More Students Receiving Free School Lunches.
The CBS Evening News (6/11, story 11, 0:15, Couric) reported, “A new report says more than 16 million school kids get free lunches in this recession. That’s up more than six percent in a year. The cost to taxpayers, about $50 million.”
USA Today (6/11, Eisler, Weise) reported, “Nearly 20 million children now receive free or reduced-price lunches in the nation’s schools, an all-time high, federal data show, and many school districts are struggling to cover their share of the meals’ rising costs.” Data from the U.S. Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) show that, “through February, nationwide enrollment in free school lunch programs was up 6.3% over the same time last year,” and “demand in some states has climbed at an even greater rate: Enrollment in free lunch programs jumped almost 17% in California, and several states – Arizona, New Jersey, Utah and Vermont – also saw more than 10% growth.” FNS Administrator Julie Paradis said that “many new enrollees are believed to be first-timers from families hit by the recession.” While “the federal government pays schools $2.57 for each free lunch served,” the School Nutrition Association says “the average food and labor cost for each meal is about $2.92.”
In the Classroom
California School Suggests Motivation Is Key To Helping At-Risk Students.
In a front-page story, the San Francisco Chronicle (6/11, A1, Tucker) reports that Palo Alto’s Eastside College Preparatory School is “a Cinderella story with an academic record any school, public or private, would envy.” It “shows one way to set at-risk students squarely on the academic path to success, closing the seemingly unmovable achievement gap between poor and often minority students and their white, Asian and wealthier peers.” Founded without a building, for the last decade it’s “had a 100 percent graduation rate, with every graduate heading to four-year colleges.” While “the admission process is selective,” it’s based on motivation, not grades or test scores. However, “public schools will have a hard time following Eastside’s recipe for success,” as the school receives donations of $17,000 per year for each child to pay for the program. Still, Phil Halperin, president of the Silver Giving Foundation, which has helped fund the school for the past 10 years, said that “a key is believing that the students can make it, and that’s part of the recipe public schools can follow.” He added, “It takes a really dedicated staff.” The school’s “teachers earn $45,000 to $90,000 annually, on par with public school salaries.”
Louisiana’s Proposed “Career Diploma” Criticized.
The Baton Rouge Advocate (6/12, 7A, Sentell) reports that three national education groups criticized “legislation that would offer public high-school students a new curriculum to try to trim Louisiana’s dropout rate.” The legislation “would offer high-school students a new curriculum and a ‘career diploma’ for those that meet the requirements,” but “the groups said the new courses would be less rigorous than those offered now” and “may end up lowering expectations for Louisiana’s students at the very time other states are raising their standards.”
California Governor Pushes For Digital Textbooks.
The Christian Science Monitor (6/12, Farrell) reports that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) “is taking a page from high school science books in an effort to shrink California’s $24 billion budget gap. In fact, he wants to take the entire book – and do away with it.” According to the Monitor, “By next fall, Governor Schwarzenegger intends to make free, open-source digital textbooks available for high school math and science classes throughout California, a move that he says will help reduce the more than $350 million the state spends annually on educational materials. Some critics doubt the idea will result in any immediate cost savings – and question a plan that might require investment in technology and teacher training at a time when schools face deep budget cuts.”
Pediatric Association Recommends Anti-Bullying Program.
The AP (6/11, Johnson) reports, “The American Academy of Pediatrics wants doctors to take an active role in preventing bullying in schools” and gives doctors tips in an updated policy being published in the July issue of its journal, Pediatrics. The policy says that “doctors should tell parents to talk to their children about bullying, teach children how to resolve conflicts,” and “volunteer to talk about the topics at schools, churches and youth organizations.” The policy also says the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, “a European program that emphasizes the role of bystanders in preventing bullying in schools,” might “be a good model for prevention efforts in the U.S.” It “teaches children that bullies are kids with problems and bystanders can protect victims.” Dr. Robert Sege of Boston Medical Center, who also helped write the policy update, said that “schools that use the program teach children that ‘we take care of our own.’”
