Sara Mead: All Publications, Events and Press

Sara Mead in Politico | "Hopefuls' Education Plans Show Divides"

Communications — Tue, 27 May 2008 07:28:00 -0400

New America in the News:

If McCain proposes an ambitious school voucher program, as he did in 2000, it will underline stark philosophical differences between the GOP and Democratic presidential candidates on education policy. . .

Clinton and Obama share many policy goals but often differ on the means to achieve them. For instance, both have committed to spending an additional $10 billion annually on programs for children under 5. That would mean doubling the current federal investment in early childhood education.

But their approaches diverge sharply. While Clinton has proposed universal pre-kindergarten for all 4-year-olds, Obama would offer Early Learning Challenge Grants — modeled after an Illinois program — for states to use in a variety of ways.

“These proposals reflect two competing strains of thought in the early education advocacy field,” said Sara Mead, an education expert at The New America Foundation.

Clinton’s approach is largely favored by educators. Obama’s is preferred by most child care advocates, who “think universal pre-k is too late and insufficiently focused on poor kids, and we need to work to improve quality and access across the birth-through-5-year-old spectrum,” said Mead. . .

Full story here

Trends in the Well Being of Younger Children

Communications — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:00:00 -0400

A New America Event
04/25/2008 - 10:00am

How are the kids doing? Pretty well, according to a new report unveiled at the New America Foundation on April 25th, but experts still have significant concerns about the future. The report, "Trends in Infancy/Early Childhood and Middle Childhood Well-Being, 1994-2006," was authored by Dr. Kenneth Land of Duke University and funded by the Foundation for Child Development (FCD) and is part of an on-going series of events and reports hosted by the New America Foundation designed to raise awareness about the status of children in the United States and spur meaningful action to improve their quality of life. The CWI seeks to measure the well-being of the “whole child,” using seven different quality-of-life indicators: economic well-being, social relationships, health, safety and behavior, education, community connectedness, and emotional/spiritual well-being. This Special Focus Report investigated trends in well-being along three distinct periods in children’s lives: infancy/early childhood, middle childhood (ages 6-11) and adolescence during the years 1994 – 2006. Fasaha Traylor of the Foundation for Childhood Development said that the groundbreaking work of the Child Well-Being Index Project is “fundamental to the nation’s well being.”

Dr. Land, the CWI Project coordinator, said the data reveals good news on several fronts: child mortality rates are down since 1994, as are the numbers of children with elevated lead levels in their blood and the number of mothers who smoke during pregnancy. More kids are enrolled in full-day kindergarten, which may contribute to the better performance of 9 year olds on reading tests. More kids are participating in extra-curricular activities, especially school-related lessons. Children overall are safer and fewer report that they fear being attacked while in school or on their way to and from school.

Amid the good news, however, there are some red flags. The study shows a 12.3 percent increase in the number of low birth weight babies. The number of children and toddlers who are overweight is up sharply, increasing their risk for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Sara Mead, senior fellow in the Education Policy Program at the New America Foundation, added that while number of children in state-funded pre-kindergarten programs has grown impressively since 1994, the overall preschool enrollment has decreased slightly. She added that difficult economic circumstances, which affect children’s families directly, can also put pressure on states’ fiscally strained early childhood programs.

Public opinion polls show overwhelming support for federal and state policies that promote child well being, but most child-focused programs at the federal level have seen declining programmatic funds in recent, said Bruce Lesley of First Focus. Mr. Lesley quoted heavily from a new report recently released by First Focus called “Children’s Budget 2008.” Valerie Kaufmann, who directs early childhood programs for the Maryland State Department of Education, described the programs Maryland developed in recent years to successfully boost infant health and school readiness. Lauren Ratner, who oversees Family and Community Health for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, gave a broader view of the inter-agency efforts underway at the state level to improve child health and academic performance. Ms. Ratner highlighted a variety of policy options available to and used by state legislatures and health officials to combat child health risks, such as those highlighted in the report.

Dr. Land closed the event with a note of caution. Just as the CWI indicators dropped during the 2001 economic downturn, he expects that they will decrease again in 2007 and 2008, as economic hardship once again puts pressure on families and the well-being of America’s youngest citizens.

-Christina Satkowski, Research Associate for Education Policy

Child Well-Being Index in Washington Post | For Children, a Better Beginning

Communications — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:32:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Washington Post | For Children, a Better Beginning

In a wide-ranging look at how children have fared in their first decade of life, a study to be released today offers a promising picture of American childhood: Sixth-graders feel safer at school.* Reading and math scores are up for 9-year-olds. More preschoolers are vaccinated. Fewer are poisoned by lead.

The analysis, which created a composite index of more than 25 key national indicators, reports an almost 10 percent boost in children's well-being from 1994 to 2006. This overall improvement comes in spite of two significant negative trends: increased rates of childhood obesity and low-birth-weight babies.

