National Center for Science Education Grades States’ Evolution Standards.
Education Week (subscription only) (8/12, Zehr) reported, “State science standards tend to cover evolution more extensively and better than they did nearly a decade ago, but at the same time, ‘creationist language’ has become more common in them, concludes a review of the standards in all 50 states and the District of Columbia” by the National Center for Science Education. The report gives “nine states and the District of Columbia…an A for their treatment of evolution.” Meanwhile, the study gave five states “a failing grade for their coverage of evolution.” Anton Mates, a public-information project director for the science education, said, “It’s better if [students] get the information [about evolution].” Francis Eberle, the executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, said that “his organization is in favor of states adopting common national science standards” that include evolution.

In the Classroom
Philadelphia District Test Scores Show Mixed Progress.
The Philadelphia Inquirer (8/12, Graham) reported that for the seventh consecutive year, Philadelphia students “improved their scores on state reading and math tests.” Yet, data from the Philadelphia School District show fewer than half of district students “can read at grade level, and only slightly more can perform math at grade level.” In 2008-09, 52 percent of district students “made the grade in math, up 3 percentage points from last year.” Also, 48 percent of students “hit the mark in reading, up 2 percentage points.” If Philadelphia students continue their current progress, “it would take until 2123 for all students to reach proficiency,” yet, under NCLB mandates, all students “must pass state reading and math tests by 2014.”

North Carolina District To Allow Peace Activist To Compete With Military Recruiters.
The AP (8/12, Baker) reported that the Wilkes County, NC school district, which has a “proud” military tradition, is allowing Sally Ferrell, a Quaker peace activist, to “compete with military recruiters at steering high school students to careers, attorneys said Wednesday.” According to the AP, Ferrell has long sought and been denied permission from the Wilkes County School Board to “warn students about joining the military.” However, under an agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union and Ferrell’s group, the North Carolina Peace Action, Ferrell will “have the same access to students as military recruiters.”

Two-Way Immersion Program In Texas District Aims For Full English, Spanish Literacy.
The Houston Chronicle (8/13, Weber) reports on the Two-Way Immersion Program in Texas’ Katy Independent School District, which provides instruction in both English and Spanish “with the goal that participating pupils will become bilingual, bicultural and bi-literate citizens.” Students “are expected to perform at or above grade-level expectations and become fully literate in both languages by the end of fifth grade.” According to the Center for Applied Linguistics, 28 states and D.C. “offer a TWI program — a total 346 schools in 199 districts. Since 1998, the number of schools has nearly doubled.”

On the Job
Texas Middle School Staff Welcome Incoming Sixth-Graders With Home Visits.
The Dallas Morning News (8/13, Meyers) reports that Stafford Middle School in Texas’ Frisco school district requires all staff members to visit the homes of “incoming sixth-graders” in an effort to help ease the students’ transition from elementary to middle school. “Advocates say the visits alleviate first-day tension and set a precedent for dialogue between parents and schools.” Teachers must “sacrifice the end of their summers to do these interviews. And for some involved, the visits seem more strange than soothing.” Robin Scott, principal of Stafford middle “she came up with the idea last year and sent out her crews armed with scripts and maroon and gold school T-shirts.” School employees “work in pairs, visiting about eight houses,” most often “in the evenings.” According to Joe Bruzzese, a professor at UC Santa Barbara’s Graduate School of Education, “nationally, middle school home visits are quite rare. … ‘This is really setting a precedent,’” he said.

Texas Schools Promote Swine Flu Preparedness.
The AP (8/13, Brown) reports, “Less than two weeks before most Texas children head back to school, many districts are stocking up on hand sanitizers, meeting with health officials and printing swine flu prevention posters.” Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck said that local officials “hope ‘to take the fear factor out of the flu’ by providing information to parents before school starts Aug. 24.” Meanwhile, “Fort Worth schools already have posters about preventing the virus’ spread, said district spokesman Clint Boyd. The district has been meeting with Tarrant County health officials and will continue to follow CDC guidelines, which do not include taking extraordinary measures to disinfect buildings, he said.”

Online Learning Community Connects Educators, Parents In Louisiana District.
The Shreveport (LA) Times (8/12, Fernandez) reported that this fall, Louisiana’s Bossier Parish “school district will debut School Loop, an online learning community that provides parents more access to students’ development than ever before.” Through the community, “Teachers can set up their own Web sites and tailor them to their classes. They can upload special events and homework to a system similar to Microsoft Outlook” and “share information about themselves to parents and students.” Parents, meanwhile, can “register at the school district’s Web site” to “receive a daily update on their student via e-mail that includes events on the classroom calendar, assignments, grades and notices from teachers.”

Law & Policy
San Diego School District’s Performance Pay Policy May Disqualify It From Federal Funds.
KPBS-TV San Diego (8/12, Tintocalis) reported, “San Diego Unified School Superintendent Terry Grier says the district may not be eligible for more federal stimulus money” from the federal Race to the Top grants “because the school board doesn’t support linking student test scores to teacher performance.” Greir, on the other hand, “has come under attack by San Diego Unified’s teachers union in the past for supporting performance pay and data-driven teacher evaluations.” Although he “still supports such measures,” Grier acknowledges that “three of the five school board members would most likely not support them.” According to Grier, data-driven teacher evaluations “can hold real promise if implemented correctly. Before his time in San Diego, Grier implemented performance pay for teachers as a superintendent in North Carolina.”

Special Needs
Early Testing Of Epileptic Children May Spot Learning Disabilities.
USA Today (8/13, Marcus) reports that a new study finds that children newly diagnosed with epilepsy “could benefit from early cognitive testing to spot potential learning disabilities before they surface in school.” According to USA Today, usually, doctors wait until an epileptic child “shows academic difficulties before they send the child for a neuropsychological evaluation.” However, by then, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine neurology professor Philip Fastenau says a child “already may be behind academically.” Fastenau was the lead author of the study, published this week in the online issue of Neurology.

School Finance

School Solicits Donations From Students For Construction Project.
Maine’s Working Waterfront (8/12, Boardman) reported that in an effort to “pay for the renovation of the Islesboro Central School, students are being asked to give money. A letter-writing campaign is being used to raise the final $1 million dollars for the $8 million project.” Half of the cost of the project has been “paid for by a town bond issue. Of the remaining $4 million, $3 million was raised by April by a special fundraising committee.” School officials chose a letter-writing campaign directed at students in order to raise the last $1 million “because it directly connected to students and is simple.” Most students interviewed by the Working Waterfront said they “planned on giving around $5, but the occasional student was planning on donating over $40.” Heather Knight, Islesboro Central School principal, said that “donations are already being made in response to the letters, which were sent out in late June.”

Also in the News
School Pulls Book Containing Racial Epithet From English Course After Complaint.
The Toronto (ON) Star (8/13, Troglen) reports that “the classic literary novel To Kill a Mockingbird is being pulled from the Grade 10 English course at a Brampton high school after a parent complained about the use of a racial epithet in the book.” Brampton Principal Kevin McGuire “made the decision at the end of the school year to resolve the complaint quickly.” However, the book “will still be available in the library.” Bruce Campbell, spokesman for the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board, said that To Kill a Mocking Bird is not required reading, but rather an option on the “list of board-approved resources, and the school can make a decision to use whatever resource (it) would feel best suits them.” Meanwhile, teachers at the school say that “the book is a relevant and favored tool for discussion on racism.”

District Offering More “Healthful” Meal Selections.
The Woodbury (MN) Bulletin (8/12, Spooner) reported on “healthful” changes to the lunch offerings at schools in” Minnesota’s District 833. For instance, “Dominos stores, which will supply pizza this year, must add whole grain to the crust and use reduced-fat cheese.” Furthermore, secondary students will be “restricted to buying one cookie per day, and “in an effort to reduce fat and salt in student lunches below federal guidelines, Farmer’s Market Fridays will be available at the four middle schools this fall.” The Woodbury Bulletin explains that “the Farmer’s Market lunch has 956 milligrams of salt versus 1,592 on the regular lunch. It also has 19 percent fat versus 22 in a regular lunch and a dramatic reduction in saturated fat from 35 percent to 3.2 percent.” District 833 Nutrition Services director Barb Osthus said thtat “if Farmer’s Market Fridays is successful, it will be expanded to high schools next year.”

NEA in the News
South Bend, Indiana, NEA Affiliate Gets New President.
WSJV-TV South Bend, IN (8/12) reported that 10-year teaching veteran Jason Zook “was elected new National Education Association President for South Bend last spring and is excited to be getting started” this fall. According to Zook, who teaches “middle school math and science,” the local chapter of NEA is restructuring operations to become “more efficient. Mainly they are working on a web site to help them do more electronically.” In addition, Zook will take part in the current teacher contract negotiations.

Education Policymakers In Michigan Debate Linking School Accreditation To NCLB.
The Detroit Free Press (8/12, Higgins) reports that “a state plan to revamp the way” Michigan “public schools are accredited could be in jeopardy, because members of a legislative committee oppose some parts of the plan.” The state BOE “approved the accreditation plan in June.” However, the “the House Education Committee that told the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) recently they won’t approve the plan if it allows for a school’s accreditation to be lowered because the school doesn’t meet the academic goals of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act.” Although “accreditation will be based largely on tests…other criteria, such as having only certified teachers, also will be considered.” This contrasts with “the current system,” under which “no schools are unaccredited.” Officials at the MDE “have said that illustrates that the program isn’t working. The new system likely would have more than 100 losing accreditation.”

