New law will require shoulder belts for small school buses, higher seat backs for larger buses
AP (10/16, Hunter) reports, “Smaller school buses will have to be equipped with lap-and-shoulder seat belts for the first time under a government rule drafted following the deaths of four Alabama students on a school bus that nose-dived off an overpass.” The law, which takes effect in 2011, will require that seat belts be installed only “in new buses weighing five tons or less.” Additionally, “larger buses…will have higher seat backs under the new policy. … The design change is supposed to keep older, heavier students from being thrown over the seats in a collision.” According to U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, “she stopped short of requiring seat belts for larger buses because that could limit the number of children that can squeeze into seats, forcing some children to travel in ways that aren’t as safe as school buses.”
“Public Citizen, a highway safety advocacy group, said the new rules don’t go far enough,” Bloomberg News (10/15, Keane) noted. In a statement, Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook said, “‘Our enthusiasm for those improvements is tempered’ by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration’s ‘inability to resolve the question of whether seat belts should be installed in large school buses.’”
While government officials did encourage “a combination of lap and shoulder belts on large school buses, [they] did not require it,” in part because they said that “the cost of seat belts should not be imposed on school districts when school buses are already, for the most part, very safe,” noted ABC News (10/15, Barrett, Stark). “According to the National Association of Pupil Transportation, the country’s largest school bus industry association, outfitting buses with belts costs $7,000 to $11,000 per bus. Still, the school bus industry association said encouraging seat belt use without mandating it does not provide clear guidance.” The Detroit News (10/15, Shepardson) also covered the story.
In the Classroom
Chinese is fastest-growing language taught in U.S. schools.
Florida’s St. Petersburg Times (10/16, Matus) reports that, “fueled by awareness of China’s growing economic muscle, the demands of parents, and the prodding of educators who want schools to offer something fresh and…a little more relevant,” hundreds of Chinese classes are “cropping up around” the U.S. Up until recently, Mandarin Chinese, which “is spoken by more than one billion people,” was not “even an afterthought in U.S. schools.” Now, more than 50,000 American students are learning Chinese, making that language “far and away the fastest-growing language taught.” In fact, “the demand has been so great that it’s outstripping the ability of schools to find good teachers.” To “get more teachers in the pipeline,” Florida’s “Department of Education recently created an expedited certification process for potential Chinese language teachers.” In addition, the “Confucius Institute at the University of South Florida is working on the issue,” and “the Chinese government has been aggressive with a teacher exchange program.”
Minnesota school district considers foreign language classes in elementary schools. Minnesota’s Minneapolis Star Tribune (10/16, Lemagie) reports that the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan School District is considering moving ahead “with a plan to teach a world language in all its elementary schools.” This month, school administrators “are conducting an online survey…to find out what parents, staff, and secondary students think of expanding a” foreign language program “to all 18 of the district’s elementary schools.” According to Superintendent John Currie, “adding a foreign language is the most common request he gets from parents of elementary students. Studies have shown that learning a second language can boost a child’s cognitive development and” overall academic achievement, “as well as foster respect for different cultures.” Depending on the survey’s feedback, “district employees will likely recommend a plan to the school board in late November or December that could be rolled out as soon as next fall.” So far, “the district hasn’t decided which language would be offered — or whether to teach more than one.” Under the plan, “students would get about 90 minutes a week of instruction, putting world language lessons on a par with gym or music class,” Currie explained.
New York district allows yoga program in schools under new name.
The AP (10/15) reported, “An upstate New York high school has won community approval to offer students a voluntary yoga program, as long as it’s not called yoga.” Last year, two teachers at the school “began using yoga in their classrooms…to relieve stress before exams and had approached the school board this fall about letting other teachers use the breathing and relaxation techniques in their classes.” But, some parents raised concerns that “teaching yoga in school would promote Hinduism and violate the separation of church and state.” Board of Education President Julie Reagan, however, said that “the board supports the yoga program.” In a compromise reached during a meeting with Superintendent Roger Clough, “several parents…agreed to change the name of the in-class program” to “Raider Relaxation,” and to “set up an after-school club to give interested students a deeper understanding of yoga.”
Washington district developing program for elementary students seeking advanced math.