"There are some really encouraging signs of progress," said Ruby Takanishi, president of the nonprofit Foundation for Child Development, which funded the research. "I think it's important as a country . . . to see that there are things that parents can do, that government can do, that institutions can do, to make measurable differences for children." . . .

*The New America Foundation Workforce and Family Program convened an event for the release of the study by FCD. More information is linked here.

Foundation for Child Development Study in Reuters | Obesity and Low Birthweight Mar Health of Kids

Communications — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:59:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Reuters | Obesity and Low Birthweight Mar Health of Kids

Rising obesity rates and a large percentage of children born with low birthweights are dragging down the overall health of American children in their first decade of life, according to a report tracking the health and well-being of young children in the United States.*

While U.S. children overall have seen improvements in their well-being in recent years, American children aged 6 to 11 are four times more likely to be obese than similarly aged children in the 1960s, the report found.

The report, led by researchers at Duke University in North Carolina and the Foundation for Child Development, a private advocacy group, looked at the well-being of children in early childhood, those from birth to age five, and middle childhood, or those aged 6 to 11, from 1994 to 2006.

The researchers found obesity among children in middle childhood is nearly four times more common than in children of the same age in a national survey in 1960s. For children aged 2 to 5, it is three times higher. . .

*The New America Foundation Workforce and Family Program convened an event for the release of the report by the Foundation for Child Development.

Partners In Closing the Achievement Gap

Education Policy — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 05:47:00 -0400

Over the past eight years, states have dramatically expanded their support for publicly-funded pre-k programs, and the number of children enrolled in these programs has grown significantly. States are investing in pre-k because research shows that high-quality pre-kindergarten programs can have a positive long-term impact on children’s life outcomes, help narrow the achievement gap between poor and affluent youngsters, and that the benefits of these investments to children and the taxpaying public outweigh their costs. In other words, high-quality pre-k is a key weapon in the arsenal of public policies that we can use to combat poverty and inequality and strengthen the skills of our workforce for the… more

Sara Mead in New York Times | Teaching Boys and Girls Separately

Communications — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 10:00:00 -0500

New America in the News:

New York Times | Teaching Boys and Girls Separately

. . . More recently, in what Sara Mead, an education expert at the New America Foundation, calls a “man bites dog” sensation, public and parental concerns have shifted to boys. Boys are currently behind their sisters in high-school and college graduation rates. School, the boy-crisis argument goes, is shaped by females to match the abilities of girls (or, as Sax puts it, is taught “by soft-spoken women who bore” boys). In 2006, Doug Anglin, a 17-year-old in Milton, Mass., filed a civil rights complaint with the United States Department of Education, claiming that his high school — where there are twice as many girls on the honor roll as there are boys — discriminated against males. His case did not prevail in the courts, but his sentiment found support in the Legislature and the press. That same year, as part of No Child Left Behind, the federal law that authorizes programs aimed at improving accountability and test scores in public schools, the Department of Education passed new regulations making it easier for districts to create single-sex classrooms and schools. . .

Testimony on the Pre-K for All DC Amendment Act of 2007

Education Policy — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 14:27:00 -0500

Sara Mead in Macleans | 'Playtime's Over'

Communications — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:14:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Playtime's over (Macleans, Canada)

He pointed to researchers like Sara Mead, who studied the data and concluded that "[t]he real story is not bad news about boys doing worse; it’s good news about girls doing better."

Sara Mead Featured in Education Week on 10 Ways to Tweak NCLB

Communications — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:47:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Spend Unused NCLB's Tutoring Funds on PreK, Mead Says

Yesterday at the New America Foundation, Sara Mead released a list of 10 ways NCLB could be tweaked to bolster prekindergarten programs. In a panel discussion, which I moderated, she highlighted three items:

Require districts to use their unspent money for tutoring and choice on preK in schools that are in need of improvement;
Allow schools required to restructure to transform into "early education academies" serving preK-3; and
Expand Reading First so districts can use the money for preK literacy.

The ideas aren't meant to be a comprehensive preK agenda, Mead said. They can be "a bridge to get to places that people want to go to get a greater federal investment," she said. ...

For the complete story, please follow this link. Audio from the panel discussion is available here.

New America Releases Two Reports on No Child Left Behind and Federal Education Funding

Jerry Irvine — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 14:00:00 -0500

The New America Foundation released two reports today on the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) reauthorization and the pending federal education budget. The reports identify steps Congress may choose to pursue in expanding early childhood education and eliminate a budget “gimmick” utilized by Democrats and Republicans in Congress to fund next year’s education program before a full federal budget is created. The reports were released today at an event held at the New America Foundation attended by leading experts on NCLB and federal education policy.

