College majors with highest median earnings: no surprises

From the report What’s it Worth?  The Economic Value of College Major, from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, the ten majors with the highest median earnings:

Petroleum Engineering $120,000
Pharmacy Pharmaceutical Sciences and Administration $105,000
Mathematics and Computer Science $98,000
Aerospace Engineering $87,000
Chemical Engineering $86,000
Electrical Engineering $85,000
Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering $82,000
Mechanical Engineering $80,000
Metallurgical Engineering $80,000
Mining and Mineral Engineering $80,000

Two week summer math workshops for teachers don’t work: IES study

Update (June 1, 8:00 am):  FCR-STEM at FSU announces, Two-Week Summer Workshops for Science Teachers!  Huzzah!

(h/t Curriculum Matters)

An Institute of Education Sciences study demonstrates that optimally designed two-week summer workshops for middle school math teachers do not significantly improve the achievement of the students of the participating teachers.  In fact, they have minimal impact on the teachers’ mathematical understanding.

The research-based program studied by the IES was designed for teachers to participate two summers in a row for a total of 114 contact hours.  Some of the 100 participants did not complete the second year, and some teachers participated only in the second year.

The results highlight the importance of sustained high-commitment professional development for promoting significant improvements in the understanding of teachers (and their students).  The Physics by Inquiry program at the University of Washington, which involves three years’ participation in workshops that require six weeks each summer, along with follow-up during the academic year, provides an example.

Commissioner search postponed

The Orlando Sentinel reports that the Florida Board of Education has set a new deadline for applications to be the state’s Commissioner of Education – June 6.  The pool of nineteen applicants apparently did not provide enough strong candidates to satisfy the Board.  So the search firm, Ray and Associates, will try again.  They have a week.

“The very notion of the traditional classroom must be challenged.” – Governor Rick Scott, from his veto message, May 26

Mission Accomplished: Professor Simon Capstick of FSU's studio physics group in one of FSU's two science studio classrooms.

Florida Education Commissioner search sputters

Update (12:30 pm):  School Zone has a report.  It’s not quite waving a white flag, but the State Board will consider extending the application deadline in a conference call at 6 pm this evening (yes, Friday of Memorial Day weekend).  Apparently the applicant pool isn’t what they were hoping for.

No list of candidates has officially been released by the search firm hired by the State Board of Education, but Jeff Solochek at Gradebook has posted a list he received from board member Roberto Martinez.  A quick look at the list reveals only two viable candidates.  No word on whether either knows a lick of science, or even cares to.

Williamson Evers: 

From a Hoover Institution bio:

Williamson M. Evers, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a member of the Institution’s Koret Task Force on K–12 Education, was the U.S. assistant secretary of education for policy from 2007 to 2009. In 2003, Evers served in Iraq as a senior adviser for education to Administrator L. Paul Bremer of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Evers is a past member of National Educational Research Policy and Priorities Board, a past commissioner on the California State Academic Standards Commission, past trustee on the Santa Clara County Board of Education, and a past president of the board of directors of the East Palo Alto Charter School. He currently serves on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s California Academic Content Standards Commission.

Evers also recently signed onto an open letter opposing the common core standards, common assessments, and everything of the sort.  The letter is titled “Closing the Door on Innovation – Why One National Curriculum is Bad for America.”  It opens:

We, the undersigned, representing viewpoints from across the political and educational spectrum, oppose the call for a nationalized curriculum in the Albert Shanker Institute Manifesto “A Call for Common Content.”1 We also oppose the ongoing effort by the U.S. Department of Education to have two federally funded testing consortia develop national curriculum guidelines, national curriculum models, national instructional materials, and national assessments using Common Core’s national standards as a basis for these efforts.

Of course, this would represent a 180 degree turn from the direction Florida has taken under Commissioner Smith as a leader in the Common Core movement.

Thomas Jandris:

From the Progress Education Corporation bio:

Dr. Jandris is an educator and business person with a wide range of experience. He most recently started Progress Education Corporation to offer staff development, school improvement planning, policy consulting, and a line of proprietary technology based learning management tools to teachers, schools, districts, and states. Just prior, he served as the President of EDmin, Inc., a company that develops technology solutions to empower performance management in public education. Other private sector, education experience includes founding and managing Fox River Learning and serving as CEO of HOSTS Corporation and Education World. Prior to his service to EDmin, he served as the lead consultant to the Governor of Michigan and the Mayor’s Office in Detroit during the reform takeover of the Detroit Public Schools. He was also asked by Governor Bush and Commissioner Gallagher in Florida to help draft the enabling legislation to implement a constitutional amendment to restructure the governance of Florida’s entire education system. Additional work is focused on designing and planning comprehensive performance management systems for urban school districts. Dr. Jandris served as advisor to the President, Secretary of Education, and Department of Education (DOE) on the drafting, passage, and implementation of NCLB.

In his capacity as Director of State Services for the Education Commission of the States (ECS), Dr. Jandris and his team were the policy consultants and technical advisors to the Nation’s governors, legislators and other education leaders. In his role as Director, Dr. Jandris was the chief architect and leader of the Urban Coalition and Corporate Partners Programs at ECS. While with ECS, Dr. Jandris also directed the three-year, national study of the Governance of America’s Schools.