Washington state’s Selah Independent (10/16, Gronning) reports, “The practice of skipping some children ahead a grade to take part in a more rigorous math course has not paid off in better math scores on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), Selah School Board members heard at their Oct. 9 meeting.” The district’s current policy uses “teacher input, WASL scores, math alertness progress monitoring, and a math placement test to select students” to skip “fourth grade math and go straight to fifth grade math classes. But in some cases they were outscored on the WASL by students who were not skipped ahead, said Pam Ansingh, the district’s executive director for teaching and learning.” As a result, “the district is developing a ‘highly capable’ program for students seeking more challenging math classes. The program” will “be developed over the next three years, administrators said.”
On the Job
Dallas school district layoffs to resume Thursday.
The AP (10/15) reported that on Wednesday, “a state lawmaker…asked Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott to oversee [the] financially troubled” Dallas Independent School District’s (DISD) “budgeting and audit process as it delayed by one day plans to layoff 460 teachers due to an $84 million shortfall this fiscal year.” State Rep. Tony Goolsby (R) told the Dallas Morning News, “We’ve had major problems with DISD for a long time, and it just doesn’t seem to be getting any better. It’s time (for Scott) to start flexing some muscle.” DISD delayed the “layoff of hundreds of teachers after a stormy meeting Tuesday morning with principals, who questioned who would be fired.” Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said in a statement, “I want to make certain that we give ourselves time to resolve the issues that (principals) have raised.”
The Dallas Morning News (10/16, Fischer, Hobbs) reports, “After a one-day delay, pink slips will arrive [Thursday] for hundreds of Dallas school employees.” The Morning News provides “the best answers available to questions many parents, teachers, and students may have.” Included are answers to questions such as, “What kinds of teachers were selected for layoffs? Which were not?” and “Were schools with lower classroom ratios targeted?”
Morning News readers concerned that teachers from abroad will keep DISD jobs, while American teachers are cut. The Dallas Morning News (10/16, Unmuth) reports that some Dallas Independent School District (DISD) teachers “are wondering whether bilingual education teachers recruited from abroad will keep their jobs, while American teachers are cut.” Referring to a DISD blog featured on its website, the Morning News points to comments left by visitors, expressing “fears that they may lose their jobs while foreign Spanish-speaking teachers keep theirs.” The Morning News explains, “School district administrators consider bilingual teachers, along with math and science teachers, a highly valuable commodity,” because “Texas colleges and universities don’t produce enough bilingual education teachers.” Also, school districts “are under pressure to improve student test scores, which is easier when students can understand what their teachers say.” DISD chief human development officer Kim Olson said that the district does not consider a teachers’ country of origin a factor in making cuts. “We look at certification and seniority,” she said.
Teachers in Michigan district working under terms of last year’s contract.
Michigan’s Petoskey News-Review (10/16, Gohs) reports, “While an agreement over Charlevoix Public Schools teachers compensation contract has yet to be reached, players on both sides remain ‘cautiously optimistic.’” Meanwhile, “the teachers will continue to work under the terms of last year’s contract until a new contract is negotiated,” according to Superintendent Chet Janik. Annemarie Conway, chief bargainer for the Charlevoix Education Association, said, “It is difficult to pinpoint the [negotiation] status exactly because the board and the superintendent meet in closed session to discuss labor issues. … Therefore, we can never be sure of their positions.” The teachers’ association is “arguing for a reasonable contract,” considering “the budget is tighter than it has been during some years,” Conway added. The teachers are not planning a strike “at this time. So, for now, it appears as though both sides will continue collective bargaining.”
Law & Policy
Advocate seeks delay of policy allowing military recruiters centralized access to student records.
The New York Times (10/16, A35, Hernandez) reports that a New York Department of Education (DOE) “policy that gives military recruiters centralized access to high school student data is drawing fire from the New York Civil Liberties Union, as well as some parents and students.” The previous policy required that “military recruiters…go from school to school to obtain” student contact information. But, under the new policy, “signed last month by Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, recruiters can access data from each high school simply by going to” DOE headquarters. According to Donna Lieberman, executive director of the civil liberties group, “the city [has] not made an adequate effort to inform parents of” their choice to have their children’s names excluded from the centralized list. Lieberman has “called on the city to delay implementing the new policy” until after the DOE solicits feedback from the public for 30 days.
Special Needs
WPost: Maryland school’s failure to meet achievement goals calls attention to NCLB flaws.