NCLB Reauthorization Seen As Needing Balanced Approach. Economic Policy Institute Research Associate Richard Rothstein writes in an op-ed for Education Week (8/12) that NCLB reauthorization “has stalled because too few policymakers have considered how to implement the balanced approach” advocated by President Obama. According to Rothstein, mention of reauthorization “paralyzes lawmakers, who fear public reaction to more testing, more narrowing of curriculum, and unrealistic expectations that schools can raise disadvantaged children’s achievement simply by pressing them to prepare better for tests.” Rothstein adds that we “all want better math and reading assessments. But we should also invest in better tests of history, sciences, and the arts,” and also develop tools “to evaluate student behavior, judge a school’s disciplinary climate” and “measure whether schools are enhancing physical fitness.”

In the Classroom
California Education Officials Announce First 10 Digital Textbooks Meeting State Standards.
The Los Angeles Times (8/12, Mehta) reports that California “Education Secretary Glen Thomas announced Tuesday that 10 free digital high school math and science texts are available for use in California classrooms.” Meanwhile, “Educators said they looked forward to online content playing a greater role in the classroom but were worried about paying for it.” Due to state budget cuts, “many districts across California, including Los Angeles Unified, have put textbook purchasing on hold to save money, and are using the funds to meet other needs.” The online textbooks are free, but some educators are concerned that “they will require infrastructure — more computers and school-wide wireless Internet access, among other things.”

The AP (8/12) reports that the electronic textbooks were “among the first” of 16 “reviewed as part of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s (R) Free Digital Textbook Initiative.” They each “met at least 90 percent of California’s high school math and science standards,” and four “met 100 percent of the standards.”

Teacher Produces Musical To Help Students With Grammar.
The Athens (GA) Banner-Herald (8/11, Blackburn) reports on “Grammar Jammar, a 42-minute DVD based on a compilation of” teacher Crystal Huau Mills’ jams that educators “and parents can use to relay basic grammar skills to children in kindergarten through fifth grade.” Three years ago, Mills “wrote the first song” on the DVD to teach her third-grade students “the difference between proper nouns and regular nouns.” Not long “after Mills debuted the songs in her class, other teachers started using them to help students with their grammar.” One teacher noticed that as her students “took the state-mandated Criterion-Referenced Competency Test,” they “mouthed words to the songs before bubbling in answers.” Mills eventually “produced a script combining the songs into a school musical,” which began taping in May 2008.

Omaha Public Schools Data Indicate Link Between Test Scores, Attendance.
The Omaha World-Herald (8/11, Saunders, Goodsell) reports that the message conveyed by Omaha Public Schools’ “latest round of standardized test scores, released Monday,” is that students who “show up consistently” are more likely to score well. The testing data showed that “in reading, those who missed few days scored 14 percentile points better on the California Achievement Test than those who missed 10 school days or more. In language, the gap was 19 percentile points. In math, 18 percentile points.” Throughout the school year, Omaha’s Building Bright Futures initiative will spread “the message about the importance of school attendance” with “an attendance incentive program” that will “give away things like iPods and in-school elevator rides as rewards.”

Education Writers Say Gifted Students Should Skip Grade-Levels.
Education bloggers Laura Vanderkam & Richard Whitmire write in a commentary for Education Week (8/12), “Even in the best of times, gifted education is controversial.” But “when the economy and school budgets get tight, the gifted conversation only heats up more, with parents anxious to hang on to any advantage their child might garner, and budget hawks eager to ax programs some see as expendable.” This phenomenon, they say, “is playing out across the country.” For instance, school district officials in Montgomery County, MD, are “considering abandoning [the] practice of labeling second graders as gifted or not gifted.” But Vanderkam and Whitmire assert that “nurturing gifted students and saving money don’t have to be at odds,” adding that “there is no better way to give gifted kids what they need” than to allow students to skip grades. Furthermore, they argue, research on grade acceleration has mainly drawn positive conclusions about the practice.

On the Job
Teacher Retention Up In Maryland District.
The Baltimore Sun (8/12, Gencer) reports that “in recent years, Baltimore County schools have seen fewer teacher resignations and vacant positions at the start of an academic year, according to a district report on staff trends.” Specifically, “resignations this past school year” decreased “to 3.7 percent of teachers, down from 6.8 percent the previous year.” Baltimore County schools have more than 8,500 teachers, yet Assistant Superintendent Donald A. Peccia said that “the number of teacher vacancies over the past several years” has ranged from only three to seven. “Peccia has said that the economy is definitely a factor in the considerable drop in instructor resignations this past year, although there has been a continuing downward trend the past few years.”

Law & Policy
Mass H1N1-Related School Closures Unlikely, Officials Say.
The Washington Post (8/12, Hernandez) reports that the “expected resurgence of swine flu this fall” could lead to some public schools also serving as “mass inoculation clinics.” Yet, school officials “predict that the wave of school closings” in the spring is unlikely to be repeated this fall. The CDC’s latest advice “gives local school systems more flexibility in dealing with the illness and on closing schools.” Meanwhile, at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, 66 adult volunteers “have received the first of two doses of an H1N1 vaccine. The university is one of 10 sites for national clinical trials of the vaccine.”

Kansas Health Official Urges Use Of “Sick Rooms” For H1N1 Students. The AP (8/12, Hanna) reports Kansas’ Health Director, Jason Eberhart-Phillips, “called on public schools Tuesday to hold mass swine flu vaccinations this fall and set up ‘sick rooms’ for isolating students who appear to be sick.” Speaking to the State Board of Education, Eberhart-Phillips also “warned that absenteeism during the peak of an H1N1 outbreak at a school could be twice as much as during a normal, seasonal flu outbreak.” According to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, “there have been 10,000 cases statewide in less than four months, based on federal estimates for infections nationwide. However, the agency has confirmed only 281 cases in 46 counties through lab tests.” On the topic of vaccine, Eberhart-Phillips said Kansas health officials “hope the first 200,000 doses for the state are available by the end of September.”

School Board Extends Suspension Of Perfect Attendance Incentive Program Due To H1N1. The St. Petersburg Times (8/12, Marshall) reports that on Tuesday, the Hillsborough County, FL, School Board “voted unanimously…to continue its suspension of the incentive program” that allowed “students with perfect attendance…to skip semester exams,” because the board does not want students to show up for school when they are sick. “Under the district’s policy, students with perfect attendance had been able to skip up to seven of their semester exams each year. Those with just a few absences could skip one or two per semester.” But as “confirmed cases of the H1N1 virus” began “popping up across the Tampa Bay area, the district put the popular program on hold” in May.

Baltimore School Board Debates Permanent Expulsion Policy Proposal.
The Baltimore Sun (8/11, Gencer) reported that Baltimore school board recent debated “the need to educate students who cause serious trouble while also ensuring the safety of all,” as they discussed a proposed permanent expulsion policy. The proposal would allow permanently expelled students up to age 16 “to return to their home schools after being assigned to an alternative program for at least 180 school days — provided they meet certain” attendance and behavior criteria each quarter. These students would also be required to complete “a fire starter or other support program.”

Facilities
LAUSD Acquires Abandoned Lot For Elementary School.
The Los Angeles Times (8/12, Sahagun) reports that “the Los Angeles City Council allocated a $2.4-million community development block grant to the nonprofit Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles to buy [a] lot” to build a “youth center and soccer field for low-income residents in South Los Angeles.” But “Eight years later, neither has been built on the lot.” Consequently, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) recently “seized control of the blighted six-acre site, with plans for an elementary school and soccer field.” Construction is slated to “begin in September, officials said. If all goes according to plan, the 950-student Juanita Tate Elementary will open in 2011.” It will be named after the founder of “Concerned Citizens” who “spent years trying to improve the area’s quality of life by building affordable housing and fighting environmentally unsound projects.”

Also in the News

Student Suspended From School Activity For Posting “Profane” Content On MySpace.
KTVT-TV Dallas (8/11) reported that after finding “profane content posted on” Burleson High School student Lindsey Wessel’s MySpace page, Burleson Independent School District officials suspended the student from performing on the Burleson drill team during the school’s first football game of the season. “Wessel has since removed the questionable items from her MySpace page.” Chip Steward, “an attorney who teaches journalism and media law at Texas Christian University,” said that even though “the drill team’s ‘constitution’ forbids the use of profanity,” students’ off campus speech is protected by the first amendment, as long as it is not “causing substantial disruption of school activities.” KTVT ads that “Wessel’s parents have filed a grievance about the punishment,” and “if the disciplinary action is not reversed, the family says they plan to get an attorney.”

NEA in the News
Diverse Opinions Within Unions Said To Be Evident In Education Reform Debate.
Stephen Sawchuk wrote in a “Teacher Beat” blog for Education Week (8/11) that a recent effort by the California Teachers’ Association to restrain National Education Association efforts to collaborate with education reformers highlights the tendency of some policy officials to “think of ‘the unions’ as a sort of monolithic category, an image that serves them well from a lobbying point of view.” Yet, in reality, unions “are complicated, messy bodies with constituencies, differences of opinions, and disagreements

Duncan, Gingrich, Sharpton To Kick Off Multi-City Tour To Promote Education Reform.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (8/14, Dodd) reports that the “unlikely trio” of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and civil rights activist Al Sharpton will kick off a multi-city tour in Atlanta to highlight President Obama’s efforts “to support public education innovation by focusing on schools that are getting creative to improve student achievement.” The tour “also will point out barriers that stagnate school improvement in some states.” The “first official stop” will be in Philadelphia on Sept 29, where the three will “visit…pubic schools and” encourage “parents, educators, churches and politicians to work together to overhaul failing campuses. The tour also is scheduled to stop in New Orleans and Baltimore in November.”