Students, Including Witnesses, Parents, And Schools Can Be Financially Accountable For Bullying. The Bakersfield Californian (6/12, Nachtigal, Wenner) reports, “Students, including minors, and their parents can be held financially accountable for bullying allegations.” Student can be liable, “even if they are witnesses or simply know about such incidents, but don’t tell authorities.” In a case that was just settled, on a class trip, five upperclassmen from the Stockdale High debate team encased a ninth-grader “in plastic wrap and bound him tightly with duct tape.” The five filled the next half-hour with “mockery and threats” and took pictures, which they showed to other students. The “upperclassmen were expelled. They and two other students, their parents and the Kern High School District paid $260,000 to settle a civil lawsuit filed by the boy’s father.”
Maryland County’s Taskforce Says Suspensions Don’t Improve Student Discipline.
The Maryland Business Gazette (6/11, King) reports that the Prince George’s County, Maryland school system’s task force on suspensions and expulsions found that “suspensions are ineffective in improving student discipline and are applied unevenly as a ‘reflex response’ to infractions.” Task force member Phil Lee said, “Suspensions have become a way to become legitimately truant.” Board members called for “alternatives to out-of-school suspensions, except for the students who are considered dangerous to the school” and such as a “program in some schools that allows students to spend their suspension days being educated and counseled by local nonprofit organizations.”
Study Finds Commonalities In Successful, Rural Alabama Schools.
The Daily Yonder (6/11, Bishop) reports that the Center for Rural Alabama issued a report, “Lessons Learned From Rural Schools.” The report’s authors “combed through this economically troubled landscape to find 10 elementary schools that were succeeding.” They requires that “test scores had to be well above the state average”; at least 65 percent of their students had to be eligible for a free lunch (to eliminate economic outliers); and the schools couldn’t be close geographically. The report found that the successful schools are integrated into the community, with “local institutions cooperat[ing] with the schools.” Also, they have “something in the air;” they’re clean and creative in their ambiance and activities. The schools’ “teachers understood the children because they understood the rural life.” Also, on a Myers Briggs personality indicator examination, the “teachers are, by nature, introverts, even if they can become extroverted in leading a class. And they found that teachers’ personalities were of the type that resisted change.”
On the Job
Indiana School District Delays School Starts For Professional Development Time.
The Lafayette (IN) Journal and Courier (6/11, Watling) reports that the Tippecanoe School Corp. school board on Wednesday approved starting elementary and middle schools “20 minutes later this fall to make time in the morning for staff meetings and professional development.” This will allow elementary and middle school teachers to have “one half-hour of professional development each morning” for “everything from bringing in speakers to staff meetings to working on school improvement plans.” The “school principals who spoke to board members Wednesday said they were 100 percent behind the idea.” Cole Elementary Principal Mike Pinto said that we want students “to be exposed to the best, most rigorous instruction that meets their needs. We can’t do this without this time.”
Strategies To Deal With Low-Performing Teachers Outlined.
Sue Shellenbarger wrote in The Juggle blog for Wall Street Journal (6/11), “Education Secretary Arne Duncan is out beating the drum for nationwide school reform, talking recently on NPR about how schools can do a better job of weeding out bad teachers. The interview rocketed me back in time to a dark chapter for my family – the year of the bad teacher. … Of course, a large majority of teachers are well-qualified. Sometimes, parents get only a child’s side of the story and jump to wrong conclusions about who’s at fault. Also, school officials “warn that if parents rush too quickly to rescue a child from classroom challenges, they risk producing a child too fragile to weather life’s storms. But in other cases, like my daughter’s, parents aren’t aware, until it’s too late, when changes truly are needed in the classroom.”
Teacher Fired Over Allegedly Preaching In Classroom.
The AP (6/11) reports, “An Ohio school teacher fired over accusations that he preached Christianity in class says in a $1 million lawsuit that his free speech and civil rights were violated. John Freshwater, an eighth-grade teacher, also says he was harassed because of his religion, was defamed and suffered a hostile work environment.” The Mount Vernon school board “fired Freshwater last year, citing an internal investigation that found he had preached his Christian beliefs in class, in violation of the traditional separation of church and state.”
Law & Policy
WPost: DC Schools Chancellor Right To Push Hard For Education Reforms.
