Year Will Not Be Extended For Most Chicago Area Schools Affected By Swine Flu.
The Chicago Tribune (5/27, Malone) reports, “The swine flu outbreak that closed nearly three dozen schools in the Chicago area amid early concerns about containing the new virus is adding a wrinkle to end-of-school calendars.” Most of the schools that were closed “do not plan to push the school year later with makeup days, local authorities said.” Chicago area school officials “said the missed days will not be tacked on to the school year because, in most cases, a single school within a larger district shut down while the rest remained open.” Only absences that affect “an entire district must be recouped…said Marjorie Beck, a principal consultant with the state education agency.”
New York City DOE Seeks School Year Extension Waiver. The New York Daily News (5/27, Armaghan, et al.) reports, “It was back to class Tuesday for students at more than 20 schools closed because of swine flu fears, including one where an assistant principal died from the virus.” The city’s “Department of Education is seeking a waiver from the state so the school year doesn’t have to be extended past June 26 for closed schools.” Some schools that reopened Tuesday had been closed since as early as May 14.
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In the Classroom
Students In Baltimore Learn About Locally-Grown Foods From Well-Known Chefs.
The Baltimore Sun (5/26, Kelly) reported on the “Days of Taste” seminar that is currently being “offered at 17 Baltimore city and county schools.” The seminar “teaches children about what’s produced on Maryland farms, tells them about non-processed foods and encourages them to grow a little more adventurous at mealtime.” Last week, for instance, third-graders from Catonsville Elementary School visited “One Straw Farm in White Hall in northern Baltimore County,” where they “saw lettuce being started in the greenhouse and the growing fields.” According to the Baltimore Sun, “the instructors who donate their time” to the program “are some of [the city's] best-known chefs.” The seminar “is a project of the American Institute of Wine and Food, a nonprofit educational organization founded by television chef Julia Child, wine maker Robert Mondavi and others.”
Middle School Courses Combine Culinary Arts, Costume Design, And Business.
The Tampa Tribune (5/26, White) reported on “the culinary arts and costume design program at Progress Village Middle Magnet School for the Performing Arts, where acting and appetites mingle in an untraditional classroom setting filled with ovens, computers, refrigerators, sewing machines and dress mannequins.” Under the direction of Debbie Scourtes the “students learn the art of cooking and costume design,” and “in the classroom next door students study acting with drama teacher Tyler Leavitt.” The students put on dinner theater productions with the help of the two teachers, and “also hosted a Spring Fling food expo and fashion show” earlier this month. “During the expo, culinary arts students sold foods they produced in a challenging end-of-year project that incorporated their cooking abilities with computer, math and marketing skills.” In addition, “Once a month the students open the doors to Curtain Call Café, inviting teachers and staff to dine on a different style of international cuisine.”
California District To Teach Respect For Gays, Lesbians.
The San Francisco Chronicle (5/27, Tucker) reports, “The Alameda school board narrowly adopted an elementary school anti-bully curriculum Tuesday night intended to teach respect for gay and lesbian families and students.” As such, teachers in the Alameda school district will join those in “only a handful of Bay Area school districts” that “use the words ‘lesbian’ and ‘gay’ in fourth-grade classes.” While some spectators cheered “as the school board completed its 3-2 vote,” others “in the overflow audience were angered by the board’s decision to adopt the curriculum, which contains no opt-out provision for parents.” The new curriculum contains “six 45-minute lessons, one per year from kindergarten through fifth grade.” Younger students will learn about “the negative impacts of generic teasing. As students advance, the lessons introduce vocabulary such as gay, lesbian and bisexual, and include discussions related to diverse families and sexual orientation stereotypes.”
On the Job
Detroit Financial Manager, Teachers’ Union Work Together On Education Reform.
The Detroit News (5/26, Mrozowski) reported that on Tuesday, “Detroit Public Schools emergency financial manager Robert Bobb joined…with the head of the district’s teachers’ union and other state and national union leaders in a show of collaboration and a call for reform as the school system moves toward contract negotiations.” The district held a “training meeting…with all of its teachers to explore innovative instruction and teacher pay models used in other districts across the United States.” The Detroit News added that when Bobb “begins negotiations this month with the” teachers’ union, “finding new methods to improve student achievement” will be “at the forefront of the discussion.” The two sides will discuss, among other things, “peer review, differentiated pay systems, site-based school management and a chancellor district approach, such as the one in New York City schools.”
Law & Policy
Virginia Receives $806 Million From Education Stimulus.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch (5/27, Meola) reports that “Virginia now has access to $806 million in education stimulus funding to help local school districts back fill budget cuts and save teaching jobs.” The largest portion — $659 million — of the stimulus “will be used to maintain state support to K-12 education and colleges and universities and to mitigate the need to raise in-state tuition rates, according to Sens. Jim Webb (D) and Mark R. Warner (D).” In the fall, “the state can apply for an additional $397 million.” The rest of the money “will be put toward other projects, including construction at higher education facilities.” Meanwhile, “educators hope to compete for part of an additional $5 billion in stimulus money that will be awarded to states most aggressively trying to improve student achievement.”