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In the Classroom
Fewer Virginia Schools Make AYP, State DOE Says.
The Washington Post (8/14, B1, Anderson, Brown) reports on the front page of its Metro section that about 90 percent of Northern Virginia public school students “passed the state’s reading and math tests in the spring, with achievement gaps narrowing and passing rates edging upward or holding steady across the region.” However, data released by the state show more schools in the region and across the state are “falling short” of steadily rising AYP standards, causing many educators to wonder “how much more improvement is possible under a federal rating system that essentially demands” perfection in five years. State data shows that 28 percent of Virginia schools failed to make AYP in 2008-09, compared to 26 percent in the year-ago period.

The AP (8/14, Sampson) reports that 71 percent of Virginia schools met AYP benchmarks in reading and math in 2008-09, and “103 schools face sanctions for failing to do so.” The AYP findings are “largely tied to improving student performance on the state Standards of Learning exams.” The Virginia DOE says last year, 74 percent of schools hit AYP target, however, 86 percent of students “passed math SOLs in 2008-09, up from 84 percent the previous year.” SOL scores were also slightly higher for reading, as 89 percent passed this year, “up from 87 percent the previous year.”

On the Job
Teachers, Administrator At DC School Fired For Compromising Standardized Test.
NewsChannel 8 Arlington, VA (8/13) reported that “a cheating scheme at” Howard Road Academy charter school in DC “has cost teachers and an administrator their jobs and led to low performance results for dozens of students.” It has been reported that some students at the school saw a standardized test “before they had to take it. According to the Office of the State Superintendent of Education’s Web site, students who received the ‘practice tests’ or participated in learning activities using the tests had their scores invalidated.” Also as a result of the incident, “three people have been fired, the school will lose $10,000 in grant money, and some 27 fourth and six grade students’ scores are invalidated, meaning they get scores of below basic performance.”

Indianapolis School Officials Search For Students Missing On First Day Of School.
WTHR-TV Indianapolis (8/13, Van Wyk) reported that about 7,000 “students were absent from the first day of class” in Indianapolis public schools or “one in five,” however, “at some individual schools, attendance was even worse.” For instance “more than a third of Arlington High School students were no-shows.” Now, as “teachers move ahead with lessons,” school social workers will walk “through neighborhoods” to look “for the missing children.” Educators at some schools “don’t expect to see all their students until sometime next week and some not until after Labor Day.” Meanwhile, other IPS “schools have significantly more students than they counted on and [are] now looking for additional teachers.”

Teachers With Alternative Certification Vying For Fewer Vacancies Than In Previous Years.
The Dallas Morning News (8/14, Meyers) reports on career switchers, “School districts nationwide are seeing a rise in these applicants, though they are having almost as much difficulty finding a job in this field as in their previous one.” In Texas, which “requires its teachers to be state certified, career switchers “go through a program called alternative certification” that “involves hundreds of hours of coursework and classroom observation and usually takes a year to complete.” But even those who complete alternative programs are finding few jobs available to them. For instance, “the Garland district is hiring almost 400 fewer teachers than last year, and only accepted 48 with alternate certifications.” Meanwhile, the Frisco district, which “hasn’t seen a sizable drop in new teachers because of enrollment growth,” only hired 62 teachers with alternative certification out of 376 new hires.

Law & Policy
Principal, Athletic Director In Florida Face Jail Time Over Mealtime Prayer.
The Washington Times (8/14, Duin) reports, “Students, teachers and local pastors are protesting over a court case involving a northern Florida school principal and an athletic director who are facing criminal charges and up to six months in jail over their offer of a mealtime prayer.” On Sept. 17, Frank Lay, principal of Pace High School, and school athletic director Robert Freeman “will go on trial…in Pensacola for breaching the conditions of a lawsuit settlement reached last year with the American Civil Liberties Union.” The ACLU sued the Santa Rosa County school district last August “on behalf of two students” who claimed that “some teachers and administrators were allowing prayers at school events such as graduations,” among other charges. The district agreed in January to “several things, including a provision to bar all school employees from promoting or sponsoring prayers during school-sponsored events.” The same month, “Mr. Lay…asked Mr. Freeman to offer mealtime prayers at a lunch for school employees and booster-club members.”

Using Student Performance To Evaluate Teachers Viewed As Key To Reform Efforts.
Former Los Angeles Unified School District Director of Educational Policy Randy Ross writes in a letter to the Los Angeles Times (8/14) that an August 11 op-ed by New York University’s Diane Ravitch titled, ” Charter and private schools might not make the grade either,” argues “persuasively” that a Los Angeles Board of Education proposal to extend school choice “will not work because charter schools and private management of schools have not yielded a robust net gain in student achievement.” Also, Ross notes that many teachers “strongly resist the idea of quantifying the link between what they do and their students’ outcomes.” However, “absent such measurement, our understanding of how to get the job done remains obfuscated.” Ross adds that ED’s “Race to the Top” competition and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s “dig for effective strategies for improving teacher quality are designed to help remove this educational cataract.”

Plan Being Considered By Nevada District Would Allow Students To Choose Schools.
The Las Vegas Sun (8/14, Richmond) reports that Clark County Schools Superintendent Walt Rulffes wants to allow “students to pick the schools they…attend, provided there is space — a proposal that in other districts has led to more innovative programs as campuses compete to fill their seats.” Students are now “assigned to schools based on their home addresses,” and “those who meet certain conditions may ask to attend different campuses.” Under Rulffes’ plan, “students would, by default, be assigned to their neighborhood schools but” would be allowed to attend the district school of their choice if there is room. If approved by the school board, the plan “could take effect in the 2010-11 school year,” and would be extended to students in “first grade through high school.”

Safety & Security
Psychologists Will Look Into Conditions Surrounding Sexual Assault At Middle School.
The St. Petersburg (FL) Times (8/14, Marshall) reports that “later this month,” Hillsborough County school officials “will send a team of psychologists and counselors to” Walker Middle School in Odessa, FL, “to figure out how a series of alleged locker room rapes could go unreported over a two-month period.” Four boys from the school “have been charged as adults with four counts each of sexual battery. All have pleaded not guilty to charges of raping a 13-year-old flag football teammate” at the school. “At least nine students witnessed the attacks, according to court documents, and not one spoke up or reported them to a teacher.” Board member Doretha Edgecomb said that “the district shouldn’t shy away from talking directly with students who might have looked the other way at Walker, once the courts have finished their work.”

School Finance

Colorado Announces New School Construction Funding Program.
KUSA-TV Denver (8/13) reported, “Colorado State Treasurer Cary Kennedy is being praised Thursday thanks to a new funding program that means bells will soon be ringing in more schools across the state.” The Building Excellent Schools Today (BEST) program “will eventually raise close to $1 billion for school construction,” which, according to KUSA, is “the greatest single investment of state dollars into Colorado school buildings in the history of the state.” Colorado is “one of the first states in the country to pass legislation [taking] advantage of low cost financing opportunities under the federal recovery act,” Kennedy said.

District Officials Consider Eliminating Pay Supplements For Coaches.
Alabama’s Press-Register (8/13, Philips) reported that “with even more state budget cuts expected in coming months, Mobile County school officials” are “enacting a hiring freeze on most of the system’s 45 vacancies, about half of which are teaching positions.” In addition, the district is considering “eliminating pay supplements for coaches and other employees and canceling raises for support personnel” in 2010. Eliminating pay increases and coach bonuses “would save about $4 million, or the equivalent of about 80 jobs, according to Chief Financial Officer Dinish Simpson.” School board member Bill Meredith, “whose sons are coaches at Theodore and Bryant high schools,” objects to the bonus cuts, saying, “When you talk about eliminating supplements, you’re talking about eliminating athletics. … Who’s going to put all that extra time in?”

Also in the News
Actor May Teach At Philadelphia High School For Reality Series.
The New York Daily News (8/14, Yaniv) reports that actor Tony Danza “will start teaching at a Philadelphia high school this fall for a reality TV show, pending official approval.” The show, called “Teach,” would feature Danza co-teaching “a 10th-grade English class at Northeast High School.” Next week, “school officials will vote on whether to approve the shooting of at least 13 episodes” for series, which would “air on A&E.” Meanwhile, Danza has “already rented an apartment in Philly, has been attending teacher orientation, and started catching up on the curriculum — reading classics like Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Animal Farm.”

Only One Third Of Canadian Students Interested, Motivated In School, Survey Shows.
The Toronto Star (8/14, Rushowy) reports that according to “a new study of more than 32,000 children and teens from Grades 5 to 12,” roughly 33 percent “of Canadian students say they are interested in class, or [are] motivated to do well.” While 69 percent of students had “good attendance records, just 37 percent” said they felt “‘intellectually engaged’ in math and language arts…the study by the Canadian Education Association (CEA), a non-profit research and policy group,” shows. The CEA surveyed students at “more than 90 schools across the country” as “part of a multi-year project looking at how students feel about their education and how schools and teachers can improve.” The study “measured student engagement” socially, academically, and intellectually (gauging motivation and interest in school), and found that “as students progress through the grades, their engagement drops on all levels, especially intellectually.”

Obama’s Stance On Testing Revives NCLB Debates.
The New York Times (8/17, A1, Dillon) reports on its front page that the Obama administration is using the $4.3 billion “Race to the Top” fund to incentivize “state after state to rewrite education laws to open the door to more charter schools and expand the use of student test scores for judging teachers.” This “aggressive” use of stimulus funds by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “is provoking heated debates over the uses of standardized testing and the proper federal role in education, issues that flared frequently” amid NCLB enforcement efforts during President George W. Bush’s administration. The Times notes that the Obama administration’s education “stance has caught by surprise educators and officials who had hoped” that Obama’s calls to overhaul NCLB while campaigning for the presidency “would mean a reduced federal role and less reliance on standardized testing.”