The Washington Post (6/12) editorializes, “You can list Michelle A. Rhee’s accomplishments since becoming D.C. schools chancellor two years ago today, and they run more than 10 pages.” Yet ask her “to grade her tenure, and she volunteers an F. She judges her performance solely on whether the children in her charge are getting the education they deserve. Better than anyone, she knows they aren’t.” The Post adds that teachers’ union officials and their city council allies seek “to nibble away at the mayoral control that has allowed Mayor Adrian M. Fenty — much to his credit — to give the chancellor the support and resources she needs.” Rhee “should not have to spend time fighting the efforts of those who would hold her back, and the District’s children along with her.”
Bush Advisor Defends NCLB.
In an op-ed in Education Week (6/11), Alexander Kress, the senior adviser on education to President George W. Bush during the consideration and passage of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, writes, “Diane Ravitch’s evidence for ‘killing off’ the No Child Left Behind Act (“Time to Kill ‘No Child Left Behind,” June 17, 2009) really comes down to her shrewd and misleading comparison of student-performance data on the National Assessment of Educational Progress from 1999 to 2004 with the NAEP data from 2004 to 2008.” Ravitch “fails to mention” that “two-plus years of NCLB are in the base period she’s comparing against the NCLB period.” Also, “she fails to offer any sort of hypothesis for why 1999-2004 had strong results.” As “the standards-based reform movement kicked into gear in the mid-’90s,” Kress asserts, “it’s safest either simply to say both periods were relatively strong or” that the two periods “should be joined together for analytical purposes, since similar policies were being administered throughout the decade.” Kress concludes, “The No Child Left Behind Act has worked.”
Also in the News
Obama Writes Note Explaining Student’s Absence.
NBC Nightly News (6/11, story 10, 1:00, Williams) reported, “A man who had a question for the President explained he brought his young daughter along, but she had to skip her last day at school to attend the town meeting. The President was worried and offered to help.” President Barack Obama was shown saying, “Do you need me to write a note?” Williams added, “And he did. The President delivered the note in person to the little girl who, of course, thought better of it, made a copy for her teacher and kept the original for herself.”
Georgia School Officials Fired, Reassigned For Changing Test Answers.
The AP (6/11, Turner) reports that suburban Atlanta elementary school principal James Berry resigned and assistant principal Doretha Alexander “has been reassigned because they changed answers on fifth-grade standardized tests to improve scores and help the school meet federal achievement standards” and avoid penalties under federal No Child Left Behind standards. “State officials said no students are under suspicion.” Kathleen Mathers, head of the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement, said, “We don’t think kids cheated.” As yet, no complaint has yet been filed with the Professional Standards Commission.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (6/12, Badertscher) reports, “According to state officials, someone deliberately erased a high percentage of wrong answers on student answer sheets at…four schools and filled in the correct ones, causing passing rates on the state’s Criterion-Referenced Competency Test to spike.” Mathers said that “officials in all four school systems have been kept abreast of the state’s investigation and have been given until the July meeting of the state Board of Education to officially respond to the investigation’s findings.”
Florida’s Data Warehouse Tracks Student Progress From Primary School To Workforce.
Education Week (6/11, Aarons) reports that “Florida has been hailed as one of the nation’s bright spots in the use of longitudinal data” because it has built “an information-rich ‘data warehouse’ that connects K-12, postsecondary, and workforce information.” The data is being used by “educators and policymakers at the state, district, and school levels…to improve schools.” Access to student information has also been given to “students and parents…to help them plan for a future that includes a college degree.” And, “because the data system is linked with Florida’s postsecondary institutions, high schools find out the percentage of their students who must take remedial courses, the percentage that took and passed freshman math and English courses, and the percentage who maintained at least a 2.0 GPA as their college careers continued.”
In the Classroom
Schwarzenegger Seeks To Replace Textbooks With Online Learning Materials.
The AP (6/11) reports, “In the state that gave the world Facebook, Google, and the iPod, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says forcing California’s students to rely on printed textbooks is so yesterday.” He has “recently launched an initiative to see if the state’s 6 million public school students can use more online learning materials, perhaps saving millions of dollars a year in textbook purchases.” Suppliers have been asked to submit proposals for math and science curriculum “to state officials by next week. The materials that survive state review will be made available to school districts by Aug. 10.” However, USA Today points out, “Schwarzenegger’s plan will probably not produce the budget bonanza he envisions — at least not anytime soon. The online material would supplement textbooks that teachers already use, meaning California will continue buying traditional books.”