Texas Teachers Would Receive $800 Annual Pay Raise Under Bill Approved By State Senate.
The Dallas Morning News (5/27, Stutz) reports, “Texas teachers would be in line for an $800-a-year pay raise under a school finance bill that the Senate passed late Tuesday.” The bill would provide an overall “average funding hike of just under three percent” for “school districts across the state,” which would be “paid for with $1.9 billion in new state aid over the next two years.” The legislation, which “was approved unanimously” by the Senate, would also “raise the threshold for determining which school districts must share their property tax revenues under Robin Hood provisions of the school finance system.” Robin Hood districts gave “more than $1 billion” last year “to help equalize funding across the state.”
Alabama Increases Dropout Age To 17.
WTVY-TV Dothan, AL (5/26, Araizza) reported that “Ozark City Schools Superintendent Michael Lenhart agrees with Governor Bob Riley’s (R) decision to raise the dropout age. Last week, the governor signed a bill upping the age to dropout from 16 to 17.” The law also requires that before a student drop out, he or she “attend an exit interview with a school administrator and a parent or guardian” and “sign a document showing they understand the consequences of leaving school early.” The Ozark school system is currently “below the 90-percent graduation rate,” but school officials “are hopeful the new law will increase the number of students graduating.”
Special Needs
Sensory Room Helps Calm, Stimulate Students With Special Needs At Florida Elementary School.
The Miami Herald (5/27, Mazzei) reports on “the new sensory room at Hollywood Park Elementary,” for special needs students, which is “part classroom, part indoor playground.” The purpose of the room is to “help calm anxious kids and stimulate nonresponsive ones during the school day.” In one “corner of the room” is “a vibrating mat for kids to lie down. For fine motor skills, there’s a tabletop sandbox with different textures and little shovels.” Moreover, “a tunnel to tumble through and brightly colored circles that look like lily pads and make noises when kids step on them” help “to improve large-muscle coordination.” And “across the room, a sound-responsive panel lights up to students’ vocalizations to encourage them to speak.”
One-Third Of Special Education Students In Virginia District Drop Out Of High School.
The Virginian-Pilot (5/27, Garrow) reports that “state statistics on dropouts released in March revealed that one-third of the special education students” in Suffolk Public Schools [VA] “who entered ninth grade for the first time in fall 2004 dropped out within four years.” The rate is “well above the state rate of 13.5 percent and the highest among all South Hampton Roads school divisions.” School officials say that “poor record keeping” may “have misidentified some students. … Despite those inconsistencies, school officials don’t deny there’s a problem. Now, they’re trying to find out why.” According to the data, “The special education dropouts were across several disability categories — from mild learning delays to more severe disabilities — and had no particular IQ scores.” District officials are currently “brainstorming new ways to prevent special education students from dropping out.”
School Finance
New Formula Would Increase Per-Pupil Funding To $68,750 In New Jersey Village.
New Jersey’s Star Ledger (5/27, Spoto) reports that under New Jersey’s “new school funding formula, the average cost per student in the tiny village of Loch Arbour is increasing to a whopping $68,750.” But school officials say that would be “impossible for homeowners to shoulder and will surely drive prospective homebuyers away.” Even though “the average home in Loch Arbour is assessed at $1.4 million,” the median household income is $74,250. And because the village “pays to send its pupils to schools in neighboring Ocean Township,” homeowners would have to pay “$1.6 million in education costs. The hike would mean a $12,000 annual tax increase for the average homeowner — just for the school portion of their property tax bills, which go out in August.” As such, “State Sen. Sean Kean (R-Monmouth) has drafted legislation phasing in the hike for Loch Arbour over five years” that “would require the state to pick up the difference.”
Also in the News
Study Shows That Attention Problems Strongly Impact Children’s Future Academic Success.
The Sacramento Bee (5/26, White) reported, “Six-year-olds who don’t pay attention well in class apparently struggle throughout their school years, and reach age 17 with lower math and reading scores than their peers,” according to a study published “in the June edition of the journal Pediatrics.” HealthDay (5/26, West) added that for the study, researchers from the University of California-Davis (UC-Davis) School of Medicine “used data” from a previous study in which investigators “followed more than 800 children from diverse racial and socio-economic backgrounds in the Detroit area.” Researchers “used information collected on 693 of these children, from ages six through 17,” and “found that attention problems — including symptoms of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) — had the strongest impact on a child’s future academic success.” The authors “suggested that school officials need to focus more resources on identifying and helping young children who are struggling with attention problems.”
Virginia Considers Eliminating Third-Grade History Test.