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In the Classroom
Fewer Public Elementary Schools Offering Foreign Language Programs, Survey Shows.
Pittsburgh’s Tribune-Review (8/16, Fibbe) reported that “a soon-to-be-released survey from the Center for Applied Linguistics, a nonprofit organization that researches language issues, shows U.S. elementary schools have cut back on foreign language instruction during the last decade.” In 1997, about 25 percent “of public elementary schools taught foreign languages …but just 15 percent did last year. In private elementary schools, the number remained virtually the same in that time.” In Pennsylvania, “foreign language curriculum is not mandatory at the elementary level,” and “many local school officials say it is difficult to get and keep foreign language classes.” Pittsburgh Public Schools has seen “overall enrollment” fall by nine percent in the past three years, while foreign language enrollment at the elementary level has remained steady at 35 percent at schools that still offer such programs. The district is currently seeking grants to pay for more foreign language programs.

Experts Say Reading Aloud To Children Will Help Build Phonemic Awareness.
The Framingham TAB (8/17, Hilliard) reports that “when it comes to acquiring” reading skills, “experts recommend the same first step for today’s young learners that has been used for generations: read out loud to them.” The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development notes on its website that “the key first step for a child learning to read is acquiring an understanding that words are made up of individual sounds.” For this reason, reading aloud is seen as an “effective way of helping young children develop…phonemic awareness.”

On the Job
Schools Across Country Preparing To Open Swine Flu Vaccination Clinics.
The AP (8/16, Johnson) reported that swine flu vaccination “could take place in some Chicago high schools this fall, but nobody should expect flu shots in elementary schools or in every school building, one health official said.” Officials “are making tentative plans to distribute swine flu vaccine to clinics, hospitals and retail pharmacies in Chicago, and to hold mass vaccination clinics at large facilities scattered across the city.” The AP noted that schools nationwide “are taking measures to stop the spread of swine flu as the school year kicks off, and hundreds of schools are heeding the government’s call to set up flu-shot clinics.”

DC School Data Collection Initiative Months Behind Schedule.
The Washington Post (8/17, Turque) reports that a $12 million project to compile “critical information” about D.C. schools, including information on “students’ academic growth, teacher quality and graduation rates,” is “several months behind schedule, and officials aren’t prepared to say when it will be back on track.” The Statewide Longitudinal Education Data Warehouse “is envisioned as a tool to sharpen accountability and decision-making” as D.C. “pursues an ambitious program of school reform.” The Data collection project is “intended to track each student from early childhood through college.” The Post notes that the data warehouse system’s “potential long-term value” to D.C. increased amid the DOE’s “Race to the Top,” competition, which may reward DC’s effort to close “what Education Secretary Arne Duncan calls ‘the data gap.’”

Denver Residency Program Aims To Improve Teacher Development, Retention.
The Denver Post (8/16, McGhee) reported on the Denver Teacher Residency program which aims to “improve recruitment, development and retention.” According to the Post, the program “is modeled after a medical residency. Participants earn both a teaching license and a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction” from the University of Denver’s Morgridge College of Education “and receive a $10,000 stipend during their residency, which takes up the first year.”

Law & Policy
Politics Viewed As Getting In Way Of Reforms At Los Angeles Schools.
The Los Angeles Times (8/14) editorializes, “Locking opponents out of a meeting to discuss how to manage the schools suggests an innovative education proposal is falling victim to the same old politics.” According to the Times, the gathering “of selected parents in Boyle Heights this week more closely resembled a mayoral pep rally to promote the idea of opening 50 new Los Angeles-area schools to outside management,” than a town hall meeting. The 50-schools resolution “could help reinvigorate neighborhoods that have suffered for years with overcrowded, dilapidated, low-performing schools. But if it becomes another excuse to play the same old games, students will once again be the losers.”

Indiana Teacher Protection Law Takes Effect.
WANE-TV Fort Wayne, IN (8/14) reported that Indiana’s “new teacher-protection law…will be fully implemented this month.” Under House Enrolled Act 1462 teachers who are sued for disciplining students “now will have stronger legal protections — and can be represented in court by the Indiana Attorney General’s Office.” Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller said, “If teachers have been reluctant to discipline out of fear of litigation, they can rest assured that the attorney general’s office will aggressively defend them in court.” He also pointed out, “Classroom misbehavior and disruptions deprive students of their state constitutional right to a public education, and that’s the greater risk to Indiana’s future.”

Jury Sides With School District In Bullying Case.
The Rutland (VT) Herald (8/15, Dritschilo) reported, “A Superior Court jury said Friday that Fair Haven Grade School did what it was supposed to in the case of two students who said they were bullied.” A parent “had sued the school, saying administrators failed to deal with the bullying his sons faced” at the school in 2003. The parent claimed that “the bullying drove his sons from the school, violating their rights under the Vermont Public Accommodations Act.” The jury was instructed by Judge William that in order “to find for the plaintiff, [they] had to find that the boys were harassed so badly that they were deprived of educational opportunity…that simple teasing or name-calling were not unlawful harassment,” and “that the family exhausted their remedies with the school or that the school did not properly maintain of follow a policy on the issue.” Last week, “the jury deliberated for less than four hours…before finding for the school.”

Facilities

Massachusetts District Struggles To Clean Up Toxic Dump Amid School Construction Effort.
The Boston Globe (8/16, Daley) reported on efforts to clean up a former 101-acre dump in New Bedford, MA, noting that “it wasn’t until workers broke ground for a new middle school five years ago that testing began in earnest to map the dump’s footprint and the extent of toxic contamination.” Now as “financially strapped” New Bedford “struggles to find, haul away, or contain the pollution, its story is instructive for old cities across the country as they redevelop their gritty landscapes.” According to the Globe, the “only available open land is often on industrial sites, where the recklessness of the past can easily overtake ambitions for the future.”

School Finance
Massachusetts District Forced To Lay Off Teachers, Nurse Due To Accounting Error.
The Boston Globe (8/15, Ballou) reported that an accounting error in the Bourne, MA, School District “budget for last school year resulted in overspending and forced the district to lay off four teachers and a nurse yesterday, the district’s superintendent said.” The district “will also cut back on textbook spending and expenditures for its athletic program and eliminate a bus driver position.” Superintendent Edmond LaFleur “said that with cuts in state aid, the district simply does not have any additional funds to bridge the gap caused by the error.”

Principals, Community Organizations Offer To Pay For Field Trips Cut From District’s Budget.
The Columbia (MO) Daily Tribune (8/16, Braden) reported that “the Columbia Board of Education cut more than $600,000 of programs in its 2009-10 budget. But community groups and board members are trying to bring back one of the district’s smallest reductions: field trips.” The school board in March cut $6,000 for middle school field trips and $16,161 for elementary field trips from the “district’s operating budget.” Jack Jensen, the Columbia school district’s assistant superintendent for elementary education, said that “community groups have contacted him and principals about paying for the field trips. Principals also have discussed parent organizations paying some of the expense of field trips as well.”

Also in the News
Education Stakeholders Debate Teacher Training Methods.
The New York Times (8/16) samples views from several education stakeholders in a “Room for Debate” blog on teacher training/performance issues. Temple University College of Education Dean C. Kent McGuire wrote “I would never rely solely on student achievement in making a compensation decision.” Yet, when “used in conjunction with other information, compensation and promotion decisions are much more likely to identify and reward our most effective teachers.” Michael Goldstein, founder of MATCH Charter Public School in Boston, wrote that President Obama “rightly wants repeal of laws that prevent evaluation of teachers based on gains their students make on tests.” According to Goldstein one result of the teacher training debate “may be a new labor market in education schools, where top veteran schoolteachers, those who know how to map backward from an algebra final or how to enlist challenging kids, are prized as lecturers, in lieu of ivory tower theorists.”

NEA in the News
NEA Will Support Compensation Systems Bargained By Local Units, Van Roekel Says.
The Tulsa (OK) World (8/15, Eger) reports that “the president of the National Education Association offered members of Tulsa’s teachers union no opinion about the merits of a performance-based pay proposal, but he encouraged them to embrace meaningful efforts to reform public education.” On Friday, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel “spoke at an annual meeting of Tulsa Classroom Teachers Association representatives from each school site.” He told that gathering that “the NEA ‘will support any compensation system that a local (unit) bargains,’ and he offered a few fundamentals of well-structured compensation systems.” These systems, he said “should never be imposed…you’ve got to know what you’re paying for, how to measure it, and then you distribute the resources.” Furthermore, Van Roekel “encouraged Tulsa teachers to courageously face the stark realities of the American public education system, including overall high school dropout rates of 25 percent, with rates almost double that for black and/or economically disadvantaged students.”

Unassigned Veteran Teachers In Denver Disproportionately Directed To Title I Schools.
The Denver Post (8/17, Meyer) reports that “data obtained through a formal records request” show that “nearly three-quarters of unassigned veteran Denver Public Schools teachers who have not found jobs are forcibly placed into schools with the poorest students.” According to the Denver Post, “under union and district rules, these direct placements are made without regard to the desires of the teachers, school principals or parents.” Because Title 1 schools usually “have higher numbers of teacher vacancies ,” they “get a disproportionate number of direct placements.” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan “told a gathering of the National Education Association” in July “that tenure rules must change,” because, he said, “sometimes those rules place teachers in schools and communities where they won’t succeed.”

Team Considers “Ethnic Makeup” Of Texas In Writing New Social Studies Standards.
Education Week (8/18, Zehr) reports, “Texas educators have drafted new K-12 social studies standards for the state, and they-and the state education board members who will vote on them-expect that the U.S. history strand could be contentious.” In July, board members said that they wanted “the founding documents of the United States, such as the Federalist Papers and Declaration of Independence, to play a prominent role in the standards.” The board appointed six social studies experts to “submit written recommendations on what changes should be made. Some people questioned whether all the experts had the credentials to judge social studies standards.” Judy Brodigan, a member of a writing team ‘for the social studies standards said” that “her team made an effort…to take into account the ethnic makeup of Texas and ‘show more varied viewpoints than the white male viewpoint.’”

