By Claire Gordon, Posted Sep 14th 2011 @ 1:33PM

Today the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released some hard numbers that confirm this startling decline of the West and the rise of the rest. Although the West that's declining is almost exclusively America.

By JUSTIN POPE   09/14/11 11:08 AM ET  

- Scores on the critical reading portion of the SAT college entrance exam fell three points to their lowest level on record last year, and combined reading and math scores reached their lowest point since 1995.

The College Board, which released the scores Wednesday, said the results reflect the record number of students from the high school class of 2011 who took the exam and the growing diversity of the test-taking pool – particularly Hispanics. As more students aim for college and take the exam, it tends to drag down average scores.

Still, while the three-point decline to 497 may look small in the context of an 800-point test, it was only the second time in the last two decades reading scores have fallen as much in a single year. And reading scores are now notably lower than scores as recently as 2005, when the average was 508.

More information at:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/14/sat-reading-scores-fall-t_0_n_962138.html?icid=maing-grid7|ipad|dl25|sec3_lnk1|95626

Read about the latest in Education News links.

Two schools transform their ELL programs by giving students around-the-clock access to some of the latest mobile devices.

• By Jennifer Demski
• 05/02/11

The typical student at the Newcomer Center, an alternative school in Township High School District 214 in Arlington Heights, IL, is a recent immigrant with little or no English skills. The school is a temporary stopover for these students--they stay at the center for about a year, building up their English-language skills, and are then transferred to an ESL program at their home school in the district.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2011/05/02/ell-to-go.aspx

In March of 2010, Scholastic and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation released Primary Sources: America’s Teachers on America's Schools, the result of the largest-ever publicly-released teacher survey, in which 40,000 of our nation's public school teachers shared their thoughts on American Education.

More at:  http://www.scholastic.com/primarysources/download.asp

In one of the largest national surveys of public school teachers, thousands of educators agreed that today’s students aren’t college-ready when they graduate from high school. Teachers’ suggestions for solving this problem include clear, common standards; multiple measures of student performance; and greater innovation, including differentiated instruction and more use of digital resources.

The survey, titled “Primary Sources: America’s Teachers on America’s Schools,” was commissioned by Scholastic Inc. and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and conducted by Harris Interactive. More than 40,000 public school teachers in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade participated, and the results were released March 3.

The survey focused on the state of American education, the challenges facing students, and the tools and resources teachers need to face those challenges. Teachers gave honest opinions on issues such as student achievement, performance pay, technology use, and administrative support—and some of their answers might surprise school leaders.

More at: http://www.eschoolnews.com/2010/03/03/teachers-share-their-views-on-how-to-improve-education/?ast=64&astc=4952

An annual report reveals that mobile learning and cloud computing are poised to reach widespread adoption in schools in one year or less, with game-based learning and open educational content not far behind.

The New Media Consortium Horizon Report: 2011 K-12 Edition is the third annual report from the New Media Consortium (NMC) that focuses on emerging K-12 technologies. It is supported by a grant from HP’s Office of Global Social Innovation.

Want to improve student academic performance? There’s an app for that.

Hundreds of middle school students in the central San Joaquin Valley, Calif., and across the state—each with a school-issued iPad—are using curriculum apps for their classwork and homework.

Could the internet mean the end of snow days? Some schools think so, and they are experimenting with ways for students to do lessons online during bad weather, potentially allowing classes to go on during even the worst blizzard.

“Virtual snow days” would help ease pressure on school calendars. Because districts are required to be in session for a certain number of hours or days, losing teaching time to winter weather can mean extending the school day or cutting short spring break or summer vacation.

More at: http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/05/18/could-the-internet-spell-the-end-of-snow-days/

More information about New Technologies.

6 Technologies That Will Change Education

http://thejournal.com/articles/2011/05/17/6-technologies-that-will-change-education.aspx