The Washington Post (5/28, Birnbaum) reports that on Thursday, “the Virginia Board of Education will take up eliminating the third-grade history test, a move state officials say would open up time for core subjects such as math and reading.” Schools in Virginia have administered the test for 11 years. “Forty multiple-choice questions cover material from kindergarten through third grade, which state officials say puts an unfair burden on the memories of young children.” Superintendent of Public Instruction Patricia I. Wright expects that the change would be popular among teachers and school administrators, “but some educators say that without test pressure forcing history standards to be taught, class time devoted to the subject could dwindle.” And “many Virginia history education proponents,” who “often complain that the multiple-choice format emphasizes rote memorization over analytical skills” agree that it’s better for the state to “have something than nothing.”
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In the Classroom
Solitude Seen As Necessary For Learning.
In a commentary for Education Week (5/27) Diana Senechal wrote that “unlike many who either praise” teenagers’ use of online networking, “or warn of its external dangers,” New York University education history professor Jonathan Zimmerman “brought up a rarely mentioned subject” in his “recent opinion piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer.” He focused on “the loss of solitude.” According to Senechal, “It is strange that we hear so little about solitude in the schools.” There is “so much emphasis on socialization and so little on aloneness.” But, she noted that “both are needed for learning and for life.” Other “forces” are also “tearing away at solitude. Schools bombard students and teachers with the rhetoric and practice of group work.” Consequently, “schools seem to have forgotten that students need ample quiet time for thinking, reading, and puzzling over problems.” Meanwhile, Senechal warns that “solitude should not become a fad; that would make some of us wish we had never brought it up at all.”
On the Job
North Carolina District’s Best Teachers Found To Transfer After Busing Changes.
Education Week (5/27, Viadero) reported, “The best teachers tend to leave when their schools experience an influx of African-American students, according to a study of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., school district published” Wednesday in the Journal of Labor Economics. For the study, “C. Kirabo Jackson, an associate professor of labor economics at Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y.,” looked at “patterns of teacher movement in Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools between 2002 and 2003… when the 137,000-student district ended its long-running policy of busing students to keep schools racially integrated.” He found that “at all levels of schooling, high-quality teachers — both black and white — were more likely to switch schools as the policy change began to take effect and student populations shifted.” But, Jackson said that it is unclear whether the teachers moved “to schools…so that they could be closer to their own suburban homes, or for higher salaries, or because they were drawn to certain types of students.”
Florida District’s Contract Provides More Planning Time For Teachers.
The St. Petersburg Times (5/28, Winchester) reports that “the Pinellas School Board ratified the working portion of a new teacher contract Tuesday, agreeing by a narrow margin to end the school day early every Wednesday beginning in August to provide teachers with” an additional hour of planning time. Furthermore, “middle and high school teachers will be required to prepare no more than two sets of lesson plans for their students in the coming school year,” and they “will work six out of seven periods each day.” The agreements comes “after 18 months of negotiations” between district officials and the teachers union. “The teachers ratified the contract last week.”
Manhattan Judge Rules In Favor Of Teacher In Corporal Punishment Case.
The New York Times (5/28, A22, Hernandez) reports, “When Glenn Storman, a guidance counselor at Public School 212 in Gravesend, Brooklyn, came across an unruly student cursing at a substitute teacher in 2004, he ordered the boy to ‘zip it’ and brandished a rolled-up piece of paper, thinking that would be the last he heard of the encounter.” Now, Storman “is embroiled in a legal dispute over allegations that he committed corporal punishment.” He received “an unsatisfactory rating” from the principal, and wants the rating to be erased. But “the [New York] Department of Education…has defended the rating, arguing that Mr. Storman did indeed touch the student.” A Manhattan judge “ruled in Mr. Storman’s favor” this month, “saying she did not find evidence of corporal punishment.” The Times points out that the ratings teachers receive from principals “can determine whether they are eligible for lucrative teaching opportunities outside of the normal school year.”
Law & Policy
Washington’s Education Reforms Said To Offer Case For Race To The Top Funds.
The Seattle Times (5/28) editorializes that “states making the most strides to transform their public schools will snag part of a $5 billion federal ‘Race to the Top’ fund meant to push innovation and reform.” And “Washington must aggressively go after this money.” According to the Seattle Times the state would be a strong competitor for Race to the Top funds because “the education-reform bill recently signed into law by Gov. Chris Gregoire (D) calls for improvements in preparing students for college and work, closing the achievement gap, and a database that tracks student and teacher performance.” Furthermore, “the state Board of Education has improved math and science standards. … And the Legislature authorized $4 million in the budget for technological improvements to the state’s testing system.” However, the Seattle Times points out, “if the applications run into trouble it will be because the state is long on good intentions and short on results.”
Oregon Legislature Approves Anti-Bullying Legislation.
The Oregonian (5/27) reported, “By a vote of 26-2, the Senate approved House Bill 2599, requiring school districts to establish clear, uniform policies to combat bullying and to appoint specific individuals to investigate incidents.” According to “a recent survey by the Oregon Students of Color Coalition…41 percent of eighth-graders in Oregon reported being subjected to name-calling, bullying or other harassment at school, with the highest rates among students of color, girls, and gays.” The bill will go to the governor for his signature.
