school’s environment and history, they work with staff members to enrich teaching methods and curriculum in reading and writing. We help teachers and administrators in realizing their goal: a happy school in which children and adults alike thrive. As a cutting-edge consulting group, LitLife is constantly evolving. They utilize both the latest research on teaching and the best technological advances in the resources we offer schools. From seminars to study groups, books to DVDs, podcasts to webinars, we are constantly searching for new ways to expand the depth and breadth of literacy.

LitLife currently works with grades 1, 2, and 3 in all district elementary schools (Calabro, Connors and Wallace). After the walkthroughs, Dr. Petrosino and Ms. Lopez spoke about expanding LitLife to encompass grade 4 or possibly consider another configuration that would bring LitLife to the middle grades at a more accelerated pace. Results are already being seen in classroom around the district based on feedback from LitLife consultants as well as discussions with building principals. Nonetheless, it will take an iteration or two of implementation before the district sees results on standardized test scores. LitLife is *not* a test preparation program but rather a long term approach to positively impacting teacher professional development within the Hoboken School District. From the monitoring and feedback received to date, the partnership seems to be producing the desired outcomes.

Academic Program Committee March 25

On Wednesday, March 25th, the Academic Program Committee met in the Board of Education conference room. In attendance were: Kate Dominique (IB Program), Kate Karmarsky (English/Social Studies Supervisor), Howard McKenzie (Mathematics/Science Supervisor), Gary Enrico (Saturday U), Ms. Hillenbrand (Gifted and Talented), Jennifer Lopez (NCLB/Reading), Ed Barfield (HHS teacher), David Bailey (IT Coordinator), and Dr. Petrosino. 

The meeting lasted over 2 hours- a quick summary of the meeting include Kate Dominique giving the group an update on her new schedule which now includes a visit to each school in the district at least once a week. Coordination with building administrators and Ms. Dominique is going well. Mr. McKenzie presented the lab schedules of the science teachers in HHS and a brief discussion on science instruction throughout the district was conducted. Ms. Hillenbrand report that the John Hopkins expansion is going smoothly and she agreed to present the group with some data for our next meeting. Jennifer Lopez spoke briefly about the SES provider fair and some funding opportunities centering on NCLB and the Title programs. David Bailey will be attending meeting in the future as the group integrates technology into it's discussions.

The next meeting of the group will be in two weeks.

Picture: Hoboken Saturday Night (1970)- The Insect Trust: Luke Faust, Robert Palmer , Trevor Koehler, Nancy Jeffries, Bill Barth. No Depression (p.105) - "Insect Trust's seamless roots-and-branches blend of blues, old-timey, Dixieland, brass band, folk, pop and free jazz put most other such experiments to shame. It still sounds exuberantly vibrant today..."

Reading- The Importance of Content Specific Assessment

An important editorial by E.D. Hirsch in the New York Times titled "Reading Test Dummies" looks at how we measure reading achievement in our nation's schools (including here in Hoboken). For all the discussion about the need for more responsive tests to measure school performance and student learning, policymakers at the district, state and federal levels often overlook a critical shortcoming of existing reading assessments: the content on them is totally disconnected from the vocabulary and content children actually learn in school.

A 1988 study indicated why this improvement in testing should be instituted. Experimenters separated seventh- and eighth-grade students into two groups — strong and weak readers as measured by standard reading tests. The students in each group were subdivided according to their baseball knowledge. Then they were all given a reading test with passages about baseball. Low-level readers with high baseball knowledge significantly outperformed strong readers with little background knowledge. The experiment confirmed what language researchers have long maintained: the key to comprehension is familiarity with the relevant subject. For a student with a basic ability to decode print, a reading-comprehension test is not chiefly a test of formal techniques but a test of background knowledge.

As Hirsch write: The problem is that the reading passages used in these tests are random. They are not aligned with explicit grade-by-grade content standards. Children are asked to read and then answer multiple-choice questions about such topics as taking a hike in the Appalachians even though they’ve never left the sidewalks of New York, nor studied the Appalachians in school.