Texas Law Targets Districts Banning Low Grades. The Dallas Morning News (8/18, Unmuth) reports that “a new state law aims to stop school district policies that bar teachers from giving students grades lower than a 50, a 60 or even a 70.” However, the Dallas Morning News points out, “some districts aren’t ready to change their policies.” Dallas Independent School District officials, for instance, “say that because the law doesn’t specifically mention report card grades, district policy remains that teachers may not assign a grade lower than a 50 on six-week grades.” The Texas Education Agency, meanwhile, argues that “the law…clearly applies to all types of grades.” Furthermore, bill sponsor Sen. Jane Nelson (R) “said she did intend for” the legislation “to apply to six-week grade reports as well.”

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In the Classroom
Disproportionate Number Of Virginia’s 3rd – 8th Graders Receive Alternative Assessments.
The Richmond Times Dispatch (8/18, Reid, Meola) reports that “the number of elementary and middle school students using an alternative to the Standards of Learning has skyrocketed since it was introduced in 2005, but the assessment’s popularity hasn’t translated to the high school level.” Assessment portfolios “were assembled for” 47,146 “students in grades three through eight, according to figures released Friday by the state Department of Education.” Meanwhile, “only 331 such assessments were used” for high school students. The drastic difference “has caught the attention of educators and has parents and advocates worried that older students aren’t getting the help they need.” State education officials “are monitoring how [school] systems are using the tests — which are relatively new — to find trends.” In addition, “they are beefing up assistance to school systems on identifying students who need the assessments.

Stagnant Math Test Scores In Hawai’i Highlight Need For More Rigorous Curriculum.
The Honolulu Advertiser (8/18, Moreno) reports that math “test scores among Hawai’i's public school students have not improved as rapidly as literacy scores, prompting a renewed effort by state educators to deal with a long-standing problem.” Stagnant scores at all but seventh and eighth grade levels on the Hawai’i State Assessment “have led to broader concerns about whether Hawai’i's students are adequately prepared for college, the workplace or life beyond secondary school.” Data from the University of Hawai’i system show that “in fall 2007, only 16 percent of entering college students scored high enough on math placement exams to be put into a beginning college math course.” Furthermore, 34 percent of entering college students “scored at or below eighth-grade level.” The state is making policy changes aimed at increasing the rigor of mathematics education. “beginning in the 2010 school year, the DOE will no longer accept any math credit lower than Algebra I for credit to graduate, a major policy shift.”

Texas High Schools Must Offer Bible-Based Elective.
Lylah M. Alphonse writes in the Boston Globe Child Caring blog (8/18, Alphonse), “Starting this year, public high schools in Texas will be required to teach students about the Bible.” The elective courses “are supposed to focus on how Christianity has influenced American history and society.” The classes are authorized under Texas House Bill 1287, “which passed in September 2007 but was not enforced because of problems with training and funding.” HB 1287 “stipulates that the Bible must be taught in an objective way” that “would neither promote nor disparage any religion.” Alphonse argues that even though “the bill sets up some stark parameters to prevent” indoctrination, “the curriculum will be left up to individual teachers.” She adds that “a review of Bible courses currently taught in 25 Texas school districts found that most of the courses were ‘explicitly devotional.’” Furthermore, she asks, “Isn’t it equally important that high school students in Texas have an understanding of how other religions have shaped the rest of the world?”

On the Job
Two Virginia Districts Not Considering Vaccine Clinics.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch (8/18, 167K) reports, “At least two Richmond-area school systems do not plan to hold flu-vaccination clinics for students this fall, despite a call from the federal government for what could be the most widespread school vaccinations since the days of polio.” Noting a recent review from the Associated Press that discovered nearly 3 million students in schools that expressed an interest in providing the vaccine, the paper says that “Chesterfield County school officials are not considering holding in-school vaccine clinics, and Hanover County school health officials say they have received no instructions from county officials on the matter.” Richmond spokeswoman Felicia Cosby said area school officials are considering in-school clinics and are looking at a variety of factors, including the availability of the vaccine.” James Farrell, director of the Virginia health department’s immunization division, said that “the decision to offer school-based mass-vaccination clinics will be up to local superintendents and principals.”

Safety & Security
Georgia Governor Creates Panel To Examine Child Abuse In Schools.
The AP (8/17) reported that Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue (R) “is starting a new panel to examine allegations of abuse at schools in the state.” The panel, “made up of school district administrators from across the state, a district attorney and a parent representative,” will “develop a way for parents and students to report abuse involving school employees so that every district has a uniform way to handle such cases.”

School Finance
Michigan’s Education Stakeholders Suggest Tax Hikes, “Creative” Ways To Reduce Costs.
The Detroit Free Press (9/18, Higgins) reports, “Most students across Michigan head back to class Sept. 8, and many will return to schools marked by growing signs of financial stress.” Meanwhile, district officials will be “slicing and dicing as they try to balance educational needs with the fiscal reality of the state’s economy.” In response to the tough economic situation, “many people — from parents to educators — [are] pushing for bold solutions, such as changing the way income tax revenue is generated. But others say educators need to find creative ways to reduce costs.” Those calling for tax revenue changes favor “switching from a flat to a graduated income tax, taxing more services or using a more stable tax revenue stream.”

New Teacher Project Rates States’ Likelihood Of Winning “Race To The Top” Funds.
The Times Picayune (LA) (8/17, Carr) reported that the New Teacher Project has “deemed Louisiana one of the two most competitive states in the hunt for a share” of $4.3 billion in “Race to the Top” education stimulus funds. The New Teacher Project ranked how strong each state’s case for Race to the Top funds is, “judging only Florida and Louisiana ‘highly competitive.’” For the rankings, “the New Teacher Project report looked at how well each state already met” Race to the Top guidelines set forth by the Department of Education. States were then categorized as being either “highly competitive, competitive or somewhat competitive. Only a few states, “including California and New York,” were deemed ineligible because they “do not allow student results to be used in teacher evaluations, a strategy Duncan favors.”

Also in the News
Obama Cites Education As Most Important Issue For Black Community.
CNN/Essence (8/17, Gordy) reported that in a recent conversation with journalists from black media outlets, President Obama “easily cited education as the most important issue for the black community,” adding that closing the achievement gap will take “better teachers, greater accountability, and more resources combined with more reform.” CNN quoted Heather Higginbottom, deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, saying that the President’s goal is “to provide a complete and competitive education for every child from cradle through career,” noting that the White House is looking “at every piece of this pipeline, starting with early education.” Also, President Obama is quoted saying that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is “pushing for more aggressive reforms than we’ve seen under any previous president. And we’re putting more money into education than any previous administration.”

Wisconsin Online Transcript Submittal Service Will Benefit High School Students.
T.H.E. Journal (8/18, Schaffhauser) reports that “Wisconsin is launching an electronic transcript initiative that will allow high school and college students in the state to use Docufide, a secure transcript service, for a discount.” Through Docufide, students can “have their transcripts electronically delivered to any participating Wisconsin college. They’ll also be able to send transcripts to 4,000 other colleges and universities and to third-party destinations either electronically or on paper through Docufide.” Wisconsin’s initiative “is being sponsored by a group of higher education organizations…the Department of Public Instruction, and Midwestern Higher Education Compact. So far, 13 schools have asked to be pilot schools to try the service.”

Teachers In Japan Believe Students Comprehend More Than They Admit, Survey Finds.
Michael Winter wrote in an “On Deadline” blog for USA Today (8/17) that a survey in Japan “finds that teachers perceive that their students grasp far more material in textbooks than what the students say they actually understand.” According to a report in the Mainichi Daily News, the survey found that 18.6 percent of elementary students “said they understood more than 80% of the material covered in textbooks,” though 61 percent of elementary school teachers “believed their pupils grasped that much.” Winter noted that the survey revealed that such gaps “in the understanding of student comprehension were evident at the junior and senior high school level as well.”

Educator Says National Testing Useless Without Training On Data Interpretation.
Australia’s Brisbane Times (8/18, Patty) reports, “National testing will not improve literacy results unless teachers are taught how to interpret the data properly and help students make improvements, research has found.” The study by Helen Trimperley of the University of Auckland “looked at 300 schools that took part in a professional development program that helped teachers interpret and use student assessment results over a two-year period.” Results “showed that students of teachers who were assisted with interpreting test data and addressing problem areas achieved large improvements in their literacy and numeracy” scores, with “low-performing students” benefiting most.

Nearly One Quarter Of Seniors Deemed “College Ready” Based On ACT Scores.
The New York Times (8/19, A18) reports, “The average score on the ACT, a standardized test colleges use (along with its main competitor, the SAT) to help make admissions decisions, was unchanged in 2009, compared with the previous year, the test maker said in a report to be released Wednesday.”

Education Week (8/19, Gewertz) reports that “fewer than one quarter of last school year’s graduating high school seniors who took the ACT scored at the ‘college-ready’ level in all four subject areas, a finding that prompted the nation’s highest education official to renew his demand that schools do a far better job preparing students for college.” A report released today shows that “the proportion of tested graduating seniors who are ‘college ready’…grew from 22 percent in the class of 2008 to 23 percent in the class of 2009.” Meanwhile, “the pool of test-takers continues to expand and grow more diverse.” The number of black students taking the test grew by 41 percent since 2005, “by Hispanics 61 percent, and by Asians by 51 percent, compared with a 20 percent rise among white students.” Some of the growth can be attributed to Kentucky and Wyoming joining “Colorado, Illinois, and Michigan in requiring all 11th graders to take the ACT.”