10 New Ideas for Early Education in the NCLB ReauthorizationSara Mead is a… more

No Child Left Behind and Early Education: Prospects for 2008

Communications — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 12:15:00 -0500

A New America Event
11/29/2007 - 12:15pm

Congressional leaders recently announced that they will not finish reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act -- the major federal law authorizing elementary and secondary education programs -- this year, but will continue working on reauthorization in 2008. This gives Congress a chance to revisit an issue that was largely ignored in this year’s debate over NCLB reauthorization: early education for pre-school and early elementary aged youngsters.

Evidence shows that the foundations of children’s future academic success or failure are largely in place by the end of third grade, and as much as half of the achievement gap between white and African American students exists before children enter first grade. Yet public debate on NCLB has focused little attention on the preschool and early elementary years. A new issue brief from the New America Foundation, 10 New Ideas for Early Education in the NCLB Reauthorization, explains why Congress must not ignore early education in NCLB reauthorization, and offers recommendations for how the law could better support children’s learning in these critical years.

How can NCLB better support state and local efforts to improve preschool quality and access, as well as early elementary learning? What are the prospects for early education reforms, and No Child Left Behind reauthorization generally, when Congress takes these issues up again in 2008?

Video of this event is available at right, while an MP3 audio recording can be downloaded below. Click here for a copy of the issue brief, 10 New Ideas for Early Education in the NCLB Reauthorization.

10 New Ideas for Early Education in the NCLB Reauthorization

Education Policy — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 07:00:00 -0500

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) seeks to improve student learning and narrow academic achievement gaps that place low-income and minority students at a disadvantage relative to their affluent and white peers. Evidence shows that the roots of children’s academic success or failure are already firmly in place by third grade and as much as half of the black-white achievement gap already exists before children enter first grade. Therefore, to achieve its ambitious goals NCLB must do a much better job of catalyzing and supporting state and local efforts to improve children’s education in the preschool and early elementary… more

Continuing the Investment

adminn — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:58:00 -0500

Deep Creek Elementary School is an education success story. In 2001, Deep Creek, where more than three-quarters of students come from low-income families and 80 percent are black or Hispanic, was one of the worst elementary schools in Baltimore County, Maryland. Its third-graders were reading at a first-grade level. But the new principal, Anissa Brown Dennis, expanded collaboration and professional development for teachers, implemented an aligned reading and math curriculum from pre-K through third grade, and offered summer learning and after-school programs for struggling students. Today, nearly three-quarters of Deep Creek students read on grade level, teacher and student morale… more

Sara Mead in Education Week on 'The Next Education President'

Communications — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 11:14:00 -0500

New America in the News:

The candidates for the 2008 presidential nominations have not been as detailed about education policy as in some recent elections. But that doesn’t mean the stakes of the Democratic and Republican races aren’t high for K-12 schools. ...

As the campaign edges closer to the stage when votes are cast, candidates will start answering those questions in more detail, suggests Marc Lampkin, the executive director of Strong American Schools, a nonpartisan effort aimed at encouraging the presidential candidates to lay out their plans for K-12 education. The Washington-based effort is financed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation.

"They know the electorate is starting to look a little deeper at them,” said Mr. Lampkin, a Republican who worked on President Bush’s 2000 campaign and has worked for GOP members of Congress.

But others believe that school issues will continue to be eclipsed by other concerns.

“It’s hard for education to get a lot of attention in this climate,” said Sara Mead, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation, a [nonpartisan] think tank in Washington.

What little policy debate over education has occurred so far has focused on prekindergarten and college.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who has emerged as the Democratic front-runner, according to national opinion polls, has proposed spending $10 billion a year to expand pre-K programs for 4-year-olds and expand existing tax credits to offset the costs of college tuition so low-income families can take advantage of them.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del., wants to provide $5 billion in state grants to double participation in federal Head Start preschool programs and quadruple the number of students in Early Head Start. He, too, would expand tax credits and financial aid to help make college more affordable.

Two other Democrats, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, also have proposed major expansions of the federal role in early-childhood education.

By contrast, the Republican candidates generally haven’t put forward proposals on early education or college aid. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is an exception. He wants to establish a federal program that would pay the tuition costs at in-state colleges and universities for high-performing students. The program would be modeled after one he helped create in Massachusetts. ...

For the complete article, please visit the Education Week website.

Tested: School-level Perspectives on NCLB

Communications — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 05:15:00 -0400

A New America Event
10/25/2007 - 12:15pm

The No Child Left Behind Act, the major federal law supporting elementary and secondary education, is due for reauthorization by Congress. Teachers unions, business groups, civil rights leaders and researchers have all weighed in with recommendations to change the law’s provisions. But what do the people most impacted by NCLB -- educators working with kids on a day-to-day basis -- think about it?