Facilities
Arizona Parents, Education Leaders Concerned About School Inspection Oversights.
The Arizona Republic (5/28, Boehnke) reports that “for 13 years, the roof of a Tempe elementary school supported more weight than it was designed to bear before caving in without warning two months ago. Inspections had failed to uncover significant problems.” And “parents and educational authorities are concerned that recent roofing problems at…three Valley schools could indicate a larger, statewide pattern of schools in disrepair.” According to forensic engineer John Denny, school inspections “are usually done by people who do not have the training or the skills to detect structural problems.” State School Facilities Board Director John Arnold “says he intends to meet with experts and insurance-company representatives to review the findings from all three schools and design protocols that would consider all potential problems and warning signs.”
School Finance
Virginia School Officials Concerned About Flat, Reduced Budgets.
The Washington Post (5/28, Birnbaum) reports, “As the toughest school spending cuts in several years become reality July 1, Virginia education officials credit the federal stimulus law for helping them avoid more onerous reductions.” Nevertheless, “they are looking nervously to the next budget cycle.” Some “school officials…are concerned about the consequences of flat or reduced budgets as they struggle to accommodate enrollment growth.” For instance, while “Fairfax County schools are expecting 5,200 new students next fall,” the district’s budget has “a decrease of almost 1 percent from this year’s level,” and eliminated “800 staff positions,” increased “class sizes,” and froze employee salaries. Meanwhile, “Prince William school officials approved a $786 million spending plan this month, representing a 1.6 percent cut from current levels.” While “no staff members were laid off, and employees received a 2.9 percent salary increase,” the “average middle and high school class sizes will increase.”
Oklahoma City, Tulsa School Leaders Praised For Work On Curriculum Reform.
The Oklahoman (5/28) editorializes that “innovation” is “what U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan repeatedly says he’ll be looking for as his department awards special pots of federal stimulus money set aside for schools.” Some are concerned that “the approach will swap untested new ideas for solid old ones. And then there’s the not-so-small problem that judging the success of any innovation doesn’t happen quickly.” Because “school reform takes time,” the Oklahoman is “encouraged by efforts in Oklahoma City and Tulsa to leverage federal stimulus money to revamp curriculum for secondary schools.” Administrators in both districts have “described a partnership with two well-known education groups to keep what’s working and change what’s not.” It concludes that “this effort strikes us as a good and meaningful investment. And it’s another reminder that both cities are fortunate to have bright superintendents who are working with and on behalf of each other for the benefit of kids.”
Also in the News
Florida High School Students Protest On Behalf Of Suspended Classmates.
The St. Petersburg Times (5/28, Solochek) reports that three seniors from Hudson High School in Hudson, FL, “have taken the heat for taking over the school public address system on the last day of senior classes to tell all seniors to come to a stage near the cafeteria.” The three boys were suspended “from all further school activities, including graduation.” That decision, said Principal Dave LaRoche, “was not an easy” one, “but it was one that would stand.” Meanwhile, “assistant superintendent for high schools Jim Davis deemed the matter closed, saying that principals have the authority to suspend students up to 10 days for violating the student code of conduct.” On Wednesday afternoon, about “three dozen of their…classmates and friends held up banners,” chanting, “Let them walk!” One of the suspended students, senior Frank Serrano, said, “We take it almost as a personal insult when administration says three of us can’t walk. … We’re going to try our best to get them to change it.”
Group Starts Hunger Strike To Protest Los Angeles Teacher Layoffs.
In the Los Angeles Times’ (5/7) LA Now blog, Ruben Vives wrote, “A group of teachers and community activists plans to start a hunger strike [this week] in protest of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s plan to lay off thousands of teachers.” According to Lincoln High School teacher Sean Leys, who plans to participate in the strike, “the group is demanding a new budget from the district that will not include layoffs or class-size increases. It also wants the district use part of its federal stimulus money to avoid budget cuts.”
NEA in the News
Poorly-Performed Audits Do Not Help Educators Identify Problems, MEA President Says.
In a column for the Detroit News (5/28), Michigan Education Association president Iris Salters writes, “The debate over how to fix failing schools remains front and center in Lansing and at local school board meetings.” Yet, “many failing schools are not getting crucial information that could help turn them around.” Specifically, “audits that are supposed to identify what poorly performing schools are doing wrong are being done superficially, if at all.” And “failing schools no longer get intense attention from the state Department of Education,” including “comprehensive interviews and observations as well as the in-depth personal reviews by experienced auditors that lend crucial information.” The Michigan Education Association wants “to be — and should be — part of the solution,” but Salters points out that educators must be given “the tools to figure out the problem before [they] propose solutions.”
Arizona Mandate Aims To Reduce Number Of Students In ELL Classes.