USA Today (8/19, Marklein) adds that ACT officials see the report as “positive,” because, as Cynthia Schmeiser, president of ACT’s education division, put it: “When the number of test-takers expands to include a more diverse population, ‘one would reasonably expect a drop. … We’re not seeing that, which to us is a positive indication,’” she said.

Utah Students Have Highest ACT Scores Nationwide. The Salt Lake Tribune (8/19, Schencker) reports, “Utah students are scoring higher on the ACT college entrance exam than those nationwide, but only one out of four seniors who took the test last school year was ready for college-level academics.” Minority students’ results “were mixed, according to data released today.” The average score earned by members of Utah’s class of 2009 on the ACT was “21.8 out of 36 possible points — the same as the Class of 2008 and higher than the national average of 21.1.” According to state superintendent Larry Shumway, the numbers show that Utah continues “to have more students considering themselves as college-bound.” He added that the state’s challenge is to close gaps, “but we’re making progress in closing the participation gaps,” he noted. Shumway “said lower ACT scores among minorities is also a problem: ‘We’ve got to get everyone to be successful if the state is going to prosper.’”

In the Classroom
Gap Widening Between Ratio Of Male, Female K-12 Teachers.
The Chicago Tribune (8/19, Hood) reports on “the ever-widening gender gap among teachers.” At the college and university level, “male professors still far out-number women.” But “their numbers are dwindling at lower grade levels, both across the Chicago area and around the country.” There are fewer than one in four male K-12 teachers in Illinois, “a percentage that has declined over a 10-year period from 24.6 percent in 1999 to 22.9 percent in 2008, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.” And in Chicago Public Schools, there are five female teachers for every male teacher. “Many educators believe the trend has had a profound impact on the way young boys and girls learn, specifically “in urban communities where more and more children are growing up without a steady male influence, they say.”

Cowboys And Kids Program Teaches Character Lessons.
The Payson (AZ) Roundup (8/19, Bechman) reports that through the nonprofit organization Cowboys and Kids, “elementary students across Payson last week learned a little bit about the sport of rodeo and how they can use the cowboy philosophy in their daily life to make positive choices and build character.” The program teaches “children from kindergarten through eighth-grade about rodeo events and history.” In addition to learning about “rodeo events such a bareback bronc riding, saddle bronc riding, bull riding and team roping,” the students also discuss the “dangers of drugs and gangs and how high ethical and moral standards can overcome these obstacles.”

Some New Jersey Districts Teach Beyond Core Curriculum In Character Education. New Jersey’s Shore News Today (8/19, Marino) reports, “School districts are way past just teaching what is between the covers of a textbook.” Now, “they are called upon to help students achieve their academic potential as well as to become responsible citizens who are ready to meet life’s challenges.” All New Jersey schools are required to “follow the state core curriculum standards, but many go a step further in their pursuit of excellence and character education.” At the Union Avenue Elementary School, for instance, positive behavior “skills are introduced weekly, and the students learn through role play and by mimicking behaviors such as listening, asking for help, saying thank you, asking a question…and more than 50 other positive character traits.”

Administrators In Florida District To Serve As Substitute Teachers.
The Miami Herald (8/19, Mazzei) reports that “the Broward [FL] school district is sending administrators back to the classroom as substitute teachers this year, at a savings of $200,000.” Superintendent Jim Notter, for example, “has been assigned to teach” at Sunland Park Elementary School in Fort Lauderdale. “Notter, who taught special education in New York, is certified to teach vocational education, health, and physical education in Florida.” According to the Miami Herald Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho has proposed a similar project. He wants to create “an ‘Everybody Teaches’ Academy to bring district administrators into classrooms of struggling schools at least six times a year,” to teach, co-teach, “give guest lectures, tutor or mentor students.”

On the Job
Tampa Area Districts Plan Voluntary Swine Flu Vaccination Efforts.
The St. Petersburg Times (8/19, Marshall) reports that this fall, school officials in Hillsborough County, FL, “are bracing for” one or more cases of swine flu in each school. Dr. Doug Holt, director of the Hillsborough County Health Department, said on Wednesday that county officials “expect a surge within one to two weeks after school starts, and continuing for several months.” Meanwhile, “officials in other [area] districts…declined to predict how many students might call in sick as the virus makes its way through Tampa Bay classrooms.” However, all school systems in the Tampa, FL, region “say they’re planning to coordinate a major, voluntary inoculation effort in schools once vaccines arrive in October.”

Law & Policy
Child Nutrition Act Renewal Puts Spotlight On School Nutrition Standards.
The New York Times (8/19, D4, Severson) reports that “Congress, which will take up the Child Nutrition Act as soon as October, has much to do with this year’s focus on school food.” The legislation “which is reauthorized every five years, provides $12 billion to pay for lunch and breakfast for 31 million schoolchildren.” In his budget proposal for 2010, President Obama has included “an extra $1 billion for child nutrition programs, including school food.” Chicago’s Healthy Schools Campaign founder Rochelle Davis said that “having support from the White House has made her work easier. ‘This is not a nice little niche issue anymore,’ she pointed out, adding, “When I talk to people at U.S.D.A., they talk about what the president and first lady want. It matters.” In addition to regulating what schools serve students, Katie Wilson, president of the School Nutrition Association, said that the federal government also needs to streamline “nutritional regulations” and set national standards for school nutrition directors.

Group Ranks Most Popular School Lunch Items. Mary MacVean wrote in a Daily Dish blog for the Los Angeles Times (8/18) that among the top five foods kids eat in school cafeterias are fruit, “which comes in at No. 3, and vegetables, No. 5.” Consumer research company NPD Group “came up with the top 10 foods children ages 6 to 12 eat from the cafeteria and the top 10 they eat in lunches they bring from home.” According to MacVean, topping list “is milk. … And the rest of the list: sandwiches, fruit, fruit drinks, vegetables, pizza, chicken, French fries, fruit salad and cookies.”

Special Needs
Vouchers Viewed As Way To Curb Unnecessary Special Education Expansion.
Manhattan Institute senior fellows Marcus A. Winters and Jay Greene write in an op-ed for Forbes (8/19) that since federal law mandated that public school educate disabled students in 1975, “the portion of students receiving special education services has increased 64percent.” Winters and Greene note that today, 13.5percent of all public school students “have been diagnosed with a disability.” Yet, “a growing body of research” hints that all of these students may not be truly disabled as schools “see a financial incentive to designate low-achieving students as disabled.” Thus, in a new Manhattan Institute study, Winters and Greene say they “show how special education vouchers can slow unnecessary growth in special education.”

Safety & Security
School Safety Department Layoffs Seen As Undermining School Security.
In an opinion piece for the Philadelphia Daily News (8/19) Cartoonist Signe Wilkinson writes that “when the State Department of Education shuttered the Philadelphia School District’s office of school safety on Friday they threw three people out of a job.” According to the department, “those layoffs were among 255 painful departures imposed on state workers who showed up Friday to find they had no job.” But some state legislators said the action was “mysterious and shocking.” Wilkinson argues that “a school safety advocate is an important tool for the district to monitor and reduce crime and violence in the schools.” He points out that even though “the rate has declined, the fact that 15,000 criminal incidents were reported in 2007-2008 makes this a priority for teachers, parents, and students.” Wilkinson concludes that lawmakers’ “pain and indignation over the loss of a critical service is being shared all over the state. One way to solve this problem is to get a state budget resolved, pronto.”

DPS Financial Manager Aims To Bring Back Families Driven Away By School Violence.
The AP (8/19) reports that in “the past 10 months,” two Detroit public school two students were killed “and at least eight others wounded during a spate of shootings that prompted a community round table to find solutions.” The district is also “struggling with a host of other troubles that include a $259 million budget deficit, plummeting enrollment, and one of the nation’s lowest graduation rates.” But it is the “violence inside and around schools,” said Detroit Public Schools (DPS) Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb, that has “prompted many parents to take their children out of the district and enroll them elsewhere.” DPS loses more than $7,000 for each student who pulls out.” In an effort to increase enrollment, Bobb “has initiated a campaign…and has gone door-to-door to persuade parents who have taken their children from the district to return.”

NEA in the News

Philadelphia Educators Weigh In On Actor Tony Danza As A Teacher.
The Boston Herald (8/19, Garnick) reports that tonight, the Philadelphia “school board is scheduled to vote on the A&E cable TV network’s proposed reality show, ‘Teach,’ which would team actor Tony Danza with a veteran 10th-grade English educator.” Mayor Michael Nutter supports the proposal. And, “Paul Phillips, president of the Quincy Education Association, acknowledges he has a soft spot in his heart for the actor.” However, Phillips said, “Given the distinct possibility that it would be disruptive to the curriculum, my classroom management and my relationship to my students, I’d probably decline the opportunity.” Ted Chambers, “a 14-year veteran at Clarence Edwards Middle School in Charlestown,” pointed out, “It takes a rookie teacher about five to seven years to master the skills. It’s not just something you can do with a quick song and dance.”

Disabled Students Paddled Disproportionately, Study Finds.
The New York Times (8/11, A10, Dillon) reports that a new study by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties based on education department data found that more than 200,000 schoolchildren “are paddled, spanked or subjected to other physical punishment each year, and disabled students get a disproportionate share of the treatment.” According to the Times, the report finds that about 19 percent of the public school students paddled during the 2006-2007 school year had disabilities, though they “make up 14 percent of all students.” While most states prohibit corporal punishment in public schools, 20 do not. Human Rights Watch and the ACLU “are urging federal and state lawmakers to extend the ban nationwide and enact an immediate moratorium on physical punishment of students with disabilities.”