The Washington Post (10/16, A18) editorializes that when considering “the experience of a Montgomery County school punished because of unavoidable absences by its students, many of whom have severe disabilities,” it is “little wonder that the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, its overall benefits notwithstanding, gets such a bad rap.” Stephen Knolls School attained its “student achievement goals for math and reading” this year, “but failed to make annual yearly progress under NCLB because of poor attendance. … The more frequent absences stem from the very fragile state of these children’s health.” State officials noted “that other school districts [were] able to work around the system by counting the students not in the special education centers they attend but in their neighborhood schools.” But, the Post points out, “That’s not exactly in keeping with NCLB’s creed of accountability.” The Post concludes, “We hope, in calling needed attention to the situation, [Montgomery County] can force a solution.”
Safety & Security
Philadelphia schools to expel most violent students.
The Philadelphia Inquirer (10/15, Graham) reported, “In a sharp about-face, Philadelphia School District officials today vowed to expel the system’s most violent students, tighten codes for others, and attempt to streamline a dysfunctional, inconsistent disciplinary system.” According to the Inquirer, “the changes will be made by the district at the urging of a committee of school safety experts.” Over the past four years, “the district has not expelled any student. … Instead, offenders were transferred to alternative schools or left in the classes where they committed their offenses, said Safe Schools Advocate Jack Stollsteimer.” Also under the new policy, school “principals will…begin suspending students for up to 10 days, the maximum allowed by state law. Previously, no student was removed from school for more than five days.” Another “component of the new policy, officials said, [is] widening the use of a ‘single-school culture’ model to all district schools. It is a way of organizing a school, with clear expectations for all students and correction for poor behavior.”
Also in the News
Sleep-deprivation impacts some teachers’ classroom performance, survey indicates.
HealthDay (10/15) reported, “Nearly a fourth of U.S. teachers say they are so sleep-deprived that their teaching skills are significantly impacted, according to a survey of teachers, administrators and support staff conducted by Ball State University researchers.” Researchers “found that about 43 percent” of educators “slept an average of six hours or less each night, and 64 percent said they felt drowsy during the school day.” Meanwhile, “only a third of all school personnel said they got a good night’s sleep most of the time.” Furthermore, “female respondents tended to have sleep disturbances, drowsiness, and sleep problems more often. Long work days” were cited as a potential cause of the results. In addition to “grading papers and preparing assignments,” many teachers also work part-time jobs
Ohio’s Gallipolis Daily Tribune (10/16, Kocmoud) reported, “Local junior high school students will take on a variety of roles in the community as they participate in Vital Links, the Gallipolis City School District’s annual job shadowing program, which offers students a chance to explore potential career fields on a firsthand basis.” For the program, “students spend two consecutive days at a specifically assigned site within the community, where they learn about the day to day operations of the business.” They “take tours, discuss job responsibilities, identify how certain subjects such as math and science are used on the job, and examine the education, training, skills, and personality traits required to perform specific tasks.” Students are responsible for keeping a journal “as they shadow their supervisor and seek answers to a collection of questions designed to shed light different aspects of the job.” At the end of the two-day period, “students use the information obtained during the experience for lessons and assignments in their regular classroom.”
Kansas standardized test scores continue to improve.
The AP (10/16) reported, “Kansas students’ scores on standardized reading and math tests continue to improve.” Data from the state Department of Education show that “84.1 percent of” third- through eighth-grade students and high school juniors “who took the [state] reading test scored in the top three achievement categories, compared with 59.2 percent in 2000. In the math category, it was 81 percent last spring, compared with 50.3 percent in 2000.” In addition, 81 percent of students who took “the history-government test were in the top three achievement categories, as were 83 percent of those taking the science test.” Furthermore, “students learning English in the eighth grade went from 12 percent making the top three achievement categories in reading in 2000 to 53.1 percent in the latest test.” Deputy Education Commissioner Diane DeBacker said that “the improvement is due to more teachers in the classrooms who teach English as a foreign language and students staying in one place longer.”
Massachusetts district to place instruction coaches in every school.
Massachusetts’s Amherst Bulletin (10/17, Carey) reports that the Amherst school district “is attempting to give the elementary schools’ math program a major boost this year by placing ‘coaches’ in all of the schools.” The coaches will “help teachers reach children with varying skill levels in the classroom.” Michael Hayes, “the district’s new kindergarten-to-12th grade curriculum administrator,” said that one of the goals for the math program is “increasing exposure of all students to algebra, considered a gateway to advanced math and higher education.” He also explained that “professional development of teachers is considered key to the program’s success. … Among this year’s improvements to the program is the introduction of new texts and more detailed instruction to teachers on how to implement the curriculum as well as follow-up and support from the coaches.”