The AP (5/29) reports, “A new mandate that will reduce the number of students who get special help to learn English has stirred up another controversy over Arizona’s 150,000 so-called English-language learners [ELL].” Previously, parents were asked to list “the primary language used in their home…the language that is most often used by their child, and” which language “the student first acquired.” Next year, however, schools must “only ask what the student’s primary language is. If the answer is English, schools are now required to place the student into a mainstream classroom without testing English proficiency.” According to Arizona schools Superintendent Tom Horne, “the change stems from too many children being identified as English learners because they are behind academically, not because they have problems with the language.” But “some…see Horne’s changes as a way to save money at the expense of students who can’t read, write or speak English well enough to achieve in school.”
The Arizona Republic (5/29, Kossan) adds, “Nearly 50,000 new students enroll in English-language programs in Arizona schools each year.” Yet it is “unknown how many students statewide would be affected by the new screening.”
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In the Classroom
Florida Officials Highlight Long-Term State Testing Gains.
The St. Petersburg Times (5/29, Marshall, et al.) reports, “Performance slipped this year for 10th graders on the high-stakes reading portion of the” Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT), “with large majorities of students still below grade level.” However, when test scores were released on Thursday, “state officials accentuated the positive Thursday, pointing to long-term gains in every subject since 2001.” Every Florida district except Pinellas “has improved its 10th grade reading score by 2 to 4 percentage points” for the “past five years.” Meanwhile, “elementary and middle school students gained 1 to 3 percentage points over last year in math, science and reading. And middle-schoolers statewide made a fourth straight year of improvements in reading, after years of stagnant scores.”
Report Suggests Changes To Maryland’s Math Curriculum.
WBAL-TV Baltimore (5/28) reported, “A consultant’s report released Thursday” by “consultants from a company called Achieve Inc.” sheds “light on what still needs to be done in the mathematics department of Maryland schools.” Achieve spokesman Matt Gandal said, “Too many young people, when they leave high school in Maryland, are not prepared for their next steps, whether that’s college or trying to get a good job. So, I think some hard questions need to be asked about what they are being taught.” Maryland educators say they will “review the recent report before deciding whether to change standards. The report suggested Maryland make changes in specific areas such as geometry and probability.”
Law & Policy
Sotomayor Seen As Exhibiting Smarts, Independence In Education Cases.
The Seattle Times (5/29) editorializes, “On the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Judge Sonia Sotomayor has exhibited judicial smarts and independence, offering her thoughts on cases even where she sided with the majority.” For instance, the 1999 case of Gant v. Wallingford Board of Education involved “the mid-year transfer of an African-American student at a public school in Wallingford, [CT]. The student’s family claimed the school…discriminated against the student by showing ‘deliberate indifference’ to racial hostility he encountered at the nearly all-white school. The school also demoted the boy to kindergarten from first grade.” While “Sotomayor sided with the majority in…rejecting the racial-harrassment claim,” she also “offered a forceful dissent of the panel’s conclusion that the transfer was not an act of racial discrimination.” Meanwhile, “In the 2006 2nd Circuit case, Frank G. v. Board of Education of Hyde Park, Sotomayor was part of a unanimous decision allowing parents to be reimbursed for private school tuition for a child with disabilities.”
New Jersey Supreme Court Upholds School Funding Formula.
The New York Times (5/29, A19, Hu) reports, “The New Jersey Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a new school financing formula that replaced a controversial one that had favored poor urban districts.” The old formula “concentrated education spending in 31 so-called Abbott districts,” providing less for “the state’s 584 other districts in suburban and rural areas. The new formula apportions money to all districts based on the characteristics of their students, like family income…and special academic needs.” It “was adopted by the state early last year in response to widespread complaints that the previous version.” According to Justice Jaynee LaVecchia in her written opinion, the state no longer must “provide supplemental money to the Abbott districts, which got their name from a long-running lawsuit about inequalities in school financing, Abbott v. Burke. But she also wrote that the formula must continue to be fully financed, and that it needed to be reviewed after three years.”
Texas Senate Rejects State BOE Nominee.
The AP (5/29, Stone) reports, “Senate Democrats on Thursday blocked the reappointment of the conservative chairman of the State Board of Education, which sets standards and policies for public schools.”
The Dallas Morning News (5/29, Stutz) adds that the Senate “Democrats decried” board member Don McElroy’s “lack of leadership and ‘endless culture wars’ over evolution and other volatile topics.” The vote went “along strict party lines” with the 19 Republicans voting in favor of the nomination and 11 of the 12 Democrats voting against it. “One Democrat abstained from the vote.” Republicans “rejected the criticism and accused the Democrats of holding an ‘inquisition’ against the College Station Republican for holding views shared by many Texans — including a Bible-based explanation for the origin of humans.” Because McLeroy did not get the two-thirds majority vote required for approval, “Gov. Rick Perry (R), who nominated McLeroy, will now have to select another member of the board to serve as chairman.” Meanwhile, McLeroy will keep “his seat on the board.” The Houston Chronicle (5/29, Scharrer) also covers the story.