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In the Classroom
District Partners With Business, Nonprofit To Increase Algebra Preparedness.
The St. Petersburg Times (8/11, Winchester) reports that “the Pinellas school district will have a trio of allies this fall as it increases its efforts to get middle school students fired up about math.” A “half-million-dollar” collaboration between the district, “SRI International, the Helios Foundation, and the University of South Florida St. Petersburg” aims to “get more kids ready for Algebra I by the end of seventh grade.” The project incorporates interactive software, “cutting-edge curriculum, and top-notch teacher training.” A project in Texas “used SimCalc, a digital software similar to the kind used in Pinellas. … When the software was bolstered by professional development and a curriculum geared to the state’s math standards, Texas students saw a 46 percent improvement in their math scores, according to SRI data.” The company “hopes to produce similar results in Pinellas.” The Helios Education Foundation has “agreed to provide $400,000 for the first year of the five-year project.”

NGA Pilot Project Spurs Growth In Number Of Minority Students In AP Classes.
Education Week (8/10, McNeil) reported that a two-year effort by the National Governors Association (NGA) “to expand Advanced Placement programs in six states resulted in a 65 percent increase in student enrollment” in AP classes and even bigger gains among minority students, find a new study finds. The NGA Center for Best Practices in 2005 “awarded six states $500,000 each to target one urban and one rural school district” with the goal of boosting the number of minority students taking AP classes. Two years later, according to the NGA Center’s report, the number of minority students in AP classes “had jumped 106 percent.”

Pace Of Minnesota Testing Progress Trails Federal Timeline.
Minnesota’s Pioneer Press (8/11, Belden, Webster) reports that according to Minnesota Education Commissioner Alice Seagren, each year, “Minnesota and other states fall further behind schedule on the federally mandated goal of 100 percent proficiency in reading and math by 2014.” But, she added that Minnesota is “making really strong progress in many areas.” For instance, “the number of high school” meeting federal “targets grew…from 210 last year to 242 this year.” Still, about 46 percent of schools in the state “failed to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) in 2009.” Of those schools, “more than 40 percent…missed [AYP] because of a single category, according to state officials.”

On the Job
Report: School Lunches Becoming More Nutritious.
Kim Severson wrote in a “Diner’s Journal” blog for the New York Times (8/10) that the School Nutrition Association is expected to release its bi-annual State of School Nutrition report today. The survey, “based on information from 1,207 school food service directors in 49 states, shows that school food is slowly changing for the better,” though nearly all districts “rely on highly processed commodity meat and dairy products.” Nearly 60 percent of districts “have increased the price of lunch.” Also, the “number of meatless offerings have increased by 12 percent since 2007,” and this year, 64 percent of districts “will offer vegetarian food regularly.”

Education Department Programs To Boost Teacher Quality Lack Focus, GAO Study Finds.
Byline: Stephen Sawchuk wrote in a “Teacher Beat” blog for Education Week (8/10) that a Government Accountability Office report finds that the federal government’s programs for improving teacher quality “are not well-coordinated and contain no strategies for working systematically to improve teacher quality and student achievement.” Sawchuk noted that the Department of Education administers 23 programs “focused primarily on the goal of improving teacher quality and an additional 33 programs with other goals that allow funds to be spent on some teacher-related activities.” Of the 23 programs focused on teacher quality, “only nine have been evaluated or are in the process of being evaluated, the report says.” According to the report, 11 other Education Department programs “have never been evaluated.”

Law & Policy
Linking Test Scores, Teacher Evaluations A Key “Race To The Top” Criteria, Duncan Says.
The Education Week (8/10, McNeil) reported that the Department of Education’s proposed guidelines for awarding Race to the Top Fund dollars sends “a strong message that any state hoping to land a competitive grant should expect to allow student test scores to be used in decisions about teacher compensation and evaluation.” Draft plans outlined by education department officials last month “call for states to be judged on 19 education reform criteria, including how friendly they are to charter schools and whether they cut state K-12 funding this year.” According to Education Week, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said being able to link teacher and student data is “absolutely fundamental-it’s a building block. … When you’re reluctant or scared to make that link, you do a grave disservice to the teaching profession and to our nation’s children.”

Officials Grapple With Policies Regarding In-School Use Of Electronic Devices.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (8/11, Torres) reports that beginning “this school year, two metro Atlanta school systems are upping the ante when it comes to the use of cellphones and other electronic devices on school grounds, including spelling out possible fines and in-school suspensions.” The policy revisions for DeKalb County and Atlanta City schools come in response to “teacher complaints and discipline referrals. They are intended, in part, to re-focus on classroom engagement but also curb any temptation to cheat.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution points out that “school officials nationwide are grappling with how to control access to hand-held technology during school.” According to experts, “the issue…represents a balancing act” because many schools “embrace the same technology as teaching tools.”

Bloomberg Wants To Make Grade Promotion More Difficult For Lowest-Performers.
The New York Times (8/11, A14, Hernandez) reports that New York City “Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I) said on Monday that he planned to make it harder this year for fourth and sixth graders who score poorly on standardized tests to move on to the next grade.” Bloomberg proposes that students in “grades three, five, seven, and eight… who perform at the lowest level on state tests in English and math” be required “to repeat the grade unless they can master the material in summer school.” The city teachers’ union called the move a “step in the right direction,” adding, however, that “better support” should be provided for struggling students.

Discipline Code Awards Credits For Good Behavior.
The Rockford (IL) Register Star (8/11, Bayer) reports that “Rockford students now have an incentive to act better. The School District’s discipline code has been amended to allow them to be credited for good behavior.” Last month, the School Board adopted changes to “the code’s point system.” The Register Star explains that “disciplinary offenses in the code are assigned points, and students accumulate them during the school year.” Under the amended code, “points can be reduced…each week a student has no disciplinary referrals.”

Special Needs
Parents Concerned Special Education May Suffer Due To Stimulus Provision.
The Detroit Free Press (8/11, Higgins) reports that “Parents of students with special needs…are worried that” federal stimulus money, which allows “school districts to reduce their share of spending this year for special education,” will shortchange “their kids.” The “federal law that governs special education” allows districts to reduce local spending by 50 percent “of the increase they’re getting in federal special-education funds.” School officials are expected to “take advantage of the option so they can avoid laying off employees or cutting programs.” When the stimulus money runs out after two years, some of those districts will be able to “to cut local spending without affecting their special-education programs.” Others, however, will need to go “back to the pre-stimulus level of local spending” in order to meet “federal and state regulations.”

School Finance
Pennsylvania Governor Refuses To Cut Education Funding.
Pennsylvania’s Patriot-News (8/10, Murphy) reports that “while calling on legislative leaders to get to work on finalizing the 2009-10 state budget, Gov. Ed Rendell (D) went to bat Saturday for funding his highest priority in the 2009-10 state budget: education.” Rendell refused to veto “258 budget lines” in the “$23.9 billion state budget that the Legislature sent him last week” that “would have resulted in $21 million less than the $407 million he wants for state tuition grants, no increase in basic education and $93 million less for early education.”

Arizona Valley Districts Avoid Significant Class-Size Increases.
The Arizona Republic (8/10, Fehr-Snyder) reports that “despite the ailing economy and an abundance of teacher layoffs,” Valley school districts “are struggling to avoid significant increases in student-teacher ratios.” And, “so far, they appear to be successful.” For instance, the Phoenix Elementary School District plans “to use money from a budget override and to shift schedules as necessary to get class sizes back to 23 students per teacher for kindergarten through third grade.” Meanwhile, the Scottsdale Unified School District in June “agreed to ask voters to renew” an “override approved by voters in 2005 that reduced the average size of kindergarten classes to 21.” The original override “paid for all-day kindergarten but was diverted to reducing class sizes in kindergarten through third grade after the state Legislature agreed to pay for all-day kindergarten.”

Also in the News
White House At Odds With Advocacy Group Over Ad Invoking Obama Children.
The Washington Post (8/11, Kilpatrick, McCann) reports that the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a Washington nonprofit that advocates nutrition-policy reform, has put up posters in D.C.’s Metro system referring to healthy lunches enjoyed by President Obama’s daughters while calling for public schools to offer vegetarian or vegan options. The White House asked the nonprofit “to take down the ads,” as the fact that the poster “mentions the president’s children has been the main point of contention, though neither the children’s names nor their images appear.” The PCRM has declined the White House’s request, as PCRM President Neal Barnard “hopes that when Congress revisits the Child Nutrition Act in late September,” vegan and vegetarian options “will be made mandatory.”

NEA in the News
NEA Affiliate Supports Equal-Rights Resolutions That Do Not Mention Same-Sex Marriage.
Kansas Liberty (8/10, Smith) reports that the NEA “has adopted a resolution outlining its official support of homosexual ‘marriage.’ But Kansas’ teachers apparently aren’t having any part of it.” According to the NEA’s “New Business Item E” resolution, which was “adopted during the NEA’s annual convention” last month in California, the union “will support its affiliates seeking to enact state legislation that guarantees to same-sex couples the right to enter into a legally recognized relationship pursuant to which they have the same rights and benefits as similarly-situated heterosexual couples.” Meanwhile, according to a spokeswoman for the Kansas National Education Association (KNEA), an NEA affiliate, KNEA “has not adopted any language supporting same-sex marriage.” However, “170 Kansas delegates…unanimously supported having an equal-rights resolution that did not mention homosexual marriage.” The spokeswoman also pointed out that “the NEA had given each individual state group the choice of adopting language of its choice, so the state groups were not forced to conform to the NEA language.”