Virginia District Introduces Anti-Gang Education In Elementary Schools.
The Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot (6/11, Wittmeyer) reports that the Chesapeake schools wish to extend anti-gang lessons from high school and middle school to elementary school. So “starting this fall, students in grades three to five will have gang prevention and awareness classes,” as “part of a series of steps Chesapeake schools have taken since the School Board retreat in January, when the board discussed ways to prevent gang activity in schools. The Police Department also has conducted sessions with school administrators, and new teachers and student council members have been instructed to watch a presentation on recognizing gangs and gang members.” Anita James, director of elementary curriculum and instruction, said that “the lesson plans haven’t been completed…and teaching elementary schoolers about gangs isn’t the same as teaching older students. Some might not understand, she said, but they can learn to deal with specific situations and about the concept of gangs.”
New York Elementary School Adds “SMART Table” Technology To Classroom.
WBGH-TV Binghamton, NY (6/10) reported that while many schools are now “equipped with SMARTBoards — the interactive whiteboard computer that is revolutionizing classroom instruction,” Horace Mann Elementary School in Binghamton “is taking the SMART technology a step further by using a brand-new ‘SMART Table,’ which allows up to four students to use the interactive computer simultaneously.” The school’s technology coordinator will spend “the next six months writing curriculum and lesson plans to use with the SMART Table.”
South Carolina District Seeks To Teach All Kindergarteners To Swim.
The Post & Courier (6/11, Slade) reports, “In reaction to recent Lowcountry drowning deaths that included 6-year-old Lambs Elementary School student Jah’Quez Smith Hamilton, the Charleston County School District is pursuing a plan aimed at teaching all kindergartners to swim.” Superintendent Nancy McGinley said, “With all the pools and all the water around Charleston, we can’t afford to lose one more child.’” The effort “is an ambitious one, considering that the school district owns no pools, and right now it’s more of an idea than a plan.”
Law & Policy
New York State Assembly Moves Closer To Renewing Mayoral School Control Law.
The New York Times (6/11, A27, Hernandez) reports, “The New York State Assembly moved closer to preserving mayoral control of city schools as lawmakers on Wednesday night considered a proposal by Speaker Sheldon Silver that would maintain the mayor’s dominance but add checks, including limiting his ability to approve contracts and close schools.” The proposal “includes several measures aimed at increasing transparency, by requiring, for instance, that the Department of Education’s data and finances be regularly audited. But it leaves largely untouched a key point of contention: the mayor’s power to appoint a majority of the central education board, known as the Panel for Educational Policy, and remove them at his pleasure.”
Los Angeles School Board Approves Request To Ease Firing Of Teachers For Serious Crimes.
The Los Angeles Times (6/10, Song) reported, “The Los Angeles Unified school board narrowly passed [4-3] a resolution Tuesday to suggest changes to state laws that would expedite the firing of teachers accused of serious crimes.” The measure “was a much milder version of an unsuccessful proposal by retiring school board member Marlene Canter to facilitate the teacher dismissal process.” Earlier versions that had included requests for an alteration in “state laws to ease the firing of teachers deemed to be poor instructors” were “withdrawn twice because of lack of support and union opposition.” The version that passed “revised it to focus only on teachers accused of egregious or immoral acts.” United Teachers Los Angeles leaders “said they had no input into the resolution — an allegation Canter denied — and that it would be sure to fail in Sacramento without their support.”
Teacher Who Tried To Commit Suicide At School Not Expected To Lose Job Or License.
The St. Petersburg Times (6/11, Solochek) reports, “It has been three years since Pasco schools superintendent Heather Fiorentino first tried to fire teacher Patti Withers for trying to commit suicide at Pasco High School. The School Board wouldn’t let Fiorentino do it. And now the Florida Education Practices Commission is set to deny Fiorentino’s effort too.” Instead, the commission will consider administrative law judge R. Bruce McKibben’s “recommendation that Withers be placed on two years of monitored probation rather than lose her job and have her teaching license revoked.” McKibben found that “Withers did fail to use ‘reasonable caution’ to protect students from harm,” but failed to find that Withers “was guilty of ‘gross immorality’ or ‘moral turpitude’ in her actions.”
ACLU Wants Louisiana To Prohibit Creationism, Intelligent Design In Science Standards.