States Seeking Education Stimulus Funds Should Embrace Innovation, Duncan Says.
The AP (5/28, Quaid) reported, “States will hurt their chance to compete for millions of federal stimulus dollars if they fail to embrace innovations like charter schools, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Thursday” during a visit to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia. Duncan “was responding to a question about Tennessee, where Democratic state lawmakers have blocked an effort to let more kids into charter schools.” According to the AP, the state is “a logical candidate for the stimulus money” because it “recently overhauled its graduation requirements, academic standards, and state tests” –all of which are education priorities for the Obama administration. However, Tennessee “has perhaps the most restrictive charter school law in the country.”
Facilities
Education Department Using Stimulus Funds To Encourage “Green” School Projects.
In the New York Times’ (5/28) Green Inc. blog, Libby Tucker wrote, “Faced with a large stock of deteriorating public school buildings, school districts across the country are experimenting with new construction and renovations that save energy as well as improve educational facilities.” For instance, at the Da Vinci Arts Middle School in Portland, OR, a “prototype green classroom addition” currently “under construction…includes natural daylighting, passive heating and cooling systems, solar roof tiles and other green features that yield a 70 percent efficiency improvement over Oregon building code requirements.” To encourage such efforts, the U.S. Department of Education will allow states to use some of the $48.6 billion for education provided under the stimulus bill for “school construction, renovation, and repair projects” that apply “to ‘green’ buildings.”
School Finance
Los Angeles Unified School District Cancelling Most Summer School Programs.
The Los Angeles Times (5/29, Mehta, Song) reports, “The Los Angeles Unified School District [LAUSD] announced Thursday it is canceling the bulk of its summer school programs, the latest in a statewide wave of cutbacks expected to leave hundreds of thousands of students struggling for classes.” According to LAUSD officials, “all summer school classes and most non-academic offerings such as playground and pool programs are being canceled at elementary and middle schools.” And at the high school level, “only credit-recovery courses in core requirements will be offered.” The cancellations will eliminate $34 million from the district’s budget, “although officials must cut almost $97 million more before July.”
Also in the News
Kansas Student Wins National Spelling Bee.
ABC News (5/29, News) reports, “The fourth time was the charm for spelling bee veteran Kavya Shivashankar, who won the Scripps National Spelling Bee Thursday night in Washington with the correct spelling of ‘Laodicean,’ which means lukewarm or indifferent in religion or politics.” The AP (5/29, White) notes that as first-place winner, Shivashankar took “home more than $40,000 in cash and prizes and, of course, the huge champion’s trophy.” The Economic Times (5/29) adds, “Tim Ruiter, 12, a seventh grade student from Centreville, Virginia was declared the runner-up, while Aishwarya Pastapur, 13, from Springfield in Illinois got the third spot.” In the Kansas City Star’s (5/28) Midwest Voices blog, editor Miriam Pepper wrote that Shivashankar “gives Kansas a welcome national reputation boost. Instead of garnering headlines for evolution flaps, a 13-year-old shows America an awe-inspiring talent in spelling expertise.”
Focusing on the event, the Washington Post (5/29, Birnbaum) reports that “the contest bore the trappings of an athletic event, with sweeping boom cameras, heavily made-up announcers, and 41 semifinalists, who had been winnowed from a field of 293.” The post also points out that “the high-gloss event, televised on ESPN and prime-time ABC, is perhaps the one time a year that sportscasters cover the English language with the same alacrity they do college football.” In the Boston Globe’s (5/29) Viewer Discretion blog, Joanna Weiss lists her “favorite things” about this year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee. She noted that “unlike some young professional athletes, these kids weren’t universally poised or preternaturally cheery.” Some cried, others “grimaced, and all of them were lovable.”
Parent Link Allows Parents To Access Interactive Academic Portfolio.
The New York Times (5/29, A19, Hernandez) reports that “after several months of delays, a Web site that offers an interactive portfolio of” New York City “public school students’ test scores, grades, and attendance rates will be available for all parents by the end of June, the Department of Education said on Thursday.” Parent Link, which “is available in nine languages,” was “developed by I.B.M.” as “part of an $80 million data and information initiative.” It will allow parents “to view overall course grades and scores on state tests, but not individual scores on class assignments.” They will also “be able to see attendance histories and look at the probability of a student passing state math and English exams, based on how they have scored on periodic city tests. It will also show how their child is doing compared with children at schools serving similar student populations.”
Forty-Six States Involved In Effort To Create Uniform Academic Standards.