Former Washington Post education writer Linda Perlstein spent a year with educators and students at Tyler Heights, an Annapolis, Md., elementary school that manages to ace state tests despite the many challenges facing its predominantly low-income, minority students. Perlstein will discuss her new book, Tested, which looks at the consequences of NCLB for Tyler Heights and the children and adults who work there. Tracy Wright, former principal of J.C. Nalle Elementary in southeast Washington, D.C., will join Perlstein to offer a separate perspective on NCLB’s school-level effects.

Join the New America Foundation for a panel discussion on what NCLB really means in practice for children, teachers and principals working in America’s most challenging schools.

Questions about TEACH Grants

Education Policy — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 07:06:00 -0400

We’ve reported extensively on the reconciliation bill passed by Congress earlier this month and its student aid provisions that shift taxpayer subsidies from lenders to students. But, like all major pieces of legislation that go through Congress, this one has a lot of moving parts, some of which have received little public scrutiny.

TEACH Grants

For example, the reconciliation legislation created a new program, TEACH Grants, that makes significant additional financial aid available to prospective teachers. But very few people outside the higher education lobby—who like the… more

Jason Delisle and Sara Mead Join the Education Policy Program at New America Foundation

Jerry Irvine — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 13:30:00 -0400

The New America Foundation is pleased to announce the addition of Jason Delisle, a former Senior Analyst on the Republican staff of the Senate Budget Committee, and Sara Mead, an expert in early childhood and elementary and secondary education to its Education Policy Program. As the Education Policy Program’s Research Director, Mr. Delisle will play a lead role in implementing the organization’s Federal Education Budget Project. Ms. Mead will serve as a Senior Research Fellow, a position in which she will help shape New America’s work on early education in the context of the No Child Left Behind… more

Sara Mead Featured in The Washington Post on Charter School Reform

Communications — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:18:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Sara Mead and Andrew J. Rotherham, two of my favorite educational researchers, have inspired me to save the charter school movement with five brilliant if perhaps too far-sighted suggestions for reform.

***

Here are my suggestions for fixing that situation, based largely on what I learned from Mead and Rotherham:

1. Stop letting local school boards authorize charters. Mead, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation, and Rotherham, co-director of Education Sector and a member of the Virginia Board of Education, used a grant from the Annie E.Casey Foundation to analyze reports they oversaw on charter schools in California, Minnesota, Arizona, Ohio, Texas, Colorado, Florida and Michigan and four cities: New York, Indianapolis, Chicago and the District. They conclude that "perhaps the most significant lesson of the charter school movement to date" is that the number and quality of charter schools depend on who does the authorizing and how well they do it. State school boards, universities and independent bodies like the D.C. Public Charter School Board appear to do a better job of authorizing charters than local school boards, which see charters as competition for students, funds and prestige. California, Colorado and Florida have built strong charter systems with local school boards as the prime authorizers, but only by creating alternative authorizers for charter proposals that get turned down by local school boards.

2. Don't listen to parents about charters. I have twisted Mead's and Rotherham's conclusion a bit, but not much. Here is what they say: "Charter advocates often point to parental choice as the ultimate form of accountability: If schools are not delivering results, the argument goes, parents will go elsewhere. Yet experience has shown that parents choose schools for a variety of reasons, and often, even low-performing charter schools are popular with parents." They are right. Many parents I have spoken with chose a charter for no other reason than it was close to their home, the same reason so many parents like their mediocre neighborhood schools. Since one of the salient points of the charter school movement was to be able to get rid of schools that aren't working, authorizers should put more weight on results in the classroom than how many parents have signed up.

3. Kill laws that limit the number and autonomy of charters...

4. Judge charters on individual student gains...

5. Get rid of the lemons...

For the complete article, please visit The Washington Post web site (direct link to article).

Confusing Market Means and Ends in Higher Education

Education Policy — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 10:45:00 -0400

Responding to our coverage of last week’s higher education reconciliation bill, Cato’s Neal McCluskey asks, “How can you love an auction because it supposedly uses market forces, while simultaneously supporting the gargantuan market distortion that is the overall federal student aid system?”

We can understand how this might be confusing to someone who works for an organization that holds that unrestrained markets always produce the best possible outcomes. But McCluskey is confusing means and ends here. Harnessing market forces is often the most efficient way of getting to… more

Ben Adler Quotes Mead and Dannenberg on Higher Ed Lobby

Communications — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 03:38:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Sara Mead and Michael Dannenberg are quoted in a Washington Monthly article by Ben Adler, the editor of CampusProgress.org, at the Center for American Progress. Adler examines the actions of higher ed lobby organizations and how they impact policy reform.

To read this article, please visit Washington Monthly's web site.