The Salt Lake (UT) Tribune (11/9, Checkoway) reported on the nonprofit arts education program Art Works for Kids!, founded by Beverley Taylor Sorenson, and funded “through her philanthropic foundation and personal donations.” Sorenson “has been supporting arts education in a number of Utah schools…for more than a dozen years.” Although she “has donated more than $20 million of her own money to K-6 Utah schools,” Sorenson has also “worked to secure state funding for elementary arts specialists.” And “last year, Utah lawmakers budgeted nearly $16 million to create a four-year pilot program,” through which “59 dance, theater, art, and music teachers” will be placed “in 49 Utah elementary schools.” The goal “of the Sorenson program is to integrate arts education into school curriculum, and in turn, also teach core subjects in the arts classroom.”

The Washington Post (11/10, B2, Strauss) points out that although students in schools throughout the D.C. area do not read the same literature in their Advanced Placement (AP) English Literature and Composition classes, “their teachers have the same goal: for students to learn how to connect text to meaning through skills assessed on the AP exam in May.” The class curriculum follows “guidelines from the nonprofit College Board,” and is “dictated by which books are in the storeroom and by what teachers prefer teaching.” According to the Post, “the AP test is important not only because it is seen as a measure of teacher success but also because students who score well get college credit at some schools.”

        Author Shares Tips For Helping Young People Enjoy Literature. The Washington Post (11/10, B2) features an interview with Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours, regarding “young people and literature.” Cunningham said that “helping kids to learn to love literature is not all that different from helping someone you are dating learn to love you.” He says that educators should ask “What is going to feel sort of challenging but interesting and compelling to [the date]? What is going to make them want to date you again?” When asked, “Where do you start to build a curriculum they would appreciate,” Cunningham suggested starting with American literature, because, he said, “we are members of the world community and we are also Americans.” He added that there are about 300 books “that no high school graduate should miss reading.” But, Cunningham says, “you don’t want to overwhelm them. It gives them a bad feeling about the whole prospect of reading. Challenge, yes, but not overwhelmed.”

The Baltimore Sun (11/10) reports that Baltimore “school officials say they expect resistance from parents in the coming weeks as the school board contemplates a proposal to shorten spring break.” Spring break is currently a six-day vacation in the district. But, “under the proposed change, the new break would run three days — Thursday, Friday, and the following Monday.” The change comes “in response to several factors, including a desire to shorten the school year, a need to create more time for summer construction projects, a need to add instruction days leading up to the High School Assessments, and more time at the end of the school year so parents and students can plan to pursue summer school courses.” Still, the school board acknowledges the drawbacks of “shortening spring break.” They include “less time for high school students to visit colleges, the need for a longer break at that point in the year for teachers and students,” and “the use of the time by some families for vacations.”

The New York Times (11/10, A16, Brown) reports that “the old-fashioned school bake sale…is fast becoming obsolete in California, a result of strict new state nutrition standards for public schools that regulate the types of food that can be sold to students.” Under the guidelines, which “took effect in July 2007,” schools cannot sell snacks that contain “more than 35 percent sugar by weight and derive…more than 35 percent of their calories from fat” or “more than 10 percent of their calories from saturated fat.” And even though “sports drinks, which can contain almost as much sugar as soda, are still allowed in middle and high schools, but sodas, including diet sodas, will be banned from all schools next year.” The Times notes, “The regulatory focus on school nutrition has been gaining ground nationwide,” and between “500 to 600 [U.S.] school districts…now have policies that limit the amount of fat, trans fats, sodium, and sugars in food sold or served at school.”

        According to the Chicago Tribune (11/10, Hedges, Napolitano) reports, “school lunches are increasingly featuring local produce and healthy foods as administrators battle rising food prices and expanding student waistlines.” The push to put “produce into a few California schools is now active in 2,000 school districts in 39 states, according to the National Farm to School project.” In May, “the movement got a boost…when Congress approved a long-delayed farm bill allocating more than $1 billion over the next five years for a fresh fruit and vegetable program.” Meanwhile, many “districts have removed vending machines, snack bars, and a la carte lines” from schools. The Boston Globe (11/10, Dreilinger) reports on the fresh food and vegetable program at schools in Somerville, MA.

The Shreveport (LA) Times (11/10, Welborn) reports on the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) at Mansfield High School in DeSoto, LA. TAP is “a teacher leadership program that targets student achievement. According to DeSoto schools Superintendent Walter Lee, teachers at Mansfield High and North DeSoto Middle School “are seeing improved grades among students, particularly at mid-term testing. … But it results from improvement at the faculty level, he added.” TAP offers “teachers [the] opportunity to take on more responsibility and get compensated for it.” It also offers “ongoing school-based professional development during the day and…weekly cluster group meetings and instructionally focused accountability that ties teaching skills to student achievement.” In addition, “teachers also can be rewarded with bonuses…at the end of the three-year program after achievement results are analyzed.”

The New York Times (11/8, A23, Hernandez) reports, “Recent efforts to get more black and Hispanic students into New York City’s elite public high schools have fallen short, with proportionately fewer of them taking the admissions exam and even lower percentages passing it.” Of the “21,490 public school students who last year took the exam,” only “six percent of blacks and seven percent of Hispanics were offered admission, compared with 35 percent of Asians and 31 percent of white students.” Deputy Mayor Dennis M. Walcott “said the data showed there was work to be done both to get black and Hispanic students to take the test and to help them pass it.” Currently, the city offers a test-prep institute, which “was a core part of the city’s strategy to diversify the ranks of the elite schools. But the intensive program has been hampered by a Supreme Court decision last year that ordered districts to remain race-neutral in efforts to diversify schools.”