The Washington Post (6/1, Glod) reports, “Forty-six states and the District of Columbia today will announce an effort to craft a single vision for what children should learn each year from kindergarten through high school graduation, an unprecedented step toward a uniform definition of success in American schools.” Currently, states decide on their own “what to teach in third-grade reading, fifth-grade math and every other class.” But the uniform standards movement “led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers” aims “to define a framework of content and skills that meet an overarching goal. When students get their high school diplomas, the coalition says, they should be ready to tackle college or a job.” Moreover, “the benchmarks would be ‘internationally competitive.’” After “the organizers of the effort agree to a proposal, each state would decide individually whether to adopt it.”
Education Week (6/1, McNeil) adds that as of last week, “the four states not on board…were Alaska, Missouri, South Carolina, and Texas.” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called the collaboration “a giant step. … It would have [been] unimaginable, this kind of thing, just a year or two ago,” he noted.
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In the Classroom
Preschool Drama Program Teaches Problem-Solving, Vocabulary.
The Dallas Morning News (6/1, Meyers) reports that preschoolers at the Carpe Diem school “attend a weekly drama class that retools the traditional pencil-and-paper curriculum.” Conducted “by Dallas-based Capers for Kids,” the program “is a rare form of art-driven schooling that takes place in few other preschools outside of North Texas.” It aims to “balance educational advancement with the playful aspects of childhood” by teaching “sequencing and…vocabulary through storytelling.” Students also tackle “problem-solving by throwing out impromptu lines” while developing confidence “and public speaking skills.” The Dallas Morning News notes that Capers for Kids founder Sherry Capers “started the program three decades ago as an extracurricular activity for elementary school students. But she found that younger children responded just as energetically to fairytale skits and superhero characters.”
Middle School Students In Kentucky Correspond With Soldier In Afghanistan Via Blog.
The New York Times /AP (6/1, A16) reports that “Aaron Connor, a Ballard Memorial High School graduate now serving near Ghazni City, Afghanistan, with the Illinois National Guard,” answers questions from “sixth-grade social studies students at Ballard County Middle School” via his blog.
Kentucky’s Courier Journal (5/30, Kinsey) added that “middle school teacher Ashley Bodell, who graduated with Connor in 2001, arranged the correspondence between him and Cathey Seaton’s social studies classes.” Seaton had first planned to have her students write letters by hand, but finally settled on the internet correspondence. “Student Logan Pickett helped design the blog. He included a photo of [an] ice storm” that hit the area “in January and a local weather map.”
Kindergartners Create Class Podcasts To Present Research Projects.
The Kingsport (TN) Times News (5/31, Wagner) reported that at Miller Perry Elementary School, “all 85 or so kindergarten students” learned to podcast this year. And students in Jamie Whitinger’s class collaborated on a series of podcasts. “For the most recent of Whitinger’s class podcasts, viewable on the Web sites of the school and their teacher, the class split into two self-chosen groups: planets and animals.” Students found information about their subjects using the Google search engine. Whitinger also taught her students “which photographs and images they could re-post as podcasts and which they could not.” After gathering the information, “students copied and pasted their research into a PowerPoint program, afterward pulling it into a Windows Movie Maker program. … The last component was the spoken words of the students, explaining what they had found and what the photographs and images meant.” Principal Karen Broyles said that she plans for the entire school to begin podcasting in August.
Students In Arizona District’s After-School Ballet Program Raise Reading And Math Scores.
The Arizona Republic (6/1, Smokey) reports that instructor Camden Lloyd’s after school ballet program “has taught hundreds of children from needy families the fine art of classical dance. It was named a 2009 A+ Exemplary Program by the Arizona Educational Foundation.” Aimed at “third- [through] eighth-graders at Clarendon and Encanto elementary schools and Osborn Middle School,” the program “is funded primarily by grants, school tax credits, and donations.” Participants, including both male and female students, are provided with “shoes and clothing…a healthful snack, a library of ballet literature, a nutrition teacher, and a teacher to help with study hall.” Since the program began, participants “have read, learned about, and seen performances of” various popular plays. According to “Sindi Westberg, the Osborn District’s resource developer…this year, for the first time, the district extracted how students in the program performed academically.” Officials found that “reading and math scores” were about eight points higher for ballet program participants “than the rest of the school.”
On the Job
“Successful” Public Schools Said To Have Teacher Pay Programs Overseen By Principals.
Columnist Jay Mathews writes in the Washington Post (6/1), “It is hard for me to find a school leader with a track record for raising student achievement who does not admire almost everything Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee is doing with the D.C. schools.” According to Mathews, “Rhee is right when she says that the standard way of assessing and compensating teachers is a mess.” As such, she has “proposed paying teachers as much as $135,000 a year based on achievement gains,” among other criteria…as long as they are willing to forgo tenure protection.” Mathews acknowledges that “the idea of” merit pay “makes sense to many people.” But, he adds, if merit pay is “done in the public and scrutinized way indicated by Rhee and the president, it could ruin the team spirit that has produced the most successful public schools.” Those schools often allow “carefully selected and trained principals” control over “decisions [about] salary and other matters.”