The AP (6/11) reports that in January, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education approved “legislation [that] allowed local school systems and teachers to introduce into science classes supplemental teaching materials in addition to state-approved textbooks.” On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) “urged the state education board to revisit the issue.” The group “complained [that] the board in January rejected language specifically forbidding the teaching of creation science and intelligent design concepts” determined by federal courts to be religion-based. Furthermore, the ACLU wants restored to the science guidelines “draft language prohibiting teaching materials that ‘advance the religious belief that a supernatural being created humankind’ and another sentence stating, ‘Religious beliefs shall not be advanced under the guise of encouraging critical thinking.’” Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute contends that “the more specific language favored by the ACLU is redundant and could actually discourage free and open discussion in the classroom.”
Safety & Security
Hillsborough County, Florida, To Allow Students To Post Complaints On District, School Websites.
The Tampa Tribune (6/10, Peterson) reported that beginning “next fall, Hillsborough County students who are being bullied will be able to post their complaints anonymously on a school district Web site.” In addition, “students and parents with a complaint will also be able to make a report at the school site, using a new form the district has created especially for bullying cases.” District leaders “say that giving students anonymity will embolden them to reveal incidents they have seen or experienced and been afraid to talk about.” Site planners have thus far “decided they want each report to go directly to the school involved. The school will then investigate and report back to district officials.”
School Finance
Unexpected Financial Windfall Leads To Budget Uncertainty In Maryland District.
The Washington Post (6/11, De Vise, Marimow) reports that Montgomery County, MD, School Board members “signed off this week on the final $2.2 billion operating budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 with lingering reservations about how the Montgomery County Council arrived at the sum. The school system reaped an unexpected boost in state and federal aid for fiscal 2010.” Thus, the council and County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) “asked the state for permission to reduce the local share of funding to the county school system below a state-mandated minimum, by a factor of $79.5 million.” However, the “Maryland State Board of Education denied the request. In response, the county is asking the school system to repay the entire sum, $79.5 million, by covering debt payments on school facilities that the government currently handles.”
Arizona District Hopes To Raise Money To Fund Sports Programs.
The Yuma (AZ) Sun (6/11, Roller) reports, “Yuma Elementary School District 1 scrambled to find alternative funding to keep sports programs wide open for another season Wednesday as parents, coaches, administrators and students brainstormed at district offices.” Supt. Darwin Stiffler “said there was currently no identified funding to support athletics for the 2009-10 fiscal year.” The program “costs $175,000 per year,” so the district is relying on Arizona law that provides “residents a dollar-for-dollar credit to deduct up to $400 per year for each couple who donates to school extracurricular activities.” Stiffler also has suggested “a ‘pay-to-play’ plan, where parents could contribute anywhere from $28 to $40 per student to fund athletics, which would cover the cost of sports officials but not coaches.”
Also in the News
Georgia Investigating Alleged Cheating On Standardized Tests.
The AP (6/11, Turner) reports, “State education officials are investigating whether students, teachers or someone else changed answers on more than 100 standardized tests at four Georgia elementary schools.” School officials found “high numbers of erasures on a fifth-grade math Criterion-Referenced Competency Test, taken last summer,” which led to the investigation into whether unauthorized corrections were made. Kathleen Mathers of the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement said, “We have very strong information to say someone changed these answers.” Now “the state Professional Standards Commission, which oversees teacher certification, will investigate who is to blame for the cheating.”
Some Neighbors Oppose Expansion Of Islamic Academy In Fairfax County, Virginia.
The New York Times (6/11, A20, Emery) reports that a proposal “to erect a new classroom building” at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Fairfax County, VA, which is funded by the Saudi government, and to “move hundreds of students from a sister campus on the other end of Fairfax County” has started “a noisy debate and exposed anew the school’s uneasy relationship with its neighbors.” Residents “say they oppose it because they fear it will bring more cars, school buses and flooding of land that would be paved over for parking lots.” Others, meanwhile, “object to the academy’s curriculum, saying it espouses a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam known as Wahhabism.” But Saudi Academy officials and parents argue that the “academy is no different from other religious schools” and that it “educates model students who go on to top schools, teaches Arabic to American soldiers, and no longer uses texts that drew criticism after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.”