On the front of its Metro section, the Washington Post (11/8, B1, Chandler) reported, “After nearly five years of exhaustive research and parent activism, an effort in Fairfax County to rearrange the daily routes of more than 1,100 school buses and shift high school start times later is in jeopardy because of the school system’s projected $220 million budget deficit.” School “board members are asking” Superintendent Jack D. Dale “to find a way to change the start schedule and bus routes for the lowest cost.” The delayed school start time would require “rerouting one of the nation’s largest bus fleets, which provides transportation for 127,000 eligible riders to nearly 200 schools each day at a projected cost of more than $120 million for the next fiscal year.” But, costs notwithstanding, “many School Board members and thousands of parents agree that delaying the 7:20 a.m. bell that starts the day for most high school students would give the teenagers extra sleep that would help their academic performance and well-being.”

Florida’s St. Petersburg Times (11/9, Matus) reported, “By March 1, all 258 state-approved tutoring companies must be graded on an A-to-F scale, just like students and schools, according to a new law signed by [Florida] Gov. Charlie Crist (R).” The tutoring companies “are offering services through a mandate in the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, which requires that low-scoring kids in high-poverty schools get access to free, private tutoring.” The grading system has not yet been developed, “but the law emphasizes test scores and learning gains.” According to the St. Petersburg Times, “many providers support the concept. ‘Schools are held accountable. Why shouldn’t we be?’ [asked] Allison Parrott, co-owner of FUNdamentals Free Tutoring in Palm Harbor, which serves 250 students in six districts.”

The Virginian-Pilot (11/10, Wilson) reports on the Work Experience Program at Ocean Lakes High School in Virginia Beach, in which students with special needs earn credit for working. Brian Mann, the special education department chairman at Ocean Lakes High, said that the program “gives [students] a great opportunity for when they graduate to hopefully get a job and continue on into some kind of employment track, so they have a future when they get out of school.” The Virginian Pilot points out that “most school districts in [the] Hampton Roads” region of Virginia “have similar programs.”

Connecticut’s Norwich Bulletin (11/10, Snyder) reports on the I CARE — Introducing Children to Acceptance through Reading and Education — program, founded by Kim Piro, the parent of an autistic student. The goal of the five-year-old program is to teach students “how to approach or interact with” children with special needs. I-CARE sends volunteers into elementary schools to read books to students about “a variety of special needs” such as autism, “downs syndrome, spina bifida, cerebral palsy, kids in wheelchairs,” and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. “Piro arranges for the books to be available in the elementary school libraries. She has formed discussion questions, which are stapled into the back of each book, to facilitate the experience.”

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel (11/9, Freeman) reported that school bullies “spell all sorts of trouble for students and teachers. But their reign of campus terror is under assault.” On Wednesday, the Palm Beach County School Board “tentatively adopted its first policy targeting bullying and harassment of all types, including cyberbullying, in accordance with a new state law.” The policy mandates “prompt investigations of alleged incidents; penalties as serious as suspension and expulsion for making false accusations of bullying or retaliating against anyone reporting a genuine bullying incident; and immediate notice to the parents of the bullies and their victims.” It “also includes protection concerning a student or employee’s race, religion, sexual orientation and other categories.”

The New York Times (11/10, A45, Navarro) reports, “New York City officials violated state environmental law when they began building a school complex on a contaminated site in the South Bronx without first coming up with a plan to ensure that students and the public would not be exposed to pollutants in the future, a state judge has ruled.” In 2007 a group of parents filed a lawsuit in an effort “to force the School Construction Authority to conduct a more comprehensive environmental review for the multischool campus” in Mott Haven. The group contended that the city went “ahead with the project without a plan to monitor air quality and check for other environmental problems after the city cleaned up the site.” On Friday, “city officials said…that the court ruling would not derail construction of the Mott Haven school campus, a complex of four secondary schools and athletic facilities scheduled to open in the fall of 2010.”

The New York Times (11/10, A1, Hakim) reports that New York Gov. David A. Paterson (D) “said in an interview on Sunday that he would almost certainly seek…midyear reductions in school aid to address New York’s worsening fiscal condition.” The Times points out that “Cutting school aid in the middle of the school year, if it comes to pass, will represent an about-face from the sharp increases undertaken by former Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) to end years of court challenges by advocacy groups that contended that New York City schools were being shortchanged by Albany.” And the cuts “are sure to be contentious. Unions representing teachers…are among the most powerful special interests in Albany and have waged high-profile publicity campaigns in the past to ward off such cuts.”

The Tennessean (11/11) reports, “Tennessee schools improved their performance on their annual report card this year, but education officials expect scores to drop when the state raises standards next school year.” The report card “includes standardized test scores, year-to-year progress reports, and federal No Child Left Behind performance data for the state’s 1,718 schools.” This year, “schools statewide earned A’s in math and reading and B’s in social studies and science. Last year’s only A was in math with B’s in all other subjects.” Yet, only “336 elementary and middle schools scored straight A’s” this year, compared to “493 in 2006-07 and 383 in 2005-06.” Although some “education officials said they were pleased with their schools’ performance,” this year, next year “new, more rigorous standards will be introduced…and schools’ scores will almost certainly drop regardless of their progress.”

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Indiana District Proposes Converting High School Gymnasium Into Classrooms.

The Fort Wayne (IN) Journal-Gazette (11/10) reported, “Fort Wayne Community Schools board members will appoint a project architect to oversee renovations at Wayne High School, where a New Tech program will open next fall.” The school has “a project-based curriculum that involves students meeting in groups, working extensively with technology, and having their work reviewed by their classmates.” Renovations include “remodeling an existing gymnasium into classroom space” and converting additional gym space “based on the number of students who enroll in the program.”

In the Classroom

Tennessee Schools Improve Overall Performance On State Report Card.