Students in Texas benefit from teachers’ incentive pay, education analyst says.
In an opinion piece for Texas’s Jack County Herald (10/16), Brooke Dollens Terry, an education policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, wrote, “Higher test scores, higher state accountability ratings, improved teacher morale, and lower teacher turnover prove that students are benefiting from teacher incentive pay in Texas.” She cited research that “has conclusively found that the quality of the teacher is the most important factor in improving student learning. Therefore, it makes sense to use financial incentives to attract the best and brightest individuals to enter the classroom…and keep the best teachers from leaving the profession or moving into administration.” Terry noted some of the strategies schools use “to attract and keep the best teachers,” which include “giving them bonuses for demonstrating their effectiveness through large gains in student” achievement. She concluded that “lawmakers need to support compensation structures that treat teachers like professionals. … Only then will we see large gains in student learning and move towards closing the achievement gap.”
On the Job
Connecticut policy requiring reading tests for teachers a “bold step,” columnist says.
In a column for Connecticut’s Hartford Courant (10/17), Rick Green writes, “This spring, the State Board of Education took a bold step” by approving “a policy that will require all teachers to pass a test that assesses their ability to teach reading.” Green called the approval a “stunning development that must be closely watched.” He notes that “teachers already must pass exams before they are certified. The problem is the tests don’t properly measure whether they can teach reading.” According to Green, “the conclusions of the National Reading Panel in 2000″ indicate that reading instruction “is a systematic, explicit process that emphasizes phonics and the sound segments that make up words, guided oral reading, vocabulary building and exposure to a variety of strategies.” Yet, “colleges and universities…have resisted” teaching future educators those skills. He concludes, “After years of watching thousands of children fail, we may now demand that schools actually know how to teach all children to read. Now that would be progress.”
Firing of elementary school principal raises questions about D.C. schools’ vetting process.
On the front page of its Metro section, the Washington Post (10/16, B1, Turque) reported that last week, D.C. schools chancellor Michelle A. Rhee fired Shepherd Elementary School Principal Galeet BenZion, raising “questions about the school system’s vetting process, which was part of Rhee’s aggressive effort to upgrade a principal corps she considers integral to her reform effort.” Last spring Rhee selected BenZion, “whose last job was a turbulent two-year stint at a small cooperative preschool on Capitol Hill,” N.C., to head Shepherd. In a recent interview, “Rhee said BenZion’s hiring was ‘the wrong call,’ but did not elaborate.” Although “Shepherd parents appear split on the merits of BenZion’s brief tenure,” they “speak with one frustrated voice about the selection process that landed BenZion at Shepherd and her firing after seven weeks.” According to Shepherd parent Jason Keene, “he and other Shepherd parents who had other academic options for their children but wanted to make a go of it in D.C. public schools” have been “looking at other possibilities” since the firing.
Law & Policy
New Jersey parents rally against policy requiring flu shots for preschoolers.
The AP (10/16) reported that “many New Jersey parents are furious over a first-in-the-nation requirement that small children must get a flu shot in order to attend preschools and day-care centers. The decision should be the parents’, not the state’s, they contend.” Last December, the state Public Health Council approved a policy that is “taking effect this fall,” under which “children from six months to five years old who attend a child-care center or preschool have until Dec. 31 to receive the flu vaccine, along with a pneumococcal vaccine.” Parents protested “outside the New Jersey Statehouse on Thursday, decrying the policy and voicing support for a bill that would allow parents to opt out of mandatory vaccinations for their children.” During the rally, Assemblywoman Charlotte Vandervalk “said she now has 34 co-sponsors for a bill that would allow for conscientious objections to mandatory vaccinations.”
California bus seat belt law predates federal law.
California radio station KCBS-AM (10/16), a CBS affiliate, reported that “California has been the only state in the country mandating the lap-and-shoulder seat belts federal law will require for all new, smaller school buses by 2011.” The state “law took effect in 1999,” but “only about seven percent of the estimated 25,000 school buses operating in California meet that more rigorous safety standard,” according to John Green, a transportation supervisor for the state Dept. of Education. “The cost of retrofitting all buses is prohibitive for most school districts and bus companies,” Green added.