He continues: Teachers can’t prepare for the content of the tests and so they substitute practice exams and countless hours of instruction in comprehension strategies like “finding the main idea.” Yet despite this intensive test preparation, reading scores have paradoxically stagnated or declined in the later grades.

Why is this? Primarily it is because the schools have imagined that reading is merely a “skill” that can be transferred from one reading passage to another, and that reading scores can be raised by having young students endlessly practice strategies on trivial stories. Tragic amounts of time have been wasted that could have been devoted to enhancing knowledge and vocabulary, which would actually raise reading comprehension scores.

Research on the importance of content and context (some of which I conducted with colleagues at Vanderbilt University) argues that we could improve both reading assessment and reading instruction if we replaced the current ill-informed model with reading assessments in which the passages students are asked to read and analyze focus on topics that are aligned with the curriculum that children actually study in literature, science, social studies, the arts, and other subject areas in each grade.

Doing this would also essentially force states to improve the quality of their state standards in these subject areas so that they provided more useful information to teachers about what students are expected to learn in each grade. We are not there yet and it is not clear if we will get there anytime soon but aspects of the revised curriculum will take this into account when it does not come in direct conflict with state standards.

I would encourage you to read the entire piece entitled Reading Test Dummies by E. D. Hirsch by clicking HERE.

Curriculum Committee Meeting at Brandt

On Monday, March 23rd, Dr. Petrosino addressed over 25 members of the Curriculum Committee at the Brandt School Auditorium. The meeting last about 90 minutes and a number of topics were addressed. A summary of the meeting follows:

What remains to do:
1) Dr. Petrosino congratulated the group on meeting the February 15th deadline for an initial first draft of the revised curriculum (over 95% completed). As mentioned previously on this blog, the first draft was achieved after a substantial and sustained curriculum writing push after the winter recess. The following subjects are completed: Mathematics, Language Arts (elementary), Language Arts (secondary), Health/Physical Fitness, Social Studies. The following subjects are functionally completed with some minor areas of articulation still needed: Theater Arts (some elementary grades needed), Music (minimal additions needed), Technology (most in need), Science (some final units needed), Holocaust Education (2-3 more meetings needed).

2) Need for some Understanding by Design update/mini workshop- Dr. Petrosino spoke to the Committee about organizing a 1-2 day in district workshop with members from ASCD on the topic of "Big Ideas" and the Understanding by Design framework. This would be a workshop with a subgroup of Curriculum Committee members and intended as a means of supporting a review of the initial draft of the curriculum.

3) Dr. Petrosino spoke about the review process. This will include both internal (within district/community) as well as external (experts from outside the district) review and has already begun with the professional development organization LitLife reviewing the Language Arts curriculum.

4a) Communication (Within District)- Efforts have been underway for the past year at communicating the progress of the curriculum committee with district administrators. It is clear we must now begin communication and articulation with district teachers and aides on aspects of the revised curriculum.

4b) Communication (Community)- Efforts have been underway for the past 18 months at communicating the progress of the curriculum committee with parents and the community (updates at Board of Education meetings, creation and updating of the Hoboken Curriculum Project website, speaking at PTO meetings, some public meetings). But it is clear that more needs to be done. Discussion centered on a number of "parent night" events in which the community could meet with the Curriculum Committee and ask specific questions and gain more information on the revised curriculum. A schedule will be announced by the end of the first week of April.

5) Dr. Petrosino also articulated the need to follow up with a number of organizations within Hoboken who have been involved and have served as a resource for the Curriculum Committee including the Hoboken Historical Museum and the Hoboken Public Library among others.

6) Dr. Petrosino also discussed the coordination that is needed to ensure that the curriculum satisfies all the stated intentions of the State's QSAC (NJ Quality Single Accountability Continuum) accountability system. The primary issue left needing to be addressed centers on district wide assessments and analysis systems.

Here is the list of teachers who attended the Curriculum meeting on
March 23, 2009....