Federal Officials Give Schools Swine Flu Guidance.
The Los Angeles Times (8/8, Mehta) reported that according to new federal guidance released Friday concerning handling school swine flu outbreaks, educators “should be conservative when they consider shutting schools because of outbreaks.” Federal officials “said a desire to prevent the virus’ spread must be balanced with the fallout from school closures — parents struggling to find child care, children left unsupervised, and disruption to education.” However, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is quoted saying, “Realistically, some schools will close this fall. … Educators need to start thinking now about having temporary home school in place using both phones and the Internet.” Also, parents are encouraged to have their children vaccinated when the two-dose swine flu inoculation becomes available in October.

The New York Times (8/8, A11, Grady) reported that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius described swine flu “guidelines for schools with grades kindergarten through 12 on Friday at a news briefing in Washington, along with the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” The Times notes that guidelines “colleges and employers are set to be issued on Aug. 23.”

The Washington Post (8/8, Hsu) added that that the new federal guidance for swine flu-related school closures “mark a change from the spring, when U.S. officials initially urged state and local officials to close schools at the first sign of suspected H1N1 virus.” Federal officials said Friday that the key “is for people who are sick to stay home until at least 24 hours after their fevers end.”

Shirley S. Wang also covered this story in a “Health Blog” for the Wall Street Journal (8/7), noting that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in an interview on CBS’s The Early Show that schools “may become a distribution center for flu shots this fall in order to help children get immunized.”

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In the Classroom
More Alaska Native Students meet Academic Benchmarks.
The Juneau (AK) Empire (8/9) reported that “the latest educational numbers may indicate progress among Alaska Native students in Juneau.” In 2008-09, “10 of the 12 schools in the Juneau School District met academic benchmarking requirements among the Alaska Native population,” compared to the previous two years in which “eight of 10 district schools’ Native student populations cleared the AYP thresholds.” According to a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Education, “the trend statewide is positive for Native students. … Eighty-four schools statewide failed to meet requirements among the Alaska Native population during the 2007-2008 school year. That number fell to 79 last school year.”

Ballroom Dancing Program Launched For Low-Income Children In Sacramento, California.
The Sacramento (CA) Bee (8/9, Fletcher) reported on a ballroom dancing program launched by the Sacramento Mutual Housing Association for “children living at three low-income housing complexes around Sacramento.” The program “is one of several funded by a $600,000 grant from Sierra Health Foundation’s REACH Coalition.” The grant was targeted at funding programs analyzing “obstacles to success for children of low-income families,” and thus developing programs “to overcome the challenges.” Organizers of the dance program say its goal is to “get kids away from negative influences and give them something to feel proud of.”

Handwriting Camps Help California Students Refine Penmanship.
The Los Angeles Times (8/9, Rivera) reported though many summer enrichment camps are focused on high technology, handwriting camp “may seem old school.” Yet, “it is part of recent efforts to refocus attention on what many educators lament may be the dying art of legible printing and graceful cursive.” The Times noted that California standards “call for penmanship instruction in kindergarten through fourth grade,” said Alison Towery, a specialist in the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Office of Curriculum, Instruction, and School Support. Also, a recent Vanderbilt University study “found that students with better handwriting are judged more favorably by teachers and earn better grades.”

Test Scores Rise As Massachusetts Schools Experiment With Boosting Time In Classroom.
The Boston Globe (8/9, Kocian) reported that last fall, two Framingham, MA schools, Brophy Elementary School and Cameron Middle School, embarked on an extended learning time experiment “hailed by some as the cornerstone of education reform.” According to the Globe, most parents of Brophy Elementary students “commend the program and its boost in academic achievement. But at the Cameron Middle School, the experiment is being halted after teachers voted it down.” Across Massachusetts, the Globe notes that 22 schools are participating “in the Expanded Learning Time Initiative, which started with 10 schools in 2006, and serves lower-income districts in such communities as Cambridge, Fall River, Revere and Worcester.” The ELT program “adds at least 300 hours to the school year, and participating schools receive about $1,300 in extra funding per student to pay for it.” The Globe added that on average, Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System proficiency rates “went up after just one year in the program, according to Mass. 2020′s annual report.”

On the Job
Teachers Learn To Balance eSchool, Regular Workday Responsibilities.
The St. Petersburg Times (8/10, Solochek) reports that “23 of the 26 teachers for Pasco eSchool gathered this week at Sunlake High School for a day spent learning the ins and outs of running a virtual classroom — something they’ll be doing in addition to their regular classroom duties.” The teachers will work at their respective schools during “the regular workday,” and will also be available to online students via telephone. ESchool principal JoAnne Glenn advised the teachers, “Available doesn’t mean you answer on the first ring. But you need to be aware that students get nervous, and parents get nervous, if they feel like you’re not there.” She added that “the rule of thumb will be to respond to all correspondence within 24 hours.” Online students have “one required phone meeting” with their teachers each month. “Everything else gets done remotely, although the option to get together at a school is always available,” the St. Petersburg Times notes.

Teacher Internship Program Aims To Recruit, Train Math, Science Instructors. The St. Petersburg Times (8/10, Marshall) reports on “an internship program for teachers run by the state Technological Research and Development Authority, with $300,000 in funding from the nonprofit Helios Education Foundation.” For the program, “seven middle school teachers in the Tampa Bay [FL] region…worked full-time this summer at companies involved in science and technology.” The internships ranged from “refueling operations with the Tampa Bay Pilots Association,” to “fixing vessels with International Ship Repair & Marine Services.” The TeacherQuest summer internships have been an ongoing project of “the training authority’ and the Florida “Department of Education with the goal of recruiting, training and retaining highly qualified math and science teachers” since 1997.

Teacher-Led Schools Seen As “Promising” Idea.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune (8/10) editorializes that “Minneapolis school leaders are considering moving decision-making closer to the classroom. Serious discussions are underway to allow teachers to run several schools.” Allowing “self-governance” would give “educators more flexibility to tailor teaching to meet student needs,” the Star Tribune asserts. For instance, “teachers could set a different school calendar or staff working hours. And they wouldn’t have to adhere to a curriculum set by the central office.” Those who support the idea also say that teachers would “have more control over their work and [would be] more invested in producing high-performing students.” The Star Tribune points out that “Minneapolis should be applauded for considering the concept, given its continuing problem with underachieving students.” And although “teacher-led schools are not the magic bullet solution for Minneapolis or any other school district,” the proposal “holds promise for improving student learning.”

Changes To Indiana Licensing Rules Aim To Ensure Teachers Are Experts.
Indiana State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett writes in an opinion piece for Indiana’s Palladium-Item (8/10, Bennett), “We expect a lot from teachers in Indiana, and they expect a lot from themselves.” But the state’s “licensing requirements for teachers don’t help them meet those high expectations.” Teachers are required to “jump through hoops that often cost thousands of dollars and do little to make them better teachers, but” new teachers are not expected “to master the subjects they’ll teach,” Bennett points out. In an effort to “guarantee all new teachers will be experts in the subjects they teach,” the education department has “recommended requiring teaching candidates to” major “in a core subject,” and requiring them “to pass tests for their subject-area and instructional knowledge.” Bennett notes that he understands the “discomfort of those who oppose the rules, “but I’m more discomforted by the status quo,” he adds.

Teachers Forced To Re-Evaluate Careers Due To Mass Layoffs.
The Washington Times (8/9, Billups) reports on that thousands of U.S. teaching jobs have been culled “in mass layoffs as school districts struggle to control their finances during the deep recession.” There are some teachers who have “been rehired as school systems find more money” but “other teachers have been forced to move where the work is.” Some teachers are even changing “careers as what once was a wide-open job market is closing its doors.”

Law & Policy

Maryland Task Force Proposes Five-Year, $72 Million STEM Education Plan.
The Baltimore Sun (8/7, Walker) reports, “All Maryland high school graduates would be prepared for college-level math and science courses, and the state’s universities would triple their production of teachers in those fields, under a five-year, $72 million plan unveiled Thursday by a state task force appointed by Gov. Martin O’Malley (D).” Last year, the governor “convened the panel…in hopes of receiving a plan for keeping Maryland’s work force competitive in a global economy that prizes” STEM knowledge. The task force found that “only about one-third of Maryland’s 2008 high school graduates took the minimal math and science courses needed to enroll in college-level STEM courses. But one of the plan’s earliest goals is for two-thirds of the state’s 2011 graduates to meet those minimum standards.” The task force recommends the aggressive recruitment and certification of STEM teachers as well as “preparing STEM teachers and the certification of math and science specialists at lower grade levels.”

More School Districts Scrapping Print Textbooks In Favor Of Digital Versions.
The New York Times (8/9, A1, Lewin) reported on its front page though print textbooks are not yet obsolete, many educators “say that it will not be long before they are replaced by digital versions.” According to the Times, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) “this summer announced an initiative that would replace some high school science and math texts with free, ‘open source’ digital versions,” hoping to save “hundreds of millions of dollars” annually. Yet a digital future “is not quite on the horizon in most classrooms,” as not every student “has access to a computer, a Kindle electronic reader device or a smartphone,” and “few districts are wealthy enough to provide them.” Thus, digital textbooks “could widen the gap between rich and poor.”

Also in the News
Architects Overlook Capitalization On New School’s Front Name Sign.
The Cookeville (TN) Herald Citizen (8/8, Denton) reports, “Building a new school requires attention to thousands and thousands of details, not all of them having to do with roof design, floor plans, classroom size and the like.” At the newly-built Algood Elementary School in Algood, TN, “the school board and others overseeing the project” failed to notice that “architects had designed the school’s out front name sign with its name in all lower case letters, no capitalization.” The mistake drew complaints from “teachers who will be teaching lessons on capitalizing proper names and parents who did not like the sign’s design.” The designers are now “ordering three new capital letters, A, E, and S, to be installed for the proper capitalization of the new school’s name.”

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