Law & Policy
Supreme Court Expected To Decide On Reimbursement For Private Special Education.
The New York Times (6/1, A14, Lewin) reports, “In a case with potential financial repercussions for school districts and families alike, the United States Supreme Court will soon decide when public schools must reimburse parents of special-education students for private-school tuition.” The Supreme Court case centers on “a struggling Oregon high school student…whose parents enrolled him in a $5,200-a-month residential school after he became a heavy marijuana user and ran away from home.” The student “was found ineligible for special-education services at his high school in the Forest Grove School District” despite his “history of behavioral problems.” According to the Times, “disability rights advocates” and “the federal Department of Education” agree “that the law must allow such reimbursement, even for children who were never in special education.” But “school districts…contend that paying for private school for students whose parents enrolled them without district consent…diverts precious resources from the millions of special-education students served in the public schools.”
Education Advocates Propose National World Class Schools Act To Replace NCLB.
In an opinion piece for the Washington Post (5/30), former secretaries of labor William Brock and Ray Marshall and National Center on Education and the Economy president Marc Tucker wrote, “The key to U.S. global stature after World War II was the world’s best-educated workforce. But now the United States ranks No. 12, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and today’s younger generation is the first to be less educated than the preceding one.” The authors “propose the National World Class Schools Act to replace” No Child Left Behind (NCLB), in order to get the US on the track toward improved education. Brock, Marshall, and Tucker list several guidelines states would have to meet in order to receive federal education funds under the National World Class Schools Act. They include getting “outstanding students to go into teaching and” treating “them like professionals” and providing “high-quality training” to schools “whose students are not on track to succeed.”
Nevada Senate Unanimously Passes Board Of Education Reform Bill.
The Las Vegas Sun (6/1, Ryan) reports that “a bill to overhaul the hierarchy of education has sailed through the [Nevada] Senate 21-0 after its sponsor said it would position Nevada to make future improvements in the public schools.” According to “Senate Majority Leader Stephen Horsford (D)…Senate Bill 330 calls for closer evaluation of how the students are progressing or not progressing.” The legislation would replace the “10-member state Board of Education” with “an elective-appointive board.” One board member would be elected “from each of the three congressional districts.” Another would be appointed by the governor, “the Legislature would select two persons, and the Nevada System of Higher Education would name one non-voting member.” Moreover, “many of the education advisory committees would be eliminated” under SB 330.
Oklahoma Law Will Ease Career Switchers’ Transition To Teaching.
The Oklahoman (5/31) editorialized, “We wouldn’t expect teacher unions to get excited about the idea of more teachers coming to the profession via non-traditional routes. … But that’s part of what ails education — it’s too old school.” Legislation was recently signed into law, allowing “teachers certified through the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence to be hired in Oklahoma schools.” This “program…is designed for professionals who want to change careers” and will open “the door for school administrators to cast a wider net when searching for teachers.” According to the Oklahoman, “Good teachers don’t just come from colleges of education, and it’s about time the education sector finally left behind that mind-set.” It concluded that “principals are tasked with hiring the best applicant for the job available. Maybe that’s a teacher with alternative certification. Maybe it’s not. But administrators should embrace the possibilities.”
Special Needs
Virginia’s Guidelines On Student Restraint, Seclusion Do Not Apply To Public Schools.
Virginia’s Daily Press (5/31, Grimes) reports, “At first glance, Virginia looked reasonably good in a scathing federal report on the use of restraints and seclusion rooms in public and private schools released this month by the Government Accountability Office.” According to GAO officials, even though “no federal laws govern the use of restraints and seclusion on students…17 states, including Virginia, had regulations.” Furthermore, “none of the report’s case studies originated in Virginia.” Still, state Department of Education spokeswoman Julie Grimes pointed out that the guidelines only apply to private schools and that “no state law” governs “the use of restraints…in the state’s public elementary, middle, and high schools.” In 2005, “the state Education Department developed guidelines…to help districts develop policies.” However, “in April, only 38 districts had them.”
Also in the News
American Indian Charters Among Highest Performing Schools In California.
The Los Angeles Times (6/1, Landsberg) reports that “not many schools in California recruit teachers with language like this: ‘We are looking for hard working people who believe in free market capitalism. … Multicultural specialists” and “ultra liberal zealots…need not apply.” But the “American Indian Public Charter and its two sibling schools” often “mock liberal orthodoxy.” At these schools, most students are “poor, wear uniforms, and are subject to disciplinary procedures redolent of military school.” And, “school administrators take pride in their record of frequently firing teachers they consider to be underperforming.” According to the Times, “It would be easy to dismiss American Indian as one of the nuttier offshoots of the…charter school movement.” But, “by standard measures, they are among the very best in California.” While the “statewide average” Academic Performance Index “for middle and high schools is below 750,” the American Indian School surpass even the state target of 800 with an API of 967. “Its two siblings…are not far behind.”