CALABRO
Tara Donnelly
Tania Trinidad-Payamps

CONNORS
Marni Rosenblum
Kelly Sogluizzo
Jennifer Suyat

DEMAREST
Fran Cohen
Anabel Gomez
Kathleen Kelly-Ynoa
Mark Schartner

HOBOKEN HIGH SCHOOL
Jayshree Amin
Edward Barfield
Isabel Bruno
Geidy Dela Rosa
Kate Dominique
Michele Mc Greivey
Howard Mc Kenzie
Jared Ramos
Mary Sifonios
Barbara Teller

WALLACE
Andrea Canonico
Lea Di Vincent
Tasha Leggard
Bess Mitsakos
Donna Yula
Elise Granovsky

Picture: Mr. Jared Ramos works with students in the upcoming production of "Guys and Dolls" at the Hoboken High School Auditorium.

Superintendent Raslowsky on the 2009-2010 School Budget

The following is a television segment that was broadcast recently on Cablevision Ch 18- Neighborhood Journal. It entails Superintendent Raslowsky talking about aspects of the 2009-2010 Hoboken School Budget. From the time of this broadcast, an additional $200,000 was reduced from the budget so final numbers may be slightly different.

The budget will be voted on by the Board of Education on Tuesday, March 31. The meeting will take place at 7pm in the Wallace School Gym.

Education Secretary Duncan wants 'new era' in science education, more science, math teachers

On Friday, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan gave remarks to the National Science Teachers Association in New Orleans. In his address, Duncan touched upon a number of areas including more science labs, nationwide standards, "the poor state of mathematics and science education, and the controversial idea that the market needs to compensate science and math teachers more than other teachers. What follows is a summary of Secretary Duncan's remarks. Also included is a link to the full text of Duncan's remarks. -Dr. Petrosino

NEW ORLEANS - Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Friday he wants to launch a "new era" of science education in the United States, one that encourages students to ask tough, challenging questions and brings more specially trained science and math teachers into the classroom.

Duncan told the National Science Teachers Association during a visit to New Orleans that President Barack Obama sees a need for inventors and engineers along with poets and scholars and "will not allow scientific research to be held hostage to a political agenda."

"Whether it's global warming, evolution or stem cell research, science will be honored. It will be respected and supported by this administration," he said.

The federal stimulus bill includes more than $100 billion in new education funding, with $650 million set aside for technology grants, he said. Duncan couldn't say how much money would go specifically into science but pledged funds would be available to modernize labs.

He also said many of the teaching jobs saved with stimulus dollars would be in science labs. But the money must be used wisely, he said, not just on saving jobs but also on driving strong reforms.

Duncan also cited a $5-billion "race to the top fund" to provide incentives to states already doing innovative, reform-minded work. He said there's been a "dumbing down of standards for political reasons" under the current system of states with their own benchmarks and standards. That system doesn't make much sense, he said, drawing applause, and it isn't doing students any favors in the global economy.

He said there's a need for common, high standards that prepare students for college and the work force and for international benchmarks to compare U.S. students with their counterparts around the world. He said he's working with state leaders who've taken a lead in school reforms and hopes to come up with a better system.

"I think in far too many states, meeting standards means you are at best barely qualified to graduate from high school, and you are woefully unprepared to go to college," he said. "We have been lying to children, and we are setting them up for long-term failure. That has to stop."

He said the country has a long way to go to improve science education. Sectors including engineering, health care, technology and green energy need more workers, and "a generalist," too often, is teaching middle school kids, he said.

That's been a problem for years, and the market needs to pay science and math teachers more, he said.

Click here For FULL TEXT of Speech

For full story click HERE.

Picture: This picture was taken from one of my graduate students who did a project on imagining what it would be like if mathematics, science, and engineering education was marketed for girls like dolls. It's tongue in cheek but I have always felt it was an interesting premise. 

HHS Theather Arts Program in NY Times

This Sunday (March 15) the district’s theater program was highlighted in the New York Times. The link to the article is below. We are also featured on a wonderful video produced by the NYTimes. The link to that video is below as well. It is an outstanding piece and it highlights one of many examples of great work happening in the district. The Hoboken School District places strong emphasis on theater, music, and art- and this will be reflected in the revised curriculum.

The district’s production of Guys and Dolls is just over two weeks away. Best of luck to Paula Ohaus, Jarad Ramos and all in the cast and crew as they continue preparations.

Article link: CLICK HERE

Video link: CLICK HERE

Picture: Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times