Prior to his tenure at ECS, Dr. Jandris had extensive careers in both education and the private sector. He was a teacher, principal, director of Secondary Education and Superintendent at a large urban district. Dr. Jandris is currently an Adjunct Professor at the National Louis University’s National College of Education where he teaches graduate courses in educational foundations, educational research, group theory, curriculum, and instruction: theory and design, cross-cultural education, curriculum, analysis and applications, field study, human development/learning and educational supervision. He was recently named to the faculty of Nova Southeastern University as a Professor. He founded and grew a highly successful human resources consulting company. He is a past U.S. Olympic Team member and syndicated columnist.

Dr. Jandris is a licensed psychologist who continues to teach at the graduate level. His education includes a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, an M.Ed. from Wayne State and a B.S. in Education from Eastern Illinois University.

Two notes on Dr. Jandris.  First, I hadn’t heard of National-Louis University until now.  It turns out it is located in Chicago.  I have heard of Nova Southeastern, which is based in Fort Lauderdale.  Second, my heart leaped when I saw “group theory” in his list of academic interests.  And then I realized that it’s not that group theory.  So never mind.

Update (9:10 am):  Jeff Solochek says at Gradebook that State Board of Ed member Roberto Martinez said that “more names might still trickle in over the next few days. As long as they’re postmarked May 25 or earlier, they’ll be considered.”  I’m trying to picture Joel Klein stuffing a thick envelope and licking a stamp.  It’s not working for me.

The university building Governor Scott did not veto

As far as I can tell, the only university building project that Governor Scott did not veto yesterday was a $35 million science building at Senator Alexander’s USF Polytechnic in Lakeland.  Senator Alexander is the Senate Budget Chief.

The Alexander building was also about the only university building not identified as a turkey by Florida TaxWatch earlier this week.

If the goal of spending state money is to get the most bang for the buck, then it’s worth saying this:

The science and math faculty here at FSU have a plan for a science teaching complex that would improve student learning in STEM fields.  The first building in the complex is high on FSU’s list of new building priorities because of the urgency of the state’s need for highly qualified scientists and engineers.  It costs out at about $35 million, the same price as the Alexander Science Building at the Poly.

Spending $35 million on our facility would have resulted in a whole lot more student learning than spending $35 million at the nearly nonexistent USF Polytechnic will.  If the Governor’s priority is to get the most student learning per dollar, then he blew it.

If student learning per dollar is not the goal here, then never mind.

Massachusetts vs. Florida: Per pupil spending from the US Census Bureau

From Public Education Finances: 2009 (h/t Curriculum Matters)

Florida Education Commissioner search closed at midnight last night – FLDOE to report on applicants today

Yesterday was the sort of day on which education reporters lose some of the enamel on their teeth – because they are grinding them so much.

The application deadline for the job of Florida Education Commissioner was last night at midnight.  I haven’t heard any stories about serious candidates (Michelle Rhee?  Joel Klein?) furiously editing their resumes last night just before the deadline, but then again you just never know.

Here are the frustrated evening blog posts on the subject from School Zone and Gradebook.

Here’s hoping that our new Education Commissioner thinks science – and the preparation of our next generation of scientists and engineers – should be a priority for Florida’s schools.

St. Petersburg High women head to FSU to begin physics careers

When St. Petersburg High IB program graduate Kristen Collar arrived at Florida State University in the fall of 2007, she knew she liked science and math but wasn’t sure how that would translate into a career.  Fortunately, she was invited to join FSU’s Women in Math, Science and Engineering (WIMSE) Living Learning Community, where Kristen lived with 30 other women with similar interests during her first year at FSU.  WIMSE’s Director, Physics Professor Susan Blessing, helped Kristen secure a research position at FSU’s National High Magnetic Field Laboratory during her first year.  By the time Kristen was a co-author for the first time on a scientific publication in December, 2008, she was hooked on a career in physics.

This fall, Kristen will begin a Ph.D. program in physics at Duke University.

Regrettably, Kristen’s story is all too rare.  Only 21% of the bachelors’ degrees awarded in physics go to women, and that percentage is declining.  The reluctance of young women to enter the field of physics certainly isn’t due to the lack of economic opportunity for graduates in that field.  Even new bachelor’s degree graduates in physics do well:  A report recently released by the American Institute of Physics showed that new bachelor’s degree graduates who enter the private sector have starting salaries that average $50,000 per year.  At the master’s degree level, new graduates in the private sector start at an average of $60,000 per year, and at the doctoral level $83,000.

Last fall, a member of St. Petersburg High’s graduating IB Class of 2010, Rebecca Hallock, joined Kristen in FSU’s WIMSE community.  This spring, Rebecca earned a spot in the university’s highly regarded nuclear physics laboratory as an undergraduate researcher.  Given the small number of women entering the field of physics, the two women from St. Petersburg High qualify the high school as a regular pipeline for new women physicists.  Rebecca earned a place on FSU’s President’s List with her first semester grades, and the maturity with which Rebecca approaches her work has impressed the Physics faculty.

“Neither Kristen nor Rebecca had settled on a physics career before coming to FSU,” said WIMSE Director Susan Blessing.  “They didn’t know about the opportunities in the field.  By arranging research positions for them very early in their time here, we were able to show them what the career possibilities are.”

AP Calculus and Science Pass Rates: Massachusetts vs. Florida