Special Needs
Some educators question the value of placing students with special needs in time-out.
The AP (10/17, Crumb) reports, “Some educators say time-out rooms are being used with increased frequency to discipline children with behavioral disorders. And the time outs are probably doing more harm than good, they add.” Ken Merrell, head of the Department for Special Education and Clinical Sciences at the University of Oregon, called time-out rooms “a form of abuse … It’s going to do nothing to change the behavior,” he said. Although “there is no data on the use of time-out rooms,” Stephen Camarata, director of the Kennedy Center for Behavioral Research at Vanderbilt University, “speculates that they’ve become widespread as schools confronted a growing enrollment of children with behavior disorders.” He said that this may be “because classrooms are much less flexible with more focus on compliance.” The AP cites a case in which a student in Iowa’s Waukee school district “was locked in the room for three hours and not allowed to use a restroom.”
Safety & Security
Michigan school restricts bathroom use after threatening message found.
Michigan’s Observer & Eccentric (10/16, Buck) reported that “in the wake of a threatening message found in a bathroom at” East Middle School in Farmington Hills on Tuesday, the school “is cracking down on unrestricted rest room use.” According to school officials, “Tuesday’s message was threatening and the school was evacuated.” Principal Ken Sanders said, “Since the messages are being found written in bathrooms during classes, the use of the bathrooms by students will be closely monitored.” From now on, “bathrooms will be locked at all times, except during passing times. If a student needs to use the bathroom during class, he will need to get a pass from his teacher, then go to the office and sign in. He will then be escorted to the bathroom.”
Kentucky agencies announce partnership to expand cybersafety awareness.
Logan County, Kentucky’s News Democrat & Leader (10/17) reports, “Attorney General Jack Conway, Kentucky Child Now, and the Kentucky Department of Education recently announced a new partnership that will expand statewide cybersafety education efforts and teach adults to be online models, mentors, and monitors.” The agencies will combine their individual efforts and “resources to reach more Kentuckians.” The coalition’s “three-year education initiative will kick off with a statewide conference on November 24 and 25. … The conference will provide adults with the strategies they need to help keep children safe online.” It will include workshops and “presentations from MySpace and Facebook. Ernie Allen, formerly of Louisville, who is the executive director of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, will be the keynote speaker at the conference. His organization will also teach breakout sessions.” Regional workshops are also being planned.
School Finance
N.H. Supreme Court dismisses school funding lawsuit.
The AP (10/17) reports, “New Hampshire has a breather after 17 years of almost continuous legal battles over funding schools — but it may only last until next fall.” According to New Hampshire’s Concord Monitor (10/16, Heckman), “the state Legislature will continue to overhaul” the state’s “school funding system without Supreme Court oversight after a ruling [Wednesday] in which the justices dismissed the latest in a long string of lawsuits over how the state pays for public education.” The decision “was supported by three of the five justices. Writing for the majority, Justice Gary Hicks said, ‘We presume that…the Legislature acted in good faith’ by defining adequacy and, later, determining its cost.” The ruling, however, does not “bar the court from weighing in on school funding in the future.” The Concord Monitor noted, “Details of the new law could be argued before a lower court and come before the justices on appeal. Or, if the Legislature fails to finance the plan, the coalition of communities that filed this latest lawsuit could ask the court to reconsider.” Massachusetts’s Eagle Tribune (10/16, Sullivan) added, the Court’s decision came in response to a “school funding lawsuit brought by the Londonderry School District.”
Also in the News
Justice Department mediator meets with high school coaches to settle racial dispute.
The Washington Post (10/17, B3, Goldenbach, Hernandez) reports, “The coaching staffs of two high schools whose…football game was broken up by accusations of racism” last month “met yesterday with a mediator from the U.S. Justice Department, according to a source familiar with the meeting.” On Sept. 19, football players from D.C.’s Dunbar High School, “who are African American, walked off the field in the third quarter of the game at” Maryland’s Fort Hill High School, “alleging that members of the home team had taunted them with racial slurs. Fort Hill players and coaches contend that no racial comments were made.” The Post notes that “the federal agency’s involvement signifies that the conflict has spread beyond the two schools.” Although no resolution was reached during the meeting, both “sides agreed to develop guidelines for handling such incidents.” Meanwhile, “several agencies and groups are investigating the matter, including the Maryland attorney general’s office and the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association.”